Check It Out

Links to cool places or things.

There are 1,530 posts filed in Check It Out (this is page 55 of 153).

How U.S. gun ownership became a ‘right,’ and why it isn’t – The Globe and Mail

Here’s a great commentary on what a fiction it is that Americans have a right to own guns.

‘That,” we tell ourselves, “is just the way the Americans are.” We say it every time some firearms horror strikes a movie theatre or school or workplace. We say it when the U.S. President, reduced to tears, tries to use his limited powers to make minimal changes to laws that allow almost anyone to purchase and use an assault rifle.

After all, hasn’t it always been this way? Americans have always believed that they have a right to own and carry guns, we think. Strict gun control has never been an American option. That’s just the way they are.

Except that it isn’t. The American gun crisis, and the attitudes and laws that make it possible, are very new. The broad idea of a right to own firearms, along with the phenomenon of mass shootings, did not exist a generation ago; the legal basis for this right did not exist a decade ago.

Source: How U.S. gun ownership became a ‘right,’ and why it isn’t – The Globe and Mail

Steve Israel: Confessions of a Congressman – The New York Times

Congressman Steve Israel will miss many things about Congress. The constant need to raise money won’t be one of them.

This is why we can’t have democracy, America.

In the days after my first election to Congress, in 2000, I attended several orientation sessions in Washington, eager to absorb the lessons of history. I wanted to learn what Congressman Abraham Lincoln had learned, to hear the wisdom of predecessors like John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster and Joseph Gurney Cannon. The romance was crushed by lesson No. 1: Get re-elected. A fund-raising consultant advised that if I didn’t raise at least $10,000 a week (in pre-Citizens United dollars), I wouldn’t be back.

Source: Steve Israel: Confessions of a Congressman – The New York Times

Oil, money, politics and evil: Our leading Middle East ally is the worst country imaginable – Salon.com


A great read on how America’s support for the Saudis is not always reciprocated.

American foreign policy is full of things we can’t see and things we don’t talk about. The drone war of the Obama years; the “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation” of the George W. Bush years. Nixon and Kissinger’s secret bombing campaign in Cambodia. The overthrow of democratic governments we didn’t like: Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran in 1953, Patrice Lumumba in the Congo in 1961, Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973. Once you get started with this stuff it’s hard to stop, and pretty soon your friends are giving you that look, like they’re wondering at what point you’ll start talking about your stormy personal relationship with Richard Helms, or the microchips implanted in your dental work.

But even by those standards, the case of Saudi Arabia is special. We love Saudi Arabia so much! The Bush family loves Saudi Arabia; the Clinton family loves Saudi Arabia. You and I are frequently told that we love Saudi Arabia, even if we aren’t exactly sure why. We write mash notes in Saudi Arabia’s yearbook, in pink Magic Marker with lots of hearts: BE-HEDDING ALL THOSE PPL! U R SO SEXY!!! We have never overthrown a democratic government in Saudi Arabia. It would admittedly be difficult to do so, since Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that has never had a democratic government and never will. Our tax dollars and Saudi oil dollars flow back and forth between Washington and Riyadh in a bewildering matrix understood by no one, ending up along the way in the handbags of hookers in Vegas and the tip baskets of croupiers in Macau.

Source: Oil, money, politics and evil: Our leading Middle East ally is the worst country imaginable – Salon.com

How the FBI tracked down a Georgia woman tied to $4M in… | www.ajc.com

It turns out that Abby Kemp, the … um, babe jewelry thief, did some modeling three years ago. I wonder what drove her to a life of crime?

In 2012, a then-22-year-old Abigail Lee Kemp posed for a professional photo shoot. Young, pretty, brunette, she wore short dresses of black and red. Her high heels were steady on the balcony of a Midtown Atlanta high-rise, skyline stalwarts like the AT&T building standing tall in the background.

She bent over to touch the water flowing from a fountain, sat in front of an outdoor fireplace and stared into the distance. She smiled while a tattooed man suggestively touched her hips.

The same woman will be a few miles away Monday, in federal court at the Richard B. Russell building downtown. The FBI believes her responsible for a string of armed jewelry store robberies across five Southeastern states, crimes they say netted watches and diamonds worth millions.

Source: How the FBI tracked down a Georgia woman tied to $4M in… | www.ajc.com

Phone-crazed audiences and fed-up musicians? Yondr is on the case – CNET

A startup called Yondr is trying to sell concert venues on the idea of taking away their customers’ smartphones during shows. The company’s product is a bag that locks over the audience member’s phone, blocking it from being used unless taken to an “unlocking station.”

This idea is all kinds of wrong. As the reporter below describes, putting your phone into a bag will now make you obsess over the phone. Did it vibrate? If so, what was it? Guess what? Now I’m the distracted one, not the person who might have seen my phone’s display. And this happens to everyone else whose smartphone has been held hostage.

What if a desperate phone call comes in from the babysitter at home, but because my phone is kidnapped inside a Guantanamo-worthy hood I don’t hear/feel the call come in? Or what if I do but I can’t push the stoner metalheads out of the way to get to the “unlock station” in time to take the call? What if it’s a call to tell me my house is burning down? Can you say “lawsuit?”
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Abby Lee Kamp arrested in jewelery heists

Abby Lee Kamp has been arrested in the string of jewelry robberies.

Seems that Ms. Abigail Kamp has a history of arrests.

Authorities have arrested a young woman who officials say robbed $4 million in merchandise from six jewelry stores in Southern states — including a North Carolina incident just 6 days ago.

The woman and another person are believed to have stolen about $4 million in loot during armed robberies in South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, sources say.

The arrest of Abigail Lee Kemp comes just 5 days after a jewelry store was robbed in Mebane, near Burlington.

Source: Southern female jewelry store bandit suspected in 6 robberies is arrested, FBI says | WNCN

This tree in the Americas is so toxic, you can’t stand under it when it rains – ScienceAlert

Whoa.

In 1999, radiologist Nicola Strickland went on a holiday to the Caribbean island of Tobago, a tropical paradise complete with idyllic, deserted beaches. On her first morning there, she went foraging for shells and corals in the white sand, when the holiday quickly took a turn for the worse.

Scattered amongst the coconuts and mangoes on the beach, Strickland and her friend found some sweet-smelling green fruit that looked much like small crabapples. Both foolishly decided to take a bite, and within moments the pleasant, sweet taste was overwhelmed by a peppery, burning feeling and an excruciating tightness in the throat that gradually got so bad they could barely swallow.

Source: This tree in the Americas is so toxic, you can’t stand under it when it rains – ScienceAlert

No, you haven’t read this déjà vu story before – CNN.com

.. or, could it be a future memory?

We know the feeling (or at least 66% of us do). Déjà vu is the belief you’ve been here or done that before, when you know there’s absolutely no way you could have. The phrase déjà vu is French, meaning “already seen.”

But we know less about why we have the feeling. Is déjà vu evidence of a past life, an out of body experience or just a good old neural misfire?

Source: No, you haven’t read this déjà vu story before – CNN.com

New study on Otzi the Iceman reveals humanity’s intimate affair with one microbe – The Washington Post

Gut microbe research has provided a fascinating look at the migration patterns of ancient man.

Otzi the Iceman, a famously well-preserved Copper Age man found in the Alps in 1991, has given researchers a lot of insight into how our ancestors lived. The long-dead man’s clothing, tools, manner of death, and even tattoos have given us a peek at how life was 5,300 years ago – or how it was for Otzi, anyway.

Source: New study on Otzi the Iceman reveals humanity’s intimate affair with one microbe – The Washington Post

Time Warner Cable advises 320,000 customers of possible hack

Rut roh.

Time Warner Cable has sent notices to 320,000 of its customers throughout the U.S., advising them to change the password to their email account out of concern that someone may have gained unauthorized access to that information. The telecommunication company said it was notified of the vulnerability by the FBI, but there’s no evidence to suggest that there was an actual breach.

Source: Time Warner Cable advises 320,000 customers of possible hack