Obama: My Credit Card Was Rejected in NYC

Presidents, they’re just like us — their credit cards get declined.

President Obama’s credit card was rejected last month at a restaurant in New York.

“I went to a restaurant up in New York when I was — during the U.N. General Assembly, and my credit card was rejected,” Obama said Friday while signing an executive order to protect consumers from identity theft. “It turned out I guess I don’t use it enough. They were — they thought there was some fraud going on. Fortunately, Michelle had hers.”

President Obama to appear on ‘Running Wild with Bear Grylls’

US President Barack Obama will trek through the wilderness in Alaska this week with British TV adventurer Bear Grylls, the NBC channel has announced.

He is due to tape an episode of Running Wild with Bear Grylls to observe the effects of climate change on the area, it said. He is the first president to appear on the show, to be aired later this year.

President Obama is on a three-day tour of Alaska aimed at highlighting the pace of climate change.

It is part of his administration’s efforts to build support for new legislation significantly capping carbon dioxide emissions from power plants in the US, as well as raise attention to the ways climate change has damaged Alaska’s natural landscape.

Mr Obama follows several other high profile figures, including actresses Kate Winslet and Kate Hudson, who have tested their survival skills on the show.

Bear Grylls – a former British special forces soldier – puts celebrities through their paces in remote forests and mountains across the world, “pushing their minds and bodies to the limit to complete their journeys”.

This week Mr Obama will become the first sitting US president to visit the Alaskan Arctic, where he is due to address foreign ministers from Arctic nations at a conference on climate change.

He is also scheduled to visit glaciers and meet fishermen and native leaders to discuss rising sea levels, shrinking glaciers and melting permafrost in the sparsely populated US state.

Before he departed for Alaska, President Obama announced he was changing the name of Mount McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America, to its original native Alaskan, Denali.

Earlier this month, the president unveiled plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions from US power stations by nearly a third within 15 years.

Obama, in Oklahoma, Takes Reform Message to the Prison Cell Block

EL RENO, Oklahoma — They opened the door to Cell 123 and President Obama stared inside. In the space of 9 feet by 10, he saw three bunks, a toilet with no seat, a small sink, metal cabinets, a little wooden night table with a dictionary and other books, and the life he might have had.

As it turns out, there is a fine line between president and prisoner. As Mr. Obama became the first occupant of his high office to visit a federal correctional facility, he said he could not help reflecting on what might have been.

After all, as a young man, he had smoked marijuana and tried cocaine. But he did not end up with a prison term, let alone one lasting decades.

“There but for the grace of God,” Mr. Obama said after his tour. “And that is something we all have to think about.”

Close to one in every 12 black men ages 25 to 54 are imprisoned, compared with one in 60 nonblack men in that age group.

Mr. Obama came here to showcase a bid to overhaul America’s criminal justice system in a way none of his predecessors have tried to do, at least not in modern times. Where other presidents worked to make life harder for criminals, Mr. Obama wants to make their conditions better.

With 18 months left in office, he has embarked on a new effort to reduce sentences for nonviolent offenders; to make it easier for former convicts to re-enter society; and to revamp prison life by easing overcrowding, cracking down on inmate rape and limiting solitary confinement.

What was once politically unthinkable has become a bipartisan venture. Mr. Obama is making common cause with Republicans and Democrats who have come to the conclusion that the United States has given excessive sentences to too many nonviolent offenders, at an enormous moral and financial cost to the country.

This week, Mr. Obama commuted the sentences of 46 such prisoners and gave a speech calling for legislation to overhaul the criminal justice system by the end of the year.

He came to the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution on Thursday to get a firsthand look at what he is focused on.

Accompanied by aides, correctional officials and a phalanx of Secret Service agents, he crossed through multiple layers of metal gates and fences topped by concertina wire to tour the prison and talk with some of the nonviolent drug offenders he says should not be serving such long sentences.

The prison was locked down for his visit. He was brought to Cell Block B, which had been emptied for the occasion. Only security personnel were outside on the carefully trimmed grass yards.

The only inmates Mr. Obama saw were six nonviolent drug offenders who were selected to have a conversation with him recorded by the news organization Vice for a documentary on the criminal justice system that will air on HBO in the fall.

But those six made an impression. “When they describe their youth and their childhood, these are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different from the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made,”

Mr. Obama told reporters afterward. “The difference is, they did not have the kind of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.”

He added that “we have a tendency sometimes to take for granted or think it’s normal” that so many young people have been locked up for drug crimes.

“It’s not normal,” he said. “It’s not what happens in other countries. What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things. What is normal is young people who make mistakes.”

If they had the same advantages he and others have had, Mr. Obama added, they “could be thriving in the way we are.”

Still, he made a distinction between nonviolent drug offenders like those he was introduced to here and other criminals guilty of crimes like murder, rape and assault.

“There are people who need to be in prison,” Mr. Obama said. “I don’t have tolerance for violent criminals; many of them may have made mistakes, but we need to keep our communities safe.”

More than 2.2 million Americans are behind bars, and one study found that the size of the state and federal prison population is seven times what it was 40 years ago. Although the United States makes up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, it has more than 20 percent of its prison population.

This has disproportionately affected young Hispanic and African-American men. And many more have been released but have convictions on their records that make it hard to find jobs or to vote.

In visiting El Reno, Mr. Obama got a look at a medium-security prison with a minimum-security satellite camp, housing a total of 1,300 inmates.

He said the facility was an “outstanding institution” with job training, drug counseling and other programs, but had suffered from overcrowding. As many as three inmates have been kept in each of the tiny cells he saw.

“Three full-grown men in a 9-by-10 cell,” Mr. Obama said with a tone of astonishment. Lately, the situation has improved enough to get it down to two per cell. But, he said, “overcrowding like that is something that has to be addressed.”

Advocates said no president has ever highlighted the conditions of prisoners as Mr. Obama has.

“They’re out of sight and out of mind,” Cornell William Brooks, the president of the N.A.A.C.P., said in an interview. “To have a president say by his actions, by his speech, by his example, ‘You’re in sight and in mind of the American public and of this democracy,’ it’s critically important.”

But the president is not the only one these days. Republicans like Senators John Cornyn of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Mike Lee of Utah have been working with their Democratic counterparts to develop legislation addressing such concerns.

Conservative organizations like Koch Industries, controlled by the billionaire brothers David H. and Charles G. Koch, have joined forces with liberal groups like the Center for American Progress to advocate changes. Many states, both conservative and liberal, have been changing policies lately to reduce prison populations.

“The good news is that we’ve got Democrats and Republicans who I think are starting to work together in Congress and we’re starting to see bipartisan efforts in state legislatures as well,” Mr. Obama said. He vowed to use his remaining year and a half in office to accelerate the trend. “We’ve got an opportunity to make a difference.”

Kevin Spacey on ‘House of Cards,’ Staying in Shape & Saving the Planet

With House of Cards, Kevin Spacey helped change the way we watch TV. Now he wants to change the way we look at the planet.

Kevin Spacey takes 10 seconds to dispense with the pleasantries and get down to business. It’s “Hey, how are you?” and then straight to the point, the way his character does it on House of Cards.

“You have to remember, it was just 10 or 11 years ago that everybody thought I was fucking crazy when I decided to pick up and move to London to run a theater company,” he says, referring to his recently completed stint as artistic director of the Old Vic in London’s West End. “I did my job there, and now it’s time to go.” Spacey was seven seasons in when he found the role that made him streaming media’s first superstar, as ruthless politician Frank Underwood on the binge-worthy Netflix drama. You can hear pride swelling in that cosmopolitan purr as Spacey takes in the fact that House of Cards is more popular in its third season than ever. “All those reports over the years that my career was over, that I was done, that I’d run away from Hollywood, they now sound rather….”

Shortsighted? Absurd? Spacey, 55, doesn’t need to finish the thought. The lesson is: Never count out a man of determination and style. The actor spent the 1990s charting a course to international stardom with lead roles in celebrated films like The Usual Suspects (which won him his first Oscar, for best supporting actor, in 1996), L.A. Confidential, and American Beauty (which earned him his second, for best actor, in 2000). A few years later, he was convincing interviewers that he’d had enough. “I love the performing part of being an actor,” he told me over lunch not long after taking the Old Vic job, “but the other bullshit is much, much less interesting to me.”

Hail to the chief: Kevin Spacey moves into the Oval Office in Season 3 of House of Cards.

Leave it to Spacey to find a way back to the top that upends any standard approach. He is both the main character and co-executive producer on House of Cards, a show that’s been a big red disrupter to both network and cable TV. (It’s the first Emmy-winning series not shown on cable or regular broadcast TV.) What made him do it? “The script was fantastic, David Fincher [co-executive producer and director of Gone Girl and The Social Network] is a genius, and I liked that it was a brave thing to do,” he says. The series did not have a pilot, it doesn’t rely on commercials or arcane Nielsen data, and there’s never any wait time for “next week’s episode” since an entire season rolls out at once. That last detail has spurred something of a revolution in how we consume entertainment. “I’m not a binge-watcher myself, but I understand the addiction completely,” Spacey says. He’s at home in London, where he spent the predawn hours glued to the Australian Open Tennis Championships beaming live from Melbourne. “People watch what they watch,” he says. “The audience doesn’t care how they get their content. They just want it to be good.”

House of Cards won three Primetime Emmy Awards in 2013 and received 22 Emmy nominations in its first two seasons. Spacey won a Golden Globe and SAG Award this year for playing the most dastardly elected official on TV who’s not actually on TV. Underwood lies, he sleeps around, he kills. Still, President Obama is such a fan that on the eve of last season’s premiere, he tweeted, “Tomorrow: @HouseOfCards. No spoilers, please.” Bill Clinton practically serves as a series advisor. Spacey has been a high-profile supporter and friend of Clinton’s (they used to play poker) since the presidential campaign days, and the admiration is mutual. “He tells me, ‘I love that House of Cards,’” Spacey says in a pitch-perfect impression, which reminds you that the actor’s talent for mimicry is legendary. “He becomes Johnny Carson; you’re looking at Brando,” his costar Robin Wright says. Here, it’s almost as if Clinton is in the room: “Kevin, 99 percent of what you do on that show is real. The 1 percent you get wrong is you could never get an education bill passed that fast.”

But even as House of Cards raises the stakes yet again—Underwood ascended to the presidency this season—Spacey himself remains the most intriguing character of all. He was born the youngest of three in New Jersey, reared in Southern California, launched his career in Manhattan, yet has no particular loyalty to any of those places. “My family moved so much that we’d have Thanksgiving in one house and Christmas in another, so I’ve spent my life trying to make everywhere I go home,” he says.

“You can’t control what happens to the world so you try to do the best you can while you are here,” says Spacey, a supporter of Conservation International.

Spacey’s mother did secretarial work to support the family; his father, who he has called a “tough disciplinarian,” struggled to find jobs as a technical writer. Growing up, Spacey didn’t make life especially easy for either of them. He once set fire to his sister’s playhouse and later got booted out of Northridge Military Academy for throwing a tire at another kid. Not that he was an underachiever. Spacey graduated from Chatsworth High School in Los Angeles as co-valedictorian with actress Mare Winningham, but then left The Juilliard School early to find his own way. “I am fairly convinced if I hadn’t dropped out, they would have booted me out a few weeks later,” he says.

It was all part of character building, apparently. Young and broke in Manhattan, Spacey paid the rent by working the stock room at the Public Theater, where he answered a switchboard and requisitioned pencils. Soon enough, he landed an Off-Off-Broadway play called The Robbers. A Village Voice critic compared him to Marlon Brando and Karl Malden. One night, Joseph Papp, the Public’s illustrious theater producer and Spacey’s boss, came by to watch him perform. Papp fired him as the office gofer the next day. As Spacey likes to retell it, “Joe said, ‘I saw an actor last night onstage, and you’ve become too comfortable here.’” Spacey appeared in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of Henry IV in 1981 and made his Broadway debut a year later in Henrik Ibsen’s Ghosts.

Spacey is famously circumspect about his private affairs. As he once told Gotham, “I’ve just never believed in pimping my personal life out for publicity. I’m not interested in doing it. Never will do it,” and he’s still committed. Having spent time with him before, I know not even to inquire about his relationships or preferences for this or that. Even innocuous questions get pushback. When I cordially ask how he stays in such good shape, Spacey groans and says, “I’m not going to fucking talk about that. I work out like everybody.” Asked if he meditates, he says, “Fuck! Is this therapy? I thought it was an interview. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m so pleased to be able to do the stuff I do. I’m living the dream,” says Spacey, now in his third year of House of Cards.

That razor edge is part of Spacey’s allure, too, of course. Michael Kelly, cast as Frank Underwood’s chief of staff, says, “I was scared to death at first. Kevin is a guarded individual in the beginning. You have to earn his trust. One of the most uncomfortable moments of my life was when I had to miss a table read—and I’d only missed one since I’ve been on the show. When I told Kevin, he turned to me slowly and said, ‘That’s okay,’ and there was a chilling pause. ‘Nathan [Darrow, another actor on the show] will read your part.’ But he goes from that to cracking me up with one of his Johnny Carson impressions.”

Dig a little and another side of Spacey emerges. He’s a big giver it turns out. Much of his philanthropic work is guided by a philosophy Jack Lemmon, an early mentor, once shared with him. Spacey also does a dead-on Lemmon impression: “If you have done well, then you’re obligated to send the elevator back down for others.” To that end, Spacey established The Kevin Spacey Foundation in 2010 to support young actors, writers, directors, and producers. This year the initiative brought together 34 emerging talents from around the Middle East, a part of the world not known for supporting the arts. “I don’t think it’s enough to build extraordinary national theaters and palatial cultural centers only to farm things out to Cirque du Soleil,” Spacey says. He’s also an advocate forConservation International. Last year Spacey was the voice of the rainforest itself in an awareness campaign that also featured Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Edward Norton, and Penélope Cruz.

“I remember seeing a piece of art that made me laugh recently,” says Spacey. “A group of men are in water up to their noses, standing around having an argument. The piece is called Politicians Discussing Global Warming. These problems are real and we can’t ignore them. We have to do everything we can to make people aware of what we’re doing to our planet and about what we can do to take care of it.”

Spacey’s voice softens for a moment. It’s like a small window opens on a place that’s usually off-limits. “You can’t control what happens in the world, so you try to do the best you can while you’re here. As for my life, I couldn’t have written it better. I’m so pleased to be able to do the stuff I do. Frankly, I’m living the dream. There’s no doubt about it. I am the luckiest guy walking the face of the earth.”

This photo from Obama’s India trip looks exactly like a Wes Anderson movie

Official state visits are always weird — the pageantry, the costumes — but President Obama’s visit to India has become so surreal that he now appears to be filming a new Wes Anderson movie there.

Ostensibly, this photo shows Obama and his wife meeting with Indian President Pranab Mukherjee, but it’s pretty clear that that is just an elaborate cover for some sort of Royal Tenenbaums or Darjeeling Limited sequel.

Obama’s state visit has so many of twee, ironic Wes Anderson hallmarks that one can only assume the White House has brought on the hipster director to stage manage the entire weeklong affair. Here are a few more of the signs:

• The elaborate costumes, either a nostalgic holdover from British imperial rule, or the mis-en-scene of a hit play directed by star high school student Max Fischer (no relation)
• The weird smirks of President Obama and his wife Michelle, possibly because they have just filled Bill Murray’s hotel room with bees in revenge for Murray stealing their crush
• Speaking of Bill Murray, he will be playing the role of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As with his portrayal of Steve Zissou, he will have his character’s name stitched onto his costume:

• A fancy state dinner, which presumably included elaborate stationery with offbeat typefaces, all designed by moody but precocious adolescents
• Michelle Obama’s beautiful but enormous dress and her towering-over-her-hosts high heels, which at this point is as much as of a no-more-fucks-to-give trademark as Margot Tenenbaum’s cigarettes and fur coats
• Anderson’s continued practice of casting a short, iconoclastic Indian man in every film, although now that standby Kumar Pallana has passed away, Anderson has instead deployed Indian President Pranab Mukherjee
• Obama fled the state dinner early to take a long train ride on the Indian rails to find himself

In a show of patience and good diplomacy, Obama’s Indian hosts have so far not protested Wes Anderson’s meddling.

GEORGE CLOONEY: ‘We Cannot Be Told We Can’t See Something By Kim Jong Un, Of All Fucking People’

Actor George Clooney isn’t happy about Sony’s decision to pull “The Interview” before its Dec. 25 release, even after a group of hackers threatened any theaters that showed the comedy film.

Clooney, who initially circulated a petition to stand in solidarity with Sony, now believes Sony should release the film online — immediately.

“We should be in the position right now of going on offense with this,” Clooney told Deadline. “Do whatever you can to get this movie out. Not because everybody has to see the movie, but because I’m not going to be told we can’t see the movie.”

“That’s the most important part,” Clooney added. “We cannot be told we can’t see something by Kim Jong Un, of all fucking people.”

In a news conference Friday, President Obama also said he believed that Sony was making a mistake by pulling “The Interview” entirely, despite the damage they had caused by releasing thousands of internal Sony emails.

“I wish [Sony] had spoken to me first,” President Obama said. “I would have told them do not get into a pattern where you’re intimidated by these kinds of criminal attacks.”

Dalai Lama Brings Message of Compassion to Southern California

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama poses for a “selfie” with blogger and activist Alek Boyd during a break between panel discussions at an event entitled: “Happiness, Free Enterprise, and Human Flourishing.”

The Inglewood visit follows a meeting with President Obama and talks in the Bay Area

The Dalai Lama’s California speaking tour continues Tuesday when he visits The Forum for a mid-day talk on social integrity that is expected to draw protests from hundreds of Buddhist monks and nuns who accuse him of religious persecution.

The spiritual leader, awarded the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet, is scheduled to speak Tuesday at 12:15 p.m. The theme for the event organized by the Lourdes Foundation will be Non-Violence and the Effects of Compassion in the 21st Century.

Tickets for the event start at $38 and cost up to $224 for floor seating.

Compassion was the subject of his talk Monday at Santa Clara University, where he wore a visor featuring the school’s name and posed for at least one selfie with a member of the audience.

“Through kindergarten up to the university we must include teaching of compassion or teaching of warmheartedness,” he said.

The talk was projected on a screen at the school cafeteria.

“I think it would be really shortsighted to focus on getting homework done or not getting homework done fast enough, and not have that experience to listen to his wisdom,” said Katie O’Keefe, a Santa Clara University senior.

Protesters from the International Shugden Community have followed the Dalai Lama throughout his California visit, which began Friday and included speeches in Richmond and Berkeley. About 30 demonstrators gathered outside the sold-out event in Santa Clara.

They are upset about the banning of Tibetan-exiles who make prayers to the Buddhist deity Dorje Shugden, protesters said.

A frequent visitor to the U.S., the Dalai Lama has lived in exile in northern India since fleeing China in 1959. He met last week with President Barack Obama over the strong objections from China that the U.S. was meddling it its affairs.

Beijing decries the Dalai Lama as an anti-Chinese separatist because of his quest for greater Tibetan autonomy. The White House calls him a respected cultural and religious figure who is committed to peace. 

Beijing frequently protests meetings with the Dalai Lama, and the dust-ups have become something of a diplomatic ritual for Obama, who faced Beijing’s ire when he met with the Tibetan leader in 2010 and again in 2011. In his first year in office, Obama put off a meeting with the monk in what was seen as a move to placate China.

“I have severe doubts that the Chinese would proceed to do anything in response or retaliation that would undermine much larger Chinese interests” with the U.S., Jonathan Pollack, a China scholar at the private Brookings Institution, told The Associated Press.

The Dalai Lama told Obama he’s not seeking Tibetan independence. Both leaders said they hoped talks would resume between Beijing and the Dalai Lama’s representatives.

41 men targeted but 1,147 people killed: US drone strikes – the facts on the ground

New analysis of data conducted by human rights group Reprieve shared with the Guardian, raises questions about accuracy of intelligence guiding ‘precise’ strikes. The drones came for Ayman Zawahiri on 13 January 2006, hovering over a village in Pakistan called Damadola. Ten months later, they came again for the man who would become al-Qaida’s leader, this time in Bajaur.

Eight years later, Zawahiri is still alive. Seventy-six children and 29 adults, according to reports after the two strikes, are not. However many Americans know who Zawahiri is, far fewer are familiar with Qari Hussain. Hussain was a deputy commander of the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group aligned with al-Qaida that trained the would-be Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, before his unsuccessful 2010 attack.

The drones first came for Hussain years before, on 29 January 2008. Then they came on 23 June 2009, 15 January 2010, 2 October 2010 and 7 October 2010.

Finally, on 15 October 2010, Hellfire missiles fired from a Predator or Reaper drone killed Hussain, the Pakistani Taliban later confirmed. For the death of a man whom practically no American can name, the US killed 128 people, 13 of them children, none of whom it meant to harm.

A new analysis of the data available to the public about drone strikes, conducted by the human-rights group Reprieve, indicates that even when operators target specific individuals – the most focused effort of what Barack Obama calls “targeted killing” – they kill vastly more people than their targets, often needing to strike multiple times. Attempts to kill 41 men resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November.

Reprieve, sifting through reports compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, examined cases in which specific people were targeted by drones multiple times. Their data, shared with the Guardian, raises questions about the accuracy of US intelligence guiding strikes that US officials describe using words like “clinical” and “precise.”

The analysis is a partial estimate of the damage wrought by Obama’s favored weapon of war, a tool he and his administration describe as far more precise than more familiar instruments of land or air power.

“Drone strikes have been sold to the American public on the claim that they’re ‘precise’. But they are only as precise as the intelligence that feeds them. There is nothing precise about intelligence that results in the deaths of 28 unknown people, including women and children, for every ‘bad guy’ the US goes after,” said Reprieve’s Jennifer Gibson, who spearheaded the group’s study.

Some 24 men specifically targeted inPakistan resulted in the death of 874 people. All were reported in the press as “killed” on multiple occasions, meaning that numerous strikes were aimed at each of them. The vast majority of those strikes were unsuccessful. An estimated 142 children were killed in the course of pursuing those 24 men, only six of whom died in the course of drone strikes that killed their intended targets.

In Yemen, 17 named men were targeted multiple times. Strikes on them killed 273 people, at least seven of them children. At least four of the targets are still alive.

Available data for the 41 men targeted for drone strikes across both countries indicate that each of them was reported killed multiple times. Seven of them are believed to still be alive. The status of another, Haji Omar, is unknown. Abu Ubaidah al-Masri, whom drones targeted three times, later died from natural causes, believed to be hepatitis.

The data cohort is only a fraction of those killed by US drones overall. Reprieve did not focus on named targets struck only once. Neither Reprieve nor the Guardian examined the subset of drone strikes that do not target specific people: the so-called “signature strikes” that attack people based on a pattern of behavior considered suspicious, rather than intelligence tying their targets to terrorist activity.

An analytically conservative Council on Foreign Relations tally assesses that 500 drone strikes outside of Iraq and Afghanistan have killed 3,674 people.

As well, the data is agnostic on the validity of the named targets struck on multiple occasions being marked for death in the first place.

Like all weapons, drones will inevitably miss their targets given enough chances. But the secrecy surrounding them obscures how often misses occur and the reasons for them. Even for the 33 named targets whom the drones eventually killed – successes, by the logic of the drone strikes – another 947 people died in the process.

There are myriad problems with analyzing data from US drone strikes. Those strikes occur under a blanket of official secrecy, which means analysts must rely on local media reporting about their aftermath, with all the attendant problems besetting journalism in dangerous or denied places.

Anonymous leaks to media organizations, typically citing an unnamed American, Yemeni or Pakistani official, are the only acknowledgements that the strikes actually occur, or target a particular individual.

Without the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command declassifying more information on the strikes, unofficial and imprecise information is all that is available, complicating efforts to independently verify or refute administration assurances about the impact of the drones.

What little US officials say about the strikes typically boils down to assurances that they apply “targeted, surgical pressure to the groups that threaten us,” as John Brennan, now the CIA director, said in a 2011 speech.

“The only people that we fire a drone at [sic] are confirmed terrorist targets at the highest level after a great deal of vetting that takes a long period of time. We don’t just fire a drone at somebody and think they’re a terrorist,” the secretary of state, John Kerry, said at a BBC forum in 2013.

A Reprieve team investigating on the ground in Pakistan turned up what it believes to be a confirmed case of mistaken identity. Someone with the same name as a terror suspect on the Obama administration’s “kill list” was killed on the third attempt by US drones.

 

His brother was captured, interrogated and encouraged to “tell the Americans what they want to hear”: that they had in fact killed the right person. Reprieve has withheld identifying details of the family in question, making the story impossible to independently verify.

“President Obama needs to be straight with the American people about the human cost of this programme. If even his government doesn’t know who is filling the body bags every time a strike goes wrong, his claims that this is a precise programme look like nonsense, and the risk that it is in fact making us less safe looks all too real,” Gibson said.

$100B withdrawal from US Treasury bills hints at Russian move

WASHINGTON — A record $100 billion in withdrawals of Treasury bills is raising speculation that the Kremlin and Russian oligarchs are yanking their money out of the United States to avoid upcoming sanctions over Ukraine.

The massive outflow over the past week came as President Obama and other top US officials repeatedly warned Russia would face a “cost” if it didn’t reverse course in Ukraine.

The total amount of foreign-held US Treasury securities dropped to $2.86 trillion — lowest in more than a year.

Last year, the most moved out in a week was $32 billion.

Analysts said that if the switch was made by Russia, it would represent about 80 percent of that nation’s US Treasury holdings.

“This is only speculation on our part, but it seems likely that the Russian authorities had more than $100 billion of Treasury debt in custody at the Fed, and it doesn’t seem implausible that they moved it to a jurisdiction where it would be less vulnerable to a US asset freeze,” Lou Crandall at Wrightson ICAP LLC told The Wall Street Journal.

News of the financial movements came on a day of violent protests in Ukraine and no sign of a crisis resolution.

Journalists saw pro-Russian demonstrators throw eggs and smoke bombs at one protest, brushing past police to beat rival demonstrators with batons.

Russia’s foreign ministry is blaming the unrest on “extreme rightist groups” and stating bluntly that it will protect ethnic Russians in the region.

“Russia is aware of its responsibility for the lives of compatriots and fellow citizens in Ukraine and reserves the right to take people under its protection,” the ministry said — raising fears of further intervention by Russia, which effectively took control of Crimea last month.

Russia also shipped more heavy equipment and troops into the region, where residents vote Sunday whether to separate from Ukraine.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, called the referendum “hastily planned, unjustified and divisive,” but there was little doubt it would proceed and tighten Russia’s grip.

Secretary of State John Kerry met with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in London to discuss a possible diplomatic solution but reported no progress after six fruitless hours of talks.

“There will be consequences if Russia does not find a way to change course,” Kerry warned.

But his words had no effect.

After his meeting at the stately US embassy in London, Lavrov declared: “We have no common vision of the situation. Everyone understands — and I say this with all responsibility — what Crimea means to Russia.”

He went on to say it meant “immeasurably more” than the Falkland Islands mean to Great Britain. Britain went to war with Argentina over the Falklands in 1982. Lavrov indicated Russia wouldn’t invade eastern Ukraine.

Is China Siding With Putin in the Ukraine Crisis?

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi

China’s leaders are struggling to come up with a comprehensible position on the crisis in Ukraine. The Chinese might naturally sympathize with Vladimir Putin, someone willing to stick it to Western leaders such as President Obama. However, China has long opposed actions that smack of interference in other countries’ internal affairs, in part to keep outsiders away from such sensitive issues as Tibet and Chinese dissidents.

So for now, the government’s solution seems to be simple: obfuscate. The Chinese and Russian foreign ministers spoke by telephone today, and while Russia’s Sergei Lavrov said afterwards that the two countries are in agreement about the crisis, China’s official spokesman shied away from taking a stand.

First, the Russian take: According to the Voice of America, Putin’s foreign ministry said today, “Russia and China have coinciding views on the situation in Ukraine.”

But do they? China’s official Xinhua news agency yesterday reported China’s position, as articulated by a Foreign Ministry spokesman: “China always sticks to the principle of non-interference in any country’s internal affairs and respects the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

Then, late today (China time), came what might seem like a word-salad of a statement from official spokesman Qin Gang elaborating on the one from Sunday. “China upholds its own diplomatic principles and the basic codes for international relations, which have also been implied on the Ukraine issue,” Qin said when asked for comments on Russia’s actions. “Meanwhile, we have also taken the historical and contemporary factors of the Ukraine issue into consideration.”

Xinhua helpfully explained that this comment “clarifies” China’s position on Russia’s actions in Crimea.

And strangely enough, it might. Without stating publicly that they’re giving Putin a pass for interfering in Ukraine, the Chinese seem to be leaning more toward the Russians and against the West. Or, as Qin cryptically put it, “there have been reasons for today’s situation in Ukraine.” Hard to argue with that. There have indeed been reasons for what’s going on in Ukraine, just as there have been reasons for what’s going on in lots of places. Do the Ukrainian reasons mean China’s willing to look the other way when Russia interferes in a neighboring country?

The Chinese aren’t saying that just yet. But with China possessing veto power on the United Nations Security Council, the government probably won’t be able to keep quiet much longer.

Adobe & Prezi commit $400M to President Obama’s digital literacy program

President Obama is relying on the private sector to further his ambitious goal to bring high-speed Internet to 99 percent of schools.

The administration’s ConnectEd program, unveiled last Summer, aims to improve Internet access for students and bring new education technology to schools.

Fewer than 20 percent of educators across the country feel that their school’s Internet connection adequately meets their teaching needs, according to the White House.

The ConnectEd program has raised some $1 billion in funding from the private sector thus far. Today, the program received its largest single donation from software company Adobe. Adobe pledged more than $300 million worth of software to the program, giving K-12 students access to well-known products like Photoshop Elements and EchoSign.

Cloud software company Prezi also donated $100 million in software licenses for education as part of the initiative. The commitment includes licenses of Prezi Edu Pro, which usually runs at $4.92 per month.

President Obama made the announcement during the White House’s inaugural student “film festival” earlier today. Over 2,500 student teams from K-12 schools submitted short films, which showcase how technology is used in their classrooms. You can watch the 16 final student film selections here.

The administration is also putting pressure on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to bring lightning fast Internet to schools. Last year, Obama asked the FCC to revamp its E-Rate program, which subsidizes Internet services for schools and libraries, but only those that meet its criteria.

The FCC amped up its involvement in ConnectEd by pledging $2 billion to connect 20 million students in 15,000 schools over the next two years.

Obama warns Russia on Ukraine

President Obama warned Russia Friday to avoid a military intervention in Ukraine, saying there would be consequences for such actions.

Speaking in the White House Briefing Room, Obama said he is “deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian federation inside of Ukraine.” He was apparently referring to reports that armed men, perhaps affiliated with the Russian army, had seized to airports in the Crimea region, a strategically important peninsula with a predominantly ethnic Russian population.

“There will be costs to any military intervention in Ukraine,” Obama said, adding that such a move would  “invite the condemnation of nations around the world.”

Ukraine’s uprising has driven President Viktor Yanukovych to neighboring Russia, where he has asked for and received protection from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yanukovych called on Russia Friday to help return him to the presidency in Ukraine, using “all the leverage it has to prevent chaos in terror” in Ukraine.

Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, is closely divided between those who look to Russia and those who look to Europe and the West for political orientation and economic possibility. Obama said in his statement that the political unrest in Ukraine has revealed “how difficult democracy can be in a divided country.”

Here is the president’s full statement:

Over the last several days, the United States has been responding to events as they unfold in Ukraine. Throughout this crisis, we have been very clear about one fundamental principle: The Ukrainian people deserve the opportunity to determine their own future. Together with our European allies, we have urged an end to the violence and encouraged Ukrainians to pursue a course in which they stabilize their country, forge a broad-based government and move to elections this spring.

I also spoke several days ago with President Putin, and my administration has been in daily communication with Russian officials, and we’ve made clear that they can be part of an international community’s effort to support the stability and success of a united Ukraine going forward, which is not only in the interest of The people of Ukraine and the international community, but also in Russia’s interest.

However, we are now deeply concerned by reports of military movements taken by the Russian Federation inside of Ukraine. Russia has a historic relationship with Ukraine, including cultural and economic ties, and a military facility in Crimea, but any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing, which is not in the interest of Ukraine, Russia, or Europe.

It would represent a profound interference in matters that must be determined by the Ukrainian people. It would be a clear violence of Russia’s commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine, and of international laws. And just days after the world came to Russia for the Olympic Games, it would invite the condemnation of nations around the world. And indeed, the United States will stand with the international community in affirming that there will be costs for any military intervention in Ukraine.

The events of the past several months remind us of how difficult democracy can be in a country with deep divisions. But the Ukrainian people have also reminded us that human beings have a universal right to determine their own future.

Right now, the situation remains very fluid. Vice President Biden just spoke with Prime Minister — the Prime Minister of Ukraine to assure him that in this difficult moment the United States supports his government’s efforts and stands for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and democratic future of Ukraine. I also commend the Ukrainian government’s restraint and its commitment to uphold its international obligations.

We will continue to coordinate closely with our European allies. We will continue to communicate directly with the Russian government. And we will continue to keep all of you in the press corps and the American people informed as events develop.

Thanks very much.

A guide to Obama’s 4 promises about government surveillance reform

On Friday morning, after months of speculation and a major presidential investigation, President Obama finally formally announced the first reforms of the National Security Agency.

Though he began with a glowing speech on how much surveillance can accomplish for a state’s security, he then acknowledged that growing concern that American intelligence collection had grown at increasing odds with Americans’ privacy. These reforms are very much still a work in progress, he insisted, but he laid down four concrete plans for the immediate future.

1) The NSA will no longer have immediate access to your phone records without a warrant.

As the White House had previously released, Obama announced that effective immediately, the NSA will be cut off from being able to access its enormous database of practically every phone record in the U.S. That’s not to say that information won’t still exist, just that the NSA will need a court order or a specific state of emergency to get to it. Obama said his staff is still working on a long-term solution for who should store that data.

2) You now need to be two steps away from a target for the NSA to track your information, rather than three.

In perhaps the most surprising announcement, Obama said that the NSA will significantly scale back its practice of “contact chaining,” in which anyone within three degrees of communication from a target is subject to its surveillance. It’s now scaled down to two.

3) National Security Letters won’t come with permanent gag orders

A fairly obscure practice, NSLs are demands the FBI can serve to American companies to turn over non-personal records, like metadata. Trouble is, NSLs do come with the legal demand to keep quiet, and the FBI doesn’t need a warrant to issue them. Obama has directed Attorney General Eric Holder to amend the NSL program to loosen that gag after a time: if the FBI can’t prove it has a continuing need for secrety, it will expire.

4) Spying on foreigners will be scaled back

Obama has previously not shied away from what some consider a pretty ugly factor of political space in which the NSA operates: the agency has some legal restrictions from spying on Americans, but no such restrictions on spying on foreigners overseas. That means both allied heads of state and your average non-American can be subject to the NSA’s vast spying capabilities.

This was by far the vaguest promise Obama made, but that he made it at all is a departure from those earlier comments. A new presidential directive, issued Friday, “makes clear that the United States only uses signals intelligence for legitimate national security purposes, and not for the purpose of indiscriminately reviewing the emails or phone calls of ordinary people,” he said. He added that intelligence collection specifically cannot aim to “suppress criticism or dissent” or “to provide a competitive advantage to U.S. companies, or U.S. commercial sectors.”

Illustration by Jason Reed

The Mysteries and Tragedy of Russia’s Bottomless Karst Lake (PHOTOS)

The water is serene but deathly cold – and danger lurks beneath its surface. Yet, in the aquatic depths the promise of discovering hidden underwater caves and relics of our past awaits. Here, beauty and allure belie risks – but risks that some are prepared to take.

“A sapphire in a ring of green trees.” That’s how this stunning lake has been described. Even on overcast days, the water has a deep, crystal blue color like the gemstone to which it has been compared.

But there is much more than splendor to this lake. Beneath its smooth surface lie mysteries as yet unsolved. And some of these are secrets that the lake will not easily give up; at least, not if the recent tragic death of one diving explorer and the hospitalization of another are read as telltale signs.

9 Magical Zen Gardens

Zen garden is an interesting and deeply spiritual aspect of Japanese gardening traditions. The typical Zen garden consists of an enclosed and shallow sand box of sorts which features predominantly sand or gravel with rocks of various shapes and sizes.

The rocks and sand (or gravel) are the chief elements of the garden, which generally creates the scene of islands in the sea. The sand or gravel in a Zen garden represents the sea or ocean and is used instead of water. It will be carefully raked by tending monks to create the impression of waves on the surface of a body of water.

The rocks themselves represent islands or rock formations jutting out from the water. The overall goal is to create a small-scale recreation of an aerial or cliff-top view of an intricate coastal scene. One of the primary differences between a Zen garden and most other varieties is the lack of living elements. Although grass may sometimes be included, no other plant or flower species will be found in a classic Zen garden.

This can be both unusual and exotically appealing to people with no past experience with the history and meaning of a Zen garden.

The world’s most extraordinary hotels in pictures

Mihir Garh, Rajasthan 
“The fort sits in splendid isolation amid the Thar Desert near Jodhpur. It looks like an enormous sandcastle, a mirage, and is not just a unique place to stay; it’s a shrine to the artistic and architectural traditions of Rajasthan in general and Jodhpur in particular.”

Planet Baobab, Botswana
“Botswana’s Makgadigadi Pan comprises the world’s largest network of salt pans – a thirsty, mirage-inducing landscape of flat, shimmering expanses under hard blue skies. Halfway along the sole tarred road through this arid moonscape, a statue of an anteater towers at the dusty verge. It is a surreal sight, and an appropriate signpost for the distinctive Planet Baobab.”

Prendiparte B&B, Bologna, Italy
“A medieval high-rise turned romantic hideaway, the Torre Prendiparte is unlike anywhere else you’ll ever stay. The living area is on the first two floors and comprises a snug, classically-furnished living room, mezzanine bedroom, and kitchen. Above this is the former jail where you can still see graffiti left by prisoners on the 2m-thick walls.”

Qasr al Sarab, UAE
“Rising from the shifting sands, Qasr Al Sarab appears like a mirage on the edge of the vast Empty Quarter desert. Outside high crenellated walls echo fortresses of old. Inside rooms continue the dream of Arabian Nights with sumptuous fabrics, carved Islamic designs, woven rugs, wooden doors and metalwork lanterns.”

Peppers Cradle Mountain Lodge, Tasmania, Australia
“A stay at Peppers Cradle Mountain Lodge plunges you into the heart of Tasmania’s wilderness, with luxury that feels as organic as your surrounds. The cabins are nestled privately in the bushland, with wallabies bounding past the windows and wombats shuffling amid the trees.”

Free Spirit Spheres, British Columbia, Canada
“Suspended in the trees on sturdy guide ropes, Vancouver Island’s Free Spirit Spheres look like giant eyeballs peering deep into the British Columbia woodlands. Step inside and the handmade orbs – accessed via spiral rope staircases or slender steel bridges – are lined like comfy boat cabins with built-in beds and cabinets.”

Taskonak Hotel, Goreme, Cappadocia, Turkey
“Göreme has dozens of beautiful cave-hotels but Taşkonak manages to dish up the cave-suites and stupendous views Cappadocia is famous for without breaking your budget.”

Thonga Beach Lodge, iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa
“One of few such lodges within the extraordinary 328,000 hectare iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a Unesco world heritage site.”

Saugerties Lighthouse, New York state, USA
“Saugerties Lighthouse is a historic 1869 landmark that makes a wonderful base for exploring the scenic Hudson valley. It is 100 miles north of New York City, and the red brick building has played a pivotal role in safely guiding steamboats, barges and other vessels safely along the Hudson river over the years. More recently (in the mid 1990s), the lighthouse was transformed into a two-room B&B, providing safe haven of a different sort.”

The Gibbon Experience Treehouse, Bokeo Reserve, Laos
“The tree houses erected by conservation group Animo are a thing of architectural wonder, straddling the giant trunks of strangler fig trees. But more extraordinary still is that to reach these vertiginous eyries you’ll have to trek through the fecund realm of the tiger, then catch a series of exhilarating zip lines strung across the forest canopy, before flying into your night’s accommodation.”

Amazing color pictures from 1960s Budapest

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National Geographic Photo Contest

 

 

 

 

100 years old pictures in colours before World War I

Türkei, Bursa, Ladengeschaeft einer Confiserie, Auguste Leon, 1. Juni 1913

Vietnam. Tonkin, Leon Busy, 1914

Indien, Statue des Heiligen Stiers, Stephane Passet, 29. Januar 1914

Österreich, Wien, Judengasse, Fotograf unbekannt, 23. April 1913

Mongolei, nahe Ulaanbaatar Urga, Stéphane Passet, 23. Juli 1913

Irland, Galway, Marguerite Mespoulet, 26. Mai 1913

Indien, Uttar Pradesh, Agra. Mausoleum Taj Mahal von Shah Jahan für Mumtaz Mahal, Stéphane Passet, 19.-21. Januar 1914

Indien, Amritsar. Marmorne Strasse zum Goldenden Tempel, neben den rituellen Reinigungsbecken, dem Darbar Sahib und dem Hari Mandir, Stéphane Passet, 15. Januar 1914

China, nach Kalgan. Nomadenlager, drei Männer und ein Junge vor einer Jurte, Stéphane Passet, 18.-21. Juli 1912

Water pipe smoking. Samarkand

Mongolei, Ulaanbaatar. Der Finanzminister des unabhängigen Staats Mongolei auf dem Marktplatz, Stéphane Passet, 22. Juli 1913

Major Lazer & DJ Snake – Lean On (feat. MØ)

Listen To A Rare 1965 Recording Of Stanley Kubrick’s Most Profound Interview

When physicist and renowned author Jeremy Bernstein (born December 31, 1929) penned a terrific piece on 37-year-old burgeoning director Stanley Kubrick for The New Yorker, the story gained so much attention that Bernstein was commissioned to write an even more elaborate profile of the legendary filmmaker. Normally Kubrick would have flat-out refused, however, he agreed due to the fact that he shared a common passion with Bernstein — chess. When Bernstein travelled to Oxford, England for the conversation on November 27, 1965 it was also captured on tape. The interview remains to this day one of the most profound conversations with Kubrick ever recorded, and you can listen to it in full below.

Helios – Hope Valley Hill (Arms and Sleepers Remix)

Keith Kenniff – Helios

Mac DeMarco // “Brother” (OFFICIAL SINGLE)

 

Alan Watts: Sense of Nonsense

November 27, 1965: A Rare Recording of Stanley Kubrick’s Most Revealing Interview

“People react primarily to direct experience and not to abstractions; it is very rare to find anyone who can become emotionally involved with an abstraction.”

George Orwell on how to make the perfect cup of tea

Excerpt from Orwell’s fantastic 1946 essay outlining his 11 “golden” rules of tea /

Harald Grosskopf’s 1979 Masterpiece “Synthesist” Is 7 Minutes Of Pure Amazingness

Yesterday TEEN DAZE released a new mixtape which you can stream and download by visiting ThePlayground.co.uk.  The 8-track collection provides a perfect ambient backdrop for pretty much any situation, but the crown jewel of the mixtape is unquestionably Harald Grosskopf’s brilliant track “Synthesist”.

Shanghai Tower (650 meters)

Raskalov and Russian photographer Vadim Mahora broke into and climbed the Gensler-designed Shanghai Tower, soon to be China’s tallest and the world’s second tallest skyscraper at 632 meters (2,074 feet) high. Although the tower will eventually boast the world’s fastest elevators (reaching 40mph), the pair had to climb the 120 flights of stairs by foot (taking them about two hours); they then spent another 18 hours sleeping and waiting for the weather to clear. The staggering resulting images show not just the dizzying heights, but also fantastic views of the adjacent Jin Mao Tower and Shanghai World Financial Center (together, the trio of buildings that are re-defining the Shanghai skyline).

Adam Magyar – Stainless, 42 Street (excerpt)

High speed video recording in NYC at Grand Central station.

Tolkien & Sendak On The Psychology Of Fantasy & The Powerful Effect Of Fairy Tales On The Adult Mind

In March 1939, renowned fantasy writer J. R. R. Tolkien penned an essay enitled “On Fairy-Stories” which explores the nature of fantasy and the cultural role of fairy tales. His argument is the same — that there is no such thing as “writing for children.” Tolkien writes: “A ‘fairy-story’ is one which touches on or uses Faerie, whatever its own main purpose may be: satire, adventure, morality, fantasy. Faerie itself may perhaps most nearly be translated by Magic — but it is magic of a peculiar mood and power, at the furthest pole from the vulgar devices of the laborious, scientific, magician. There is one proviso : if there is any satire present in the tale, one thing must not be made fun of, the magic itself. That must in that story be taken seriously, neither laughed at nor explained away.”

Tolkien adds: “Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else … may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds.” You can read more excerpts from Tolkien’s essay by visiting BrainPickings.org.

The Aqualibrium Garden – The Future of Food

The Aqualibrium Garden – The Future of Food by “Aqualibrium”

The fish in the self-cleaning aquarium in the bottom chamber of the Aqualibrium Garden provide the nutrients that feed the plants in the self-watering grow space in the upper chamber. This cycle… like nature herself… is automatic, providing the potential to grow an abundance of fresh vegetables, herbs and flowering plants all year.

The Real Walter White (VIDEO)

When AMC’s Breaking Bad premiered in 2008, one of Alabama’s most successful meth cooks was already knee deep in building a massive meth empire. His name? Walter White. In this documentary, Walter tells us the secret behind his product, how he stacked up thousands of dollars per day, and why his partner is now serving two life sentences.

A new industry born from the disaster — LED indoor farm

A new industry born from the disaster — LED indoor farm

Awesome pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope

 

 

 

 

Great Gardens: “Prospect Cottage” by Howard Sooley – NOWNESS

http://vimeo.com/103807651

Great Gardens: “Prospect Cottage” by Howard Sooley – NOWNESS

Speeding Around The World in Under 5 minutes Time Lapse

17 Countries. 343 Days. 6237 Photographs. One incredible journey.

GoPro: Wild Downhill Ride with Claudio Caluori

Claudio Calouri and Will Longden takes us on a wild run through the UCI Downhill Course at Leogang in Austria.

World’s smallest cat – Big Cats

森の木琴

TOUCHWOOD SH-08C http://answer.nttdocomo.co.jp/touchwood/

“TRUMP ANTHEM” — A Bad Lip Reading of Donald Trump

Snow falls in the Sahara desert

The town of Ain Sefra, on the edge of the Sahara desert, was hit by icy weather last week – and even snow.

Snowfall is very rare in the Sahara, despite the fact that it can be cold at night – because there’s rarely enough water around for any kind of precipitation.

Unbelievable Unlikely Animal Friendships Compilation 2017

Winds on this mountain in the US will make it feel like -67C

Temperatures on a mountain peak in the US state of New Hampshire could fall so low you risk getting frostbite in just a couple of minutes.

Micro Wind Turbine

Oxmo Puccino – 365 Jours

The Future Of Transportation

The World in 2050