Newsnippets, January 26, 2013
From Reuters: Obama appointments unconstitutional, Executive recess appointment power limited
In a surprisingly broad ruling, the three-judge panel rejected not only the NLRB appointments but any made while the Senate is in session but on a break. That could limit recess appointments to only a few weeks a year.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit also ruled that recess appointments could only be used for positions that become vacant while the Senate is in recess.
“If the decision stands, it would be a significant reduction of the president’s recess power,” said John Elwood, a Washington lawyer who was deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel from 2005 through 2009.“This is a big, big decision for executive power,” Elwood said. “It is one of the most important decisions in decades.”
From TED: Model Cameron Russell talks about the dangers of image at TED
“I always just say I was scouted, but that means nothing,” Russell says in her talk. “The real way I became a model is that I won a genetic lottery, and I am a recipient of a legacy. For the past few centuries, we have defined beauty not just as health and youth and symmetry that we’re biologically programmed to admire, but also as tall, slender figures with femininity and white skin. This is a legacy that was built for me, and that I’ve been cashing in on.”
From The Art of War: Has traditional Islam lost the war for Muslim youth? (Use Google translator for article)
Everything that is happening in the Islamic community in Russia makes us think that we really are on the edge of the cliff. Russia’s geopolitical enemies are trying to use the Muslim factor as a method to destabilize the situation in the Russian regions.
From The Atlantic: Jaw dropping photos from a fire in Chicago
From The Guardian: Hacker group Anonymous takes down US Sentencing Commission website
Hacking collective threatens to make public classified material and that when Aaron Swartz killed himself ‘a line was crossed’
Hacktivist group Anonymous said Saturday it had hijacked the website of the US Sentencing Commission in a brazen act of cyber-revenge for the death of internet freedom advocate Aaron Swartz.
Swartz killed himself just over two weeks ago as he faced trial for hacking an online collection of academic journals linked to MIT with the intent of releasing millions of research papers on to the internet.
From Relevant Magazine: Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to throw party for NJ governor Chris Christie
Well, here’s an unexpected collision of worlds. Republican governor, headstrong firebrand and national treasure Chris Christie is going to have a fundraiser hosted by none other than Mark Zuckerberg, the world’s most powerful bro.