/07

There Is Still No Hard Evidence For “Russian Hacking”
▻https://medium.com/mtracey/there-is-still-no-hard-evidence-for-russian-hacking-d7e12b6429db

[A] declaration from Democrats’ new favorite pundit, former George W. Bush speechwriter and Clinton voter David Frum, has been retweeted over 3,500 times in approximately three hours. Media superstars such as John Harwood and Peter Daou joined in on the retweeting action. How many casual news consumers cursorily saw this tweet, accepted it as accurate, and then continued on with their day? Many, many tens of thousands, surely. And yet what the tweet omits, as does most every other account of the contents of the laughably anticlimactic DNI report, is that this much-anticipated document contains no new evidence corroborating the Government’s claims regarding “Russian Hacking.”

#propagande #manipulation

Refugees Encounter a Foreign Word: Welcome

How Canadian hockey moms, poker buddies and neighbors are adopting Syrians, a family at a time.

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/06/13/us/12canadasponsors-slidesho-slide-GMAY/12canadasponsors-slidesho-slide-GMAY-master675-v2.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/06/13/us/12canadasponsors-slidesho-slide-OXW8/12canadasponsors-slidesho-slide-OXW8-master675-v2.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/06/13/us/12canadasponsors-slidesho-slide-8507/12canadasponsors-slidesho-slide-8507-master675.jpg

Mapping Detroit, Inch by Inch - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/21/us/mapping-detroit-inch-by-inch.html?_r=0

DETROIT — The entrepreneur Jerry Paffendorf bought a vacant lot in Detroit for $500 back in 2010. And then he did something truly unusual — maybe even unique — with it.

He created a map that parceled the land on East Vernor Highway Street into a grid of 10,000 one-inch squares, and he invited people to be inch-vestors in the property for $1 a square. About 600 people from all over the world bought them all.

#cartographie #visualisation #détroit #urban_matter

Black Lives Matter in France, Too
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/opinion/black-lives-matter-in-france-too.html?mwrsm=Facebook&_r=0
#Adama_Traoré

Devouring 1,000 Mosquitoes an Hour, Bats Are Now Welcome Guests as Zika Fears Rise
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/nyregion/devouring-1000-mosquitoes-an-hour-bats-are-now-welcome-guests-as-zika-fears

NORTH HEMPSTEAD, N.Y. — As mosquito season heats up, bringing with it the threat of the West Nile and #Zika viruses, one Long Island town is taking an unorthodox approach: bats.

The town, North Hempstead, has approved the construction of boxes that function as bat houses in several parks to attract more bats to the area.

“Bats can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes per hour,” Judi Bosworth, the town supervisor, said. “That’s extraordinary. A pesticide couldn’t do that.”

The town started encouraging the building and hanging of bat houses in its parks in 2007 to curb the use of #pesticides, and it has added a few more each year since.

#moustiques #chauve-souris

Michelle Obama’s Dress May Have Looked Simple, but It Spoke Volumes - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/fashion/michelle-obama-christian-siriano-democratic-national-convention.html?_r=0

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/27/fashion/27OTRb/27OTRb-master768.jpg

But unlike another reality TV star, Mr. Siriano has built his career on being inclusive: on catering to women regardless of size or age.

Most recently, he was, for example, the designer who stepped forward (via Instagram) when Leslie Jones, the late-40-something six-foot-tall star of the movie remake “Ghostbusters,” complained that no designer wanted to dress her, making a custom off-the-shoulder red gown for her premiere that became something of an internet moment. He also has a collaboration with the plus-size store Lane Bryant, for which he held a runway show at the United Nations this year, and has dressed other celebrities, including Kate Hudson and Zendaya.

“I just don’t think anyone should be excluded from having a beautiful dress,” he said to me when we were talking about the Jones brouhaha, and why he had volunteered to play fairy godfather.

Lest you think Mrs. Obama’s wardrobe choice was just happenstance, however, know that the convention appearance was only the second time she has worn Mr. Siriano; the first time was this month, at the funeral for the police officers killed in Dallas.

Throughout her time in the White House, the first lady has made something of a secondary cause out of supporting new, independent American designers, and choosing her clothes not only because she likes them but because their back story has a certain resonance that goes beyond the aesthetic. Monday night was no different. Fashion is not known for its embrace of togetherness (more for its exclusion). But Mr. Siriano is.

Pas que je sois fan de ramener les femmes à ce qu’elles portent, mais ce choix est intéressant quand on voit les caricatures sexistes (et racistes) des supporters de Trump :

▻http://bossip.com/1314883/make-the-first-lady-great-again-racist-cartoon-compares-a-butch-michelle-oba

▻https://bossip.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/michelle2.jpg?w=700

#racisme #sexisme #mode

Le djihad et l’exception française - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/19/opinion/le-djihad-et-lexception-francaise.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/20/opinion/20Khosrokhavar-french/20Khosrokhavar-facebookJumbo.jpg

Mais si la France a intégré beaucoup d’étrangers et leurs descendants, ceux qu’elle a laissés en marge sont plus aigris que leurs congénères allemands ou anglais : Nombreux d’entre eux se sentent offensés dans leur identité arabe ou musulmane. La laïcité, si inflexible, semble dénier leur dignité. A cela s’ajoute une politique étrangère française musclée qui semble privilégier pour cibles des pays musulmans comme la Libye, la Syrie ou le Mali.

Le système d’intégration français est généreux dans ses principes mais trop rigide dans sa pratique. Les réalités de la société française aujourd’hui exigent une approche plus pragmatique et plus souple, avec moins de diktats idéologiques et moins d’anxiété face à la pluralité. La France n’est plus ce qu’elle était et il est temps qu’elle se fasse à cette idée.

How Sponsored Content Is Becoming King in a Facebook World
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/business/sponsored-content-takes-larger-role-in-media-companies.html

Younger companies like Vice and BuzzFeed have built whole businesses around the concept. The Atlantic has said that three-quarters of its ad revenue now comes from sponsored content. Slate, the web publisher, says that about half of its ad revenue comes from native ads, as sponsored content is also called, and the other half from traditional banner or display ads. Many major newspapers, including The New York Times, have declared sponsored content to be an important part of their strategies.

In the Age of ISIS, Who’s a Terrorist, and Who’s Simply Deranged?
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/world/europe/in-the-age-of-isis-whos-a-terrorist-and-whos-simply-deranged.html

he age of the Islamic State, in which the tools of terrorism appear increasingly crude and haphazard, has led to a reimagining of the common notion of who is and who is not a terrorist.

Instances of wanton violence by deranged attackers — whether in Nice or in Orlando, Fla. — are swiftly judged to be the work of terrorists. These judgments occur even when there is little immediate evidence that the attackers had direct ties to terrorist groups and when they do not fit a classic definition of terrorists as those who use violence to advance a political agenda.

“A lot of this stuff is at the fringes of what we would historically think of as terrorism,” said Daniel Benjamin, a former State Department coordinator for counterterrorism and a professor at Dartmouth College. But, he said, “the Islamic State and jihadism has become a kind of refuge for some unstable people who are at the end of their rope and decide they can redeem their screwed-up lives” by dying in the name of a cause.

Mr. Benjamin said this also led the news media and government officials to treat violence like the Nice attack differently from other mass attacks, like shootings at schools and churches that have been carried out by non-Muslims.

“If there is a mass killing, and there is a Muslim involved, all of a sudden it is by definition terrorism,” he said.

U.S. and Russia Agree on Steps to Combat ISIS in Syria - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/world/middleeast/us-and-russia-agree-on-steps-to-combat-isis-in-syria.html

MOSCOW — The United States and Russia announced a tentative deal on Friday to coordinate airstrikes against the Islamic State and the Nusra Front , Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria.

[...]

Mr. Kerry made clear that defeating the Nusra Front was a major American priority.

“So if some critic is criticizing the United States or Russia for going after Al Nusra, which is a terrorist organization, because they’re good fighters against Assad, they have their priorities completely screwed up,” Mr. Kerry said. “The fact is that Nusra is plotting against countries in the world. What happened in Nice last night could just as well come from Nusra or wherever it came from as any other entity. Because that’s what they do.”

[...]

The United States has carried out occasional strikes against what have been described as senior Qaeda figures in Syria. But it has refrained from systematic attacks against the Nusra Front, whose ranks are heavily Syrian, including many who left less extreme rebel groups because Nusra was better armed and financed.

Why the U.S. Military Can’t Fix Syria
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/opinion/why-the-us-military-cant-fix-syria.html

The memo’s authors and other interventionists fail to recognize that the United States in fact has effectively weakened President Bashar al-Assad already. In 2015, the administration’s aggressive covert action program facilitated significant gains for the opposition in northern Syria, exposed Latakia — the regime’s heartland — to attack, and diminished the Syrian military position in the northwestern province of Idlib.

But these losses were also key factors in Russia’s decision to enter the Syrian fray after years of sitting on the sidelines. This gives the lie to the interventionists’ belief that “judicious” airstrikes could somehow disempower the Assad government, sap Russian resolve and improve prospects for a negotiated solution.

If Moscow saw fit to intervene on account of Washington’s covert support for the rebels, it is only logical that it would retaliate even more strongly in the event of overt support. Indeed, that prospect is probably Moscow’s main motivation for keeping an air contingent and thousands of troops in Syria, conducting regular operations there and continuing to assure the Syrian government of Russia’s unstinting support.

Even in the unfathomable event that Russia were to abandon Syria, direct American military action would cause Iran and Hezbollah, the Assad government’s closest allies, to intensify their support. This would strengthen hawks in Iran and dim prospects for further improvement in United States-Iran relations.

Perhaps the interventionists believe that American military action would force Mr. Assad to the peace table. That prospect is equally implausible. There is no conceivable bargain that the Syrian president could strike with his adversaries, many of whom are hard-line Islamists. He and his colleagues would rather go down fighting than hand Syria to Sunni jihadists. The same goes for Iran and Hezbollah.

‘Bomb Robot’ Takes Down Dallas Gunman, but Raises Enforcement Questions - The New York Times

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/09/science/dallas-bomb-robot.html?_r=0

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/09/science/09BOMB/09BOMB-facebookJumbo.jpg

The Dallas police ended a standoff with the gunman suspected of killing five officers with a tactic that by all accounts appears to be unprecedented: It blew him up using a robot.

In doing so, it sought to protect police who had negotiated with the man for several hours and had exchanged gunfire with him. But the decision ignited a debate about the increasing militarization of police and the remote-controlled use of force, and raised the specter of a new era of policing.

#robot_tueurs

How the Dallas Police Used an Improvised Killer Robot to Take Down the Gunman
▻https://theintercept.com/2016/07/08/how-the-dallas-police-used-an-improvised-killer-robot-to-take-down-the

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/09/science/dallas-bomb-robot.html

#robot #militarisation

Suicide Bombings Hit 3 Cities in Saudi Arabia, One Near a Holy Site - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/05/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-us-consulate-kuwait.html?emc=edit_th_20160705&nl=todaysheadlin

Kuwait also said it had arrested and repatriated a Kuwaiti man who had joined the Islamic State in Syria, as well as his mother and son. The man had studied petroleum engineering in Britain and had moved to Syria to work in oil production for the Islamic State after his older brother was killed while fighting for the group in Iraq, the report said.

F.B.I. Recommends No Charges Against Hillary Clinton for Use of Personal Email - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/06/us/politics/hillary-clinton-fbi-email-comey.html

The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said on Tuesday that the F.B.I. was recommending no charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a personal email server while secretary of state.

The Terrorists the Saudis Cultivate in Peaceful Countries
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/opinion/sunday/the-terrorists-the-saudis-cultivate-in-peaceful-countries.html?smid=fb-shar

Whenever there is a terrorist attack by Muslim extremists, we look to our enemies like the Islamic State or Al Qaeda. But perhaps we should also look to our “friends,” like Saudi Arabia.

For decades, Saudi Arabia has recklessly financed and promoted a harsh and intolerant Wahhabi version of Islam around the world in a way that is, quite predictably, producing terrorists. And there’s no better example of this Saudi recklessness than in the Balkans.

Kosovo and Albania have been models of religious moderation and tolerance, and as the Clinton statue attests, Kosovars revere the United States and Britain for averting a possible genocide by Serbs in 1999 (there are also many Kosovar teenagers named Tony Blair!). Yet Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries poured money into the new nation over the last 17 years and nurtured religious extremism in a land where originally there was little.

Bien noter que ce n’est pas comme si l’opinion de Kristof m’intéresse en elle-même… en revanche, ce qui m’intéresse, c’est que même Kristof écrit des choses aussi rageuses à propos de nos amis Séoudiens dans le New York Times.

Did a Fear of Slave Revolts Drive American Independence?
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opinion/did-a-fear-of-slave-revolts-drive-american-independence.html

For more than two centuries, we have been reading the Declaration of Independence wrong. Or rather, we’ve been celebrating the Declaration as people in the 19th and 20th centuries have told us we should, but not the Declaration as Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams wrote it. To them, separation from Britain was as much, if not more, about racial fear and exclusion as it was about inalienable rights.

The Declaration’s beautiful preamble distracts us from the heart of the document, the 27 accusations against King George III over which its authors wrangled and debated, trying to get the wording just right. The very last one — the ultimate deal-breaker — was the most important for them, and it is for us: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” In the context of the 18th century, “domestic insurrections” refers to rebellious slaves. “Merciless Indian savages” doesn’t need much explanation.

Bombing Kills More Than 140 in Baghdad
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/world/middleeast/baghdad-bombings.html
et dans la presse française, deux lignes. Adieu, veaux, vaches, cochons et belles déclarations de solidarité mondiale contre « l’ennemi commun ». #deuxpoidsdeuxmesures

Mastermind of Istanbul Airport Attack Had Been Georgian Informant, Official Says
▻http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/01/mastermind-of-istanbul-airport-attack-had-been-georgian-informant-off

On Sept. 8, 2012, the general commanded the Georgian counter-terrorist division that arrested Chatayev. But by then, the Chechen had learned how to game the system.

The alleged mastermind of the Istanbul massacre was a Russian citizen who had applied for refugee status in Austria. There, for several years, Chatayev was a representative in Europe for Doku Umarov, the leader of the Caucasus Emirate terrorist organization, according to the general.

Russia tried for years to extradite Chatayev. In 2010 he was briefly under arrest in Ukraine but neither Ukraine nor Georgia—long hostile to Russia’s secret services—would give him back to his home country.

International human rights defenders insisted that the Chatayev, a veteran of the Chechen wars, was protected by the Geneva Convention.

Joshua Brown, Who Died in Self-Driving Accident, Tested Limits of His Tesla - The New York Times
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/business/joshua-brown-technology-enthusiast-tested-the-limits-of-his-tesla.html

Joshua Brown loved his all-electric #Tesla Model S so much he nicknamed it Tessy.

And he celebrated the #Autopilot feature that made it possible for him to cruise the highways, making YouTube videos of himself driving hands-free. In the first nine months he owned it, Mr. Brown put more than 45,000 miles on the car.
[…]
Mr. Brown’s most recent video was his most popular. Titled “Autopilot Saves Model S,” it shows Mr. Brown driving on an interstate highway from Cleveland to Canton. A white truck cuts in front of Mr. Brown’s vehicle, and by his account, the Tesla’s Autopilot feature swerves the car to the right, avoiding a collision.

After Elon Musk, Tesla’s founder, called attention to the video on Twitter, it went viral.

Mr. Brown seemed to be elated.

“He had said, ‘For something to catch Elon Musk’s eye, I can die and go to heaven now,’” said a neighbor, Krista Kitchen, choking up. “He was absolutely thrilled – and then a couple weeks later he died.”

Et le NYT, outre la reproduction du tweet d’Iron Man himself, donne le lien de cette vidéo…
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifpBWxTKhLU