• Lucian Read, from Digital Journalist:

    The battalion and company limped out of Fallujah heroes–a fistful of Bronze Stars, a Navy Cross. That Navy Cross was one of only eight since the war began. If the First Sergeant who earned it had died they probably would have given him The Medal. I took the photo that helped to bring him the recognition. In the image, two young Marines carry a grim older Marine from a house, his arms around their shoulders, lap and legs covered in blood, pistol still at the ready as he nearly bleeds to death. He saved Nicoll’s life when he took the blast from the grenade. Then he gave up his tourniquet as he bled from 50 places. Books have been, are being written about it. The picture is now on posters wherever two or three Marines gather together, an example for generations of Marines to come.

    To the Marines, I am that guy who took that picture. A year and a half later, my pictures of these same Marines run under the words “shame, massacre, bloodbath.”

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  • From the Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids:

    When you said shit business is serious business, could you please expatiate on that?
    Yes, what I mean is that every human-being on earth excretes. Man, woman, children etc and no one would want to stay there after doing it. So, if you decides to pack the shit and you are not serious you won’t do it, it’s a serious business because it is not something that smells nice, if you don’t do it with passion or won’t want to be identified with it, you can’t do it because it is not a job anybody can wake up to tell the whole Nigeria he does. So I am passionate about it, it’s a serious business. Something that 120 million Nigerians will wake up to do everyday must be a serious business.

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  • From The Guardian:

    The Chechen rebel leader who claimed responsibility for the Beslan school massacre and the Moscow theatre siege has been killed, Russian media reported today.

    Russia’s Itar-Tass news agency reported that Shamil Basayev, who led the most violent wing of the Chechen separatist movement, had been killed overnight in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, to the west of Chechnya.

    Here.

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  • From The Girls:

    Well, hello there.
    Here’s some paintings that some people might not know about, available through Lunar Boy Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.

    Here.

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  • From obeygiant:

    So, after two years in the making Supply and Demand has finally arrived and I’m very happy with the results. This book is 350 pages, large format (9″x12″) with a foil embossed cover. More than looking spiffy from the outside, it is mega-juicy on the inside. There are tons of images that have never been published as well as essays and interviews by Steven Heller, Carlo McCormick, Roger Gastman, Rob Walker, Helen Stickler, and me. This is the definitive case study, art book, bible of Obey Giant. I hope you dig it. All copies from the site are signed.
    -Shepard

    Preview Here.

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  • From The New York Times Magazine:

    On the day she witnessed the engagement party of 11-year-old Ghulam Haider to 40-year-old Faiz Mohammed, Sinclair discreetly took the girl aside. “What are you feeling today?” the photographer asked. “Nothing,” the bewildered girl answered. “I do not know this man. What am I supposed to feel?”

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  • From the Daily Sun, Nigeria’s King of the Tabloids:

    Take a look, Tunde’s wife is four times his size, and perhaps weight. Now, how does he cope with this woman Mountain, considering the endless “rounds” he must perform each time she needs him, that is during and after he is eventually granted his residency? Can he weather the marriage? This appears to be the challenge as he must be seen to perform his duty and keep his residency status.

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  • From 4colorrebellion:

    So you say you want a time waster for this week-end? Here’s what I have for you: Multiplayer Asteroids!

    Multiplayer Asteroids combines the classic Asteroids gameplay we’ve learn to love with this unique and hectic multiplayer mayhem.

    Here.

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  • Photographer Tyler Hicks, from the New York Times:

    The Americans face the hard job of trying to tell local farmers from Taliban insurgents, who have gained strength across southern Afghanistan. The Americans set up a base, then probed into villages. They were soon ambushed. The Taliban can easily persuade or coerce villagers to assist them. They arm the villagers or equip them with radios. Almost any man is suspect. During one raid, which was typical, the Americans separated the men. Homes were searched, and the men were marched to the base for questioning.

    Here.

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  • Issue #2 now online, featuring:

    Legendary photographer Bill Owens, Disposable Hero, Michelle Caplan, Keith Johnson, Josh Cochran, Jason Olson, Mario Ruiz, Olive47, Andrew Faulkner, and Seizer (photos by Nicholas Miramontes).

    Here.

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  • From the New York Times:

    “Let’s see, Lance Corporal Tussey, shot in the thigh.

    “Lance Corporal Zimmerman, shot in the leg.

    “Lance Corporal Sardinas, shrapnel, hit in the face.

    “Lance Corporal Wilson, shrapnel in the throat.”

    “That’s all I can think of right now,” the captain said.

    So it goes in Ramadi, the epicenter of the Iraqi insurgency and the focus of a grinding struggle between the American forces and the guerrillas.

    Here.

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  • From Wooster Collective:

    Artist: Tano Location: Division Street

    Here.

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  • From the BBC:

    According to reports on a Somali news network, gunmen arrived to close down the cinema in the town of Dhuusa Marreeb in central Galgadud district, where a crowd had gathered to watch the Germany-Italy World Cup semi-final.

    Some of the football fans began to protest and according to reports, the gunmen fired in the air in an attempt to disperse them.

    When this failed, shots were fired at the demonstrators and two people were killed.

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  • From the Washington Post:

    Ali Iman Sharmarke, a businessman and radio journalist in Mogadishu, said he believed the Islamic militias would lose power if they grew too strict in their interpretation of religious law. “People will hate them as they hated the warlords,” Sharmarke said from Nairobi. “The moderates will not fly with bin Laden.”

    But Jamal said it was increasingly apparent that outsiders — bin Laden, the United Nations, the United States, the African Union, Ethiopia, Eritrea — were shaping events, rather than Somalis.

    “It looks like the interests of the Somali will not be looked after,” he said. “The situation is really very, very bad right now.”

    Here.

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  • From the Ironton Tribune:

    Robert Alex Szatowski, aka WWE and ECW champion Rob Van Dam, and Terry Michael Brunk, aka Sabu, also a former ECW champion, were pulled over on U.S. 52, near Patrick Street in Hanging Rock at about 10:15 p.m. The two were apparently driving from their performances at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena earlier in the evening.

    According to the OSHP, Szatowski was initially stopped for speeding. When troopers approached his vehicle, they smelled marijuana and performed a search. Troopers found the wrestler in possession of 18 grams of marijuana and five Vicodin, prescription pain pills. Brunk was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia and also had nine pills that were not immediately identifiable, but were known to be controlled substances, according to the OSHP. Both were cited and posted bond at the scene.

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  • June 2006 issue of Crisis Watch, from the International Crisis Group:

    Tensions and violence escalated in Israel/Occupied Territories as the Israeli military launched operations into Gaza following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants. In Sudan, implementation of the Darfur Peace Agreement faltered as rebel divisions widened. Insecurity along the border between Chad and Sudan increased as government forces and Chadian rebels renewed fighting. Efforts to resolve the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea were dealt a setback when Eritrea refused to attend a meeting of the International Boundary Commission in The Hague. For North Korea, U.S. intelligence reports suggesting Pyongyang is preparing to test intercontinental ballistic missiles caused widespread alarm. And in Macedonia the campaign for the 5 July general election was marred by violence. The situation also deteriorated in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Guinea, Morocco, North Caucasus (non-Chechnya), Senegal and Somalia.

    Here.

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  • Richard Clarke and Roger Cressey, from the New York Times:

    There is, of course, another possible explanation for all the outraged bloviating. It is an election year. Karl Rove has already said that if it were up to the Democrats, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would still be alive. The attacks on the press are part of a political effort by administration officials to use terrorism to divide America, and to scare their supporters to the polls again this year.

    The administration and its Congressional backers want to give the impression that they are fighting a courageous battle against those who would wittingly or unknowingly help the terrorists. And with four months left before Election Day, we can expect to hear many more outrageous claims about terrorism — from partisans on both sides. By now, sadly, Americans have come to expect it.

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  • From the Moscow Times, Chris Floyd on Ron Suskind’s new book “The One Percent Doctrine”:

    But perhaps the most revealing moment in Suskind’s book is a brief vignette that captures the quintessence of Bush’s callous disregard for the American people — and the regime’s strange, preternatural calm in the face of imminent attack. In August 2001, while Bush dawdled on his Texas dude ranch, the entire national security system was, in Tenet’s words, “blinking red” in expectation of a major terrorist strike. On Aug. 6, a CIA official brought the infamous “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” memo to Crawford and read it out personally to the president. In response, he got nothing but a snide dismissal: “All right, you’ve covered your ass now.”

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  • From the BBC:

    Team manager Olaf Ludwig said: “We talked to the riders several times and even have their declarations of innocence in written form.

    “At first we had no reason to doubt the riders’ statements, but that situation has now changed profoundly.”

    Ullrich, Basso and Mancebo are unlikely be the last big names to be suspended from the Tour de France after organisers ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation) revealed that they have been given a list of more than 50 riders involved in the probe.

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  • From The New Yorker:

    Most Americans, even those who follow politics closely, have probably never heard of Dick Cheney’s chief of staff David S. Addington. But current and former Administration officials say that he has played a central role in shaping the Administration’s legal strategy for the war on terror. Known as the New Paradigm, this strategy rests on a reading of the Constitution that few legal scholars share—namely, that the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has the authority to disregard virtually all previously known legal boundaries, if national security demands it. Under this framework, statutes prohibiting torture, secret detention, and warrantless surveillance have been set aside. A former high-ranking Administration lawyer who worked extensively on national-security issues said that the Administration’s legal positions were, to a remarkable degree, “all Addington.” Another lawyer, Richard L. Shiffrin, who until 2003 was the Pentagon’s deputy general counsel for intelligence, said that Addington was “an unopposable force.”

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