The Life & Times...
Âllo qu'est-ce qui se passe? // allo, how's it going? Tell me your secrets, I'm listening....
~ previously on sofarsoShawn:
former WaPo Journalist ~ currently in the process of a Bone Marrow Transplant for Leukemia (AML)...interests: tech, politics, books, & keeping a sense of humour :)
Like stufff: the net, guys, girls, photography, shiny sparkly things, things that spin, architecture, interesting stuff, funny funny funny, ~taking note of the beautiful that surround us every day~ and being very, very controversial. [Parental Advisory]
On March 25, 1911, fire swept through the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City, killing 146 employees, most of them women.
(via dendroica)
![theatlantic:
Declassified MI5 Documents Reveal Some of the British Spy Service’s Dumbest Ideas
Once again, the British spy agency MI5 has declassified a whole pile of its once-secret papers, giving us a window into the world of covert analysis and operations. And, once again, there’s at least one resounding conclusion to be drawn: people come up with a lot of idiotic stuff behind closed doors.
In the 1950s, for example, American authorities contacted MI5, according to the papers, terribly concerned that Charlie Chaplin was actually a Russian Jew named Israel Thornstein. At the American request, MI5 looked into the matter, admitting finally that the actor’s origins were unclear. Though, as the then-head of MIF’s counter subversion branch wrote, according to The Telegraph, “I scarcely think that this is of any security significance.”
Or how about the files that reveal details of Nazi plans to flood Europe with fake British currency? In the period from 1940 to 1944, was this really the best use of resources? The fakes were so good that a different department of the German secret service itself was taken in, apparently either unaware of the plan or unable to identify the forgeries, buying the fake notes in order to pay their agents in England.
Read more. [Image: Wikimedia]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lzjuisQrFf1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
Declassified MI5 Documents Reveal Some of the British Spy Service’s Dumbest Ideas
Once again, the British spy agency MI5 has declassified a whole pile of its once-secret papers, giving us a window into the world of covert analysis and operations. And, once again, there’s at least one resounding conclusion to be drawn: people come up with a lot of idiotic stuff behind closed doors.
In the 1950s, for example, American authorities contacted MI5, according to the papers, terribly concerned that Charlie Chaplin was actually a Russian Jew named Israel Thornstein. At the American request, MI5 looked into the matter, admitting finally that the actor’s origins were unclear. Though, as the then-head of MIF’s counter subversion branch wrote, according to The Telegraph, “I scarcely think that this is of any security significance.”
Or how about the files that reveal details of Nazi plans to flood Europe with fake British currency? In the period from 1940 to 1944, was this really the best use of resources? The fakes were so good that a different department of the German secret service itself was taken in, apparently either unaware of the plan or unable to identify the forgeries, buying the fake notes in order to pay their agents in England.
Read more. [Image: Wikimedia]
“In the Navy…”
In 1854, a 600-foot slip was proposed at a cost of 35,000 pounds sterling but considered too costly. Three years later there was a plan for a dry-dock and yet another slip in 1862. Then it was decided Bermuda should have a floating dock. It was built by English floating dock engineers Campbell & Johnstone at Blackwall on the River Thames and completed on June 23, 1869.
from Bermuda’s Royal Navy base at Ireland Island from 1815 to the 1960s
Another fantastic interactive by NYT: 30 Years of the Space Shuttle
Another fantastic interactive by NYT: 30 Years of the Space Shuttle
An example to follow.
“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”
—Martin Luther King Jr.
A learned indifference:
“In the concentration camps the incarnation of indifference, or one who has given in to despair, is the ‘mussulmen’, as certain camp inmates were called. A mussulmen was someone who died before their time; someone who was still alive but had become indifferent to his or her fate. They no longer suffered from the beatings or from hunger. In their indifference, however, they had become their own victims.” - Nancy Loevinger
~ so we don’t forget, and so remember and to fight for those to whom this is happening to today
