By Steve Rhodes
I’ll be at this event tonight for a book I helped edit over the winter. You’re all invited.
See also: Unlock Congress!
Hot Road Dog
“LeBron James led teams are a great bet in close-out playoff games (with three wins in the series), going 22-8 straight up and 20-9-1 against the spread in those contests, cashing 69 percent of the time,” Covers.com notes.
“The Cavaliers will try to keep that trend going when they try to finish off the Bulls in six games Thursday night in Chicago. The Cavaliers are currently 2-point road dogs.”
Incommunicado Forever
“Soon after the agency’s contractors began their program of ‘enhanced interrogation” at the secret black site in Thailand – placing him in a coffin-size box; slamming him against wall; depriving him of sleep; bombarding him with loud music; as well as waterboarding – they sent an encrypted cable to Washington,” ProPublica reports.
The CIA interrogators said that if Zubaydah died during questioning, his body would be cremated. But if he survived the ordeal, the interrogators wanted assurances that he would “remain in isolation and incommunicado for the remainder of his life.”
Senior officials gave the assurances. Zubaydah, a Saudi citizen, “will never be placed in a situation where he has any significant contact with others and/or has the opportunity to be released,” the head of the CIA’s ALEC Station, the code name of the Washington-based unit hunting Osama bin Laden, replied. “All major players are in concurrence,” the cable said, that he “should remain incommunicado for the remainder of his life.”
Click through to read the whole tale.
Civics Stuff
“[T]his summer, political science professors and graduate students at the University of Chicago who curate the Black Youth Project, an online clearinghouse of research, blogs, and media postings by young black Americans, will partner with the city schools to train a couple dozen high school students in survey methods, digital literacy and production, and organizing via social media,” Slate reports.
“The same partnership is also weaving new media skills into a pilot civics curriculum linked with a service-learning requirement in Chicago Public Schools, just as the Illinois state legislature is poised to make civics a high school graduation requirement.”
Tourist Alert
“Chicago hotels are advising visitors to keep their windows closed and to be on the lookout for flying spiders,” the Weather Network reports.
Hack United
“Chicago-based United Airlines, the world’s largest in terms of number of destinations served, has today launched the first rewards-for-exploits scheme in the aviation industry,” The Stack reports.
“United’s ‘Bug Bounty Program’ will reward with air-miles individuals who report security vulnerabilities in the company’s range of websites, its app, and in third party programs that it uses.”
Op-Art
“A pair of identical twin sisters – an optometry student and an artist – teamed to create a brain-bending optical illusion ‘reverspective’ painting in Chicago,” UPI reports.
Here it is:
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BeachBook
* Wicker Park Taco Bell Could Become First In World To Sell Alcohol.
* Rainbo Cone Won’t Be At Taste Of Chicago This Year.
* U.S.S. Illinois Nuclear Sub Now Under Construction.
* Pac-Man Celebrates 35 Years At Chicago Event.
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TweetWood
A sampling.
Moody’s just downgraded my dinner to junk food.
— Beachwood Reporter (@BeachwoodReport) May 13, 2015
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.@GStephanopoulos office leaked this to Politico after I asked them for comment. https://t.co/jBEZVxpT06
— Andrew Stiles (@AndrewStilesUSA) May 14, 2015
On the one hand, @GStephanopoulos isn’t a journalist. On the other hand, he does play one on TV. So this matters.
— Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) May 14, 2015
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Book it.
Posted on May 14, 2015