The People"s Cube is Nine Years Old!

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The People"s Cube is Nine Years Old!

The People"s Cube is Nine Years Old!

At Hey WTF? News, the privacy of our visitors is of extreme importance to us (See this article to learn more about Privacy Policies.). This privacy policy document outlines the types of personal information is received and collected by Hey WTF? News and how it is used.

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The People"s Cube is Nine Years Old!

Nine Years on the No-Fly List Because an FBI Agent "Checked the Wrong Box"

Over the years, I’ve written about a number of people who have been put on the no-fly list and prevented from entering the country for no apparent reason. Or, at any rate, for no reason the government cares to share with its victims. One of them is a Malaysian PhD student named Rahinah Ibrahim, who was detained at San Francisco International Airport in 2005; eventually allowed to fly home; and then put on the no-fly list and never allowed back in the country. Why? As usual, no one is willing to say.

But this week we got a bit of a hint. Over at Glenn Greenwald’s new venture, The Intercept, Murtaza Hussain reports on the latest developments:

Last week, a federal judge publicly revealed the government’s explanation for Ibrahim’s long ordeal: an FBI agent had “checked the wrong box,” resulting in her falling under suspicion as a terrorist. Even when the government found and corrected the error years later, they still refused to allow Ibrahim to return to the country or learn on what grounds she had been banned in the first place.

[Eric] Holder, in his April declaration, restated his own new state secrets policy, that “[t]he Department will not defend an invocation of the privilege in order to: (i) conceal violations of the law, inefficiency, or administrative error; (ii) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency of the United States Government”.

Then he did exactly what he had said he wouldn’t do.

Is there more to this? Maybe. The government, needless to say, isn’t talking. But it sure looks as if Ibrahim became a target for investigation; an FBI agent then filled out a form wrong; she was later cleared of any suspicion; but the mistake lived on forever and now no one wants to admit it. Do you feel safer now?

MoJo Blogs and Articles | Mother Jones

Nine Years on the No-Fly List Because an FBI Agent "Checked the Wrong Box"

Walmart manager blasts company policy: Some employees haven’t gotten a raise in nine years

By Arturo Garcia
Thursday, February 6, 2014 22:29 EST

An unidentified Walmart store manager ripped the corporation in an anonymous letter published on Thursday, saying practices have deteriorated over the past two decades.

“Walmart use [sic] to keep giving you raises no matter your hourly rate,” the manager wrote to Gawker. “They now have caps based on position held. I have many associates who have not received a raise in nearly nine years.”

The manager’s letter stated that he began working for the company shortly after the death of founder Sam Walton in 1992, and used to consider himself a defender of Walmart’s policies.

“Walmart was a good company to work for in relations to the retail sector,” he wrote. “However I feel horrible for the associates I have to manage and the struggles they face. I ask this question, How come in 1999 Walmart could pay me over $ 10 an hour but in 2014 I hire people in at $ 8.00 an hour?”

Not only are incoming employees paid less, he said, but they are also ineligible for Christmas bonuses. Also, store managers no longer have the authority to authorize raises; instead, that is decided at the corporate level.

“I could keep going but basically Walmart has been hacking on its benefit and pay structure for years to save on cost,” the manager wrote. “Their over all view point [sic] is that there is little difference in performance and return on investment [between] a ten year associate and a new hire.”

The manager also explained that he could “never send an honest feedback” within the company without fearing for repercussions, saying Walmart had discontinued a feature allowing any employee to submit questions to former chief executive officer Lee Scott.

“Retaliation is alive at Walmart,” the author told Gawker, saying he wrote in using a new email address to further protect himself.

[Image via Agence France-Presse]

Arturo Garcia

Arturo R. García is the managing editor at Racialicious.com. He is based in San Diego, California and has written for both print and broadcast media, including contributions to GlobalComment.com, The Root and Comment Is Free. Follow him on Twitter at @ABoyNamedArt

The Raw Story

Walmart manager blasts company policy: Some employees haven’t gotten a raise in nine years

Nine Inch Nails - Piggy (VEVO Presents)

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Nine Inch Nails: Help Me I Am In Hell (1992)

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VEVO Presents: Nine Inch Nails Tension 2013

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Nine Inch Nails - Closer | Live | Moshcam

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""The Perfect Drug"" (1997) Nine Inch Nails

Gunmen in Pakistan kill nine in attack at mosque on Muslim holiday

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1 of 2. A injured man is wheeled on a stretcher as he arrives at a hospital in Quetta August 9, 2013.


Credit: Reuters/Naseer Ahmed








By Gul Yusufzai


QUETTA, Pakistan | Fri Aug 9, 2013 4:32am EDT





QUETTA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Gunmen in Pakistan fired on the vehicle of a politician driving past worshippers leaving a mosque on the Muslim holy day of Eid, killing nine people and injuring 27 in the western city of Quetta, police said.




Quetta is the capital of eastern Baluchistan province, where several militant groups are active, including the Pakistani Taliban, who claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack that killed 30 people at a policeman’s funeral on Thursday.




The United States has warned citizens not to travel to Pakistan and has ordered the evacuation of non-essential staff from its consulate in the northeastern city of Lahore due to the threat of attack.




Police official Bashir Brohi said Friday’s shooting seemed to have been aimed at former provincial minister Ali Mohammad Jattack as his vehicle went by, but the motive and perpetrators were unclear.




“The majority of the injured faithful were coming from the mosque,” said Brohi. “It was an armed attack on the former minister … it was not an attack on the mosque.”




The attack is the latest instance of spiraling militant violence since Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif took office two months ago, with a string of high-profile attacks in the last two weeks.




Sharif’s government has not yet presented a security strategy, despite campaign promises to negotiate with militant groups. Security in the capital, Islamabad, was tightened in the run-up to Eid, which ends the Ramadan fasting month.




The United States shut nearly two dozen missions across the Middle East after a worldwide alert on August 2, warning Americans that al Qaeda may be planning attacks in August, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.




It was unclear when the Lahore consulate would open, a U.S. embassy spokeswoman said.




Tensions have also risen this week with Pakistan’s neighbor, India, after five of its soldiers were killed near the border running through disputed Kashmir.




(Writing by Katharine Houreld; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)





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We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/




Comments (2)






Hate that it’s true, but few of these Muslim holidays are ever complete anymore (for the past several years) without Muslims killing Muslims in some Muslim country.




Aug 09, 2013 3:58am EDT  –  Report as abuse








Primitive men with guns.Muslims who like to kill fellow Muslims,and yet claim the Koran is a book of peace,though subject to interpretation it seems,as all non Muslims [Infidels,Kuffars] should be slaughtered ! The Religion of Peace…NOT !




Aug 09, 2013 3:59am EDT  –  Report as abuse




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Reuters: Most Read Articles

Gunmen in Pakistan kill nine in attack at mosque on Muslim holiday

Nine US embassies reopen

President Barack Obama is receiving regular briefings on a terror threat that has closed U.S. diplomatic posts in the Middle East. NBC’s Kristen Welker reports.

By Henry Austin, NBC News contributor

About one-third the U.S. diplomatic posts that were temporarily shuttered due to a “serious threat” of al Qaeda attack reopened on Monday, hours after officials extended closures at 15 others through Saturday and shut four more.

Nine embassies and consulates opened their doors again, but a further 19 would be closed through Saturday “out of an abundance of caution,” the State Department said.

“This is not an indication of a new threat stream, merely an indication of our commitment to exercise caution and take appropriate steps to protect our employees including local employees and visitors to our facilities,” the State Department said in a statement late Sunday.

They added that many would have been shut for the celebration of Eid at the end of Ramadan. 

“Out of an abundance of caution, we’ve decided to extend the closure of several embassies and consulates including a small number of additional posts,” the State Department added. 

The countries with closure orders covered much of the Muslim and Arab world. 

However, U.S. posts in Dhaka, Algiers, Nouakchott, Kabul, Herat, Mazar el Sharif, Baghdad, Basrah and Erbil reopened on Monday.     

Missions in Abu Dhabi, Amman, Cairo, Riyadh, Dhahran, Jeddah, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Manama, Muscat, Sanaa, Tripoli, Antanarivo, Bujumbura, Djibouti, Khartoum, Kigali, and Port Louis will be closed until at least Saturday.

Officials told NBC News that the threat appears to be linked to Yemen, but the State Department has only confirmed that the warnings are generally tied to al Qaeda.

Yemen is home to perhaps the most dangerous terror network affiliate, known as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The lethal wing is considered responsible for several terrorist strikes on the United States, including the foiled Christmas Day 2009 attempt to bomb an airplane over Detroit.

“The one thing we can talk about is the fact that there’s been an awful lot of chatter out there,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R.-Ga.), the ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He added that the chatter is “very reminiscent of what we saw pre-9/11.”

“This is the most serious threat that I’ve seen in the last several years,” he added.

The Obama administration announced the weekend closures on Friday, and the State Department later released a global travel warning.

The alert called on American travelers to take additional precautions overseas, pointing to potential dangers involved with public transportation systems and other likely locations for tourists. It said that previous terrorist attacks have targeted subway and rail networks as well as airplanes and boats.

The alert is slated to expire Aug. 31.

The decision to close the U.S. diplomatic missions on Sunday — a work day in most of the region — came almost a year after an attack on a U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, that killed the ambassador and three other Americans.

NBC News’ Catherine Chomiak and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

This story was originally published on Mon Aug 5, 2013 5:59 AM EDT

Nine US embassies reopen

Gunmen shoot dead nine policemen in northern Iraq

MOSUL, Iraq | Wed Jul 24, 2013 6:06am EDT

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Militants riding on pick-up trucks opened fire on a checkpoint in northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing nine policemen, police said.

The attack took place in Shura, 50 km (35 miles) south of Mosul, Iraq’s third largest city and capital of the Sunni-dominated Nineveh province, where al Qaeda has been regrouping.

The gunmen showered the checkpoint with a hail of bullets from several directions. An ambulance that rushed to the scene was hit by a bomb that had been planted on the road beforehand, wounding the driver and a nurse, police said.

Sunni Islamist militants have been regaining momentum in their insurgency against the Shi’ite-led government in recent months, striking on an almost daily basis.

Iraq’s steadily deteriorating security was highlighted by a mass jailbreak near the capital on Sunday when around 500 convicts, including senior al Qaeda operatives, escaped after militants attacked two prisons.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which was formed through a merger between al Qaeda’s Syrian and Iraqi branches, claimed responsibility for the raids and said it had freed its jailed comrades after months of preparation.

One security official told Reuters on Tuesday that some of the escaped inmates were heading to Syria to join the ranks of the mainly Sunni rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi’ite Islam.

Sectarian tensions across the region have been inflamed by the Syrian civil war, which has also drawn in Shi’ite fighters from Iraq.

More than 720 people have been killed in militant attacks in Iraq so far in July, according to violence monitoring group Iraq Body Count.

(Reporting by Ziad al-Sinjary; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Reuters: Top News

Gunmen shoot dead nine policemen in northern Iraq

Angry Pakistan summons envoy after U.S. drone strike kills nine

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – A U.S. drone strike killed nine people in northwest Pakistan, security officials said, prompting newly sworn-in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to summon America’s envoy on Saturday to protest against such attacks.

Reuters: Top News

Angry Pakistan summons envoy after U.S. drone strike kills nine

Angry Pakistan summons envoy after U.S. drone strike kills nine

Pakistan’s newly elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (C) arrives to inspect the guard of honor during a ceremony at the prime minister’s residence after being sworn-in, in Islamabad June 5, 2013.

Credit: Reuters/Mian Khursheed

Reuters: Top News

Angry Pakistan summons envoy after U.S. drone strike kills nine