N. Korea Net Crashes, de Blasio Calls for Calm
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Vol. 3, No. 357
Could it Be Satan?: The North Korean Internet went completely offline for nine hours yesterday after several days of instability. The net crash came just days after President Obama promised a “proportional” response to the suspected North Korean hacking of Sony Pictures and threats against showings of the movie The Interview. One analyst told the NY Times it is consistent with a “Directed Denial of Service” attack in which a network is flooded with so much traffic that it collapses.
North Korea is not hooked up to the worldwide web. It has what amounts to a national intranet with state-controlled information sites and a cooking site. Of course, most North Koreans don’t have Internet service anyway.
Cops:New York Mayor Bill de Blasio asked protesters demonstrating against police violence to tone it down until two New York officers who were assassinated in their car are buried. “I think it’s important that, regardless of people’s viewpoints, that everyone step back,” de Blasio said.
But the issue of police violence won’t go away.
Yesterday a Milwaukee grand jury decided not to charge a police officer who killed a man who had been sleeping in a park at 4 in the afternoon. Officer Christopher Manney, who is white, was trying to frisk Dontre Hamilton, who woke up, and according to the officer, tried to grab his baton. Manney shot Hamilton 14 times. The Milwaukee County DA said Manney acted in self-defense, but he was fired from the police for violating procedures.
Close to the Inseam: Dov Charney, the founder and former Chief executive of the clothing chain American Apparel told Bloomberg News he is down to his last $100,000 and living on a friend’s sofa. Charney, 45, was at first suspended by the publicly held company, then fired. He’s trying to fight his way back in. The Canadian born Charney had a brilliant idea to create a cheap-clothing chain with goods made entirely in the US, but he was too cozy with the hot young women he hired and may have been a little loose with the money.
Nation: Famed disc jockey Kasey Kasem, who’s medical treatment and later his body had been in dispute between his kids and his unbalanced wife Jean, has finally been buried …. In Norway. Kasem’s kids believed that their father’s body would have shown signs of elder abuse. Kasem’s daughter Kerry posted on Facebook that Jean Kasem “conned” a Norwegian cemetery into taking her father’s body.
The Obit Page: British blues rocker Joe Cocker, whose rendition of the Beatles’ “With a Little Help from My Friends” at Woodstock became a musical classic, has died of lung cancer at age 70. In addition to his raspy voice, Cocker was distinguished by odd spastic movements he made while singing, which made him look like he had palsy. He wasn’t ill, he was just rocking to his own tunes.
Human Rights: In a landmark case for animal rights activists, an Argentine court has granted the human right to freedom to a Sumatran orangutan named Sandra which … or who … has been held for 20 years in a Buenos Aires zoo. Her animal rights lawyers had argued thatSandra suffered “unjustified confinement of an animal with proven cognitive ability.” They said Sandra has emotion, powers of reason and is aware of the concept of time. The zoo has 10 days to appeal before Sandra is transferred to a nature sanctuary.
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