See the winners of this year’s Nat Geo Photo Contest in the categories of People, Places and Nature. There’s some stunning stuff here.
(via photojojo)
Inside the Secret Service | The Atlantic:
Clinton’s brush with death was closer still, and his life may have been saved by a gut decision made by his detail leader. The incident was disclosed only recently by the historian Ken Gormley in his book The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr. The context was Independent Counsel Ken Starr’s effort to force members of the Presidential Protective Detail to disclose particulars of Clinton’s movements and any conversation they might have heard that was germane to his case. Then–Secret Service Director Lewis C. Merletti argued to Starr that a president needed to have complete trust in his protective detail, offering the following example: in 1996, President Clinton was in Manila for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, and had on his agenda a visit with a local official. He was running late, in a surly mood, and eager to get going. According to Gormley, just moments before the motorcade was about to move, agents using a special intelligence-gathering capacity—one that remains classified—picked up radio chatter mentioning the words wedding and bridge. Knowing well that wedding was often a code word for a terrorist hit, Merletti changed the route, which happened to include a bridge. Clinton was angry at the decision, which would cause further delay, but he did not override it. When agents arrived at the bridge, they indeed found explosives: had Clinton taken the prescribed route, he very likely would have been killed. (Within the past decade, the service has added an electronic-countermeasures vehicle— theoretically capable of jamming remotely controlled explosives—to the presidential protection package.)
A fascinating look into a government agency which very seldomly lets the press inside and therefore about which little is written.
The Maccabees perform a Home Alone medley as their Wild Card track for Zane Lowe on Radio 1, recorded live at the BBC’s legendary Maida Vale studios.
(via danger is everywhere)
I cannot wait for this. I know what I’ll be doing on 12/14/12 and 12/13/13.
See Ryan Gosling, Jim Carrey, and Eva Mendes in Drunk History’s ‘The Night Before Christmas’
Three A+-listers goof it up in Funny or Die’s Christmastime edition of beloved web series Drunk History.
Definitely not safe for work.
by Samantha Bennett
And as you stand there: Aghast
Because we’re three days from Opening Night and
Ado Annie still doesn’t know her lines and
The Dream Ballet is a Nightmare and
The Light Board Op just got Detention…
Let us now praise You.
Read the rest of this entry »
Literally the only phone number you’ll ever need.
[via short form blog]