Exposure Today
Update on Gaza, Day 6. According to the New York Times, 19 more people have been killed in Gaza since midnight local time, bringing a current death toll up to 91, with 700 wounded (200 of those being children). According to Health Ministry official Ashraf Al-Kidra, civilians make up half of the Palestinian death toll. [Update: According to Al Jazeera’s figures, it’s 96.]
This morning an Israeli airstrike hit the Shurooq media center, a high-rise in Gaza City where a number of media organizations, both local and foreign, have their offices. The building houses Hamas’ television station, Al Aqsa, and this is the second strike on the building within two days. BBC journalist Paul Danahar tweeted a photo of the media center just after the strike (included in the above photoset).
Mona Mahmood of The Guardian interviewed West Bank resident Sameeh Muhssein about demonstrations in the West Bank in solidarity with Gaza. He said:
The Palestinian Authority is trying to stop the protesters … under the pretext of not having more causalities [sic]. If the aggression continued on Gaza, I can promise you there will be a third intifada as the political solution looks really futile and people are very upset here as they learn every few minutes of more martyrs in Gaza. We can’t put our feelings in a refrigerator and just keep watching; it is really heartbreaking watching the bodies of the children under the debris.From Cairo, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal has stated:
All options are available. If Israel wants a ceasefire brokered through Egypt, then that is possible. Escalation is also possible, especially as there are differences in Israeli statements. We are prepared and ready for all options.
According to Reuters reporting, Meshaal is for a truce if demands are met, demands that include an end to Israel’s attacks and an end to the siege.
Highly recommend staying updated with The Guardian’s ever-excellent live blog, and making sure you read more than what I’ve put up here, which is just a brief snapshot. And check out the Reuters live blog for a live feed of the Gaza City skyline.
Photos: Gaza City/Bernat Armangue/AP; Shurooq media building in Gaza City/Paul Danahar; remains of a Hamas building in Gaza City/Yasser Gdeeh/Reuters; Hamas rockets sent toward Israel/Mohammed Saber/EPA; Gaza City residents flee their homes following an airstrike/Bernat Armangue/AP
View Larger Mitt Romney spotted in the wild.
bigfoot.
yikes
“I once had it all…” Jesus, it looks like he’s been sitting around eating nothing but McDonald’s and swimming in his money vault all day.
(Source: thatcablenewsblog)
Expired Assault Weapons Ban Would Have Prevented James Holmes From Legally Buying His AR-15 Assault Rifle →
One of the principal weapons used by James Eagan Holmes in the horrific Dark Knight Rises shooting would have been subject to a series of sharp restrictions under the now-expired federal Assault Weapons ban. The AR-15 rife carried by Holmes, a civilian semi-automatic version of the military M-16, would have been defined as a “semiautomatic assault weapon” under the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. If the law was still in force, semiautomatic assault weapons would have been outright banned:
- Such weapons were “unlawful for a person to manufacture, transfer, or possess” under section (a)(v)(i).
- Though there were several loopholes in the Violent Crime Control Act that allowed gun manufacturers to legally produce slightly modified AR-15s, a new version of the bill proposed in 2008 closed them.
- The 1994 Act contained a sunset provision that caused it to automatically expire 10 years after passage, and it was not renewed in 2004, meaning that there are no federal restrictions on the ownership of AR-15s and similar weapons. Both Congressman Ed Perlmutter (who represents Aurora, the site of the shooting) and President Obama proposed a new assault weapons ban during their campaigns.
Today, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called on the President and Governor Romney to address gun violence, saying “maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be President of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country.”
Update
Holmes’ guns, including his AR-15, were all legally purchased since May from two national chains, Bass Pro Shops and Gander Mountain Guns.
Update
Purportedly, the AR-15 used by Holmes had a high-capacity clip, which were banned as “large capacity ammunition feeding devices” in the 1994 legislation.
![feelin-the-aster:
My heart goes out to anyone effected by the shooting in Colorado. This was a horrible tragedy and in times like this it’s hard to see the good in the world when so much bad is staring you in the face. But, there is good in the world, there may be bad guys, but there are heroes too. Police officers, Doctors, EMT’s, SWAT, these men and countless others put their lives on the line every day to stop people like this man.
I still believe in heroes.
[[A moment to recognize those who were taken from us, stranger or not.]]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7hahrRPYT1r78gc3o1_500.jpg)
View Larger My heart goes out to anyone effected by the shooting in Colorado. This was a horrible tragedy and in times like this it’s hard to see the good in the world when so much bad is staring you in the face. But, there is good in the world, there may be bad guys, but there are heroes too. Police officers, Doctors, EMT’s, SWAT, these men and countless others put their lives on the line every day to stop people like this man.
I still believe in heroes.
[[A moment to recognize those who were taken from us, stranger or not.]]
View Larger p-3a:
Pay equity, his and hers.
Gonna add this every time I see this
again: I haven’t even added anything about the housing, employment and pay discrimination that transgender people of all ethnicities, but especially trans WOC, face - discrimination which is totally legal in several states
View Larger Personhood USA’s Keith and Jennifer Mason, a married couple who happen to be leaders of the “personhood” movement to define human embryos as legal people, which would effectively outlaw abortion. Critics charge that personhood could also outlaw some forms of birth control, in-vitro fertilization, and stem-cell research. In a profile we’ve got in the mag this week, Keith Mason disputes these charges, telling his side of the story. Read it, and let’s hear your take w/ a reblog.
View Larger Clever
Wind Energy, find out more: http://www.sierraclub.org/windworks/
(via: Sierra Club | Facebook)
View Larger JCPenney is featuring a same-sex couple in its Fathers’ Day ad, following One Million Moms’ failed boycott of the store for bringing on Ellen DeGeneres.
40 of the Most Powerful Photographs Ever Taken!!! →
A moving collection of iconic photographs from the last 100 years that demonstrate the heartbreak of loss, the tremendous power of loyalty, and the triumph of the human spirit. Warning: Some of these will make you weep.
1.Sisters pose for the same photo three separate times, years apart.
2.A Russian war veteran kneels beside the tank he spent the war in, now a monument. (More pictures here.)
Via: englishrussia.com3.A Romanian child hands a heart-shaped balloon to riot police during protests against austerity measures in Bucharest.
Via: theworldreporter.com4.Retired Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis is arrested for participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011.
Via: prosebeforehos.com5.A monk prays for an elderly man who had died suddenly while waiting for a train in Shanxi Taiyuan, China.
Source: chinasmack.com / via: reddit.com6.A dog named “Leao” sits for a second consecutive day at the grave of her owner, who died in the disastrous landslides near Rio de Janiero on January 15, 2011.
(Getty Images / Vanderlei Almeida)7.The 1968 Olympics Black Power Salute: African American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists in a gesture of solidarity at the 1968 Olympic games. Australian Silver medalist Peter Norman wore an Olympic Project for Human Rights badge in support of their protest. Both Americans were expelled from the games as a result.
Via: en.wikipedia.org8.Jewish prisoners at the moment of their liberation from an internment camp “death train” near the Elbe in 1945. (More pictures and the full story here.)
Via: hfcsd.org9.John F. Kennedy Jr. salutes his father’s coffin along with the honor guard.
Source: iconicphotos.wordpress.com10.Christians protect Muslims during prayer in the midst of the uprisings in Cairo, Egypt, in 2011.
Via: @NevineZaki11.Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg hugs Eskil Pedersen, one of the leaders at the AUF summer camp in Utoya, shortly after 69 of its members were massacred by a right-wing terrorist.
Via: reddit.com12.A dog is reunited with his owner following the tsunami in Japan in 2011.
Via: seattledogspot.com13.Five-year-old Kiki reaches out for his mother after being rescued from an 8-day ordeal buried under rubble caused by the earthquake in Haiti.
Source: nypost.com / via: reddit.com14.Navy chaplain Luis Padillo gives last rites to a soldier wounded by sniper fire during a revolt in Venezuela. (Héctor Rondón Lovera)
15.Australian Scott Jones kisses his Canadian girlfriend Alex Thomas after she was knocked to the ground by a police officer’s riot shield in Vancouver, British Columbia. Canadians rioted after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins.
(Getty Images / Rich Lam)16.A mother comforts her son in Concord, Alabama, near his house which was completely destroyed by a tornado in April of 2011.
(AP / Jeff Roberts)17.Agim Shala, 2, is passed through a barbed wire fence into the hands of his grandparents at a camp run by United Arab Emirates in Albania as members of the Shala family are reunited after fleeing Kosovo.
18.Phyllis Siegel, 76, left, and Connie Kopelov, 84, both of New York, embrace after becoming the first same-sex couple to get married at the Manhattan City Clerk’s office in 2011.
(Getty Images / Stan Honda)19.A 4-month-old baby girl in a pink bear suit is miraculously rescued from the rubble by soldiers after four days missing following the Japanese tsunami.
(Reuters / Yomiuri Shimbun)20.A French civilian cries in despair as Nazis occupy Paris during World War II.
21.PoW Horace Greasley defiantly confronts Heinrich Himmler during an inspection of the camp he was confined in. Greasley also famously escaped from the camp and snuck back in more than 200 times to meet in secret with a local German girl he had fallen in love with.
Source: telegraph.co.uk22.A firefighter gives water to a koala during the devastating Black Saturday bushfires that burned across Victoria, Australia, in 2009.
(Reuters / Mark Pardew)23.Robert Peraza pauses at his son’s name on the 9/11 Memorial during the tenth anniversary ceremonies at the site of the World Trade Center.
(Getty Images / Justin Lane-Pool)24.Jacqueline Kennedy wears her pink Chanel suit, still stained with the blood of her husband, as Lyndon Johnson takes the oath of office in Air Force One.
According to Lady Bird Johnson, who was also present:
“Her hair [was] falling in her face but [she was] very composed … I looked at her. Mrs. Kennedy’s dress was stained with blood. One leg was almost entirely covered with it and her right glove was caked, it was caked with blood – her husband’s blood. Somehow that was one of the most poignant sights – that immaculate woman, exquisitely dressed, and caked in blood.”
Source: en.wikipedia.org / via: reddit.com25.Tanisha Blevin, 5, holds the hand of fellow Hurricane Katrina victim Nita LaGarde, 105, as they are evacuated from the convention center in New Orleans.
(AP / Eric Gay)26.A man cries as he flips through a family album he found in the rubble of his old house following an earthquake in Sichuan.
Via: madsnissen.com27.Journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling, who had been arrested in North Korea and sentenced to 12 years hard labor, are reunited with their families in California after a successful diplomatic intervention by the U.S.
(Getty Images / Robyn Beck)28.Terri Gurrola is reunited with her daughter after serving in Iraq for 7 months.
Via: polichicksonline.com29.“La Jeune Fille a la Fleur,” a photograph by Marc Riboud, shows the young pacifist Jane Rose Kasmir planting a flower on the bayonets of guards at the Pentagon during a protest against the Vietnam War on October 21, 1967. The photograph would eventually become the symbol of the flower power movement.
Source: bokeh.fr30.The iconic photo of Tank Man, the unknown rebel who stood in front of a column of Chinese tanks in an act of defiance following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Via: en.wikipedia.org31.Another, recently unearthed photo of the Tank Man incident, which shows a new angle of his act of protest, now at a distance. Tank Man can be seen through the trees on the left, and the tanks can be seen on the far right.
32.Harold Whittles hears for the first time ever after a doctor places an earpiece in his left ear.
Via: thehighdefinite.com33.Helen Fisher kisses the hearse carrying the body of her 20-year-old cousin, Private Douglas Halliday, as he and six other fallen soldiers are brought through the town of Wootton Bassett in England.
(Getty Images / photos)34.U.S. Army troops wade ashore during the D-Day Normandy landings on June 6, 1944.
Source: en.wikipedia.org35.A German World War II prisoner, released by the Soviet Union, is reunited with his daughter. The child had not seen her father since she was one year old.
Source: worldpressphoto.org36.Eight-year-old Christian Golczynski accepts the flag for his father, Marine Staff Sgt. Marc Golczynski, during a memorial service. Marc Golczynski was shot on patrol during his second tour in Iraq (which he had volunteered for) just a few weeks before he was due to return home.
Via: abcnews.go.com37.Pele and British captain Bobby Moore trade jerseys in 1970 as a sign of mutual respect during a World Cup that had been marred by racism.
Via: reddit.com38.A Sudan People’s Liberation Army soldier stands at attention on the eve of South Sudan’s independence from Sudan.
(Reuters / Goran Tomasevic)39.Greg Cook hugs his dog Coco after finding her inside his destroyed home in Alabama following the Tornado in March, 2012.
(AP / The Decatur Daily, Gary Cosby Jr)40.Earthrise: A photo taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.
Source: en.wikipedia.org / via: reddit.comH/t to this Reddit thread, Iconic photos, and World Press Photo for some of these photographs.
