Cell...

 

Dozens of journalists at Al-Jazeera, the Qatari state-owned media company, have been targeted by advanced spyware in an attack likely linked to the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, a cybersecurity watchdog reported on Sunday.

Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said it traced malware that infected the personal phones of 36 journalists, producers, anchors and executives at Al-Jazeera back to the Israel-based NSO Group, which has been widely condemned for selling spyware to repressive governments.

The coordinated attacks on Qatari-funded Al-Jazeera, which Citizen Lab described as the largest concentration of phone hacks targeting a single organization, occurred in July, just weeks before the Trump administration announced the normalization of ties between Israel and the UAE, the archival to Qatar. 

The breakthrough deal took public what had been a long-secret alliance. Analysts say normalization likely will lead to stronger cooperation in digital surveillance between Israel and Persian Gulf sheikhdoms.

Who is spying on who?  Just a thought.

Not Forgotten...

 

Attorney General William Barr announced the indictment of the suspected maker of the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, during a press conference at the Justice Department on Monday

A criminal complaint affidavit stated that Masud worked with Megrahi and Fhimah to carry out the plot, allegedly at the orders of Libyan intelligence at the time. The affidavit claimed that Qaddafi thanked Masud for the attack. 

Additionally, Masud was tied to the 1986 bombing of the LaBelle Discotheque in Berlin, West Germany, which killed two American service members and a Turkish woman. Libyan authorities provided a copy of the interview to law enforcement. 

Model...

 

Since the late 1990s, new models of sexual consent have been proposed. Specifically, the development of "yes means yes" and affirmative models, such as Hall's definition: "the voluntary approval of what is done or proposed by another; permission; agreement in opinion or sentiment."^[6] 

Hickman and Muehlenhard state that consent should be "free verbal or nonverbal communication of a feeling of willingness' to engage in these activity."   Affirmative consent may still be limited since the underlying, individual circumstances surrounding the consent cannot always be acknowledged in the "yes means yes", or in the "no means no", model

How someone feels about what happened in an encounter is very much up to interpretation and two people can see the same events very differently, each from their own perspective.       

 People can also have very different memories of what happened, how, in what order, and by who, all of which makes it really difficult to agree afterwards. Even though both people were in the same room, that doesn’t mean they had the same experience.

Hope...

 

Merry Christmas to all. 

 

سامح أخاك

 

  سامح فإنكَ في النهايةِ فانِ  

واجعل شعارَكَ كثرةَ الغفرانِ 

وابسط يديكَ لرحمةٍ ومودةٍ 

حتى تنالَ محبةَ الرحمنِ  

ليس التباغضُ من شريعةِ أحدٍ 

بل إنَّه لَبضاعةُ الشيطانِ 

قابيلُ أغضبَ ربَّه لما قسا 

وأخوه كوفئ إذ عفا بجنانِ  

سامح أخاك وإنْ توعَّرَ طبعُهُ 

إنَّ التسامحَ شيمةُ الشجعانِ

Rollout...

 

Nearly everything about the process has gone well so far, shepherded by the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed.

The first two vaccines, one from Pfizer-BioNTech and the other from Moderna, were ready well before anyone expected. 

Trials showed them to be among the most effective vaccines ever, particularly for a notoriously hard-to-prevent respiratory virus.

And the initial days of the rollout, while far from perfect, have already led to 3 million vaccinations in the U.S., mostly among frontline health care workers.

Good news for the holidays. So far so good. Just a thought.

The Man...

 President Trump’s call Tuesday night for Congress to raise coronavirus stimulus payments to Americans to $2,000 won raves from at least three of his harshest critics.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Rep. AOC and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders all favored the president’s proposal.

"Despite all of this wasteful spending, and much more, the $900 billion package provides hard-working taxpayers with only $600 each in relief payments and not enough money is given to small businesses -- and in particular restaurants, whose owners have suffered so grievously."

The bill also allows stimulus checks for the family members of illegal aliens, allowing them to get up $1,800 each," the president says. "This is far more than the Americans are given.

The president’s critics quickly voiced their rare support for his point of view.

Gift...

 

One New Yorker proved that giving to charity was a better gift than treating himself to a new iPhone  and now the Salvation Army wants to find him and say thanks.

Holiday bell ringers manning the group’s new giant red kettle outside the Meatpacking District Apple store were stunned on Dec. 7, when a man walked up and handed a volunteer an envelope stuffed with $1,020, a touching handwritten note and a mask.

“Dear Salvation Army, I walked into the Apple Store today to buy a new phone,” the note said. “Then I saw your kettle and I was reminded of those in need. It was very cold and windy outside. I am lucky I have a warm home. I have hot food. I even have an iPhone from 2017 that works perfectly well. 2020 has been a hard year for millions of families . . . The iPhone was going to be $999. I also planned to visit Starbucks next door. I should go without both this Christmas season. Please accept this $1,020 and put it to better use. P.S. here is a new mask my wife made for a friend. I consider Salvation Army a friend to New York.”

دع الاحزان

 

Dual Message

 

There is the obvious and the non obvious. All in all, Just can tough this.