NBA Veteran Jason Collins Comes Out As Gay

Jason Collins, the 12-year veteran NBA center, has come out as gay, the first active professional athlete in the four major leagues to do so.

Collins came out in an article he wrote for Sports Illustrated, published online and available on newstands May 6:

I’m a 34-year-old NBA center. I’m black. And I’m gay.

I didn’t set out to be the first openly gay athlete playing in a major American team sport. But since I am, I’m happy to start the conversation. I wish I wasn’t the kid in the classroom raising his hand and saying, “I’m different.” If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I’m raising my hand….

For months, rumors have abounded that an athlete in one of the major sports was going to come out of the closet. But the fact that it was Collins, an NBA player, was a surprise.

While there will undoubtedly be grumbling in locker rooms, and Collins will likely face abuse from some fans, the public reaction from most NBA players was overwhelmingly positive.

The Washington Wizards, with whom Collins played last season, issued a statement in support:

We are extremely proud of Jason and support his decision to live his life proudly and openly. He has been a leader on and off the court and an outstanding teammate throughout his NBA career. Those qualities will continue to serve him both as a player and as a positive role model for others of all sexual orientation.

A number of current and former players voiced their support for Collins’ decision on Twitter:

Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant34:

Proud of @jasoncollins34. Don’t suffocate who u r because of the ignorance of others #courage #support #mambaarmystandup #BYOU

Baron Davis (@Baron_Davis):

I am so proud of my bro @jasoncollins34 for being real. #FTheHaters http://bit.ly/12J9el5

NBA commissioner David Stern and former president Bill Clinton also released statements of support.

“I have known Jason Collins since he was Chelsea’s classmate and friend at Stanford. Jason’s announcement today is an important moment for professional sports and in the history of the LGBT community,” Clinton’s statement read in part.

Collins also revealed that he has been wearing the number 98 for the past two seasons in honor of Matthew Shepherd, the gay man who was tortured and murdered in 1998.

Collins is a free agent this summer.

Internet Activist Aaron Swartz, 26, Found Dead of Apparent Suicide

26-year-old Aaron Swartz, who helped create RSS when he was in his teens and co-founded the social website Reddit, committed suicide last night. He was reportedly found by a friend, according to the New York Times.

Swartz, a steadfast crusader for internet freedom and free information, had in the past year run afoul of the federal government. In 2011, he snuck into MIT and used a laptop computer to download 4.8 million academic articles from a database called JSTOR, which he then put online for free. Though JSTOR did not seek to press charges, the government was pursuing a case against Swartz that could have resulted in 35 years in prison and fines of $1 million dollars.

Swartz had talked in the past about fighting with depression. His family released a statement that seemed to explicitly blame the government’s aggressive prosecution for his death. The statement read, in part:

Aaron’s death is not simply a personal tragedy. It is the product of a criminal justice system rife with intimidation and prosecutorial overreach. Decisions made by officials in the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s office and at MIT contributed to his death. The US Attorney’s office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims. Meanwhile, unlike JSTOR, MIT refused to stand up for Aaron and its own community’s most cherished principles.

Since helping write RSS when he was just 14, Swartz, a preternaturally gifted programmer, had drifted from project to project, ultimately embracing the cause of information freedom. Through an organization he founded, Demand Progress, Swartz was instrumental in defeating the Stop Online Piracy Act, a piece of legislation backed by Hollywood that would have had drastic consequences for internet freedom.

2011 wasn’t the first time Swartz had run afoul of the law, however. In 2008, he wrote a program to quickly download 20 million documents from the PACER database, a collection of legal records available to the public at 10 cents a page. Swartz and a partner posted the documents online, free to access. Swartz was investigated by the government, but ultimately wasn’t prosecuted.

Election Night Trends: Drunk Nate Silver

On Election night, Nate Silver, the statistician derided by Mitt Romney supporters for his statistical model that consistently predicted that Barack Obama would win the Presidency, signed off of his New York Times live-blog having correctly predicted results in all 50 states, as well as all but one Senate race.

“There’s a lot more to unpack in the coming days, but first, we’re going to get some sleep and grab a beer,” he wrote.

Afterwards, Dan Levitan (@levitandan), a New York based campaign consultant, tweeted, “Drunk Nate Silver is riding the subway, telling strangers the day they will die.”

Levitan’s tweet, which was retweeted over 3,000 times, spawned easily the best post-election meme, sending #drunknatesilver trending across Twitter. Some of the best:

“Drunk Nate Silver counting out exactly five hundred and thirty-eight french fries at McDonalds, then slowly dipping 206 of them in ketchup”
– Ben Jackson (@benjaminjackson)

“Drunk Nate Silver changes a broken light bulb and mutters to himself, ‘one person’”
– Jeff Tiedrich (@jefftiedrich)

“Drunk Nate Silver crashing weddings, yelling out the number of years until divorce”
– Ben Keegan (@BKTM)

“Drunk Nate Silver stumbles through traffic on the Jersey Turnpike, screaming out what time each driver will get home.”
– Dave Levitan (@davelevitan)

“#DrunkNateSilver goes to Africa, finds the butterfly, asks it not to flap its wings, prevents the hurricane.”
– Harrison Mooney (@harrisonmooney)

“Drunk Nate Silver knows what you did next summer.”
– Simon Says (@sayethsimon)

“Drunk Nate Silver in the parking lot of Yankees stadium, spray painting the spots where next years’ home runs will land.”
– Christopher Hooks (@cd_hooks)

Silver’s models were a source of comfort to Democrats and ire for Republicans, who believed polls favorable to the President must be biased due to party identification statistics they thought signified oversampling. One man even launched a site, unskewedpolls.com, dedicated to re-weighting polls based on what he felt were more accurate party ID numbers. Many pundits, insisting that the race was too close to call, took issue with Silver’s analysis, which never showed the President in serious danger of losing.

Now, after the election, Silver finds himself a mini-celebrity. And, in addition to his flawless predictive track record, he also has one of the funniest Twitter trends in recent memory to his name.

Former Libyan Oil Minister Found Dead In Vienna

Shukri Ghanem, the Libyan oil minister who defected at the height of that country’s recent civil war, has been found dead in the Danube River near Vienna, al-Jazeera reports.

Ghanem’s daughter, who lives with him in the city, reported him missing to police after she woke up to find that he was not in their apartment. Police found his body floating in the river near a popular waterfront restaurant district, Copa Cagrana. Police said the cause of death was not immediately apparent, and that there were no signs of external violence. An autopsy will be performed.

Ghanem was one of the highest profile defectors from Moammar Ghaddafi’s government in the civil war that eventually saw the eccentric dictator killed. The uprising began in February of 2011 as part of the Arab Spring, with mass protests that morphed into armed rebellion as government forces attempted to crack down, firing on protestors in Benghazi.

The full-fledged civil war that resulted saw the United Nations freeze Ghaddafi’s assets and establish a no-fly zone above the North African country as well as try to prevent civilian casualties. The US provided significant air support for the effort, conducting manned and drone strikes aimed at ground targets.

After a back-and-forth war that lasted through August, rebel forces of the National Transitional Council—Libya’s interim government—attacked Tripoli, the nation’s capital and a Ghaddafi loyalist stronghold, while coordinating with opposition forces within the city. The NTL’s victory marked the end of the civil war. In October, security forces captured and killed Ghaddafi as he was attempting to flee the country.

Ghanem defected last May, escaping into neighboring Tunisia, but he declined to formally work with the NTL in its effort to topple Ghaddafi. Instead, he moved to Vienna, a city he was familiar with due to his work as Libya’s OPEC representative. At the time of his death, he was working as a consultant for a Viennese company, whose name has not been disclosed.

He left his home sometime early Sunday morning and was discovered floating in the river by a passerby. There is no evidence linking his death with the Libyan revolution, but police are investigating all angles.

Secret Service Agents Dismissed Amid Allegations of Misconduct

A dozen Secret Service agents, providing security for President Obama at an international summit in Cartagena, Columbia, have been sent home amid allegations of misconduct reportedly related to prostitution.

President Barack Obama walks across the tarmac to greet people after arriving at North Carolina Air National Guard Base in Charlotte, N.C., March 7, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

President Obama and Secret Service Agents | Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson

The Secret Service released a statement Saturday morning, saying:

There have been allegations of misconduct made against Secret Service personnel in Cartagena, Colombia prior to the President’s trip. Because of this, those personnel are being relieved of their assignments, returned to their place of duty, and are being replaced by other Secret Service personnel. The Secret Service takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. This entire matter has been turned over to our Office of Professional Responsibility, which serves as the agency’s internal affairs component.

These personnel changes will not affect the comprehensive security plan that has been prepared in advance of the President’s trip.

More information was not forthcoming from official channels, but numerous reports emerged that the misconduct had to do with prostitution. According to former Washington Post reporter Ronald Kessler, who called the scandal the biggest in the history of the agency, one of the agents failed to pay a prostitute. She went to the police, who then alerted the State Department. The Washington Post was the first to break the story, which was quickly picked up by other major news outlets.

The news, which sent ‘Secret Service’ briefly trending on Twitter, has the potential to embarrass the United States and overshadow President Obama’s agenda at the sixth annual Summit of the Americas. The alleged misconduct occurred before the President’s arrival.

Heading into this year’s summit, the two hot-button issues were the War on Drugs and Cuba. Central American countries such as Mexico and Guatemala have been devastated by cartel-related violence. Mexico’s troubles, in particular, have received a great deal of coverage in the United States as it is both a neighbor and a popular tourist destination. Cartels are essentially at open war with the government in Mexico, but Guatemala has experienced similar levels of violence.

But the summit will also attempt to address numerous other, less controversial issues, such as the rebuilding of Haiti, still reeling from earthquake damage, as well as economic and trade policy. The US’s relationship with the Caribbean will also be discussed, with Obama meeting separately with Caribbean leaders after the summit finishes.

Syracuse C Fab Melo Ruled Ineligible for NCAA Tournament

Fab Melo, Syracuse University’s starting center and the reigning Big East Defensive Player of the Year, has been ruled ineligible for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

The university released a statement Tuesday, saying:

Syracuse University sophomore men’s basketball center Fab Melo did not travel with the team to Pittsburgh, and will not take part in the NCAA Tournament due to an eligibility issue. Given University policy and federal student privacy laws, no further details can be provided at this time.

Melo previously missed three games in January, reportedly due to academic ineligibility. The Orange were 2-1 during that stretch, suffering its first loss of the season to Notre Dame and falling from the top ranking in the nation, which it had held for six consecutive weeks. Syracuse struggled at both ends of the court, and even once Melo returned to the lineup failed to return to early-season form.

According to an ESPN report, this suspension is related to Melo’s earlier ineligibility. ”He was initially cleared after the first suspension but the NCAA has since revisited the case and deemed him ineligible again,” a source told the network.

The center’s absence is a huge blow to the Orange’s title hopes. The No. 1 seed in the East region, and the No. 2 seed overall behind Kentucky, Syracuse finished the season 31-2, its most recent game a loss to Cincinnati in the semifinals of the Big East tournament.

While Kentucky is the heavy favorite to win the tournament, the Orange were one of several teams considered to have a realistic shot.

In an eerie parallel, the last time Syracuse went into the NCAA tournament as a 1 seed, in 2010, its title hopes were dashed by an injury to starting center Arinze Onuaku. That undermanned Orange squad lost to 5th-seeded Butler in the round of sixteen.

It has been a turbulent season for the Orange. In November, the university fired longtime assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine after allegations that he sexually abused two ball boys. A federal investigation is still ongoing, though no charges have been filed. More recently, a Yahoo! Sports investigation alleged that multiple violations of the university’s internal drug policy had been overlooked in the past decade, and that athletes who should have been ineligible nonetheless played in games. The university said it was aware of the violations and had self-reported them to the NCAA.

Syracuse opens the tournament against 16-ranked UNC-Asheville in Pittsburgh on Thursday.

Apple announces OSX Mountain Lion

Apple announced the newest update to their OS X operating system Thursday, February 16. Mountain Lion, OS X version 10.8, is the first update since version 10.7, Lion, was released on July 20, 2011.

Mountain Lion contains some radical departures from previous builds of OS X. Notably, it is deeply integrated with online social media services such as Twitter, Flickr, and Vimeo. Twitter is especially prominent. Virtually anything can be instantly tweeted, but sharing images and videos through other services is easy as well. While the OS is integrated with the struggling Google+ social network, integration with Facebook is noticeably absent. Apple has in the past announced partnerships with Facebook, but nothing extensive has ever come about. Given that Facebook also functions as an app platform, it seems likely that Apple doesn’t want to partner too closely with a direct competitor, even one that dominates the social networking landscape.

While the new OS doesn’t unify all of Apple’s various mobile and desktop devices, as was rumored it might do, it does bring them all closer together. Mountain Lion is much more thoroughly synced with iCloud, a service that allows users to store files on a remote server and access them from any device, eliminating the need to keep track of what’s on which device. Apple’s IM service, iChat, has been scrapped and replaced by iMessage, which is capable of instant messaging but also sending text messages directly from the desktop to an iPhone or iPad. The OS also encourages the use of apps, as well as improved app security, and many other mobile features such as the iOS Game Center and Reminders have their own desktop version now.

Visually, Mountain Lion has received some tweaks from previous builds. Bouncing icons in the Dock have been replaced by a system of notifications that spring up on the right side of the screen. The OS also supports AirPlay systems, including AppleTV, allowing streaming from the desktop to HDTV screens.

All in all, this is radical shift for OS X, bringing the Mac desktop experience much more in line with the iOS experience of the iPhone and iPad. It’s still a distinct experience, but the changes are ones that Apple users will undoubtedly welcome.

Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple, dies at 56

Award winning entrepreneur and inventor, Steve Jobs, passed away on Wednesday, October 5, 2011. He was the co-founder of Apple along his longtime friend, Steve Wozniak. In the formal announcement made to Apple employees, no specific cause of death was given. Jobs had suffered with a few health issues beginning with pancreatic cancer from a cancerous tumor in his pancreas discovered in 2004. He also had a liver transplant in 2009. Due to his health issues he resigned from Apple in August, though he still made important appearances to assist with the unveiling of new products and remained on the board as a chairman.

Over the course of his career that began in 1976, Steve Jobs was a visionary who continued to develop newer, sleeker, more contemporary ways to meet the technical needs of the masses. Beginning with the development of the Apple I, a personal computer, his career took him in a few different directions. The Apple 1 went on sale in July of 1976 and led to the Apple II, the Lisa and the Macintosh. Jobs resigned from Apple in 1985 and then founded NeXT. NeXT which was initially founded for the business and higher-education markets. The company was later purchased by Apple in 1996 and Jobs became the Chief Executive Officer of Apple among his return.

In 1986, Jobs purchased The Graphic Group later to be known as Pixar. Pixar Animation Studios which started out as a high-end hardware developer progressed into a computer animation studio. After partnering with Disney, Pixar began to develop several children favorites like Toy Story, A Bug’s Life and UP. In 2006 he was placed on the Board of Directors as the Walt Disney Company.

The death of Steve Jobs has shaken the globe as he had several followers fore he made a big difference in the world. His impact on the world of technology was very innovative as his vision lead directly to creation of the ever so popular IPods, IPhones and IPads. Several fans of the inventor has been gathering outside of Apple stores to show their respect and grieve this terrible loss. A memorial is being set up outside the Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California for the public to stop by and leave flowers, candles, etc. A store located in Tokyo has a candlelight vigil planned for Thursday evening.