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WASHINGTON POST: A Pentagon study group is preparing a report due Dec. 1 to Obama that found a majority of respondents to a survey sent to active-duty and reserve troops during the summer said the effect of lifting the gay ban would be positive, mixed or nonexistent, according to two sources familiar with the report who shared details last week with The Washington Post. McCain (Ariz.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that he did not think the Senate should lift the ban during the lame-duck session that begins this week. “Once we get this […]

INQUIRER: In a sweeping move to lower Philadelphia’s staggering tally of 47,000 fugitives, top court officials have quietly dropped criminal charges against Sanchez and more than 19,000 other defendants who skipped court years ago. At the urging of Pennsylvania Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille and District Attorney Seth Williams, Philadelphia judges closed criminal cases and canceled fugitive bench warrants for thousands of accused drug dealers, drunken drivers, thieves, prostitutes, sex offenders, burglars, and other suspects. The withdrawn cases date to 1998 and earlier. “They were clogging up the system,” said Castille, a former Philadelphia district attorney. “You’re never going to […]

NEW YORK TIMES: A secret history of the United States government’s Nazi-hunting operation concludes that American intelligence officials created a “safe haven” in the United States for Nazis and their collaborators after World War II, and it details decades of clashes, often hidden, with other nations over war criminals here and abroad. The 600-page report, which the Justice Department has tried to keep secret for four years, provides new evidence about more than two dozen of the most notorious Nazi cases of the last three decades. Perhaps the report’s most damning disclosures come in assessing the Central Intelligence Agency’s involvement […]

16 th Floor 211 S. Broad St. 10:29 PM Friday by JEFF FUSCO

ANDREW SULLIVAN: It seems to me that the last year or so in America’s political culture has represented the triumph of untruth. And the untruth was propagated by a deliberate, simple and systemic campaign to kill Obama’s presidency in its crib. Emergency measures in a near-unprecedented economic collapse – the bank bailout, the auto-bailout, the stimulus – were described by the right as ideological moves of choice, when they were, in fact, pragmatic moves of necessity. The increasingly effective isolation of Iran’s regime – and destruction of its legitimacy from within – was portrayed as a function of Obama’s weakness, […]

Far from their folktronic cousins The Books, Tunng employs a much poppier sound. They seamlessly weave together acoustic instruments with synthesizers creating an ethereal folk landscape. Listening to this album in stereo, you begin to appreciate just how much thought Mike Lindsay puts into his music. Most tracks have two or more varying acoustic guitar tracks panned to either side, which mesh so well in mono you could swear it was all one instrument. Under these the synths, samples, drum tracks and general strange and exotic sounds are spliced to create an incredibly unique sound. The album …And Then We […]

[Photo by Misha Vladimirsky via CULTURE BULLY] BY PELLE GUNTHER Walking into the First Unitarian Church last night, the first trickling breathy vocals from the singer for Twin Sister welcomed us in. To be honest, her distinctive vocals alone would have gotten them a good review. As these beautiful, crooning vocals drifted towards me, my mind was instantly taken to the voice of Joanna Newsom. Though much more raspy and airy than Newsom’s, they still held that same sense of childhood and freedom; instead of beautiful harp music for a backdrop, Twin Sister chose to go the way of an […]

DVICE: If you’re an aspiring musician, stop reading now, this will be painful. Japan’s Crypton Future Media has unleashed upon the world what may be the future of pop music in the amazingly realistic, holographic singing idol Hatsune Miku. Hatsune is a product of Japan’s popular Vocaloid software scene in which fans can create their own songs for fictional characters to sing. The twist here is that Crypton took things to the next level by making the character into a hologram and actually putting their avatar on tour, playing to huge enthusiastic audiences. MORE

BY DAVE ALLEN Much to my eternal chagrin, I never visited pre-9/11 New York City. (My excuse now, as it was at the time of my first visit in 2002, is that my upbringing was at first international, in Asia, and then rural and isolated, in Maryland, some four hours from Gotham. Geography was an obstacle.) Not visiting pre-Katrina New Orleans makes more sense, especially in terms of geography, but my sense of regret was perhaps even greater when I visited the city for the first time last month. It’s likely different now in ways I cannot understand, but I […]

DISCOVERY: The facts of schizophrenia are so peculiar, in fact, that they have led Torrey and a growing number of other scientists to abandon the traditional explanations of the disease and embrace a startling alternative. Schizophrenia, they say, does not begin as a psychological disease. Schizophrenia begins with an infection. The idea has sparked skepticism, but after decades of hunting, Torrey and his colleagues think they have finally found the infectious agent. You might call it an insanity virus. If Torrey is right, the culprit that triggers a lifetime of hallucinations—that tore apart the lives of writer Jack Kerouac, mathematician […]