Isle of Wight model triceratops left in middle of high street – BBC News

Isle of Wight model triceratops left in middle of high street – BBC News

A 25ft (7.6m) model triceratops had to be removed from High Street in Godshill on the Isle of Wight after it was dragged from the Jurassic Garden.

Owner Martin Simpson said he was shocked to see the model appearing on social media over the weekend.

The dinosaur is part of Mr Simpson's shop garden, where he sells prehistoric gems and fossils.

Financial cost of the Iraq War – Wikipedia

Financial cost of the Iraq War – Wikipedia

War is very expensive for taxpayers ...

- FY2003 Supplemental: Operation Iraqi Freedom: Passed April 2003; Total $78.5 billion, $54.4 billion Iraq War

- FY2004 Supplemental: Iraq and Afghanistan Ongoing Operations/Reconstruction: Passed November 2003; Total $87.5 billion, $70.6 billion Iraq War

- FY2004 DoD Budget Amendment: $25 billion Emergency Reserve Fund (Iraq Freedom Fund): Passed July 2004, Total $25 billion, $21.5 billion (estimated) Iraq War

- FY2005 Emergency Supplemental: Operations in the War on Terror; Activities in Afghanistan; Tsunami Relief: Passed April 2005, Total $82 billion, $58 billion (estimated) Iraq War

- FY2006 Department of Defense appropriations: Total $50 billion, $40 billion (estimated) Iraq War.

- FY2006 Emergency Supplemental: Operations Global War on Terror; Activities in Iraq & Afghanistan: Passed February 2006, Total $72.4 billion, $60 billion (estimated) Iraq War

- FY2007 Department of Defense appropriations: $70 billion(estimated) for Iraq War-related costs

- FY2007 Emergency Supplemental (proposed) $100 billion

- FY2008 Bush administration has proposed around $190 billion for the Iraq War and Afghanistan

- FY2009 Obama administration has proposed around $130 billion in additional funding for the Iraq War and Afghanistan.

- FY2010 Obama administration proposes around $159.3 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

I briefly deleted Facebook Lite from my phone

I briefly deleted Facebook Lite from my phone … πŸ—‘

Despite not posting nearly as much as I used to on Facebook, I find myself endlessly scrolling through it, looking for new posts to share or comment on. I got to do more to hold myself back on that. The thing is the Facebook Lite app uses so little data, and my phone now has such a generous data plan, it’s so easy to just open it up and keep scrolling.

The Two Myths of the Internet | WIRED

The Two Myths of the Internet | WIRED

On January 21, 2010 Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed a crowd at the Newseum in Washington, DC. She was there to proclaim the power and importance of “internet freedom.” In the previous few years, she said, online tools had enabled people all around the world to organize blood drives, plan demonstrations, and even mobilize in mass demonstrations for democracy. “A connection to global information networks is like an on-ramp to modernity,” she declared, and the US would do its part to help promote “a planet with one internet, one global community, and a common body of knowledge that benefits us all.”

Clinton’s speech acknowledged that the internet could also be a darker instrument—that its power might be hacked to evil ends, used for spewing hatred or the crushing of dissent. But her thesis rested on the clear beliefs of techno-fundamentalism: that digital technologies necessarily tend toward freedom of association and speech, and that the US-based companies behind the platforms would promote American values. Democracy would spread. Borders would open. Minds would open.

Wouldn’t that have been nice? Ten years later, Clinton is a private citizen, denied the highest office she would seek by a political amateur who leveraged Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to drive enthusiasm for his nativist, protectionist, and racist agenda. Oh, and the Newseum is closing down as well. Back in 2010, Clinton had called that institution “a monument to some of our most precious freedoms.” Now it too appears to be a relic of a bygone optimism.