Tuesday 3 July 2012

US officials pursue Julian Assange

The evidence that the US is pursuing to have Wikileaks founder Julian Assange extradited to America is becoming more obvious. Assange still awaits in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for political asylum to South America, but while he remains trapped, democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein has issued a statement to an Australian newspaper demanding that the whistleblower be prosecuted. Trevor Timm, an activist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, joins us with more on the hunt for Assange

Caring conservative o'the day department


...worse is seeing Sophie Mirabella recoil in horror, rather than help

What music will we probably enjoy for the rest of our lives?

Never Knew That Department

Never knew that Radiohead had to amend Creep's writing credits to include the writers of this song...

So far, Anderson Cooper coming out does not appear to have threatened the sanctity of traditional newscasts.

Is There a Right Way to Come Out?

The Institute of Continuing Education

Keith Laws who is now a Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychology but who in a previous life was the keyboardist in The The has started a new music blog. At the moment he is posting primarily Throbbing Gristle related flyers etc.
HERE
Keith and I have already remarked on how many of the same gigs we were at back in the day and I used to have a lot of these flyers etc used to advertise TG gigs too...
Higgs boson: US physicists find strongest evidence yet of 'god particle'

Monday 2 July 2012

Moving Borders (The Politics of Dirt)

Who can move? Who can speak? Who can act politically? The struggles of refugees and migrants have problematized conventional answers to these questions in a profound manner. Their struggles have demonstrated that, despite the considerable risks and dangers, new political subjects are being formed within securitized sites and border zones. Struggles by refugees and migrants around issues of detention, deportation, regularization and freedom of movement have debunked some of the most cherished assumptions about political subjectivity. While refugees, irregular migrants and the undocumented have long been associated with victimhood, helplessness and dependency, recent theorizations of citizenship challenge these assumptions, showing how migrants negotiate, contest and evade borders and, in doing so, constitute themselves as political subjects. These studies represent a shift in how we conceptualize citizenship, from a formal status to an enactment of political subjectivity through unexpected, unfamiliar and irregular acts. They also enable an appreciation of what a growing and fascinating literature calls ‘noncitizen citizenships’.1
Some commentators, especially those working from the ‘autonomous migration’ perspective, have posited that there is something primary – or, better, uncontrollable, indefinable, uncapturable – about human movement, with borders and their various apparatuses of control coming only afterwards.2 We typically think of migrants confronting borders. Less often do we consider the ways in which borders are also always following migrants, being forced to adapt to the inventiveness of human mobility. For the migrant is not the only mobile agent at the border. The border, too, moves. While there has been some very interesting work on the proliferation of mobile borders in their virtual forms (e.g. biometrics and dataveillance),3 there is comparatively little analysis of the movement of borders in material terms. When I speak of the moving border, I mean exactly that: the movement of the territory – the dirt, the soil – that constitutes the border. In this context, smuggling takes on new and quite literal terms. It is not only people and goods, licit or illicit, that are being smuggled across the border; it is the border itself...

♪♫ Peaking Lights - Hey Sparrow

Policing England's Riots

                    Police officers from across the country describe their experience of tackling last year's riots. Eight police forces allowed the Guardian and London School of Economics unprecedented access to officers deployed on the front line during the disturbances as they battled to regain control of towns and cities across the country.
Via

Reading the Riots: reflections on interviewing police officers

Challenging the Surveillance State

Andre Kuipers, space station astronaut, sends pictures to Earth via Twitter

The lights of London are captured by ESA astronaut Andre Kuipers, from his vantage point high above the Earth on board the International Space Station. He has been capturing jaw-dropping views since he arrived on the space station in December, and tweeting them to his followers from his Twitter profile, @astro_andre.
MORE

Love Will Tear Us Apart

Via

Underground New York Public Library

For This Photographer, Subway Is an Open Book

Nutid - Adrienne



This book was inevitable: "Breaking Bad and Philosophy"

A perfect mix for this bitterly cold day

Silent Season - Winter Solstice
Download
01. ASC - Stranded With No Direction - SSCD11
02. Djorvin Clain - Deep Storm - Pattern of Thought - SSCD12
03. Michael Mantra - Mountain (Lunatik Sound System Remix) - SSCD10
04. Michael Mantra - Mountain (Ohrwert Summit Alter) - SSCD10
05. Djorvin Clain - Somewhere - SSCD12
06. Djorvin Clain - The Untitled One - SSCD12
07. Edanticonf - Planet - SSD07
08. Edanticonf - Drome - SSD07
09. Edanticonf - Forest of Echo - SSD07
10. Mon0 - Dreaming - SS14
11. Inanitas - Jim - Unreleased
12. Electribalt - Unreleased
13. Alteria Percepcysne - Jamais Vu - SSD01
14. Sonitus Eco - Strange Figure Up Ahead- SSD05
15. Sonitus Eco - Time Goes By...- SSD05
16. Research Music Lab - Ambient 1 Remix - SSD06

Dr. Seuss' earlier gig

Dur


Pushing Citizens To Extremes

'As governments seem wholly unwilling to bring criminal bankers to justice, angry and frightened citizens look to more drastic measures. I wouldn’t actually recommend extreme revenge. It’s probably illegal to suggest such things.'
Mick Farren 

♪♫ The Flaming Lips - You Lust (feat. Phantogram)




"You got a lot of nerve
A lot of nerve to fuck with me
Better kill your emperor
'Cause you know you're just like me
You lust
You lust
You lust

Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed

When you pull the switch on them
I don't really want to know
When you shoot the stars away
The brightest light is the first to go
You lust
You lust
You lust

Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed
Lust to succeed

Unholy and magnificent
The selfish eye can't see itself
When it shoots across the fire
It can never be destroyed
It can never be destroyed
It can never be destroyed"

Via

Underworld - Everything Everything

Jagger, Burroughs, Warhol (NYC 1980)

Photo: Marcia Resnick
Via

♪♫ Swervedriver - Son Of Mustang Ford

Russians join in call for Pussy Riot trio's release

Pussy Riot try to perform at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow. Photograph: Sergey Ponomarev/AP
Artists and musicians around the world have called for their release. Now, nearly four months after three women were arrested for performing a protest anthem inside Moscow's most important Orthodox church, Christ the Saviour cathedral, a growing number of Russians are joining calls for their freedom.
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Ekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alehina – all members of the anarchic Pussy Riot punk band – have been in prison since March, held on charges of hooliganism which could eventually mean a seven-year sentence. Many Muscovites were happy enough to see a tough response to the band's irreverent act of rebellion, which was aimed at President Vladimir Putin. But with no trial date set, no signs that they will be released and opposition to Putin spreading, support for the trio has grown, even among those who at first condemned them.
"Their actions insulted me, because I'm religious," said Alexander Ivanov, a popular musician. "It's not what they said, it's where they did it. I was offended – but for them to get seven years in jail for an unsuccessful experiment, that's going too far."
Ivanov is one of more than 100 cultural figures who signed an open letter last week calling on the state to release the women, in an indication that popular unease at their plight is growing.
"It scares me that, for a rather unsuccessful, but extreme, cultural experiment, they want to jail them for so many years," he said. "Artists need to have freedom."
Some of Russia's best-known opposition figures – satirist Viktor Shenderovich, poet Lev Rubinstein, musician Yury Shevchuk – signed the letter. Other names were more surprising, such as those of actress Chulpan Khamatova and actor Yevgeny Mironov, both of whom appeared in videos for Putin's re-election campaign earlier this year. Director Fyodor Bondarchuk, a prominent supporter of Putin's, also added his name. The signatories warned of the social divisions caused by the case, stating: "While the participants in the performance have been held under arrest, an atmosphere of impatience has grown in society which will cause division and radicalism. We do not see any legal foundation or practical sense in further isolating from society these young women who present no real danger."
Nearly 25,000 other supporters have added their names to the letter, which was published on the website of the liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy.
The domestic groundswell of opinion comes after a concerted international campaign. Beastie Boy Ad-Rock – real name Adam Horowitz – has performed at a Pussy Riot benefit in New York; the US punk band Anti-Flag have released an English-language cover of the controversial Punk Prayer, and the Tokyo Palace in Paris has opened an exhibit on the jailed rockers.
Benefits have been held in Prague, Warsaw and Tallinn, where the Estonian president was in attendance. But such backing from Russia's cultural intelligentsia was until recently all but non-existent. Artemy Troitsky, Russia's premier rock critic, thinks similar acts in Russia would be impossible. "We could put on a concert in support of Pussy Riot in a forest or something," he said. "But in our police state it's not realistic to put on such a concert – it would be stopped."
Troitsky, a harsh regime critic with a sharp, expletive-laden tongue, has instead gathered hundreds of artists to put together a series of albums to support the growing movement against Putin's rule – and to call for Pussy Riot's release. The so-called "White Album" has more than 350 artists so far; a proper album is in the works. Troitsky is hoping for songs, or messages of support, from stars such as Paul McCartney or Madonna, who will perform in St Petersburg in August.
"We're calling for honest elections, a fight against corruption, justice and freedom for political prisoners – Pussy Riot first," Troitsky said. "They are the clearest and most undoubtable case of people arrested for political reasons."
Last week Amnesty International again called for the release iof the three women, whom they have dubbed prisoners of conscience. The statement came after a Moscow court extended the trio's detention until 24 July. No trial start date has been set.
"The case is dragging on because they can't do anything – on the one hand, they can't let them go because it would be against Putin's order; on the other hand, they can't start the trial because they have no argument," Troitsky said. Putin criticised Pussy Riot's performance shortly after their arrest, which many in Russia took as a signal of his support for the criminal case against them.
The longer it drags on, the more public acts of defiance grow. Last week, actor and director Olga Darfi strutted down the red carpet at the opening of Moscow's International Film Festival in a makeshift pink balaclava.
"I don't share their point of view and I'm not aesthetically close to what they do, and maybe they deserve some administrative punishment," Darfi said. "But that they're in jail is totally illegal. And we have to fight against this situation and create social pressure – if we do nothing then any of us can find ourselves in this situation. It's very dangerous."Pussy Riot shot to notoriety inside Russia with their flash performances of anti-Putin punk songs, accompanied by a revolutionary look of bright balaclavas and stockings. A February performance inside Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, dubbed Punk Prayer, led to their arrest. The anti-government lyrics, delivered in the heart of official Orthodox Christianity, shocked the nation.
The powerful Orthodox church has continually attacked the band. Last week its spokesman, Vsevolod Chaplin, said that God had told him in a divine revelation that he "condemns what they have done". He added: "This sin will be punished in this life and the next."The signatories of the open letter in support of Pussy Riot warned of the social divisions caused by the case. "While the participants in the performance have been held under arrest, an atmosphere of impatience has grown in society which will cause division and radicalism.
"We do not see any legal foundation or practical sense in further isolating from society these young women who present no real danger," the letter said. Nearly 25,000 readers have added their names to the letter, which was published on the website of liberal radio station Echo Moskvy.
Miriam Elder @'The Guardian'

Ad Break: Bowie's Diamond Dogs TV Promo Ad #1


*Sniff*




Is David Bowie to blame for the credit crunch? (2009)

Sunday 1 July 2012

Sheikh Yasin al-Tuhâmi @ Festival de Fès 22/06/2012 (Full Concert)


Music Piracy Is NOT a Problem, It’s an Excuse

PSA


Stonetree Harm Reduction

Off to see Damo Suzuki tonight




Info
Bugger that! 
Far too cold here in Melbourne tonight to go traipsin' uphill & downhill in the wind & rain...

Was it something I said?


Dear oh fugn dear...

♪♫ Space Ghost Purrrp - Osiris of the East

Dead Fader - Fishsh (featuring Sensational)

Death takes a holiday

GAH!!!


What is it w/ kids & their intolerably CRAP loud music. Think I may have to wire up the PA & blast Sunn O))) in their direction! (1:30AM)

CELEBRITY: Katie Holmes files for divorce, citing 'irreconcilable homosexuality'.

Are middle aged mums REALLY being seduced by porn?

 


So is it the billionaire or the spanking that women like so much about Shades of Grey? I’m sure it’s not the fisting.