One of this year's most overlooked albums

Pop Crimes by Roland S. Howard

Get a recording of the Sydney album launch at Oxford Arts Club on October 22, 2009

Setlist:

Pop Crimes/Dead Radio/Shut Me Down/She Cried/Wayward Man (False Start)/Wayward Man

Avé Maria/Life's What You Make It/The Golden Age of Bloodshed/Sleep Alone

Encores: Exit Everything/Autoluminescent

HERE

He Hongqing's Chinese face mask changing

Nicole Kidman refuses to discuss Scientology

Nicole Kidman iced over when British reporter Andrew Marr brought up "one of the things you haven't talked about before" on his BBC show. That topic was her ex-husband's religion.

"Scientology," said Marr. "A lot of people would say it is a bullying cult."

Kidman stumbled over her response before deciding she wasn't going to give one.

"I just don't . . . This is just so not . . ." she said. Then, "I'm here to publicize 'Nine.' If I was here to do an expose on myself then I'd be like, 'Let's go,' but I have no interest in discussing any of that."

"You don't want to talk about Scientology?" Marr persisted.

"No, I'll talk about 'Nine,'" said Kidman.

The tense exchange was scrapped from the television version of 'The Andrew Marr Show' but released online by the BBC.

Watch video @'HuffPo'

Hmmm!

@'Neatorama' via 'Mogadonia'

More creepy Santas (whose laps we want nothing to do with) @'Mental Floss'

Paraphilia Magazine - The Doppelganger Issue

HERE

Grateful Dead's Betty's Boards

Soundboards recorded by Betty Cantor

HERE

Al Franken calls out John Thune for lying on the Senate floor: “Let’s have an honest debate, for goodness sakes!”

Transcript @'Daily Kos'

"On yer AL!!!"

(Jeez - this man IS good)

Review: Bonny Billy & The Picket Line Funtown Comedown (Drag City)

No one really knows where Funtown is, except that it’s someplace that (allegedly) exists outside of Louisville, Kentucky. It’s not on maps. You won’t find it in your dog-eared copy of Lonely Planet: Kentucky. Hell, Google won’t even help. But Bonny “the artist formerly known as ‘Bonnie Prince’” Billy (née Will Oldham) and a virtually unknown group of musicians called The Picket Line recorded a live album there and called it Funtown Comedown. And theirs is exactly the kind of sound you’d expect to come from a group called Bonny Billy & The Picket Line playing at some unmapped place in the backwoods of Kentucky: nasally folk that vacillates from quiet to wild and sounds even better if everyone sings along.
Verdict: Buy it (because, in the spirit of all things Funtown, it’s only out on vinyl)

@'Vanity Fair'

Hey Yotte! Just around the corner from you eh...?

This crazy fuct up world (part #....)

23-year-old Matthew Freeman is facing a year in jail for violating Michigan’s laws for convicted sex offenders. He was caught by a police officer playing basketball within 400 feet of a school. He also happened to be in front of his own home. Michigan law requires him to remain more than 1,000 feet away from places where children congregate. Freeman’s mother says she checked with Pittsfield Township police before moving to the home to be sure it complied with Freeman’s status. She says they told her it did. They now say it’s Freeman’s responsibility to make sure he doesn’t violate the sex offender law.
Freeman was convicted of fourth-degree sexual assault in 2003 for having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. He was 17 at the time. The conviction required him to spend 10 years on the state’s sex offender list. After seeing the girl again and later getting caught stealing a video game, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, and ordered to remain on the list until 2028. At that point he dropped out of high school, and hasn’t gone back.
But let’s not be too harsh on Michigan’s law. I’m sure that because of the continuing harassment of people like Freeman, 17-year-boys and 15-year-old girls are no longer having sex in Michigan.

@'The Agitator'

http://www.cafepress.com.au/supportdissent

Happy Birthday Fritz!

When we were all younger & thinner!!!
Don't forget that you can grab trax from Fritz's Hashashan project here.

You know it makes (NO) sense

HERE

More on redneck, racist Sherrif Joe Arpaio here and here and his (alleged) links to neo - nazi groups here.

Patti Smith - White Christmas

Studio outtake c. 1978 (?)

HERE

Israel fury at UK attempt to arrest Tzipi Livni

Israel has reacted angrily to the issuing by a British court of an arrest warrant for the former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni.

The warrant, granted by a London court on Saturday, was revoked on Monday when it was found Ms Livni was not visiting the UK.
Ms Livni was foreign minister during Israel's Gaza assault last winter.
It is the first time a UK court has issued a warrant for the arrest of a former Israeli minister.
Ms Livni said the court had been "abused" by the Palestinian plaintiffs who requested the warrant.
"What needs to be put on trial here is the abuse of the British legal system," she told the BBC.
"This is not a suit against Tzipi Livni, this is not a law suit against Israel. This is a lawsuit against any democracy that fights terror."
She stood by her decisions during the three-week assault Gaza offensive which began in December last year, she said.
Israel's foreign ministry summoned the UK's ambassador to Israel to deliver a rebuke over the warrant.

We completely reject this absurdity taking place in Britain Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli Prime Minister

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the situation was "an absurdity".
"We will not accept a situation in which [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defence Minister] Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendants' chair," Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.
"We will not agree to have Israel Defence Force soldiers, who defended the citizens of Israel bravely and ethically against a cruel and criminal enemy (!), be recognised as war criminals. We completely reject this absurdity taking place in Britain," he said.
Pro-Palestinian campaigners have tried several times to have Israeli officials arrested under the principle of universal jurisdiction...

@'BBC'

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