Monday, 21 December 2009

Santarchy

A joke for the Spacebubs (when he is out of nappies)

Q: What's pink and wrinkly and hangs out your pyjamas?
A: Your mum.

Sunday, 20 December 2009

Terry Lynn - The System

Iran cleric Montazeri dies




Montazeri accused the current Iranian clerical establishment of being a 'dictatorship' [AFP] 

 Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, Iran's most senior dissident cleric, has died, official media has reported.
Montazeri, 87, was an architect of the 1979 Islamic revolution who fell out with the present leadership.
He had been held under house arrest for several years.
"Hossein Ali Montazeri passed away in his home last night," the official IRNA news agency said on Sunday.
He lived in the city of Qom, which lies south of Tehran, and was referred to as the spiritual leader of the opposition after the country's recent disputed election.
Ghanbar Naderi, an Iran Daily journalist, told Al Jazeera: "This is huge blow to the reformist camp, because he is unreplaceable and nobody is happy to hear about his sad demise.
"He used to say that religion should be separated from politics, because in this way, we can keep the integrity of religion intact."
Non-conformist
In August, Montazeri described the clerical establishment as a "dictatorship", saying that the authorities' handling of street unrest after the disputed election in June "could lead to the fall of the regime".
"I hope the responsible authorities give up the deviant path they are pursuing and restore the trampled rights of the people," he wrote.
"I hope authorities ... have the courage to announce that this ruling system is neither a republic nor Islamic and that nobody has the right to express opinion or criticism," Montazeri said in August this year.
Alireza Ronaghi, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Tehran, said that Montazeri's statements were significant because he was once in line to succeed the late Ayatollah Khomeini as Iran's supreme leader.
But Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a political analyst at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera in August that Montazeri has been "saying the same thing for around 25 years".

"After his inner circle was discovered to be linked to Mujahedin terrorists based in Iraq, he was isolated by the reformists," he said.
"He is not a major player and has always been very critical," Marandi said.

Interesting that just over a week ago The Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran had selected Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri as the human rights activist of the year.


John Terry for sale


...and news that Chelsea are interested in Torres for 60 million quid!
 BASTARDS!
(Sorry Longy!)

Wagner Pa & Brazuca Matraca - Plexo Solar

Planet Furball is dead - RIP!

The world's smallest snowman


The snowman is 10 µm across, 1/5th the width of a human hair.
The snowman was made from two tin beads used to calibrate electron microscope astigmatism. The eyes and smile were milled using a focused ion beam, and the nose, which is under 1 µm wide (or 0.001 mm), is ion beam deposited platinum.
A nanomanipulation system was used to assemble the parts 'by hand' and platinum deposition was used to weld all elements together. The snowman is mounted on a silicon cantilever from an atomic force microscope whose sharp tip 'feels' surfaces creating topographic surveys at almost atomic scales.

Spank! (Should wives be spanked? Yes - if they ask nicely)


Copenhagen before & after



So the police arrested 968 people the other day and 3 have been charged...hmmm!

WOW!


In an effort to establish new platforms for public art and performance, the
multimedia duo SWEATSHOPPE has developed a new interactive technology that enables
them to explore the relationship between video, mark making and architecture. Dubbed
"video painting", this technology allows them to essentially "paint" video onto any
surface. Shooting in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan, the duo spent weeks
documenting their work in urban settings to create "The Landing" the first in a
series of episodes that showcases their work as artist, technologist and performers.
This video shows 4 full uncut extra clips form the landing.

Video and Music by SWEATSHOPPE
Thank You: Arpana Rayamajhi, Jacky Tran (Quizbowl Productions) and all the popsicle lovers


Leave 'Sexters' Alone!

So what if teens are sending nakes pictures to each other via cellphone? The real problem, Conor Friedersdorf argues, sets in when grownups get involved.
The suicide of a 13-year-old who sent a topless photo of herself to a crush is stoking renewed hysteria about teen "sexting," a misnamed phenomenon that hardly requires text and doesn't involve sex. What actually happens is that hormone-addled adolescents take naked photographs of themselves and send them to a crush via their cellphones or email accounts. Being teens, the images often spread like lunchtime gossip, especially after breakups. If you've got a kid in high school, the odds are quite high that he or she has seen photographs of a naked classmate—according to a recent PEW poll, one in seven teens with cellphones admit receiving naked pictures directly.
Tragic stories that begin with “sexting” are all too frequent when principals, police officers, or district attorneys get involved.
In most cases, teens who conceal their sexting from authority figures suffer negligible adverse consequences; they're hardly the first generation to play "I'll show you mine," and even Verizon's 3G network cannot yet transmit sexually transmitted diseases or pregnancy...

unedited Rage Against the Machine on BBC


Rage Against the Machine on BBC Thursday Dec. 17  & remember that the band's royalties are going to go to SHELTER.