Thursday, 7 January 2010
WTF?
(Are they digging up George Scott?)
((While you are it...Quine (as extra special guest) is over there!))
(((PS - If someone wants to fly me there and put me up to see Adele Bertei...I promise I won't eat much over the weekend!)))
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
Damn...
Willie Mitchell (January 3, 1928 - January 5, 2010) was a soul, R&B, rock and roll, pop and funk music producer and arranger who ran Royal Recording in Memphis, Tennessee. He is best known for his Hi Records label of the 1970s, which released albums by a large stable of popular Memphis soul artists, including Mitchell himself, Al Green, Syl Johnson nd Ann Peebles. Known at the studio as "Papa Willie," Mitchell earned his nickname by taking over the reigns of Hi Records in 1970 and guiding it through its most successful period. Mitchell's productions have been much noted for featuring a hard-hitting kick drum sound (usually played by pioneering Memphis drummer Al Jackson, Jr. of Booker T. and the MG's)
A trumpeter and bandleader in his own right, Mitchell released a number of popular singles for Hi Records as an artist in the 1960s, including "Soul Serenade."
A trumpeter and bandleader in his own right, Mitchell released a number of popular singles for Hi Records as an artist in the 1960s, including "Soul Serenade."
Threat Level Privacy, Crime and Security Online Body Scanners Might Violate U.K. Child-Protection Laws
The deployment of body-scanning X-ray machines could violate child-protection laws in Britain and prevent their implementation, according to The Guardian.British officials were forced to exempt the scanning of anyone under 18 during a yearlong test of the machines at Manchester airport until legal questions could be worked out, the newspaper said.
There are also concerns that images of nude celebrities could be posted online or sold to tabloids.
Body scanning machines have been touted as a solution for catching hidden explosives and other dangerous items after a would-be bomber attempted to blow up a Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, using explosives concealed in his underwear. Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport has 15 of the scanners, but none were used to scan the would-be bomber before he boarded the flight, according to the Associated Press.
There are currently 40 full-body scanners being used at 19 U.S. airports. Some are being used for primary screening — instead of the traditional metal detectors — while others are reserved only for so-called secondary screening. The Transportation Security Administration has ordered 300 more machines in the wake of the recent bombing attempt, according to The Washington Post. Some in Congress want to limit the use to passengers designated for special screening.
TSA spokeswoman Suzanne Trevino told the Associated Press that the administration had been working with privacy advocates and the scanner makers to develop software that blurs the faces and genitalia of passengers. But this raises questions about whether a blurred image would be as effective at detecting hidden explosives, such as those concealed by the so-called underwear bomber. She said passengers also can currently opt for a full-body pat-down instead of a scan.
Although scanned images are not supposed to be stored, there are concerns that security personnel are not adequately monitored and that images of children could fall into the hands of pedophiles.
Threat Level has put in a call to the TSA about how it would address the same concern in the United States with regard to images of children. We will update the post when the TSA responds.
Simon Davies, founder of the British-based group Privacy International, said that scans of celebrities or even of people with unusual body features could have an “irresistible pull” for some employees who want to share them with friends or others.
A Manchester airport spokesman told the Guardian that 500 people had participated in its 12-month test so far on a voluntary basis. Nearly all of them had responded with positive feedback, according to the spokesman. The image is reportedly only seen by one security officer, who is stationed in a remote location to prevent the officer from matching the image to an identity.
Former Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff argued in a recent Washington Post editorial for nationwide deployment of full-body scanners in the United States. Chertoff has also been making the rounds of media outlets to tout the technology.
But according to The Washington Post, Chertoff failed to disclose during many of his appearances that his consultancy, the Chertoff Group, represents a company that makes body-scanning machines, Rapiscan Systems.
The Post reports that this year the TSA bought 150 machines from Rapiscan for $25 million in stimulus funds. Rapiscan was the only company at the time that qualified for the government contract because its machines produced a less-graphic image of bodies. Another company has since become eligible for future contracts.
Photo: Susan Hallowell, the director of the Transportation Security Administration’s security laboratory, allows her body to be X-rayed by the “backscatter” machine.
Brian Branch-Price/AP
Sen. McCain Calls on Justice Dept. to Appeal Blackwater Massacre Case
During a visit to Iraq, Republican Senator John McCain called on the US Justice Department to appeal the dismissal of all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of being the shooters at the Nisour Square massacre in Baghdad in 2007.
“We hope and believe that the ruling will be appealed,” McCain said while seated next to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in Baghdad. “Our sympathy goes out to the families of those who were killed and injured in this very unfortunate and unnecessary incident.”
The Justice Department has not commented on what it plans to do. The case was dismissed on New Year’s Eve by US District Judge Ricardo Urbina, but not for lack of evidence or because the men were found not guilty. Urbina alleged that prosecutors had “recklessly violated the constitutional rights” of the Blackwater operatives by using statements the men had given after the shooting with the promise of immunity.
The five men were set to stand trial in February in Washington DC on 14 counts of manslaughter and weapons violations. A total of 17 Iraqi civilians were killed at Nisour Square and more than 20 others wounded. Some people were shot as they fled Blackwater’s forces, others while they had their hands raised in the air, according to the Justice Department.
Cocaine cargo hidden in bananas reaches shops in Spain
Drug smugglers appear to have made a major slip-up, after huge quantities of cocaine were delivered to supermarkets in Spain hidden in boxes of bananas.Police were alerted after a shelf-stacker at a Lidl supermarket in Madrid found a brick of neatly wrapped cocaine under a bunch of the fruit on Saturday. Searching other Lidl shops, police sniffer dogs reportedly found 25 such packets, worth several million euros.
The fruit had been shipped in from Ecuador and Ivory Coast.
Reports suggest an error by drug smugglers had led to their failing to retrieve almost 80kg (175lb) of cocaine from the boxes before they were distributed. Police said the drug packets had not made it onto supermarket shelves.
Meanwhile, Dutch police arrested five men and seized more than a tonne of cocaine hidden in a shipment of whisky from Jamaica.
With a street value of some 30m euros, the 1,100kg of cocaine was the largest Dutch seizure of drugs from the Caribbean island, Reuters reported.
Nappies and seafood
The plantain bananas had arrived at a Madrid wholesale fruit and vegetable market from the south-east port of Sagunto last week, destined for supermarkets in the Madrid area.
 Lidl destroyed thousands of bananas after the discovery |
"It's the first time that this has happened to Lidl in Spain - and we hope it's also the last," he told the BBC.
A police investigation into the find has spread from the capital to the eastern Caceres region.
The discovery comes weeks after police discovered 228kg of cocaine hidden in banana boxes shipped into Sagunto.
Last year Spanish police seized more than 14 tonnes of cocaine, which had been smuggled into the country in stuffed animals, nappies, seafood and, in one instance, a picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
RePost: One of the greatest 7" ever
Various members of The Damned played gigs with Kent as The Subterraneans but from memory I am pretty certain that Henry Padovani played guitar on this single. The line "like a deaf mute in a phone booth" came from an interview Kent did with Lou Reed I also seem to recall.
See what sort of things I keep in my brain...
My thanx to Malcolm as this was one of my holy grails...
My Flamingo/Veiled Women
Get it
+
Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List (Updated for 2010) by Andy Worthington
Back in March, I published a four-part list identifying all 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002, as “the culmination of a three-year project to record the stories of all the prisoners held at the US prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.” Now updated (as my ongoing project nears its four-year mark), the four parts of the list are available here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four.
As I explained at the time, the first fruit of my research was my book The Guantánamo Files, in which, based on an exhaustive analysis of 8,000 pages of documents released by the Pentagon (plus other sources), I related the story of Guantánamo, established a chronology explaining where and when the prisoners were seized, told the stories of around 450 of these men (and boys), and provided a context for the circumstances in which the remainder of the prisoners were captured.
The list provided references to the chapters in The Guantánamo Files where the prisoners’ stories can be found, and also provided numerous links to the hundreds of articles that I wrote between May 2007 and March 2009, for a variety of publications, expanding on and updating the stories of all 779 prisoners. In particular, I covered the stories of the 143 prisoners released from Guantánamo from June 2007 onwards in unprecedented depth, and also covered the stories of the 27 prisoners charged in Guantánamo’s Military Commission trial system in more detail than was available from most, if not all other sources.
In addition, the list also included links to the 12 online chapters, published between November 2007 and February 2009, in which I told the stories of over 250 prisoners that I was unable to include in the book (either because they were not available at the time of writing, or to keep the book at a manageable length).
As a result — and notwithstanding the fact that the New York Times had made a list of documents relating to each prisoner available online — I believe that I was justified in stating that the list was “the most comprehensive list ever published of the 779 prisoners who have been held at Guantánamo,” providing details of the 533 prisoners released at that point (and the dates of their release), and the 241 prisoners who were still held (including the 59 prisoners who had been cleared for release by military review boards under the Bush administration), for the same reason that my book provides what I have been told is an unparalleled introduction to Guantánamo and the stories of the men held there: because it provides a much-needed context for these stories that is difficult to discern in the Pentagon’s documents without detailed analysis.
When I first published the list in March, I promised — perhaps rather rashly — that I would update the list as more prisoners were released, a task that proved easier to promise than to accomplish. As a result, this update to the four parts of the list draws on the 290 or so articles that I have published in the last ten months, tracking the Obama administration’s stumbling progress towards closing the prison, reporting the stories of the 41 prisoners released since March, and covering other aspects of the Guantánamo story; in particular, the prisoners’ habeas corpus petitions in the US courts, in which, since March, nine prisoners have had their habeas corpus petitions granted by the US courts, and six have had their petitions refused (the total, to date, is 32 victories for the prisoners, and just nine for the government). Overall, as it stood at December 31, 2009, 574 prisoners had been released from Guantánamo (42 under Obama), one — Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani — had been transferred to the US mainland to face a federal court trial, six had died, and 198 remained, including one man, Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who is serving a life sentence after a one-sided trial by Military Commission in 2008.
As for my intention, it remains the same as it did when I first published the list. As I explained at the time:
It is my hope that this project will provide an invaluable research tool for those seeking to understand how it came to pass that the government of the United States turned its back on domestic and international law, establishing torture as official US policy, and holding men without charge or trial neither as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as criminal suspects to be put forward for trial in a federal court, but as “illegal enemy combatants.”
I also hope that it provides a compelling explanation of how that same government, under the leadership of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, established a prison in which the overwhelming majority of those held — at least 93 percent of the 779 men and boys imprisoned in total — were either completely innocent people, seized as a result of dubious intelligence or sold for bounty payments, or Taliban foot soldiers, recruited to fight an inter-Muslim civil war that began long before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and that had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or international terrorism.
To this I would only add that, nearly a year after President Obama took office, I hope that the list and its references provide a useful antidote to the current scaremongering regarding the failed Christmas plane bomber, Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, and his alleged ties with one — just one — of the 574 prisoners released from Guantánamo, in a Yemen-based al-Qaeda cell. This purported connection is being used by those who want the evil stain of Guantánamo to endure forever (still led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, but also including a number of spineless Democrats) to argue that no more of the Yemenis — who make up nearly half of the remaining prisoners — should be released, even though the ex-prisoner in question is a Saudi, even though no more than a dozen or so of the 574 prisoners released have gone on to have any involvement whatsoever with terrorism, and even though all of these men were released during the presidency of George W. Bush.
One year ago, it looked feasible that Guantánamo would close by January 2010. We now know that President Obama’s self-imposed deadline will be missed, partly through the unprincipled agitating of opportunistic opponents in Congress and the media, and partly through the government’s own lack of courage in the face of this opposition, but this is no reason for complacency. As the eighth anniversary of the prison’s opening approaches, it remains imperative that those who oppose the existence of indefinite detention without charge or trial — and who call, instead, for the full reinstatement of the Geneva Conventions for prisoners of war, and federal court trials for terrorists — maintain the pressure to close Guantánamo, and to charge or release the prisoners held there, as swiftly as possible.
Andy Worthington
London
January 2010
London
January 2010
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