Afghan MPs reject many new Karzai cabinet nominees

The Afghan parliament has rejected 10 of 17 new cabinet nominees suggested by President Hamid Karzai.

The vote comes two weeks after MPs turned down most of Mr Karzai's first choices, dealing him a serious blow.
Two key posts were approved - Mr Karzai's former security adviser Zalmay Rasul as foreign minister and Habibullah Ghalib as justice minister.
However, MPs backed only one of the three women nominees, Amina Afzali, as work and social affairs minister.
The two women put forward for the posts of public health and women's affairs were rejected.
The BBC's Mark Dummett, in Kabul, says Mr Karzai had hoped to have his new cabinet in place before a crucial donor conference in London on 28 January, but that now appears impossible.
However despite the setback, the president now has 14 of 24 ministers confirmed including the most powerful ones in charge of foreign, defence and interior ministries, our correspondent adds.
It is not yet clear when the president will propose names to fill the vacant positions and when Parliament will vote for these candidates.
After the first vote on 2 January, Mr Karzai ordered MPs to cancel their winter break to speed up progress towards getting a functioning government in place.
The rejection of 17 of Mr Karzai's 24 original choices was seen as a blow to his authority, already damaged after an election marred by fraud in August.
The new list included none of the previously rejected nominees.
MPs spent the last week questioning the new candidates ahead of Saturday's vote, which was carried out by secret ballot.
Some had complained that candidates were not suitably qualified or that others were too closely aligned to warlords.
Mr Karzai faces strong international pressure to create a government that can oversee reforms.
The UN has said international funding for Afghanistan's parliamentary elections this year will depend on reform of the country's election institutions.
Mr Karzai is also under pressure to form a government before a crucial donor conference in London on 28 January.

@'BBC'

Well at least we drew. I'm stoked *sigh*

Match report

HERE
...and the rumours continue of more exits alongside Gerrard & Torres at the end of the season.

Afghanistan “Hearts and Minds” Special: Take a Photo, Win a Camera!

The NATO Joint Forces Command in Afghanistan announces a photo contest: “Why Afghanistan Matters”. From the website:

Here’s your chance to let the world see “Why Afghanistan Matters” through your lens!
Send us your original photos and compete for the chance to win one of FIVE digital cameras! The public will be asked to choose a winner in one of the following four categories, with a panel of judges selecting an overall winner from the top three in all categories.

Here are some examples, in NATO’s eyes, of photos you might want to submit.

Here, EA suggests, are photos that might not get you that “brand new Nikon D90 12.3MP Digital SLR Camera plus a Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S ED VRII Telephoto Zoom Lens”:

@'Enduring America'

HA! (True story)

A floor collapsed beneath a group of about 20 members of Weight Watchers as they gathered to compare how many pounds they had shed over Christmas.

Members of the weight-loss club were lining up to compare readings on the scales when they heard a bang as the floor came away from the walls of their meeting room in Växjö in southern Sweden.

“We suddenly heard a huge thud – we almost thought it was an earthquake and everything flew up in the air. The floor collapsed in one corner of the room and along the walls,” one of the those present told the Smålandsposten newspaper.

They abandoned the room as the floor started to give way in other areas.

"We are going to have to find a replacement premises," Therese Levin, a consultant for Weight Watchers told the newspaper.

No one was injured in the incident, the cause of which is being investigated. The scales were not damaged and the weigh-in continued in a nearby corridor.

@'The Times'

(Thanx Stan!)

Why France is still in love with Serge

To older Britons, Serge Gainsbourg will always be the ugly, unshaven Frenchman who sang a filthy pop duet with a sweet English rose.
In France, he is remembered either as one of the great masters of chanson française or a drunken, pretentious, unpatriotic bore. Both sides of Serge Gainsbourg's career – and his little-known early years as a terrified Jewish child in wartime France – are explored in a bio-pic opening in France next week. The movie, Gainsbourg, une vie héroique (Gainsbourg, A Heroic Life) is, in its way, as poignant and painful as the singer's own life. One of its principal roles, that of Gainsbourg's British muse and third wife, Jane Birkin, is played, brilliantly, by a young British actress, Lucy Gordon, who committed suicide soon after the film was completed last year. The director, Joann Sfar, previously a writer of comic-strip books, has dedicated his movie to Ms Gordon, who was 29 when she died. "The film owes a great deal to the warmth, the sweetness and the immense talent of Lucy Gordon," Mr Sfar said. "Her personality was so luminous, so light, so funny." French film critics who saw a gala première in Paris on Thursday night also gave high praise to Ms Gordon's portrayal of Jane Birkin. They were equally impressed by the performance of the French theatre actor, Eric Elmosnino, as Gainsbourg at the height of his career. They were less convinced by the model and actress Laetitia Casta's portrayal of the French sex symbol and queen of pout, Brigitte Bardot, one of the singer's many other conquests. A curiosity of the film is Mr Sfar's insistence that the actors must sing for themselves and not mime to original recordings. The recreation by Ms Gordon and Mr Elmosnino of the 1969 classic of heavy breathing and orgasmic noises, "Je t'aime, Moi non plus" – Gainsbourg's only global hit – is reasonably convincing. Other actors' efforts range from the effective to the courageous to the karaoke borderline. Mr Sfar admits that he has simplified and exaggerated the life of a man who, in any case, loved to caricature himself. By doing so he has angered Ms Birkin, now a 62-year-old English rose and the most popular Briton living in France. As the chief guardian of the temple of Gainsbourg's memory, she insisted that the film's title must be followed by a disclaimer describing it as not a biography but a "conte" or "folk-tale" by the director. Another curiosity of the movie is the fact that Mr Sfar originally tried to cast the daughter of Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin, the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, as her father. Ms Gainsbourg considered this startling offer but then refused. Mr Elmosnino, 45, looks, in fact, much more like the seductively unlovely Gainsbourg than the singer's beautiful daughter does. When asked once to explain his serial success with women despite what he described as his "cabbage-head" looks, Gainsbourg said: "Ugliness is superior to beauty because it lasts longer." A further curiosity in the film is that Gainsbourg is portrayed as constantly battling with an alter-ego – humorous and creative but also self-destructive – which assumes a physical form, played by the American actor, Doug Jones. The director, Mr Sfar, said that he wanted to tell the story of a man who had a "love- hate relationship with his country and the women he loved ... a man who was terrified of being alone and had a desperate desire to be liked but muddled the love of his loved ones and the love of the public." The story of Gainsbourg's often destructive relationships with women will also be examined in a documentary which will be shown on French TV next week. Gainsbourg was born in Paris as Lucien Ginsburg, the son of a poor Russian-Jewish immigrant family in 1928. As a 12-year-old child in Vichy France, he was forced to wear a yellow star and was lucky to escape deportation to the death camps. After the war, he attempted unsuccessfully to become a painter before finding work as a songwriter and a crooner in bars. Edith Piaf asked him to write songs for her but he declined. His early career as a pop singer and pop writer, after his first album in 1958, was a mixture of rebellion, originality and cynical mimicry of commercial pop. He wrote songs for, among others, Juliette Greco, Petula Clarke and Françoise Hardy, Marianne Faithfull, Anna Karina and Nana Mouskouri. He even composed a Eurovision Song Contest winner – "Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son" – for France Gall in 1965. He wrote an album of songs for the actress Catherine Deneuve and sang duets – and had a year-long love affair – with Brigitte Bardot. The infamous "Je t'aime. Moi non Plus" ("I love you. Me neither") was originally written for and recorded with Bardot but she banned its release (a judgement seconded by the BBC and the Vatican when the celebrated Jane Birkin version emerged in 1969). In the last decade, Gainsbourg has become a cult hero and inspiration to British bands from Portishead to Franz Ferdinand. He has also been rediscovered by young people in his home country as one of the few truly original musicians that France produced in the classic years of pop and rock. He is now seen as a precursor of Queen or David Bowie – as someone who successfully spliced rock and jazz and classical music and a writer who produced poetic rather than crass pop lyrics (although he also wrote plenty of those in his time). The first half of the 130-minute movie follows Gainsbourg's life when he was still Ginsburg, a shy, poetic boy and teenager, ashamed of what he calls his "ugly Jewish face". The second half – less effective according to French critics – shows his emergence as "Gainsbourg", the provocative womaniser and singer-songwriter. It ends with his descent into alcoholism as the man that the French press nicknamed "Gainsbarre". But the film steers clear of one of his most disturbing aspects: his obsession in song with the sexual attraction of under-age girls.  

 @'The Independant'

(Thanx Nick!)

Obama confidant's spine-chilling proposal by Glenn Greenwald

Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama's closest confidants.  Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs."  In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government.  This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists.  The paper's abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups."  He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government).   This program would target those advocating false "conspiracy theories," which they define to mean: "an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role."  Sunstein's 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story's Daniel Tencer.
There's no evidence that the Obama administration has actually implemented a program exactly of the type advocated by Sunstein, though in light of this paper and the fact that Sunstein's position would include exactly such policies, that question certainly ought to be asked.  Regardless, Sunstein's closeness to the President, as well as the highly influential position he occupies, merits an examination of the mentality behind what he wrote.  This isn't an instance where some government official wrote a bizarre paper in college 30 years ago about matters unrelated to his official powers; this was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees.  Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class.  All of that makes Sunstein's paper worth examining in greater detail...

Continue reading

@'Salon'

Remember...

Duck hunters spark nuclear weapons plant lockdown in Texas

A pair of duck hunters have trigged a security alert at a nuclear weapons assembly plant in Amarillo, Texas.

Officials locked the plant after getting reports of individuals in camouflage gear stalking across the road from the factory.
They turned out to be two plant employees who had decided to spend their day off hunting fowl.
The plant was briefly shut as a "precautionary measure," a plant official said.
"They were just doing what people do around here," said Carson County Sheriff Tam Terry.
"They just had a lot more company than they were planning on."
The pair, who sparked the alert when spotted early in the morning carrying arms and dressed in camouflage gear, were later found in a nearby field setting up goose decoys.
No charges will be filed against the men who both had permission to hunt from the local landowner.

@'BBC'

(Thanx Carolyn!)

WTF???

Was just reading in the 'Guardian Weekly' from a couple of weeks ago that in certain parts of the UK, kids at school are being forced to wear goggles when playing conkers!!!

We are producing an entire generation of children with absolutely no sense of resilience and coping skills...

Thinking of the children? Hmmm!
(And the school that enforces that kids have to wear goggles when using blue-tac... JeebusHfugnchrist!!!)

OiNK Admin Found Not Guilty, Walks Free

Lawyers have presented their final arguments in the trial of Alan Ellis. The prosecution slammed the ex-OiNK admin, saying that the site was set up with dishonest and profiteering intentions right from the start. The defense tore into IFPI and countered by calling Ellis an innovator with talents to be nurtured. Today the jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty, and Ellis walked free.

After a very long wait of more than two years, last week the OiNK trial got underway with the prosecution making their case against Alan Ellis. This week it was the turn of the defense and yesterday both sides had the opportunity to summarize their positions by submitting their closing arguments to the jury at Teesside Crown Court.

Peter Makepeace, prosecuting, naturally painted an extremely negative picture, labeling the Pink Palace as a place designed from the ground up as a personal money-making machine for Ellis.

“21 million downloads. 600,000-plus albums. £300,000. This was a cash cow, it was perfectly designed to profit him and it was as dishonest as the day is long,” said Makepeace.

It is common sense to come to the conclusion that Oink was dishonest, claimed the prosecution lawyer, adding that Ellis knows that it’s dishonest “to promote, encourage and facilitate criminal activity,” and accusing him of telling the jury “persistent, cunning, calculated lies.”

It would, of course, be dishonest to promote “criminal activity”, but Mr Makepeace should be very well aware that the activity engaged in by OiNK’s users is covered under civil law.

Switching momentarily from criticism to praise and then back again, Makepeace said that the OiNK website was a “wonderful machine” for sharing music but noted that while the site had a really good brand name, it was a brand synonymous with “ripping off music.”

University of London professor Birgitte Andersenok gave evidence earlier in the trial, stating that file-sharing didn’t hurt the music industry and led to more sales. Mr Makepeace trashed her evidence.

“It’s nonsense, it’s flannel, it’s verbiage, it’s garbage,” he told the Court.

For the defense, Alex Stein said that Ellis had never knowingly acted dishonestly and that in 2004 when OiNK was launched, it was a “brave new world” on the Internet.

“In many societies he’d be an innovator, a creator, a Richard Branson. His talent would be moulded, not crushed by some sort of media organization,” he said.

The media organization being referred to by Stein was the IFPI, who he said had never requested that OiNK be shut down, and had instead “sat and watched.”

Gazette Live reports that Stein went on to launch a scathing attack on the IFPI.

“They used this site. Their own members used this site to promote their own music and now they’re crushing him. Maybe he grew too big for them, maybe they’ve taken a different marketing approach. I don’t know. But it was decided that this site should be taken down.

“All of us here are being manipulated to some sort of marketing strategy by the IFPI. If anybody’s acting dishonestly it’s them,” he said.

At the end of the two week trial the jury returned a unanimous verdict (12 to 0). Alan Ellis is not guilty of Conspiracy to Defraud the music industry. He walked out of Teesside Crown Court a free man today, his name cleared.

The verdict cannot be appealed and Ellis can finally put the past behind him and move on.

@'Torrent Freak'

Scaling the Digital Wall in China

The Great Firewall of China is hardly impregnable.

Just as Mongol invaders could not be stopped by the Great Wall, Chinese citizens have found ways to circumvent the sophisticated Internet censorship systems designed to restrict them.

They are using a variety of tools to evade government filters and to reach the wide-open Web that the Chinese government deems dangerous — sites like YouTube, Facebook and, if Google makes good on its threat to withdraw from China, Google.cn.

It’s difficult to say precisely how many people in China engage in acts of digital disobedience. But college students in China and activists around the world say the number has been growing ever since the government stepped up efforts to “cleanse” the Web during the Beijing Olympics and the Communist regime’s 60th anniversary last year.

As part of that purge, the Chinese government shut down access to pornography sites, blogs, online video sites, Facebook, Twitter and more.

While only a small percentage of Chinese use these tools to sidestep government filters, the ease with which they can do it illustrates the difficulty any government faces in enforcing the type of strict censorship that was possible only a few years ago.

Jason Ng, a Chinese engineering school graduate who will say only that he works in the media business, wakes every day at 8:30 a.m., and then begins his virtual travels through an open, global network by fanqiang, or “scaling the wall.” He connects to an overseas computer with a link, called a proxy server, that he set up himself. It costs 15 renminbi, or around $2, a month to share with about two dozen other friends.

Mr. Ng then works on his blog and checks the news on Google Reader and Twitter to “officially start my day of information.” Chinese citizens engaged in such practices say the government rarely cracks down on them individually, preferring instead to go after prominent dissidents who publish information about forbidden topics online.

As a result, college students, human rights activists, bloggers, journalists and even multinational corporations in China are rushing to use tools that go over or around barriers set up by Chinese regulators, in part because they feel it is the only way to participate in a global online community.

Isaac Mao, a well-known blogger and activist in China, says the number of people seeking access to blocked sites has grown as more and more popular Web sites have been shut down by Beijing.

These digital dissidents have begun to organize small conferences and networks to share information and tricks about how to get access to banned material. “People start to hold a grudge against the government for depriving them of access to the Web sites they regularly visit,” Mr. Mao says.

But as the government has expanded its control over Internet, it has also intensified efforts to close some of the channels being used to evade the online blockade. The result has been a technological game of cat and mouse between the Chinese government and a global contingent fighting for online freedoms...

Continue reading

@'NY Times'

WARNING!!! Update re: Ultrareach

Founded by a group of successful entrepreneurs, renowned scientists and engineers in Silicon Valley who dedicated to providing technologies and service for people to exchange information on Internet freely and safely, UltraReach is the first company with a mission that offers Internet technology and service immune to the national Internet censorship in China.

Internet anti-censorship technology was thought of as "mission impossible" two years ago. We started thorough R&D on other existing technologies as well as from end users' perspective. While other existing technologies were developed for user's privacy and anonymity on Internet, we solved the connection and reconnection problem, which is the key issue for user to access web site without being blocked. Built on solid theoretical analysis and professional quality, UltraReach has successfully invented the technology platform called the GIFT system, which offers guaranteed connection and reconnection service to users inside these censor countries and capability of serving very large number of users with affordable resource. More than one year live service performance has proved that the GIFT technology has successfully broken through the so-called "Great Firewall" which is built with state-of-art firewall equipments and softwares with virtually unlimited resource from government.

Powered by GIFT technology, UltraReach.Net portal is the first home page for users to visit when they are connected to our service. Through the web portal users inside the censored zones can surf any public web sites in the free world. It naturally becomes a precious window for users inside China to look out for world news and other web contents that are blocked. The UltraReach.Net attracts thousands of users in China with daily news stories, featured articles and links from world media, governmental and non-governmental organizations, different groups and individual sites.

The outstanding performance of our service has made UltraReach Internet well known among the users who seek the Internet freedom in the censored country, and at the meantime attracted heavy attacks from Chinese Internet police. The GIFT system has survived various assaults including DNS hijacking, IP blocking, DOS attacking etc. We've taken the threats from the censor as opportunities to continuously improve the performance and reliability of our technology. In fact, the GIFT system has been mature enough for reliable service and it depends on the financial resource to expand its user base.

The next-level solution from UltraReach Internet as well as the real time performance has proved that our system and service is by far superior to other existing technologies. The main differentiators consist of anti-blocking power, connection and re-connection capability and the ability to serve and maintain a very large number of users from inside China. As the clear leader among the Internet anti-jamming technology and service providers, we are currently the only one that can offer reliable service to deliver web contents to the massive number of users in China.

HERE

My son did a bit of research into 'Ultrareach' and warning bells started to ring!

HERE

Cheech & Chong on Palin -"She answered a lot of questions like a stoner!"

Face of the day

He Pingping of China holds the hand of Sultan Kosen of Turkey as they attend the Guinness World Records Roadshow, on January 14, 2010 in Istanbul, Turkey. He, standing at 73 cm (2 feet 5 inch), and Kosen, at 246.5 cm (8 feet 1 inch), are both in the Guinness World Records for their statures. By Burak Kara/Getty Images.

@'Daily Dish'

Smoking # 48

Allen Ginsberg
HERE
(Thanx Stan!)