nside GCHQ: 'Caution: Here comes the BBC'

One of the signs that greeted the BBC team

"Don't take it personally," said the woman behind the reception desk. But it was hard not to. People were avoiding us and there were signs all over the building warning of our presence .
"Caution. BBC Radio 4 recording here. Keep all conversations to 'Unclassified'."
It was hardly surprising. We were being allowed to record inside one of Britain's most secret establishments - GCHQ, the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. Their job is to listen in on others, record their conversations and pick up their e-mails. But for the first time in its history we were turning the microphones on them.
We didn't exactly walk right in.
Negotiations for access to this highly secretive operation lasted several weeks. Could we, they enquired, assure them that the microphones we were going to use were as "low sensitivity as possible"? And would we, they asked, allow their sound engineers to listen back to the recordings we made in open areas to check that we hadn't picked up any conversations that we shouldn't have?
'The Doughnut'
And then, when we got there, there was layer upon layer of security checks. We got past the first two before my recording equipment was taken away to be examined. I left it with three men in a room who were standing round a table with all sorts of weird looking devices.

FIND OUT MORE... GCHQ: Cracking the Code , written and presented by the BBC's security correspondent Gordon Corera It will be broadcast on Radio 4 at 2000 BST on Tuesday, 30 March Or hear it later on the iPlayer

"Please look after my baby," I said, before being escorted outside. (Producers can, understandably, be very protective about their recording machines).
I have no idea what went on in that room but it obviously included the electronic equivalent of a full body search. I had to piece everything back together afterwards. Even the batteries were treated with suspicion - if I needed any more over the next 48 hours, I was told, they would supply them.
There were more checks to come. We hadn't, at this stage, even got past main reception. A rather forbidding looking receptionist asked for identification before pointing to a sign which expressly forbade anyone taking cameras, mobile phones and - rather bizarrely, given the reason we were there - recording equipment or similar electronic devices into the main building.
Somehow we got through and there we were, strolling with our minders, round what is known at GCHQ as The Street, a circular walkway which runs throughout the building nicknamed affectionately, The Doughnut.
Visitors to Cheltenham have to wear a red badge to mark them out, but you couldn't miss me. I was the one wearing headphones and carrying a large microphone. People gave us a wide berth. It felt like I had a communicable disease.
Shutters down
Secrecy at Cheltenham is ingrained. A decision had been made to allow a glimpse into their world but there were some who weren't entirely happy about it. As if to hammer the point home, there was an announcement over the public address system within minutes of our appearance.

Exhibited Soviet radio - found in a field, but no one knows who buried it

"Blinds facing the street between blocks A and B should be lowered and closed immediately. End of message."
It turned out that a member of staff was worried about us being able to see through the windows into the open plan offices facing onto the street. They didn't want us to be able to read what was on their computer screens and had alerted security. There was a low whirring, grumbling noise and the shutters came down.
There were reminders of past "transgressors" - people who had betrayed their secrets - all around us. Dotted around the building were glass cases with exhibits from GCHQ's history including two radio sets.
The first was a radio used by the Portland Spy Ring to send messages back to Russia in the 50s and 60s. Next to it was a radio set which had been discovered by a farmer ploughing his field near Aberystwyth. It had been cached there by someone working for the Soviets but, to this day, no-one has any idea who it was.
Still, there was an upside to being avoided if not altogether shunned. We had no trouble getting a table in the staff restaurant when it came to lunchtime. You had only to announce that we were from the BBC and diners would obligingly move away to make room for us. It's not something you could count on when booking a table at a high class restaurant like Quaglinos but then GCHQ is an altogether different world.

Mark Savage @'BBC'

Video of Tea Party racists spitting on Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver

Ever since stories about anti-healthcare reform campaigners calling black and gay lawmakers 'nigger' and 'faggot' and spitting on them, conservatives have been sneering that they haven't seen any evidence and implying it's a media conspiracy. Here's video of one incident.

Congressman Emmanuel Cleaver of Missouri (in the tan suit in the video) had released a statement last week confirming the racism and that he'd been spat on. Here's video, via the Huffington Post, in which it looks like he's been spat on.

Luminaries like Andrew Breitbart and Sean Hannity had questioned all the lawmakers' claims, preferring to believe the disgusting racists who make up their flocks. A tea party group even offered $15,000 for video proof of the spitting incident. Although they may now claim, like some blogs, that "the good congressman just walked a little too close to a protestor with his hands cupped." Yeah, that must be it. Silly old us in the 'mainstream media'.

@'Gawker'

Just remember where...

...you read it first!

The Libertines reunite for Reading and Leeds

SVT Font by Vier5

Beautiful...

Designer: Vier5
Release: March 2010

When Vier5 turn their gimlet eye to the subtitles used in cinema, the result is SVT, a spectacularly subtle font originally designed for the Centre d'art Contemporain de Brétigny in France. Boxy and light, this no-frills typeface is about communication in its clearest form.

Grounded on the classical notion of design, Paris-based Vier5 focuses on applying new, up-to-date fonts. They aim to replace visual empty phrases with individual creative statements tailored specifically for the client and medium used. "Design is the possibility of drafting and creating new, forward-looking images in the field of visual communication," Achim Reichert, one-half of the design collective, says of his work. Read more in this (very brief) interview with the artist below.

www.vier5.de

Interview with the Designer Vier5

A short description about the font:
There is no description from needed. The character is visible. It was originally designed for different posters for Centre d'art Contemporain de Brétigny/France.

What was the main idea behind designing the font?
The lettering for subtitles in cinema, i.e. English or Armenian films.

How would you characterize your style?
No Style.

How did you come up with the name of the font?
SVT stands for S.V.T., an incorrectly-remembered name of a Parisian company for subtitling.

What inspires you?
Nothing.

Which is the bigger challenge: working on your own personal project or for a client with a strict briefing?
These opposite realities do not exist.

What is the ideal usage of your font?
Ideal use will always take place in future projects.

How would you describe the state your handwriting is in?
It works in a certain way. 

Where does the font end, where does the image begin? Is there a line to draw?
It depends on how the viewing takes place. Texts in smaller caps are already seen and processed from images to content, big headlines with uncommon silhouettes have to be read letter by letter before understanding.

Your future plans/projects?
Are in the future.

Man - I wish that I had bought this...

Cubesails to drag spacejunk from orbit

One of the biggest modern threats to spaceflight -- apart from politics  -- is space junk. For each satellite, rocket, capsule, space station,  missile, booster, observatory, dog or monkey we put into space, we  litter Earth orbit with 5 percent more junk every year.
So it seems we are doomed to failure. There's currently an estimated  5,500 tons of debris up there, and it's getting worse. The more active  we become in space, the more junk we shed, and it is a hyper-velocity  hazard, putting future astronauts and our multi-billion dollar satellite  industry at risk. What's more, space debris can interrupt satellite communications,  possibly even satellite TV signals -- we can't be having that!
SATELLITES:  Keep track of all the news from satellites orbiting not only Earth, but  other planetary bodies too.
Fortunately, various agencies around the world have accurate means of  tracking the larger bits of debris, providing some kind of warning  should a speeding bit of shrapnel get too close to our orbital real  estate. We might not be able to do anything (yet) about the smaller  stuff, but UK scientists have come up with a novel idea about how to  remove the larger stuff from orbit.
Enter the CubeSail, a modified solar sail designed to bring  dead satellites and rockets down to Earth.
HOWSTUFFWORKS:  Space junk is a growing issue, but what are the risks to astronauts?



Life's a Drag for Satellites.
The nanosatellite concept, designed by scientists  at the University of Surrey and funded by the European space  company Astrium, will be launched for space trials in 2011. Inspired by  the solar sail -- a spacecraft  propulsion system that uses the pressure of sunlight to get around space  -- the CubeSail uses air resistance to slow down its motion.
Unfolding into a 5×5 meter sheet of plastic, the CubeSail is designed  to "drag" defunct satellites from orbit, making use of the thin wisps  of atmospheric gases at orbital altitudes. Although the density of air  molecules is low, it's enough to make the sail act like a parachute,  slowing it down, dragging the dead satellite to a fiery reentry much  sooner than it would have done otherwise.
"Protecting our planet and environment is key for sustainable  growth," said Vaios Lappas, lead researcher on the project. "CubeSail is  a novel, low cost space mission which will demonstrate for the first  time space debris/satellite deorbiting using an ultra light 5 x 5 sail  stowed and supported on a 3 kg nanosatellite."
Seek and Destroy CubeSails?

Although this system is intended to be attached to future missions  that require a safe (and cheap) means of being removed from orbit, I can  imagine this kind of system being attached to some kind of "seek and  destroy" robot, taking out old orbital debris.
The CubeSail could be launched alone and under its own power and  guided to orbital debris being tracked from the surface. Once the robot  "docks" with the debris, it opens its sail, pulling the junk from space. Like with many space technologies, I also wonder if such a sci-fi  concept could have a military application.
Both the USA and China have demonstrated that they  can "shoot down" satellites with ground-launched missiles, filling  low-Earth orbit with millions of pieces of smaller bits of debris,  ultimately making Earth orbit impassible (there's no military advantage  in filling space with junk after all). Perhaps anti-satellite weaponry  could be more passive, sending ground-controlled CubeSails into orbit,  seeking out, attaching to, and ultimately destroying enemy satellites  but without the mess?

Images: The space junk problem (NASA) and the the CubeSail  concept (ESA/Univ. of Surrey/Astrium).
Sources: University  of Surrey, Physorg.com,  BBC

Ian O'Neill @'Discovery News' 

(Thanx BillT!)

Once upon a time...

Fairytale generator

(Thanx Walter!)

Rare Bill Laswell production...

...of Korean percussion ensemble 'Samulnori'

Get it 

HERE
(Google alert work for you Dave? LOL!)

Shame on John McCain

 
I am not sure who must have felt worse—John or Cindy McCain—when Sarah Palin bounded onstage in Tucson last Friday, wearing that fetching black leather dominatrix jacket to deliver a hair-swinging, wink-winking pep talk, and revving up the Tea-baggers who came to see her not him. It was a sweet moment for Sarah. McCain’s 2008 election team—those “old school” losers, as she doubtless thinks of them—have trashed her ever since they lost.
Cindy McCain was glacially self-contained in a trim, chic suit, at her husband’s side. When will high-def pick up the grinding of teeth? She introduced Palin as “a breath of fresh air” when in fact, as far as the McCains are concerned, Palin was a tornado wreaking havoc on the senator’s campaign for president with a personal reality show that enthralled the public but appalled the voters. She has since used the celebrity he bestowed on her to become the La Pasionaria of the No Spin Zone crowd, who now want only to unseat him and install his cocky challenger J.D Hayworth.

It's like the Hanoi Hilton in reverse: He held out under physical torture, but under political torture it seems he’ll say and do just about anything.

No doubt for Cindy McCain the thought of having her husband back in town and hanging around the house if he loses his Senate seat is worth the indignity of once again appearing next to him to pretend that the current pin-up of violent populism stands for the same things as a principled war hero.
But for John McCain himself, and the people who have so long admired him, surely this moment in Tucson was a killer moment of moral degradation. McCain’s whole deal has been that he’s his own man, a maverick, a courageous loner. He defied the Bushies by speaking vehemently against torture. He stuck his neck out for the Iraq surge. He denounced the corrupting influence of money in politics. He was the scourge of pork. Whatever he really thought about Palin as his campaign went down in flames and his team threw her under the bus, he gallantly kept his counsel.
That bit, at least, paid off, I guess. It meant he could call on Palin to get him out of a hole in his fight against a meretricious former talk-show host riding anti-incumbent fervor to within seven points of upending him. By using Palin to pander to the Tea Party, however, McCain showed his willingness to repudiate everything that made him special, just so he can hold on to a Senate seat. It’s like the Hanoi Hilton in reverse: He held out under physical torture, but under political torture it seems he’ll say and do just about anything. That character change seems to date from the strange reversal of magic that occurred when he succumbed to political opportunism in 2004 in Pensacola and embraced George W. Bush, the man who allowed the disgraceful smear campaign against him in South Carolina four years earlier.
As for Palin, her political heart, if she had one, would of course be with McCain’s challenger, who purportedly stands for everything she does. But being consistent politically is no longer as important to Sarah Palin as being a star. The McCain gig in Tucson was a big booking; images of being embraced anew by a legend provided resonant media far more valuable than backing the other guy in the race, who merely furthered the Tea Party cause. When she’s out at their fervid rallies, Palin pretends to be talking to True Believers in a political movement. But she’s really only talking to consumers. Buy my book. Watch my show. Hype my brand. She has chosen celebrity over politics, and who can blame her, given what hell it is to try and serve your country in Washington these days.
If McCain wins this last race he knows it will be because of her. It’s not impossible that Palin will turn out to be his most enduring legacy. Disinterested public service has become, just so… what’s the phrase, “old school.”

Tina Brown @'Daily Beast'

Tally ho! 'Barbour cavalry' rides to Tories' rescue

Hundreds of hunt supporters are under orders to ride into action in key marginal seats within hours of a general election being called, in the knowledge that David Cameron will allow a return to hunting with dogs if he gets to Downing Street.

Documents seen by The Independent show that hunt masters have been rounding up supporters and sending them to the most fiercely contested seats, ahead of a big push planned for the first 72 hours of campaigning. A letter from one Tory candidate, while thanking the huntsmen and women for their support, pleaded with them not to invade his constituency like the cavalry, "cantering into town in pink chinos and Barbours".

Hunt organisers have told supporters that the sport needs a decisive Conservative victory – Mr Cameron is expected to allow MPs a free vote on letting traditional hunting resume. A message to members of the Avon Vale Hunt, which has operated in Wiltshire for 122 years, warns that it could soon cease to exist unless the Tories secure an outright majority. The hunt chairman, Tim Page, wrote: "I would like us all to reflect on what is at stake if we do not succeed in helping get a Conservative government elected at the forthcoming general election, and, importantly with a sufficient majority to give the time to a free vote on the repeal of the Hunting Act 2004." ...

Continue reading

@'The Independent'

In a word - TWATS!!!

...and all the more reason to stop the Tories getting into power.

Rio Tinto sacks four executives jailed in China for bribery

Head - Sin Bin

Featuring Gareth Sagar (ex The Pop Group & Rip Rig & Panic)

(Tip o'the hat to Martin!)

Truly amazing mummies

Perils of the Silk Road

The Silk Road was a legendarily dangerous 4,600-mile route connecting Asia and the Mediterranean, used by traders who for centuries traversed deserts and mountains, in temperatures ranging from minus-50 to 120 degrees. The exhibition at the Bowers features more than 150 objects excavated from the trail, including this infant mummy, believed to be from around the 8th century BCE (Before the Christian Era). Even more remarkable about the mummies in the Bowers exhibition is that, although found in the arid western reaches of China, the features are noticeably Caucasian.

More @'Life'

HERE

Breaking News: Rio Tinto employees sentenced in Chinese bribery case

Four employees of the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto, including an Australian citizen, were convicted by a Chinese court on Monday and sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison for accepting millions of dollars in bribes and stealing commercial secrets.

A three-judge panel at the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate Court sentenced Stern Hu, an Australian citizen, to seven years in jail for bribery and five years on stealing secrets, but he will serve 10 years in prison.

The case has drawn international attention and even led to diplomatic wrangling between China and Australia over concerns that the four employees had been arrested on trumped up charges and questions about whether they could get a fair trial here.

At a three-day trial that took place here early last week, the four employees all pleaded guilty to accepting some bribes, though several of the men denied stealing commercial secrets.

The four employees — three of whom are Chinese citizens — were detained in Shanghai last July on suspicions of espionage and stealing state secrets from Chinese state-owned steel companies.

But after protests from Australia and foreign executives about the nature of the accusations, the men were formally charged with bribery and stealing commercial secrets, which are lesser charges.

Some Australian officials and foreign executives said the arrests looked like retaliation against Rio Tinto because of its tough negotiations over iron ore prices with Chinese state-run steel mills and the company’s decision last summer to scrap plans to accept a $19.5 billion investment from one of China’s biggest mining companies.

The Australian government was due to issue a statement shortly after the verdict was released.

Lawyers for the four employees have said they were considering an appeal. 

@'NY Times'

Live on Radio National's Australia Talks

Stephen Conroy says he knows nothing about the US objection to Australia's internet filter...

 The federal government will introduce mandatory internet filtering this year. And after recent abuse appearing on Facebook memorial sites, the government is also looking at establishing an internet ombudsman. So how far should control of the internet go for the sake of making the online world safer for children? Is it actually possible to make the internet safe?

Download link:
Internet filtering with Minister for Communications Stephen Conroy

Suicide bombers strike central Moscow metro, at least 37 dead

At least 37 people died as two suspected terrorist bombs ripped through the central Moscow metro system during Monday morning's rush hour, the emergencies ministry said.

The first blast occurred at around 8:00 a.m. (05:00 GMT), killing at least 23 people and injuring 18, many of them seriously.

A RIA Novosti employee who was on the train said the blast occurred between the Lubyanka and Okhotny Ryad metro stations close to the Kremlin.

The second blast occurred some 20 minutes later at the nearby Park Kultury station and killed at least 14 and injured at least 7. The carriage hit by the blast in still on the platform.

Prosecutors said the bombs, each with the equivalent strength of 2 kg of TNT, were denoted by suicide bombers.

A police source told RIA Novosti that the blasts bore all the hallmarks of "a well-planned terrorist attack."

With central Moscow at a standstill, helicopters are being used to evacuate the injured.

Russia's top investigator Vladimir Markin said that an investigation on terrorism charges had been launched.

If terrorism is confirmed as the cause of the blasts, this will be the first major terrorist incident in Russia outside of the North Caucasus since 2004, when hundreds of people died in two plane bombings. The same series of attacks culminated in the deaths of over 300 people, many of then children, when Chechen terrorists seized a school in Beslan.

A telephone hotline has been opened - +7 495 622 1430 and + 7 495 624 3440.

@'RIANOVOSTI'