WTF??? Anti-porn provision sinks Dem jobs bill

House Democrats had to scrap their only substantive bill of the week Thursday after Republicans won a procedural vote that substantively altered the legislation with an anti-porn clause.

Democrats had labeled their COMPETES Act -- a bill to increase investments in science, research and training programs -- as their latest jobs bill. It was the only non-suspension bill Democrats brought up all week.

But the Republican motion to recommit the bill -- a parliamentary tactic that gives the minority one final chance to amend legislation -- contained language prohibiting federal funds from going "to salaries to those officially disciplined for violations regarding the viewing, downloading, or exchanging of pornography, including child pornography, on a federal computer or while performing official government duties."

That provision scared dozens of Democrats into voting with Republicans to approve the motion to recommit. After it became clear the GOP motion was going to pass, dozens of additional Democrats changed their votes from "no" to "yes." In the end, 121 Democrats voted with Republicans -- only four fewer than the number of Democrats who voted with their party.

But because of additional changes contained in the motion, Democrats decided to pull the bill from consideration immediately following the passage of the motion to recommit.

The GOP motion also stopped all funding authorizations in two years as opposed to the five years contained in the original bill, abolished each new program established through the legislation, and froze all existing programs at their current funding levels until the federal budget is balanced.

Democrats accused Republicans of playing politics with a bill designed to create jobs through investments in research and development.

"For anyone that is concerned about federal employees watching pornography, they just saw a pornographic movie. It's called; 'Motion to Recommit,'" Science Committee Chairman and bill author Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn) said. "It was a cynical effort to undermine an important bill for my 9-year-old daughter, for your kids and your grandkids."

"It's absurd," Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) said. "It's specious, and it's disgusting. And those are the nicest things I can say about it."

During a colloquy with House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democrats would bring the COMPETES Act back to the floor next week.

Jared Allen and Russell Berman@'The Hill'

Block on dissolving parliament is an outrage - Adonis

The coalition government's move to make it harder to dissolve Parliament is a "constitutional outrage", ex-Transport Secretary Lord Adonis has said.
The Lib Dem-Tory plan will mean that 55% of MPs must approve such a move to get it through the House of Commons. A simple majority is currently enough.
Labour's Lord Adonis said it raised doubts over the coalition's legitimacy.
But Lib Dem Andrew Stunell, who helped frame the deal, said it was needed to prevent an "ambush" on the Tories.
The coalition agreement between the Lib Dems and Conservatives promises a "strong and stable" government, with elections held on fixed dates every five years.
'Ganging up'
The raising of the threshold for a dissolution vote is intended to prevent a move to hold an election earlier than that.
The Conservatives currently have 306 out of 649 MPs - a 47% share.
One seat, Thirsk and Malton, is empty, pending a by-election on 27 May, while Sinn Fein's five MPs have not taken the oath of allegiance allowing them to sit in Parliament.

We have a quasi-presidential system here, without the checks and balances Charles Walker Conservative MP for Broxbourne

It would be impossible for opponents, even if fully united, to muster the 55% needed to dissolve Parliament, unless at least 16 Tories rebelled against their party leadership.
Lord Adonis said: "This is a brazen attempt to gerrymander the constitution which calls into question the legitimacy of the coalition from day one.
"If the legislation ever gets to the House of Lords, it will meet opposition of an intensity and bitterness not seen for many years. This is a constitutional outrage."
However, Mr Stunell, the Lib Dem MP for Hazel Grove, told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: "What the prime minister has given up with a fixed-term parliament is the right to go to the Queen at any moment and just call a general election. Obviously that's what a fixed-term parliament stops.
"On the other hand, if your threshold for a special case is only 50%, in theory it would be possible for the Tories to be ambushed by other parties, including the Liberal Democrats, ganging up against them...
"Although nobody in the partnership has any intention of doing any such thing, it was a small matter for us to say 'No, we accept your concerns and if we raise that threshold to 55%.'
"That gives you the safeguard you want and that's the way we've proceeded."
Charles Walker, Conservative MP for Broxbourne, said: "It is for Parliament to decide when it's lost confidence in the government and I think we have to look at this very closely...
"This is perhaps just a little too much for our unwritten constitution to bear."
He added: "Parliament actually runs this country, not the prime minister. Over the past 100 years, Parliament has given away huge powers to the prime minister.
"We have a quasi-presidential system here, without the checks and balances. This would be the loss of an enormous check."

@'BBC'

http://twitter.com/Solar_7Grand

When Guru died there were immediate questions asked about his supposed deathbed diatribe against his old Gangstarr colleague DJ Premier, a diatribe that also seemed to just be bigging up his latest collaborator Solar.

The other day I posted some emails that had been hacked from Solar's files regarding Solar selling Guru's house and getting royalty payments changed to his personal account from EMI all while Guru was in a coma. They also proved that Solar was the author of that deathbed letter. Now the hacker speaks to 'Vibe'
You can get nearly all the hacked e/mails here and the password is #fucksolar.

Tim James - American English

Original

Facts are an inconvenience to the manufacturers of outrage.

The right wing blogosphere is cultivating more outrage. It seems the new A-Team movie portrays the US military as the bad guys. What's peculiar here is the original TV series was was about a group of vets who the military framed for a crime they didn't commit. While this writer insists he's aware of this, there must still be indignation
The Outrage

For Longy! XXX

Good luck on Saturday!

(Thanx Richard!)

HERE

Pamphlet prepared by the U.S. First Army Headquarters in 1955

How to Spot a Communist
(Thanx BillW!)

Disaster unfolds slowly in the Gulf of Mexico

A pod of Bottlenose dolphins swim under the oily water Chandeleur Sound, Louisiana, Thursday, May 6, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Big Picture

(Thanx Walter!)

Do you see where I'm coming from you jive motherfugger?

Girlz With Gunz # 101 (for Joe Strummer!)

Tho' I say so myself a magnificent segue...

Judge throws out libel action over Baader-Meinhof link in journalist’s blog

A political activist today failed in her libel action over a journalist’s blog which referred to her “Baader-Meinhof" link.

In a ruling that gives bloggers some protection against libel actions, Mr Justice Eady rejected a claim by Johanna Kaschke , a Tower Hamlets-based Conservative, against David Osler, a Labour Party member, over an article that was written in April 2007.

Ms Kaschke claimed that some of the comments linked her with terrorism. The judge at the High Court in London, however, struck out the claim as an abuse of process.

Mr Osler, a journalist and blogger, said that he only posted the material after seeing an article on Ms Kaschke’s own website and had never suggested that Ms Kaschke was involved in bank robberies, violence or terrorism.

He accepted that, although she came under suspicion in the 1970s and was imprisoned for a time, she was not guilty of any criminal offence and was paid compensation in Germany for her wrongful arrest.

He said that he had given Ms Kaschke a right of reply, which appeared on the blog in May 2007, and was prepared to join in a statement reaffirming his acceptance of her innocence.

Ms Kaschke issued proceedings in April 2008, just over a year after the blog was originally published.

Mr Justice Eady agreed with lawyers for Mr Osler that the claim should be limited to a publication proved to have happened within the 12 months leading up to the issue of proceedings.

They also argued that the claim should be struck out because the passages relied in part on words from Ms Kaschke’s own website.

Robert Dougans, a media lawyer with Bryan Cave, said: “This ruling is good news for the online media, as Mr Justice Eady was clear that ‘stale’ blog posts and articles available online but not actively linked to a site will not be deemed to have been published without actual evidence that someone has read them.”

He said that would provide some protection for bloggers and online media pending any legislation to tackle the problem of the internet and “multiple publication” giving rise to endless potential libel lawsuits.

He said that the “multiple publication rule” still existed and that meant that each time a blog posting was downloaded there was a separate cause of action, no matter when the posting was originally put online.

However, he added: “This case means bloggers now can rest assured that just because a posting is available on the internet it will not be deemed to have been published. A claimant will need to put forwards real evidence that an old blog post has actually been read.”

The judge said that he was quite satisfied the posting did not link Ms Kaschke to terrorism in the sense of suggesting in any way that she was directly linked with it or that she approved of the extremist activities.

Mr Osler, he added, was merely choosing to highlight an unusual event in the history of someone who was at the material time active in politics in London.

Striking out the claim, he concluded that if a jury found in favour of Ms Kaschke, the damages would be very modest and out of all proportion to the time and money spent on the cost of a two-week trial.

He added: “It is an important consideration for the court to have in mind on any abuse application that the fact of being sued at all is a serious interference with freedom of expression.

“That may be appropriate in the majority of libel actions, where it is necessary to countenance such interference in order to vindicate the rights of another person in respect of whom a real and substantial tort has occurred.

“But the court must be vigilant to recognise the small minority of cases where the legitimate objective of vindication is not required or, at least, cannot be achieved without a wholly disproportionate interference with the rights of the defendant.”

Frances Gibb @'The Times'

Well done to Dave Osler, JackofKent & Robert Dougans...

Are there any pics of Justice Eady in his 'Brigade Rosse' t shirt LOL?
*Justice Eady is Sir David Eady!!!

When Britain's lost Rock Star met his old schoolmate, the Prime Minister

Jackie Leven & Gordon Brown, alumni of Kircaldy High

Despite his clunky name-dropping of Arctic Monkeys early in his premiership, its hard to think of Gordon Brown as a rock and roll man. It was amusing then to learn at a gig last night that Brown is an exact contemporary of Jackie Leven, a great musical maverick who I often think of as Britain’s lost rock star. Leven is probably the most talented singer-songwriter never to have become a household name, producing neglected masterpieces since 1971, while leading a dramatic and colourful life.

Both Leven and Brown are 59 years old and hail from Kircaldy in Fife, where they attended Kircaldy High School. One of the pair became the first schoolboy in Scotland to be busted for drugs, formed cult band Doll By Doll, was nearly murdered in a vicious mugging which left him unable to talk or sing for a year, became a heroin addict, lost his girlfriend to the Dalai Llama’s bodyguard, self-cured and established an addiction charity of which Princess Diana became patron and has released over thirty albums rich with poetry, melody and the metaphysics and mysteries of life. The other became Prime Minister.

At an intimate gig at the Slaughtered Lamb in London to launch his latest wonderful album, ‘Gothic Road’, Leven (one of the great raconteurs, though not always the most reliable of narrators) described a recent encounter with his old school mate (who, it must be stressed, Leven considers a “political hero”).

On his new album, Leven collaborates with that great English troubadour, Ralph McTell. In October, 2009, McTell was honoured by the UK Parliament’s All Party Folk Music Group at a special award ceremony in the House of Commons, to celebrate his lifetime’s contribution to folk music. Leven was invited as McTell’s guest. It was, according to Leven, an extraordinary event, in which grown MPs started to sniffle and blubber during McTell’s iconic Streets Of London, until a wave of weeping swept through the room and reached the stage, causing McTell himself to break down in tears.

Afterwards, Leven claims he was standing with McTell when the Prime Minister approached to be introduced to McTell. Obviously he needed no introduction to Leven, who was greeted (to judge by Leven’s comedic performance) with a slightly suspicious “Oh, hello Jackie.” “Hello Gordon.”

Brown had a question about McTell’s classic ballad. “I have heard that when you originally wrote Streets Of London it was actually Streets Of Paris. I suppose you changed it to London for sound economic reasons?”

“No Prime Minister,” responded McTell. “I was living in Paris at the time I wrote it, but half way through I realised that I was really writing about London.”

Brown was not to be dissuaded from his theory, however. “All the same, I am sure that sound economic reasons must have played a part in the change.”

Despite the status of his interrogator, McTell was getting politely annoyed with this suggestion. “No, Prime Minister,” he insisted. “I was a young man and I wasn’t thinking about things like money, I was just trying to write the best song I could, and express my feelings about London.”

Brown was, apparently, not entirely satisfied with this version of the song’s creation. “That’s as may be,” he said. “But, of course, I assume you are aware that many of the conditions you describe in that song have been alleviated under New Labour.”

Where some hear poetry, others hear only statistics …

‘Gothic Road’, which will be released by Cooking Vinyl on April 4^th. It contains a beautiful duet with McTell on ‘Cornelius Whalen’, a tribute to the last of the Jarrow marchers.

If you haven’t yet heard Leven’s work, despite my many entreaties in the Telegraph, then I urge you to put that right. You could start with ‘Gypsy Blood’, his lost masterpiece with his band Doll By Doll, and then catch up with some of his remarkable solo work, perhaps ‘The Mystery of Love Is Greater Than Death’ (1994), Fairytales For Hardmen (1997), Defending Ancient Springs (2000) or ‘Troubadour Years’ (under his alter ego Sir Vincent Lone) (2009).

Neil McCormick @'The Telegraph' 
(Thanx Tony!)

Hear some of the unreleased 'Exile' songs

 @'NPR'

WTF??? Major Label Atlantic Asks Fans To Help Fund New Natty Release Via Pledge Music

Things must be tough over at Atlantic Records and its parent WMG. First label group president Lyor Cohen is selling his $28 million NYC townhouse and now Atlantic is asking fans to help fund an artist's second recording for the company.

 While working on his sophomore album for Atlantic Records, trip-hop artist Natty is recording a separate stripped down collection of original songs. But rather than pay for the project, Atlantic has teamed up with fan-funding platform Pledge Music to ask Natty's fans to throw down the cash. 

To encourage fans to invest, Natty's offerings offerings include £8 for the EP, introducing Natty from stage for £70, a private acoustic concert in your own home for £600 - £5,000 (not sure why there's such a wide price range), all the way up to Natty remixing your track for for £1,200. Atlantic hasn't announced if they'll be taking their  normal full royalty from Natty on the EP. We only know that they won't be sharing the money with the fans that paid for it. 

Bruce Houghton @'Hypebot'

Man that really is just taking the piss...