The Small Faces - Live: 1966-1968
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Tuesday, 26 October 2010
Monday, 25 October 2010
RIP - Gregory Isaacs
Reggae legend Gregory Isaacs has died after a battle with cancer.
Isaacs, who was 59 years old, died on Monday morning at his home in London where he spent part of his time.
He leaves behind a wife and children.
Close friends told BBC Caribbean that he had originally been diagnosed with cancer of the liver which had then spread.
The Jamaican reggae singer, who was nicknamed the Cool Ruler, was best known for the song 'Night Nurse'.
'...the only Muslim member of congress.'
As TRMS examined last week, we've had a 2010 campaign season full of "macaca" moments, gaffes from Republican/Tea Party candidates that would've ended their chances in any normal election.
Threaten to obstruct and possibly shut down the government? Dude, that's so 1994. Now you have to threaten violent revolution to get some attention. The goal line has been moved (forgive the football metaphor; it's Sunday) to a place we've never seen it before, and it's kept a lot of candidates viable long after they normally would have been. To the GOP/Tea Party folks, none of those things have yet disqualified these candidates.
But despite being willing to tolerate any manner of political gaffe, they do have standards. Being Muslim, it seems, is a bridge too far.
A Tea Party Nation e-mail (requires login) sent late Saturday night in support of Lynne Torgeson, the Republican candidate in Minnesota's 5th district, went full negative against Rep. Keith Ellison, the Democratic incumbent.
Best to just let you read it, verbatim:
There are a lot of liberals who need to be retired this year, but there are few I can think of more deserving than Keith Ellison. Ellison is one of the most radical members of congress. He has a ZERO rating from the American Conservative Union. He is the only Muslim member of congress. He supports the Counsel for American Islamic Relations, HAMAS and has helped congress send millions of tax to terrorists in Gaza.Good to know they have some standards, I guess.
Whether or not they can prove that Rep. Ellison has "helped congress send millions of tax" to Gaza, or whether the Congressman or the Council on American-Islamic Relations supports Hamas, that's besides the point. Because all Muslims are anti-American, right?
Right? Being a Muslim, per the Tea Party Nation, is now a disqualifying characteristic for being a member of Congress. Calling for the violent overthrow of government if, you know, that whole democracy thing doesn't go their way?
Now, that's American!
(Image: University of Minnesota-Morris.)
Update: As some of our commenters have noted, Tea Party Nation will be surprised to learn that Rep. Andre Carson (D-IL) is also a Muslim.
Jamil Smith @The Maddow Blog'
WikiLeaks Iraq war logs: Nick Clegg calls for investigation of abuse claims
Allegations of killings, torture and abuse in Iraq contained in leaked US military logs "need to be looked at", Nick Clegg said today.
The almost 400,000 secret US army field reports show two cases of alleged involvement of British troops in the abuse of detainees.
Clegg did not rule out the possibility of an inquiry into the actions of British forces in Iraq, but said it was up to the US administration to answer for the actions of its forces.
His comments contrasted with a statement from the Ministry of Defence yesterday, which warned that the posting of classified US military logs on the WikiLeaks website could endanger the lives of British forces.
Clegg told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show: "We can bemoan how these leaks occurred, but I think the nature of the allegations made are extraordinarily serious. They are distressing to read about and they are very serious. I am assuming the US administration will want to provide its own answer. It's not for us to tell them how to do that."
Asked if there should be an inquiry into the role of British troops, he said: "I think anything that suggests that basic rules of war, conflict and engagement have been broken or that torture has been in any way condoned are extremely serious and need to be looked at."
He added: "People will want to hear what the answer is to what are very, very serious allegations of a nature which I think everybody will find quite shocking."
Vince Cable, the business secretary, also said allegations of abuse should be investigated and criticised the way in which they were leaked. He told Sky News Sunday Live: "The Liberal Democrats were strong opponents of the Iraq war and we do feel vindicated by what's happening."
He added: "I think there have been several investigations already but I think, clearly, if there have been abuses taking place they need to be investigated – that's obvious enough."
British involvement in the alleged torture and unlawful killing of Iraqi civilians may also be the subject of legal action. Lawyers said the reports embroiled British as well as US forces in an alleged culture of abuse and extrajudicial killings in Iraq.
Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, appearing alongside the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at a press conference in London yesterday, said some of the deaths documented in the reports may have involved British forces and could now go through the UK courts. The Iraq war logs, Shiner said, indicated that British as well as US commanders were likely to have ignored evidence of torture by the Iraqi authorities, contrary to international law.
"Some of these deaths will be in circumstances where the UK have a very clear legal responsibility. This may be because the Iraqis died while under the effective control of UK forces – under arrest, in vehicles, helicopters or detention facilities," he said.
The Ministry of Defence said the publication of the records was reckless and put the lives of British military personnel in danger, adding that it investigated any allegations made against British troops. It said: "There is no place for mistreatment of detainees. Any civilian casualty is a matter of deep regret and we take any incidents extremely seriously."
As Assange defended the decision to disclose the documents – saying it was of "immense importance" to reveal the truth about the conflict – the UN warned that if the logs pointed to clear violations of the UN convention against torture, Barack Obama's administration had a clear obligation to investigate them.
Manfred Novak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, said: "President Obama came to power with a moral agenda, saying we don't want to be seen to be a nation responsible for major human rights violations." A failure to investigate credible claims of complicity in torture, Novak suggested, would be a failure of the Obama government to recognise US obligations under international law.
The US defence department condemned the WikiLeaks release, describing the documents as raw observations by tactical units, which were only snapshots of tragic, mundane events. Assange said the snapshots of everyday events offered a glimpse at the "human scale" of the conflict. He told the news conference his motive for the disclosure was "about the truth".
Iraq Body Count, a private British-based group that has tracked the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war began in 2003, said its analysis of the logs had raised its total of civilian deaths from 107,369 to more than 122,000. IBC, which worked with WikiLeaks, said the war logs showed there were more than 109,000 violent deaths between 2004 and the end of 2009. They included 66,081 civilians, 23,984 people classed as "enemy", 15,196 members of the Iraqi security forces, and 3,771 coalition troops.
John Sloboda of IBC said: "They [the documents] show the relentless grind of daily killings in almost every town or village in every province."
WikiLeaks yesterday promised to publish 15,000 more documents about the war in Afghanistan.
Jonathan Haynes, Mark Townsend, Jamie Doward and Paul Harris and agencies @'The Guardian'
Sunday, 24 October 2010
Piracy Can Boost Book Sales Tremendously
Earlier this year book piracy surged after the introduction of the iPad. Although some publishers and authors fear that this will cause their revenues to dwindle, there are plenty of signs that the opposite will happen. This week, comic book writer Steve Lieber said that his sales went through the roof after pirated scans were shared on 4Chan, and he’s not alone.
This year has seen the definite breakthrough for digital books, which led to mixed feelings among publishers and authors. On the one hand digital distribution makes books more accessible to the public, but the downside is that unauthorized copies can also be shared more easily.
Looking at the music industry, some publishers are fearing the worst, but the million dollar question is whether or not these fears are justified. How big of a threat is eBook piracy for the book industry? Or is it an opportunity instead?
This week comic book writer Steve Lieber has shared his experiences with book piracy, proving that it also has its benefits. Lieber noticed that scanned copies of his graphic novel Underground were posted on 4Chan, but instead of putting his sales to a halt, they skyrocketed.
Lieber shared his findings in a blog entry, complete with fancy graphics which show that the 4Chan piracy resulted in a flood of new customers.
“The sales spike, I think, would be a lot sharper, actually, but we don’t have any way to track that as precisely… After the Boing Boing article ran, I sat down to do the free sketches for our Etsy buyers, and got them all done while eating a sandwich. After this, I’ll be sketching for DAYS.”
It would of course be naive to claim that this example proves that piracy is not going to affect the book industry in a negative way, or that it will boost sales for everyone. However, it does show that ‘being noticed’ can do wonders in individual cases, even if it’s through piracy.
And that’s not the only benefit. The availability of unauthorized copies doesn’t only help writers who have yet to gain an audience. Well established authors have also noticed that piracy can do wonders for sales figures.
Bestselling author Paulo Coelho has previously shown that giving away free digital copies of books can actually boost sales to quite an extent. He claimed that this ‘piracy’ has led to millions of additional sales over the years.
Coelho, who is an avid BitTorrent user himself and a passionate supporter of The Pirate Bay, has encouraged many of his fellow authors to share their work. “A person who does not share is not only selfish, but bitter and alone,” Coelho told TorrentFreak.
Even more so, according to the anecdotes above an author who doesn’t share might actually miss out on some additional revenue.
Ernesto @'Torrent Freak'
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