Fools
1 hour ago
Thursday, 21 April 2011
Heroin.com: Selling Junk Online
Illustration: Curt Merlo
In 2008, New York City Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget G. Brennan began leading a team of undercover investigators targeting the drug dealers who used Craigslist to advertise their wares. She sounded confident.
"It's like shooting fish in a barrel," she told the Daily News. That year, a Citigroup vice president, Mark Rayner, was caught moving ecstasy and cocaine from his Midtown offices using Craigslist. "We see lots of professionals, people with good jobs, doing it," Brennan said.
Three years later, drug dealing on the classified-ads website is still blatant and ubiquitous.
Sellers thinly camouflage their activity by posting ads for "420 T-shirts" or "tickets to the 420 show," using the numerical calling card for marijuana, or referring to "Tina," "T," and "parTy" for crystal meth. "Snow" or "skiing" is a cocaine reference. "Relief" calls up a healthy section of pills: Xanax, Ambien, Ativan, Klonopin, morphine.
Ironically, no search term is more productive at bringing up drug ads than "law enforcement," standard words for a buyer or seller who insists he's not with the NYPD.
Only a man named "Kai," however, appears to sell heroin openly on New York's Craigslist pages. And he's not very subtle at all.
"Want to 'nod out'? Ride the 'H' train," reads one subject line. The body of that advertisement offered "H, d@pe, diesel" for purchase "anywhere in Manhattan public or private." Sometimes he throws in the term "Papaver Somniferum L.," the Latin name of the plant that opium and poppy come from. For good measure, Kai insists in his ads that he's not law enforcement "and you shouldn't be either."
"We continue to conduct investigations into narcotics-related activity on Craigslist," Brennan tells the Voice. "Clearly, Craigslist and social-networking sites provide new opportunities for drug traffickers. It's something we're aware of and continue to investigate." Craigslist itself, however, did not respond to Voice requests for comment.
On a recent evening, Kai—who asked the Voice to use that name as an alias—finishes up a rack of ribs and a slice of cheesecake at a barbecue restaurant in Harlem. It's only 7, but it's been three hours since he last shot up. "I want to use right now," he says, looking nervous. "I'm thinking of how, I'm thinking of how." He takes out a cell phone and double-checks the Craigslist ad he had put up the day before, hoping someone will answer it soon. He sells drugs, he says, to support his own addiction, a fact that gets more obvious every minute since his last fix.
Despite the city's crackdown, Kai says he has gone untouched by law enforcement for the seven years he's been dealing on Craigslist. In his ads, he lays out strict e-mailing rules for his clients: include only a name and cell phone number. If a potential buyer follows the rules to the letter, he sets up a meeting in a public place—but he arrives without drugs. He says he can tell in a few seconds if a potential customer is legit, but makes each buyer lift up their shirt to show him that they're not wearing a wire, and lift up each pant leg to show him that they're not carrying a gun. Small talk builds to questions about drug use and then to specifics like quantity and price. Kai says he doesn't negotiate...
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Hetherington Family Releases Statement on Tim’s Death
It is with great sadness we learned that our son and brother, photographer and filmmaker Tim Hetherington, was killed today in Misrata, Libya by a rocket-propelled grenade. Tim will be remembered for his amazing images and his Academy Award–nominated documentary “Restrepo,” which he co-produced with his friend Sebastian Junger. Tim was in Libya to continue his ongoing multimedia project to highlight humanitarian issues during time of war and conflict. He will be forever missed.
Taraf de Haïdouks & Kocani Orkestar - Band Of Gypsies 2 (2011 - Albumstream)
I Am A Gigolo
Pe Drumul Odesei
Mandrulita Mea
Talk To Me, Duso
Turceasca A Lu Kalo
Jarretelle
Où Cours-tu, Nostalgie? Après Toi Mon Amour
Dikhél Khelél
À Couteaux Tirés, Atika
100 Millions
Gypsy Sahara
Taraf de Haïdouks and Kocani Orkestar are undoubtedly two of the most famous and emblematic Balkan Gypsy bands. Started in 1991 in the small Romanian village of Clejani, the “band of honourable brigands” (that’s the literal translation of “Taraf de Haïdouks”) is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year by launching an ambitious project: a kind of Balkan big band, in which the 13 Taraf musicians and singers are joined by the 13 members of Macedonia’s Koçani Orkestar, one of the top brass bands around. The big band has recorded a new album, and will be touring from the spring 2011 on.
ALBUMSTREAM
EU decides against stricter net neutrality rules
The European commission has decided against introducing legislation to protect net neutrality, saying media scrutiny and giving consumers enough information about their internet service provider will be sufficient to protect an "open and neutral" internet.
Legislation to prevent telecoms companies from introducing a tiered internet, with some content arriving faster than others, has been ruled out.
In a long-awaited report on its approach to net neutrality, the EU executive on Tuesday said "traffic management", or the prioritising of some packets of information over others, "is necessary to ensure the smooth flow of internet traffic, particularly at times when networks become congested".
Internet service providers have long argued they should be left alone to co-ordinate the flow of data through their networks, a position the commission has decided to endorse.
"There is broad agreement that operators should be allowed to determine their own business models and commercial arrangements," the report continues.
Commissioner Neelie Kroes, head of the EU's Digital Agenda department, said she will continue to monitor the sector for instances of ISPs blocking or throttling access to certain services, especially voice-over-internet-protocol offerings such as Skype.
Brussels admits there have been some instances of unequal treatment of data by certain operators, including throttling of peer-to-peer filesharing or video-streaming in the UK and five other EU states, and blocking or charging extra for VOIP services in six other countries.
But these problems were usually fixed as a result of bad press or via action by regulators, the report concludes: "Many of these issues were solved voluntarily, often through intervention by the [national regulators] or pressure created by adverse media coverage."
However, the commission has asked BEREC, the European electronic communications regulatory group, to investigate the extent of the issue. If by the end of the year Brussels finds that there are persistent problems of blocking, the commission will take additional action.
"If I am not satisfied, I will not hesitate to come up with more stringent measures," said Kroes. These measures could include "guidance" or a law to prohibit blocking of services.
But a "horizontal" bill, akin to that introduced by Chile last year, which goes beyond the problem of blocking and prevents any kind of tiered internet at all, the commission believes is unnecessary.
Last June, Chile became the first jurisdiction in the world to pass net neutrality legislation, forcing ISPs to "ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network and offer a service that does not distinguish content, applications or services".
According to EU digital agenda spokesman Jonathan Todd, this goes too far: "The EU telecoms market is already healthily competitive. If an online service provider is confronted with extra charges for their content, they'll just tell the ISP to take a hike. It's a false debate."
Digital rights advocates for their part accused Brussels of succumbing to lobbying from the telecoms industry, saying consumers are not as able to "vote with their feet" as the commission believes.
"This simplistic spin does not stand the test of reality. In practice, millions of users can only chose one operator to connect to the internet, either because of geographical or commercial constraints," said La Quadrature du Net, a France-based online civil liberties group.
"Ms Kroes is hiding behind false free-market arguments to do nothing at all," added Jérémie Zimmermann, a spokesman for the organisation. He said that infringements of net neutrality are not an abstraction but already common to most mobile internet provision.
"In most EU member states, mobile phone operators agree on engaging in the very same discrimination in their so-called 'mobile internet' offers. These operators simply do not offer access to the universal platform of communications we call 'the internet'."
Leigh Phillips @'The Guardian'
Legislation to prevent telecoms companies from introducing a tiered internet, with some content arriving faster than others, has been ruled out.
In a long-awaited report on its approach to net neutrality, the EU executive on Tuesday said "traffic management", or the prioritising of some packets of information over others, "is necessary to ensure the smooth flow of internet traffic, particularly at times when networks become congested".
Internet service providers have long argued they should be left alone to co-ordinate the flow of data through their networks, a position the commission has decided to endorse.
"There is broad agreement that operators should be allowed to determine their own business models and commercial arrangements," the report continues.
Commissioner Neelie Kroes, head of the EU's Digital Agenda department, said she will continue to monitor the sector for instances of ISPs blocking or throttling access to certain services, especially voice-over-internet-protocol offerings such as Skype.
Brussels admits there have been some instances of unequal treatment of data by certain operators, including throttling of peer-to-peer filesharing or video-streaming in the UK and five other EU states, and blocking or charging extra for VOIP services in six other countries.
But these problems were usually fixed as a result of bad press or via action by regulators, the report concludes: "Many of these issues were solved voluntarily, often through intervention by the [national regulators] or pressure created by adverse media coverage."
However, the commission has asked BEREC, the European electronic communications regulatory group, to investigate the extent of the issue. If by the end of the year Brussels finds that there are persistent problems of blocking, the commission will take additional action.
"If I am not satisfied, I will not hesitate to come up with more stringent measures," said Kroes. These measures could include "guidance" or a law to prohibit blocking of services.
But a "horizontal" bill, akin to that introduced by Chile last year, which goes beyond the problem of blocking and prevents any kind of tiered internet at all, the commission believes is unnecessary.
Last June, Chile became the first jurisdiction in the world to pass net neutrality legislation, forcing ISPs to "ensure access to all types of content, services or applications available on the network and offer a service that does not distinguish content, applications or services".
According to EU digital agenda spokesman Jonathan Todd, this goes too far: "The EU telecoms market is already healthily competitive. If an online service provider is confronted with extra charges for their content, they'll just tell the ISP to take a hike. It's a false debate."
Digital rights advocates for their part accused Brussels of succumbing to lobbying from the telecoms industry, saying consumers are not as able to "vote with their feet" as the commission believes.
"This simplistic spin does not stand the test of reality. In practice, millions of users can only chose one operator to connect to the internet, either because of geographical or commercial constraints," said La Quadrature du Net, a France-based online civil liberties group.
"Ms Kroes is hiding behind false free-market arguments to do nothing at all," added Jérémie Zimmermann, a spokesman for the organisation. He said that infringements of net neutrality are not an abstraction but already common to most mobile internet provision.
"In most EU member states, mobile phone operators agree on engaging in the very same discrimination in their so-called 'mobile internet' offers. These operators simply do not offer access to the universal platform of communications we call 'the internet'."
Leigh Phillips @'The Guardian'
Talk Talk - Live at Montreux 1986
1. Talk talk 2. Dum dum girl 3. Call in the night boy 4. Tomorrow started 5. My foolish friend 6. Life's what you make it 7. Does Caroline know 8. It's you
9. Living in another world 10. Give it up 11. It's my life 12. I don't believe in you 13. Such a shame 14. Rene
1986 was the band’s only appearance at Montreux and caught them at the height of their success. With a set list packed with hit singles and lead singer / main songwriter Mark Hollis’ charismatic performance they delivered an outstanding concert that draws a great response from the packed Swiss crowd.
Line-up:
Mark Hollis – vocals
Paul Webb – bass
Lee Harris – drums
John Turnbull – guitar
Rupert Black – keyboards
Philip Reis – percussion
Leroy Williams – percussion.
Wednesday, 20 April 2011
The Architecture of Access to Scientific Knowledge
Lecture by Lawrence Lessig at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, 18 April 2011
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