Monday, 19 March 2012

How Scientology Shaped the Writing of William S. Burroughs

Image: Charles Gatewood

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(Thanx Katie!)

Dozens held at Moscow protest over 'pro-Putin' TV film

Russian police have arrested dozens of people picketing Moscow's TV tower over footage that accused the opposition of paying anti-government protesters.

The film, The Anatomy of Protest, was aired this week on NTV - a channel owned by state-run firm Gazprom.
It said protesters against Vladimir Putin's election as president in March had received "money and cookies".
The documentary has caused a backlash on social media and angered some journalists, who accused NTV of lying.
Despite mass protests against what the opposition says were fraudulent presidential elections on 4 March, Mr Putin says he won fairly.
'Popular demand' Nearly 100 people were arrested outside the iconic Ostankino tower on Sunday, reports in Russia's media say.
Opposition leaders Boris Nemtsov and Sergei Udaltsov were among those held during the unsanctioned rally.
The demonstrators wore white ribbons (the symbol of the protest movement) and chanted "Shame to NTV!" and "Russia without Putin!"
The documentary has caused dismay among supporters of the opposition and journalists alike, and led to a social media uproar, with the hashtag "NTVlzhet" ("NTV tells lies") becoming the leading trend on Russian-language Twitter.
Alexei Navalny, a key opposition figure and one of Russia's most influential bloggers, was accused of spreading misinformation and having "too many bodyguards" who were "beating up journalists".
The film has also prompted talk of an NTV boycott and was even criticised by some of the channel's own journalists.
Despite this, NTV plans to broadcast the documentary again later on Sunday "due to popular demand".
@'BBC'

'Bath Salts' and Ecstasy Implicated in Kidney Injuries

(Thanx Dirk!)

Ain't that the truth #8...

(Thanx Maxine!)

Power-seeking politicians walking the low road on fear

For centuries, power-seeking politicians have recognised that scaring the public is an effective tactic to win support.
Today, with ready access to a media that's hungry for shocking stories, any parliamentarian who wants to whip up fear will usually find a ready audience.
Nowhere is this truer than in the case of fear of crime. Most Australians – particularly those whose major source of information is talkback radio – believe that crime is high and rising. And yet as a report earlier this month from the Australian Institute of Criminology showed, most categories of crime in Australia have been falling over time.
Alas, some members of the Federal Opposition this week decided that they would take the low road, and exploit community fear of crime for partisan ends.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott spoke of a 'reign of terror on the streets of Sydney'. For anyone who missed the first dog-whistle, Scott Morrison added, 'If you can't stop the boats, you can't stop the guns'. Neither admitted that officers from customs and police – working with their European counterparts – had successfully shut down an attempt to smuggle guns into the country. Spreading misinformation on any issue is damaging, but it's particularly harmful in the case of crime.
Indeed, it was the great legal scholar Jeremy Bentham who first suggested that crime might have an impact on non-victims. A violent crime, Bentham suggested, did a 'primary mischief' to its victim. But it also caused a 'secondary mischief'. As reports circulated, people would go out of their way to avoid the spot where it happened. Some might spend money to protect themselves. Others could be too scared to leave their homes at all. Bentham's work showed that the ripples of crime spread out well beyond the event itself.
A few years ago, as an economics professor at the Australian National University, I carried out a study with UK economist Francesca Cornaglia in which we aimed to test Bentham's theory in Australia. Matching up surveys of mental wellbeing with data on police crime reports, we found that an increase in crime was associated with lower levels of mental wellbeing for people who were not a victim of any crime. When crime surged, people in the neighbourhood who hadn't been victims tended to experience more emotional problems, nervousness and depression.
Moreover, we found that media reports of crime act as a 'multiplier' – causing crime to have an even larger negative impact on mental wellbeing. This suggests that misleading media reports – including those fuelled by self-serving politicians – could lower people's mental wellbeing.
On crime, perhaps more than any other issue, there is a tendency for increases to be reported more than decreases. Good education results make a perfectly decent newspaper story, but no TV news reporter ever started off the evening bulletin with saying 'There weren't any murders today'. Yet because of the impact that crime reports have on mental wellbeing, accurate crime reporting matters.
That puts the onus on to politicians to act in the national interest, and speak responsibly about crime rates. Every time a politician gets a sound-grab on the evening news that misleads people into thinking that crime is rampant, thousands of Australians reassess their evening plans.
As we know, political fear campaigns run by people like Pauline Hanson and Jean-Marie Le Pen weren't brilliant tactical manoeuvres – they just reflected a willingness to walk the low road. Frightening the public isn't difficult – it's just an approach that most politicians choose not to adopt.
Andrew Leigh @'ABC'

NO drugs involved allegedly

A public message from The Waterboys

The Pirate Bay Attacks Censorship With Low Orbit Server Drones

Russell's war on accountability

Paperwork error in Dotcom arrest

Police arrested Dotcom at the mansion he lived in outside Auckland on 19 January at the request of the United States Government. The US Department of Justice alleges that Dotcom is the mastermind of a criminal enterprise designed to help the masses pirate music and movies. US officials say he made millions from piracy and seek to extradite Dotcom to the US to stand trial.
Following the raid on Dotcom's home, police were photographed removing cash, Cadillacs, jet skis, artwork and scores of other valuables from his home. In addition, they shut down the Megaupload site and threw Dotcom into jail, where he stayed until being released on bail a month later.
New Zealand police filed for the wrong kind of restraining order — the kind that didn't allow for Dotcom to have a court hearing prior to the seizure — and that was a mistake, according to a report in the New Zealand Herald.
A court has now ruled that the restraining order that enabled police to seize his assets is "null and void", and a review of the mistakes made will soon be conducted by New Zealand's attorney general, according to the Herald.
The paper noted that there's no guarantee that Dotcom will prevail. His lawyers must prove the absence of good faith when the procedural error was made.
There was no word on when a decision on this may come down.
Via