sunny_hundal I've now heard from two different sources in media that lawyers representing Phillipa Stroud are putting pressure on journos
Two Hours Of Music's Not For Everyone At Terraforma
3 minutes ago
Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Johann Hari: Welcome to Cameron land
Castle Youth Club in Hammersmith was built in Dickens' time and bequeathed to the local council. The Conservatives shut it down two years ago to sell it off
David Cameron cites Hammersmith and Fulham council as a 'model' of compassionate conservatism. So what can the actions of Tory councillors here tell us about how the party would behave in government?
This is a dispatch from David Cameron's Britain, the country that could be waiting for us at the other end of the polling booths and the soundbites and the spin. I didn't have to take a time machine to get there; I just had to take the District Line. In 2006, a group of rebranded "compassionate Conservatives" beat Labour for control of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, a long stretch of west London. George Osborne says the work they have done since then will be a "model" for a new Conservative government, while Cameron has singled them out as a council he is especially "proud" of. So squeezed between the brownish dapple of the Thames and the smoggy chug of the Westway, you can find the Ghost of Cameron Future. What is it whispering to us?
Hammersmith and Fulham is a sprawling concrete sandwich of London's rich and London's poor. It starts at the million-pound apartments on the marina at Chelsea Harbour – white and glistening and perfect – and runs past giant brownish housing estates and Victorian mansions, until it staggers to a stop on Shepherd's Bush Green, where homeless people sit on the yellow-green grass drinking and watching the SUVs hurtle past. Here, high incomes squat next to high-rises in one big urban screech of noise. In such a mixed area, the Conservatives had to run for power as a reconstructed party "at home with modern Britain". They promised to move beyond Thatcherism and make the poor better off. They were the first to hum the tune that David Cameron has been singing a capella in this election.
People who took this at face value were startled by the first act of the Conservatives on assuming power – a crackdown on the homeless. They immediately sold off 12 homeless shelters, handing them to large property developers. The horrified charity Crisis was offered premises by the BBC to house the abandoned in a shelter over the Christmas period at least. The council refused permission. They said the homeless were a "law and order issue", and a shelter would attract undesirables to the area. With this in mind, they changed the rules so that the homeless had to "prove" to a sceptical bureaucracy that they had nowhere else to go – and if they failed, they were turned away.
We know where this ended. A young woman – let's called her Jane Phillips, because she wants to remain anonymous – turned up at the council's emergency housing office one night, sobbing and shaking. She was eight months pregnant. She explained she was being beaten up by her boyfriend and had finally fled because she was frightened for her unborn child. The council said they would "investigate" her situation to find "proof of homelessness" – but she told them she had nowhere to go while they carried it out. By law, they were required to provide her with emergency shelter. They refused. They suggested she try to find a flat on the private market.
For four nights, she slept in the local park, on the floor. She is still traumatised by the memories of lying, pregnant and abandoned, in one of the wealthiest parts of Europe. The Local Government Ombudsman investigated but the council recording of the case was so poor she said it "hindered" her report. After a long study, she found the council's conduct amounted to "maladministration". Since they came to power, the Conservatives are housing half as many homeless people as Labour – even though the recession has caused a surge in homelessness. That's a huge number of Janes lying in parks, or on rotting mattresses by Hammersmith Bridge.
Why would they do this? The Conservative administration was determined to shrink the size of the state and cut taxes as an end in itself. Rather than pay for it by taking more from the people in the borough with the most money, they slashed services for the broke and the broken first. After the homeless, they turned to help for the disabled. In their 2006 manifesto, the local Conservatives had given a cast-iron guarantee: "A Conservative council will not reintroduce home-care charging". It was a totemic symbol of leaving behind Thatcherism: they wouldn't charge the disabled, the mentally ill or the elderly for the care they needed just to survive.
Within three months, the promise was broken. Debbie Domb, 51, is a teacher who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994. She had to give up work, and now she needs 24/7 care. After being lifted up by a large metal harness and placed in her wheelchair so she can talk to me, she explains: "This was always such a great place to live if you were disabled. You were really treated well. Then this new council was elected and it's been so frightening... The first thing that happened when they came in was that they announced any disabled person they assessed as having 'lower moderate' needs was totally cut off. So people who needed help having a shower, or getting dressed, had that lifeline taken away completely. Then they started sending the rest of us bills."
She "panicked" when a bill came through saying she had to pay £12.50 for every hour of care she needed. "I thought, 'Oh my God, how am I going to do this?' The more care you need, the higher your bill, so the most disabled people got the highest charges. Everyone was distraught. I had friends who had to choose between having the heating on in winter and paying for their care ... I know a 90-year-old woman with macular degeneration who can't see, and she had to stop her services. There are lots of people who have been left to rot, with nobody checking any more that they're OK, and I'm sure some of them have ended up in hospital or have died." One of the council's senior social services managers seems to have confirmed this, warning in a leaked memo that the charges could place the vulnerable "at risk".
Debbie co-founded an organisation to fight back – the Hammersmith and Fulham Coalition Against Community Care Cuts – and, after appealing, she finally had her charges cancelled. "But there are a lot of people who can't appeal," she says. "You're talking about very vulnerable people – the very old, the mentally ill, the blind. A lot don't know how, or would be ruled to have to pay anyway, because the rules are so arbitrary. Now they're being taken to debt-collection agencies for non-payment. I know an 82-year-old woman who's never been in debt in her life who is being taken to a debt-collection agency for care she needs just to keep going... They want volunteers to do it instead. But you don't want to have to ask your friends or a volunteer to pull up your knickers for you."
Each year since the Conservative council was elected, the pressure on the housebound has increased. Meals on Wheels brings one good, hot meal a day to people who can't get out. The council jacked up the charges for it by £527 a year – so half of the recipients had to cancel it. A local Labour councillor documented that the council rang up a 79-year-old woman with dementia, and when she seemed to say she didn't need any food, they cut off her meals.
The cost of almost all council services has sky-rocketed, to fund tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the wealthy. David Cameron says he wants to make Britain "the most family-friendly country in the world" with "childcare as a top priority", but his showcase council has increased charges for childcare by a reported 121 per cent – a fact that makes the warnings about Michael Gove's planned "top-up fees" for nursery places seem even more ominous.
As I spend days walking across the borough, I find the detritus of the old thriving public sector now shut and shuttered. Next to a big council estate I stumble across the large red-brick Castle Youth Club. It was built in Dickens' time and bequeathed to the local council "to benefit the children of this area for perpetuity". The Conservatives shut it down two years ago to sell it off. The deal fell through, so now it sits empty while the local kids hang around on the streets outside.
***
Ricky Scott, 18, tells me what it used to be like: "It was a really good place. When I left school they found me a part-time job at Sainsbury's – they taught me how to write a CV – and they persuaded me to go to college. They gave you a place to go to stay out of trouble, they got you into the gym, they helped us learn loads of stuff ... They did a lot to teach us about knife crime and how to stop it. When my friend was stabbed they helped us organise a big campaign about knives." After the youth club was closed, there was a surge in anti-social behaviour orders in the area. Ricky isn't surprised. "People don't want us on the streets, but then they take away the only place for us to go, so what do they expect? It feels like we used to have some good things but now they've all been taken away. It always gets taken away."
And in this boarded-up youth club, in Debbie's panic, in the image of Jane and her bump on the floor of the park, I realise I am peering into the reality of David Cameron's "Big Society". The council here told people that if they took away services like this, there would be volunteers; if the state withered away, people would start to provide the services for each other. But nobody opened their home to Jane, or volunteered to feed Debbie, or started a new youth club on their own time and with their own money. The state retreated and the service collapsed. It's a rebranding trick. The Conservatives know that shutting down public services sounds cruel, while calling for volunteerism sounds kind – but the effect is exactly the same. It's as if Marie Antoinette called in Max Clifford, and he told her to stop saying "Let them eat cake" and start saying: "Let them form a workers' co-operative to distribute cake on a voluntary basis."
But it turns out that it's not just the services on the council estates here that are threatened by the council – it's the estates themselves. Recently the leader of the Conservative council, Stephen Greenhalgh, co-wrote a pamphlet called Principles for Social Housing Reform, recommending that Cameron adopt a radical new approach to council housing. He said it provides "barracks for the poor" and helps create "a culture of entitlement", while "deliver[ing] a risible return on assets". He asked: why do we continue to "warehouse poverty in the core of our great cities", on land that is worth good money? Instead of following "the same narrow agenda of 'building more homes'", he said councils should "exploit [the] huge reserve of capital value" in the houses and the land by selling it off and charging "market terms", with some mild subsidy for the very poorest.
He seems to be trying to act on this agenda. He has stopped building any affordable houses for rent, and he is searching for council estates to sell off. I walk to the Queen Caroline Estate along the river, and it is one of the most calm and bright council estates I have ever seen – a walkway of houses and flats lined with trees, all washed over by a gentle river breeze. Teenagers are playing on a football pitch; an elderly couple is watching them, eating sandwiches. Everyone I talk to says they like it – "You've got a good mix of people, and it's so friendly," says one woman. On the other side of the Thames, staring down, is the £25,000-a-year St Paul's School, where Greenhalgh was educated alongside George Osborne in the 1980s.
Greenhalgh has declared that this estate is "not decent", and has offered it for sale to property developers. Maxine Bayliss is a 42-year-old mother who lives here with her two children. She says: "It's frightening to discover there are plans to sell off your home so they can give the land to rich developers. At first the council denied it, but when we challenged them they finally said, yes, we do have plans, actually. One Conservative councillor shouted at me that this was a ghetto and I shouldn't want to live here. Does it look like a ghetto to you? This is my home, it's my children's home. If they charged market rents, people like me would be forced out of London totally. This should be a city for normal people too, not just rich people. It's so insulting to say people like me shouldn't be living here."
Together with a coalition of other mums from the estate, Maxine has formed a group to stop the sell-off. When David Cameron came on one of his visits to the area to cheerlead for the council, she asked him about the threat to her home – and he accused her of "black propaganda". When she explained that the council itself had admitted to having plans, Cameron snapped: "If you don't like them, you should stand for election."
***
Do we want our cities to look like Paris, where the rich own the centre, and the poor are banished to grey concrete slums on the outskirts where they riot with rage once a decade? If we hive out all our housing to the market, that will be our future. Or do we place a value on our land – and who lives there – that is more than purely financial? Do we think some things are more important than the market price? Later that night, I watch Greenhalgh on YouTube, lecturing these single mothers, and I keep thinking about that phrase he is so fond of: "a culture of entitlement". Who has really grown up in "a culture of entitlement": Maxine, who has so little, or Cameron and Greenhalgh, who have so much?
I walk the borough for days, trying to find what Cameron celebrates about this council – until, at the tip of the borough, I find a large grassy metaphor for Conservative priorities that seems so crude that I wonder whether it could have been secretly designed by the Socialist Workers Party cartoonist and plonked in my path. Hurlingham Park was a big vibrant patch of green where kids from the local estates could play, and run on one of the few professional running tracks in the country, in a setting so classically beautiful it was used in the film Chariots of Fire. But then the Conservatives were elected. They handed the park over to a large international polo consortium that has ripped out the running track and shut the park down for a month every year – so rich people can watch polo for hundreds of pounds a day.
Lying in the sun on the edge of the green, I find Nick Anderton, a 17-year-old from the local estate. He stares at it sadly and says: "The park is meant to be for everyone, isn't it? But we have to stop our football now so they can get it ready so these people can play polo, and we won't be able to use it for most of the summer ... My friend used to run on the track every day, he wants to be an athlete, but they got rid of it so he can't now ... It feels like we don't have the right to be here any more. They've taken our park and given it to these snobbish people who've got nothing to do with this area. Look at us. Does it look like we need a polo pitch round here?" Later, I read that Monty Python came to this park to film one of their sketches: "The Upper Class Twit of the Year."
So what is Cameron so proud of here? There seems to be only one answer: in this area the Tories have managed to cut council tax by 3 per cent. They've given back about £20 a year to somebody on an average income, and about four times more to a rich person. That's why, when Cameron was challenged about what has happened here, he said: "When I look at the record of what the Conservatives have done here in Hammersmith and Fulham, far from being embarrassed as the Conservative leader, I'm proud of what they're doing." As I heard this, I remembered that earlier this year Cameron's close friend and shadow cabinet member Ed Vaizey said Cameron is "much more Conservative than he acts, or than he is forced to be by political exigency". The principles that run through Cameron's politics seem to become visible at last, as clear and as stark as the Westway on the Hammersmith skyline: tax cuts, whatever the social cost.
Is wielding the Hammersmith hammer really worth it? Is cutting taxes by a fraction justified if it means abandoning the most desperate people – the homeless, the disabled, the poor? Is that who we want to be? The last time I see her, Debbie Domb tries to move a little in her chair – painfully, slowly – and says: "People should look at what they have done to us in Hammersmith. This is what Cameron and Osborne want to do to Britain. They say so. Remember, the people running this council said before they were elected that they were compassionate Conservatives. I can see the Conservatism. Where's the compassion?"
Johann Hari @'The Independent'
Last chance to think bout your future Britain...don't say you haven't been warned!
Last chance to think bout your future Britain...don't say you haven't been warned!
FBI taps cell phone mic as eavesdropping tool
The technique is called a "roving bug," and was approved by top U.S. Department of Justice officials for use against members of a New York organized crime family who were wary of conventional surveillance techniques such as tailing a suspect or wiretapping him.Nextel cell phones owned by two alleged mobsters, John Ardito and his attorney Peter Peluso, were used by the FBI to listen in on nearby conversations. The FBI views Ardito as one of the most powerful men in the Genovese family, a major part of the national Mafia.
The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the "roving bug" was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect's cell phone.
Kaplan's opinion said that the eavesdropping technique "functioned whether the phone was powered on or off." Some handsets can't be fully powered down without removing the battery; for instance, some Nokia models will wake up when turned off if an alarm is set.
While the Genovese crime family prosecution appears to be the first time a remote-eavesdropping mechanism has been used in a criminal case, the technique has been discussed in security circles for years.
The U.S. Commerce Department's security office warns that "a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone." An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can "remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner's knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call."
Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. "They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time," he said. "You can do that without having physical access to the phone."...
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Declan McCullagh @'ZDNet News'
(Thanx BillT!)
Taxi for Rafa?
There'll be conspiracy theorists aplenty wondering quite how Chelsea won so comfortably at Anfield.
Steven Gerrard looked like he might be reminding Chelsea of his ability to deliver a killer through ball (should he become available this summer) but the real reason for Liverpool's demise was simple: they're not very good.
I saw that banner depicting the heads of great Liverpool managers with Benitez in the frame too. But I can't see him staying - or Liverpool sticking with him. Rafa says that expectations were too high but then whose fault's that? He was the one who 'guaranteed' they'd still finish fourth.
Maybe he shouldn't have got his team playing grand and fluent stuff for the last 10 games of last season, then we would all have looked upon seventh as a decent effort.
On the other hand, I'd rather hear a manager make bold and confident statements, rather than this ever so very 'umble stuff we get from the likes of Harry Redknapp and Martin O'Neill.
"They're a quality side... blah blah... meagre resources... blah blah". I mean, Spurs and Villa have forked out a banker's bonus in transfer fees this season, so all this "please sir, can I have some more?" Dickensian apologies don't cut the mustard anymore.
But why have Liverpool been, relatively speaking, so abject? The fact - and facts are what Rafa loves most - the fact is that this Liverpool side is born of five long years in charge. The players are his players, by and large, and not the ones he inherited and miraculously conjured a Champs League victory from in 2005.
In other words, he may be a decent manager but Torres apart he can't find a player to save his life. If life is like a box of chocolates then Rafa is the poor fella holding the coffee cream.
It now appears that he cancelled a couple of tete a tetes with new chairman Martin Broughton for reasons best known to himself. Juve appeared to be courting the bloke, but his agent says he's desperate to stay. Given that there's summat between a 10 and 15 million pay-out in the offing if he gets the boot, you wouldn't really expect that agent to say anything else.
Of course, as Benayoun has noted, LFC have to keep hold of Torres and Gerrard if they are to do anything next year (and you can't say that's cut and dried). Or do they?
It's fair to say that Gerrard has had a rotten season. He's looked a little lost without Nando upfront, and although the blokes around him have shown all the imagination of the Institute of Actuaries, he's been looking like a sulky prince all year...
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REpost: The Complete 'International Times' Archive
(Heads up from 'Jahsonic')Every issue of the 'International Times' is now available online.
Contributors included Alex Trocchi, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg.
Tom McGrath was amongst the editors.
“The first few issues had a lot of serious articles by William Burroughs about the overthrow of the state. He used it as his platform to work out his ideas. And there was Ginsberg too. All the usual suspects. When we were running out of money, I was talking to Paul McCartney about it, and he said, ‘Well, you should interview me, then you’ll get ads from the record companies.’ And I thought, ‘hey, he might be on to something.’ So I interviewed him, and then George Harrison, and then the next week Mick Jagger called up, demanding to be interviewed too. And Paul was right, we got ads from the record companies.”
(Barry Miles - 2007)
READ IT HERE.
(Via 'Boredom Is Always Counter-Revolutionary' here.)
More on that YouGov/Sun poll...
"Which of the following would you most like to see after the next general election?"
A Conservative government, ruling on its own - 27%
A Labour government, ruling on its own - 22%
A Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition - 12%
A Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition - 17%
A 'grand' coalition with all three main parties ruling together - 10%
Don't know -12%
"Suppose a Conservative Government were formed under Mr Cameron. Which of these statements comes closest to your own view?"
I would be delighted - 23%
I would be dismayed - 46%
I wouldn't mind - 23%
Don't know - 7%
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Peter Brötzmann Graphics Opening Tonight...
MAY 5 – 29 2010
PETER BRÖTZMANN (GER)
Graphic Work (1964 – 2010)
Opens Wednesday May 5, 6-8pm
In association with the 2010 Melbourne International Jazz Festival
Peter Brötzmann (b.1941) is a German composer, musician, visual artist and graphic designer. After studying painting and graphic design at the Werkkunstschule in Wuppertal and applying his trade at an advertising agency, Brötzmann established himself as a leading exponent of improvised music. As a musician he has been influenced both by free jazz, as well as by the conceptual interventions of the Fluxus movement, with which he was associated in the mid-1960s. Dissatisfied with the agenda of commercial art galleries, Brötzmann has maintained a mostly private, but prolific output of visual work along with creating graphic work to accompany his musical recordings.
This exhibition situates Brötzmann’s graphic practise alongside his broader artistic practise, and in particular his activities as a free (jazz) musician, activities for which he is best known, and with which much of his graphic work has been associated, at least since the late 1960s. The focus of the exhibition will be graphic work produced for the important independent music label FMP (Free Music Production) and includes original prints of posters, LP covers and book jackets, woodcuts, drawings and objects as well as ephemera from Brötzmann’s personal archives.
Peter Brötzmann makes his Australian debut performance as a guest of 2010 Melbourne International Jazz Festival. For info and full program go to www.melbournejazz.com
2/141 Flinders Lane
Well this ain't his debut Melbourne performance, played out here in about '87 with Peter Kowald on bass!
Well this ain't his debut Melbourne performance, played out here in about '87 with Peter Kowald on bass!
For Fox Sake # ? - Revisionist Wank!
"As the nation marks the 40th anniversary of the Kent State antiwar protests Tuesday, previously undisclosed FBI documents have emerged, showing that one or more gunshots may have been fired at embattled Ohio National Guardsmen that day in May 1970 before the Guard killed four students and wounded at least nine others."
Malcolm McLaren
The McLaren 'South Bank Show' and the Pistol's Jubilee Thames boat trip vids can be found
(...oh and the Sex Pistols in Sydney 1996!)
New Arizona immigration law proves to be really bad for business
Proponents of the new law say they just want to protect the state's interests, but what they have really done is to shoot themselves in the foot. This new law has more to do with scoring political points for Arizona's right wing politicians than enforcing the law, and that is the trend throughout the United States. In my home state of Florida, the far right leaning state legislature passed a ridiculously poorly written education bill that was like the Az immigration law, more about political points than about improving the education system. The Republican Governor Charlie Crist saw it for what it was and vetoed the bill. He's now running for the US Senate as an Independent. Sadly, the right wing in America feeds off fear and loathing and doesn't let the facts get in the way. To quote a favorite author, "so it goes."
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Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Fuck Off Murdoch!!!
Though I left the UK in 1983 (I really could NOT stand Thatcher's socially divisive policies for a second longer!) Do not kid yourself that the Tories have changed. If Cameron gets elected I can forsee many policies being implemented that will hit the 'marginalised' members of the community most. You know the usual cuts to the drug and alcohol, mental health, homeless etc. sectors...
These toffs have NO idea what it is to be struggling and of course you really should pull up your socks, get on a bike etc, fugn etc...
After all it is all your own fault!
Secret Erik Prince/Blackwater Tape Exposed
Erik Prince, the reclusive owner of the Blackwater empire, rarely gives public speeches and when he does he attempts to ban journalists from attending and forbids recording or videotaping of his remarks. On May 5, that is exactly what Prince is trying to do when he speaks at DeVos Fieldhouse as the keynote speaker for the “Tulip Time Festival” in his hometown of Holland, Michigan. He told the event’s organizers no news reporting could be done on his speech and they consented to the ban. Journalists and media associations in Michigan are protesting this attempt to bar reporting on his remarks.
Despite Prince’s attempts to shield his speeches from public scrutiny, The Nation magazine has obtained an audio recording of a recent, private speech delivered by Prince to a friendly audience. The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities of Blackwater. The people of the United States have a right to media coverage of events featuring the owner of a company that generates 90% of its revenue from the United States government.
In the speech, Prince proposed that the US government deploy armed private contractors to fight “terrorists” in Nigeria, Yemen, Somalia and Saudi Arabia, specifically to target Iranian influence. He expressed disdain for the Geneva Convention and described Blackwater’s secretive operations at four Forward Operating Bases he controls in Afghanistan. He called those fighting the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan “barbarians” who “crawled out of the sewer.” Prince also revealed details of a July 2009 operation he claims Blackwater forces coordinated in Afghanistan to take down a narcotrafficking facility, saying that Blackwater “call[ed] in multiple air strikes,” blowing up the facility. Prince boasted that his forces had carried out the “largest hashish bust in counter-narcotics history.” He characterized the work of some NATO countries’ forces in Afghanistan as ineffectual, suggesting that some coalition nations “should just pack it in and go home.” Prince spoke of Blackwater working in Pakistan, which appears to contradict the official, public Blackwater and US government line that Blackwater is not in Pakistan.
Prince also claimed that a Blackwater operative took down the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W Bush in Baghdad and criticized the Secret Service for being “flat-footed.” He bragged that Blackwater forces “beat the Louisiana National Guard to the scene” during Katrina and claimed that lawsuits, “tens of millions of dollars in lawyer bills” and political attacks prevented him from deploying a humanitarian ship that could have responded to the earthquake in Haiti or the tsunami that hit Indonesia.
Several times during the speech, Prince appeared to demean Afghans his company is training in Afghanistan, saying Blackwater had to teach them “Intro to Toilet Use” and to do jumping jacks. At the same time, he bragged that US generals told him the Afghans Blackwater trains “are the most effective fighting force in Afghanistan.” Prince also revealed that he is writing a book, scheduled to be released this fall.
The speech was delivered January 14 at the University of Michigan in front of an audience of entrepreneurs, ROTC commanders and cadets, businesspeople and military veterans. The speech was titled “Overcoming Adversity: Leadership at the Tip of the Spear” and was sponsored by the Young Presidents’ Association (YPO), a business networking association primarily made up of corporate executives. “Ripped from the headlines and described by Vanity Fair magazine, as a Tycoon, Contractor, Soldier and Spy, Erik Prince brings all that and more to our exclusive YPO speaking engagement,” read the event’s program, also obtained by The Nation. It proclaimed that Prince’s speech was an “amazing don’t miss opportunity from a man who has ‘been there and done that’ with a group of Cadets and Midshipmen who are months away from serving on the ‘tip of the spear.’"...
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Jeremy Scahill @'Rebel Reports'
RapidShare Not Liable For Pirating Users, Court Rules
Like most file-hosting services, RapidShare carries a wide range of movies, music and software files that are distributed without the consent of the rightsholders. This situation has caused the company to be dragged to court several times already.One of the cases in which RapidShare lost was that against the movie rental company Capelight Pictures. This case was appealed by RapidShare and the Dusseldorf Court of Appeals overturned the earlier verdict yesterday, stating that the file-hoster is not responsible for any copyright infringements committed by its users.
“We are very happy about the judgment. The court has confirmed that RapidShare is not responsible for the contents of files uploaded by its users,” Rapidshare founder Christian Schmid said commenting to the outcome of the appeal.
“The judgment shows that attempts to denounce our business model as illegal will not be successful in the long run. With its 1-click-filehosting model, RapidShare responds to legitimate interests of its users and will continue to do so in the future,” Schmid added.
The arguments by the Court of Appeals go directly against earlier decisions in Germany where RapidShare was ordered to filter content proactively. The Court argued that RapidShare’s business is acting within the law and discounted the preventive measures that were suggested by the copyright holder.
Filtering based on keywords is not effective since that would result in many false positives, the Court noted. Likewise, manually reviewing uploaded content is not deemed feasible because RapidShare does not have the manpower to do this.
Another suggestion, banning file formats such as RARs, was also tossed out since this file type says little about whether a file is copyrighted or not. RAR is simply a format used to compress data, regardless of the copyrighted status of the files, the court explained.
The verdict is undoubtedly a major victory for RapidShare, and it will also reflect positively on other file-hosters and even torrent sites. In fact, many of the arguments used by the Court hold also for the average torrent site, as long as they stay away from other means of facilitating copyright infringement.
Ernesto @'Torrent Freak'
Obama FCC Expected to Abandon Net Neutrality, Universal Internet
On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that the Federal Communications Commission is expected to abandon its pledges to protect Net Neutrality and to ensure universal, affordable broadband. The story cites anonymous insiders confirming that FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is "leaning toward" siding with the most powerful phone and cable lobbyists on a crucial decision: whether the FCC will have any authority to protect an open Internet and make it available to all.
It is a testament to the phone and cable industry's overwhelming influence that they seem to have convinced the nation's communications agency to swear off authority to protect Americans' right to open communications. But it is stunning that Genachowski would even contemplate allowing it to stand, given President Obama's repeated pledge to ensure fast, affordable, universal Internet broadband for every American.
So what's going on here?
In early April, a a federal appeals court ruled that, based on decisions by the Bush-era FCC, the agency lacks the authority to regulate broadband providers. In so doing, the court effectively handed control of the Internet to companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon -- allowing them to slow down or block any website, any blog post, any tweet, any outreach by a congressional campaign. The FCC no longer has the power to stop them.
So what's going on here?
In early April, a a federal appeals court ruled that, based on decisions by the Bush-era FCC, the agency lacks the authority to regulate broadband providers. In so doing, the court effectively handed control of the Internet to companies like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon -- allowing them to slow down or block any website, any blog post, any tweet, any outreach by a congressional campaign. The FCC no longer has the power to stop them.
Fortunately, the FCC does have the power to easily fix the problem by "reclassifying" broadband under the law. All it would take is a vote by its five commissioners -- and Genachowski already has the votes. But so far, he has done nothing, while proponents of Net Neutrality (the principle that prevents providers from indiscriminately blocking or slowing Internet content) have been watching and waiting with bated breath.
If Genachowski gives up on restoring FCC authority, you can be sure he will claim that Internet deployment remains the signature issue of his FCC and that he can still accomplish the goals outlined in the FCC's recently released National Broadband Plan.
If Genachowski gives up on restoring FCC authority, you can be sure he will claim that Internet deployment remains the signature issue of his FCC and that he can still accomplish the goals outlined in the FCC's recently released National Broadband Plan.
But unless the FCC puts broadband under what's called "Title II" of the Telecommunications Act, nearly every broadband-related decision the agency makes from here forward will be aggressively challenged in court, and the FCC will likely lose. The phone and cable companies know this, which is why they're going all out to keep the FCC from fixing the problem.
The goals of the much-feted National Broadband Plan are to ensure all Americans can get high-speed access to the open Internet -- not a closed version of the Internet that looks more like cable TV, where phone and cable companies decide what moves fast or not at all.
Chairman Genachowski could stand up for the American people, and against one of the biggest lobbying juggernauts in Washington, but it will take courage. If he fails to stand with the public, it could mean the end of the Internet as we know it.
Before it's too late, we need to make sure the FCC knows the American people are watching, and we will not sit quietly as the largest companies destroy the open, democratic Internet.
Josh Silver @'HuffPo'
Sasu Ripatti preps two full-lengths as Sistol
Multi-faceted Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti (AKA Vladislav Delay, Luomo, Uusitalo) will release two full-lengths this summer as Sistol, a guise that's lain dormant for over a decade.
Back in 1999, Ripatti released one self-titled techno record as Sistol, then gave up on the project indefinitely to focus on his other monikers. This July, Halo Cyon (a new sublabel of Phthalo) will release a remastered, two-disc version of Sistol, complete with remixes by Alva Noto, John Tejada, FaltyDL and [a]pendics.shuffle. This will be followed in August by a 12-inch and a new album, both entitled On the Bright Side, featuring all new tracks by Sistol.
"It's like getting back to an ex you were not in touch with for 10 years," Ripatti says of the new project (presumably in a good way). Chatting via email last week, he gave us the rest of the scoop on his resurrected pseudonym:
How would you characterize the sound of Sistol, as compared to Luomo, Uusitalo and Vladislav Delay?
Even though the sound is more bright and maybe somewhat less deep than what I have done I still think it's quite near to my sound, whatever that might be. Or at least an extension of it. It's more the process or the concept and definitely the inspirations behind Sistol that are different from other projects of mine. It's more straight-forward and less detailed, a little bit more rough or wild and also daring. More druggy than the other stuff, though some people might disagree with that.
Why didn't Sistol carry on like your other pseudonyms?
Early millennium I really got kind of fed up with the bass drum stuff and straight stuff. I went head first into experimental soundscapes and little later also to more pop-oriented dance floor stuff. Sistol just didn't have much room there for a long time. There has always been quite a lot of projects going on in parallel, so something had to give. Now I've stopped doing Luomo and Uusitalo at least for an indefinite amount of time and am also not doing anything under Vladislav Delay, instead concentrating on Sistol or completely new stuff.
What can expect from Sistol in terms of live performance?
I will try to really take a challenge to do live and improvised club sets which I haven't ever done before. Technically I haven't yet even decided what I'm going to use, that's one of the next things I need to concentrate on.
Tracklisting
Sistol
CD1: Remastered Reissue
01. Hajotus
02. Keno
03. Hac
04. Haaska
05. Kelmi
06. Luomo
07. Kotka
08. Kojo
CD2: Remakes/Remixes
01. Hac (Alva Noto Remodel)
02. Kotka (FaltyDL Refunk)
03. Kojo (John Tejada Remix)
04. Keno (Mike Huckaby S Y N T H Remix)
05. Haaska (Swelter Mix by [a]pendics.shuffle)
06. Kotka (Sutekh Parabolai Mix)
07. Hajotus (Duran Duran Duran DDD remix)
08. Keno (Somatic Responses SW Mix)
09. Nuomo (Ed Flis mix)
10. Nuomo (Ike Yard’s Metalli Tulitta)
On the Bright Side
01. (Permission to) Avalanche
02. Hospital Husband
03. On the Bright Side
04. A Better Shore
05. Fucked-Up Novelty
06. Contaminate Her
07. Glowing and so Spread
08. Funseeker
Halo Cyon will release Sistol (Remasters & Remakes) on July 27th, and On the Bright Side on August 24th, 2010.
@'RA'
Armando Iannucci: The Duffy affair turned the media into a pack of shrieking gibbons
Every election has its FFS moment. That's the point when normal politics is disrupted by an event so stupid it makes me swear at the telly a lot. The FFS moment is usually something that's got nothing to do with the issues and everything to do with the media being so bored that they suddenly get very very excited indeed over something like Labour's Party Political Broadcast about Jennifer's ear in 1992 (remember that?) or John Prescott thumping someone for having the audacity to wear a mullet in 2002. These moments when they happen are often described as the "defining" moment of the campaign, generate a lot of headlines and then go on to have no influence on the eventual outcome whatsoever.
I thought this election was going to be different. The seriousness of the financial meltdown that is its background noise, coupled with the dominant and obviously historic position of the live televised debates within it, seemed to be enough to feed the media beast. The closeness in the polls, and Clegg's sudden rise to the role of Kingmaker Apparent (remember that?) was all the excitement we needed.
Then came Gordon Brown's Gillian Duffy moment, and suddenly all bets were off; history was being made, a gargantuan chapter in Britain's story was being written – and every journalist worth his or her salt was being rushed to Rochdale with a live satellite feed and enough throat lozenges to keep them shouting all through the night on live television.
As the gleeful camera pointed live at Mrs Duffy's door while the PM held his economic summit with her, I slumped down in despair at the biggest FFS moment of the past 20 years. Once again, all those questions we need answering but which have never been answered, culminating in the One Big Question – "What The Hell Are You All Going To Cut?" – were thrown away and ignored as the Fourth Estate hopped about like dyspeptic monkeys gleefully reporting the non-existent facts as they unfolded.
As someone who, in The Thick of It, has contrived several silly political moments like these, I appeared to be on a few insiders' contact lists, but there was something rather childish about the mobful of exultant voicemail messages left by hyper-ventilating journalists on my mobile, as BBC news programmes, daily newspapers, and Sky journos asked me to "do" a quick response to these events.
The journalist from Sky News was in some kind of hysterical state of tumescence as he cackled "Gordon Brown's done a gaffe and we wondered if you'd come on to respond. You've got to see it!" on my answering service, and I'm sorry I deleted it rather than release it in to the public domain. The BBC was no less sensationalist in its pokey recording of Brown sitting listening to his own surreptitiously recorded voice played back to him.
It's at these moments that you stand back and see, not a nation debating its future, but a pack of shrieking gibbons.
Thankfully, though, Bigotgate seems to have had no impact on the polls. This has restored my faith in this election as a sober, sincere and considered affair, though it's shed a light on what the media machine can do when it's taken too much Red Bull. But the electorate has come out of it beaming with integrity. I know at the end of each debate, politicians tend to say "The real winner tonight is the British public". Taken to its logical conclusion this means the British public won all three debates, which probably qualifies us for Europe where we take on the French public in the final. But, joking aside, I can't help feeling that's been true in the end, and that the public has played a blinder this election.
We asked big questions, we got annoyed they weren't being answered, we allowed another guy to have his say and thought he was decent enough to be given serious consideration, we said we didn't like negative campaigning and made sure it stopped, we roared with mockery when old-fashioned sleazy headlines were brought out on the nation's front pages, and we quite simply refused to be bought with easy promises, fancy slogans or cheap bribes. If the public were up for election this time round, I'd vote for them, and that's not necessarily something I would have felt like doing in the past.
After all that, it's probably ungainly and possibly a bit rude of me to say who I will actually be voting for but, along with this paper, I have absolutely no fear and a lot of hope that a hung parliament would actually knock some sense into a political system whose iniquities, brutalities and downright inefficiencies have provided the only negative noises of the past four weeks.
Personally, I think as big a Liberal Democrat vote as possible is the best way to get this, but I can understand that, if you live in a tight Lab/Con constituency, you might want to do something different. The websites progressiveparliament.org.uk and voteforachange.co.uk advise you on the best way of achieving a hung parliament from your constituency.
But, honestly, don't listen to me. I'm part of the media, so what do I know? You, the public, have set the agenda this time round, so listen to your heart and head. Above all, go and vote. And enjoy all the attention.
The Life and Crimes of Lenny Bruce
A jewel from the archives. My friend Steve Shepherd used to be a radio producer - producing Jez Nelson's Jazz on 3 for years. His first programme, though, made in 1996, was this documentary about Lenny Bruce, made for the Sunday Feature slot - also on Radio - 3 in 1996. It's narrated by rock critic legend Charles Shaar Murray and The Guardian, at the time, said
"You almost hear the smoke above the jazz and the jokes. Sad and very funny. And proof that it can be cool to listen to Radio 3?"
So here is Steve's show (MP3).
- The picture is a publicity still supplied to Steve by Lenny's record label when he started on the project.
U.S. Seeks Man From Pakistan Tied to S.U.V. in Bomb Case
Federal authorities have identified the man who recently bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that was rigged to explode in Times Square as a naturalized United States citizen from Pakistan who recently returned from a trip there, and were seeking to arrest him on Monday night, according to several people briefed on the investigation.
The man, a Connecticut resident who was not publicly identified, bought the sport utility vehicle in Bridgeport, within the last three weeks, paying cash in a deal that involved no formal paperwork.
The vehicle was discovered about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday on West 45th Street near Seventh Avenue, parked at an angle with its engine running and hazard lights on, as theatergoers tucked into preshow dinners. Sharp-eyed street vendors noticed smoke coming from the Pathfinder and flagged down a police officer. The police bomb squad found the makings of a car bomb: gasoline, propane, fireworks, fertilizer, wiring and alarm clocks.
Investigators who were tracking the man were also exploring whether he or others who might have been involved in the attempted bombing had been in contact with people or groups overseas, according to federal officials. The investigation was shifted on Monday to the control of the international terrorism branch of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, a multiagency group led by the Justice Department, according to two officials.
Officials cautioned that the investigation of possible international contacts did not mean there was a connection to a known terrorist group, but they said they were exploring all possibilities.
“It’s a prominent lead that they’re following, the international association,” said a senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a continuing investigation. “But there’s still a lot of information being gathered.”
On Monday, there was a sweeping response to the attempted attack in the tourist-packed city-within-a-city of Times Square — including an increased police presence, vehicle inspections and a touch of panic from veteran New Yorkers when a manhole fire flared five blocks from the scene of the failed bombing. Consolidated Edison blamed faulty wiring for the fire.
The recent sale of the Pathfinder began online. An advertisement that appears to be for the vehicle, which had 141,000 miles on the odometer and was listed for sale at $1,300 on at least two Web sites, emphasized that it was in good condition — “CLEAN inside and out!!” — with a recently repaired alternator and a new gas pump, distributor and front tires. “It does have some rust as you can see in the picture,” the seller allowed on NothingButCars.net, “but other than that, it runs great.” The other advertisement appeared on Craigslist.
In Bridgeport, the seller refused to answer questions. “You can’t interview her,” said an unidentified man at the woman’s two-story, white clapboard house. “She already talked to the F.B.I.”
The police continued sifting through footage from 82 city cameras mounted from 34th Street to 51st Street between Avenue of the Americas and Eighth Avenue, and from untold number of business and tourist cameras.
But investigators appeared to have begun to assign less significance to a man who appeared to be in his 40s who was seen on one video. That man was seen walking away from the area where the Pathfinder was parked and through Shubert Alley, which runs between 44th and 45th Streets. He looked over his shoulder at least twice and pulled off a shirt, revealing a red T-shirt underneath.
The New York police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, said investigators still wanted to speak to that man, but acknowledged that he might not be connected to the failed bombing. Paul J. Browne, the department’s top spokesman, said the police had stopped looking for additional video in the area that might have tracked the man’s movements.
“It may turn out that he was just somebody in the area, but not connected with the car bomb,” Mr. Browne said.
The police, though, said they might release footage of a man running north on Broadway at the time that a fire broke out in the Pathfinder, Mr. Kelly said.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. seemed optimistic in comments he made Monday morning. “I think that we have made really substantial progress,” he told reporters in Washington. “We have some good leads.”
The materials found in the Pathfinder were to be sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s laboratory in Quantico, Va., for analysis, the police said. “They’ve got the top laboratory in the world to do these sorts of examinations, and we’ll keep some samples here,” Mr. Kelly said.
Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, said on the “Today” show on NBC that it was premature to label any person or group as suspect. “Right now, every lead has to be pursued,” she said. “I caution against premature decisions one way or the other.” But the White House made clear that it considered the effort an act of terrorism, whoever its authors were. “I think anybody that has the type of material that they had in a car in Times Square, I would say that that was intended to terrorize, absolutely,” said the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs.
U.S. Lawmakers Prepare Online Privacy Rules
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United States lawmakers have spent a year preparing draft legislation for a law that would define and limit privacy for advertisers and Internet companies. The legislation will govern methods of taking information from users online and using that information to target advertisements to them. On Tuesday, they will present the draft legislation.
The timing is good for such an announcement given the worry over, among other things, Facebook's recent changes that have caused fresh worry over privacy.
According to the Wall Street Journal, two of the representatives working on the bill, Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Cliff Stearns (R-FL) are posting the bill on their websites Tuesday. The plan is to accept feedback from readers for two months, then revise and submit it.
Elements of the draft include the following:
- Disclosure of what information is collected and how, how it is used and who it is shared with
- Opt-outs for consumers.
- Restrictions on collecting financial, medical, government ID information and that of children
Curt Hopkins @'ReadWriteWeb'
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