Tuesday, 29 June 2010

Sports Minister apologises to Liverpool FC fans after Hillsborough disaster slur

A senior Government minister has apologised to Liverpool supporters after suggesting that the 1989 Hillsborough disaster was a hooligan-related incident.

Ninety-six football fans were killed on the Leppings Lane terrace at Sheffield Wednesday's ground on April 15 before the FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.

Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, claimed that crowd unrest was responsible for the deaths of Reds supporters 21 years ago when answering questions about the conduct of England fans at this summer's World Cup

He said: "As a Minister, I was incredibly encouraged by the example set by the England fans.

"I mean not a single arrest for a football-related offensive and the terrible problems that we had in Heysel and Hillsborough in the 1980s seem now to be behind us.

"I think you know there is small grounds for encouragement there even though obviously we are very disappointed about the result."

Following backlash from Liverpool fans, the Conservative MP for South West Surrey has released a statement apologising for his comments.

In a statement, the Mr Hunt said: "I know that fan unrest played no part in the terrible events of April 1989 and I apologise to Liverpool fans and the families of those killed and injured in the Hillsborough disaster if my comments caused any offence."

Richard Buxton @'Click Liverpool'

Monday, 28 June 2010

HA!

HA! (Thanx HerrB!)

(Click to enlarge)

Optical Illusions

Privacy – the final frontier?

Interview with Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks and Christian Engstrom, Swedish Pirate MEP

???

World Cup 2010: Waddle blames FA for England exit

HERE

The Red Eyes - I Get Wild / Wild Gravity

In anticipation of the release of a blockbuster 2nd studio album due out May 2010 accompanied by a massive national tour, The Red Eyes are unleashing a taster from the album with their new single I Get Wild / Wild Gravity.
This is a first time cover recording for The Red Eyes who are known for their large repertoir of original material, including the anthem Highplace which was recently nominated in the shortlist for the 2009 Triple J Hottest 100.
Nonetheless, I Get Wild / Wild Gravity – a B-side track from the Talking Heads’ 1983 album Speaking in Tongues – was an easy choice for the band who count Talking Heads as up among the top of their varied list of musical influences. The tempo and style of the track lends itself to the Dub/Reggae groove of The Red Eyes and the song has quickly become a crowd pleaser in their massive live show.
‘The Red Eyes’ fan base flock to hear the Melbourne outfit’s party dub sound.’ (Rolling Stone Australia, April 2007) ‘…such is the power of top-shelf dub. True to the spirit and messages of the music’s long history, the Red Eyes are breathing new life into dub in Australia and are doing it with soul and authenticity.’ (In The Mix) ‘Say what you like about John Butler, he has backed an absolute winner in the form of the Red-Eyes…’ (Beat Magazine)

http://thered-eyes.com/

A New Generation of Natural Gas Drilling Is Endangering Communities From the Rockies to New York

Theater and film director Josh Fox's documentary Gasland explores the new generation of natural gas drilling, which for a decade has been blasting its way east across the country, tapping shale formations from the Rockies to Pennsylvania, and is now expanding in New York. Fox is only 37, but he is a veteran explorer of complex themes from militarism to war to globalization and torture who skillfully blends artistry and social message. Gasland is more straightforward than Fox's earlier experimental mixes of theater, dance, music and film, but no less striking. Winner of the Special Jury Prize for Documentary at Sundance, where it premiered in January, Gasland has been causing a stir wherever it has gone since...
HERE

This recently released film looks to be essential viewing, the current information available about the environmental repercussions of "Fracking" as an industrial extraction method leave little to be desired. As mentioned in the article, the secrecy over ingredients used in the process, the involvement of habitual offender,"Short-Cut" Halliburton(already under a cloud for the BP Gulf Disaster), in the industry can only maximise concern. Yet another example of industry failing to look at all the equations before putting its big foot in the pond. And yes, this is the water supply that is being poisoned by industry for money, let's hope they can chop all that money up and hopefully liquify enough for a drink in the future. If this doesn't rank as Managerment Stupidity, I certainly don't know what does, and the sooner these knuckleheads are held accountable the better.....beeden

This Time !

@mirrorfootball.co.uk

HA!

(Thanx Carolyn!)

Mexican singer El Shaka killed after denying his murder

A Magazine Back on a Roll

Holy Fuck - downtown Toronto!

(Thanks, Sparkdale, via The Star)
@'boingboing'

HA!

monstroso Have been approached to be next England manager. apparently all 17,567,893 people ahead of me declined. #worldcup

WOW!!!

We Spend $1 Billion/Year Fighting Each al Qaeda Member in Afghanistan

Think Progress does the math on Panetta’s admission that there are just 100 al Qaeda members in Afghanistan, and discovers we’ve got 1,000 American troops in Afghanistan for each al Qaeda member.

The U.S. has committed nearly 100,000 troops to the mission in Afghanistan. ABC This Week host Jake Tapper asked CIA Director Leon Panetta how big is the al Qaeda threat that the soldiers are combating:

TAPPER: How many Al Qaeda, do you think, are in Afghanistan?
PANETTA: I think the estimate on the number of Al Qaeda is actually relatively small. I think at most, we’re looking at 50 to 100, maybe less. It’s in that vicinity. There’s no question that the main location of Al Qaeda is in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
The 100,000 U.S. forces that have been tasked to dismantle the 100 or so al Qaeda members — a ratio of 1000:1 — is complicated by the fact that we are also engaged in operations going after the Taliban leadership.

Now let me add to their math. Even Afghan war fans admit that it costs $1 million a year–on top of things like salary–to support a US service member in Afghanistan.

Michael O’Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, says one useful way to break down these huge numbers is to look at how much it costs to send just one soldier to war.
“We are at a point where it’s unbelievably costing us close to a million dollars, in additional costs — above and beyond salaries and the equipment that’s already in the inventory — per soldier or Marine per year,” he says.
Fighting in Afghanistan means fighting in one of the most remote regions on Earth, and that plays a large role in the seemingly astronomical figure.
Dov Zakheim, a former chief financial officer for the Defense Department, says the $1 million price tag includes getting the soldier to Afghanistan, getting his equipment to Afghanistan, and moving the soldier around once in the country.

So 1,000 US troops per al Qaeda member, at a cost of $1 million each. That’s $1 billion a year we spend for each al Qaeda member to fight our war in Afghanistan.
This sort of adds a new twist to that old Einstein quip about the definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Because we’re doing the same thing over and over again–at a cost of $1 billion a year per nominal opponent–and expecting anything other than bankruptcy.

@'emptywheel'

The Frozen Addicts

G20 Toronto

PHOTOGRAPHS

Guardian journalist Jesse Rosenfeld beaten and arrested by Toronto police at G20

Glenn Greenwald on Jeffrey Goldberg

Jeffrey Goldberg on "Meet the Press."

In a stunning display of self-unawareness, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg pointed to last week's forced "resignation" by Dave Weigel from The Washington Post as evidence that the Post, "in its general desperation for page views, now hires people who came up in journalism without much adult supervision, and without the proper amount of toilet-training." Goldberg then solemnly expressed hope that "this episode will lead to the reimposition of some level of standards." Numerous commentators immediately noted the supreme and obvious irony that Goldberg, of all people, would anoint himself condescending arbiter of journalistic standards, given that, as one of the leading media cheerleaders for the attack on Iraq, he compiled a record of humiliating falsehood-dissemination in the run-up to the war that rivaled Judy Miller's both in terms of recklessness and destructive impact.

Except unlike Miller, who was forced to leave the New York Times over what she did, and the NYT itself, which at least acknowledged some of the shoddy pro-war propaganda it churned out, Goldberg has never acknowledged his journalistic errors, expressed remorse for them, or paid any price at all. To the contrary, as is true for most Iraq war propagandists, he thrived ~~despite~~ as a result of his sorry record in service of the war. In 2007, David Bradley -- the owner of The Atlantic and (in his own words) formerly "a neocon guy" who was "dead certain about the rightness" of invading Iraq -- lavished Goldberg with money and gifts, including ponies for Goldberg's children, in order to lure him away from The New Yorker, where he had churned out most of his pre-war trash. ..

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@'Salon'