The Slits - Man Next Door (Single, 1980)
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Sunday, 12 December 2010
Rolling Stone’s Top Albums & Top Singles Of 2010
Albums:
20 Neil Young – Le Noise
19 M.I.A. – Maya
18 Kings of Leon – Come Around Sundown
17 Beach House – Teen Dream
16 Kid Rock – Born Free
15 The National – High Violet
14 Robyn – Body Talk
13 Taylor Swift – Speak Now
12 John Mellencamp – No Better Than This
11 The Dead Weather – Sea of Cowards
10 LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
09 Eminem – Recovery
08 Robert Plant – Band Of Joy
07 Drake – Thank Me Later
06 Vampire Weekend – Contra
05 Jamey Johnson – The Guitar Song
04 Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
03 Elton John and Leon Russell – The Union
02 The Black Keys – Brothers
01 Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
more here
Singles:
20 Best Coast – “Boyfriend”
19 The New Pornographers – “Your Hands (Together)”
18 Jenny and Johnny – “Scissor Runner”
17 LCD Soundsystem – “I Can Change”
16 Cold War Kids – “Coffee Spoon”
15 Drake – “Over”
14 Big Boi (Feat. Cutty) – “Shutterbugg”
13 The Dead Weather – “Hustle and Cuss”
12 Mark Ronson and the Business International (Feat. Q-Tip & MNDR) – “Bang Bang Bang”
11 The Black Keys – “Everlasting Light”
10 Kanye West (Feat. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver) – “Monster”
09 Broken Bells – “The Ghost Inside”
08 Janelle Monáe (Feat. Big Boi) – “Tightrope”
07 Vampire Weekend – “White Sky”
06 Mavis Staples -”You Are Not Alone”
05 Arcade Fire – “We Used to Wait”
04 Katy Perry – “Teenage Dream”
03 Sade – “Soldier of Love”
02 Cee Lo Green – “Fuck You”
01 Kanye West (Feat. Pusha T) -”Runaway”
more here
LOL!
20 Neil Young – Le Noise
19 M.I.A. – Maya
18 Kings of Leon – Come Around Sundown
17 Beach House – Teen Dream
16 Kid Rock – Born Free
15 The National – High Violet
14 Robyn – Body Talk
13 Taylor Swift – Speak Now
12 John Mellencamp – No Better Than This
11 The Dead Weather – Sea of Cowards
10 LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening
09 Eminem – Recovery
08 Robert Plant – Band Of Joy
07 Drake – Thank Me Later
06 Vampire Weekend – Contra
05 Jamey Johnson – The Guitar Song
04 Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
03 Elton John and Leon Russell – The Union
02 The Black Keys – Brothers
01 Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
more here
Singles:
20 Best Coast – “Boyfriend”
19 The New Pornographers – “Your Hands (Together)”
18 Jenny and Johnny – “Scissor Runner”
17 LCD Soundsystem – “I Can Change”
16 Cold War Kids – “Coffee Spoon”
15 Drake – “Over”
14 Big Boi (Feat. Cutty) – “Shutterbugg”
13 The Dead Weather – “Hustle and Cuss”
12 Mark Ronson and the Business International (Feat. Q-Tip & MNDR) – “Bang Bang Bang”
11 The Black Keys – “Everlasting Light”
10 Kanye West (Feat. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj and Bon Iver) – “Monster”
09 Broken Bells – “The Ghost Inside”
08 Janelle Monáe (Feat. Big Boi) – “Tightrope”
07 Vampire Weekend – “White Sky”
06 Mavis Staples -”You Are Not Alone”
05 Arcade Fire – “We Used to Wait”
04 Katy Perry – “Teenage Dream”
03 Sade – “Soldier of Love”
02 Cee Lo Green – “Fuck You”
01 Kanye West (Feat. Pusha T) -”Runaway”
more here
LOL!
Israel's Racist Rabbis
Jews must not rent homes to "gentiles". That was the religious decree issued this week by at least 50 of Israel's leading rabbis, many of them employed by the state as municipal religious leaders. Jews should first warn, then "ostracise" fellow Jews who fail to heed the directive, the rabbis declared.
The decree is the latest in a wave of racist pronouncements from some of Israel's most influential rabbis.
In October, Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, delivered a ruling, signed by 17 other rabbis in the city, telling Jewish residents not to sell or rent property to members of the country's Palestinian Arab minority, who make up a fifth of the population.
His followers turned words into deeds by attacking Arab students in the city and threatening to burn down the homes of Jewish landlords renting to the students.
Similar edicts have recently been backed by dozens of rabbis in Tel Aviv and nearby Bnei Brak, a suburb of 150,000 mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews. They have threatened to "expose" any Jews who rent to "foreigners" -- in this case, a reference to migrant workers and African refugees who are crowded into neglected neighbourhoods in the centre of the country.
After many weeks of silence on these declarations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was finally forced to issue a condemnation yesterday, describing the rabbis' call as undemocratic and contradicting the bible, which, he said, called for Jews to "love the stranger".
Nonetheless, racism in Israel is increasingly enjoying high-level sanction among the most influential sectors of the religious establishment.
The latest ruling was signed by Shlomo Aviner, a spiritual leader of Israel's national-religious camp; Yosef Elyashiv, a senior ultra-Orthodox rabbi; and Avigdor Neventzal, rabbi of Jerusalem's Old City.
Its sentiments have also been echoed by Ovadia Yosef, a former chief rabbi of Israel and the spiritual leader of Shas, an important political and religious party in Mr Netanyahu's government. "Selling to [non-Jews], even for a lot of money, is not allowed. We won't let them take control of us here," Mr Yosef said recently...
Continue reading
Jonathan Cook @'Counterpunch'
Saturday, 11 December 2010
AMERICA: Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM?
If you hang out much with thinking people, conversation eventually turns to the serious political and cultural questions of our times. Such as: How can the Americans remain so consistently brain-fucked? Much of the world, including plenty of Americans, asks that question as they watch U.S. culture go down like a thrashing mastodon giving itself up to some Pleistocene tar pit.
One explanation might be the effect of 40 years of deep fried industrial chicken pulp, and 44 ounce Big Gulp soft drinks. Another might be pop culture, which is not culture at all of course, but marketing. Or we could blame it on digital autism: Ever watch commuter monkeys on the subway poking at digital devices, stroking the touch screen for hours on end? That wrinkled Neolithic brows above the squinting red eyes?
But a more reasonable explanation is that, (A) we don't even know we are doing it, and (B) we cling to institutions dedicated to making sure we never find out.
As William Edwards Deming famously demonstrated, no system can understand itself, and why it does what it does, including the American social system. Not knowing shit about why your society does what it makes for a pretty nasty case of existential unease. So we create institutions whose function is to pretend to know, which makes everyone feel better. Unfortunately, it also makes the savviest among us -- those elites who run the institutions -- very rich, or safe from the vicissitudes that buffet the rest of us.
Directly or indirectly, they understand that the real function of American social institutions is to justify, rationalize and hide the true purpose of cultural behavior from the lumpenproletariat, and to shape that behavior to the benefit of the institution's members. "Hey, they're a lump. Whaddya expect us to do?"
Doubting readers may consider America's health institutions, the insurance corporations, hospital chains, physicians' lobbies. Between them they have established a perfectly legal right to clip you and me for thousands of dollars at their own discretion. That we so rabidly defend their right to gouge us, given all the information available in the digital age, mystifies the world.
Two hundred years ago no one would have thought sheer volume of available facts in the digital information age would produce informed Americans. Founders of the republic, steeped in the Enlightenment as they were, and believers in an informed citizenry being vital to freedom and democracy, would be delirious with joy at the prospect. Imagine Jefferson and Franklin high on Google.
The fatal assumption was that Americans would choose to think and learn, instead of cherry picking the blogs and TV channels to reinforce their particular branded choice cultural ignorance, consumer, scientific or political, but especially political. Tom and Ben could never have guessed we would chase prepackaged spectacle, junk science, and titillating rumor such as death panels, Obama as a socialist Muslim and Biblical proof that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs around Eden. In a nation that equates democracy with everyman's right to an opinion, no matter how ridiculous, this was probably inevitable. After all, dumb people choose dumb stuff. That's why they are called dumb.
But throw in sixty years of television's mind puddling effects, and you end up with 24 million Americans watching Bristol Palin thrashing around on Dancing with the Stars, then watch her being interviewed with all seriousness on the networks as major news. The inescapable conclusion of half of heartland America is that her mama must certainly be presidential material, even if Bristol cannot dance. It ain't a pretty picture out there in Chattanooga and Keokuk.
The other half, the liberal half, concludes that Bristol's bad dancing is part of her spawn-of-the-Devil mama's plan to take over the country, and make millions in the process, not to mention make Tina Fey and Jon Stewart richer than they already are. That's a tall order for a squirrel brained woman who recently asked a black president to "refutiate" the NAACP (though I kinda like refutiate, myself). Cultural stupidity accounts for virtually every aspect of Sarah Palin, both as a person and a political icon. Which, come to think of it, may be a pretty good reason not to "misunderstimate" her. After all, we're still talking about her in both political camps. And the woman OWNS the Huffington Post, fer Christsake. Not to mention a franchise on cultural ignorance...
AnonymousOps quick qummary: #government #lobby got too careless and arrogant. #people suspected but now they see proof. unclear consequences. #wikileaks
#Twitter closed @Op_Payback AGAIN, THEY DONT WANT FREE SPEECH!!! #anonops #payback #Wikileaks #cablegate Spread the word!!!
Anonymous cyberwarriors stun experts
We all are #Anonymous. Anyone can lead, everybody will follow. An elusive force, invisible, invincible. #payback #wikileaks #cablegate
Friday, 10 December 2010
Game change
If this image is to be believed—and I have no reason not to, other than that I found it on the internet—the rebel squadrons behind Anonymous (attn. "news" hacks - that would be an entirely different group from Wikileaks and/or Wikipedia) are about to change their approach. So far, as we've witnessed, they have been launching point-and-click distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks at companies perceived as the enemies of Wikileaks. Those targets included Mastercard, Paypal, and Visa (companies that froze donation funding), and Amazon (which denied hosting services). The new approach suggests more sophisticated thinking. This new mission, apparently, is to actually read the cables Wikileaks has published and find the most interesting bits that haven't been publicized yet, then publicize them.
In my opinion, this action would have far more positive impact. Anonymous often repeats the Orwell quote, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." Looks like they decided to take those words to heart.
Sean Bonner @'Boing Boing'
Defend Assange and WikiLeaks on Human Rights Day in Melbourne
December 10, 4.30pm at the State Library.
Spread the word...
The demonstration will go till about 6 or so - so people should come after work.
...
For more information on the Melbourne demonstration call:
Vashti: 0423407910
Spread the word...
The demonstration will go till about 6 or so - so people should come after work.
...
For more information on the Melbourne demonstration call:
Vashti: 0423407910
Cyber attacks: payback time
In a cyber attack known as Operation Payback, a group of online activists called Anonymous targeted the websites of companies that had treated WikiLeaks like a bad smell. Visa, MasterCard, Paypal and Amazon have all had their websites, and in some cases their services, affected. Welcome to the world of the chaotic good. It is chaotic. But is it good?
These companies all considered that their association with WikiLeaks damaged their brand image, a reflection prompted in some cases by a helpful call from the US state department. In essence they are trying to have it both ways: pretending in their marketing that they are free spirits and enablers of the cyber world, but only living up to that image as long as they don't upset anyone really important. At Amazon there is real confusion between the two roles: it refused to host WikiLeaks but continued to sell an eBook of the leaked cables online.
The hacktivists of Anonymous may be accused of many things – such as immaturity or being run by a herd instinct. But theirs is the cyber equivalent of non-violent action or civil disobedience. It disrupts rather than damages. In challenging the credit card companies and the web hosts in this way, they are reminding these businesses that their brand reputation relies not only on how the state department sees them, but also on how they maintain their independence in the eyes of their users.
Not all the targets of the internet activists are the right ones. The website of the Swedish prosecution authority, which is currently attempting to extradite Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, on rape charges, and the website of Claes Borgström, the Stockholm lawyer representing the two women who made the allegations, were also brought down. As our interview with Mr Borgström makes clear, these women are going through hell: first for being the alleged victims of sexual assault, and second for being accused of involvement in some form of CIA honeytrap. The women's right to anonymity has been abandoned online as bloggers rake through their CVs. In Sweden, as in other countries, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution, and the test, beyond reasonable doubt, is set high. Far better would be to let the legal systems in Sweden and Britain take their course.
In times when big business and governments attempt to monitor and control everything, there is a need as never before for an internet that remains a free and universal form of communication. WikiLeaks' chief crime has been to speak truth to power. What is at stake is nothing less than the freedom of the internet. All the rest is a sideshow distracting attention from the real battle that is being fought. We should all keep focus on the true target.
Editorial
The Guardian, Fri 10 Dec 2010 00.01 GMT
JPBarlow RT @opendna: @Anon_Operations is the impostor/satire account. The threat vs EFF is a hoax. [The attack is real.]
Freedom
"You can call me a 4channer, you can call me a blogger, a hacker, a video gamer, you can call me whatever epithet makes you feel somehow superior, but you are wrong. I am none of those things, nor would I need to be to participate in the attack (I did not).
Anyone who understands what DDoS attacks do would never claim that they would cause widespread havoc or serious economic damage. They simply are a way to be a nuisance, to cause a little disruption, and to get the attention of perhaps a few stuffed suits so that next time, they won't sell their souls so publicly to quiet a voice that they and their government friends find so uncomfortable.
You can laugh at the people doing this, and console yourself with how geeky they all must be and think of all the socially acceptable friends you have. Or you can stop and consider what you can do yourself to stand up for a free press in this country"
Comment @'The Lede'
JPBarlow The EFF server is under attack. I would be disappointed if this were the result of my opposition to DDoS. #Anonymous?
World's oldest computer recreated in Lego
It's the oldest known computer, a relic dating back 2000 years and rediscovered at the bottom of the ocean. Now designer Andrew Carol has brought it back to life - using Lego.
That's not to say this project was child's play - making the device was an engineering feat that required specialist Lego, and a lot of patience (see stop motion video above).
The idea came from journalist Adam Rutherford who had seen a Babbage Difference Engine built by Carol and got in touch. "I asked him if he'd heard of the mechanism, and if he thought it was doable in Lego," says Rutherford. "A few weeks later, he sent me some pictures of a demo version he'd knocked up. It was stunning."
The Antikythera mechanism is an astronomical computer thought to have been built in 150BC. It was rediscovered on the Antikythera shipwreck in 1900 and has since astounded researchers by its mechanical complexity. It's been recreated numerous times, but to the best of our knowledge, this is the first time a working replica has been made from Lego. "We recreated a 1st century BC computer out of the best toy humankind has ever invented," Rutherford says.
Catherine de Lange @'New Scientist'
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