Sunday, 19 December 2010

Kettle tactics risk Hillsborough-style tragedy – doctor

YouTube Allows Users to Flag Content as Terror Promotion

"Tabloid schmuck"

UN chief rejects Ivorian pullout

♪♫ Captain Beefheart - This Is The Day (OGWT 1974)


Get it

The cultural genome: Google Books reveals traces of fame, censorship and changing languages

Dearohfugndear Dept # ???

Pilots of the future: suicide prevention and the internet

Samaritans founder Chad Varah was that most British of things: an old-fashioned gentleman with a pronounced enthusiasm for the modern world. Besides his work in suicide prevention, he promoted progressive attitudes towards sex education in Picture Post, and was the astronautical consultant to Dan Dare, the “Pilot of the Future” whose exploits thrilled the readers of the Eagle. So it is fair to say he would have approved of the latest innovation by Samaritans: a box with the organisation's helpline number (08457 90 90 90) that appears at the top of the page in response to searches for terms relating to suicide on Google UK.
It has been there since November 2010: a small change, but a significant one. This is not by any means the organisation's first foray into cyberspace—that came as far back as 1992 with the piloting of the jo@samaritans.org email address—but it represents an important advance in the way Samaritans engages with the public, and an indication that it is keen to address the challenges posed by a future spent more and more online.
The first of these challenges will be to bring some sense of rationality and proportion to the ongoing discussion about the role of the internet. Although the perception of the online environment as something novel is wearing off for adults—and is probably a source of complete bafflement to teenagers—its involvement, however tenuous, in any episode of self-harm, suicide, illness, or violence guarantees intense media interest. And behind these stories lurks the assumption—made in the absence of any solid evidence—that the use of the internet, and specifically social networking sites, is intrinsically damaging. In 2009, for example, the UK Sunday Telegraph ran an interview with the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols: it was reported that the Archbishop “warned that the sites are contributing to a trend for teenagers to put too much importance on the number of friends they have and that this can ultimately lead to suicide...”
 Continue reading
Niall Boyce @'The Lancet'

A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning

Revealed: Chamber lobbied against 9/11 health bill to save foreign members on taxes

'Nearly all cigarette brands have 10-20% more nicotine now than they did in 2000'!!!

"He's moody tonight' LOL!

Warm fuzzies!

(Click to enlarge)
(Thanx somnidea!)
Now search 'pirates, ninjas'!!!

The WIRE Records of the Year 2010


01 Actress - Splazsh
02 Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal
03 Swans - My father will guide me up a rope to the sky
04 Joanna Newsom - Have one on me
05 Catherine Christer Hennix - The electric harpsichord
06 Rangers - Suburban tours
07 Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before today
08 John Tilbury & Sebastian Lexer - Last daylight
09 Keith Fullerton Whitman - Disengenuity/Disengenuousness
10 Kevin Drumm - Necro acoustic
11 Sun City Girls - Funeral mariachi
12 Annette Krebs & Taku Unami - Motobachii
13 Sun Araw - On patrol
14 Gonjasufi - A sufi and a killer
15 Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot
16 Joe Colley - Disasters of self
17 Richard Skelton - Landings
18 Emeralds - Does it look like I'm here?
19 Eleh - Location momentum
20 Autechre - Oversteps
21 Helena Gough - Mikroklimata
22 Demdike Stare - Liberation through hearing
23 Marina Rosenfeld - Plastic materials
24 Bill Orcutt - Way down south
25 Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
26 Bellows - Handcut
27 Tilbury/Duch/Davies - Conrenius Cardew: Works 1960-1970
28 Hype Williams - s/t
29 Laurie Anderson - Homeland
30 Konono No 1 - Assume crash position
31 Zs - New slaves
32 Phew - Five finger discount
33 Sabbathh Assembly - Restored to one
34 Derek Bailey - More 74
35 Seijaku - Mail from Fushitsua
36 Tyler the Creator - Bastard
37 Moon Wiring Club A spare tabby at the cat's wedding
38 Larry Polansky - The world's largest melody
39 Alasdair Galbraith - Mass
40 Jailbreak - The Rocker
41 oOoOO - oOoOO
42 Pedestrian Deposit - East fork/North fork
43 Group Inerane - Guitars from Agadaz vol 3
44 Prins Thomas - s/t
45 These New Puritans - Hidden
46 Aldo Clementi - Works with flutes
47 Graham Lambkin & Jason Lescalleet - Air supply
48 Joseph Hammer - I love you, please love me too
49 Joshua Abrams - Natural information
50 Grinderman 2

PSA: This holiday season, if you're going to fry a turkey, please call the professionals.

Saturday, 18 December 2010

Portlandia



Having lived in Portland for 3 years before moving to Seattle, this is funny for all the right reasons...

“How Do They Sleep?” Fox's (!) Shep Smith Blasts Congress Over 9/11 First Responders Bill

Hmmm!

UN mulls internet regulation options

The 10 Worst Predictions for 2010

Secret US-Sweden Terrorist Surveillance Arrangements


WikiLeaks wikileaks Does your business do business with Bank of America? Our advise is to place your funds somewhere safer. 

Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

Budding guitarists take note.

1. Listen to the birds
That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.

2. Your guitar is not really a guitar
Your guitar is a divining rod. Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.

3. Practice in front of a bush
Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush doesn't shake, eat another piece of bread.

4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're brining over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.

5. If you're guilty of thinking, you're out
If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.

6. Never point your guitar at anyone
Your instrument has more clout than lightning. Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.

7. Always carry a church key
That's your key-man clause. Like One String Sam. He's one. He was a Detroit street musician who played in the fifties on a homemade instrument. His song "I Need a Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another key to the church is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty — making you want to look up her dress the whole time to see how he's doing it.

8. Don't wipe the sweat off your instrument
You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.

9. Keep your guitar in a dark place
When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure you put a saucer of water in with it.

10. You gotta have a hood for your engine
Keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper around it to make it grow.


This sound advice can be found in the book Rolling Stone's Alt-Rock-A-Rama (1996) which includes an article written by John McCormick about Moris Tepper.
"Though they bear numbers, they are not arranged heirarchically — each Commandment has equal import."
@'The Captain Beefheart Radar Station'

The influence of Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, stretched from the Grateful Dead to the Sex Pistols and beyond.
Johann Hari johannhari101 @bengoldacre I'm anxious that there will be women out there who really have been raped by famous men. They will be terrified by all this
ben goldacre bengoldacre @johannhari101 absltly, that's why i think loud public speculation about the details of the rape, by people taking either side, is unhelpful

♪♫ Sisters Of Mercy - Marian (Royal Albert Hall, London, June 18th 1985)


Was ich kann und was ich koennte
Weiss ich gar nicht mehr
Gib mir wieder etwas schoenes
Zieh mich aus dem Meer
Ich hoer dich rufen, Marian
Kannst du mich schreien hoeren
Ich bin hier allein
Ich hoer dich rufen, Marian
Ohne deine Hilfe verliere ich mich in diesem Ort

The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart (BBC 1997 Narrated by John Peel)






Cultural Chemistry - the plant that robs you of your free will?

You've seen it in suburban Australian gardens with its bright, pendulous flowers in full bloom. But in Colombia, Angel's Trumpet has a dark side. It's used to rob people by robbing them of their memory, and allegedly, their free will. For All in the Mind, clinical psychologist Dr Vaughan Bell goes in search of the truth about the drug Burundanga, and Brugmansia - a popular plant with a complex personality.

Officials: CIA station chief pulled from Islamabad

Record Labels Blame Google For Piracy, Hint At Censorship

Can we imagine a Britain where all drugs are legal?

Granting Anonymity

Assange: Text messages show rape charges were 'set up'

10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange

Julian Assange at Ellingham Hall. Photograph: Paul Hackett/Reuters
Documents seen by the Guardian reveal for the first time the full details of the allegations of rape and sexual assault that have led to extradition hearings against the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange.
The case against Assange, which has been the subject of intense speculation and dispute in mainstream media and on the internet, is laid out in police material held in Stockholm to which the Guardian received unauthorised access.
Assange, who was released on bail on Thursday, denies the Swedish allegations and has not formally been charged with any offence. The two Swedish women behind the charges have been accused by his supporters of making malicious complaints or being "honeytraps" in a wider conspiracy to discredit him.
Assange's UK lawyer, Mark Stephens, attributed the allegations to "dark forces", saying: "The honeytrap has been sprung ... After what we've seen so far you can reasonably conclude this is part of a greater plan." The journalist John Pilger dismissed the case as a "political stunt" and in an interview with ABC news, Assange said Swedish prosecutors were withholding evidence which suggested he had been "set up."
However, unredacted statements held by prosecutors in Stockholm, along with interviews with some of the central characters, shed fresh light on the hotly disputed sequence of events that has become the centre of a global storm.
Stephens has repeatedly complained that Assange has not been allowed to see the full allegations against him, but it is understood his Swedish defence team have copies of all the documents seen by the Guardian.
The allegations centre on a 10-day period after Assange flew into Stockholm on Wednesday 11 August. One of the women, named in court as Miss A, told police that she had arranged Assange's trip to Sweden, and let him stay in her flat because she was due to be away. She returned early, on Friday 13 August, after which the pair went for a meal and then returned to her flat.
Her account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.
According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.
When he was later interviewed by police in Stockholm, Assange agreed that he had had sex with Miss A but said he did not tear the condom, and that he was not aware that it had been torn. He told police that he had continued to sleep in Miss A's bed for the following week and she had never mentioned a torn condom.
On the following morning, Saturday 14 August, Assange spoke at a seminar organised by Miss A. A second woman, Miss W, had contacted Miss A to ask if she could attend. Both women joined Assange, the co-ordinator of the Swedish WikiLeaks group, whom we will call "Harold", and a few others for lunch.
Assange left the lunch with Miss W. She told the police that she and Assange had visited the place where she worked and had then gone to a cinema where they had moved to the back row. He had kissed her and put his hands inside her clothing, she said.
That evening, Miss A held a party at her flat. One of her friends, "Monica", later told police that during the party Miss A had told her about the ripped condom and unprotected sex. Another friend told police that during the evening Miss A told her that she had had "the worst sex ever" with Assange: "Not only had it been the world's worst screw, it had also been violent."...
 Continue reading
Nick Davies @'The Guardian'

Don Van Vliet RIP


The good Captain has gone...

Letter to Obama from Human Rights Watch

US: WikiLeaks Publishers Should Not Face Prosecution

Spoonfed's Ones To Watch in 2011: Darkstar

2010 has been a year of transformation for Darkstar. Just when the music press thought they had them boxed, branded and safely categorised, this London-based duo caught everyone off-guard. Teaming up with vocalist James Buttery and discarding an almost complete album along with their more 2-step infused origins, they presented Hyperdub with a debut that has both surprised fans and been hailed by critics as a possible Mercury Prize contender.
North’ is all moody, synth-driven electronica, that channels elements of Human League and even Radiohead along with the band’s dubstep roots. With a load of hype around them all autumn, a live tour early next year, a US tour in March, and a new album already in the pipeline, 2011 looks set to be an exciting year for these boys.
In the first installment of Spoonfed’s Ones to Watch in 2011, we chat with keystone of the original Darkstar duo James Young about the hype, performing live, and pissing off the press...
Continue reading

Afghanistan 2010: A Year in Photos

Holbrooke: Astride the Khyber Pass


WikiLeaks inspires sanitary pad ad in Pakistan

Pakistani advertisers in the feminine hygiene business have harnessed the political notoriety of WikiLeaks to tell women that while the US State Department might leak, they don't have to. 
Advertising sanitary pads on selected billboards in Pakistan's financial capital Karachi, the latest catchphrase is: "WikiLeaks... Butterfly doesn't". 
Leaked American diplomatic cables turned the Internet whistleblower into a household name in Pakistan, fascinating and appalling members of the public over reported inner dealings of their political and military elite. Pakistani advertisers usually avoid the divisive world of politics but advertisers said the commercial had attracted considerable attention. 
"We have received a huge response from the public and everyone has commended us on it," said Syed Amjad Hussain, head of business development at RG Blue Communications, which pitched the advertisement to manufacturers Butterfly. 
"It could have been yet another ad showing a girl promoting the sanitary pad, but we made it different, completely different," art director Munir Bhatti told AFP.
 Hussain said the response had been "great" although a fully-fledged media campaign had yet to start. Coverage of the leaked American cables highlighted Western concerns about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arms and politicians' private support for US drone attacks on al-Qaida and the Taliban in the country's tribal belt. 
They also revealed that the Pakistani army considered forcing out President Asif Ali Zardari, who made contingency plans for his assassination.
@'The Times of India'

Man boards plane at IAH with loaded gun in carry-on