Saturday, 18 June 2011
Friday, 17 June 2011
Elton John in Concert - BBC Performances 1971
01. Your Song
02. Border Song
03. Sixty Years On
04. Take Me To The Pilot
05. The Greatest Discovery
06. I Need You To Turn To
07. Burn Down The Mission
Ex-Spy Alleges Bush White House Sought to Discredit Critic
Glenn L. Carle, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was a top counterterrorism official during the administration of President George W. Bush, said the White House at least twice asked intelligence officials to gather sensitive information on Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who writes an influential blog that criticized the war.
In an interview, Mr. Carle said his supervisor at the National Intelligence Council told him in 2005 that White House officials wanted “to get” Professor Cole, and made clear that he wanted Mr. Carle to collect information about him, an effort Mr. Carle rebuffed. Months later, Mr. Carle said, he confronted a C.I.A. official after learning of another attempt to collect information about Professor Cole. Mr. Carle said he contended at the time that such actions would have been unlawful...
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Metallica and Lou Reed Record Album Together
Here's one nobody was expecting: Metallica and Lou Reed have gotten together and recorded an entire collaborative full-length album, Metallica announced on their website yesterday. The LP doesn't have a title or a release date yet, but they finished recording it last week, and it's 10 songs long.
According to the Metallica website, the idea for the album came after the band performed with Reed at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th Anniversary Concert, which went down at Madison Square Garden in 2009. Eventually, Reed came to Metallica's San Francisco home studio to record. Late-period Metallica are notorious for spending years on albums, but they bashed this one out over a few months.
Via
♪♫ Paul Kelly - King of Fools (Live on Enough Rope)
Bonus interview w/ Andrew Denton from 'Enough Rope' after the jump
Stop Mining in Gyama Tibet
At this moment, Chinese and Canadian mining companies are ripping apart the
beautiful Meldro Gongkar valley in central Tibet. For thousands of years, Tibetan nomads and farmers have lived on this land in harmony with nature. But now thanks to the constant mining operations, the rivers are being poisoned, the grasslands are deteriorating, livestock is dying, and people are falling ill from drinking the
contaminated water.
Who is profiting off this plunder? Of course, the Chinese government but they're not alone. The destruction of Tibet's environment is being aided by Canada's China Gold International Resources, one of the companies actively mining in Gyama, near Lhasa,
Tibet's capital.
Tibetans and their supporters in Canada are gearing up to protest China Gold's Annual General Meeting. They are also appealing to Canadian investors to stop funding the company's destruction in Tibet.
TAKE ACTION:
We can help by showing global support for this divestment campaign.
1) Send a letter to the President and CEO of China Gold International Resources, Mr. Xin Song: http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=Xb4UU-sAqocmlZK-Dga-bg..
2) After you send a letter to the CEO, please pick up the phone and call China Gold's headquarters at +1-604-609-0598 to convey your opposition to mining in Tibet.
Helpful talking points are included below.
3) You can also take action by posting a comment on the company's website here:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=1d9S1kDqs0mYVXd5mFzAqw..
China Gold International Resources is the overseas arm of China Gold Group Corp, one of China's largest state-owned mining companies and a company that has been operating in Gyama for a number of years. In 2010, a study by a group of scientists from Finland, Norway, and China revealed that water contamination as a result of the mining posed "a considerably high risk to the local environment."
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=wuwt8-9gEftvpMBRvte2Gg..
Today, Tibetans can no longer drink from the Gyama river without fear of illness; many domestic animals have died from water poisoning; and grassland degradation and desertification are increasing rapidly.
In 2009, Tibetans in Gyama protested the contamination of water resources and the resettlement of nomads. They also petitioned local officials to stop the mine operation. But instead of heeding their calls, armed police were sent to intimidate the local people from staging further protests:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=g15fdYI7zV4qcq2Rvo8wnw..
Tibetans clearly do not want this mine. By stepping up the pressure now, we can help stop China Gold and other foreign companies from profiting off Tibetan lands. To learn more about how you can get involved, please visit:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=VTEgDa2iw8hNeIqTNHpeEA..
With hope,
Tendor, Kate, Tenzin Lobsang, and all of us at SFT
P.S. Please donate to support SFT's Stop Mining Tibet campaign so that together we can protect Tibet's fragile eco-system for generations to come:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=cbdmWzoZj3AwtWJjbeo7-Q..
Watch footage and view photos of SFT's previous actions targeting the company: SFT Canada demands answers at China Gold International Resources' Investors Meeting:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=6Nd1Czifonw49yaQ1YaLHg..
SFT Canada's action at the Toronto Resource Investment Conference:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=iEMfBRvce50rsUgmIAQ8NQ..
Protest at China Gold's previous shareholders meeting in Vancouver:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=T3Jbl1MvgkaRvsmgdGI0DA..
Read on-the-ground reports from Gyama:
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=fI3myiIRuts8JEMh18iQUA..
Helpful Talking Points:
* I am calling on China Gold International Resources to withdraw its operations from Tibet.
* Until Tibetans can freely chose whether they want mining operations on their land, your company should not be profiting off Tibet's natural resources.
* Mine activities in Gyama are poisoning local water sources and destroying valuable farmland that Tibetans rely on for their livelihood.
* Any Tibetan who speaks out against Chinese government-sponsored projects like
mine operations risks arrest, imprisonment, and even death.
* Tibetans want development but oppose projects that do not benefit local Tibetans, are environmentally destructive, and allow China to further consolidate control over their land.
Powered By Convio
http://sft.convio.net/site/R?i=55L3O-SOxPdm1QmmmsmqMw..
@'Jarboe Living'
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Using Google Earth to Monitor Mining in Tibet: Gyama
From Wounded Knee to Libya
A Century of U.S. Military Inteventions
(powerpoint)
Frightening!
Thursday, 16 June 2011
Icarus Line - We Sick
MORE
...and yes that is an 'Exile On Moan Street' t-shirt for sale from the band.
Great name. I wonder where they got it from?
I did try to blag a freebie but it was not to be...cheapskates LOL!
kevinmitnick Kevin Mitnick
Did @Lulzsec really take cia.gov down? Poking the tiger? No! More like kicking the tiger in the balls? http://tinyurl.com/3spmbcp
Woah: Lulz Security Just Took Down the CIA
Brian Barrett — Lulzsec, that merry band of hackers responsible for raids on Bethesda Softworks, the US Senate, Sony, terrorists, and rival hackers, has bagged maybe its biggest fish yet: the CIA.Lulz Security announced via Twitter that they'd taken down CIA.gov (which is, for the record, still incapacitated) a little before 6PM EST. No details about their methodology (presumably DDOS?), or the motive behind/beyond the lulz. Which, really, who needs more reason than that to take on the intelligence wing of the US government?
At the rate Lulz is going, their conquests will be Napoleonic before the summer's out. And at this point, it's hard to see how they'll be stopped, short of a land war in Russia. [LulzSec]
@'Gizmodo'
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Pakistan Arrests C.I.A. Informants in Bin Laden Raid
Pakistan’s top military spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the Central Intelligence Agency in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden, according to American officials.
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy C.I.A. director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.
“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.
American officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment...
Pakistan’s detention of five C.I.A. informants, including a Pakistani Army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan. It comes at a time when the Obama administration is seeking Pakistan’s support in brokering an endgame in the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
At a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael J. Morell, the deputy C.I.A. director, to rate Pakistan’s cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.
“Three,” Mr. Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange.
The fate of the C.I.A. informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials said that the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.
Some in Washington see the arrests as illustrative of the disconnect between Pakistani and American priorities at a time when they are supposed to be allies in the fight against Al Qaeda — instead of hunting down the support network that allowed Bin Laden to live comfortably for years, the Pakistani authorities are arresting those who assisted in the raid that killed the world’s most wanted man.
The Bin Laden raid and more recent attacks by militants in Pakistan have been blows to the country’s military, a revered institution in the country. Some officials and outside experts said the military is mired in its worst crisis of confidence in decades.
American officials cautioned that Mr. Morell’s comments about Pakistani support was a snapshot of the current relationship, and did not represent the administration’s overall assessment...
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Nigeria's pastors 'as rich as oil barons'
Nigeria's pastors run multi-million dollar businesses which rival that of oil tycoons, a Nigerian blogger who has researched the issue has told the BBC.
Mfonobong Nsehe, who blogs for Forbes business magazine, says pastors own businesses from hotels to fast-food chains. "Preaching is big business. It's almost as profitable as the oil business," he said.
The joint wealth of five pastors was at least $200m (£121m), he said.
Mr Nsehe said the richest of them, Bishop David Oyedepo of the Living Faith World Outreach Ministry, was worth about $150m.
Bishop Oyedepo owned a publishing company, university, an elite private school, four jets and homes in London and the United States, according to Mr Nsehe.
'Private jets'
The Nigerian blogger said Bishop Oyedepo was followed on the rich list by Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of the Believers' Loveworld Ministries. He was worth between $30 and $50m.
"Oyakhilome's diversified interests include newspapers, magazines, a local television station, a record label, satellite TV, hotels and extensive real estate," Mr Nsehe said.
He said three of the other richest pastors were: - Temitope Joshua Matthew of the Synagogue Church Of All Nations (worth between $10m and $15m);
- Matthew Ashimolowo of Kingsway International Christian Centre (worth between $6 million and $10 million) and
- Chris Okotie of the Household of God Church (worth between $3 million and $10 million).
"These pastors are flamboyant. You see them with private jets and expensive cars. This extravagance sends out the wrong message to their followers," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
He said the pastors acquired their wealth from various sources, including their congregations.
"We have Nigerians who are desperate, looking for solutions to their problems. They go to church for salvation, redemption and healing and pastors sometimes take advantage of them," Mr Nsehe said.
@'BBC'
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