Monday, 1 August 2011

Getting Bin Laden

Shortly after eleven o’clock on the night of May 1st, two MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters lifted off from Jalalabad Air Field, in eastern Afghanistan, and embarked on a covert mission into Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. Inside the aircraft were twenty-three Navy SEALs from Team Six, which is officially known as the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, or DEVGRU. A Pakistani-American translator, whom I will call Ahmed, and a dog named Cairo—a Belgian Malinois—were also aboard. It was a moonless evening, and the helicopters’ pilots, wearing night-vision goggles, flew without lights over mountains that straddle the border with Pakistan. Radio communications were kept to a minimum, and an eerie calm settled inside the aircraft. Fifteen minutes later, the helicopters ducked into an alpine valley and slipped, undetected, into Pakistani airspace. For more than sixty years, Pakistan’s military has maintained a state of high alert against its eastern neighbor, India. Because of this obsession, Pakistan’s “principal air defenses are all pointing east,” Shuja Nawaz, an expert on the Pakistani Army and the author of “Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within,” told me. Senior defense and Administration officials concur with this assessment, but a Pakistani senior military official, whom I reached at his office, in Rawalpindi, disagreed. “No one leaves their borders unattended,” he said. Though he declined to elaborate on the location or orientation of Pakistan’s radars—“It’s not where the radars are or aren’t”—he said that the American infiltration was the result of “technological gaps we have vis-à-vis the U.S.” The Black Hawks, each of which had two pilots and a crewman from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, or the Night Stalkers, had been modified to mask heat, noise, and movement; the copters’ exteriors had sharp, flat angles and were covered with radar-dampening “skin.”
The SEALs’ destination was a house in the small city of Abbottabad, which is about a hundred and twenty miles across the Pakistan border. Situated north of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, Abbottabad is in the foothills of the Pir Panjal Range, and is popular in the summertime with families seeking relief from the blistering heat farther south. Founded in 1853 by a British major named James Abbott, the city became the home of a prestigious military academy after the creation of Pakistan, in 1947. According to information gathered by the Central Intelligence Agency, bin Laden was holed up on the third floor of a house in a one-acre compound just off Kakul Road in Bilal Town, a middle-class neighborhood less than a mile from the entrance to the academy. If all went according to plan, the SEALs would drop from the helicopters into the compound, overpower bin Laden’s guards, shoot and kill him at close range, and then take the corpse back to Afghanistan.

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Nicholas Schmidle @'The New Yorker'

UK Digital Economy Act: A Foregone Conclusion?

Glenn Greenwald: Democratic politics in a nutshell

Björk trusts pirates will crack Biophilia

Björk has responded to criticism of her decision to only release her new Biophilia app on Apple’s iPad, iPhone and iPad touch devices by admitting she trusts software pirates will expand its availability.
“I’m not supposed to say this, probably,” she told Drowned in Sound, “but I’m trusting that the pirates out there won’t tie their hands behind their back.”
She added that compatibility was an issue her app designers had been made aware of:

“That’s why we really made sure when we wrote all the programs that they will transfer to other systems. I mean, I don’t totally understand technologically what it is that makes that possible.”

Asked if she thought there was a discord between the project’s proclaimed ‘punk values’ and Apple’s proprietary devices, she said:

“Yeah, for sure, there’s definitely another polarity there, a conflict. The only solution for me was to somehow be some sort of a ‘Kofi Annan’ and try and make these two worlds speak to each other.”

She said that she fully expects the new software to become more widely available and end up on less expensive operating systems and devices:

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve been in Africa in the last few years, and Indonesia. There are people there who have cardboard houses but they have mobile phones. Everybody’s texting. It’s just a question of time before touch screens are cheap.”

Biophilia is a multi-media project comprising a studio album and an app featuring a game for each of the 10 new tracks, as well as a new website, custom-made musical instruments, live performances, and educational workshops. Björk collaborated on the project with app developers, scientists, writers, inventors, musicians, and instrument makers and believes that alongside her new music she has created a unique way of learning about science, nature and musicology.
Kevin E.G. Perry @'Drowned In Sound'

American Blogger Praises Oslo Shooter

The Oslo Syndrome

EDL leader demanded debate on killing David Cameron and archbishop

A rare photograph of Alan Lake, who said it would be ‘great to see liberals executed or tortured’
A senior member of the English Defence League, who founded a far-right website carrying articles by bloggers closely monitored by the Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik, published an online essay discussing the execution and torture of the UK's political and religious leaders.
On 23 May 2010, Alan Lake posted on his 4 Freedoms website an article outlining his belief that "in 20 or 30 years the UK will start to fragment into Islamic enclaves". He went on: "It's time we decide... who we will force in the Islamic enclaves (and who we will execute if they sneak out.) By forcing these liberal twits into those enclaves, we will be sending them to their death at worst, and at best they and their families will be subjected to all the depredations, persecution and abuse that non-Muslims worldwide currently 'enjoy' in countries like Pakistan... It will be great to see them executed or tortured to death."
Lake urged visitors to the site to contribute the names of people who should be sent to the Islamic enclaves and made three of his own suggestions. He suggested that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, should be a candidate on the grounds that he "approves of the creation and use of sharia courts". David Cameron, he explained, should be included in the discussion "to help refine our criteria about who deserves to die at the hands of the Muslim overlords". He also included Nick Clegg on the grounds that he is "such an angelic and pure person that he upholds various 'human rights' issues more important than plebeian matters of public safety".
Soon after his posting, Lake removed the references to execution and torture. "I took it back after one day," he said. "I said, 'This doesn't help.' I'm not perfect, I will make mistakes. But the fundamental point of that piece is correct. I am holding people responsible for the consequences of their actions."
In interviews outlining the EDL's philosophy, Lake describes himself as its"events director". He has admitted to loaning the EDL equipment, but denied claims he bankrolls the organisation.
Users of the 4 Freedoms site have posted articles by a far-right blogger known as Fjordman who was extensively cited by Breivik in the 1,500-page manifesto he issued shortly after the mass killings. On a separate far right website, Gates of Vienna, Breivik is believed to have posted a tribute to Fjordman , under the internet pseudonym "year2183".
"Keep up the good work mate," Breivik writes in response to a Fjordman posting. "You are a true hero of Europe, although most ppl [people] won't realise this for a very long time."
Last week Lake issued a statement saying he did not know Breivik and had never met him: "I categorically condemn his actions, which have also killed friends of a friend of mine – one in Oslo and two on Utøya island." But Lake said he would continue his support for the EDL. "England is the only country that has anything like the EDL, a large grassroots movement that is raising issues that you are not supposed to raise," he said. "They reopen the debate."
Lake has spoken at far-right rallies in Sweden and on Norwegian television, where he has warned that Europe is in danger of becoming an Islamic state. Responding to a march by Muslims in Britain calling for the imposition of sharia law, Lake told the Norwegian channel 2 Nyhetene: "They are seeking the overthrow of the state. As far as I am concerned, I'll be happy to execute people like that."
Some of his comments have alarmed even those close to the EDL. Paul Ray, a right-wing Christian blogger, who founded the EDL in 2006 and who has denied being Breivik's mentor, said: "As things have gone on, it's become apparent how extreme [Lake's] views are. This is a guy directing an extreme far-right movement in the UK."
Ray said Lake played an important role in linking the EDL to influential far-right communities online. "The anti-jihad movement isn't your mainstream press, it's all online [far-right] blogs and websites and Lake has been able to keep them on board. They [Tommy Robinson, the EDL's leader] know that without this online presence they won't have any support."
Fjordman has condemned the killings in Norway and in an online posting said he would not be responding to calls for interviews. The EDL has also condemned Breivik's actions.
Jamie Doward, Vicus Burger and James Burton @'The Guardian'

'Chelse Hotel' closes to guests

A Last Night Among the Spirits at the Chelsea Hotel

The man who couldn't stop drawing

Drawing began to take over Jon Sarkin's life. Pictures poured from his fingers, spilling out of some deep place. Photograph: Webb Chappell
Jon Sarkin and Hank Turgeon had battled all afternoon on the Cape Ann golf course, Massachusetts. The time was about 3pm, Thursday 20 October 1988, and the two friends had cut out of work early, Sarkin from his chiropractic office, Turgeon from his carpentry. A slight breeze rippled as Sarkin bent down, reached inside his golf bag and fished around for a tee. As he pulled out his hand, he experienced a hideous dizzying sensation, as if his brain had suddenly twisted.
A part of his head seemed to unhinge, to split apart and rush away. I'm 35 years old and I'm going to die, he said to himself.
"Is anything wrong?" Turgeon asked.
Sarkin hesitated, trying to get his bearings.
What could he say? That he felt as if his brain had just broken in half? Sarkin took a few deep breaths, teed up his ball and swung from his heels.
He felt queasy, and as he walked towards the fairway he tried not to move his head. What he did not know was that somewhere deep in his brain a single blood vessel had shifted ever so slightly and the movement, as minuscule as it was, had caused a cataclysmic response in one of his cranial nerves.
"Do you mind if we quit?" he said.
"Sure," Turgeon answered.
When Sarkin walked in the door, his wife, Kim, knew immediately something wasn't right. "What's wrong, Jon?" she asked, balancing their nine-month-old baby boy on her hip.
"I don't know what happened," he said. "I just know everything is different and it's not ever going to be the same..."

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Amy Ellis Nutt @'The Guardian'

Norwegian attacks stem from a new ideological hate

Lockerbie: The Pan Am bomber

When the Libyan intelligence operative Abdel Baset al-Megrahi eventually dies of the prostate cancer that so controversially won him his freedom from a Scottish prison, his death will trigger headlines around the world. But few tears will be shed for the only man ever found guilty of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 -- until 9/11, the most lethal terrorist attack ever on American civilians. Certainly not by the American families, who felt shock and revulsion at al-Megrahi's release. Nor by American politicians, infuriated at the long list of British and Scottish officials who have refused to testify before a Senate committee investigating possible backroom deals involving Scottish and British officials, British commercial interests and the Libyan government. Yet by the accounts of those who knew him best, the convicted man himself will go to his grave insisting he was innocent of the murder of the 270 passengers, crew and residents, who perished at Lockerbie in Scotland, that December night. Drawing exclusively on a previously confidential, legal report, The Pan Am Bomber reveals the evidence that would have been presented in al-Megrahi's stillborn appeal against his conviction. Our investigation is backed up by 97 gigabytes of official documents, whistleblower testimony and photographic evidence - all of which will explain why and how al-Megrahi's conviction was fatally flawed. It reveals how the chain of evidence used to convict al-Megrahi was broken and, in at least one crucial instance, tampered with. It also shows why it was in the interest of all of the parties (except the convicted man himself) to make sure that the appeal was never heard.

2011 APRA Music Awards - Paul Kelly

10 million illegal drug users have hepatitis C

Tax Cut Memories

Examining the British far right

Via

Krautrock - The Rebirth Of Germany

Music therapy may help depression

Music therapy can be used to improve treatment of depression, at least in the short term, say researchers in Finland.

The technique used non-verbal communication to help patients express their emotions.
A study on 79 people, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, showed a greater improvement than in patients receiving standard therapy.
British experts said music may engage people in ways that words cannot.
Music therapists are used, including by the NHS, to help children who struggle to communicate. Playing instruments and singing with a trained music therapist is supposed to help children express themselves.
Initial improvement In this study, all patients with depression recieved the standard practice of counselling and appropriate medication. Thirty three of them were also given 20 sessions with a trained music therapist, which involved things such as drumming.
After three months, patients recieving music therapy showed a greater improvement in scores of anxiety and depression than the other set of patients.
However, there was no statistical improvement after six months.
Professor Christian Gold, from the University of Jyväskylä, said: "Our trial has shown that music therapy, when added to standard care helps people to improve their levels of depression and anxiety."
"Music therapy has specific qualities that allow people to express themselves and interact in a non-verbal way - even in situations when they cannot find the words to describe their inner experiences.
Dr Mike Crawford, who specialises in mental health services at Imperial College London, said in a journal editorial: "The results suggest that it can improve the mood and general functioning of people with depression.
"Music-making is social, pleasurable and meaningful. It has been argued that music making engages people in ways that words may simply not be able to."
@'BBC'

To Escape Chaos, a Terrible Deal

Murdoch's American Triumph

Ryan McGinley: Entrance Romance

Info

A Billion Dollars Isn’t Cool. You Know What’s Cool? Basic Human Decency

Life on the Line

RePost: George Carlin tells it like it is

(Thanx Walter!)

Official London anti-terrorist publication says anarchists should be reported to local police

Grievous Angel - Darkness (The Welcome Sailor Retold) (Dubplate)

Let's think outside the box here: maybe blue-sky thinking is nonsense

Scotland Yard Identifies (Alleged) LulzSec Hacker

Via
The teenage hacker arrested last week in the U.K. for his alleged involvement with Anonymous and LulzSec is reportedly an 18-year-old named Jake Davis.
Scotland Yard on Sunday revealed that the hacker known as "Topiary" is actually Davis, from the U.K.'s Shetland Islands, according to security firm Sophos and Daily Mail crime reporter Chris Greenwood.
Davis will appear in a London court on Monday morning, Greenwood tweeted.
Scotland Yard has not yet posted any new information about the case since the Wednesday arrest. In a Sunday blog post, however, Sophos' Graham Cluley said Davis has five charges against him:

Unauthorized access to a computer system, contrary to Section 3 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

Encouraging / assisting offences, contrary to S46 of the Serious Crime Act 2007.

Conspiracy with others to carry out a Distributed Denial of Service Attack on the Web site of the Serious and Organised Crime Agency contrary to S1 Criminal Law Act 1977.

Conspiracy to commit offences of section 3 Computer Misuse Act 1990, contrary to S1 Criminal Law Act 1977.

Conspiracy between the defendant and others to commit offences of section 3 Computer Misuse Act 1990 contrary to S1 Criminal Law Act 1977.

Cluley also said a source told him Davis is an "avid online chess player" and was arrested on the northern island of Yell. "Frankly, it's hard to imagine a more remote place in the British Isles to be," he wrote.
Last week, Scotland Yard said it had arrested a man who "is believed to be linked to an ongoing international investigation in to the criminal activity of the so-called 'hacktivist' groups Anonymous and LulzSec, and uses the online nickname 'Topiary' which is presented as the spokesperson for the groups."
The day after that announcement, the LulzSec Exposed blog said Scotland Yard had arrested the wrong person because its evidence suggested that Topiary was actually a 22-year-old Swedish man named Daniel Sandberg. That, however, has not been confirmed.
As PCMag pointed out in a recent overview of the key LulzSec players, Topiary is reportedly second-in-command within LulzSec, though he is thought to be the least tech-savvy in the group. As a result, he acted as a PR liaison for Anonymous before moving over to LulzSec.
He recently deleted posts from the @atopiary Twitter account; it now only has one tweet from July 21: its new "You cannot arrest an idea" tagline. The bio on that Twitter page says Topiary is a "simple prankster turned swank garden hedge [who] worked with Anonymous, LulzSec, and other such paragons of intense cyber victory. You are free."
The @LulzSec Twitter feed has not been updated since July 27, the day of Davis' arrest. A recent tweet from the @AnonymousIRC feed encouraged officials, in all caps, to free Topiary and other hackers who have been arrested in recent weeks, including "tflow."
Members of Anonymous and LulzSec have been arrested throughout the world in recent months, including Spain, Turkey, the U.K., the Netherlands, and the United States. In retaliation, Anonymous recently organized a boycott of PayPal, though the company said that effort had little effect.
Chloe Albanesius @'PC Mag'

Sunday, 31 July 2011

downesy Stephen Downes

Rod Stewart to play Hanging Rock in mid-February? If any teen schoolgirls disappear, at least the cops will have a prime suspect

The Black Dog live @ T In The Park 2011

Louisiana’s Angola 3: 100 Years of Solitude

Thirty nine years ago, three young black men were put in solitary confinement. Two are still there.
Collectively they have spent more than 100 years in isolation, most of it at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.
The “Angola 3″ maintain they were targeted for speaking out against inhumane treatment and racial segregation in the prison, and are now fighting for justice and recognition of their cruel, endless years in the hole.
Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, originally convicted of unrelated cases of armed robbery, were convicted of the murder of a prison guard in 1972. Robert King, locked up for robbery, was also convicted of murder once he was in the prison. The most fortunate of the three, his conviction was overturned in 2001, and he was released after 29 years of isolation.
Meanwhile, the continued detention of Woodfox and Wallace showcases the failing of the Louisiana justice system. In a new report, Amnesty International notes that no physical evidence links Woodfox and Wallace to the murder. On top of that, potentially favorable DNA evidence was lost. The convictions were based on questionable inmate testimony. Best of all, it seems prison officials bribed the main eyewitness into giving statements against the men. Even the widow of the prison guard has expressed skepticism, saying in 2008,

“If they did not do this – and I believe that they didn’t – they have been living a nightmare for 36 years!”

I’m not sure what is most disturbing: that Louisiana has allowed these men to languish on seemingly-fabricated charges? That Woodfox and Wallace, now senior citizens with clean conduct records, are characterized as potential threats? Or that by holding the men under such tight quarters, the state has been in breach of its own prison policies for the past 15 years? The so called “nature of the original reason for lockdown” is no longer allowed to hold a prisoner in isolation, yet it has been invoked more than 150 times for these men.
Woodfox and Wallace watch life pass them from spaces barely larger than my bathroom. Eventually moved from Angola to two other prisons, they are allowed outside three hours a week in a small cage. For four more hours they can shower or walk alone along the corridor. Visits and telephone calls are few. According to their lawyers, this has contributed to a host of health problems, including osteoarthritis, hypertension and insomnia.
Woodfox’s murder conviction has been overturned twice, once by a U.S. district judge, and a State Judicial Commission recommended that Wallace’s conviction be reversed — but appeals and a refusal to see the light have kept the men in hell. As they fight their murder convictions, the Angola 3 are suing Louisiana authorities, asserting that their prolonged isolation is cruel and unusual punishment and violates the U.S. Constitution.
We can support their fight. Write LA Governor Bobby Jindal and, if he doesn’t act, contact U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Remind them that the United States has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Convention against Torture, and that this insane confinement also contravenes the U.N. Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
This is not a hopeless case. As Robert King said,

“I do believe that there is something that can be done and a pro-active position in the case can help… The ripples in the pond are increasing and we need to see some waves… and these are the things that keep me going. I can see the waves coming from the ripples.”

Wende Gozan Brown @'Human Rights Now'

Animated Soviet Propaganda

Bioart: The ethics and aesthetics of using living tissue as a medium

William S. Burroughs – Commissioner of Sewers

Image

♪♫ Peter Brötzmann Quartet - Improvisation

Camillagate scoop raises questions for Murdoch

Afghans Rage at Young Lovers; A Father Says Kill Them Both

The two teenagers met inside an ice cream factory through darting glances before roll call, murmured hellos as supervisors looked away and, finally, a phone number folded up and tossed discreetly onto the workroom floor.
It was the beginning of an Afghan love story that flouted dominant traditions of arranged marriages and close family scrutiny, a romance between two teenagers of different ethnicities that tested a village’s tolerance for more modern whims of the heart. The results were delivered with brutal speed.
This month, a group of men spotted the couple riding together in a car, yanked them into the road and began to interrogate the boy and girl. Why were they together? What right had they? An angry crowd of 300 surged around them, calling them adulterers and demanding that they be stoned to death or hanged.
When security forces swooped in and rescued the couple, the mob’s anger exploded. They overwhelmed the local police, set fire to cars and stormed a police station six miles from the center of Herat, raising questions about the strength of law in a corner of western Afghanistan and in one of the first cities that has made the formal transition to Afghan-led security.
The riot, which lasted for hours, ended with one man dead, a police station charred and the two teenagers, Halima Mohammedi and her boyfriend, Rafi Mohammed, confined to juvenile prison. Officially, their fates lie in the hands of an unsteady legal system. But they face harsher judgments of family and community...

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Jack Healy @'NYT'

Remember...

What the NYT Magazine Doesn't Say About James O'Keefe

As a longtime observer of James O'Keefe, the right-leaning provocateur best known for his hidden video stings, I am frustrated by the profile about him just published in The New York Times Magazine. The writer, Zev Chafets, capably sketches his subject's biography, and correctly intuits that any worthwhile feature story on the 27-year-old must grapple with the ethical questions raised by his activism. But the grappling is woefully incomplete, leaving readers unaware of the most damning critiques of O'Keefe's work and unable to render an informed judgment.
Totally absent is any mention of CNN Correspondent Abbie Boudreau, who contacted O'Keefe in 2010. At O'Keefe's bidding, she traveled to Maryland, expecting to interview him. But he and his team had other plans. It was their intention to lure her onto a boat where O'Keefe would be waiting below deck, hidden camera rolling. In planning documents obtained by CNN, there was a list of potential props: "condom jar, dildos, posters and paintings of naked women, fuzzy handcuffs."
O'Keefe later claimed he didn't approve such props. In any case, once he got her down there alone, he planned to make her uncomfortable by attempting to seduce her. Then he'd somehow humiliate Boudrea and embarrass CNN by releasing footage of the bizarre incident. It was averted at the last minute when a female member of O'Keefe's team became uncomfortable with the plan, and tipped off the reporter to what was intended. In the aftermath of the incident, which made national headlines when it happened, publisher Andrew Breitbart commented, "From what I've read about this script, though not executed, it is patently gross and offensive. It's not his detractors to whom he also owes this public airing. It's to his legion of supporters."
A profile writer can't include every detail of his subject's life. But surely a piece that touches on the propriety of O'Keefe's work and the evolution of his relationship with Breitbart should've mentioned a major incident that bears on both, especially because it shows something other anecdotes don't: that O'Keefe is willing to use subterfuge and mock his subjects even when there is no wrongdoing to uncover...