Friday, 18 November 2011
dangerroom Danger Room
$7 BILLION for meals, ready-to-eat. Holy crap! (And I'm not talking about the taste!) defense.gov/contracts/cont…
$7 BILLION for meals, ready-to-eat. Holy crap! (And I'm not talking about the taste!) defense.gov/contracts/cont…
Sex Kills
WTF???
Actual film from abstinence-only sex-ed curriculum. 'In it, a student asks a school nurse, “What if I want to have sex before I get married?” To which the nurse replies, “Well, I guess you’ll just have to be prepared to die.”'
(Thanx Son#1!)
China's young drug addicts number 1.8 million
As of the end of this October, the registered number of young drug addicts in China has reached more than 1.7 million. As of Nov. 7, the number has exceeded 1.78 million.
Wang Gang, director of the Office of National Narcotics Control Commission and Ministry of Public Security Bureau of Narcotics Director, said that the young drug addicts referred to indicate the group under the age of 35.
He also said that young people have become a major group in terms of drug consumption in recent years. And they account for more than 87 percent of all drug users.
Wang said that the left-behind teens in rural areas have become a new group that is at risk for drug addiction. As the internet has been a new hotbed for drug activity, when the left-behind children in the rural areas surf on the internet, they are more vulnerable to get drug addiction because of the insufficient supervision and limited knowledge about the drug.
Via
Wang Gang, director of the Office of National Narcotics Control Commission and Ministry of Public Security Bureau of Narcotics Director, said that the young drug addicts referred to indicate the group under the age of 35.
He also said that young people have become a major group in terms of drug consumption in recent years. And they account for more than 87 percent of all drug users.
Wang said that the left-behind teens in rural areas have become a new group that is at risk for drug addiction. As the internet has been a new hotbed for drug activity, when the left-behind children in the rural areas surf on the internet, they are more vulnerable to get drug addiction because of the insufficient supervision and limited knowledge about the drug.
Via
Michael Karoli - 17/11/2011
These are also accompanied by a piece of artwork created by Tamara and Angie Karoli, daughters of Michael, for you to print as a cover and inlay.The tracks are:
1. Mother Sky (07:14)
Taken from the album "Soundtracks" by CAN
2. Cascade Waltz (02:46)
Taken from the album "Flow Motion" by CAN
3. Flow Motion (02:36)
Flow Motion - taken from the album "Flow Motion" by CAN
4. Le Weekend (02:41)
Taken from the album "Impossible Holidays" by Irmin Schmidt
5. Home Truths (06:02)
Taken from the album "Deluge" by Michael Karoli & Polly Eltes
Download @'Spoon Records'
(Thanx Helen!)
Operation Gladio: Behind False Flag Terrorism (BBC 1992)
"Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the State" - James Jesus Angleton, Head of CIA Counter Intelligence 1954-1974
Info
Arrests on Occupy Wall Street 'day of action'
City officials in Dallas evicted the protesters' camp there, arresting 18.
In New York, demonstrators plan to occupy 16 subway stations on Thursday afternoon and march from City Hall across the Brooklyn Bridge.
Most of the arrests in New York happened at a rally to mark two months of protest. City officials had expected "tens of thousands" of protesters throughout the day.
Police blocked streets and protesters massed at junctions on the edge of the city's financial district.
Scuffles broke out, with police dragging some protesters away.
Later on Thursday, protesters in San Francisco occupied a branch of Bank of America, holding signs including one that read: "Make Banks Pay".
A police department spokesman told Reuters that 95 demonstrators were arrested at the bank, most on suspicion of trespassing. 'Bad guys' "You do not have a parade permit! You are blocking the street!" a police officer told protesters through a bullhorn during the morning's protests.
Some protesters were arrested after they sat down in an intersection, while others were arrested as they tried to get closer to the stock exchange.
"All day, all week, shut down Wall Street!" the crowd chanted.
Gene Williams, a bond trader, joked to the Associated Press that he was "one of the bad guys" but said he empathised with the demonstrators.
"They have a point in a lot of ways," he said. "The fact of the matter is, there is a schism between the rich and the poor and it's getting wider."
Lost camps Thursday's demonstrations were before Tuesday's surprise pre-dawn raid of Zuccotti Park, where demonstrators had been camping.
Police allowed them to return but banned them from setting up camp again. Numbers dwindled to fewer than two dozen overnight.
Some of the 200 protesters detained during the eviction appeared in court on Wednesday.
A number of similar encampments have been removed in US cities in recent days.
Scores of arrests were made as police removed tents in Oakland, California and Burlington, Vermont.
But evictions went peacefully elsewhere, including Atlanta, Georgia; Portland, Oregon; and Salt Lake City, Utah.
@'BBC'
mckenziewark McKenzie Wark
What if there were conservatives who actually wanted to conserve rather than destroy?#whatif #ows
What if there were conservatives who actually wanted to conserve rather than destroy?
Caribou - Nightmare Before Christmas Mix
From December 9th-11th 2011 at Butlins Holiday Centre, Minehead, UK, All Tomorrow's Parties will present their yearly Nightmare Before Christmas festival. This year each day is curated by a different artist: Les Savy Fav on Friday, Battles on Saturday and Caribou on Sunday.
Please enjoy this amazing mix put together by Dan Snaith (Caribou), who has created an intense hour long journey through the artists chosen for his day of the event, highlighted by a new and previously unreleased remix of Improve Me by Junior Boys.
Tickets on sale now: http://www.atpfestival.com/events/nightmare2011.php
Featuring:
* Toro Y Moi - Intro / Chi Chi
* Pharoah Sanders - Prince of Peace
* Sun Ra Arkestra - Saturn Research
* Pharoah Sanders Interview
* Theo Parrish - Goin' Downstairs Parts I & II
* Getatchew Mekuria, The Ex & Guests - Aynamaye Nesh
* Theo Parrish - Feel Free To Be Who You Need To Be
* Junior Boys - Improve Me (Caribou Synthapella Mix)
* Connan Mockasin - It's Choade My Dear
* Orchestra of Spheres - There Is No No
* Roll The Dice - The Suck
* Four Tet - Pyramid
* Silver Apples - Oscillations
* Roll The Dice - Cause and Effect
* Factory Floor - Wooden Box
* Omar Souleyman - Dabke (Daphni Edit)
* Four Tet - Our Bells
* Pharoah Sanders Interview
* Sun Ra Arkestra - Space Is The Place
Please enjoy this amazing mix put together by Dan Snaith (Caribou), who has created an intense hour long journey through the artists chosen for his day of the event, highlighted by a new and previously unreleased remix of Improve Me by Junior Boys.
Tickets on sale now: http://www.atpfestival.com/events/nightmare2011.php
Featuring:
* Toro Y Moi - Intro / Chi Chi
* Pharoah Sanders - Prince of Peace
* Sun Ra Arkestra - Saturn Research
* Pharoah Sanders Interview
* Theo Parrish - Goin' Downstairs Parts I & II
* Getatchew Mekuria, The Ex & Guests - Aynamaye Nesh
* Theo Parrish - Feel Free To Be Who You Need To Be
* Junior Boys - Improve Me (Caribou Synthapella Mix)
* Connan Mockasin - It's Choade My Dear
* Orchestra of Spheres - There Is No No
* Roll The Dice - The Suck
* Four Tet - Pyramid
* Silver Apples - Oscillations
* Roll The Dice - Cause and Effect
* Factory Floor - Wooden Box
* Omar Souleyman - Dabke (Daphni Edit)
* Four Tet - Our Bells
* Pharoah Sanders Interview
* Sun Ra Arkestra - Space Is The Place
Thursday, 17 November 2011
SOPA, The Internet Censorship Bill, Was Lauded By Both Parties In Key House Hearing
At a House Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans joined together to voice support for legislation that would criminalize much of the activity that occupies the Internet. The bipartisan bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act would establish major new powers for corporations intent on corralling copyrighted materials -- powers that would lead to big legal bills for start-ups and Silicon Valley giants alike.
SOPA's Senate counterpart, the PROTECT IP Act, was already voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.
Both political parties -- flush with campaign contributions from Hollywood studios and trial lawyers -- are eager to pass the legislation. The Senate version, introduced in May, has broad support, but has been held up by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Without Wyden's hold, the legislation looks certain to pass by a landslide. The House version, introduced last month, was written by House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and co-sponsored by ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.).
"The theft of American intellectual property costs the American economy over $100 billion annually ... and thousands of American jobs," Smith declared at Wednesday's hearing.
"I am very pleased that this is a bipartisan bill, and I think that that's very important," Conyers added.
But generating all this enthusiasm is legislation that would shift the balance of power over the Internet.
Under current practice, copyright owners such as TV networks and Hollywood studios reach out to websites to request that pirated videos be taken down. Under the new regime, they could ask banks, Internet service providers and domain name registrars to stop doing business with websites that they believed were devoted to piracy. They could, for instance, go straight to YouTube's domain registration company and demand that the entire YouTube website be taken down. And if the registrar resisted, the copyright owners would have the legal ability to take the registrar to court.
That move might not be very threatening to major players, like YouTube, with expensive legal teams, but life on the Internet could be made very difficult for smaller companies and start-ups. For lawyers who litigate intellectual property issues, the bill is a godsend, guaranteeing a flood of work, no matter which party wins the case.
The bill would also alter the relationship between the government and the basic architecture of the Internet, allowing the Department of Justice, acting on behalf of aggrieved copyright holders, to perform domain name system filtering -- essentially, blocking entire websites in the name of preventing piracy.
Web experts contend this tinkering could threaten the very functionality of the Internet and make it difficult to implement key cybersecurity measures that have been in the works for years. In May, five web security experts published a 17-page analysis of the legislation's implications for online security, concluding, "The PROTECT IP Act would weaken this important effort to improve Internet security. It would enshrine and institutionalize the very network manipulation that [tech experts] must fight in order to prevent cyberattacks and other malevolent behavior on the global Internet, thereby exposing networks and users to increased security and privacy risks."
Since then, the House version of the legislation has grown still more aggressive. The Senate bill proposes to give copyright owners those new powers to sue over foreign websites only. It's the House bill that extends the draconian measures to domestic websites as well. It also sweeps in a separate bill, sponsored in the Senate by Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), to make it a felony to stream videos or mp3s of copyrighted films and songs.
A host of libertarians, Tea Party members, radical progressives, and mainstream conservatives have spoken out against the bills.
But good government advocates cannot win legislative battles against major corporations without their own corporate support. AOL Inc., eBay Inc., Facebook, Yahoo Inc. and Twitter all have opposed the bill. The single largest company attempting to stand in its way is Google -- because its business model depends entirely on an open Internet.
At Wednesday's hearing, Google was the only corporation to speak against the legislation on a panel stacked with representatives of Hollywood studios, pharmaceutical giants and intellectual property hawks from the Obama administration. Unfortunately, Google is one of the worst allies to have in Washington today, as it faces an antitrust investigation as well as government scrutiny for directing consumers to unregulated online pharmacies. Google paid a $500 million penalty in August to settle complaints involving illicit online pharmacies from the Department of Justice and the Food and Drug Administration.
Members of both parties piled on Wednesday, banging away at Google for the pharmacy scandal -- a public declaration that the company's lobbying might not help to moderate SOPA.
Zach Carter & Ryan Grim @'HuffPo'
SOPA's Senate counterpart, the PROTECT IP Act, was already voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.
Both political parties -- flush with campaign contributions from Hollywood studios and trial lawyers -- are eager to pass the legislation. The Senate version, introduced in May, has broad support, but has been held up by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). Without Wyden's hold, the legislation looks certain to pass by a landslide. The House version, introduced last month, was written by House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and co-sponsored by ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.).
"The theft of American intellectual property costs the American economy over $100 billion annually ... and thousands of American jobs," Smith declared at Wednesday's hearing.
"I am very pleased that this is a bipartisan bill, and I think that that's very important," Conyers added.
But generating all this enthusiasm is legislation that would shift the balance of power over the Internet.
Under current practice, copyright owners such as TV networks and Hollywood studios reach out to websites to request that pirated videos be taken down. Under the new regime, they could ask banks, Internet service providers and domain name registrars to stop doing business with websites that they believed were devoted to piracy. They could, for instance, go straight to YouTube's domain registration company and demand that the entire YouTube website be taken down. And if the registrar resisted, the copyright owners would have the legal ability to take the registrar to court.
That move might not be very threatening to major players, like YouTube, with expensive legal teams, but life on the Internet could be made very difficult for smaller companies and start-ups. For lawyers who litigate intellectual property issues, the bill is a godsend, guaranteeing a flood of work, no matter which party wins the case.
The bill would also alter the relationship between the government and the basic architecture of the Internet, allowing the Department of Justice, acting on behalf of aggrieved copyright holders, to perform domain name system filtering -- essentially, blocking entire websites in the name of preventing piracy.
Web experts contend this tinkering could threaten the very functionality of the Internet and make it difficult to implement key cybersecurity measures that have been in the works for years. In May, five web security experts published a 17-page analysis of the legislation's implications for online security, concluding, "The PROTECT IP Act would weaken this important effort to improve Internet security. It would enshrine and institutionalize the very network manipulation that [tech experts] must fight in order to prevent cyberattacks and other malevolent behavior on the global Internet, thereby exposing networks and users to increased security and privacy risks."
Since then, the House version of the legislation has grown still more aggressive. The Senate bill proposes to give copyright owners those new powers to sue over foreign websites only. It's the House bill that extends the draconian measures to domestic websites as well. It also sweeps in a separate bill, sponsored in the Senate by Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), to make it a felony to stream videos or mp3s of copyrighted films and songs.
A host of libertarians, Tea Party members, radical progressives, and mainstream conservatives have spoken out against the bills.
But good government advocates cannot win legislative battles against major corporations without their own corporate support. AOL Inc., eBay Inc., Facebook, Yahoo Inc. and Twitter all have opposed the bill. The single largest company attempting to stand in its way is Google -- because its business model depends entirely on an open Internet.
At Wednesday's hearing, Google was the only corporation to speak against the legislation on a panel stacked with representatives of Hollywood studios, pharmaceutical giants and intellectual property hawks from the Obama administration. Unfortunately, Google is one of the worst allies to have in Washington today, as it faces an antitrust investigation as well as government scrutiny for directing consumers to unregulated online pharmacies. Google paid a $500 million penalty in August to settle complaints involving illicit online pharmacies from the Department of Justice and the Food and Drug Administration.
Members of both parties piled on Wednesday, banging away at Google for the pharmacy scandal -- a public declaration that the company's lobbying might not help to moderate SOPA.
Zach Carter & Ryan Grim @'HuffPo'
Black Cab - Live @ Cherry Bar (October 2011)
Hearts On Fire
Heart & Soul Untitled
(New track w/ lyrics from 'After The War')
Heart & Soul Untitled
(New track w/ lyrics from 'After The War')
Black Cab: ‘Rock Seems A Little Too Confining Now’
Bloomberg Bullshit: 'Property from #Zuccotti, incl #OWS library, safely stored @ 57th St Sanit Garage; can be picked up Weds'
State of Seized #OWS Library
Missing
Between 2,000 and 4,000 books (we’ll know if it looks right when we see it ), this includes five boxes of “Reference” materials many of which were autographed by the authors;Our custom made “OWS library stamps;”
5 (4?) laptop computers;
Our wifi device;
miscellaneous paper supplies;
A round portable table;
a rectangular portable table;
6 metal shelves (five of which had been set up in two pieces);
three sets of wooden drawers;
a periodicals spinning rack;
Approximately 60 plastic tubs/bins of varying sizes (most small, but several big);
archival materials (I was starting to collect some stuff in the library);
posters (including many original posters created by OWS participants);
two lamps;
four solar lights;
7 (or so) chairs;
a wooden dinner table (that was our’s right?);
periodicals/newspapers/zines (not counted in our book total);
our awesome tent;
signage;
personal belongings of librarians
Via
Key medical equipment, laptops among items destroyed in ‘Occupy Wall St’ police raid
Dorli Rainey on being pepper-sprayed by Seattle police and the importance of activism
Eighty-four-year-old activist Dorli Rainey tells Keith about her experience getting pepper-sprayed by the police during an Occupy Seattle demonstration and the need to take action and spread the word of the Occupy movement. She cites the advice of the late Catholic nun and activist Jackie Hudson to “take one more step out of your comfort zone” as an inspiration, saying, “It would be so easy to say, ‘Well I’m going to retire, I’m going to sit around, watch television or eat bonbons,’ but somebody’s got to keep ’em awake and let ’em know what is really going on in this world.”
Via
Via
kickstarter Kickstarter
We cannot remain silent while the legal foundations behind our rights to creative expression on the net are threatened: kck.st/tjaSoh
We cannot remain silent while the legal foundations behind our rights to creative expression on the net are threatened: kck.st/tjaSoh
ioerror Jacob Appelbaum
Noisebridge noisebridge.net and The Tor Project torproject.org stand against censorship - especially#SOPA : americancensorship.org
Noisebridge noisebridge.net and The Tor Project torproject.org stand against censorship - especially
:)
Dirk57 Dirk Hanson
Very sorry to hear it... RT@PLoSONE: Drum circles promote social cohesiveness bit.ly/vzaa8K
Very sorry to hear it... RT
Rebecca MacKinnon: Stop the Great Firewall of America
China operates the world’s most elaborate and opaque system of Internet censorship. But Congress, under pressure to take action against the theft of intellectual property, is considering misguided legislation that would strengthen China’s Great Firewall and even bring major features of it to America.
The legislation — the Protect IP Act, which has been introduced in the Senate, and a House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act — have an impressive array of well-financed backers, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech as China does, but to protect American intellectual property. Alarm at the infringement of creative works through the Internet is justifiable. The solutions offered by the legislation, however, threaten to inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world.
The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar.
Abuses under existing American law serve as troubling predictors for the kinds of abuse by private actors that the House bill would make possible. Take, for example, the cease-and-desist letters that Diebold, a maker of voting machines, sent in 2003, demanding that Internet service providers shut down Web sites that had published internal company e-mails about problems with the company’s voting machines. The letter cited copyright violations, and most of the service providers took down the content without question, despite the strong case to be made that the material was speech protected under the First Amendment.
The House bill would also emulate China’s system of corporate “self-discipline,” making companies liable for users’ actions. The burden would be on the Web site operator to prove that the site was not being used for copyright infringement. The effect on user-generated sites like YouTube would be chilling.
YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have played an important role in political movements from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. At present, social networking services are protected by a “safe harbor” provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which grants Web sites immunity from prosecution as long as they act in good faith to take down infringing content as soon as rights-holders point it out to them. The House bill would destroy that immunity, putting the onus on YouTube to vet videos in advance or risk legal action. It would put Twitter in a similar position to that of its Chinese cousin, Weibo, which reportedly employs around 1,000 people to monitor and censor user content and keep the company in good standing with authorities.
Compliance with the Stop Online Piracy Act would require huge overhead spending by Internet companies for staff and technologies dedicated to monitoring users and censoring any infringing material from being posted or transmitted. This in turn would create daunting financial burdens and legal risks for start-up companies, making it much harder for brilliant young entrepreneurs with limited resources to create small and innovative Internet companies that empower citizens and change the world.
Adding to the threat to free speech, recent academic research on global Internet censorship has found that in countries where heavy legal liability is imposed on companies, employees tasked with day-to-day censorship jobs have a strong incentive to play it safe and over-censor — even in the case of content whose legality might stand a good chance of holding up in a court of law. Why invite legal hassle when you can just hit “delete”?
The potential for abuse of power through digital networks — upon which we as citizens now depend for nearly everything, including our politics — is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age. We live in a time of tremendous political polarization. Public trust in both government and corporations is low, and deservedly so. This is no time for politicians and industry lobbyists in Washington to be devising new Internet censorship mechanisms, adding new opportunities for abuse of corporate and government power over online speech. While American intellectual property deserves protection, that protection must be won and defended in a manner that does not stifle innovation, erode due process under the law, and weaken the protection of political and civil rights on the Internet.
The legislation — the Protect IP Act, which has been introduced in the Senate, and a House version known as the Stop Online Piracy Act — have an impressive array of well-financed backers, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, the Motion Picture Association of America, the American Federation of Musicians, the Directors Guild of America, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Screen Actors Guild. The bills aim not to censor political or religious speech as China does, but to protect American intellectual property. Alarm at the infringement of creative works through the Internet is justifiable. The solutions offered by the legislation, however, threaten to inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world.
The bills would empower the attorney general to create a blacklist of sites to be blocked by Internet service providers, search engines, payment providers and advertising networks, all without a court hearing or a trial. The House version goes further, allowing private companies to sue service providers for even briefly and unknowingly hosting content that infringes on copyright — a sharp change from current law, which protects the service providers from civil liability if they remove the problematic content immediately upon notification. The intention is not the same as China’s Great Firewall, a nationwide system of Web censorship, but the practical effect could be similar.
Abuses under existing American law serve as troubling predictors for the kinds of abuse by private actors that the House bill would make possible. Take, for example, the cease-and-desist letters that Diebold, a maker of voting machines, sent in 2003, demanding that Internet service providers shut down Web sites that had published internal company e-mails about problems with the company’s voting machines. The letter cited copyright violations, and most of the service providers took down the content without question, despite the strong case to be made that the material was speech protected under the First Amendment.
The House bill would also emulate China’s system of corporate “self-discipline,” making companies liable for users’ actions. The burden would be on the Web site operator to prove that the site was not being used for copyright infringement. The effect on user-generated sites like YouTube would be chilling.
YouTube, Twitter and Facebook have played an important role in political movements from Tahrir Square to Zuccotti Park. At present, social networking services are protected by a “safe harbor” provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which grants Web sites immunity from prosecution as long as they act in good faith to take down infringing content as soon as rights-holders point it out to them. The House bill would destroy that immunity, putting the onus on YouTube to vet videos in advance or risk legal action. It would put Twitter in a similar position to that of its Chinese cousin, Weibo, which reportedly employs around 1,000 people to monitor and censor user content and keep the company in good standing with authorities.
Compliance with the Stop Online Piracy Act would require huge overhead spending by Internet companies for staff and technologies dedicated to monitoring users and censoring any infringing material from being posted or transmitted. This in turn would create daunting financial burdens and legal risks for start-up companies, making it much harder for brilliant young entrepreneurs with limited resources to create small and innovative Internet companies that empower citizens and change the world.
Adding to the threat to free speech, recent academic research on global Internet censorship has found that in countries where heavy legal liability is imposed on companies, employees tasked with day-to-day censorship jobs have a strong incentive to play it safe and over-censor — even in the case of content whose legality might stand a good chance of holding up in a court of law. Why invite legal hassle when you can just hit “delete”?
The potential for abuse of power through digital networks — upon which we as citizens now depend for nearly everything, including our politics — is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age. We live in a time of tremendous political polarization. Public trust in both government and corporations is low, and deservedly so. This is no time for politicians and industry lobbyists in Washington to be devising new Internet censorship mechanisms, adding new opportunities for abuse of corporate and government power over online speech. While American intellectual property deserves protection, that protection must be won and defended in a manner that does not stifle innovation, erode due process under the law, and weaken the protection of political and civil rights on the Internet.
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