LPH 939 - Fooled (1934-2009)
1 hour ago
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Greens, EFA critical of ISP filtering plans
The chorus of voices critiquing the Federal Government’s mandatory ISP-level filtering plans has grown larger with the Greens and Electronic Frontiers Australia joining the likes of the Federal Opposition and Google in opposing the filter.
Greens communications spokesperson, senator Scott Ludlam said in a statement that the party was “deeply concerned” about the Federal Government's intention to plough ahead on ISP level filtering
“The pointless nature of this proposal is set out in the report itself, which admits that the filters will be circumvented by people seeking blocked material," Ludlam said.
"The Government has also indicated the open-ended nature of the filter by acknowledging they will be importing blacklists from overseas to supplement the Australian list. As many people have said, this is the thin end of the wedge. The policy is simply misguided.”
Ludlum said unless the Government changed tack on its plans, the Greens would move significant amendments to this legislation if it is introduced to the Senate.
Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) spokesperson Colin Jacobs claimed in a statement that the criteria for success of the Federal Government’s trial of the mandatory ISP-level filter was set far too low. “Given the pilot’s modest goals, it was designed from the beginning to pass,” Jacobs said. “Although it may address some technical issues, what it leaves out is far more important – exactly what will be blocked, who will decide, and why is it being attempted in the first place?”
The EFA noted that, since the last election, the Federal Government’s cyber-safety plan had shifted away from providing tools to shield minors on the web to a black list of almost exclusively Refused Classification content aimed at adults.
“The Government knows this plan will not help Australian kids, nor will it aid in the policing of prohibited material. Given the problems in maintaining a secret blacklist and deciding what goes on it, we’re at a loss to explain the Minister’s enthusiasm for this proposal,” Jacobs said.
“We’ll be interested to see how the Internet service providers respond. We know they are critical of having such intrusive Government interference in their networks,” he added.
The EFA said that although communication minister Stephen Conroy had hailed the pilot a success, many concerns about the proposal remained ignored, with neither draft legislation nor a comprehensive policy document have yet been released to the Australian public, though legislation is expected in 2010.
“Successful technology isn’t necessarily successful policy,” Jacobs said. “We’re yet to hear a sensible explanation of what this policy is for, who it will help, and why it is worth spending so much taxpayers’ money on.”
Google has also expressed its concern over the Federal Government’s plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, arguing that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide.
Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Computer says no: Google slams filter
Internet search giant Google has come out in opposition to the Federal Government's push to introduce mandatory ISP filtering.
In a post on Google Australia's official blog, the company said the plan raised concerns about censorship.
"At Google we are concerned by the Government's plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, the first of its kind amongst Western democracies," the post said.
"Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide."
While Google accepted there must be some limits on internet content, it condemned the Government's filtering approach as heavy-handed.
"We have a bias in favour of people's right to free expression," the post said.
"While we recognise that protecting the free exchange of ideas and information cannot be without some limits, we believe that more information generally means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.
"Some limits, like child pornography, are obvious. No Australian wants that to be available - and we agree. Google, like many other internet companies, has a global, all-product ban against child sexual abuse material and we filter out this content from our search results.
"But moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy-handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information."
Citing a recent report into filtering, Google said the use of refused classification (RC) as a screening tool would go far beyond restricting illegal content.
"The recent report by Professors Catharine Lumby, Lelia Green and John Hartley - Untangling The Net: The Scope of Content Caught By Mandatory Internet Filtering - has found that a wide scope of content could be prohibited under the proposed filtering regime," the post said.
'Grey realms'
"Refused classification is a broad category of content that includes not just child sexual abuse material but also socially and politically controversial material - for example, educational content on safer drug use - as well as the grey realms of material instructing in any crime, including politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia.
"This type of content may be unpleasant and unpalatable but we believe that government should not have the right to block information which can inform debate of controversial issues."
But the Federal Government maintains the new filter rules are not intended to curtail freedom of speech.
Google said the Government should instead focus on education and providing effective filtering tools for individuals.
"While the discussion on ISP filtering continues, we should all retain focus on making the Internet safer for people of all ages," the post said.
"Our view is that online safety should focus on user education, user empowerment through technology tools, and cooperation between law enforcement and industry partners. The Government has committed important cyber safety education and engagement programs and yesterday announced additional measures that we welcome."
Google also defended weighing into the controversy, saying discussion on contentious issues was needed for effective democracy.
"Exposing politically controversial topics for public debate is vital for democracy," it said.
"Homosexuality was a crime in Australia until 1976 in ACT, NSW in 1984 and 1997 in Tasmania. Political and social norms change over time and benefit from intense public scrutiny and debate.
"The openness of the internet makes this all the more possible and should be protected.
"The Government has requested comments from interested parties on its proposals for filtering and we encourage everyone to make their views known in this important debate."
@'ABC'
@'ABC'
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.
This will raise questions about crime's influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. "In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system's main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor," he said.
Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.
"Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way." Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.
"That was the moment [last year] when the system was basically paralysed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. The progressive liquidisation to the system and the progressive improvement by some banks of their share values [has meant that] the problem [of illegal money] has become much less serious than it was," he said.
The IMF estimated that large US and European banks lost more than $1tn on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009 and more than 200 mortgage lenders went bankrupt. Many major institutions either failed, were acquired under duress, or were subject to government takeover.
Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.
British bankers would want to see any evidence that Costa has to back his claims. A British Bankers' Association spokesman said: "We have not been party to any regulatory dialogue that would support a theory of this kind. There was clearly a lack of liquidity in the system and to a large degree this was filled by the intervention of central banks."
Christopher Hitchins: In defence of foxhole atheists
It’s no secret that conservative Christians dominate the U.S. military, but when higher-ups start talking about conversion missions, it’s time to worry. The author meets a group of soldiers who aren’t having it.
One of this year's most overlooked albums
Pop Crimes by Roland S. Howard
Get a recording of the Sydney album launch at Oxford Arts Club on October 22, 2009
Setlist:
Pop Crimes/Dead Radio/Shut Me Down/She Cried/Wayward Man (False Start)/Wayward Man
Avé Maria/Life's What You Make It/The Golden Age of Bloodshed/Sleep Alone
Encores: Exit Everything/Autoluminescent
Nicole Kidman refuses to discuss Scientology
Nicole Kidman iced over when British reporter Andrew Marr brought up "one of the things you haven't talked about before" on his BBC show. That topic was her ex-husband's religion.
"Scientology," said Marr. "A lot of people would say it is a bullying cult."
Kidman stumbled over her response before deciding she wasn't going to give one.
"I just don't . . . This is just so not . . ." she said. Then, "I'm here to publicize 'Nine.' If I was here to do an expose on myself then I'd be like, 'Let's go,' but I have no interest in discussing any of that."
"You don't want to talk about Scientology?" Marr persisted.
"No, I'll talk about 'Nine,'" said Kidman.
The tense exchange was scrapped from the television version of 'The Andrew Marr Show' but released online by the BBC.
Review: Bonny Billy & The Picket Line Funtown Comedown (Drag City)
No one really knows where Funtown is, except that it’s someplace that (allegedly) exists outside of Louisville, Kentucky. It’s not on maps. You won’t find it in your dog-eared copy of Lonely Planet: Kentucky. Hell, Google won’t even help. But Bonny “the artist formerly known as ‘Bonnie Prince’” Billy (née Will Oldham) and a virtually unknown group of musicians called The Picket Line recorded a live album there and called it Funtown Comedown. And theirs is exactly the kind of sound you’d expect to come from a group called Bonny Billy & The Picket Line playing at some unmapped place in the backwoods of Kentucky: nasally folk that vacillates from quiet to wild and sounds even better if everyone sings along.
Verdict: Buy it (because, in the spirit of all things Funtown, it’s only out on vinyl)
Verdict: Buy it (because, in the spirit of all things Funtown, it’s only out on vinyl)
Hey Yotte! Just around the corner from you eh...?
This crazy fuct up world (part #....)
23-year-old Matthew Freeman is facing a year in jail for violating Michigan’s laws for convicted sex offenders. He was caught by a police officer playing basketball within 400 feet of a school. He also happened to be in front of his own home. Michigan law requires him to remain more than 1,000 feet away from places where children congregate. Freeman’s mother says she checked with Pittsfield Township police before moving to the home to be sure it complied with Freeman’s status. She says they told her it did. They now say it’s Freeman’s responsibility to make sure he doesn’t violate the sex offender law.
Freeman was convicted of fourth-degree sexual assault in 2003 for having sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend. He was 17 at the time. The conviction required him to spend 10 years on the state’s sex offender list. After seeing the girl again and later getting caught stealing a video game, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail, and ordered to remain on the list until 2028. At that point he dropped out of high school, and hasn’t gone back.
But let’s not be too harsh on Michigan’s law. I’m sure that because of the continuing harassment of people like Freeman, 17-year-boys and 15-year-old girls are no longer having sex in Michigan.
Happy Birthday Fritz!
When we were all younger & thinner!!!
Don't forget that you can grab trax from Fritz's Hashashan project here.
Don't forget that you can grab trax from Fritz's Hashashan project here.
Israel fury at UK attempt to arrest Tzipi Livni
Israel has reacted angrily to the issuing by a British court of an arrest warrant for the former Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni.
The warrant, granted by a London court on Saturday, was revoked on Monday when it was found Ms Livni was not visiting the UK. Ms Livni was foreign minister during Israel's Gaza assault last winter.
It is the first time a UK court has issued a warrant for the arrest of a former Israeli minister.
Ms Livni said the court had been "abused" by the Palestinian plaintiffs who requested the warrant.
"What needs to be put on trial here is the abuse of the British legal system," she told the BBC.
"This is not a suit against Tzipi Livni, this is not a law suit against Israel. This is a lawsuit against any democracy that fights terror."
She stood by her decisions during the three-week assault Gaza offensive which began in December last year, she said.
Israel's foreign ministry summoned the UK's ambassador to Israel to deliver a rebuke over the warrant.
 |  We completely reject this absurdity taking place in Britain  Benjamin Netanyahu Israeli Prime Minister |
"We will not accept a situation in which [former Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, [Defence Minister] Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni will be summoned to the defendants' chair," Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.
"We will not agree to have Israel Defence Force soldiers, who defended the citizens of Israel bravely and ethically against a cruel and criminal enemy (!), be recognised as war criminals. We completely reject this absurdity taking place in Britain," he said.
Pro-Palestinian campaigners have tried several times to have Israeli officials arrested under the principle of universal jurisdiction...
David Byrne & Fatboy Slim - Here Lies Love (Feb 2010)
Deluxe package includes a 100-page book,
2 CDs and a DVD
2 CDs and a DVD
HERE LIES LOVE
David Byrne & Fatboy Slim
To be released 23 February 2010 on Todomundo/Nonesuch Records
“The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person—what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if—as this piece would be principally composed of clubby dance music—one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ‘story’ and a kind of theater to the disco? Was that possible? If so, wouldn’t that be amazing!” DB
David Byrne & Fatboy Slim
To be released 23 February 2010 on Todomundo/Nonesuch Records
“The story I am interested in is about asking what drives a powerful person—what makes them tick? How do they make and then remake themselves? I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if—as this piece would be principally composed of clubby dance music—one could experience it in a club setting? Could one bring a ‘story’ and a kind of theater to the disco? Was that possible? If so, wouldn’t that be amazing!” DB
featuring guests-Florence Welch (Florence + The Machine),Allison Moorer,Róisín Murphy,Alice Russell,Santigold ...
more HERE
more HERE
AAAAAGH!!! What do I see coming next year in my crystal balls...
With the news that ABBA & Genesis (amongst others) will be joining The Stooges in the 2010 Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame, I can forsee a 'Lamb Lies Down On Broadway' (with Gabriel) world tour and ABBA selling a shitload of CD's.
Fuck I do wish that I was going to be at Hammersmith....
Fela Kuti's Bitch of a Life by Sam Baldwin
Sexism, sadly, is what comes through most strongly in Carlos Moore's Fela: This Bitch of a Life, the newly rereleased 1982 authorized biography of Africa's greatest musician, Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Well, sexism and police brutality. The book, translated from the French, is essentially a well-organized and very long interview of Fela at his peak. For die-hard fans of the original Black President this may be a enticing read, but the average yuppie with an eclectic taste in music is probably better off checking out the Fela Project.
Fela is an natural topic for Moore, a scholar of race who's led a very interesting life in his own right. Fela's anticolonial message is a powerful one and there's a lot to like about his politics and worldviewThis is the Fela who was sold to me as a teenager into Bob Dylan, jam bands, and reggae. The Fela who created his own republic inside of Nigeria as an act of defiance, who relentlessly criticized the corrupt military regimes, who sang a song ("Zombie") that actually triggered riots, who went to court more than 200 times and was unjustly in and out of prison his entire adult life. That's all there, of course—and just how many times Fela and his crew were beaten, tortured, and imprisoned by the Nigerian authorities is a staggering reality that leaps out of Moore's book.
But chances are you know about all that if you're picking up Fela: This Bitch of a Life. What you probably didn't know, but will learn in Chapter 20, is that "the law that says: 'Don't fuck until you're sixteen,' turns men into homosexuals and women into lesbians" or that "pollution, religion, and food... are the causes of homosexuality." When it comes to women, the quotes are laughable: "Men and women are on two different levels," and "Equality between male and female? No! Never! Impossible!" and, the topper, "Do I see man as being naturally superior to women? Naturally."
A 65-page segment in the middle of the book consists of the same short interview conducted with each of the 15 wives, or queens, he had at the time (down from 27 at his mass marriage.) In nearly all the interviews the women admit that Fela had, on multiple occasions, slapped them, but that yes, they liked living with him.
A short paragraph describing the personal history and physical appearance of each wife reads like the plaque in front of an animal at a petting zoo ("Of average height and plumply slender, her broad, round face is studded with large, sensitive eyes and an expression of alert awareness.") Moore isn't doing much to empower the women or critique the hyperpatriarchy, and at one point asks a queen if she likes Fela's penis. In this case, giving a voice to the voiceless doesn't amount to anything and these pages are a bitch of a read.
How Fela became such a profound sexist is actually quite interesting because, unlike most people, he wasn't born that way. Fela's mother was a pioneering feminist activist, an incredible woman who in her capacity as president of the Women's International Democratic Federation traveled the world, met with Mao personally, and was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize in 1960. Fela's own attitudes towards women emerged later, when, after living as an outsider in the racist London of the early 1960s and befriending Black Power advocates in the United States, he rediscovered his Africanness. Thus began a lifelong and entirely uncritical embrace of traditional African values, among them a very low opinion of women, formal education, and the threat of AIDS, of which he would die in 1997. A Mother Jones interview of Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian author Wole Soykinka mentions this specifically:
MJ: You write about your cousin, musician Fela Kuti, and how you think his own politics were kind of naive…
WS: Not think, were! He was a passionate Africanist. But his definition and embrace of Africanism did not discriminate: Anything that was African was positive. You would never hear a word against Idi Amin, against the monsters. He always accused me of being a CIA agent when I was campaigning against Idi Amin. He’d say, “Boss”—he called me “Boss”—“Boss Wole, don’t be influenced by the CIA people.” I said, “Shut up, you don’t know anything about it!”
To his credit, Moore has added a fabulous epilogue chronicling the decline and fall of Fela, contextualizing many of the performer's views within a life that was puntuated by violence, incarceration, and illness. He also sets Fela alongside James Brown and Bob Marley as "the only 20th century musicians to have electrified the world with explicitly anti-establishment and unapologetically ghetto-inspired black music."
Unlike Marley, Fela was an angry political organizer in open conflict with the state. You've got to give Fela props for not selling out. He could have acquiesced to the demands of western record companies, moved to Europe or the US, made millions selling a vague African revolution, and have his poster hanging in every college dorm room in the world, right between Che and Marley. Instead he decided to set up a massive commune in the middle of one of the poorest parts of Lagos, loudly and specifically criticize Nigeria's military regimes, and give away all his money to friends, hangers on, and the poor. He died broke and crazy, of AIDS, and 1 million people filed by his glass casket, where he was laid to rest with a joint in his hand. "No one will force me out of this country," he once said. "If it is not fit to live in, then our job is to make it fit."
Ultimately, Fela's story is a tragic one, a fact too easily forgotten while listening to his often mirthful, raucous albums. Reading Moore's book restores an emotional weight to a music that was forged in protest, under duress, suffering from grief. The mournful ballad "Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am," will leave your soul aching. This is Fela, he of the bitch of a life.
Bill Laswell on Fela Kuti (1999)
This article was originally published in Mean Magazine (October 1999), with art direction by Camille Rose Garcia, and an overview of Fela’s catalog by Michael Veal; the main article text, and sidebars, were later reprinted in full in the Da Capo Best Music Writing 2000 book (thank you Douglas Wolk and Peter Guralnick). Main article text is online here: http://www.arthurmag.com/2009/11/02/fela-king-of-the-invisible-art
BILL LASWELL
by Jay Babcock
Bill Laswell is a bassist, producer and, having worked with countless important musicians from dozens of countries, one of the vortex points around which the musical universe revolves. I spoke with Laswell about his controversial work with Fela…
Q: When did you first get into Fela’s music?
Bill Laswell: When I started listening to Cream and stuff, I started to read interviews with people like Ginger [Baker] about where they were getting their stuff from. Just like [Eric] Clapton was getting ideas from blues guys, I realized that rhythm musicians were getting a lot of information from Africa. I immediately started looking for the records, especially Afrobeat. Just that syncopation, the up feel. You get ideas about putting rhythms together.
Those early bands Fela had were really tight. This African guy told me James Brown had just ‘messed him up’—well, Fela had bands that were almost like that. I don’t think as aggressively tight, but it had a feel, an Afrobeat, African feel, with a modern sound.
How did you end up producing Army Arrangement?
At that time in Paris in ‘84 or ‘85, Celluloid was the label that all African, or West African, everybody, was going to them for some reason. And they got ahold of Fela’s contract and his catalog and they just started calling the shots. Fela was on his way to New York to come and we were going to mix the record when he came.
On the way to New York, getting on the plane in Nigeria, he had something like ten grand in cash in US dollars, I think. He was immediately put in jail, the tapes arrived, and the Celluloid people were like, ‘Well great, let’s go ahead and mix it. Let’s capitalize on the fact that he’s in jail, we’ll get more press.’ But the tapes I received weren’t really musical or necessarily well-recorded. So we felt that if we just mixed it, it wouldn’t bring anything new to what Fela’s legend was. So we added Sly Dunbar, Bernie Worrell and Aiyb Dieng from Senegal.
Did you ever meet Fela?
[When he got out of jail,] Fela did a press tour in the States. He was at the Gramercy Hotel in New York. I went there and he was sitting around his room wearing a shirt and some underwear and sitting in a lotus position on the couch, a bunch of people coming in and out, and we spoke for a few minutes. He was kind of amazed that I would come because he had said that he didn’t like what I had done. There was an African magazine where I was quoted as saying, “It’s much better to mix an artist’s work if they’re in prison.” Some really stupid shit. And that freaked him out. And he was saying that there was a sound that wasn’t African that I put on the album. [But] it was a Senegalese drummer, so of course it’s African.
It’s very interesting because everybody thought I wouldn’t go meet him, so I just went in anyway. By that time he had started to deteriorate, he wasn’t as strong. You could feel he wasn’t the person he was. He just
wasn’t the presence that he was before. And it showed in the music too, because in the ’70s Fela had a really strong band and then he just got kind of more lighter and lighter. And then a lot of weird shit came into that scene… That was a heavy scene. They were around some heavy people. Cuz he was the BIGGEST thing happening in Nigeria, and there’s some heavy stuff in Nigeria—not all positive.
@'Arthur'
Fela Kuti - Army Arrangement
Thank god! I thought that it was just me...
"...Sadly, the remaster is a fiasco. The soft tones of 'Computer Love' become sharp, the wide spaces of 'Home Computer' contract into tunnels and 'Pocket Calculator' bears down on us like a spiked ceiling in a horror film. Equally poor is the remaster of 'Radioactivity', where atmospheric crackles and hisses have been removed by noise reduction software. For pity's sake, they're part of the music..."
-David Cavanagh (Uncut 11/09)
(I even went so far as to get a hold of the German language versions for comparison!)
Having said that...check this out...
(I even went so far as to get a hold of the German language versions for comparison!)
Having said that...check this out...
To my fellow gurlz...
I lurved what you said tonight and...
Let's do it!
(Don't think about it man, just DO IT!!!)
If you have money to spare this Xmas...
In the week before Christmas. A time for tying loose ends, getting boozed up at numerous parties and cramming in some last minute shopping before everything shuts up and we all head homeward bound. There's one very important purchase you mustn't forget to make this week though, and that's an MP3 or two of Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name'. 3/4 million people are promising to head to iTunes this week to buy the song in an attempt to prevent the latest 'X Factor' mush from becoming Christmas Number One. We've been arguing the pros and cons of the campaign on the blogs recently, and all week this week we're following the two tracks' progress to see if this thing can actually happen. Plus, on the galleries, we're looking at both contenders in the festive race. We're also having a good old smirk at the failures from previous X Factor shows. Chico, Journey South, and some guy called...WHO THE FUCK CARES...
PS: the irony of being told to vote for a song with the refrain “Fuck you I won’t do what you tell me” is not lost on me either...
Jeeezus H fugn Christos...
I love this interwebby thingy that is now such a BIG part of our lives...
Of course, while the old guard is looking for ways to fuck us in the arse, the rest of us are just going about our way of communicating w/ each other!
What can I say?
I recently left a comment at a fellow blog, that to be honest resulted in a bit of a flame war...I say "bit" as the blogger concerned locked the comments and who knows what the final outcome may have been...
I have never left an "anon" comment in my life...nor have I ever "pretended" to be someone else...but of course THIS may just be a whole joke to begin with!
I have never left an "anon" comment in my life...nor have I ever "pretended" to be someone else...but of course THIS may just be a whole joke to begin with!
Anyway, to draw a long story short...I do find it amazing that the people who would/should have met up together WAY back then are still finding the common ground now!!!
Tuesday, 15 December 2009
U.S. is said to pick Illinois prison to house some Guantánamo detainees
An administration official said President Obama had directed the federal government to proceed with acquiring the Thomson Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison in a rural village about 150 miles west of Chicago Gov. Patrick J. Quinn of Illinois and the state’s senior senator, Richard J. Durbin, will be briefed about the plan at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. The officials, both Democrats, have been enthusiastic supporters of bringing Guantánamo prisoners to Thomson, arguing that it would bring jobs to an impoverished part of the state.
When talk of bringing Guantánamo detainees to Thomson first surfaced in late November, both Mr. Quinn and Mr. Durbin held a series of news conferences to promote the idea of turning over the empty state prison, which was built in 2001 at a cost to Illinois taxpayers of about $120 million, to the federal penal system.
Top Illinois Republicans — including Representatives Donald Manzullo, whose district includes the prison, and Mark Steven Kirk, a candidate for the United States Senate seat once held by Mr. Obama — have denounced previous talk of such a move, saying it could make Illinois a target for terrorist attacks.
But Obama administration officials argue that the prison would be secure and that it would enhance national security to close Guantánamo because it has become a global symbol and a recruiting tool for Al Qaeda.
Mr. Obama declared shortly after his inauguration that he would close the Guantánamo prison — a signature component of the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policy — within a year. But dealing with the roughly 200 detainees at the prison has proved difficult, and he is widely expected to miss that deadline.
In May, Mr. Obama proposed bringing some detainees to a facility inside the United States, including some who officials have decided are too difficult to prosecute and too dangerous to release. They would continue to be held without trial as “combatants” under the laws of war.
Under the proposal for Thomson, the Bureau of Prisons would buy the facility and improve its security. Most of the prison would house ordinary high-security inmates, but a part would be leased to the Defense Department to hold terror suspects.
It was not immediately clear how the government would pay for the prison and upgrades, but White House officials have floated the idea of including financing for it in the 2010 military appropriations bill.
Earlier this year, Congress enacted a law forbidding Guantánamo detainees to be brought onto United States soil except for the purpose of prosecution. But leading Democrats said they were open to lifting that restriction after the administration came up with a plan for how to handle the prisoners.
50 years of Bill Shankly - John Keith
(Thanx Stan)
Anfield Stars to Come Out as City Honours Bill Shankly
LIVERPOOL’S Lord Mayor is to make an on-stage tribute to Bill Shankly at the Echo Arena.
Councillor Mike Storey will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Bill Shankly’s arrival as manager of Liverpool FC by awarding him the title of Honorary Citizen in recognition of his outstanding contribution not just to football but to the whole City.
Councillor Storey said: “This is a fantastic opportunity to recognise one of our finest special citizen’s and honour everything that he brought to the our city. Bill Shankly represented the city with distinction and never missed an opportunity to talk up the city. He really was a great ambassador for Liverpool and I thought it would be great to be able to give him some form of official recognition and fully acknowledge him as a Liverpool great”.
The Lord Mayor sought the agreement of Party Leaders Cllr Warren Bradley and Cllr Joe Anderson and will be holding a small get together for ex-colleagues, family and friends of Bill Shankly at the Town Hall on Thursday 17th December before making the award during the Shankly Show at the Liverpool Echo Arena, that evening.
Andrew Sherlock writer and director of The Shankly Show approached Councillor Storey with the idea. He said: “It has always rankled with Liverpool fans that we should have had at least two footballing knights, Sir Bill Shankly and Sir Bob Paisley, so on this special anniversary I asked the Lord Mayor if we could honour our own with a special award for Shankly – not just for what he did for LFC but for all football fans and for the life, passion and energy he brought to the City he made his home”.
Receiving the award on behalf of LFC and the Shankly family will be Brian Hall who will also be inviting friends and colleagues from the Former Players Association who, like himself, played under Shankly.
Brian said: “Bill Shankly had the greatest single impact on the development of Liverpool Football Club and on my life more than anyone bar none. It is a phrase that is used often, but of him it is absolutely true, he is a legend. It will be great to get the boys together to honour his memory”.
The Shankly Show is on for two nights only on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th of December at 8pm at the BT Convention Centre with celebration and tributes made on both nights and the Honorary Citizen’s Award to be made on Thursday 17th.
Tickets are available at BT CONVENTION CENTRE (Next to LIVERPOOL ECHO ARENA)
Dates: Thursday 17-Friday 18 December 2009 at 8pm Tickets: £25.00 and £35.00
Liverpool Echo Arena Box Office: 0844 8000 400, in person at the Liverpool Echo Arena or online at www.echoarena.com
Courtney Love loses guardianship of daughter to Kurt Cobain's mum & sister
TMZ reports that Courtney Love is no longer the legal guardian of Frances Bean Cobain, her 17-year-old daughter with Kurt Cobain. On Friday, the Los Angeles Superior Court assigned guardianship of Frances Bean to Kurt's mother, Wendy O'Connor, and his sister, Kimberly Dawn Cobain.
According to TMZ, guardianship reassignments like this happen when "the parent is not capable of taking care of their children." Court proceedings are sealed, so we don't know why, exactly, the court found Love to be an unstable parent.Canadian record industry faces US$6 billion lawsuit
After years of claiming consumers disrespect copyright, the major music labels in Canada are facing a massive lawsuit for copyright infringement; and where the infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least US$50 million and the full claim could exceed $6 billion. By internet law columnist Michael Geist.
Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals. Baker died in 1988, yet he is about to add a new claim to fame as the lead plaintiff in possibly the largest copyright infringement case in Canadian history. His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year.
The infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least US$50 million and the full claim could exceed $6 billion. If the dollars don’t shock, the target of the lawsuit undoubtedly will: The defendants in the case are Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.
The CRIA members were hit with the lawsuit in October 2008 after artists decided to turn to the courts following decades of frustration with the rampant infringement (I am adviser to the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, which is co-counsel, but have had no involvement in the case).
The claims arise from a longstanding practice of the recording industry in Canada, described in the lawsuit as “exploit now, pay later if at all.” It involves the use of works that are often included in compilation CDs (ie. the top dance tracks of 2009) or live recordings. The record labels create, press, distribute and sell the CDs, but do not obtain the necessary copyright licences.
Instead, the names of the songs on the CDs are placed on a “pending list,” which signifies that approval and payment is pending. The pending list dates back to the late 1980s, when Canada changed its copyright law by replacing a compulsory licence with the need for specific authorization for each use. It is perhaps better characterized as a copyright infringement admission list, however, since for each use of the work, the record label openly admits that it has not obtained copyright permission and not paid any royalty or fee.
The irony of having the [Canadian] recording industry face a massive lawsuit will not be lost on anyone, least of all the artists still waiting to be paid. Indeed, they are also seeking punitive damages, arguing “the conduct of the defendant record companies is aggravated by their strict and unremitting approach to the enforcement of their copyright interests against consumers.”
Over the years, the size of the pending list has grown dramatically, now containing more than 300,000 songs.
From Beyonce to Bruce Springsteen, the artists waiting for payment are far from obscure, as thousands of Canadian and foreign artists have seen their copyrights used without permission and payment.
It is difficult to understand why the industry has been so reluctant to pay its bills. Some works may be in the public domain or belong to a copyright owner difficult to ascertain or locate, yet the likes of Sarah McLachlan, Bruce Cockburn, Sloan, or the Watchmen are not hidden from view.
The more likely reason is that the record labels have had little motivation to pay up. As the balance has grown, David Basskin, the president and CEO of the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd., notes in his affidavit that “the record labels have devoted insufficient resources for identifying and paying the owners of musical works on the pending lists.” The CRIA members now face the prospect of far greater liability.
The class action seeks the option of statutory damages for each infringement. At $20,000 per infringement, potential liability exceeds $6 billion.
These numbers may sound outrageous, yet they are based on the same rules that led the recording industry to claim a single file sharer is liable for millions in damages.
After years of claiming Canadian consumers disrespect copyright, the irony of having the recording industry face a massive lawsuit will not be lost on anyone, least of all the artists still waiting to be paid. Indeed, they are also seeking punitive damages, arguing “the conduct of the defendant record companies is aggravated by their strict and unremitting approach to the enforcement of their copyright interests against consumers.”
Note: Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or at michaelgeist.ca. Visit his website at www.michaelgeist.ca. The above article was circulated by Rock & Rap Confidential.
Burma opium production up amid tension in north
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says there has been a worrying rise in the extent of opium cultivation in Burma.
According to a new UN survey, the amount of land used for growing opium has increased by almost 50% since 2006.
The UN drugs agency says the cultivation of opium poppies has risen in Burma for the third year in a row.
This is undermining efforts to rid the country of its dependence on profits from illicit crops, it says.
Over 31,000 hectares of land are now devoted to growing opium, an increase of 11% compared to one year ago.
This is still a far cry from the 1990s, when Burma was the world's largest opium producer, part of the infamous Golden Triangle.
However the head of the UN drugs agency, Antonio Maria Costa, says "the trend is going in the wrong direction".
Mr Costa says increased instability in north eastern Burma is driving the rise in drug cultivation, with ethnic militant groups using drug profits to buy arms.
The UN agency is also warning that the region is becoming a major producer of synthetic drugs like amphetamines.
Mr Costa has called for a renewed commitment from governments and donors to tackling the drug problem in south east Asia.
@'BBC'
@'BBC'
Climate negotiations 'suspended'
Negotiations at the UN climate summit have been suspended after the African group withdrew co-operation.
African delegations were angry at what they saw as moves by the Danish host government to sideline talks on more emission cuts under the Kyoto Protocol.
As news spread around the conference centre, about 200 activists responded with chants of "We stand with Africa - Kyoto targets now".
It is unclear how matters will proceed now, though informal talks are likely.
Blocs representing poor countries vulnerable to climate change have been adamant that rich nations must commit to emission cuts beyond 2012 under the Kyoto Protocol.
But the EU and the developed world in general has promoted the idea of a new agreement. Developing countries fear they would lose many of the gains they made when the protocol was agreed in 1997.
'Losing time'
Previously during this meeting - formally called the Conference of the Parties (COP) 15 - developing countries have accused the Danish organisers of ignoring their concerns.
|  Some developing nations are wary of the way negotiations are progressing  |
Last week, the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu forced a suspension after insisting that proposals to amend the UN climate convention and Kyoto Protocol be debated in full.
Kim Carstensen, director of the global climate initiative with environment group WWF, said that much more movement was needed on the Kyoto Protocol negotiations.
"The point is being made very loud that African countries and the wider G77 bloc will not accept non-action on the Kyoto Protocol, and they're really afraid that a deal has been stitched up behind their backs," he told BBC News.
While understanding the G77 position, he said the suspension could affect progress towards a deal.
"We're losing time, and that's a serious matter, because every minute we lose on one issue the chances of getting to the bottom of the next issue diminish."
Monday, 14 December 2009
HA!
An attacker wielding a statuette of the Milan cathedral struck Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in the face following a rally in Milan on Sunday, and hospital officials said the blow fractured his nose, sliced his lip and broke two teeth.
Bodyguards helped Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, stunned and bloodied, into a car following an attack Sunday in Milan.
Television images showed bodyguards helping a stunned and bloodied prime minister into a car after the attack, which came as he greeted supporters after delivering a rousing speech to a rally of his center-right People of Liberties Party in central Milan.
The police detained a Milan resident identified as Massimo Tartaglia, 42, who has a history of mental illness, Italian news media reported. A prosecutor was questioning Mr. Tartaglia and a formal arrest was expected...
A question for you...
Which (deceased) British DJ walked onto the stage at Thatcher's Conservative Party conference in 1983 and declared:
"let's bomb Russia"?
"let's bomb Russia"?
The answer can be found elsewhere on the internet!
Teen drinkers corrupting `brain software'
THE seven years immediately after a child reaches puberty mark a developmental crunch time, when the brain is both extremely susceptible to damage from drugs and alcohol and six times more likely than an adult's to develop an addiction.
Teenagers absorb drugs and alcohol into their bloodstream more quickly than adults and, afterwards, their metabolism isn't as efficient in breaking them down, warns Trevor Grice, a visiting New Zealand expert on teenage drinking. At the same time, these maturing bodies are only just developing "reward" chemicals such as endorphins, but still lack the emotional maturity to control them.
Mr Grice, the founding director of Life Education Trust NZ and co-author of The Great Brain Robbery, is urging parents to do all they can to delay their children's introduction to drinking until after the seven-year period elapses.
"Puberty brings with it a range of doubts," he told The Australian as he attended a weekend conference in Melbourne on the issue. "They want to be taller, have less acne, belong, be different. They worry about school, begin being interested in the opposite sex. They fear rejection, they negotiate family, there's bullying.
Mr Grice's warning came as police around the nation conducted a co-ordinated weekend blitz on alcohol-related crime, including drink-driving and violence.
More than 2000 people were arrested. NSW Deputy Commissioner Dave Owens said blitzes such as Operation Unite would never of themselves solve the issue of alcohol-related violence and dangerous behaviour.
"What it was about was starting a debate," he said.
Mr Grice said parents "have to help (their children) get their brain software right while they're on that ladder; otherwise as adults they'll be using dumb software".
But parents shouldn't be too hard on their children's inevitable mistakes, he said, having spoken to thousands of children over his 30-plus-year career in the field.
"They will act in obnoxious ways that offend their parents," he said. "But deep down they love them and would die for them. The teenager's brain's all accelerator and no brake; they are elbowing their way to adulthood and making mistakes."
Snort more cocaine and the rainforest dies (!)
Don’t sniff: cocaine users are killing the planet. Every time they snort a line, part of the rainforest dies — or so say the police in a new UK campaign against drugs.
They hope that appealing to young people’s environmental concerns will prove more effective than urging them to “just say no” to drugs. Linking with Greenpeace, the police plan to spread the message that for every gram of cocaine made, four square metres of rainforest are destroyed.
Chris Pearson, drug analyst at the Metropolitan police’s intelligence bureau, said: “The cocaine trade is destroying the rainforest. Young people don’t tend to listen to the police, but they might listen to Greenpeace and they might listen to their peers.”
The move is backed by the government. Vernon Coaker, the schools minister, said: “Teaching young people about the devastating environmental consequences of the drugs industry is one way we can tackle drug usage, though we need to balance this with giving young people clear information and advice on the other effects of drugs...”
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