exilestreet Need a crate of 'Um Bongo' to keep me awake for the #Aus
game #WorldCup 
Monday, 14 June 2010
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Politicians set to tackle Liverpool FC ownership issue in Parliament
A proposal by Steve Rotherham (Walton), Alison McGovern (Wirral South), Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood), Dave Watts (St Helens North) and Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) has been backed by several politicians, including recently-elected Wavertree MP Luciana Berger.
Cllr Rotheram replaced Peter Kilfoyle in May as the MP for the Walton constituency where the club's Anfield stadium is located and was highly supportive of the commemorations for last year's 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster in his role as Lord Mayor of Liverpool.
Kilfoyle, who retired after 19 years as the area's representative, supported an Early Day Motion in 2008 which called on the then Government to prevent RBS. who are 60% state-owned, extending their loan agreement with Gillett and Hicks.
The latest EDM encourages discussion with supporter organisations such as Spirit of Shankly and ShareLiverpoolFC about how politicians can help steer the club in the right direction with the Americans' promises of a new stadium in Stanley Park showing no signs of being fulfilled.
It states: "This House expresses its dismay at the failure of the American owners of Liverpool Football Club to exercise responsible stewardship of the club; notes the departure of the outgoing manager Rafael Benitez; regrets the failure to fulfil promises of a new stadium; supports consultation and engagement with supporters' groups; and looks to an early change of ownership and a positive strategy to take the club forward."
This week it emerged that Hicks' refusal to lower his valuation of £800million for the club scuppered two potential sales to investors described by sources at Barclays Capital, who are aiding the search for new owners, as "perfect fit".
Richard Buxton @'Click Liverpool'
billybragg Okay England fans - post-mortem time: who wasn't wearing their lucky shirt/shorts/skirt/undies last night? Apart from poor old Rob Green?
Apocalypse in the Gulf
Now Oil, Next Nukes
As BP's ghastly gusher assaults the Gulf of Mexico and so much more, a tornado has forced shut the Fermi2 atomic reactor at the site of a 1966 melt-down that nearly irradiated the entire Great Lakes region.
If the White House has a reliable plan for deploying and funding a credible response to a disaster at a reactor that's superior to the one we've seen at the Deepwater Horizon, we'd sure like to see it.
Meanwhile it wants us to fund two more reactors on the Gulf and another one 40 miles from Washington DC. And that's just for starters.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has warned that at least one new design proposed for federal funding cannot withstand tornadoes, earthquakes or hurricanes.
But the administration has slipped $9 billion for nuclear loan guarantees into an emergency military funding bill, in addition to the $8.33 it's already approved for two new nukes in Georgia.
Unless we do something about it, the House Appropriations Committee may begin the process next week.
Like Deepwater Horizon and Fermi, these new nukes could ignite disasters beyond our technological control---and our worst nightmares. 
Like BP, their builders would enjoy financial liability limits dwarfed by damage they could do.
Two of the new reactors are proposed for South Texas, where two others have already been leaking radiation into the Gulf. Ironically, oil pouring into the Gulf could make the waters unusable for cooling existing and future nukes and coal burners.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently admitted to Rachel Maddow he has no firm plans for the radioactive wastes created by the proposed new reactors, or by the 104 currently licensed.
That would include Vermont Yankee, where strontium, cesium, tritium and more are leaking into the Connecticut River. VY's rotted underground pipes may have leaking counterparts at every other US reactor.
After 50 years, this industry can't get private financing, can't get private liability insurance and has no solution for its wastes.
The Gulf gusher bears the simple lesson that technologies that require liability limits will rapidly exceed them, and must not be deployed.
No US nuclear utility has sufficient capital resources to cover the damages from a reactor disaster, which is one reason taxpayers are targeted as the ultimate underwriters.
On May 27, the House Appropriations Committee was scheduled to vote on new nuke loan guarantees, which had been attached to an emergency military spending bill. Amidst a flood of grassroots opposition, the vote was postponed.
But it could return as early as June 15. We can and must stop these new guarantees, which would feed the gusher of nuke power hand-outs being dumped into new climate/energy legislation.
By all accounts, despite the horrors of the Gulf, the administration still wants legislation that will expand deepwater drilling and atomic technologies that are simply beyond our control…but that fund apparently unstoppable dividends for corporations like BP.
It's our vital responsibility to transform this crisis into a definitive shift to a totally green-powered earth, based solely on renewables and efficiency. We have a full array of Solartopian technologies that are proven, profitable, insurable and manageable. They are the core of our necessary transition to a prosperous, sustainable future.
As our planet dies around us, truly green climate/energy legislation must come...NOW! The next key vote may come when the Appropriations Committee reconvenes.
Just when it still isn't safe to go into the water, the nuclear energy industry with all its technological difficulties/deficiencies wants to come to the party and add its name to the list of industries hell-bent on eco-cide, safe in the knowledge that any future costs due to calamities will be borne not by themselves but rather the tax-payer. Is this really what people want their tax dollars working for, another "careless" business payout? There is NO safe nuclear solution, it is a finite resource, and the waste problems of the industry have yet to be resolved 50 years down the track. - Beeden
Bruce Sterling on SLR
I'm in Phoenix, Arizona - not for the Superbowl, like the 100,000 other people who flew in this weekend, but I've got my reasons - and I'm paging through the latest issue of The Arizona Republic. The paper's a lot like the community it serves: glossy, nuttily conservative, and oddly punch-drunk.
Friday, January 26, 1996, an article on page B2:
Culprits in Rock Barrage Elude Chandler Police Surveillance
Rocks and chunks of concrete larger than softballs have been raining on a Chandler neighborhood, pounding roofs and smashing into cars. Police have posted surveillance and have increased patrols, but the rain of rocks
continues. Neighborhood Block Watches have been able to do nothing more than collect the rocks - as many as 30 after an attack Tuesday night. Residents believe some device is being used to hurl the missiles.
But here's the coverage I'm looking for, on page D7:
Rampaging Robots Ready to Wreak Havoc Downtown
Some 30 tons of crashing, fire-spitting robotic machinery will perform at 11 PM Saturday at the Icehouse, 429 West Jackson Street, Phoenix. Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) of San Francisco will present its "Million Inconsiderate Experiments," with machine art tromping, stomping and shooting flames. The show, under the direction of artist Mark Pauline, has toured Europe and has been performed in Los Angeles, New York, and Seattle.
I'm pretty sure I can solve this mystery in Chandler, if the authorities are interested. Put out an APB for a scruffy male adolescent, a bright kid who sits at the family table sullenly radiating poltergeist vibrations and bending fork tines with his molars. He has a deep, secret interest in junkyards, whence he found those hinges, bolts, one-by-twelves, bungee cords, and powerful springs. Look for this kid, and while you're at it, look for his prankster friends.
In the meantime, SRL capo Mark Pauline, the 42-year-old adult upgrade of a deeply alienated teenage techie, stands in an abandoned Phoenix railway yard. I watch as Pauline checks a soldered connection, taps at a pressure gauge, steps back, confers with an associate in a set of coveralls even filthier and more tattered than his own, then presses a handheld switch.
A couple feet away, one of the few V-1 jet engines in private ownership comes to sudden life. FWOOOOOOM! A dragon tongue of misappropriated Nazi vengeance licks the desert sky. A pause, a few words of consultation, Mark couldn't be more blasé.
FWOOOM!!! BLADDABLODDABLADDABLODDA - KA-BLAM! Waves of heat kick up spinning torrents of yellow dust. Half-combusted fuel explodes deep within the iron throat of the jet, producing a fiery belch that is not merely loud but insanely loud, industrial-accident loud. The temperature in the freight yard, somewhere in the low 40s, soars at once to a toasty 90 degrees...
Continue reading
Suspected Mossad agent arrested over Dubai assassination
An alleged Mossad spy from Israel wanted in connection with the hit-squad slaying of a Hamas agent in Dubai has been arrested in Poland, officials said Saturday.
The man, using the name Uri Brodsky, is suspected of working for Mossad in Germany and helping to issue a fake German passport to a member of the Mossad operation that allegedly killed Hamas agent Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January, a spokesman for the German federal prosecutor's office told The Associated Press.
Brodsky was arrested in early June upon his arrival in Poland because of a European arrest warrant issued by Germany which is now seeking his extradition, the spokesman said, declining to be named in line with department policy.
The spokesman had no estimate of how long it could take for Brodsky to be extradited from Poland to Germany, saying the matter is now in the hands of the Polish authorities. "If Brodsky agrees, the extradition could take a few days, but that isn't likely," the spokesman said.
In Warsaw, Monika Lewandowska, a spokeswoman for Polish prosecutors, confirmed that the suspect, identified only as Uri B., was arrested at the city's international airport on June 4. She told the AP that the arrest warrant was made in connection with the murder of a Hamas member in Dubai.
"The suspect appeared before a Polish court on June 6, and was ordered to remain in temporary arrest for up to 40 days," she said. Lewandowska had no information on his possible extradition.
In Israel, the Foreign Ministry said without elaborating that it was aware of the man's fate. "At the moment, we're looking into that like any other Israeli who has been arrested, and he's getting consular treatment," spokesman Andy David said.
Police in the United Arab Emirates said the elaborate hit squad linked to the Jan. 19 slaying in Dubai of al-Mabhouh - one of the founders of Hamas' military wing - involved some 25 suspects, most of them carrying fake passports from European nations.
Brodsky was arrested in early June upon his arrival in Poland because of a European arrest warrant issued by Germany which is now seeking his extradition, the spokesman said, declining to be named in line with department policy.
The spokesman had no estimate of how long it could take for Brodsky to be extradited from Poland to Germany, saying the matter is now in the hands of the Polish authorities. "If Brodsky agrees, the extradition could take a few days, but that isn't likely," the spokesman said.
In Warsaw, Monika Lewandowska, a spokeswoman for Polish prosecutors, confirmed that the suspect, identified only as Uri B., was arrested at the city's international airport on June 4. She told the AP that the arrest warrant was made in connection with the murder of a Hamas member in Dubai.
"The suspect appeared before a Polish court on June 6, and was ordered to remain in temporary arrest for up to 40 days," she said. Lewandowska had no information on his possible extradition.
In Israel, the Foreign Ministry said without elaborating that it was aware of the man's fate. "At the moment, we're looking into that like any other Israeli who has been arrested, and he's getting consular treatment," spokesman Andy David said.
Police in the United Arab Emirates said the elaborate hit squad linked to the Jan. 19 slaying in Dubai of al-Mabhouh - one of the founders of Hamas' military wing - involved some 25 suspects, most of them carrying fake passports from European nations.
Dubai's police chief, Lt. Gen. Dahi Khalfan Tamim, has said he is nearly 100 percent certain that Mossad, Israel's spy agency, masterminded the killing.
The brazen assault in a luxury hotel and its alleged perpetrators were widely captured by security cameras. Some footage, released by Dubai's police, showed alleged members of the hit squad disguised as tourists, wearing baggy shorts, sneakers and baseball caps, and carrying tennis rackets.
At the time, Israel said it didn't know who was responsible for the killing but welcomed it, claiming al-Mabhouh was a key link in smuggling weapons to Gaza and a possible middleman with Israel's archenemy, Iran.
The German news weekly Der Spiegel reported that the arrest in Poland already has led to some diplomatic friction. The Israeli Embassy has urged Polish authorities not to extradite Brodsky, the magazine reports in its issue to be published Monday.
Germany's Foreign Ministry had no comment on the case and referred to an ongoing judicial investigation by the federal prosecutor's office. The country's top investigating unit deals with all cases affecting internal or external security, including terrorism or espionage.
After a German passport was used by a person linked to the Dubai slaying, the prosecutor's office in February started investigating a possible connection to a foreign intelligence agency.
Authorities in the western city of Cologne had issued a passport to a man named Michael Bodenheimer. "A man using that name was among the assassins who killed the Hamas operative," according to Dubai police.
In February, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle urged a thorough investigation and said German authorities would do everything possible to support their counterparts in the U.A.E.
If Brodsky's extradition goes through, however, it could put the government in Berlin - a staunch Israeli ally - in a difficult diplomatic position.
Rafael Benitez makes donation to Hillsborough families
Former Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez has made a £96,000 donation to the Hillsborough Family Support Group.
The group was founded by families who lost loved ones in the Hillsborough Disaster in April 1989 which resulted in the deaths of 96 Liverpool fans.
Benitez, whose Anfield reign ended last week, supported the organisation during his six years in charge of the Reds.
The 50-year-old Spaniard was confirmed on Thursday as the new coach of European champions Inter Milan.
"When he handed the cheque over to me he was very emotional, as I was and the committee was, especially when we saw the amount," said Margaret Aspinall, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group.
"He just said that he wanted to help with the cause and hoped we get what we rightly deserve.
"We have lots of things that we spend money on; a memorial every year, upkeep of the office and expenses but Rafa just said as long as it helps the group then that's all that matters."
A significant amount too!
Saturday, 12 June 2010
La Iglesia Maradoniana – Argentina’s real religion?
I entered the church late: mass already underway, the choir already crooning an unknown vesper and the priest heading to the pulpit.
This, however, wasn’t your typical Christian service as, rather than a traditional church, the proceedings were taking place in Pizza Banana, Italian restaurant cum nightclub; rather than eating the body and blood of Christ, a choice of Margherita or Pepperoni pizzas with a complementary beer was available; rather than a classic choir singing about the bible, there were 300 football fans shouting about former glories of Argentina’s national team and, rather than a robed and ordained clergyman giving a sermon, there was a short, rotund man in a football shirt speaking from a DJ’s booth.
All in all, just another normal service at the church of Diego Maradona.
The Church
The Iglesia Maradoniana was conceived ten years ago by some friends in Rosario. They shared so great a love of the infamous player that today’s 120,000 worldwide members of the church believe that the former Boca and Argentina star is God himself.
In fact, amongst the surreal revelry of their services, it is often hard to discern whether the idea of the church is just a homage-in-jest to Argentina’s greatest footballer or a cult who actually believe that the mortal Maradona is the one true Messiah, as 28-year-old Bálo, one of the church’s ‘Ten Apostles’, suggested: “The church isn’t just a bit of fun, this is a serious celebration of our eternal love for God. I may have only been part of the church for two years but I was born ‘Maradonian’.”
According to the word of the church, ‘football is the religion and, like all religions, has a God. The God of football is Argentine and his name is Diego Armando Maradona.’ The church’s insignia is the portmanteau D10S, a combination of the word Dios (God in Spanish) and Maradona’s shirt number 10.
La Iglesia Maradoniana even goes as far as to have its own ten commandments, for example ‘Do not mention the name Diego in connection with any one club’, own miracles in the form of Maradona’s playing feats and even its own prayers (see box-out).
The church meets biannually: once for ‘Noche buena y Navidad Maradoniana’, or ‘Maradona Christmas Eve and Christmas’, over the eve of the 29th and running into the 30th October to commemorate Maradona’s birthday (and the birthday of the church) and once for ‘Las Pascuas Maradonianas’, ‘Maradona Easter’, on the 22nd June to mark the day that Argentina knocked rivals England out of the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals through two Maradona goals, one of which being the infamous ‘Mano de Dios’.
I was fortunate enough to attend the service of ‘Noche Buena y Navidad Maradoniana’, which this year coincided with the ten year anniversary of the church’s conception and promised a ‘big surprise at midnight’.
La Navidad Maradoniana
The service heading towards its climax, Christmas joy and merriment radiated from the rosy cheeks of all in attendance and a crisp festive air filled the room as the efficient Pizza Banana air conditioning systems clicked up a notch and the free booze set into complexions around the room.
The idea of the ‘Noche Buena y Navidad’ service is to mirror the excitement and celebration of the classic Christian Christmas Eve and Christmas day but replacing the birth of the Good Shepard Jesus Christ with that of Diego Maradona, man of vice.
Already in a state of some consternation at the sight of so many Maradona shirts, videos, books, flags, paintings and Christmas trees, I was flabbergasted to see the procession of the ‘Ten Apostles’. All veiled in white, ten apparitions filed out of a back room, parading themselves with an eerie gravity. They carried different relics representing their faith, ranging from a football
boot or a faux world cup trophy to a rosary with 34 beads (the number of goals Maradona scored for his nation) and even a bleeding football adorned in a crown of thorns.As I sat, digging into a big slice of Sloppy Giuseppe and watching a month-year-old baby being officially baptised as ‘Maradonian’, I was struck by another pang of incredulity. Can this be real? Co-founder Hernán Amez was able to shed more light: “I am not a Catholic. Religion is about feelings and we feel football. I’ve been doing this for ten years now and it’s not just a bit of fun, it’s a religion.”
The quiz was finished, the pizza eaten, the ‘Mano de Dios’ and Maradona tattoo competitions won and all Maradona wedding contracts signed. The atmosphere reached fever pitch as camera crews huddled, fanatical warbling of ‘Volveremos a ser campeones como en ochenta seis’ filled the air and the countdown began, all awaiting the ‘big surprise’.
Alas, Maradona himself wasn’t to turn up but he was reached on the phone, addressing the horde, saying: “God will be with us again and He will give us another victory like 1986.” Whether I find the mention of ‘God’ alarming through its piety or reassuring as it uses the third person, I’m not sure.
Champagne was served shortly after and more preaching did nothing to ebb the torrent of euphoric chanting reverberating off the walls of Pizza Banana’s church all night. Given my nationality and the growing fervour of the pro-‘Mano de Dios’ hymns, I decided to slip off.
Absurd?
Still haunted by the conundrum of such a ridiculous notion juxtaposed with such stern responses from those I asked, I can’t determine whether the Iglesia Maradoniana is a serious joke or an absurd reality, whether Bálo and Hernán Amez were good actors or deadly serious.
The revelry of the service was heightened by the day’s announcement that the inexperienced Maradona is to become Argentina’s new national coach. The absurdity of Maradona being the new coach or, let alone, being God is compounded by the controversy that tarnishes his past. To add to his on-pitch misbehaviour, Maradona has struggled with vices such as alcohol and cocaine addictions as well as obesity and has needed to be medically treated for many health issues.
However, Maradona being God doesn’t seem so ridiculous to all outsiders as a fellow expatriate at the service, Anthony Bale, 23 from Glasgow (interestingly the church has 1,500 Scottish members), told me: “What has Jesus done that Maradona hasn’t? They have both performed miracles, just that Maradona’s are actually on record. The ideologies aren’t so different.”
The next service will be on the 22nd June 2009, visit the website for more details: www.iglesiamaradoniana.com.ar
Rupert Howland-Jackson @ 'The Argentines'
World Cup Diary: Day 1
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
Out for the count...
I am of course just kidding as now the Spacebubs and I are going on one of our adventures!
What will happen...
Who will we meet...
What fugups will occur...
And for those that have seen the pic of the Spacebub's hand gesture...
Let me assure you that he will never do that again...
I am of course just kidding as now the Spacebubs and I are going on one of our adventures!
What will happen...
Who will we meet...
What fugups will occur...
And for those that have seen the pic of the Spacebub's hand gesture...
Let me assure you that he will never do that again...
Pope Pleads for Forgiveness Over Abuse Scandal
Addressing the sexual abuse crisis from the seat of the Roman Catholic Church before thousands of white-robed priests, Pope Benedict XVI on Friday begged forgiveness, saying the church would do “everything possible” to prevent priests from abusing children.
“We, too, insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again,” Benedict told thousands of priests and the faithful gathered in St. Peter’s Square for celebrations marking the end of the Vatican’s Year of the Priest.
The pope did not outline specific actions that the church would take to combat abuse, as many had hoped — and as Benedict had pledged at an audience in April. Nor did his remarks go much beyond what he had already said in a letter to Irish Catholics in March and in a private meeting with victims of sexual abuse on Malta in April.
But it was the first time that Benedict had asked forgiveness for the crisis from St. Peter’s Square, the heart of the church itself, and on an occasion focused on priests.
The pope said the Devil was behind the scandal, saying it had emerged now, in the middle of the Vatican’s Year of the Priest, because “the enemy,” or the Devil, wants to see “God driven out of the world.”
“And so it happened that in this very year of joy for the sacrament of the priesthood, the sins of priests came to light — particularly the abuse of the little ones,” the pope added.
He said that in admitting and training men for the priesthood, “We will do everything we can to weigh the authenticity of their vocation and make every effort to accompany priests along their journey, so that the Lord will protect them and watch over them in troubled situations and amid life’s dangers.”
Some victims groups said that Benedict’s remarks did not go far enough.
In a statement, BishopAccountability.org, a lay Catholic group based in the United States, called the pope’s remarks “a great disappointment and a squandered opportunity.”
It called on the pope to “endorse and facilitate certain external measures that would increase transparency and advance justice,” including posting all abuse cases handled by the Vatican on the Vatican Web site and ordering “his bishops to cooperate fully with secular investigations, not oppose them.”
The Vatican has said it advised bishops to cooperate with the authorities in countries where required by law. But in recent years many bishops have said they had not understood how to proceed.
Yet the pope’s remarks on Friday seemed to signal a growing awareness of the extent of the crisis. They came weeks after the pope had said in Portugal that the greatest threat to the church came from “the sin inside the church” rather than from outside and added that “forgiveness is not a substitute for justice.”
In March, the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, dismissed as an “attack” media reports questioning the pope’s role in handling abuse as archbishop of Munich in 1980 and as prefect of the Vatican’s doctrinal office.
On Thursday, it said in a front-page editorial that “the infidelity, even profound, of some priests in some parts of the world has in fact cast a shadow over the credibility of the church in the eyes of many people.”
“The wound will take time to heal and nothing will be as if nothing had happened,” it added.
In St. Peter’s Square on Friday, the Rev. Innocent Jooji, a priest from Abuja, Nigeria, said he welcomed the pope’s remarks on the sexual abuse crisis and wished he would say more. “This is not only the problem of the West, it is a global problem,” Father Jooji said.
“He should go around to a few continents to talk about sex abuse, and the impact would be more,” he added, referring to Benedict. “It’s a problem to face. We need more conversation.”
Rachel Donadio @'NY Times'
The 'Devil is behind the scandal'?
Then the devil is the Catholic church...
This is far too little, far too late!
Mere platitudes...
Mexico cartels join forces
The Mexican government says nearly 23,000 people have died in drug-related violence since a military crackdown on cartels began in 2006.
That announcement comes as officials face a new front in their war against the drug gangs.
Two of Mexico's most powerful cartels have joined forces to battle government security forces as well as a third cartel seeking its own slice of the cross-border drug trade.
Matthew Herbert on "Symphony X" for Recomposed
British electronic music artist Matthew Herbert explains his approach to the adaptation of Gustav Mahler's unfinished 10th Symphony for Deutsche Grammophon's acclaimed series Recomposed. Recomposed encourages protagonists of the electronic dance music scene to uncover contemporary perspectives on the classical repertoire.
Modern advertising?...
At first this video is kind of gross, because why would you want to date someone who smelled like a child (regardless of what deodorant that child was wearing)? But then at a certain point you realize that you would be lucky to date someone who was like this kid, because this kid is awesome. OF course, it would probably be more interesting if the person you were dating was like this kid in the sense that he too was creative and sharp, and exhibited a precocious imagination that belied a sophisticated sense of humor. But if all you can get is a man who ALSO wears Old Spice, the way that this child wears Old Spice, just check the “It’s Complicated” box on Facebook. (Via Epicponyz.)
BarackObama Stand with me in backing clean energy. Send a clear message that the American people are ready for a clean-energy future. http://j.mp/cKspy5
Pantha Du Prince – “Welt Am Draht (Animal Collective Remix)”
Pantha Du Prince (aka German producer Hendrick Weber) is celebrating his short upcoming US tour with this Animal Collective remix. Black Noise track “Stick To My Side” featured Panda Bear, so that guy’s probably a big part of it. It’s got new vocals and percussion (very Animal Collective-esque, as you’d expect). “Welt Am Draft” translates to “World On Wires,” and is also the name of a German sci-fi movie directed by Rainer Fassbinder. Good to know. And good to listen:
Black Noise is out via Rough Trade. These shows are his first in the U.S. in three years:
6/15 – Washington, DC @ U Street Music Hall
6/17 – New York, NY @ Santos Party House
6/18 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
6/17 – New York, NY @ Santos Party House
6/18 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo
New Release: James Blackshaw: All Is Falling
Artist: James Blackshaw
Album: All Is Falling
Release Date: August 24
Label: Young God
Album: All Is Falling
Release Date: August 24
Label: Young God
Tracklist:
01 Part 1
02 Part 2
03 Part 3
04 Part 4
05 Part 5
06 Part 6
07 Part 7
08 Part 8
02 Part 2
03 Part 3
04 Part 4
05 Part 5
06 Part 6
07 Part 7
08 Part 8
Notes: Ninth album from this instrumental arranger and 12-string guitar player; features one continuous suite divided into eight parts.
If it wasn't for the fitba - I wld obviously be giving THIS some attention...
...but as ye ken the fitba comes first!Laurie Anderson 1976
This is when she wld play her violin while stuck in a block of ice...sorry better than her new album...!
Friday, 11 June 2010
Pentagon Manhunt for Julian Assange
Pentagon investigators are trying to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security, government officials tell The Daily Beast.
The officials acknowledge that even if they found the website founder, Julian Assange, it is not clear what they could do to block publication of the cables on Wikileaks, which is nominally based on a server in Sweden and bills itself as a champion of whistleblowers.
“We’d like to know where he is; we’d like his cooperation in this,” one U.S. official said of Assange.
American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait.And given the contents of the cables, the feds have good reason to be concerned.
As The Daily Beast reported June 8, Manning, while posted in Iraq, apparently had special access to cables prepared by diplomats and State Department officials throughout the Middle East, regarding the workings of Arab governments and their leaders, according to an American diplomat.
The cables, which date back over several years, went out over interagency computer networks available to the Army and contained information related to American diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, the diplomat said.
American officials would not discuss the methods being used to find Assange, nor would they say if they had information to suggest where he is now. "We'd like to know where he is; we'd like his cooperation in this," one U.S. official said of Assange...
Continue reading
Philip Shenon @'Daily Beast'
The Republic of Bulimia make us feel sick
From the Daily Mail the other day!
Dear friend, our star striker has died in dreadful accident. DM us your bank account number to inherit his $9.8m.
Experts double estimate of BP oil spill size
As many as 40,000 barrels (1.7m gallons) of oil a day may have been gushing out from a blown-out Gulf of Mexico well, doubling many estimates.
The US Geological Survey says that flow rate could have been reached before a cap was put on the well on 3 June.
BP's chairman has been asked to meet Barack Obama next week, amid assurances from the UK and US that bilateral ties will not be affected by the crisis.
UK PM David Cameron and President Obama will discuss the spill at the weekend.
Oil has been leaking into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on 20 April and sank off the coast of the US state of Louisiana, killing 11 workers.
BP said the device placed on the well collected 15,800 barrels of oil on Wednesday - slightly up on the 15,010 barrels collected in the previous 24-hour period.
Iran a year on...The Guardian investigates
Former elite officers in Revolutionary Guard reveal increasing tensions in Iran regime
VIDEO
Revealed: tensions in Iran's regime
VIDEO
Revealed: tensions in Iran's regime
"I don't know what people expected the president to do exactly, if they want him to go out there and wash pelicans. He's the president. He's not someone who cleans beaches. It's important for us Louisianans to know that we have his support and I think he's communicated that," - Keith Jones, who lost his son in the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.
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