A Final Thanks !!! I’m Buzzing !
3 hours ago
Thursday, 22 July 2010
Censorship: Labor's hidden policy
A MUST READ
Championed by Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, the $30million+ filter is being sold by Labor as an internet block for child pornography, bestiality and extreme pornography with 'wide ranging support from the Australian public' and 'only minimal opposition against'.
But after a new, lengthy investigation it transpires that virtually none of this is true. What Australia will get from this internet filter is a framework for censorship that doesn't stop "the worst of the worst" but will absolutely curtail discussion on politically incorrect topics like euthanasia, safe drug taking and graffiti while banning relatively-tame adult content...
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Nick Ross @'ABC'
Then of course there is THIS wank!
London Opens Bike "Superhighways"
For all its merits, London isn't one of United Kingdom's best cities for cycling. A recent poll ranked it 17th. But Mayor Boris Johnson is trying to change that. This morning he announced the opening of two new "cycle superhighways" in the city. Each is five feet wide, has two lanes so as to accommodate traffic in both directions, and is painted bright blue to "represent freedom." One stretches 8.5 miles from the southern suburb of Merton to the city center. The other runs into town from Barking, in eastern London. Eventually, 12 of these commuter routes will radiate out from the center of London like spokes.
London's cyclists are mostly happy with the new routes, though there are already reports that cars and trucks are encroaching on them, or simply driving in them. But Johnson hopes that his comprehensive plan to support cycling which, along with the superhighways, includes a hew bike-sharing program and a new bike police unit, will spur a city-wide "cycling revolution."
Image: Cable Street cycle superhighway, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 19871340@N00's photostream
Andrew Price @'Good'
As someone who has never driven a car and used to cycle lots in London this is a great idea...
Melbourne already has a couple.
Nels Cline on Miles
Nels recommends these recordings:
Miles Smiles
In A Silent Way
Bitches Brew
Live Evil
Get Up With It
The Miles Davis Podcast Series features a cast of world class musicians sharing their passion for the music of Miles Davis. A collaborative project of Legacy Recordings, Concord Music Group, Verve Records & Rhino, the series is produced by Vella Interactive.
Photo credit: Charles Harris
DJ Makala - Global Sounds Selection
* 01. Healer Selecta – Foundation of Love – Freestyle
* 02. Nickodemus feat. Jay Rodriguez & Ticklah – Funky in the Middle – Wonderwheel
* 03. Me & You – Hoop Loop (Solo Moderna Mix) – Tru Thoughts
* 04. Up Hygh – Compatible (Pth Projects Remix) – Tru Thoughts
* 05. The Society – Sweeping Tom – Freestyle
* 06. Flow Dynamics – Bossa For Bebo (Diesler Mix) – Freestyle
* 07. Basement Freaks – World Fiesta – Innvision
* 08. Kokolo – Congo Bongo (Dj Floro & Ale Costa Mix) – Cañamo / Nuevos Medios
* 09. Kokolo – Afrika Man (Diesler Remix) – Record Kicks
* 10. Kokolo Afrobeat Orchestra – Mister Sinister (Faze Action Vocal Mix) – Jamayka
* 11. Afefe Iku – Bodydrummin – King Street Sounds
HERE
direct download
(left click to play, right click to download)
I once saw God...
...and he scored against Oliver Kahn @ 31. August 1993 in Frankfurt.
One of the finest goals of all times
JayJay Okocha later played for Bolton Wanderers and Hull City in the Premier League
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Happiness and Sadness Spread Just Like Disease
There may be a literal truth underlying the common-sense intuition that happiness and sadness are contagious.
A new study on the spread of emotions through social networks shows that these feelings circulate in patterns analogous to what’s seen from epidemiological models of disease.
Earlier studies raised the possibility, but had not mapped social networks against actual disease models.
“This is the first time this contagion has been measured in the way we think about traditional infectious disease,” said biophysicist Alison Hill of Harvard University.
Data in the research, in the July 7 Proceedings of the Royal Society, comes from the Framingham Heart Study, a one-of-a-kind project which since 1948 has regularly collected social and medical information from thousands of people in Framingham, Massachusetts.
Earlier analyses found that a variety of habits and feelings, including obesity, loneliness, smoking and happiness appear to be contagious.
In the current study, Hill’s team compared patterns of relationships and emotions measured in the study to those generated by a model designed to track SARS, foot-and-mouth disease and other traditional contagions. They discounted spontaneous or immediately shared emotion — friends or relatives undergoing a common experience — and focused on emotional changes that followed changes in others.
In the spread of happiness, the researchers found clusters of “infected” and “uninfected” people, a pattern considered a “hallmark of the infectious process,” said Hill. “For happiness, clustering is what you expect from contagion rates. Whereas for sadness, the clusters were much larger than we’d expect. Something else is going on.”
Happiness proved less social than sadness. Each happy friend increased an individual’s chances of personal happiness by 11 percent, while just one sad friend was needed to double an individual’s chance of becoming unhappy.
Patterns fit disease models in another way. “The more friends with flu that you have, the more likely you are to get it. But once you have the flu, how long it takes you to get better doesn’t depend on your contacts. The same thing is true of happiness and sadness,” said David Rand, an evolutionary dynamics researcher at Harvard. “It fits with the infectious disease framework.”
The findings still aren’t conclusive proof of contagion, but they provide parameters of transmission rates and network dynamics that will guide predictions tested against future Framingham results, said Hill and Rand. And whereas the Framingham study wasn’t originally designed with emotional information in mind, future studies tailored to test network contagion should provide more sophisticated information.
Both Hill and Rand warned that the findings illustrate broad, possible dynamics, and are not intended to guide personal decisions, such as withdrawing from friends who are having a hard time.
“The better solution is to make your sad friends happy,” said Rand.
Brandon Keim @'Wired Science'
The pursuit of secrecy
“Drop it”, ministers strongly advised, as I sensed the government was not coming clean about their role in “extraordinary rendition”, the US practice of secretly transferring terror suspects to places where they were likely to be tortured. It was the familiar attempt to smother an embarrassing tale, a practice at which New Labour and its spin doctors were particularly adept. The first indications from the Con-Lib coalition are that it intends to unearth its predecessor’s activities. William Hague, the foreign secretary, has delivered what he promised before the general election — a judge-led inquiry into allegations of complicity in torture.
What was astonishing was the lengths to which ministers and officials went to cover up their activities. As they persisted in a shameless pursuit of secrecy, they blamed journalists and conspiracy theorists, fed, they claimed, by human rights groups and misguided lawyers, for not letting go.
The determination of the Blair and Brown administrations, which in their very early days promised a new era of openness, to suppress information was more than an instinctive bureaucratic reaction by those simply enjoying power and wanting as quiet a life as possible. Ministers, and Blair in particular, adopted an extraordinarily cavalier attitude to the rule of law, and to constitutional and democratic principles...
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Richard Norton-Taylor @'Index on Censorship'
Down Highway 60 - Off the Grid in the South Hebron Hills
Bedouin villages in the South Hebron Hills are poised to skip the industrial age and take a leap from primitive to sustainable. They will never have to worry about reducing their carbon footprint– unlike those of us from affluent societies in the US or Israel. Renewable energy systems– wind turbines and solar panels are being built for the poorest and most marginalized communities in the occupied West Bank. This help is a matter of life-support. Environmental studies reveal their cisterns are toxic and they have been denied access to the electricity grid servicing nearby settlements. The project is a joint initiative of Israelis and Palestinian community workers who believe borders of fear and racism are best overcome by neighbors working together.
I am traveling on Highway 60 with Ilan, cofounder of Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli soldiers who insist on telling their fellow citizens the price of occupation. Historically this road connected seven major cities: Nablus/Shchem, Genin, Tul-Karem, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Hebron/Halil and Be'ersheva. In 95-6 during the Oslo agreements, the road was shifted to lead 'around' the Bethlehem area. The tunnels near Beit Jallah were dug, establishing the first "Israeli only roads", marking the beginning of "separate roads." Check Points were set up, not quite on the Green Line, shaving land away from Palestinians (as usual). Internationals are supposed to go through Bethlehem near Rachel's Tomb Checkpoint, turning the Beit Jallah "tunnels" into a de-facto apartheid checkpoint. To pass through, one must have either a Blue ID- Israeli citizenship, or 'the Right of Return'. Neither of which I have, but Ilan does not seem worried. West Bank Palestinians are not aloud into Jerusalem without permits and green license plates are not aloud within Israeli '67 lines. They are however allowed on Highway 60 if it is within the Occupied Territory. Jerusalem is effectively off from the the road as is historical continuity, the traditional economy and of course the people.
Ilan is excited to share projects he has been working on in the southern villages. I have brought children’s books for the library in Susya, a village with a bullet proof school bus to protect their children from angry settlers. We are driving on a super fast road that tunnels through the earth, cutting travel time and making it easy to ignore the fact that we are passing beneath Palestinian towns and villages. In a color coded world– white water tanks on Jewish rooftops denote solar, black water tanks on Palestinian rooftops, mergency reserves. Green license plates are for Palestinian cars and yellow for Israeli but the only license plates on Highway 60 are yellow. This road, built on Palestinian land, is exclusively for settlers and Israelis...
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Iris Keltz @'Counterpunch'
Have to say that the most startling aspects of these last two posts from Counterpunch are: 1. Uri Avnery's "proof in the pudding" that Israel's claims to being a democratic state are a farcical misrepresentation of the facts, and that the Knesset's style of government is transforming into rule by fascism, its ostracism of non-Jewish citizens worthy of the Nazi's at their most fanatical. 2. Iris Keltz's comments about car licence plates in Israel, yellow for the Jewish people's cars and green for the Palestinian people's cars, it may not be apartheid for the people(?), but it is certainly apartheid for the cars, judging the cars by the religious persuasion of their owners. One has to ask what would they(the Israeli government) like to ask for next, perhaps the addition of a badge in the shape of a green crescent moon to be worn by all Palestinian residents of Israel, or maybe not.
The walls came down on the dehumanising policies of apartheid in South Africa, through a concerted global effort and the struggles of those denied their humanity by the South African government. The walls came down on the Nazi government of Germany, through the actions of a global effort that spoke for humanity, which refused the apartheid policies dehumanizing the Jewish people of Europe, and the evils that such intolerance created. The walls must come down in Israel, on a government whose policies deny human rights to 20% of the population of Israel by circumstance of their birth, that they were not born Jewish. The walls must come down on the Israeli government that will not recognise a Palestinian state, because of their religion, and because the Israeli government schemes to steal more and more of the Palestinian people's land. The blockade of Gaza and the economic ruin of Palestinian lands, the physical, daily torture of children, their parents and grandparents are indistinguishable from the worst excesses of an apartheid system, and are an unconscionable blight on global humanity. It is time for the world to step forward once again, and denounce Israel for its apartheid inhumanity, BOYCOTT ISRAEL NOW.
A Parliamentary Mob - Inside the Israeli Knesset
WHEN I was first elected to the Knesset, I was appalled at what I found. I discovered that, with rare exceptions, the intellectual level of the debates was close to zero. They consisted mainly of strings of clichés of the most commonplace variety. During most of the debates, the plenum was almost empty. Most participants spoke vulgar Hebrew. When voting, many members had no idea what they were voting for or against, they just followed the party whip.
That was 1967, when the Knesset included members like Levy Eshkol and Pinchas Sapir, David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan, Menachem Begin and Yohanan Bader, Meir Yaari and Yaakov Chazan, for whom today's streets, highroads and neighborhoods are named.
In comparison to the present Knesset, that Knesset now looks like Plato’s Academy.
* * *
WHAT FRIGHTENED me more than anything else was the readiness of members to enact irresponsible laws for the sake of fleeting popularity, especially at times of mass hysteria. One of my first Knesset initiatives was to submit a bill which would have created a second chamber, a kind of Senate, composed of outstanding personalities, with the power to hold up the enactment of new laws and compel the Knesset to reconsider them after an interval. This, I hoped, would prevent laws being hastily adopted in an atmosphere of excitement.
The bill was not considered seriously, neither by the Knesset nor by the general public. The Knesset almost unanimously voted it down. (After some years, several of the members told me that they regretted their vote.) The newspapers nicknamed the proposed chamber “the House of Lords” and ridiculed it. Haaretz devoted a whole page of cartoons to the proposal, depicting me in the garb of a British peer.
So there is no brake. The production of irresponsible laws, most of them racist and anti-democratic, is booming. The more the government itself is turning into an assembly of political hacks, the more the likelihood of its preventing such legislation is diminishing. The present government, the largest, basest and most despised in Israel’s history, is cooperating with the Knesset members who submit such bills, and even initiating them itself.
The only remaining obstacle to this recklessness is the Supreme Court. In the absence of a written constitution, it has taken upon itself the power to annul scandalous laws that violate democracy and human rights. But the Supreme Court itself is beleaguered by rightists who want to destroy it, and is moving with great caution. It intervenes only in the most extreme cases.
Thus a paradoxical situation has arisen: parliament, the highest expression of democracy, is itself now posing a dire threat to Israeli democracy.
* * *
THE MAN who personifies this phenomenon more than anyone else is MK Michael Ben-Ari of the “National Union” faction, the heir of Meir Kahane, whose organization “Kach” (“Thus”) was outlawed many years ago because of its openly fascist character.
Kahane himself was elected to the Knesset only once. The reaction of the other members was unequivocal: whenever he rose to speak, almost all the other members left the hall. The rabbi had to make his speeches before a handful of ultra-right colleagues.
A few weeks ago I visited the present Knesset for the first time since its election. I went there to listen to a debate about a subject that concerns me too: the decision of the Palestinian Authority to boycott the products of the settlements, a dozen years after Gush Shalom started this boycott. I spent some hours in the building, and from hour to hour my revulsion deepened.
The main cause was a circumstance I had not been aware of: MK Ben-Ari, the disciple and admirer of Kahane, holds sway there. Not only is he not an isolated outsider on the fringe of parliamentary life, as his mentor had been, but on the contrary, he is at the center. I saw the members of almost all other factions crowding around him in the members’ cafeteria and listening to his perorations with rapt attention in the plenum. No doubt can remain that Kahanism – the Israeli version of fascism – has moved from the margin to center stage...
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Uri Avnery @'Counterpunch'
Tuesday, 20 July 2010
tonyhawk / Can't carry my extra skateboard on the plane, so I left it in here. Barcelona airport, EasyJet terminal. Finders keepers http://post.ly/nwCr
Monday, 19 July 2010
For fug's sake...
Lord Undertone???
Reward for his music industry efforts - well it's not for his solo crap is it...Guy Fawkes where are you when we really need you?
Hmmm!
Apple CEO Steve Jobs came up with a two-part solution. Part 1: There is no problem. Part 2: Even though there is no problem, we’re going to give everyone a free case, which should insulate the antenna and prevent the interference that we just told you isn’t actually occurring. But if you’re still not happy, you can give back the phone for a full refund. Jobs’s snotty tone made it clear that he was pretty fed up with all the whining about a problem that he says doesn’t exist.
This is classic Apple behavior. No matter what the whole world can see with its own eyes, just keep saying that it isn’t true, and maybe, eventually, everyone will believe you. By refusing to acknowledge the problem, Jobs just reinforced the image of Apple as a company that is in deep denial and unable to admit a mistake—a company that has for so long been able to bend reality to suit its needs that it now has lost touch with reality itself.
Daniel Lyons@ 'Newsweek'
Rupee gets new symbol
India’s rupee has joined the ranks of the US dollar, British pound and Japanese yen in having its own unique symbol.
Announced 15 July, the rupee’s new symbol is an amalgamation of a letter in the Devanagari script—which is used to write Hindi—and the Roman capital “R”.
Previously, the Indian rupee was denoted by the “Rp.” tag.
The rune was designed by Indian Institute of Technology student D Udaya Kumar, after the government announced a contest to create a symbol for the rupee back in March 2009.
Kumar’s winning design was picked from 3,000 entries, and he picked up 250,000 rupees (US$5,363) as a prize.
Indian internet engineering company Foradian Technologies will develop the font for the glyph, which can be downloaded from the company’s blog.
According to India’s Ministry of Finance, the symbol will “lend a distinctive character and identity to the currency and further highlight the strength and robustness of the Indian economy.”
Announced 15 July, the rupee’s new symbol is an amalgamation of a letter in the Devanagari script—which is used to write Hindi—and the Roman capital “R”.
Previously, the Indian rupee was denoted by the “Rp.” tag.
The rune was designed by Indian Institute of Technology student D Udaya Kumar, after the government announced a contest to create a symbol for the rupee back in March 2009.
Kumar’s winning design was picked from 3,000 entries, and he picked up 250,000 rupees (US$5,363) as a prize.
Indian internet engineering company Foradian Technologies will develop the font for the glyph, which can be downloaded from the company’s blog.
According to India’s Ministry of Finance, the symbol will “lend a distinctive character and identity to the currency and further highlight the strength and robustness of the Indian economy.”
Antidepressants Make Shrimps See the Light
Rising levels of antidepressants in coastal waters could change sea-life behaviour and potentially damage the food-chain, according to a new study.
Research into the behaviour of shrimps exposed to the antidepressant fluoxetine, showed that their behaviour is dramatically affected. The shrimps are five times more likely to swim toward the light instead of away from it -- making them more likely to be eaten by fish or birds, which could have devastating effects on the shrimp population.
"Crustaceans are crucial to the food chain and if shrimps' natural behaviour is being changed because of antidepressant levels in the sea this could seriously upset the natural balance of the ecosystem," said Dr Alex Ford from the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Marine Sciences.
"Much of what humans consume you can detect in the water in some concentration. We're a nation of coffee drinkers and there is a huge amount of caffeine found in waste water, for example. It's no surprise that what we get from the pharmacy will also be contaminating the country's waterways."
The research is published in the journal Aquatic Toxicology. The study found that the shrimps' behaviour changes when they are exposed to the same levels of fluoxetine found in the waste water that flows to rivers and estuaries as a result of the drugs humans excrete in sewage.
Dr Ford's research was motivated by a species of parasite which can alter the behaviour of aquatic creatures through changing serotonin levels within the brains of the organisms. Serotonin is a neuro-hormone found in many animals, including humans, known to control types of behaviour, such as modulating mood and decreasing anxiety.
Drugs to combat depression in humans are often designed to target levels of serotonin which led to the question of whether they could also alter the behaviour of marine organisms.
Dr Ford said: "Effluent is concentrated in river estuaries and coastal areas, which is where shrimps and other marine life live -- this means that the shrimps are taking on the excreted drugs of whole towns."
Prescriptions for antidepressants have risen rapidly in recent years, according to the Office for National Statistics. In 2002, there were 26.3 million antidepressant prescriptions handed out by doctors in England and Wales -- yet the environmental effect of pharmaceuticals in sewage has been largely unexplored.
Dr Ford is hoping to carry out future research on a number of other prescribed drugs on the market known to affect serotonin.
Head of the School of Biological Sciences, Professor Matt Guille, said: "Dr Ford has conducted some beautifully simple research, which potentially shows huge ecological consequences. I hope it will lead the way for further study of prescribed drugs and other substances impacting on the country's marine-life."
Marlene off the wall
Marlene Dietrich performing the German version of Pete Seeger's "Where have all the Flowers gone" back in 1963
Das Kraftfuttermischwerk @ Chekov, Cottbus, 17.07.2010
Tracklist:
Butane feat. Midnight – Damned Lecherous Men
Andre Lodemann – The Light
Chris Fortier – Power of One (Power) Mikel Curcio Remix
DJ T – Bateria (Special Dub Mix)
Mathias Kaden – Roots (Luna City Express And Matthias Tanzmann Remix)
In Deep We Trust – Hopscotch – Fine Taste Remix
Harrison Crump – Deep Down Inside (Michel Cleis Remix)
D Dub – Deep Blue (Stimming Remix)
Kaiserdisco – Carambolo (Original Mix)
Mathias Kaden – Rave Strikes Back
Reference – The Best Day in Detroit
Jeff Bennett – Bone Back (Terry Lee Brown Jun. Remix)
Shonky – Bon Baiser De Bombay (Original Mix)
James Teej – Greenback Ft dOP
Bearweasel – Warmer (Lazy Dub)
Wax – WAX 30003 B
Gorge – Keya
Langenberg – Past Present
Marko Furstenberg – Juni Kk (Kollektiv Turmstrasse Vocal Remix)
Consistent – Who Did
Silicone Soul – Dogs Of Les Ilhes (Kollektiv Turmstrasse Remix)
Crystal – Loveshape
Kollektiv Turmstrasse – Grillen im Park
Elting & Lieb Drifting
Rhauder Feat. Paul St. Hilaire – No News – (Rauders Dub Mix)
Dapayk & Midnight – Emergency
direct download
(left click to play; right click to save)
via kfmw
Butane feat. Midnight – Damned Lecherous Men
Andre Lodemann – The Light
Chris Fortier – Power of One (Power) Mikel Curcio Remix
DJ T – Bateria (Special Dub Mix)
Mathias Kaden – Roots (Luna City Express And Matthias Tanzmann Remix)
In Deep We Trust – Hopscotch – Fine Taste Remix
Harrison Crump – Deep Down Inside (Michel Cleis Remix)
D Dub – Deep Blue (Stimming Remix)
Kaiserdisco – Carambolo (Original Mix)
Mathias Kaden – Rave Strikes Back
Reference – The Best Day in Detroit
Jeff Bennett – Bone Back (Terry Lee Brown Jun. Remix)
Shonky – Bon Baiser De Bombay (Original Mix)
James Teej – Greenback Ft dOP
Bearweasel – Warmer (Lazy Dub)
Wax – WAX 30003 B
Gorge – Keya
Langenberg – Past Present
Marko Furstenberg – Juni Kk (Kollektiv Turmstrasse Vocal Remix)
Consistent – Who Did
Silicone Soul – Dogs Of Les Ilhes (Kollektiv Turmstrasse Remix)
Crystal – Loveshape
Kollektiv Turmstrasse – Grillen im Park
Elting & Lieb Drifting
Rhauder Feat. Paul St. Hilaire – No News – (Rauders Dub Mix)
Dapayk & Midnight – Emergency
direct download
(left click to play; right click to save)
via kfmw
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