ggreenwaldIt's a little tiresome watching Americans continuously decide that the wars they supported were "a mistake," only to cheer for the next one Vietnam? A mistake. Iraq? A mistake. Afghanistan? A mistake. http://is.gd/e0nAt Iran? DO IT!!! http://is.gd/e0nI8
BP has trained a cadre of specialized oil spill cleaning animals so they'll put less humans at risk. Here's a picture of one of them.
LaraABCNewsA top tier UN source just said Israel-Lebanon border fight is ongoing - actually 'deteriorating.' Three confirmed dead and several wounded38 minutes ago via web
The Spaceboy and I had a little adventure a bit like this today. We had just crossed a level crossing and turned a corner when we heard an almighty bang and two cars had crashed with one coming onto the pavement where we had been seconds before!
Mongolian neo-Nazi group the Tsagaan Khas ('White Swastika') salute on the streets of the capital Ulan Bator Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian
Their right hands rise to black-clad chests and flash out in salute to their nation: "Sieg heil!" They praise Hitler's devotion to ethnic purity.
But with their high cheekbones, dark eyes and brown skin, they are hardly the Third Reich's Aryan ideal. A new strain of Nazism has found an unlikely home: Mongolia.
Once again, ultra-nationalists have emerged from an impoverished economy and turned upon outsiders. This time the main targets come from China, the rising power to the south.
Groups such as Tsagaan Khass, or White Swastika, portray themselves as patriots standing up for ordinary citizens in the face of foreign crime, rampant inequality, political indifference and corruption.
But critics say they scapegoat and attack the innocent. The US state department has warned travellers of increased assaults on inter-racial couples in recent years – including organised violence by ultra-nationalist groups.
Dayar Mongol threatened to shave the heads of women who sleep with Chinese men. Three years ago, the leader of Blue Mongol was convicted of murdering his daughter's boyfriend, reportedly because the young man had studied in China.
Though Tsagaan Khass leaders say they do not support violence, they are self-proclaimed Nazis. "Adolf Hitler was someone we respect. He taught us how to preserve national identity," said the 41-year-old co-founder, who calls himself Big Brother.
"We don't agree with his extremism and starting the second world war. We are against all those killings, but we support his ideology. We support nationalism rather than fascism."
It is, by any standards, an extraordinary choice. Under Hitler, Soviet prisoners of war who appeared Mongolian were singled out for execution. More recently, far-right groups in Europe have attacked Mongolian migrants.
Not all ultra-nationalists use this iconography; and widespread ignorance about the Holocaust and other atrocities may help to explain why some do.
Tsagaan Khass points out that the swastika is an ancient Asian symbol – which is true, but does not explain the group's use of Nazi colours, the Nazi eagle and the Nazi salute; or the large picture of the Führer on Big Brother's cigarette case.
Nor does it seem greatly relevant, given their unabashed admiration for Hitler's racial beliefs.
"We have to make sure that as a nation our blood is pure. That's about our independence," said 23-year-old Battur, pointing out that the population is under three million.
"If we start mixing with Chinese, they will slowly swallow us up. Mongolian society is not very rich. Foreigners come with a lot of money and might start taking our women."
Big Brother acknowledges he discovered such ideas through the nationalist groups that emerged in Russia after the Soviet Union's fall; Mongolia had been a satellite state. But the anti-Chinese tinge is distinct and increasingly popular.
"While most people feel far-right discourse is too extreme, there seems to be a consensus that China is imperialistic, 'evil' and intent on taking Mongolia," said Franck Billé of Cambridge University, who is researching representations of Chinese people in Mongolia.
Hip hop tracks such as Don't Go Too Far, You Chinks by 4 Züg – chorus: "shoot them all, all, all" – have been widely played in bars and clubs. Urban myths abound; some believe Beijing has a secret policy of encouraging men to have sex with Mongolian women.
Yet Tsagaan Khass claims it welcomes law-abiding visitors of all races, and Big Brother can certainly be hospitable.
Enthusiastically shaking hands, he says: "Even though you are a British citizen, you are still Asian, and that makes you very cool."
He says the younger members have taught him to be less extreme and the group appears to be reshaping itself – expelling "criminal elements" and insisting on a good education as a prerequisite for membership. One of the leaders is an interior designer.
But critics fear ultra-nationalists are simply becoming more sophisticated and, quietly, more powerful. Tsagaan Khass say it "works closely" with other organisations and is now discussing a merger.
"Some people are in complete denial … [but] we can no longer deny this is a problem," said Anaraa Nyamdorj, of Mongolia's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Centre.
The US state department has noted increased reports of xenophobic attacks since the spring. The UN country review cites a recent vicious assault on three young transgender women. When one of the victims publicly blamed an ultra-nationalist group – not Tsagaan Khass – death threats quickly followed.
"They are getting more support from the public," added Enkhjargal Davaasuren, director of the National Centre Against Violence, who fears that ultra-nationalists are growing more confident and victims too scared to come forward. She pointed to a YouTube video posted last year, showing a man roughly shaving a woman's long hair. The victim's face is buried in her hands, but her hunched body reeks of fear.
Others in Ulan Bator suggest the movement is waning and suspect the groups' menacing stance and claims of 3,000 members are bluster. Billé thinks there is "a lot of posturing".
"We have heard of instances [of violence]. They are not necessarily all right or all wrong," said Javkhlan, a Tsagaan Khass leader. But the group is simply a "law enforcement" body, he maintained: "We do checks; we go to hotels and restaurants to make sure Mongolian girls don't do prostitution and foreigners don't break the laws.
"We don't go through and beat the shit out of everyone. We check our information and make sure it's true."
They rely on police and media pressure to reform such businesses, he added. And if that failed? "We try to avoid using power," he said. "That would be our very last resort."
When the vinyl LP began its modest but highly publicized commercial comeback a few years ago, the format felt easy to love again. With sprawling artwork, pristine sound quality and the adoring ritual of flipping album sides, its return united young bohemia and their boomer parents alike.
Not so for the lowly cassette tape. To mainstream music fans who spent the '80s detangling spools with a paper clip, listening to heat-damaged sounds warble out of the speakers and blindly fast-forwarding and reversing to get to a favorite song, cassettes might be the most despised, instantly discarded and fidelity-challenged medium to ever vie for mass popularity...
Ah cassettes - I still have boxes and boxes (and boxes!) of them. There was nothing like making up mix tapes for people you wanted to get closer to. I thoroughly recommend this book on the 'mix tape culture'...
...and it goes without saying that I made fugn great mixes!
"This is the only way I could contact you for now, I want you to be very careful about this and keep this secret with you until I make out space for us to see. You have no need of knowing who I am or where I am from. I know this may sound very surprising to you but it's the situation. I have been paid some ransom in advance to terminate you with some reasons listed to me by my employer. It's someone I believe you call a friend; I have followed you closely for a while now and have seen that you are innocent of the accusations he leveled against you. Do not contact the police or try to send a copy of this to them, because if you do, I will know, and I might be pushed to do what I have been paid to do. Besides, this is the ist time I turn out to be a betrayer in my job. I took pity on you, that is why I have made up my mind to help you if you are willing to help yourself.
Now listen, I will arrange for us to see face to face, but before that, I need $15,000. I will come to your home or you determine where you wish we meet; I repeat, do not arrange for the cops and if you play hard to get, it will be extended to your family. Do not set any camera to cover us or set up any tape to record our conversation; my employer is in my control now. Payment details will be provided for you to make a part payment of $9,000 first, which will serve as guarantee that you are ready to co-operate, then I will post a copy of the video tape that contains his request for me to terminate you which will be enough evidence for you to take any legal action against him before he employs another person for the job. You will pay the balance of $6,000 once you receive the tape.
Warning; do not contact the police, make sure you stay indoors once it is 7.30pm every day until this whole thing is sorted out, if you neglect any of these warnings, you will have yourself to blame. You do not have much time, so get back to me immediately
Note: I will advise you keep this to yourself alone, not even a friend or a family member should know about it because it could be one of them."
In 2007 Radiohead sent a shockwave through the music industry by allowing fans to download their new 'self-released' album 'In Rainbows' for whatever price they wanted to pay, including nothing. Fast-forward three years and the RIAA and IFPI are sending takedown notices to people who share that album online. What happened?
After sitting out their contact with EMI, Radiohead self-released their latest album ‘In Rainbows’ and gave fans the option to download it for the price they felt comfortable paying. Not only was this one of the best promotional campaigns of the last decade, it also brought in serious money.
Radiohead said that the scheme made more money online than all of their other albums combined. The band was obviously proud that they had bypassed the major labels successfully. In the years that followed the band members lobbied for more rights for artists, and less power for the labels.
Last year, Radiohead and several other well known artists formed a lobby group with the aim of ending the extortion-like practices of record labels and allowing artists to gain more control over their own work. The artists were unhappy with the fact that the labels, represented by lobby groups such as the RIAA and IFPI, push their anti-piracy agenda without consulting the artists they claim to represent.
Going after fans is not the solution to the problems the industry is facing, they argued.
Considering the above, it came as a surprise to us when we found out that the RIAA and IFPI are still taking anti-piracy measures on behalf of Radiohead. Both the RIAA and IFPI have been sending out takedown notices to Google (RIAA, IFPI), urging it to disable blogger accounts and filter search results where Radiohead’s ‘In Rainbows’ is offered for free. What went wrong here?
Although some people think that the ‘In Rainbows’ album is still available for free, the free offer really only lasted a few months. After that, the revolutionary ‘pay-what-you-want’ model was traded in for traditional licensing schemes with major labels.
The download versions of the album are still self-released, but for the physical copies Radiohead teamed up with record labels such as Warner and Sony. Because of these deals, major record labels now have the ‘rights’ to a piece of ‘In Rainbows’ and they are using this power to take down copies that are distributed online without their authorization.
It is of course ironic that an album that was once seen as the next step towards a new business model in the music industry, is now heavily protected by industry anti-piracy bodies. On the other hand, it is doubtful if the takedown requests are actually legitimate because the labels have the rights to physical distribution, not digital.
TorrentFreak contacted a Radiohead representative to discuss RIAA and IFPI practices but they declined to comment. Still, with all the sensible comments the band’s members have made about sharing in the past, we assume that they don’t approve of the tactics employed by the RIAA and IFPI. Or do they?
Liverpool could be bought by a Chinese business tycoon within days, according to a source close to the deal.
Kenny Huang, head of Hong Kong-based investment company QSL Sports Ltd, wants to take full control of the Reds, who have been up for sale since April.
"A deal has to be done before the transfer window closes [on 31 August]," a source close to Huang told BBC Sport.
"Huang has made a firm proposal. The club's board has to sanction the sale and it could be sewn up in days."
Huang has been talking for several weeks to representatives of the Royal Bank of Scotland, with the aim of taking full control of the Premier League club.
RBS are Liverpool's main creditors, owed about £237m by American co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
"Kenny is the only serious bidder interested in the club and he's optimistic," added the source.
Huang is offering to clear Liverpool's debt to RBS and hand new manager Roy Hodgson funds to do business in the transfer window.
The tycoon also plans to build the club a new stadium as soon as possible.
Huang was reported to have turned down the chance to buy Liverpool in 2008 because he felt a valuation of £650m was too high. BBC Sport understands he now values the club at about £350m.
Hicks and Gillett bought the Reds in March 2007 in a deal that valued the club at £218.9m.
But the American duo have endured a difficult time at Anfield, with supporters regularly voicing their dissatisfaction at the level of debt taken on by the club after their buyout.
Last October, several hundred Liverpool fans staged a protest march against the owners ahead of their Premier League match against Manchester United.
The board's popularity with the fans disintegrated further when Hicks' son, Tom Hicks Jr, became embroiled in a row with a supporter who alleged the American had sent him abusive emails.
As a result, Hicks Jr resigned as a director of the club and parent company Kop Holdings, leading to a restructure of the board.
Gillett and Hicks have also endured a fractious relationship with each other, which early on in their reign threatened to undermine their ownership with the former revealing the partnership had become "unworkable".
In 2008, Hicks blocked Gillett's moves to sell his 50% share to Dubai International Capital group as the pair feuded over future plans for the club.
An outright £500m takeover bid by the DIC group was also rebuffed, with Hicks hinting he would attempt an outright takeover bid himself.
They subsequently patched up their differences but took the decision less than four months ago to put the club up for sale, insisting there had been numerous expressions of interest in a buyout.
British Airways boss Martin Broughton was brought in as Liverpool chairman in April to facilitate the sale of the club and along with Hicks and Gillett is part of a five-man board at Liverpool that also includes chief executive Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre.
Australian weapons and equipment have repeatedly been discovered among Taliban stockpiles, raising fears that Afghan troops trained by Diggers have been pilfering military supplies.
Documents released by the WikiLeaks website show that in the past six years International Security Assistance Force troops have uncovered Australian mortar shells, a hand-grenade and other equipment when defusing roadside bombs and capturing Taliban weapons stores.
Australian soldiers have trained hundreds of Afghan army soldiers, and work alongside Afghan police.
Last December a NATO patrol found Australian equipment in a Taliban weapons cache, alongside AK-47 rifles and materials to make roadside bombs. The equipment found is used by Australian soldiers to ensure their safety during offensives, and if used by insurgents it could disrupt the distinct advantage held by NATO troops.
The Defence Department has asked the Herald not to publish any details identifying this equipment. The department is reviewing the tens of thousands of WikiLeaks documents and did not respond directly to the reports about Australian weapons, other than saying ''an important part of this review will be determining whether there are force protection implications for our personnel''.
Last year the US found there were incomplete records for about a third of $US4 billion ($4.4 billion) worth of US-purchased weapons used by the Afghan military.
US soldiers training Afghan forces have repeatedly complained about pilfering, with one US officer reported as saying: ''It's not, 'Let me teach you your job'. It's more like, 'How much did you steal from the American government today?' ''
Defence sources with experience of training in Oruzgan province doubted that Australian weapons were going missing. Such reports are ''probably a load of crap'', said one source. ''There may be a misunderstanding about what is being reported.''
Sources said Afghans usually use their own weapons, not Australian munitions, when trained by Australian troops.
The Taliban have been found to have used rifles, mortars and other weapons made in the US, Russia and China.
The years 1977 to 1983 saw an explosion of musical creativity in inner city Sydney and Melbourne. Following the do-it-yourself revolution of punk, young Australians were inspired to make challenging music without boundaries, to form bands, start independent labels, and to run live music venues, all outside the commercially driven confines of the mainstream industry. This groundbreaking activity laid the foundation for contemporary music in Australia. The vital output from Australian post punk has gained an international reputation.
Sydney's inner city post punk music scene revolves around a social set based in the terrace houses and industrial spaces of then run-down Darlinghurst and Surry Hills. Bands shared living spaces, rehearsal rooms, equipment, and band members, forging sounds without precedence. And for the first time, women were taking their place as equal and integral players. Inner city pubs and clubs, faced with a dwindling clientele of working men, opened their doors to the art-punk bands and an enthusiastic audience soon followed. Iconic venues included the Sussex Hotel and the Trade Union Club. By 1980, the burgeoning scene also gave rise to the independent labels M Squared and Terse Tapes.
Melbourne's post punk scene is defined by distinct locations, and ideologies - the North Fitzroy Beat; St Kilda's Crystal Ballroom; and the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre. Led by Melbourne's most infamous band the Primitive Calculators, the North Fitzroy Beat gave rise to the anarchic Little Bands movement, with the Calculators inviting anyone to step up and use their music equipment. Meanwhile 'south of the river', St Kilda was the decadent playground of larger-than-life groups such as the Birthday Party, the Moodists, and the touring Go-Betweens. The Clifton Hill Community Music Centre was an experimental space for a strange mix of Melbourne intelligentsia, music academics, and precocious post-punks, giving rise to the groups Tsk Tsk Tsk and Essendon Airport.
On March 4, 31-year-old Toni Tramel was arrested for public drunkenness and taken to the Daviess County Detention Center in Owensboro. Officer Lula Brown reports that she instructed Tramel to change into a jail uniform, but that Tramel was "too intoxicated to complete the task on her own."
Brown instructed Tramel that she "needed to take her shirt and bra off," at which point, according to the police officer, Tramel "took off her bra, grabbed her breast and squirted breast milk, hitting me in the face and neck region."
The officer then forced Tramel against the wall and requested a smock from other jail personnel.
"Inmate Toni Tramel attempted to squirt breast milk again but was unsuccessful," Brown reported.
Brown's report and a police department press release both note that after the incident, Brown was able to "clean the bio-hazard off her."
In addition to public drunkenness, a misdemeanor, Tramel was then charged with third-degree assault, a felony, and is being held on $10,000 bond.
The police use of the term "biohazard" to describe breast milk has sparked a furor, with bloggers and commentators questioning whether the severity of the assault charges truly corresponds to the alleged offense. Other commentators have questioned the police account that Tramel squirted Brown deliberately, noting that it is not uncommon for milk to squirt from lactating women's breasts by accident, sometimes reaching across long distances.
"While lactating I have had breast milk 'squirt' out of my breast in a stream that hit clothes hanging in my closet while trying to find something to wear," one anonymous Web poster said. "It could have been an accident."
A short piece on how the limited edition art pieces for the new Matthew Dear album Black City were made by artisan sculptors. Designed by Boym Partners, the MDBC Totem were cast in bonded aluminum with a hand-finished gun metal patina.
Each totem is inscribed with a short code that allows the owner to access/download the album from matthewdear.com. You get the album and the you get the art without the media getting in the way.
The song is "Monkey" taken from the upcoming album Black City.
(P.S. Sesame Street deserves some credit for the video inspiration: youtube.com/watch?v=8bzq81Und4M )
In the wake of strong U.S. government statements condemning WikiLeaks’ recent publishing of 77,000 Afghan War documents, the secret-spilling site has posted a mysterious encrypted file labeled “insurance.”
The huge file, posted on the Afghan War page at the WikiLeaks site, is 1.4 GB and is encrypted with AES256. The file’s size dwarfs the size of all the other files on the page combined. The file has also been posted on a torrent download site.
WikiLeaks, on Sunday, posted several files containing the 77,000 Afghan war documents in a single “dump” file and in several other files containing versions of the documents in various searchable formats.
Cryptome, a separate secret-spilling site, has speculated that the new file added days later may have been posted as insurance in case something happens to the WikiLeaks website or to the organization’s founder, Julian Assange. In either scenario, WikiLeaks volunteers, under a prearranged agreement with Assange, could send out a password or passphrase to allow anyone who has downloaded the file to open it.
It’s not known what the file contains but it could include the balance of data that U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning claimed to have leaked to Assange before he was arrested in May.
In chats with former hacker Adrian Lamo, Manning disclosed that he had provided Assange with a different war log cache than the one that WikiLeaks already published. This one was said to contain 500,000 events from the Iraq War between 2004 and 2009. WikiLeaks has never commented on whether it received that cache.
Additionally, Manning said he sent Assange video showing a deadly 2009 U.S. firefight near the Garani village in Afghanistan that local authorities say killed 100 civilians, most of them children, as well as 260,000 U.S. State Department cables.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen strongly condemned WikiLeaks’ publication of the Afghan War log at a Pentagon press briefing on Thursday.
Gates said the leak was “potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and our Afghan partners” and said that “tactics, techniques and procedures will become known to our adversaries” as a result.
Mullen was even more direct and said that WikiLeaks “might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier” or an Afghan informant who aided the United States.
Several media outlets have found the names of Afghan informants in the documents WikiLeaks published, as well as information identifying their location in some instances. A Taliban spokesman told Britain’s Channel 4 news that the group was sifting through the WikiLeaks documents to get the names of suspected informants and would punish anyone found to have collaborated with the United States and its allies.
Wired.com has sent a message to WikiLeaks inquiring about the file.
It is not unusual for members of the diminishing upper middle class to drop $20,000 or $30,000 on a big wedding. But for celebrities this large sum wouldn’t cover the wedding dress or the flowers.
When country music star Keith Urban married actress Nicole Kidman in 2006, their wedding cost $250,000. This large sum hardly counts as a celebrity wedding. When mega-millionaire real estate mogul Donald Trump married model Melania Knauss, the wedding bill was $1,000,000.
The marriages of Madonna and film director Guy Ritchie, Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren, and Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones pushed up the cost of celebrity marriages to $1.5 million.
Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes upped the ante to $2,000,000.
Now comes the politicians’s daughter as celebrity. According to news reports, Chelsea Clinton’s wedding to investment banker Mark Mezvinsky on July 31 is costing papa Bill $3,000,000. According to the London Daily Mail, the total price tag will be about $5,000,000. The additional $2,000,000 apparently is being laid off on US Taxpayers as Secret Service costs for protecting former president Clinton and foreign heads of state, such as the presidents of France and Italy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who are among the 500 invited guests along with Barbara Streisand, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ted Turner, and Clinton friend and donor Denise Rich, wife of the Clinton-pardoned felon.
Before we attend to the poor political judgment of such an extravagant affair during times of economic distress, let us wonder aloud where a poor boy who became governor of Arkansas and president of the United States got such a fortune that he can blow $3,000,000 on a wedding.
The American people did not take up a collection to reward him for his service to them.
Where did the money come from? Who was he really serving during his eight years in office?
How did Tony Blair and his wife, Cherrie, end up with an annual income of ten million pounds (approximately $15 million dollars) as soon as he left office? Who was Blair really serving?
These are not polite questions, and they are infrequently asked.
While Chelsea’s wedding guests eat a $11,000 wedding cake and admire $250,000 floral displays, Lisa Roberts in Ohio is struggling to raise contributions for her food pantry in order to feed 3,000 local people, whose financial independence was destroyed by investment bankers, job offshoring, and unaffordable wars. The Americans dependent on Lisa Roberts’ food pantry are living out of vans and cars. Those with a house roof still over their heads are packed in as many as 14 per household according to the Chillicothe Gazette in Ohio.
The Chilicothe Gazette reports that Lisa Roberts’ food pantry has “had to cut back to half rations per person in order to have something for everyone who needed it.”
Theresa DePugh stepped up to the challenge and had the starving Ohioans write messages on their food pantry paper plates to President Obama, who has just obtained another $33 billion to squander on a pointless war in Afghanistan that serves no purpose whatsoever except the enrichment of the military/security complex and its shareholders.
The Guardian (UK) reports that according to US government reports, one million American children go to bed hungry, while the Obama regime squanders hundreds of billions of dollars killing women and children in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The Guardian’s reporting relies on a US government report from the US Department of Agriculture, which concludes that 50 million people in the US--one in six of the population--were unable to afford to buy sufficient food to stay healthy in 2008.
US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that he expected the number of hungry Americans to worsen when the survey for 2010 is released.
Today in the American Superpower, one of every six Americans is living on food stamps.
The Great American Superpower, which is wasting trillions of dollars in pursuit of world hegemony, has 22% of its population unemployed and almost 17% of its population dependent on welfare in order to stay alive.
The world has not witnessed such total failure of government since the final days of the Roman Empire. A handful of American oligarchs are becoming mega-billionaires while the rest of the country goes down the drain.
ggreenwald It's a little tiresome watching Americans continuously decide that the wars they supported were "a mistake," only to cheer for the next one
Iran? DO IT!!! http://is.gd/e0nI8
