Girlz With Gunz # 130

DAVE STEVENS

via goldenagecomicbookstories

FOR MONA!

Giovanni Bortolani - Fake Too Fake

via

Backyard astronomer discovers supernova

The signs of the major celestial event, a colossal detonation, flashed across the universe for millions of years before reaching the first person on earth to become aware of it: a man in a shed in Dublin.

The achievement of an amateur star-watcher in spotting a supernova, one of the most dramatic events of the heavens, has been hailed as "the biggest thing ever discovered in Irish astronomy". A supernova is a cataclysmic explosion during which a star self-destructs with such force it destroys nearby suns and planets. They are spotted reasonably frequently from Earth, but this is the first ever identified from Ireland. Dave Grennan, a 39-year-old software developer who is a committed watcher of the skies, devotes many hours to astronomy.

He said it was "mind-boggling" to be the first person to witness something which happened in the time of the dinosaurs. "We are watching an event as it is unfolding, yet that event happened nearly 300 million years ago," he said. The time-lag is on a scale almost as difficult to comprehend as Ireland's astronomical debt. The far-away star has been designated "2010ik" after its supernova status was confirmed this week by international astronomy bodies.

Mr Grennan said: "I was going to wrap things up and go to bed, and then I thought, 'Dave, you don't make discoveries in bed – at least not those sort of discoveries'." He said his wife, Carol, was "more excited about this discovery than I was", adding with a certain inevitability: "She was over the moon." A former chairman of Astronomy Ireland, Mr Grennan made his discovery while poring over photographs he had taken of a galaxy called UGC 112 from his compact but well-equipped backyard observatory. The signs were tiny but his long experience helped him spot them – he has been interested in astronomy since he was a boy.

He has examined thousands of galaxies over the past decade, and in recent years has also identified two asteroids. "I find myself wondering if there were some poor souls living on planets surrounding the star when it exploded," he said. "We'll never know."

David Moore, chairman of Astronomy Ireland, said it was an unusual supernova which would interest scientists worldwide. "We could not find words to explain it, I've been waiting for this to happen for decades," he said.

The star will be visible through powerful telescopes for up to three months.

David McKittrick @'The Independent'

October 16th: International day of Action against Agribusiness and Monsanto

On the occasion of the meeting of the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, and to mark World Food Day on October 16, 2010, La Via Campesina calls for actions around the world to denounce the role of agribusinesses such as Monsanto and their destruction and corporatization of biodiversity and life.

Even though the UN declared 2010 the International year of Biodiversity, the CBD is meeting at a time of unprecedented biodiversity destruction. As well as animals, insects and birds, the world is also seeing the disappearance of thousands of plant varieties as agribusiness destroys, contaminates and privatizes the World Heritage stored inside the seeds and plants nurtured by generations of farmers over thousands of years of agriculture on Earth. Since 1900, approximately 90% of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops has been lost from farmer's fields. Biodiversity is also endangered by land-grabbing and the displacement of communities who are actually protecting biodiversity.

Agribusiness corporations are attempting to monopolize seeds through the use of hybrid seeds, patents and laws that make farmers' seeds illegal. Intellectual property rights systems that are upheld or enforced by institutions such as WTO or TRIPS are putting nature into private hands. Monsanto has become a true giant – the company owns almost a quarter of the patented seed market worldwide, and keeps taking over seeds companies particularly in Europe. The top ten biggest companies control almost 70% of the world's seeds. The company is now entering the “aid business”, selling its seeds in Africa with the Bill Gates Foundation through the “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA)”.

Not only do the TNCs sell seeds, they also provide toxic chemicals with devastating effects. Huge monocultures treated with cocktails of agrochemicals will further destroy the world's biodiversity as well as peasant communities. In the world of Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and others, there is no space for biodiversity, just uniformity, biotechnology and profit.

Within the decision making spaces on climate change, agribusiness promotes aggressively technologies that destroy biodiversity such as transgenic trees plantations or GM seeds, solutions which are fasly presented as better adapted to the new climate.

La Via Campesina knows that the future of our planet depends on our ability to protect, nurture and promote agro biodiversity. We, peasant men and women propose to develop the richness and diversity of our farms, plant varieties, cultures and traditions. Seeds are part of the World Heritage and should remain into public and community-based use, not private ownership.

It is the model of peasant agriculture in its diversity that will allow us to adapt to the demographic and climatic changes which are already upon us.

As we confront the agribusinesses in our fields through promoting our alternatives, we refuse to recognize their “rights” as owners of the planet's biodiversity and we will also confront them through political actions in the coming weeks, at the FAO, the CBD and the UN Climate Talks (UNFCCC).

We call for Actions worldwide around October 16th to protect biodiversity and confront transnational corporations such as Monsanto.

HERE

IFC Finalizes €100 Million Deal to Push Water Privatization

The International Finance Corporation, the private investment arm of the World Bank, quietly finalized its €100 million investment in a corporation poised to expand water privatization across Eastern Europe at the exact moment when the same approach is exploding in failure in the Philippines and elsewhere."The IFC's attempt to simply let this deal sneak onto the books is telling, considering the size and profile of the investment," says Joby Gelbspan, senior Program coordinator for Corporate Accountability International, a 33-year-old corporate watchdog organization. "The IFC may be growing less proud of an investment in water privatization when, at this very moment, the same approach in the Philippines is resulting in protests, water shortages and a deepening political crisis there."

The IFC announced June 2 its intention to double its 2009 investment proposal and make a €100 million equity investment in Veolia Voda, the Eastern European subsidiary of the world's largest private water corporation. The investment was quietly transferred to Veolia Voda on June 24, the corporation confirmed to Gelbspan, though no news release was issued by either Veolia or the World Bank. Traditionally, months pass between announcement of the IFC's intention to make such an investment and the deal's execution.

The investment reflects a belief among World Bank institutions that creating access to safe drinking water in the developing world requires greater corporate control of water. By taking such a large ownership stake in Veolia Voda, however, critics charge that the IFC has created for itself a troubling financial incentive to ignore evidence that their belief is misplaced.

Despite repeated affirmations by the United Nations that access to safe water is a fundamental human right, indeed the "precursor to all other human rights," nearly a billion people still lack access to this essential resource.

A similar equity investment by the IFC in a Veolia competitor operating in the Philippines produced disastrous results for people living in and around Manila, Gelbspan says, who now face alarming water shortages. The seeds of this summer's crisis there were planted with the shift to water privatization, she says - a mistake the IFC is repeating with its investment in Veolia Voda. Numerous spokespeople in the Philippines, from water justice activists and economists to government and church officials, have spoken publicly this summer about the causal relationship between privatization and lack of sufficient water access.

"For these big water corporations, it's all profit and few pipes," Gelbspan says. "Veolia Voda has made clear it will not be investing in infrastructure to improve water access in Eastern Europe. Rather, it plans to squeeze out profits in the operation and maintenance of water systems by tightening up billing and downsizing staff. How this will bring clean drinking water reliably to more people is a mystery."

@'Common Dreams'

The Tea-Partiers: Christianists, Not Libertarians

George Gillett and Tom Hicks stand to lose £144m from Liverpool sale

♪♫ The Bug - Catch A Fire

The Bug - Skeng (Autechre Dub)

(click on the arrow symbol for download)

via disquiet

Steve Albini GQ Interview

“I'm not really interested in participating in mainstream culture. Participating in the mainstream music business is, to me, like getting involved in a racket. There's no way you can get involved in a racket and not someway be filthied by it. You're another catalog item, another name on the list of people who are collaborating with the enemy. But by the same token I don't know what circumstances every other band is in and what they feel forces their hand at some point. I know some bands feel like they have the choice between working with someone at the independent level who they think is inept, or working with someone in the mainstream—who may also be inept, but at the very least may give them some money. That's the kind of choice I never want to have to make for myself. If I had been approached by a big record label when I was eighteen years old, after I had just made my first demo—that happens quite often now, bands get approached quite young—I have no doubt whatsoever I would have signed the first thing anybody waggled in front of my nose. I can't fault someone who operates out of ignorance and gets involved with a corrupt industry. They literally don't know any better. I can fault the people who put them in that position—agents, lawyers, music business professionals who put him in a position of signing away the next twenty years of his life. But the kid who's in those circumstances, I can't really cast any judgment.”

Steve Albini@'GQ'

Jewish group lashes out at Pink Floyd star's 'anti-Semitic' imagery

Roger Waters' performances of 'Goodbye Blue Sky' accompanied by images of planes dropping bombs in the shape of Stars of David and dollar signs, says ADL.
The Anti-Defamation League has lashed out at rock star Roger Waters, claiming imagery used in his latest tour is anti-Semitic.

Waters is a vocal critic of Israel's policies and his 2010-2011 'The Wall Live' Tour that takes aim at Israel’s West Bank security fence.
While Waters had every right to express his political views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through his music and stagecraft, the images he has chosen had crossed a line into anti-Semitism, Foxman said.

We wish that Waters had chosen some other way to convey his political views without playing into and dredging up the worst age-old anti-Semitic stereotype about Jews and their supposed obsession with making money," he said.

Waters used a 2009 tour of Israel to highlight his criticism of Israel's controversial barrier surrounding the West Bank, calling it an “awful thing” amounting to a land grab and openly hoping that “it was destroyed soon.”
@'Haaretz'

Roger Water's Reply at His Website:
In a recent news item on Foxnews/online, subsequently abridged in The London Evening Standard, Abraham Foxman, head of the ADL,(Anti Defamation League) in the USA, accuses my new production of "The Wall" and by implication me, of anti-Semitism. A serious charge that demands a response. Had Mr Foxman come to my show before passing judgement and commenting publicly he might, I hope, have held his peace, as there is no anti Semitism in "The Wall" show. The song to which he refers, "Goodbye Blue Sky", describes how ordinary people, military and civilians alike, suffer trauma in the aftermath of war. The visuals that accompany the song show waves of B52 bombers dropping various symbols from bomb bays on a war ravaged landscape. The symbols are: in no particular order, a Crucifix, a Hammer and Sickle, a Star of David, A Crescent and Star, a Mercedes sign, a Dollar sign, and a Shell Oil sign. Mr Foxman's concern was that potentially the juxtoposition of a Star of David and a Dollar sign might incite hatred of Jews. Contrary to Mr Foxman's assertion, there are no hidden meanings in the order or juxtaposition of these symbols. The point I am trying to make in the song is that the bombardment we are all subject to by conflicting religious, political, and economic ideologies only encourages us to turn against one another, and I mourn the concommitant loss of life.
In so far as The Wall has a political message it is to seek to illuminate our condition, and find new ways to encourage peace and understanding, particularly in the Middle East.
Incidentally, being from England, I had never heard of the ADL until today, but I have googled them and I see from their mission statement of 1913 that their brief is not only to defend the Jewish people from defamation, but also, and I quote, " to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens". Perhaps we should all focus on that lofty ideal and stop cowering in our corners throwing stones at one another.

"The visuals that accompany the song show waves of B52 bombers dropping various symbols from bomb bays on a war ravaged landscape. The symbols are: in no particular order, a Crucifix, a Hammer and Sickle, a Star of David, A Crescent and Star, a Mercedes sign, a Dollar sign, and a Shell Oil sign." No mention of the other symbols used in the concert visuals by the ADL, symbols a number of groups might take offence at, and a timely reminder in Roger's response from the mission statement of the ADL," to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens", if only their mission included Palestinians in the equation, it seems their selective choice of images presented is only equalled by their selective choice of citizens eligible for just and fair treatment and an end to unjust and unfair discrimination.

Karam's Story - Confiscating Childhood in the Occupied Territories

Thirteen is the age for a lot of things; it carries a certain significance for every boy that reaches that age with all the promises that life has to offer; it's a time when boys get their first bike, enjoy their favorite video games, make it into the school's football squad, it's a time when boys begin to marvel at and appreciate the mysteries of life pre-adulthood, and for some; it's even a time when they experience their first innocent crush; but if you're a thirteen year old boy in occupied Palestine; you're placed under house arrest by the Israeli authorities.
Thirteen year old Palestinian boy; Karam Khaled Da'nah was sentenced by an Israeli court to five months of mandatory house arrest in his uncle's house –away from his parents and siblings- and a 2,000 shekel bail after a shameful charade that isn't very well masquerading as a court hearing last Tuesday September 28th 2010, in complete disregard for anything even resembling human rights (or even common human decency for that matter); Karam was first arrested on the 20th of September right in front of his school in the old city in southern Hebron, dragged away from his friends and classmates and savagely beaten by Israeli forces before being thrown into the back of their military jeep and driven away; and the charge is... wait for it… lopping stones at (illegal) Israeli settlers.
And here you thought that peer pressure was the biggest source of anxiety for most parents, however; Palestinian parents will always have something else to worry about when it comes to their children; whether it's sudden arrests, deadly assaults, torture, you name it; the list of horrific –and very possible- scenarios that Palestinian families are made to live with day in and day out are endless; indeed parenthood carries a whole different meaning in Palestine.
What's particularly troubling though; is that the Zionists have -over the years- committed so many crimes and gross violations of international laws that I can't believe the rest of the so-called civilized world haven't called them out on it yet, they insist on placing "the only democracy in the Middle East" on a strangely unparalleled, high pedestal as the ultimate paragon of virtue; whereas when it comes to Palestinians it seems; the concept of human rights suddenly blurs, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) becomes a hazy afterthought; is it acceptable only if the victim is a Palestinian kid? Is it acceptable to snatch minors off the streets, torture and browbeat them into submission in Israeli prison chambers? Is all of this acceptable if everyone is practically silent about it?...

Continue reading

Ahmad Barqawi @ 'Counterpunch'

Dispatches From the Edge - Bedding Down With the Devil in Indonesia

Bedding down with the Devil is the only way one can describe a recent decision by the Obama administration to resume contact with the Indonesian military’s (TNI) most notorious human rights abuser, the Special Forces unit, Kopassus. Following a July meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates lifted the 1999 ban on any contact with the unit.

The Indonesian military has a long record of brutality toward its own people, starting with the massacre of somewhere from 500,000 to 1 million Communists and leftists during a 1965 military coup. That massive bloodletting was followed by a reign of terror against separatist groups in Aceh and West Papua and the invasion of East Timor. In the latter case, the UN estimated that as many as 200,000 died as a direct result of the 24-year occupation, a per capita kill rate that actually surpasses what Pol Pot managed in Cambodia.

But, even by the brutal standards of the TNI, the 5,000-man Kopassus unit has always stood out. It kidnapped and murdered students in 1997 and 1998, made up the shock troops for the Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor, and ruthlessly suppressed any moves toward independence in West Papua.

West Papua is the western half of New Guinea that Indonesia invaded in 1969.

“Working with Kopassus, which remains unrepentant about its long history of terrorizing civilians, will undermine efforts to achieve justice and accountability for human rights violations in Indonesia and Timor-Leste [formally East Timor],” says John M. Miller, national coordinator of East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN).

The Obama administration’s rationale for lifting the ban is that U.S. contact with Kopassus will serve to improve the unit’s human rights record. “It is a different unit than its reputation suggests,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morell told the New York Times. “Clearly, it had a very dark past, but they have done a lot to change that.” In any case, he said, “the percentage of suspicious bad actors in the unit is tiny…probably a dozen, or a couple of dozen people.”

The aid to Kopassus appears to violate the Leahy Law that prevents the U.S. from training military units accused of human rights violations. “Kopassus has a long history of abuse and remains unrepentant, essentially unreformed, and unaccountable” U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt) told the Times.

No one in Kopassus or the TNI accused of human rights violations has ever been tried or removed from their position. “We regret this development very much,” Poengky Indarti of the Indonesian human rights group Imparsial told Reuters. “There is still impunity in the Indonesian military, especially in Kopassus.” She added, “We are confused about the position of Barak Obama, Is he pro-human rights or not?”

According to ETAN, Kopassus—sometimes called Unit 81—helped organize the murder of five Australian journalists in Balibo on the eve of Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor. Kopassus is also accused of a 2002 ambush in West Papua that killed three teachers, two from the U.S. According to Australian intelligence, the ambush was an effort to discredit the Papuan liberation movement.

There is also suspicion that the attack was aimed at blackmailing mine owners into paying protection money. From 2000 to 2002, Freeport McMoRan paid the TNI $10.7 million in protection money, but the company shut down the payments shortly before the ambush.

No one in Kopassus has ever been disciplined for the unit’s role in organizing nationalist militias to terrorize the East Timorese into voting against independence. The TNI financed and led militias’ killed some 1500 people, displaced two-thirds of the population, and systematically destroyed 75 percent of East Timor’s infrastructure.

It was Kopassus’ involvement in forming and directing the militias that was responsible for the U.S. decision to stop military training for the unit.

And, rather than improving Kopassus’ human rights record, U.S. training appears to have had the opposite effect. The “worst abuses” by the Indonesian military, according to Ed McWilliams, a former U.S. State Department counselor in Jakarta from 1996-99, “took place when we [the U.S.] were most engaged.”

According to Karen Orenstein, former Washington coordinator of ETAN, “History demonstrates that providing training and other assistance only emboldens the Indonesian military to violate human rights and block accountability for past injustices.”

This pattern is not confined to Indonesia. A recent study by the Fellowship for Reconciliation found that Colombian army units trained by the U.S. were the troops most likely to be associated with human rights violations.

“There are alarming links between increased reports of extrajudicial executions of civilians by the Colombian army and units that receive U.S. military financing,” John Lindsay-Poland told the Inter Press Service. Lindsay-Poland is a research and advocacy director for the Fellowship and an author of the two-year study.

Called “Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications,” the report examined 3,000 extrajudicial executions by the Colombian military. “We found that for many military units, reports of extrajudicial executions increased during and after the highest levels of U.S. assistance,” Lindsay-Poland told IPS...

Continue reading

Conn Hallinan @'Counterpunch'

Time for Your Spanking

Old mechanical French postcard ... If your husband is so obedient it is as you know well because you calm him with "whipped" arguments.
Postcard for Mona's Spanking collection

Times Square bomber: Cause and effect in the War on Terror

Faisal Shahzad was sentenced by a federal judge to life in prison yesterday for his attempted bombing of Times Square, a crime for which he previously pleaded guilty.  Aside from proving yet again how uniquely effective our real judicial system is (as opposed to military commissions or lawless detention) in convicting and punishing Terrorists (see this NYT Editorial on that issue this morning), this episode sheds substantial light on what I wrote about on Monday:  namely, how our actions in the Muslim world -- ostensibly undertaken to combat Terrorism -- do more than anything else to spur Terrorism and ensure its permanent continuation.

Ever since Shahzad was apprehended, the media storyline has been one of faux bafflement:  why would a naturalized Pakistani-American citizen with an M.B.A. and such a nice, middle-class life in the U.S. possibly turn into such a vicious Terrorist Monster?  But from the start, the evidence answering that question has been both clear and overwhelming.  The New York Times examined a decade's worth of emails and other private communications as Shahzad became radicalized against the U.S., in which he railed with increasing fury against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, drone attacks in Pakistan, Israeli violence against Palestinians and Muslims generally, Guantanamo and torture, and asked: "Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows?"  When he pleaded guilty in June, this is what he told the baffled and angry Judge about why he did what he did: 

If the United States does not get out of Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries controlled by Muslims, he said, "we will be attacking U.S.," adding that Americans "only care about their people, but they don't care about the people elsewhere in the world when they die" . . . .
As soon as he was taken into custody May 3 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, onboard a flight to Dubai, the Pakistani-born Shahzad told agents that he was motivated by opposition to U.S. policy in the Muslim world, officials said.
"One of the first things he said was, 'How would you feel if people attacked the United States? You are attacking a sovereign Pakistan'," said one law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the interrogation reports are not public.

And then yesterday, at his sentencing, this is what he said when asked if he still wanted to plead guilty:

"Yes," said Shahzad, and then said he wanted to plead guilty and 100 times more," because he wanted the U.S. to know it will continue to suffer attacks if it does not leave Iraq and Afghanistan and stop drone strikes in Pakistan.
Calm, but clearly angry, and standing the whole time . . . . Shahzad said the judge needed to understand his role. "I consider myself a Muslim soldier," he said. When [Judge] Cedarbaum asked whether he considered the people in Times Square to be innocent, he said they had elected the U.S. government.

"Even children?" said Cedarbaum.
"When the drones [in Pakistan] hit, they don't see children," answered Shahzad. He then said, "I am part of the answer to the U.S. killing the Muslim people."

Continue reading

Glenn Greenwald @'Salon'

Pete Wylie so now OUR ball is in THEIR court...let justice prevail!

 Liverpool Football Club sale live blog 

@'The Guardian' 

A very useful Q&A from the Press Association tackles some of the complicated financial questions:

Q. Why are Hicks and Gillett so against the offer?
A. They believe the price of £300million grossly under-values the club - and because they would each take a massive financial hit.
Q. But £300million seems like a lot of money - isn't that far more than they paid for the club in 2007?
A. Yes, they paid £219million, funded entirely by bank loans, but since then the debt has swelled due to interest and other fees to £280million, and they have invested £144.4million into Kop Holdings via a company registered in the Cayman Islands, which was then lent to Liverpool.
Q. What would Hicks and Gillett be left with if the £300million buy-out goes ahead?
A. Around £200million would go towards paying off the Royal Bank of Scotland and Wachovia debts. RBS would be likely to leave around £30million of the debt as a credit facility for the new owners. Only after all the other creditors are paid would any left-over cash go to Hicks and Gillett towards the £144.4million loan they put in.
Q. What about the penalty fees that Hicks and Gillett have built up with RBS?
A. They total around £45million but they would no doubt be subject to legal challenges too.
Q. So what size of loss are Hicks and Gillett contemplating?
A. A sizeable one, even as much as £100million.
Q. What is the next step?
A. The lawyers have moved in with Hicks and Gillett trying to block the board's right to agree a takeover. If they sack the board, then RBS would claim that would put the Americans in breach of their refinancing agreement signed in April.
Q. What if they succeed?
A. Hicks and Gillett are caught between a rock and a hard place. Even if they succeed then unless they have raised funds to pay off their debts by October 15 then RBS will assume control of the club, put Kop Holdings into administration and sell Liverpool themselves - mostly likely to New England Sports Ventures.

Settlers Torch Mosque...Again

The Belly-Dancing Israeli Soldier and the Bound Palestinian Woman

The 'most moral army in the world' remember?

HA!

(Click to enlarge)

@'xkcd'

♪♫ The Flaming Lips - Do You Realize? (Letterman)

Is Obama the new Jimmy Carter?

U.S. Military Orders Less Dependence on Fossil Fuels

It's official! Liverpool board agree proposed sale

Liverpool Football Club today announces that the Board has agreed the sale of the Club to New England Sports Ventures (NESV).

New England Sports Ventures currently owns a portfolio of companies including the Boston Red Sox, New England Sports Network, Fenway Sports Group and Rousch Fenway Racing.

Martin Broughton, Liverpool FC Chairman, said:

"I am delighted that we have been able to successfully conclude the sale process which has been thorough and extensive. The Board decided to accept NESV's proposal on the basis that it best met the criteria we set out originally for a suitable new owner. NESV's philosophy is all about winning and they have fully demonstrated that at Red Sox.

"We've met them in Boston, London and Liverpool over several weeks and I am immensely impressed with what they have achieved and with their vision for Liverpool Football Club.

"By removing the burden of acquisition debt, this offer allows us to focus on investment in the team. I am only disappointed that the owners have tried everything to prevent the deal from happening and that we need to go through legal proceedings in order to complete the sale."

@'LiverpoolFC TV'

Fugn Hicks - really just walk away (and you will be alone!)

Smoking #84

locator @'flickr'

Liverpool Sold?

The Desert of Forbidden Art - Trailer

Girlz With Gunz # 129

White America Has Lost Its Mind

An important message for you Spaceboy!

The German terror connection

Noam Chomsky's recorded address to the United National Peace Conference 07/24/2010

A 'T' falls...

@'Sebastian Waters'

A Map Of Books Banned and Challenged In The US

Girlz With Gunz # 128

Liverpool's board split over two new bids to buy club

Gillett (left) and Hicks have come under pressure to sell from Liverpool fans

Liverpool have confirmed that two new bids that would wipe out the club's debts have been made, but a huge split has divided the Anfield boardroom. 

A source close to the negotiations said: "Both bids would significantly reduce the debt and give the current owners their original investment back."

But American co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have opposed the offers.

A club statement added that the pair tried to remove two members of the board prior to Tuesday's meeting.

Hicks and Gillett wanted managing director Christian Purslow and commercial director Ian Ayre replaced by Mack Hicks - son of Tom - and Lori Kay McCutheon, who is vice president at Hicks Holdings.

A Liverpool statement read: "This matter is now subject to legal review and a further announcement will be made in due course.

"Meanwhile [chairman] Martin Broughton, Christian Purslow and Ian Ayre continue to explore every possible route to achieving a sale of the club at the earliest opportunity."

The two bids, which the club statement described as "excellent financial offers", are thought to be from Asia and America.

BBC Sport understands the US bid is from Boston Red Sox owner John Henry's New England Sports Ventures.

The three independent members of the board - Purslow, Broughton and Ayre - favour a sale to one of the two new bidders and are weighing up whether to accept.

But it is thought Hicks and Gillett are against accepting as neither bid would see the duo walk away with a profit.

Liverpool were put up for sale by Hicks and Gillett in April with debts of £351.4m.

They initially sought an asking price of around £800m, a figure they subsequently dropped to £600m.

In August there were abortive bids from Hong Kong businessman Kenny Huang while a consortium fronted by Syrian businessman Yahya Kirdi had also expressed an interest.

Earlier on Tuesday, Kirdi was quoted as saying the group he represents were dropping out of contention, adding: "Once everyone is united and there's logic in the price and the overall deal, me and my group will be prepared to return to the table."

The owners paid £174.1m to buy the club in 2007, while also agreeing to take on the club's debt of £44.8m.

It was said to be a new dawn for the Anfield outfit, with outgoing chairman David Moores describing it as "a great step forward for its shareholders and its fans".
But little has gone right for either the club or its owners since then.

The club slipped into the Premier League relegation zone after losing at home to Blackpool at the weekend and were earlier knocked out of the League Cup by League Two side Northampton.

Many of the club's fans have become increasingly outraged at the pair's mismanagement of the club, which is said to be currently £237.4m in debt, and their failure to carry through promises to build a new stadium.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has set a deadline of 15 October for that debt to be repaid or a penalty fee of £60m will be due.

If not the bank has the option of extending the deadline once again, or deciding enough is enough and either selling the club to the highest bidder or putting it in administration.

Many fans of the Merseyside club are keen to see RBS call in the debt, even if it means them going into administration and receiving a nine-point penalty from the Premier League as a result.

Whether these bids signal the beginning of the end of a saga that has blighted the club in recent years remains to be seen. 

Dan Roan @'BBC'

The Hipster Hitler's Mum & Dad?

WTF???

Gillett and Hicks attempting Liverpool FC board overhaul

Mike Jefferies' anti-Tom Hicks and George Gillett film

Interestingly enough, this statement was issued by Liverpool FC yesterday:

'A Board meeting was called today to review these (new?) bids and approve a sale. Shortly prior to the meeting, the owners - Tom Hicks and George Gillett - sought to remove Managing Director Christian Purslow and Commercial Director Ian Ayre from the Board, seeking to replace them with Mack Hicks and Lori Kay McCutcheon.'

???

Jingle Bell Boobs

HA!

Grinderman deny plagiarism

Nick Cave responded to claims by an unknown Dundee-based musician that he plagiarised a song on the new Grinderman album at the band's Hammersmith Apollo gig last Friday.

The accusation was made by Frankie Duffy, who says that 'Palaces Of Montezuma' from the 'Grinderman 2' LP is actually 'Grey Man', a song he wrote for his former band Rising Signs in around 2005.

Duffy told Scottish newspaper The Courier in an interview published last Friday morning: "I couldn't believe it when I heard that track. It stood out a mile, it's exactly the same chords and the same hook as the intro to 'Grey Man'. I was never really a Nick Cave fan, but I really like Grinderman, that's a different kettle of fish. But when you hear that track you can totally spot the similarities".

He continued: "I sat down with my guitar and played along with it and it's exactly the same A, E and B chords, which to be fair anybody could use to write a song at any time. But it's the chord progression and when the vocal hook comes in with some ooohs, it's exactly the same, you can just hear it's the same thing".

As for how Cave came to hear and steal the song, Duffy postulated: "It's been up on our MySpace even after Rising Signs split, and I don't know, I can't help thinking that Nick Cave was sitting in his house one night and decided to surf some unsigned bands and saw our site, saw we were split up and thought, 'I'll have that track, nobody will ever know'".

He conceded that it could actually be "a really huge, amazing coincidence", though added: "It's really obvious they sound the same and on the Grinderman album you can hear the band talking and you can hear the words 'grey man' being said, so maybe it's not as much of a coincidence after all".

Duffy went on to say that he was going to get in touch with Cave's management "to see what they've got to say", adding that he wasn't quite sure how to proceed after that, but thought he "might have to sue [Cave] in court".

Certainly by Friday evening Cave had got the impression things were heading down the legal route. On stage at the Hammersmith Apollo, the singer introduced 'Palaces Of Montezuma' by saying: "You may have read that some seventeen year old kid in Dundee is trying to sue me and is claiming to have written this song. That's funny, because I wrote it for my wife".

In fact, Duffy is 29, but I'm not sure you can sue someone for accusing you of being a teenager. Whether the plagiarism case will go any further remains to be seen. With the utmost respect for both musicians, that guitar riff has been used at least twice by 78% of all bands that have ever written more than three songs. And as for where Grinderman can be heard whispering "grey man" on their track, I have no idea.

@'CMU'

Next Liverpool FC manager?

Current standings:

M O’Neill - 2/1

K Dalglish - 6/1

J Mourinho - 7/1

G Hiddink - 12/1

M Pelligrini - 12/1

S McClaren - 14/1

O Hitzfeld - 14/1

L V Gaal - 16/1

M Hughes - 16/1

@'Bettingpress'

Youngsters eh?

The XX - VCR (Four Tet Remix)

  download link

England's greatest soccer teams and American owners, a match made in hell

Debt, Lies, and Cowboys

The Billionaire Test

How to tell if your club got a good one.

"I have a new piece in Slate about the Hicks-Gillett-Glazers tycoon implosion and the fan protests at Liverpool and Manchester United. While I was working on the piece, it occurred to me that in this age of billionaire owners, in which every club, no matter how Portsmouth-y, can be plausibly linked to a gasp-wrenching imaginary stock portfolio, there are really two kinds of billionaires: billionaires and fake billionaires. Billionaires live in space, sleep in chocolate and eat a helicopter as a snack. Fake billionaires drive around looking important on the way to being yelled at by suburban bank managers. Somehow we’ve evolved a culture in which it’s possible to have some contacts, borrow a fortune, and get a profile in the US Airways in-flight magazine, even though at the same moment real billionaires are playing badminton on the moon with movie stars only millionaires have even heard of. It’s a confusing time to be a soccer fan.
The problem, of course, is that, while we’re all getting savvier by the second, the deals are often still so secretive and the facial expressions all so billionaireish that it can be hard to tell a fake billionaire from a real one. When the ousted crown prince of G______ comes sniffing around your club, should you start worrying about Wachovia or let yourself dream of a future of massively overpaying for Craig Bellamy? After some serious thought, and a sandwich, I’ve put together a simple two-minute test that will help you determine whether your club’s new billionaire is pregnant, or still praying every night and crying a little, secretly, in the kitchen, at his best friend’s baby shower.

Question #1: Can you envision your billionaire belonging to a country club?
From the moment Tom Hicks and George Gillett first showed themselves in the stands at Anfield, with their weird, googly-craggly, “I’m trying so hard to look like a billionaire that my eyeballs are popping out of my head at different speeds” faces, it was clear that the only place on earth they could truly be comfortable was in the yacht room at the Sandy Pines Country Club, where they could go around shaking hands and loudly saying other men’s first names. No billionaire should ever belong to a country club, for the same reason that Oprah should never go on The View. Rich people clump together in country clubs for mutual protection and assurance. A real billionaire doesn’t need protection, because he can afford a private security force, and he doesn’t need assurance, because he is a billionaire.

Question #2: Does your billionaire sort of come off as a soap opera character?
Having unlimited wealth allows one’s ego to expand without restraint, like gas in a hot air balloon the size of infinity. Conversely, soap operas foster the pinched intensification of conventional fantasies enforced by profound limitations on one’s ego. The lifestyle of a soap-opera billionaire will revolve around widely accepted status symbols, with minor eccentricites (an eyepatch! weird facial hair!) at the fringes. The eccentricities of the true billionaire are his status symbols. Tom Hicks has a yacht. Roman Abramovich has a yacht with its own submarine. Malcom Glazer used to have a $27-million mansion in Palm Beach. Lakshmi Mittal has a house decorated with marble from the same quarry as the Taj Mahal. You couldn’t set As the World Turns there, because the world only turns if he says it does. It’s not even his only house in London.

Question #3: If your billionaire broke the law, would there be repercussions?
A true billionaire is essentially his own country. He transcends the apparatus of any single state and acts as an independent principle of order, like gravity or a weird idea on Lost. Wherever he goes, he’s three mean Beatles and the world around him is Ringo. If George Gillett woke up with a headache, a slippery flashlight, and a bloody corpse in a Donald Duck costume, he would feel the chill of a man who dreads the movements of justice. With pristine clarity, he would realize that somewhere in the world was a DA who yearned to take him down. If Alisher Usmanov woke up in similar circumstances, he would yawn, yell for his slippers, and note that the day was Tuesday. Why do you think Putin is always expressing fatherly disapproval of Abramovich and inviting him on orca-wrestling expeditions? Because even for Putin—especially for Putin—it’s easier to wrestle an orca than to go against a billionaire.

Question #4: Is your billionaire kind of a prissy killjoy who throws his weight around?
Usmanov may live without fear of legal consequences, but he’s still not a real billionaire, because he’s constantly hopping up and down and pointing one finger and sending his lawyers after bloggers who dare to repeat that he was once imprisoned in Uzbekistan for cooking and eating every chicken in the country. Pale, impoverished bloggers with many children to feed are rhythmically dotting a conveyor belt aimed at prison because Usmanov does not want you to know that he once ate an entire nation’s chicken supply in one sitting. He may not be afraid of the police any more, but he’s afraid of something, even if it’s just public disapproval. The real billionaire isn’t thin-skinned. The real billionaire doesn’t have skin at all, having long since replaced it with a bulletproof carapace that’s indistinguishable from the real thing except in extremely bright sunlight.

Question #5: Is your billionaire worth more than $10 billion?
I’m sorry, but billionaires who are only worth between one and nine billion dollars are pathetic. It’s odd. When a guy is worth $990 million, he’s unimaginably rich, but when he crosses over to $1.1 billion, you can bet that it’s all unpaid taxes and outstanding furniture debts. Somehow or other, it’s just impossible to sustain real billionairehood on less than ten stacks, meaning that the Glazers of this world are always taking out little piggish loans from Manchester United, while Paul Allen literally doesn’t know that the city of Seattle exists. Go by Forbes, go by Wikipedia, whatever, but check out your man’s bottom line. If it’s lodged in the mere ten figures, he is a man without dignity who can’t really afford your club. Condolences.
—
There. Now you can look at your own club’s billionaire and make an informed decision about your populist reign of terror. Please enjoy reading the conclusion of this “blog post.”"

BRIAN PHILIPPS - The Run Of Play

♪♫ Guided By Voices - Tractor Rape Chain

American Rock Royalty reunites for “Classic Lineup” tour!!!
(coming to my city this Saturday night!)

Report Casts World’s Rivers in 'Crisis State'

The world's rivers, the single largest renewable water resource for humans and a crucible of aquatic biodiversity, are in a crisis of ominous proportions, according to a new global analysis.

The report, published today in the journal Nature, is the first to simultaneously account for the effects of such things as pollution, dam building, agricultural runoff, the conversion of wetlands and the introduction of exotic species on the health of the world's rivers.

The resulting portrait of the global riverine environment, according to the scientists who conducted the analysis, is grim. It reveals that nearly 80 percent of the world's human population lives in areas where river waters are highly threatened posing a major threat to human water security and resulting in aquatic environments where thousands of species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction.

"Rivers around the world really are in a crisis state," says Peter B. McIntyre, a senior author of the new study and a professor of zoology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Limnology.

The Nature report was authored by an international team co-led by Charles J. Vörösmarty of the City University of New York, an expert on global water resources, and McIntyre, an expert on freshwater biodiversity.

Examining the influence of numerous types of threats to water quality and aquatic life across all of the world's river systems, the study is the first to explicitly assess both human water security and biodiversity in parallel. Fresh water is widely regarded as the world's most essential natural resource, underpinning human life and economic development as well as the existence of countless organisms ranging from microscopic life to fish, amphibians, birds and terrestrial animals of all kinds.

Over many millennia, humans have exerted an increasingly pervasive influence on fresh water resources. Rivers, in particular, have attracted humans and have been altered through damming, irrigation and other agricultural and engineering practices since the advent of civilization. In recent times, chemical pollution, burgeoning human populations, and the accidental as well as purposeful global redistribution of plants, fish, and other animal species have had far-reaching effects on rivers and their aquatic inhabitants.

"Flowing rivers represent the largest single renewable water resource for humans," notes Vörösmarty. "What we've discovered is that when you map out these many sources of threat, you see a fully global syndrome of river degradation."

What jumps out, say McIntyre and Vörösmarty, is that rivers in different parts of the world are subject to similar types of stresses, such things as agricultural intensification, industrial development, river habitat modification and other factors. Compounding the problem is that some of the negative influences on rivers arrive in indirect ways. Mercury pollution, for example, is a byproduct of electricity generation at coal-fired power plants and pollutes surface water via the atmosphere.

"We find a real stew of chemicals flowing through our waterways," explains Vörösmarty, noting that the study represents a state-of-the-art summary, yet was unable to account for such things as threats from mining, the growing number of pharmaceuticals found in surface water and the synergistic effects of all the stresses affecting rivers.

"And what we're doing is treating the symptoms of a larger problem," Vörösmarty explains. "We know it is far more cost effective to protect these water systems in the first place. So the current emphasis on treating the symptoms rather than the underlying causes makes little sense from a water security standpoint or a biodiversity standpoint, or for that matter an economic standpoint."...

Continue reading

Terry Devitt @'USNews'

Field of screams - Transgenic crops’ built-in pesticide found to be contaminating waterways

One of the main arguments offered in support of the wide use of genetically engineered crops is that they reduce overall pesticide use. This is particularly the case with Monsanto's "Bt" line of corn, soy, and cotton seeds, which are able to produce their own pesticide, a "natural" toxin from genes of the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. Ironically, commercial pesticide derived from Bt also happens to be one of the only chemical pesticides approved for use in organic agriculture, because it's produced through a biological process.

Biotechnology companies thus consider Bt seeds some of their most "eco-friendly" products. In theory, farmers don't have to spray pesticide as much or as often on these crops, and therefore pesticide runoff into waterways is much less of a concern. Well, after years of denial, Monsanto finally admitted recently that superbugs, or pests that have evolved to be able to eat the Bt crops, are a real and growing concern. And now, researchers at the University of Notre Dame have shown that the Bt from genetically engineered maize is polluting waterways in Indiana (the study area). They found Bt toxin in almost 25 percent of streams they tested, and all the streams that tested positive were within 1,500 feet from a cornfield.

Bt gets into streams and rivers by leaching out of crop debris left on fields through the now-ubiquitous industrial "no-till" farming technique, in which fields aren't plowed after harvest so as to prevent soil erosion. As a result, leaves and stalks get washed into streams through large-scale farms' irrigation canals: the Notre Dame scientists found such debris in almost 90 percent of streams near cornfields. And while the Bt levels detected weren't shockingly high, the tests were performed six months after harvest. The debris had been sitting in the streams and leaching Bt pesticide into the water for quite a while.

The fun part? No one has any idea yet of the effects of long-term, low-dose exposure to Bt on fish and wildlife. Perhaps it's high time somebody did a study on that since, as the researchers dryly observed, the presence of Bt toxin "may be a more common occurrence in watersheds draining maize-growing regions than previously recognized." Apparently.

So. Not only do genetically engineered crops have worse yields than conventionally bred crops, cost more, lead to pesticide resistance, contaminate other plants with their transgenes, possibly cause allergies and even organ damage, but now we also learn that the plants themselves are possibly poisonous to the environment.

These kinds of genetically engineered seeds keep being touted as the only way we're going to feed the world. Isn't it about time we started investing in less toxic alternatives?

Tom Laskaway@'grist'