How I met your mother, Brendan George Ko
2 hours ago
Monday 17 August 2009
Girlz With Gunz # 76 (Roza)
Via 'Bits&Bites' & '▷ Φ ◁ @ Flickr'"She was responsible for 54 confirmed kills, including 12 enemy snipers, during the Battle of Vilnius."
Roza Yegorovna Shanina (Russian: Ро́за Его́ровна Ша́нина, 1924 – January 28, 1945) was a Soviet sniper during the Great Patriotic War.
Little Girl (Iraq 2005)
In May 2005, Michael Yon took a picture of U.S. Army Major Mark Bieger cradling an Iraqi girl, named Farah, wounded by shrapnel from a car bomb. Major Bieger tried to bring the girl to an American hospital to receive treatment, but she died on the helicopter ride. Yon wrote shortly after taking the picture that it "provoked a flood of messages and heartfelt responses from caring people around the world".Michael Yon - Online Magazine
Podcast here.
Sunday 16 August 2009
Kseniya Simonova - Sand Animation (Україна має талант / Ukraine's Got Talent)
Absolutely astonishing!
Ukranian artist shows that reality TV has got talent
@ 'The Guardian'
@ 'Cuba Debate'
(Which has more on the background story of the German occupation of the Ukraine.)
Ukranian artist shows that reality TV has got talent
@ 'The Guardian'
@ 'Cuba Debate'
(Which has more on the background story of the German occupation of the Ukraine.)
Stone Age cathedral discovered in Orkney
Archaeologists in Orkney have uncovered a massive Stone Age cathedral. It is the first structure of its kind ever to be found in Britain. The cathedral has lain hidden beneath a thin layer of soil for thousands of years. Pictures taken from above the site have revealed the size of the structure, which had walls 65 feet long and five foot thick. Nick Card from the Orkney Research Centre for Archaeology says it is a discovery of huge importance. He added: "The size of it would suggest it was the Neolithic cathedral of its day.
"It's the symmetry you see in the architecture, the beauty of the stone work. It would not only have impressed the people who saw it, it would have put them in awe of the structure."
Orkney is already renowned for its Stone Age architecture. But the team working on the island believe this new discovery would have been even more important in its day than many of the island's other sites, and would have stood at the heart of Stone Age Orkney. Archaeologist Antonia Thomas said:
"It's absolutely amazing. I mean this is for myself and the other archaeologists why we are in the profession. This site is really just the best place we could be. You really have to suspend your disbelief sometimes. Almost every 10 minutes someone pops up and they've found something amazing. The artefacts on the site are amazing too. It's just spectacular."
Video @ 'STV'
Jim Dickinson RIP
Jim Dickinson
1941-2009
Famed record producer and session pianist Jim Dickinson died today in
Memphis, TN after recovering from triple bypass heart surgery earlier
this summer, Commercial Appeal reports. He was 67 years old.
Whenever the likes of Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones needed a pianist
on a track, Dickinson was a preferred player in the 1960s and 70s. He
played keys on the Stones’ “Wild Horses,” Aretha Franklin’s Spirit in
the Dark album, and dozens of other classic recordings. Dickinson is
perhaps even better known as a record producer, having produced Big
Star’s 3rd, The Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me, Mudhoney’s Tomorrow
Hit, and many more.
His sons Cody and Luther Dickinson are famous musicians in their own
right as members of the North Mississippi Allstars.
“He had a great life, and he was a consummate family man,” Dickinson’s
wife, Mary, said. “He loved music and his family. And he loved Memphis
music, specifically."
1941-2009
Famed record producer and session pianist Jim Dickinson died today in
Memphis, TN after recovering from triple bypass heart surgery earlier
this summer, Commercial Appeal reports. He was 67 years old.
Whenever the likes of Bob Dylan or The Rolling Stones needed a pianist
on a track, Dickinson was a preferred player in the 1960s and 70s. He
played keys on the Stones’ “Wild Horses,” Aretha Franklin’s Spirit in
the Dark album, and dozens of other classic recordings. Dickinson is
perhaps even better known as a record producer, having produced Big
Star’s 3rd, The Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me, Mudhoney’s Tomorrow
Hit, and many more.
His sons Cody and Luther Dickinson are famous musicians in their own
right as members of the North Mississippi Allstars.
“He had a great life, and he was a consummate family man,” Dickinson’s
wife, Mary, said. “He loved music and his family. And he loved Memphis
music, specifically."
Soulsavers - Revival
If you go looking, you may find their new album 'Broken', again featuring Mark Lanegan & Will Oldham.
Des O'Connor (No! Not THAT one)
'Little Miss Dysmorphia'
'The Panda Song'
I am indebted to reader 'Strangeboy' for turning me on to this guy over at his brilliant new
blog.
Thank you!
'The Panda Song'
I am indebted to reader 'Strangeboy' for turning me on to this guy over at his brilliant new
blog.
Thank you!
Saturday 15 August 2009
The hypothetical terrorist
The terror ‘threat’ is everywhere, the unseen creature that strikes the unsuspecting. While it would demand a minimal economy of effort to strike at an Australian army barrack, exaggeration is very much the norm in the lingua franca of anti-terrorism. As history professor Binoy Kampmark notes, “An entire apparatus in coping with terrorists employs methods of fear and surveillance while offering the disclaimer: we are doing it to protect you while watching you.”Australia, the earth’s largest island continent, has had those customary fears associated with the nation still believing in notions of virgo intacta. Immigrations regulations are strict; intruders by leaky boats and unreliable rafts are treated with suspicion. Terrorist attacks are few and far between in a country that urbanized so rapidly it stifled the urge to revolt. Apart from the Hilton bombings in 1978, Australia has proven fairly immune from the phenomenon of political terrorism.
In the previous years, that sense of security has been disturbed. A plot to blow up spectators at sporting events in Australia was foiled and seven men imprisoned after final hearings were held last year. The case was, however, marred by inconsistencies and a questionable performance by the prosecution. The desperation at getting a conviction was palpable.
A few weeks ago, Australians were treated to boasts of Terror Foiled. It was claimed that suicide bombers associated with the Somali group Al-Shabaab had not succeeded in consummating their plans to storm the Holsworthy Army Barracks, a base in Sydney’s southwest, with the intent of killing numerous soldiers with assault weapons.
With a certain condescending note, Time wrote about how, on August 4, Australians ‘quickly began to learn the pronunciation of the Somali terrorist group’s name.’ Four hundred police in a joint federal and state operation had moved across Melbourne, raiding nineteen properties. Four men were arrested that day, followed by another four the next. The men are of Lebanese and Somali background.
An unhealthy, psychic state has been unearthed in these revelations: a desire, almost a wish, that Australian sites would prove worthy as genuine terrorist targets. There is a hierarchy in the west on the worthy and unworthy in the terrorist game. A condition of terror envy has taken root. ‘There is,’ a grave Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd argued, ‘an enduring threat of terrorism at home here in Australia as well as overseas.’
In the ‘age of terror’, the hypothetical terrorist event has become the premier showcase, the determining issue on policy.
For the ill-directed and confused figures beavering away at Canberra’s Australian Strategic Policy Institute, Australia remained, to quote one of its supposed experts Carl Ungerer, ‘a gold medal target for Al Qaeda’ begging the question as to when it attained that prestigious award.
In short, the terror ‘threat’ is everywhere, the unseen creature that strikes the unsuspecting. While it would demand a minimal economy of effort to strike at Holsworthy base, exaggeration is very much the norm in the lingua franca of anti-terrorism. A Somali-based terrorist organization intent on imposing Shari’a rule in Somalia proper does not look like a particularly strong, yet alone credible enemy for a country on the other side of the earth. Throw in an Al Qaeda link though, and you seem to rise in the ladder of terror envy.
Even Somali voices have weighed into the debate. A Somali leader, the Islamic scholar Dr. Herse Hilole, claims he made murmurings about the likelihood of an attack a few years ago. ‘My suspicion was that young Somali Muslims could be or may be used in the future to carry [out] some terrorist activities in Australia’ (ABC News, Aug 4).
The Eritrean chairman of the Melbourne-based African Think Tank, Berhan Ahmed, has been toying with the idea Australia’s failed assimilation program would pose threats to its local security. 16,000 Somalis have found refuge in Australia, fleeing the ravages of civil war. But teething problems with integration remain. Housing complexes and tenements have become breeding grounds for disaffection. Un-employment is chronic. The options are stark: the embrace of charismatic religious figures or ruinous drugs.
We are left with the recurring hypothetical event, an occurrence unrealised, all the more potent for that fact. In the ‘age of terror’, the hypothetical terrorist event has become the premier showcase, the determining issue on policy. ‘Potentially this would have been, if it had been able to be carried out, the most serious terrorist attack on Australian soil,’ claims Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Tony Negus. An entire anti-terror system is based on invoking terror, measured by ’states’ of emergency, alarm and concern. An entire apparatus in coping with terrorists employs methods of fear and surveillance while offering the disclaimer: we are doing it to protect you while watching you.
Links and evidence remain sketchy in these revelations. What was in the news as carnival fanfare has now died down, leaving the shadowy business to interrogators and trial lawyers. In a society that is currently functioning on the idea of a permanent war in times of permanent peace, we are left less clear than ever what role the Somali organization truly has in Australia. It is not a situation the authorities are necessarily keen to dispel. Public confusion, not to mention ignorance, persists in remaining the handiest of state assets.
Note: Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. The above article was posted at Counterpunch.org.
PS
How many trees have been cut down for all these celebratory books about the 40th anniversary of Woodstock?
Bloody hippies!
Bloody hippies!
Stating the obvious (again)
Three general guidelines for the healthcare debate:
First, whenever someone is spouting off about "communist fascism", you may ignore everything that person says from that point forward. Fascism and communism are two entirely different things, and a primary tenet of fascism is its opposition to communism. So if you think Obama is leading us to either fascist communism or communist fascism, you aren't only a paranoid, LaRouchian nut, you also don't even know what it is you're afraid of, and are just putting scary words together in the hope of stirring an emotional response among stupid people.
Second, you cannot be "against socialized medicine" and at the same time think Medicare is good. Medicare is, in no uncertain term, socialized medicine, and government run, and all of that very scary stuff. If the concept of "socialized medicine" outrages you, you are against Medicare. If you are for Medicare, then by definition there is some level of "socialized medicine" you are willing to accept, and at that point you are exactly where the entire rest of the country is, and we're merely arguing about the details.
All of the people who say that they are afraid of socialized medicine but that they support Medicare are liars. All of them. They either secretly don't support Medicare but are unwilling to say such an unpopular thing out loud, for obvious reasons, or they aren't in fact afraid of "socialized medicine" but still want to use the talking point.
This includes Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and every Senate Republican, as well as the usual assembly of pundits and shouters and supposedly panic-stricken mobs crying in fear at town halls over the imminent Russianization of America if we undertake any meager healthcare reform whatsoever.
The third guideline: the first two guidelines are freaking obvious.
@ 'Daily Kos'
First, whenever someone is spouting off about "communist fascism", you may ignore everything that person says from that point forward. Fascism and communism are two entirely different things, and a primary tenet of fascism is its opposition to communism. So if you think Obama is leading us to either fascist communism or communist fascism, you aren't only a paranoid, LaRouchian nut, you also don't even know what it is you're afraid of, and are just putting scary words together in the hope of stirring an emotional response among stupid people.
Second, you cannot be "against socialized medicine" and at the same time think Medicare is good. Medicare is, in no uncertain term, socialized medicine, and government run, and all of that very scary stuff. If the concept of "socialized medicine" outrages you, you are against Medicare. If you are for Medicare, then by definition there is some level of "socialized medicine" you are willing to accept, and at that point you are exactly where the entire rest of the country is, and we're merely arguing about the details.
All of the people who say that they are afraid of socialized medicine but that they support Medicare are liars. All of them. They either secretly don't support Medicare but are unwilling to say such an unpopular thing out loud, for obvious reasons, or they aren't in fact afraid of "socialized medicine" but still want to use the talking point.
This includes Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, and every Senate Republican, as well as the usual assembly of pundits and shouters and supposedly panic-stricken mobs crying in fear at town halls over the imminent Russianization of America if we undertake any meager healthcare reform whatsoever.
The third guideline: the first two guidelines are freaking obvious.
@ 'Daily Kos'
Today's 'Odd Spot' from 'The Age' newspaper
Police in Newcastle, England are seeking a cruel thief with a sense of humour.
A man returned home to find he had lost his entire CD collection in a break in but the crook had left behind "there Is Nothing Left To Lose' by the Foo Fighters.
ROFL!
A man returned home to find he had lost his entire CD collection in a break in but the crook had left behind "there Is Nothing Left To Lose' by the Foo Fighters.
ROFL!
Friday 14 August 2009
Hackers use Twitter to control botnet
Hackers are now using Twitter to send coded update messages to computers they’ve previously infected with rogue code, according to a report from net-monitoring firm Arbor Networks.@ 'Wired'
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