Wednesday 24 November 2010
Tuesday 23 November 2010
Sunday 21 November 2010
Russia wonders why U.S. would turn away from treaty
Russians are mystified. They can't quite believe that the U.S. Senate might fail to ratify the nuclear arms treaty, and they see no good from such an outcome.
The list of possible harmful effects they cite encompasses a minefield of global concerns: no more cooperation on Iran, a setback for progressive tendencies in Russia, new hurdles for Russian membership in the World Trade Organization, a terrible example for nuclear countries such as China and India, dim prospects for better NATO relations. And to top it off, the United States and its president would look ridiculous.
"The result will by no means be nuclear catastrophe," said Igor S. Ivanov, a former foreign minister, searching for a bright note, "but there will undoubtedly be negative results, and not just for U.S.-Russian relations."
If the two great nuclear powers cannot come to terms, he said, nonproliferation efforts worldwide would be seriously damaged. And for what? "It's a well-thought-out and balanced document," good for both countries' security, Ivanov said Thursday...
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Kathy Lally @'Washington Post'
Field Commander Cohen I salute you
The 6-million-year-old rock formation and natural amphitheatre has been a home to Wurundjeri initiation rites, horse races and a haunting film credited with launching Australian cinema.
It's even served as a lookout for notorious bushranger, Dan ''Mad Dog'' Morgan.
Last night, though, Hanging Rock was transformed into that most modern of facilities, an outdoor concert venue, as the surrounding hills echoed to the soulful bass voice of Leonard Cohen.
The sun set behind the rock and the moon rose behind the crowd, Cohen's inspiring brand of melancholy warming a crowd braced against a chill spring night.
''I was born with the gift of a golden voice,'' the 76-year-old Canadian sang in Tower of Song, to cheers of approval from the crowd.
Clare Bowditch, Dan Sultan and Paul Kelly primed the 12,000-strong soldout crowd that had descended on Woodend for its first big concert, fulfilling a long-time dream of Melbourne music promoter, Svengali and local resident, Michael Gudinski, to turn the bowl into a major venue, in the spirit of the famous Red Rocks in Colorado.
Gudinski has permission for a number of concerts, as long as they are wrapped up before the April nesting season of the powerful owl.
A ring road and fencing had been constructed around the rock, as well as mood lighting for when the sun went down.
A logjam of traffic was inching into the car park as Paul Kelly, who also supported Cohen last year, delighted the crowd with a string of favourites including Deeper Water, To Her Door and How to Make Gravy. Vika Bull helped out on Kelly's Sweet Guy.
Gudinski said Cohen jumped at the chance to play Hanging Rock, remembering the eerie atmosphere of Peter Weir's film, but as the crowd settled in for an evening of fine music, the prehistoric lava formation towering up behind the stage was a reassuring presence.
In contrast with the brightly regaled audience, the singer-poet cut a dapper figure in grey as he opened the set with Dance Me to the End of Love.
''Thanks so much friends,'' he greeted his fans. ''Thanks for inviting us to this sacred place. It's a great honour. I promise we'll give you everything we've got tonight.''
Cohen's concerts are usually described in reverential tones; for this one night the setting was almost as memorable as the performance.
John Mangan @'The Age'
John Mangan @'The Age'
Photos: TimN
Salvador Dalì meets Sun Ra - Where Is Tomorrow?
The Persistence of Memory in Futuristic Sounds of Times Tomorrow?
Interplanetary Moustache?
Salvasun Ralí?
Saturday 20 November 2010
Friday 19 November 2010
Wikileaks' Assange to face international arrest warrant
Sweden is to issue an international arrest warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a rape case.
Prosecutors said they would seek the warrant after a court ruled he should be held for questioning. An initial inquiry had been dropped in August.
Mr Assange, an Australian who does not live in Sweden, says the allegations are part of a smear campaign.
Wikileaks has published confidential material relating to US military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Mr Assange, 39, denies allegations of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion, which stem from a visit to Sweden in August.
A Stockholm prosecutor started an investigation shortly afterwards, but the case was dropped by the chief prosecutor a day later.
In September, Sweden's Director of Prosecution, Marianne Ny, reopened the investigation, but did not request Mr Assange's detention at the time.
'Complete innocence'
Ms Ny says Mr Assange needs to be questioned. "So far, we have not been able to meet with him to accomplish the interrogations," she says.
On Thursday the Stockholm District Court issued an order to detain him.
Ms Ny said that "to execute the court's decision, the next step is to issue an international arrest warrant".
Mr Assange's lawyer, Bjorn Hurtig, said his client "maintains his complete innocence".
Mr Hurtig would not say where Mr Assange was but added: "Sooner or later he has to come to Sweden if this continues."
When the allegations first emerged, Mr Assange said their appearance - at a time when Wikileaks had been criticised for leaking Afghan war documents - was "deeply disturbing".
Thursday 18 November 2010
Lawdamercy!
- Sarah Palin, after a reporter asked if she has considered running for President in 2012
@'NY Times' 
Naked Lusts and Natural Painkillers: Portrait of a Literary Outlaw
WSB & Patti Smith
“Death smells.” That pronouncement, delivered by William S. Burroughs with the granite hauteur of a smirking Grim Reaper begins “William S. Burroughs: A Man Within,” Yony Leyser’s sympathetic documentary portrait of the formidable proto-Beat author of “Naked Lunch.”
“I mean it has a special smell, over and above the smell of cyanide, carrion, blood, cordite or burnt flesh,” he continues, reading this excerpt from his novel “Cities of the Red Night” as the camera studies a face that suggests the stone bust of a patrician zombie.
A little later in this documentary, “A Man Within,” there is a pungent video of Burroughs’s incantatory recitation of his 1986 “Thanksgiving Prayer,” a facetious rundown of horrors to be grateful for — “Thanks for the American Dream to vulgarize and falsify until the bare lies shine through” — juxtaposed with a double-exposure of the poker-faced author and a rippling American flag and other patriotic symbols. Later there is an amusing deadpan rendition of Burroughs croaking Marlene Dietrich’s signature song, “Falling in Love Again,” in German, from his 1990 album, “Dead City Radio.”
Narrated by Peter Weller, who played a Burroughs-like character in David Cronenberg’s movie “Naked Lunch,” “A Man Within” is embellished with scratchy line drawing that evokes Burroughs’s skeletal vision of humanity. There is not a word or image wasted in a documentary you wish ran an extra half-hour beyond its condensed 90 minutes.
It is all either blood-chilling or hilarious. For those who celebrate Burroughs as one of the darkest and greatest of all comic artists, he is an extreme social satirist of Swiftian stature, whose quasi-pornographic images offer a stark, ghastly/funny photonegative image of the American body politic.
“A Man Within” is a kind of genealogy of hip that connects Burroughs, who was born in St. Louis in 1914, the wealthy Harvard-educated grandson of the founder of the Burroughs Adding Machine company, with many currents of America’s outlaw cultural tradition. He was a close friend and sometime lover of Allen Ginsberg, with whom he is shown in conversation — and an idol of punk rockers like the Clash, the Dead Kennedys, Iggy Pop and Sonic Youth. Foremost among his admirers is Patti Smith, who recalls having a crush on him and credits him as the source of pop-culture terms like “blade runner,” “heavy metal” and “soft machine.”
Besides Ginsberg, who died in 1997, another great friend and inspiration was Brion Gysin, the Surrealist artist whose application of the Dadaist cut-out technique to writing Burroughs enthusiastically adopted.
While burnishing the Burroughs mystique, “A Man Within” assiduously tries to humanize an author whom it is all too easy to view as an avenging nihilist, a black hole of icy misanthropic contempt. It goes into considerable depth about his homosexuality. A product of the pre-gay liberation era, he had a physical passion for Ginsberg that was mostly unrequited, and for most of his life relied largely on hustlers for sex.
His on-and-off heroin addiction and writings about drugs may have made him a hipster saint, nicknamed “the pope of dope,” but his message about heroin was a warning not to take it. He was obsessed with control, and for many years was controlled by his addiction.
Two family tragedies stalked him. In 1951, while playing a drunken game of William Tell in Mexico, he accidentally put a bullet through the head of his wife, Joan Vollmer, whom his friend, the poet John Giorno, says he loved deeply.
“I’m forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan’s death,” Burroughs is remembered as saying. As a commentary, Burroughs is heard quoting from Edward Arlington Robinson: “There are mistakes too monstrous for remorse.”
In 1981, his son, Billy Burroughs, who had tried to emulate his father, died of acute alcoholism. It was the only time, Mr. Giorno says, that he ever saw Burroughs weep.
Two of the most articulate of the film’s many commentators include John Waters, who sees his own work in the same outsider tradition and who regards Burroughs “as almost a religious figure,” and the gender-bending musician and performance artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge.
Late in life Burroughs softened somewhat, recalls James Grauerholz, his companion and executor of his estate. They moved to Lawrence, Kan., where Burroughs, an avid gun fetishist, took up visual art and produced “shotgun paintings,” made by shooting a can of spray paint placed in front of a plywood board.
His last words, scrawled in a journal shortly before his death in 1997, are among the most conciliatory he ever wrote: “Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller what there is.”
Stephen Holden @'NY Times'
The Terrorists Have Already Won
It is rare to find an issue that can unite libertarians, leftists, and conservatives in mutual outrage, but in the last week the U.S. Administration has succeeded in doing such a thing. Despite the brief “aww” moment of bipartisanship however, what I wish to make a few notes upon what is a morally odious practice that has received virtually no attention in the international media, yet one that has serious ramifications upon our freedoms. And one that if we are not careful, shall creep our way into Australia.
I am talking about the new security theatre regime installed by the Obama Administration at U.S. airports. As of last week, air travelers in the United States going through security screening at most modern airports have only two options: either go through a scanner that shall enable security personnel to – literally – see them naked, or be subjected to an “enhanced pat down” – one that is little different to the groping of a sexual pervert – one that, according to the Transport Security Agency guidelines, requires for the feeling up of travelers genitalia. And I am not exaggerating when I say that that is what occurs. The guidelines literally say this!
Now, as readers here will know, I have slightly more sympathy for pro-national security arguments than your average libertarian (what can I say, it’s the conservative bent in me J ) Yet this new policy strikes even me as perverse. For it will do nothing to increase security (I mean, come on, any terrorist will be able to find a way about the ban if they tried, and besides, these don’t even detect most weapons), and at the same time, it is a morally abhorrent violation of the rights of U.S. citizens. The whole charade of security theatre, and all the inefficient, costly measures that it has created that perhaps in the past I was willing to turn a blind eye to, has just gone waaaay too far. And don’t think, unless we act upon it, it can’t happen in Australia.
So. Let us get into the details. Under these new rules, travelers have a choice. They can either go through a scanner – one which numerous medical authorities have said have dangerous levels of radiation (Wired notes that “scientists have also expressed concern that radiation from the devices could have long-term health effects on travelers”.) – and one which takes clear photos of them naked (yup, you can see just how big their ‘junk’ is), or be subjected to a “pat down” – a euphemistic expression for a procedure in which TSA rules – and again, this isn’t hyperbole – demand agents feel the crotch of passengers (and, I ought mention, also thoroughly rub and examine the breasts if they are female). Some commentators have gone so far to call it sexual molestation – and with some justification. Oh, and think you can opt out? Once you arrive at an airport, if you refuse the naked photography/groping – even if you choose not to board the plane – you can be fined $10,000
In anycase, if you choose the nudie-scanner approach, the images have been demonstrated to be able to be saved and leaked (just yesterday 35,000 images from a U.S. Marshall’s Office – images which were pledged to be erased after every screening – were publicly released). Fortunately for those concerned, they were from an earlier generation of scanners, which are rather blurry. But yes, just wait till the full nudie-scanners hit the interwebs and be prepared to be a star!
So how’s this gone since introduction.
Let’s see. TSA agents have already been recorded putting their hands down people’s pants, cupping and squeezing a traveler’s breasts, and traumatizing children (watch this clip of a three year old girl being accosted and judge for yourself). There are already reports that machines are being used to ogle women (one TSA operative was caught out saying “heads up, I’ve got a cutie). And you already have proof of TSA officials use the body scanners to make fun of people’s genitals and who pretend to find cocaine in passengers’ luggage as a prank,, and even TSA Agents proudly boasting “I am God”. There are even reports that TSA agents are – quite literally – putting their hands down people’s pants .
Consider this story from a grope-survivor:
“I said I didn’t want them to see me naked and the agent started yelling “Opt out- we have an opt here”. Another agent took me aside and said they would have to pat me down. He told me he was going to touch my genitals and asked if I wouldn’t rather just go through the scanner, that it would be less humiliating for me. I was in shock. I couldn’t believe this was happening. I kept saying I don’t want any of this to happen. I was whispering please don’t do this, please, please.”
Since Celeste didn’t agree to go through the scanner, the enhanced pat down began. “He started at one leg and then ran his hand up to my crotch. He cupped and patted my crotch with his palm. Other flyers were watching this happen to me. At that point I closed my eyes and started praying to the Goddess for strength. He also cupped and then squeezed my breasts. That wasn’t the worst part. He touched my face, he touched my hair, stroking me. That’s when I started crying. It was so intimate, so horrible. I feel like I was being raped. There’s no way I can fly again. I can’t do it.””
A good friend of mine was so traumatized from her experience last week she cancelled her trip home to visit her family for Thanksgiving. Indeed, in the last week I have spoken to about 10 people who have travelled by air since this has come in. Ever single one – whether they chose the naked scanner, or the grope – have been traumatized. And I’m not talking about crazy anarcho-capitalist libertarians only here. I’m talking about your average American, forced to be humiliated by the state.
Of course, this has nothing to do with safety. The hours long wait at airports has already forced many to abandon air travel, and, as driving is proven to be more dangerous than flying, by one estimate, enhanced security procedures after 9/11 led to 2,300 additional road deaths in two years.. It is simply about government exercising its power.
Now, at this point, some of you may be scratching your heads wondering “why on earth is the Obama Administration doing this”. To which I chuckle to myself and extract the following from the Washington Examiner:
“Rapiscan is one of the two companies that makes the nudie-scanners at airports for the TSA. Rapiscan CEO Deepak Chopra … recently was tapped by Obama to accompany the administration on Obama’s trip to India. Also, Chopra is an Obama donor.”
But of course, that’s not all: “Rapiscan got the other naked-scanner contract from the TSA, worth $173 million. Rapiscan’s lobbyists include Susan Carr, a former senior legislative aide to Rep. David Price, D-N.C., chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee.” Ah of course.
So this is where have have come to. The rights of citizens being trampelled upon due to a bootleggers-Baptist alliance of national-security fearmongers, and rent-seeking corporations. This is what our fear in the ‘war of terror’ has come to. For good reason, the headline on the conservative Drudge Report (accompanied by a photo of a Catholic nun being felt-up by a TSA agent). read: The Terrorists Have Won. Because, if we have come to the stage where to board a plane you either have to be photographed naked, or groped by government operatives – when again there is no legitimate security requirement for this whatsoever, then we have a problem.
The only question is, what now Australia? For as the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, I worry if we ignore this travesty, the same thing may happen here. And that it shall become not a question of if, but when.
Tim Andrews @'Thoughts on Freedom'
johannhari101 Kate Middleton, "middle class"? Middle income is £22k a year in UK. Her parents spent £22k on school fees a year. And bought her a £1m flat
Tom Phillips - The app of A Humument
Tom Phillips’ A Humument is an artists’ book made by defacing (and hence deconstructing) an obscure Victorian novel, W.H. Mallock’s A Human Document, writes John L. Walters. (See Archive, Eye no. 18 vol. 5.) Phillips outlines white ‘rivers’ within the original text setting to link words of his choosing, revealing new phrases – ‘we are the people’, ‘art took ornament as water found desert’ – while applying ink, paint and collaged elements to each numbered page.
After four printed editions for Thames & Hudson (and the tiny Heart of a Humument), Phillips has made an iPad version, now available on iTunes. I interviewed him in the kitchen of his Peckham house on bonfire night, while rockets and bangers whizzed and crackled in the streets outside. Phillips is something of a local hero in our part of Southeast London, which he celebrates in the mighty 20 Sites n Years project...
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This makes me wish that I had an iPad to be honest...
Wednesday 17 November 2010
Researchers find that beached dolphins are often deaf
New research into the cause of dolphin "strandings" - incidents in which weakened or dead dolphins are found near shore - has shown that in some species, many stranded creatures share the same problem.
They are nearly deaf, in a world where hearing can be as valuable as sight.
That understanding - gained from a study of dolphins' brain activity - could help explain why such intelligent animals do something so seemingly dumb. Unable to use sound to find food or family members, dolphins can wind up weak and disoriented.
Researchers are unsure what is causing the hearing loss: It might be old age, birth defects or a cacophony of man-made noise in the ocean, including Navy sonar, which has been associated with some marine mammal strandings in recent years.
The news, researchers say, is a warning for those who rescue and release injured dolphins: In some cases, the animals might be going back to a world they can't hear.
"Rehab is pretty time-consuming and pretty expensive," said David Mann, a professor at the University of South Florida and the study's lead author. If the dolphin can't hear, he said, "there's almost no point in rehabbing it and releasing it."
The study, published Nov. 3 in the journal PLoS One, examined several species of marine mammals - including dolphins and small whales - in the Gulf of Mexico, Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. The animals had been found stranded in the wild and taken in for medical treatment and feeding.
Each year, 1,200 to 1,600 whales and dolphins are found stranded off the U.S. coast, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Most are dead: In 2007, the most recent year with data, 195 out of 1,263 animals were found alive...
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David Farenthold @'Washington Post'
50,000 People Face Humanitarian Disaster -- In South Dakota
All it took was a one-minute commentary. On February 9, 2010, Keith Olbermann told his viewers about a humanitarian crisis affecting 50,000 people. It was so bad, college basketball fans were being asked to share their soles. "Haiti?" he asked. "South Dakota. The shoe donations are being sought at the University of South Dakota and they are for the residents of the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation."On January 21, 2010, a devastating blizzard and snowstorm hit the area, one of the poorest in the country, knocking down over 3,000 utility poles. Residents were without electricity, water or heat in subzero temperatures for weeks. The tribe declared a state of emergency. "The government has done next to nothing for the Native Americans, who on a nice, sunny spring day there still face unemployment of 85 percent," Olbermann said sternly. "Doing nothing for these people, an American tradition since at least 1776."
He then directed viewers who wanted to donate to the Countdown website, where they would find a link to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe storm relief fund.
There were no videos or photos of the devastation. There was no interview with a tribal member. It was a one-minute commentary. According to Tribal Chairman Joe Brings Plenty, Olbermann's call for donations, coupled with community efforts and matching money from the Bush and Northwest Area Foundations, brought in $975,000. Daily Kos blogger Bill in Maryland posted a diary with donation links for neighboring tribes.
Chairman Brings Plenty said the response was overwhelming. "It was crazy. It had a huge effect compared to what we were doing to get coverage and people in DC to take notice. The government had to take notice because of the phone calls that were coming in."
Leo Fischer, general manger of the Tri-County/Mni Waste Water System, said that after the commentary aired, his phone wouldn't stop ringing. People who saw it drove 13 hours to drop off clothes, food and bottled water. "Very few people had generators, so they had to find a spot for the bottled water so it wouldn't freeze," he said. It was that cold...
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Rose Aquilar @'Alternet'
Tuesday 16 November 2010
WTF???
"In return for the [90 day] freeze, which would not include settlement construction in East Jerusalem, the Israelis would receive 20 advanced U.S. fighter jets and other military aid, as well as a U.S. pledge to block Palestinian attempts to work through the United Nations or other international bodies to achieve state...hood."
This is is the cost for a 90 day freeze in settlement construction!
(Thanx Son#1!)
Monday 15 November 2010
Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets'
I wasn't sure what, or perhaps whom, to expect as the door opened at Christopher Hitchens's top-floor apartment in downtown Washington. The last time I had interviewed the renowned polemicist, author, literary critic and new resident in the medical state he's called "Tumortown" was in 2005. On that occasion, after a 5am finish to our extravagantly lubricated conversation, it was I who had felt the pressing need of hospital attention.
Since then there have been two dramatic changes in his circumstances. The first was the international bestselling success of his 2007 anti-theist tome God is Not Great. After decades of acclaimed but essentially confined labour, Hitchens suddenly broke out to a mass audience, becoming arguably the global figurehead of the so-called New Atheists. Almost overnight he was upgraded from intellectual notoriety, as an outspoken supporter of the invasion of Iraq, to the business end of mainstream fame. In America, in particular, he has reached that rare position for a journalist of becoming a news story himself.
Unfortunately the news, which provided the second personal transformation, was that in June he was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus, a malignancy whose survival ratings do not make soothing bedtime reading. As restraint is a quality for which neither Hitchens nor his critics are known, the ironies proved irresistible to many commentators. For the religiously zealous, the arch atheist suffering a mortal illness spoke of divine retribution – the unacknowledged irony being that belief in such a vindictive god served only to endorse Hitchens's thesis...
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Andrew Anthony @'The Guardian'
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