Monday 30 May 2011

We Have the Rest of This Year to Save Bradley Manning

Cate Blanchett sparks Australia climate debate

The Australian actress Cate Blanchett has been criticised for appearing in a television advertisement calling for the introduction of a carbon tax.
One leading opposition politician said the Oscar-winning actress did not understand the cost-of-living concerns of ordinary Australians.
She has been a strong advocate of steps to reduce Australian emissions.
Senator Barnaby Joyce said she should stick to acting, but the government and the Greens have rallied behind her.
It has been dubbed the Cate debate, and centres on the Oscar-winning actress's support for the government's controversial new carbon tax, which is bitterly opposed by the conservative opposition.
She features briefly in a new television campaign urging Australians to "Say Yes" to a tax on carbon.
Opponents of the carbon tax say it will increase the cost of living for ordinary Australians.
Mr Joyce, of the National Party, said the multi-millionaire star had no idea what it was like for working families struggling with rising costs.
One right-wing tabloid called her a morally vain Hollywood star trying to justify her great good fortune by preaching to the rest of Australia about climate change.
She has been the driving force behind what has been called the greening of the Sydney Theatre Company, where she is an artistic director. Her mansion in Sydney is fitted with solar panels.
The attacks on Cate Blanchett also reveal an instinctive suspicion of people in Australia perceived to be part of a cultural or educational elite - especially by the populist right.
The movie star, who has been backed by the government and the Australian Greens, has not responded publicly to the criticism.
Nick Bryant @'BBC'

Meanwhile Murdoch's stable continues its attacks on anything to do with climate change...oh and Bill Leak WTF?

This is about our children's world and our legacy to them and if we could just get the Gina and Twiggy's of this world to actually pay for the damage they are causing this continent and the world...

I Love Anonymous!

can relate

claytoncubitt Clayton Cubitt

I think my favorite karaoke song is John Cage's 4'33.

PBS hit by LulzSec

Hey Anonymous, we heard you were having trouble!

LulzSec The Lulz Boat
What's wrong with @PBS, how come all of its servers are rooted? How come their database is seized? Why are passwords cracked? :(

http://www.pbs.org/lulz/

and...

LulzSec The Lulz Boat
By the way, #WikiSecrets sucked. @PBS

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FB blocks anti-women driving Saudi campaign

A group of Saudi women who launched a counter-campaign on Facebook this week to press for maintaining a long-standing ban on female car driving in the Gulf Kingdom accused the social network of blocking their page.
A female activist in the campaign said the page had been partially blocked several times over the past few days before it completely disappeared from Facebook on Saturday, according to local newspapers.
“We all are surprised at Facebook’s decision to cancel our page for no reason…we have not committed any mistake or violated the network’s rules…we just expressed our opinion which is against allowing women to drive cars,” Anbakum newspaper quoted an unnamed activist as saying.
“Our campaign entitled ‘I don’t want to drive….I want my rights’, is intended to press for the development of a public transport system for women and to respond to that campaign which is demanding a removal of the ban on driving….we wonder who will benefit from abolishing these female voices which are only expressing their views and calling for a pioneer national project.”
Newspapers last week said nearly 1,000 Saudi women signed a letter on Facebook, to be presented later to King Abdullah, appealing for him not to lift the ban on female driving in the conservative Moslem country.
The letter branded women pressing for an end to the ban as “weird” and said their campaigns to lift the ban and defiant driving by some women are more serious than protests, the papers said.
Sharq Arabic language daily said the statement was in response to a campaign launched by women on Facebook to defy a ban on female driving.
The campaign has already drawn a backlash from men, who threatened to use their headgears to confront women driving cars.
“The 1,000 women said they intend to present the letter signed by them to the Monarch to express their objection to women driving cars..…they affirmed that the recent demands and flagrant defiant actions by some women represent only a minority of the country’s women and that millions of women are opposed to lifting the ban.”
@'Emirates 24/7'

Tributes paid to Gil Scott-Heron

Musicians and friends have been paying tribute to the poet and hip-hop pioneer Gil Scott-Heron, who has died at the age of 62.

Eminem, Talib Kweli and Snoop Dogg were among the rappers who acknowledged his influence after hearing the news.
Public Enemy member Chuck D said on Twitter: "We do what we do and how we do because of you."
Wu-Tang Clan's Ghostface Killah wrote: "Salute Gil Scott-Heron for his wisdom and poetry! May he rest in paradise."
Scott-Heron, often called the Godfather of Rap, died in a New York hospital.
His material spanned soul, jazz, blues and the spoken word. His 1970s work heavily influenced the US hip-hop and rap scenes.
His work had a strong political element, and one of his most famous pieces was The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Eminem wrote on Twitter: "RIP Gil Scott-Heron. He influenced all of hip-hop."
Cee Lo Green paid tribute to "the god Gil Scott", while Talib Kweli said he "completely influenced me as an artist".
Politically outspoken rapper Michael Franti said Scott-Heron's talent was his ability to "make us think about the world in a different way".
He would make listeners "laugh hysterically about the ironies of American culture, anger at the hypocrisy of our political system, all to a beat that kept us on the dance floor, with a voice and flow that kept you waiting with anticipation for the next phrase".

Richard Russell, who produced and released Scott-Heron's final album I'm New Here in 2010, described him as "a master lyricist, singer, orator, and keyboard player".
"Gil was not perfect in his own life," Russell wrote. "But neither is anyone else. And he judged no-one.
"He had a fierce intelligence, and a way with words which was untouchable; an incredible sense of humour and a gentleness and humanity that was unique to him.
"Gil shunned all the trappings of fame and success. He could have had all those things. But he was greater than that."

The musician's publisher Jamie Byng remembered him as "a giant of a man, a truly inspirational figure whom I loved like a father and a brother".

Scott-Heron infected people who encountered him with his "singularity of vision, his charismatic personality, his moral beauty and his willingness to take his fellow travellers through the full range of emotions", Byng wrote.
"Throughout a magnificent musical career, he helped people again and again, with his willingness and ability to articulate deep truths, through his eloquent attacks on injustices and by his enormous compassion for people's pain.
"Hundreds of thousands of people saw Gil perform live over the decades, always with remarkable bands, and few came away untouched by his magnetism, humility, biting wit and warmth of spirit."
Lemn Sissay, a friend of Scott-Heron's who produced a documentary on his work, told the BBC he was "a polymath" who "spoke crucially of the issues of his people".
"In the late 60 and early 70s, black poets were the news-givers, because their stories were not covered in truth in the mainstream media," he said.
@'BBC'