Just Another Massacre Of Unarmed Civilians By Israel



Spiegel :

Israeli commandos killed at least 10 people when they stormed an activist flotilla carrying aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday. The European Union has called for an inquiry into the incident, while German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle says he is "deeply concerned."

European countries have condemned Israel's storming of an activist flotilla heading for the Gaza Strip early on Monday, which left at least 10 people dead.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was "deeply concerned" about the Israeli operation. "The initial reports are disconcerting," Westerwelle said Monday in Berlin, adding that the Foreign Ministry was attempting to gain a comprehensive overview of the circumstances of the incident.

Westerwelle's French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, condemned the incident and called for an immediate inquiry. "I am profoundly shocked by the tragic consequences of the Israeli military operation," Kouchner said in a statement. "Nothing can justify the use of violence such as this, which we condemn. The circumstances of this drama must be fully brought to light and we wish for a thorough inquiry to be put in place without delay."

The European Union has also called for an investigation into the incident. "High Representative Catherine Ashton expresses her deep regret at the news of loss of life and violence and extends her sympathies to families of the dead and wounded," said a spokesperson for Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief. "On behalf of the European Union she demands a full enquiry about the circumstances in which this happened."

Spain, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, condemned the storming of the flotilla as "unacceptable" and "very serious." "We have summoned the Israeli ambassador (to Spain) to give us explanations and, of course, we will investigate and will start handling this matter immediately," said Diego Lopez Garrido, a senior Foreign Ministry official responsible for EU affairs.

A TimeLine Of The Israel Flotilla Massacre

The IDF releases its own video of the Gaza flotilla massacre. Did they send their soldiers onto the ship to get footage like this? They knew the reaction would be violent :



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A Redditer rounds up the immediate fallout from European media :

German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle told that he is "deeply concerned" about the actions of the Israeli Army.

the presidency of the EU-Council labeled the action as "unacceptable" and "very harmful"

Spain's government summoned the Israeli ambassador

France foreign minster Kouchner told that he is "very shocked about the tragic results of the Israeli military operation" and added furthermore "nothing can justify such use of force/violence". He also longed for complete reconnaissance.

there will be a national mourning period for the next three days in Gaza.

some of the ships sailed under Turkish flag, which will lead to even more problem between Israel and Turkey. Additionally at least nine Turkish citizen died.

four soldiers are wounded, one with a bullet wound (from an Israeli weapon)

one reporter stated that the soldiers had shot before they entered the ships.

Israel stated that the passengers attacked the soldiers with iron bars and the soldiers just defended themselves

six ships have been captured

Israel's TV stated that there are 19 dead

several hundred elite soldiers stormed in international waters with helicopters and speed boats ships of the "Solidaritätsflotte"

EU told that the embargo of Gaza strip shall end right now and it's "not acceptable"

the police in Israel is at red alert and security forces started to control the Tempelberg/Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Abbas wants the UN Security Council to convene an emergency meeting

the Arabic league plans to publish an united conduct about the actions at Tuesday

EU wants a complete revelation of all unlawful things and told Israel to stop the embargo "without any conditions"

UN human rights commissioner Pillay told that she is "shocked" that humanitarianaid is stoped by force

the speaker of the German government Wilhem said that: "at first glance, it does not seem like" the proportionality principle was followed

Obviously, this is not over yet.

For fans of industrial decay, here's an amazing series of photos from the abandoned Russian 'Space Shuttle Factory' at Baikonur :



The Russian Buran space shuttle program only managed to lob one shuttle into brief orbit around the Earth in 1988. The cosmodrome was abandoned in 1992.

Go Here For Many More Photos


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As you may have read elsewhere by now, the Russians used underground nuclear detonations to close off massive oil and gas leaks over recent decades. Here's how they did it :

Obama Official - "I've Ended The War On Drugs"

There's plenty more to be said on this, later, but for now the main details from the Irish Examiner :

The United States has "ended its war on drugs" and is now moving its focus to prevention and treatment, the US drugs chief has told top Irish drug officials.

President Barack Obama’s drugs adviser Gil Kerlikowske held a series of meetings yesterday with Drugs Minister Pat Carey, Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy and Department of Justice secretary general Sean Aylward.

The former police chief said the US had formally ended its much heralded – and hugely expensive – "war on drugs".

"We’ve talked about a ‘war on drugs’ for 40 years, since President Nixon. I ended the war," said Mr Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP).

The Full Story Is Here

Hopped Up On Hopper

Dennis Hopper, before the alcoholism and LSD abuse took hold in the late 1960s, was regarded as one of the greatest actors of his generation.

Anyone under 50 knows Hopper better as one of the great portrayers of the unhinged and psychotic. His role as the disturbing gas huffer Frank in Blue Velvet being one of the finest examples, along with the dope-dealing Feck in River's Edge

Dennis Hopper died today, after a long battle with cancer.

Roger Ebert's obituary

A rarely seen example of Hopper's monumental acting talent from an early Twilight Zone ;



Hopper completely unhinged in the mid-1970s Australian bushranger film :



And, to my generation at least, probably his greatest role, at least the most memorial and quotable :



Dennis Hopper's Science Fiction Movie Roles

Dennis Hopper The Photographer : On The Long Walk With Martin Luther King

Officially, 1000 American soldiers have now been killed in the War On Afghanistan. The toll of Afghans is in the tens of thousands.

Sebastian Jungler on what war does to the human body :

"...an irony of modern combat: it does extraordinarily violent things to the human body but requires almost dead calm to execute well. Complex motor skills start to diminish at 145 beats per minute, which wouldn't matter much in a swordfight, but could definitely ruin your aim with a rifle. At 170 beats per minute you start to experience tunnel vision, loss of depth perception, and restricted hearing. And at 180 beats per minute you enter a netherworld where rational thought decays, bowel and bladder control are lost, and you start to exhibit the crudest sorts of survival behaviours: freezing, fleeing and submission."

Go Here To Read A Chunky Excerpt From Sebastian Jungler's New Book 'War'

"...reducing individuals to culpable groups, and seeing the solutions to the problems of mankind in their extermination, is the ultimate crime, whether perpetrated by Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin or Hitler."


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The next generation of military drones - smaller, faster, vastly more maneuverable :

Two stunning satellite photos from NASA. Click the images to enlarge.

The first shows a phytoplankton bloom in the North Atlantic :



More Here


This one show the spreading, terrifying scale of the Gulf of Mexico oil gusher disaster :



More Here

Stories I've Been Reading :

"The 'Body-Swapping' Effect Was So Convincing That The Men's Sense Of Self Was Transferred Into The Virtual Woman

Man Infects Himself With Computer Virus To Show Vulnerability Of ID Chips & Implants : "If Someone Can Get Online Access To Your Implant, It Could Be Serious"

New British Government Promise To Wind Back DNA Storage, Control CCTV, Cancel Mandatory ID Cards As Budgets Fail Police State Implementation

Why All Politicians Should Have A Twitter Account, And Why They Should Use It

Australian Politician Confirms Australian Intelligence Agencies Use Fake Passports In Interview, Then Retracts Her Claims

9/11 Rescue Workers Were Valuable Political Props For Republicans, But Now Republicans Don't Want To Pay Health Care Costs Of 70,000 Sick & Dying Victims

Australian Prime Minister Unleashes His Infamous Temper On Murdoch Editors & Journos During A Dinner, No Murdoch Newspaper Reports The Incident, 'War On Rudd' Soon Begins At Murdoch Newspapers

Obama Wanted America To "Step Past The Cultural Chasm Of An Earlier Era", But Americans Still Obsessed With Debates On Issues Dating Back To The 1960s

Massive Increase In Number Of Miscarriages In US In The Weeks After 9/11, "Communal Bereavement" Blamed"

Taliban In Kabul Kill NATO Military Elite In Attack, Two Colonels & Two Lieutenant Colonels

Some Secrets Of Pentagon's New Shuttle Mission Exposed By Amateur Sky Watchers - Vehicle Can Launch And Catch Satellites, Stay Aloft For Nine Months

In 1992, Thais Fought Together For Democracy, Now They Fight Each Other

Pakistan : "When Water Stops Running From The Taps, People Blame America"

London Museum Changes Name Of New Permanent Exhibit From 'Climate Change Gallery' To 'Climate Science Gallery' As Skepticism Over AGW Rises

Most Web Users Have No Idea Extent Of Routine Monitoring Of Their Online Behaviour, Scanning E-Mails For Key Words, Crawling Computer's Memory, Remembering Where They've Been, Who They Communicate With The Most

Rush Limbaugh, Self-Styled Hero Of Working Class America, Drinks $4000 Bottles Of Wine, Sleeps In Exact Replica Of Presidential Suite From Paris' Hotel George V

For Hollywood's 10,000 Working Movie Producers, The Glory Days Are Just About Over As Major And Small Studios Slash Production

"Sell Everything, Quickly"

For some reason, the headsmacking reality of the $5 trillion European Debt Crisis is best explained through satire :



Enjoy the mirth while you can. There's no tax on laughter. Well, not yet anyway.

It's been a long time since I've seen Disney's Sleeping Beauty, but I don't remember the Evil Queen being quite so Xena :



Art by J Scott Campbell

Campbell reimagines other 'Disney Princesses' here

Call It What It Is : Foxoganda

For the United States - after 5000 lives lost, 50,000 + seriously wounded and more than $1 trillion spent - the Iraq Was is over, so Fox News celebrates by censoring the applause of American soldiers when President Obama discusses the end of the war at West Point Military Academy :



Could that pause have been anymore obvious?

You can compare the Fox News silencing of American military to this uncensored version of the Obama address at West Point, with plenty of applause.

They may not talk as we talk, but they certainly communicate, as do most other animals.

The buildings are modeled, the 3D animations are created to fit the model, then blown up to life size and projected back onto the real buildings. Our future cities will be filled with incredible animations.

Why NeoCons Hate Rand Paul

From Agence Global :

Rand Paul says, "I would have voted no on the Iraq War." He also says, in a video posted prominently on his campaign website, that he'll push for formal declarations, with House and Senate votes, before the launch even of wars he might favor. He says that while national defense is the top responsibility of government, conservatives who are serious about reducing waste must be wary of the excesses of the military-industrial complex. Add on criticisms of the Patriot Act and a willingness to cross partisan lines, and you can see why Rand Paul gets Cheney's goat.

What really troubles Cheney and his circle, according to the Cato Institute's David Boaz, is the prospect that a Paul win would begin to crack the false facade of party unity on military intervention. "That's an issue the GOP establishment doesn't want an open debate on," says Boaz, who suggests the neocons "desperately fear that [electing] a conservative anti-interventionist leader on foreign policy just might reveal that a lot of Republicans and conservatives...don't buy the world-policeman foreign policy the Bush/Cheney administration imposed on the GOP."

The NeoCon-controlled Republicans are terrified now of The Tea Party, and they're decidedly nervous that Ron Paul could become the movement's leader. Sarah Palin as a leader of the Tea Party, they could handle her, and through her, most of the movement. But Rand Paul is something else altogether, and much closer to the roots of the Tea Party.

The New Republic takes note of the changing tone of The Weekly Standard, the NeoCons' propaganda central, towards Obama in the wake of his victory in establishing his health care priorities. With more legislative victories on the horizon.

Last August, was a cartoon joke :



Not anymore, now The Weekly Standard portrays President Obama as a looming, threatening overseer.



The Full Story Is Here

The Battle Of Bangkok

Urban warfare 2010, Thailand. Fireworks, slingshots and homemade RPGs :




A stunning gallery of weeks of street fighting in Bangkok from Life :



A map of Bangkok's CBD. The green and red highlighted blocks are the areas held for six weeks by Red Shirt protesters, locked in by barricades of tyres and sharpened bamboo poles. The area held by the Red Shirts contained some of Bangkok's most expensive hotels, shops and office suites, nearly all shut down or financially savaged by the protests.

The barricades were crossed today by Thai military and riot police. The weeks of clashes killed more than 60 people, injuring hundreds, ruining tourism to Thailand's capital and costing local businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in lost trade.

Red Shirt protest leaders have now surrendered.

Like something out of an alternate universe, one where Star Wars director George Lucas was not a brilliantly original creator of some of the most influential science fiction movies ever made, but was instead a big budget director of remakes of cheap movies he loved as a child :

The Pirate Bay mocks the entire movie, TV and music industries and their lawyers repeated attempts to close the file-sharing torrent site :

PLZ LEARN: TPB CANT BE SHUT DOWN

LOL!

AS U MITE HAS READ OR NOTICD, PEEPS ONCE AGAIN R TRYIN 2 SHUT US DOWN. DIS WILL NOT SUCCED, LOL. OURS RLY NICE WEBHOST WUZ THREATEND WIF RLY HUGE FINE, SO WE DECIDD 2 MOOV TEH SIET SO DAT THEY DIDNT GOT INTO TROUBLE, LOL. TEH DECISHUN 2 MOOV WUZ TAKEN BY US, TEH PIRATE BAY, LOL.

TEH PIRATE BAY IZ AN UNSINKABLE SHIP. IT WILL SAIL TEH INTERWEBS 4 AS LONG AS WE WANTS IT 2. REMEMBR DAT, K THX.

TPB, ONLY IN IT 4 TEH LULZ SINCE 2003

A rare look inside the extraordinary JP Morgan library here.

The library holds a 16th century tapestry called 'The Triumph Of Avarice'. A basic Google search brings up no results for this impressive work :



Avarice is, of course, one of the Seven Deadly Sins, one of the more destructive for communities, and defines out as "an insatiable greed for riches...a miserly desire to gain and hoard wealth."

How intrinsically accurate a tapestry to hang then in a JP Morgan building.

Detail from the mosaics in the library's rotunda :





From photos taken by Chad Bakta for the New York Times.

The JP Morgan Library also has its own copy of the Magna Carta, from 1217, one of the oldest and rarest books in existence.

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It may not be possible to make a more American political campaign ad than this one, it has it all - guns, God, constitution, dog tags, farm, horse.



(via Reddit)

Proof The BBC Has Been Using Time Travelers As Fact Checkers For Their Documentaries About The Future

A production sketch for a BBC doco made in 1967 :



A fantastic piece by Nigell Calder on how the age of the internet was foreseen, dramatically accurately so, way back in the 1960s :

(the) “a total information system” alias World Box.

“The work of commercial and professional organisations will be transformed. There may be no very clear distinction between authors, scholars, publishers, librarians, television producers or anyone else who can be called an information mediator – but it will be their task to save mankind from drowning in its own information.” Included also was a warning about the use of the system for pornography, and even a speculation that we might one day carry the World Box in our pockets.

Apparently the British government could have put together the internet and its architecture, but just wasn't interested in a worldwide information network they could have owned and licensed. Whoops.

Read The Whole Story Here

The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was longer and wider than a football field. It sits at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, after explosions shattered the platform and killed 11 people on April 20.

Then the oil and natural gas began to flow. BP doesn't know how to stop this :

,,,,one intense kick of natural gas caused the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig to be shut down because of the fear of an explosion just weeks before a similar release succeeded in destroying and sinking the platform and sent millions of gallons of oil on a collision course with Louisiana and the rest of the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

The hole from which tens of thousands of barrels of oil now geysers reaches 30,000 feet down into the Earth's crust. They can only make mildly ducated guesses about what's down there, or what's coming up the pipe.



From NOLA :

Shortly before the accident, engineers argued about whether to remove heavy drilling mud that acted as a last defense against such catastrophic kicks, and the decision to replace the mud with much lighter seawater won out.

...(frozen natural gas) slush forced its way to the rig, shot 240 feet in the air and heated into a gas that quickly ignited into fireballs....Among those tossed asunder by the explosions were BP officials who were on the rig to celebrate a seven-year spotless safety record.

This Is A Must Read

Stephen Colbert : "No One Knows What The Fuck They're Doing"

Portrait Of A Chief Executive, 2010

The titans of Silicon Valley :

Ellison says he learned that Sun's pony-tailed chief executive, Jonathan Schwartz, ignored problems as they escalated, made poor strategic decisions and spent too much time working on his blog, which Sun translated into 11 languages.

At least he was doing something mildly constructive.

Liquid Hills

In early February, torrential rains hit southern Italy. Massive landslides followed :



The Aftermath :




(via Reddit)

Twittocracy

This is how Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez promotes Twitter throughout the country :



Chavez on Twitter :

"It's a form of contact with the world."

"(Twitter is) a weapon that also needs to be used by the revolution."

With an average of about 20,000 people per day signing up to follow Chavez's tweets, the president says he has been overwhelmed by nearly 54,000 messages from supporters, critics and people writing to ask for help with a problem or lodge a complaint. On Thursday, he announced that a new team of 200 aides would help him manage the stream.

"I'm creating a team due to the avalanche of requests, and some grievances," he said.

Can you run a country via tweet?


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As a British politician journalist, Adam Boulton has endured more than 15 years of Alistair "Master Of Spin" Campbell's infuriating bullshit.

The UK election is over, the Labour Party lost, the era of Tony Blair's New Labour is in ruins.

Adam Boulton no longer has to put with Campbell's rejigging of blindly obvious truths and putting words in other peoples' mouths, particularly his own :



Brilliant. There should be more of it.

A very young Jon Stewart, in some sort of Fonzie getup, interviews George Carlin on cannabis and creativity :

You Sir, Just Might Be A Superhero

The first time I watched this I thought, for a second, that there was some kind of bubble around this father and his child, protecting them both, from an instant of destruction. But that would be some kind of crazy :



The father and child survived.

On the fourth or fifth viewing, you start to think how fantastic it would be if a Superman movie, or any superhero movie, had this scale of everyday life, sudden seconds of terror, realism.

The car's fender is dented, right where he's standing, like the dent is from hitting his body.

But he car hits the wall first, not the man. Or so it appears.

I think.

Skiing robots will be taking on some very intense runs in a decade, ones that humans are shy to attempt, or cannot attempt because of altitude. This early attempt needs a chair, so non-skiers can take a preset ride down a mountain

The BBC farewells prime minister Gordon Brown :




(via @KrazyKat)

Sarah Palin and her family featured in USA Weekend on Mother's Day :



The story is here, but the online feature included what has to be one of the strangest poll questions you'll see this year.





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From the White House photo of the day for May 7, West Wing image makers shoot for an 'Obama In Charge' public perception shift :

"Rupert Murdoch Is Poison"

Sky News airs some uncensored comments from members of the public :



Sky News was doing this interview in a public space, in a democracy. For now at least, shouting your opinions in public is not against the law. So if you get the opportunity to do so, feel free to have your say on live national TV, too.

(via @steevbishop)

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Riot Dog

If you've been watching footage of the Greece Riots, and you keep seeing that a dog darting amongst protesters and squaring up to the police and you've been thinking, 'Weird, that dog looks so familiar', you're right. He is familiar. Because he's been out front of numerous protests and marches in Greece for the past two years.



A Photo Essay Of Riot Dog

Makes you wonder if that dog's an old reincarnated anarchist. Or maybe he just digs the excitement and crowds.

A Redditer provides more details :

I live in Athens and this dog is very famous and everybody feeds and loves this animal. BUT his name is LOUK,from Loukanikos a word that means sausage ,because he used to eat sausages all the time.He lives on the street,he has no master and he, along with 4-5 other dogs comes to every demonstration here in Athens.

This Redditer tells an amazing tale about another riot dog named Kenellos :

The members of Indymedia athens, used to feed him. When Kanellos was caught by the dog catcher 4 years ago ,a demo of 400 people took place and we released him from the dog catcher!

More Discussion On Athens' 'Dogs Of The Movement' Here

Glenn Beck's Star Fading Fast As Advertisers Bail

Don't let anybody ever tell you that boycotting corporations doesn't work. It does work. If you don't like how a corporation whose products and services you buy and use spend their avertising dollars, you can stop giving them money and tell them exactly why they've lost you as a customer.

Boycotts work.

Rupert Murdoch now has to deny to the media that he is "subsidising" Glenn Beck's appearances on Fox News, after a massive exit by advertisers :

The Los Angeles Times reports that when asked how Fox would "subsidize the show," Murdoch fired back that "it's not subsidizing the show at all."

At least 200 companies have boycotted Beck's program over the host's assertion that President Barack Obama hates white people, according to a March report in the Washington Post.

Beck's ratings have dropped 30 percent since January to 2.1 million viewers in April. However, Mediaite recently reported that Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann, Bill O'Reilly, Campbell Brown and Rachell Maddow also lost viewers during the same period.

Boycotts work. That's why so many in the media keep telling you they're pointless to pursue and a waste of your valuable time.

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The War On Nipples, Or The 2010 British Elections

By Darryl Mason

Brits have gone to the polls today to elect a new government. As you may already be aware, the rise of the Liberal Democrats party to almost equal pegging with prime minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party shows just what sort of chaos and excitement the rise of a viable third party in an entrenched two party systems can generate. Brits, for the first time in a long time, actually give a shit about who is going to run their country, through what will turn out to be some of the most financial miserable periods for the country since the end of World War 2.

The Labour Party and the Conservative Party both shit themselves, and the ultra-wealthy and society-privileged puked on their shoes, when Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg suddenly rose off the back of a successful (for him) live TV debate to score front page and evening news leads nervously asking 'Could This Man Become Prime Minister?'

Think about that for moment. Barely a few weeks out from an election that was widely tipped to be won by the Conservative Party, a viable third party has broken through, rocking the media, the elite, the entire election. Just like that.

Nick Clegg won't become prime minister, unless the 1 in 3 Brits who said they remain undecided as to how they would vote, on election eve, turn out to closet Cleggians, but he will most certainly receive a credible, powerful ministerial post. Foreign Secretary Nick Clegg sounds about right. Which is going to cause all sorts of chaos for those who wish to extend the War On Terror to the War On Iran.

Out of all the media coverage, you surely can't go past The Sun on election eve for the most base kind of fearmongering in their campaign to have the Conservative Party win so Rupert Murdoch will get his dream of a defunded BBC.

No, The Sun didn't say voting for Labour or Liberal Democrats will leave Britain vulnerable to Islamic terrorism (well, at least they didn't yesterday), none of the standards.

They came up with the one Big Fear The Sun's most dedicated readers would scream murderous rage over as they run for the polling booths to vote Conservative.

Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown want to take away women's nipples.

That's the nipples of the mostly teenage girls who appear every day on Page 3 of The Sun. Those rotten Lefties want to take the topless out of The Sun's Topless Page 3 Girls. No major issues of social order can beat that. This is how lowly and base Rupert Murdoch's editors think the readership really is. The threat is clear, if you don't vote Conservative, you'll lose the tits.

The Sun :

Page 3 Girls in all their glory represent the very image of freedom in this country.

But if Labour or the Lib Dems win the election, this could be the last time they are allowed to pose together.

(Labour and Lib Dem MPs) will move swiftly to change the law and ban Page 3 forever.

Our national treasures - who even enjoy the Royal seal of approval from our future King Prince Charles - will be no more.

And at a stroke the very liberties that put the Great into Great Britain will be torn asunder.

Remember, according to Rupert Murdoch, the nipples of teenage girls represent Freedom and Liberty.

Here's the front page of The Sun on British Elections Day 2010 :



And here's a few other great front pages from election day :







This will be the last time that British newspapers will be able to claim with any kind of seriousness that they control or even majorly influence who gets to be Prime Minister.

"It Was All Free, I Tell You Kids! Movies, Music, TV, We Didn't Pay For Anything!"

A songwriting association, or lawyers representing publishers who own the rights to musicians' songs, are now making the utterly absurd claim that online music piracy is worse than bankrobberies. The Songwriters' Guild demands the FBI act to reign in these digitally armed criminals. Now.

Ars Technica rounds up the story, but the article concludes with this remarkable checklist from the corporate entertainment giants of how they wish the internet to be controlled, for their benefit, and they're furiously lobbying the White House right now to meet their demands :

• Technologies to detect, monitor (and filter) traffic or specific files based on analysis of information such as protocols, file types, text description, metadata, file size and other “external” information;
• Content recognition technologies such as digital hashes, watermark detection, and fingerprinting technologies;
• Site blocking, redirection with automated warning systems/quarantine of repeat offending sites;
• Bandwidth shaping and throttling;
• Scanning infrastructure (the ability to subscribe to RSS-style data feeds as sites get new postings of content and links (for linking, streaming, and locker sites)

Your grandchildren won't believe the freedoms you once had on the internet. The first decade of the 21st century online will sound like a digital nirvana, where amongst the criminality hundreds of millions people shared their love of music, movies, culture, history, art and literature, all for free.

2000-2010 was the era of free information. No age of humanity shared so much knowledge, so widely, so easily.

Sad to think it is now all but over.

What comes next will be The Age Of Bland.

This was more entertaining, and involving, than most of the action scenes I've seen recently in mega-million dollar movies. Made for almost nothing inside a video game :

We Are Told Animals Can't Comprehend Death, Or Mourn Their Own, But What Do You See?

The Squirrel Who Stands Guard Over An Injured Friend :



The Elephants That Grieve Over Their Dead :



The Cat That Won't Leave His Dead Friend's Side :



Why do we assume they have 'human emotions'?

Why do we judge the way they treat their own dead by the way we treat ours?

Wouldn't it be more likely that cats, squirrels, elephants, dogs, apes, would have different interpretations of their own emotions, not only from us, but from other animals as well?

One day we may learn the inherent culture and morality of different animals, morality and culture embedded in their genetic memories, is in fact far more complicated than our own, and more evolved than we could ever have imagined.

President Obama manages to get off a whole bunch of great lines, mostly written for him by staffers of the Daily Show, at the White House Correspondents Dinner :



Though Obama's jokes about using Predator drones to protect his daughters from aspiring boyfriends - "you won't even hear them coming" - won't seem so funny a few years from now, when air strikes in the US by flying killer robots have become a reality, at least along the United States' borders with Mexico.

Life Magazine promotes the below image of Berlin, after 350 massive aerial bombardments by the Allies from 1940 to 1945, that killed tens of thousands of civilians, as "never before published". Why not?



Too shocking for Americans to see that entire city blocks of civilian apartments, theatres, parks, hospitals were laid to waste?

Life Magazine claims this couch is where Hitler committed suicide, and that the blood stains on the arm of the chair are his :



Inside Hitler's Bunker

From the 1985 claymation film, The Adventures Of Mark Twain :

Osama Bin Bones

The Benjamin Button effect in Osama Bin Laden photos :



A fascinating read :

Did Osama Bin Laden Confess To The 9/11 Attacks, And Did He Die, In 2001?

David Ray Griffin goes into great detail in the above piece, and his conclusions have a certain logic to them, but there is plenty of meat in his story. Along with theories, it's also full of facts. Details about Bin Laden that appeared once or twice in the media and then disappeared from the Narrative. Those facts are meat. Enough meat for the Washington Post, or LA Times or New York Times, or even Fox News, to jump on and turn into one of the most read, most linked, most debated and most e-mailed on stories of the year.

So why haven't any of these media corporations examined the evidence for Bin Laden, Alive Or Dead, and turned it into a huge story? They need every view, click and pair of eyeballs they can get right now.

Is the question of whether Osama Bin Laden, the Hitler of the War On Terror, is alive or dead less important than the private sex lives of American actors, reality show celebrities and senators?

We're fighting a ghost.

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