Obama Hasn't Given Up Plans for Global Nuclear Holocaust by 2015
Posted by barry at
6:25 PM on February 6, 2010
'Russian officials reacted coolly on Friday to the news that Romania had agreed to host American missile interceptors starting in 2015...'
To say the least. NATO missiles a few miles from Moscow, what a sensible idea that is!
Details about that in the New York Times.
Predictably, 'President Dmitry Medvedev approved Friday a new military doctrine identifying NATO expansion as a national threat and reaffirming Russia's right to use nuclear weapons if the country's existence is threatened.'
See the Reuters story.
And I say thank you, thank you thank you thank you Mister 'Nobel Peace Prize' Obama, for ending all life on Earth! O, thank you! Cheers! It's been a pleasure! Don't run for office on any other planets, by the way!
Idiot.
Relaxing Pagan Site Actually a Totem Pole of Cthulhu
Posted by barry at
6:14 PM on February 6, 2010
'Letters that lay undiscovered in national archives for more than 230 years suggest that Silbury Hill, the enigmatic man-made mound that stands between Marlborough and Beckhampton, may have originally be constructed around some sort of totem pole.'
Read the Long lost theory and let's raise Great Cthulhu once and for all!
| Comments (0)Friday Choon: '101' by Finitribe
Posted by damien at
11:58 AM on February 5, 2010
(image from Derekvon, used under a CC license)
A 1991 gem for you this week, '101' from Finitribe.
Continue reading "Friday Choon: '101' by Finitribe"
| Comments (0)Blather's Barry Kavanagh: the radio show (updated w/ playlist)
Posted by barry at
9:29 PM on January 29, 2010
Tomorrow I'll be presenting the music show Super Sonisk Sommer on RadiOrakel in Norway. You can listen online. The show's from 2pm to 3pm GMT+1.
Barry
Update:
The playlist
Super Sonisk Sommer jingle remixed by me!
Dacianos - Sweet Companion ('Gratis?' 2009) www.dacianos.com
Time - noiseimmemorial.blogspot.com (feat. Mark Dicker myspace.com/trenchergrind )
Anne Lene Hägglund - Big Men ('Bird Cherry Grove' 2010)
Dag Stiberg - Cracked Up ('Monolithic Time' 2010)
Bat For Lashes - Siren Song ('Two Suns' 2009)
Children & Corpse Playing in the Streets - New Bike ('Honey, I'm Home!' 2009)
Jæ - That I Shouldn't Have (EP 2009)
Sacred Harp - Elevator Endeløs (EP 2009)
Masselys - Freak in the Mirror (12" 2009)
Barry Adamson - It's Business As Usual ('Oedipus Schmoedipus' 1996)
Blixa Bargeld - Over the Rainbow ('Commissioned Music' 1994)
Thanks to Linda
| Comments (0)Friday Choon: 'Hall of the Mountain King' by Apocalyptica
Posted by damien at
3:58 PM on January 29, 2010
(photo by Rainrabbit, used under a cc license)
Yes, we know you've already had your Friday Choon, but in honour of the flood of new folk joining us on Twitter and on Facebook today, get yer ears around these guys. Utter legends.
Continue reading "Friday Choon: 'Hall of the Mountain King' by Apocalyptica"
| Comments (0)Friday Choon: 'One Night in Bangkok' by Murray Head
Posted by damien at
8:52 AM on January 29, 2010
(image by austinevan, used under a CC license)
It's 80s cheese week here at Blather HQ, which has seen Dave dancing about the boardroom in his Y-fronts to Erasure and Buggles. Me, I'm a man of more cultured tastes and have been listening to some genuine 80s gems, such as this slice of fried edam from Murray Head.
Admit it: as much as it makes you giggle, it makes you tap your foot.
Continue reading "Friday Choon: 'One Night in Bangkok' by Murray Head"
| Comments (0)Or just arrest him
Posted by barry at
11:34 PM on January 26, 2010
George Monbiot in the Guardian, 25 January 2010:
'In October I mooted the idea of a bounty to which the public could contribute, payable to anyone who tried to arrest Tony Blair if he became president of the European Union. He didn't of course, but I asked those who had pledged money whether we should go ahead anyway. The response was overwhelmingly positive. So today I am launching a website - www.arrestblair.org - whose purpose is to raise money as a reward for people attempting a peaceful citizen's arrest of the former prime minister. I have put up the first £100...'
Read the full Monbiot article and visit arrestblair.org.
| Comments (0)If you feel very, very, very close to putting a mthrfckng bullet into Tony fckng Blair's mthrfckng fck head, don't read this
Posted by barry at
3:44 AM on January 26, 2010
'Tony Blair is to be paid at least £200,000 by a City firm accused of profiteering from the financial crisis that brought Britain's banks to their knees.The former prime minister has been hired by the hedge fund Lansdowne Partners to deliver four presentations to staff about the world political situation. Mr Blair, one of the world's most highly paid speakers, reportedly commands between £50,000 and £170,000 for a single speech.'
- the sad revealing news in the Independent
| Comments (0)Haunted House in Dublin for rent. Bargain!
Posted by daev at
5:28 PM on January 25, 2010
Thanks to a commenter calling themselves "Liam", over on an old Hellfire Club article, I just found out that the notoriously haunted Killakee House in the Dublin Here's how you can rent the house - details and photographs on let.ie » There's lots more about Killakee House and its ghosts in my book, Haunted Dublin » More about the Hellfire Club here »
Marine Mammals 'Kidnapped' by the U.S. Navy
Posted by barry at
6:10 PM on January 24, 2010
'A lengthy rule governing the unintentional "taking" of marine mammals by the U.S. Navy, resulting in their harassment, injury, or death, was published in the Federal Register today. The rule does not deal with the use of marine mammals for defense missions that was the subject of a recent Navy Instruction, but with the damage to these animals that is anticipated due to military activities conducted at the Naval Surface Warfare Center.'
- Read more and get the relevant links from the Federation of American Scientists.
| Comments (0)Marine Mammals 'Working' for the U.S. Navy
Posted by barry at
6:05 PM on January 24, 2010
'A new U.S. Navy Instruction updates Navy policy on the use of marine mammals for national security missions.It seems that by law (10 USC 7524), the Secretary of Defense is authorized to "take" (or acquire) up to 25 wild marine mammals each year "for national defense purposes." These mammals -- including whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions -- are used for military missions such as locating and marking underwater mines, and providing force protection against unauthorized swimmers or vehicles, among other things.'
| Comments (0)Friday Choon: 'Civilisation' by Danny Kaye and the Andrews sisters
Posted by damien at
10:21 AM on January 22, 2010
'Bongo bongo bongo I don't wanna leave the congo...'
Continue reading "Friday Choon: 'Civilisation' by Danny Kaye and the Andrews sisters"
| Comments (0)Withnail and I vs. Star Wars
Posted by daev at
11:48 PM on January 21, 2010
"Uncle Vader, a camp cyborg with a posh English accent, vintage wine and memories of Oxford, spends his days terrorising everyone in the universe - including many of his fellow occupants of the Death Star..."
Continue reading "Withnail and I vs. Star Wars"
| Comments (0)YOU are Bin Laden
Posted by barry at
3:48 PM on January 19, 2010
'A Spanish politician has angrily rejected an apology for the FBI using his picture to create a poster showing what Osama bin Laden might look like today.Gaspar Llamazares, of Spain's communist-run United Left party, demanded the US investigate the incident and take appropriate action... The FBI used parts of a photo of Mr Llamazares taken from Google Images to create a digitally modified image of the al Qaida leader for a new wanted poster...'
I read this in the Irish Independent. We're moving closer to the day when the FBI will arrest a fake Bin Laden, be he Spanish politician or Blather.net reader. Unless their arch-enemies the CIA arrest their own fake Bin Laden first!
| Comments (0)Dacianos album 'Gratis?' now on CDBaby
Posted by barry at
3:51 PM on January 18, 2010
Dacianos' Gratis?, currently the 'resident' music album at Blather.net, is now for sale as CD or download, via cdbaby.com. It hasn't previously been available to purchase as a download, so the world is now pleased.
| Comments (0)Twitter Replaces Police Work, Blather.net Declares Jihad
Posted by barry at
11:39 AM on January 18, 2010
'When heavy snowfall threatened to scupper Paul Chambers's travel plans, he decided to vent his frustrations on Twitter by tapping out a comment to amuse his friends. "Robin Hood airport is closed," he wrote. "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!" Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn't see the funny side. A week after posting the message on the social networking site, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat.'
Check it out in the Independent. Now, I wonder if those police, whose 'jobs' involve reading twitter and 7 hours 'questioning' a random member of the public, read Blather.net? I mean, they obviously have the time. There's only one way to find out! I hereby declare that I, Heinrich Bivouac, Internal Silage Manager of Blather.net Knitting Systems Inc., will utterly destroy Robin Hood Airport in a week and a bit, once I work out where the hell it is! Doncaster? Where's that???
| Comments (2)Porn movie stops traffic in Moscow
Posted by daev at
5:26 PM on January 15, 2010
I'm sure it would stop traffic anywhere - in Moscow, hackers got into the biggest video advertising screen in the city owned by company 3stars, and replaced the 9x6m advertisement with "writhing bodies". As a result, traffic ground to a halt, so drivers could get an eyeful of the two-minute video. So far, I've not been able to find any images as proof of this this. But I do wonder, what's the opposite of porn? If we knew, we could disentangle traffic around the world...
| Comments (1)UFO Hacker McKinnon Lives!
Posted by barry at
6:36 PM on January 13, 2010
Remember the UFO hacker who the government "of" the UK were going to send to the US to face 60 years in prison for the audacity of having harmless fun? Well here's the latest news:
'A High Court judge will rule on whether Home Secretary Alan Johnson was wrong to allow the extradition of computer hacker Gary McKinnon, it was announced today. Mr McKinnon's lawyers have been granted permission for judicial review of Mr Johnson's decision...'
| Comments (0)If Ecuador gets added to the Axis of Evil, you'll know why...
Posted by barry at
1:54 PM on January 10, 2010
'...an area of once-pristine rainforest that has been decimated in the pursuit of oil. So severe is the environmental damage here that experts have called it an "Amazon Chernobyl". But the people of Lago Agrio and its surrounding area have been fighting back. Sixteen years ago, 30,000 Ecuadorians began legal action against the US oil company - now owned by Chevron - they hold responsible. Early this year, from the town's tiny courtroom, a lone judge will deliver a verdict on their class-action case. If the judge rules in favour of the Ecuadorians, Chevron could face damages of $27.3bn (£17bn), making it the biggest environmental lawsuit in history. This week, while both sides await the verdict, a fly-on-the-wall documentary about the case goes on release in Britain.'
| Comments (0)Murdoch Iran WMD Forgery (updated)
Posted by barry at
11:52 PM on January 2, 2010
'U.S. intelligence has concluded that the document published recently by the Times of London, which purportedly describes an Iranian plan to do experiments on what the newspaper described as a "neutron initiator" for an atomic weapon, is a fabrication, according to a former Central Intelligence Agency official.'
Full article: 'U.S. Intelligence Found Iran Nuke Document Was Forged' by Gareth Porter, IPS News.
Update: Remarkably, the Times's Oliver Kamm has resorted to character assassinations of Gareth Porter and Phil Giraldi, as a response. They in turn respond with comments on the Times blog and it descends into a free for all. By the end, it's still fairly obvious the documents are forged, no matter who's arguing for what side.
Ireland's Empty Houses
Posted by daev at
4:33 PM on January 1, 2010
Here's an article from my friend Clare Taylor in yesterdays's Irish Independent about the massive 18% of Irish houses currently lying empty.
So how many houses in Ireland are lying vacant? Statistics show that there's nobody living in 18pc -- almost one in five -- of all homes in Ireland (a figure that includes investment properties and holiday homes). And the problem is getting worse, as about 500 new houses per week are added to the backlog.
Irish Independent: What do we do with all the ghost estates?
| Comments (0)Medieval Dublin in 3D
Posted by birdbath at
2:16 PM on December 23, 2009
Hat-tip to Digital Urban
Continue reading "Medieval Dublin in 3D"
| Comments (0)The Idiocy of Sarah Palin
Posted by birdbath at
2:02 PM on December 21, 2009
Sometimes, you just don't need to satirise what a politician has said. You need only repeat them. From Sarah Palin's twitter feed:
'Earth saw clmate chnge4 ions;will cont 2 c chnges.R duty2responsbly devlop resorces4humankind/not pollute&destroy;but cant alter naturl chng'
No, no. Wait. There's more:
'Copenhgen=arrogance of man2think we can change nature's ways.MUST b good stewards of God's earth,but arrogant&naive2say man overpwers nature'
You still with us? Good. This on the same day that the Politifact names its' 'Lie of the Year':
'Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest."Death panels."
The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a television ad. Sarah Palin posted it on her Facebook page.'
More at Politifact
And remember folks, "polar bears aren't endangered - they're just unlucky! Yahuck!"
| Comments (4)Steorn To Demo 'Orbo'
Posted by damien at
10:31 AM on December 16, 2009
(image by gnackgnackgnack, used under a Creative Commons license)
Wahey! Those wily lads at Steorn (the boffins who claim they have solved the world's energy problems a la Adrian Veidt in Watchmen) are finally demonstrating their planet-saving gizmo 'Orbo' in Dublin this week. From Steorn.com:
We are delighted to announce the live demonstration of Orbo technology. As well as streaming live to the world via steorn.com, we are opening the demonstration to the public for free. Come down to the Waterways Ireland Visitor Centre to see our technology at work. During December there will be a series of talks about Orbo technology by Steorn CEO, Sean McCarthy.
Full details on Steorn.com
Something of a shame the lads couldn't have rolled this out in advance of the Copenhagen summit, eh? Eh?
Related
| Comments (1)Adam Curtis' 'It Felt Like A Kiss'
Posted by damien at
2:20 PM on December 15, 2009
Adam Curtis is back! Sadly I can't embed the video of his latest opus here, so you'll have to drag yourself to click this.
| Comments (0)Santa Claus 'buried in Ireland'
Posted by damien at
12:11 PM on December 15, 2009
(photo by Susan Simon, used under a Creative Commons license)
From The Telegraph:
Experts claim that the philanthropist St Nicholas of Myra is entombed at the 12th century abbey after his body was moved there 800 years ago. The saint, revered for his extraordinary generosity, lived during the 4th century and was Bishop of Lycia in what is now Turkey.Full story here
Hat-tip to Unexplained Mysteries
| Comments (0)'Stoned wallabies make crop circles'
Posted by birdbath at
10:55 PM on December 12, 2009
(image by Timmy Toucan, used under a Creative Commons license)
I knew it was the wallabies. Even when I said it was Sinn Fein, I knew it was the wallabies.
From BBC:
Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine.
She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.
Hat-tip to Mk.
Related
Crop Circles! Genetic Modification! Conspiracy! France!
The Field Guide: The Art, History and Philosophy of Crop Circle Making
'FUCK YOU DEPUTY STAGG'
Posted by birdbath at
4:32 PM on December 11, 2009
Crying. I'm literally crying laughing here.
This from Deputy Paul Gogarty.
| Comments (1)Graverobbers Steal Body of Dead President
Posted by birdbath at
12:41 PM on December 11, 2009
Wahey! We haven't had any decent bodysnatching action round here in ages. From Sky News (sorry Rupert):
Officers believe Tassos Papadopoulos' grave was dug up and broken into overnight. One witness said the coffin had been opened and was empty. Police believe the body was taken either late Thursday night or early Friday morning, but the motive is unclear.
For more on graverobbing and associated deathly shenanigans, see Waking the Dead - Blather.net's series of articles on this subject.
| Comments (0)WE GOT THAT B ROLL
Posted by birdbath at
1:47 PM on December 9, 2009
Hat-tip to Clamnuts
Continue reading "WE GOT THAT B ROLL"
| Comments (0)Give your loved ones BLATHER
Posted by barry at
9:09 PM on December 4, 2009
It's Christmas time, there's no reason to be afraid. Yes, fear not for you WILL think of presents to give your loved ones, and you will buy them at the Blather Store. Here's what we've got:
The Blather book, A Load of Blather
Our other book, Haunted Dublin
The new CD Gratis? by our very own pop group Dacianos
Some rare comics:
Alan Moore's Big Numbers #1
Individual issues of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
A rare book of Ancient Japanese Rituals
| Comments (0)British MoD cuts UFO Hotline
Posted by birdbath at
12:18 PM on December 4, 2009
(image by Watz, used under a Creative Commons license)
Boooo!
Continue reading "British MoD cuts UFO Hotline"
| Comments (0)Friday Choon: 'Thin Ice' by GusGus
Posted by damien at
10:11 AM on December 4, 2009
Plinky plonky beep beep snarl.
Continue reading "Friday Choon: 'Thin Ice' by GusGus"
| Comments (0)Xmas present suggestion: CIA Magic Tricks
Posted by barry at
3:05 AM on November 28, 2009
'The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception was written in 1953 by a well-known performer called John Mulholland. It included tips for hiding objects up your sleeve, spiking someone's drink (while pretending to light a cigarette) and communicating with colleagues by tying your shoelaces in a special way. In 1973, as the Cold War showed signs of thawing, the CIA ordered every copy of the "top secret" document to be destroyed. But one managed to escape the agency's paper shredders and was recently unearthed...'
Read the story in the Independent.
The book on amazon.co.uk and amazon.com.
| Comments (0)UK Obeys US Imperial Command and Sends UFO Hacker McKinnon to his Death
Posted by barry at
10:04 PM on November 26, 2009
Ok, this has been reported in the mainstream, but there's no way you should miss this story, so I'm highlighting it here. UFO-fan Gary McKinnon hacked into the Pentagon's and NASA's computers, found out only one interesting thing (about a secret US spaceship) and is now to be extradited from the UK to the US where the ever-paranoid prison-friendly American 'justice' system wants to put him away for (count 'em) 60 years. He is 43 years old, so he would die in prison for hacking into trivial Uncle Sam shite.
The low, servile British 'Home' Secretary, Alan Johnson, Yankee cock rammed firmly up his damp New Labour arsehole, has announced that McKinnon's 'extradition to the United States must proceed forthwith.'
Why?
First, read the Jon Ronson interview with McKinnon from 2005, then read today's news about McKinnon's extradition.
| Comments (3)Panic Attack! (Ataque de Pánico!) by Fede Alvarez
Posted by damien at
12:03 PM on November 26, 2009
Giant stompy mecha robots invade Montevideo! A 5min short movie directed and animated by Fede Alvarez.
Continue reading "Panic Attack! (Ataque de Pánico!) by Fede Alvarez"
| Comments (0)Lies, lies, secrets and lies. And nukes.
Posted by barry at
3:30 PM on November 23, 2009
'A Japanese government team has found documents on an alleged secret pact with the United States to transport nuclear weapons through its territory, after decades of official denial...'
Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald
| Comments (0)Douglas Rushkoff: "Radical Abundance: How We Get Past "Free"
Posted by damien at
11:04 AM on November 22, 2009
Continue reading "Douglas Rushkoff: "Radical Abundance: How We Get Past "Free""
| Comments (0)The Thierry Henry Song
Posted by damien at
7:48 PM on November 19, 2009
Continue reading "The Thierry Henry Song"
| Comments (1)Brainwaving.com
Posted by birdbath at
11:43 AM on November 19, 2009
(image by Lapolab, used under a Creative Commons license)
From sometime Blatherskite, Dr. David Luke, comes a new venture, brainwaving.com:
'The Beckley Foundation (www.beckleyfoundation.org) was set up to investigate consciousness and its full range of altered states. It has a strictly academic, scientific approach to consciousness, how better to understand it and thus how to manipulate it in the quest for enhancing human happiness. The purpose of the new site BrainWaving.com is to expand the Beckley's reach, to be an Exchange, thereby covering new areas not currently included in the scientific approach of the Beckley Foundation, and reaching new audiences, particularly the young.The website will be an exchange of interesting information and ideas with the purpose of exploring love, creativity and the quest for human happiness. It will aim to be entertaining and illuminating. We expect it to evolve as it goes along. We see it as an information exchange for people interested in consciousness, evolution and a better world. We hope that with the collaboration of friends and fellow travelers, we will bring together a stimulating train of knowledge and ideas.'
Visit brainwaving.com
Read David Luke's Psychic Piracy series on Blather.net
| Comments (0)Betty Butterfield visits the mosque
Posted by birdbath at
7:31 PM on November 13, 2009
I'm informed that this dude used to be a Catholic priest.
Continue reading "Betty Butterfield visits the mosque"
| Comments (0)GUILTY
Posted by barry at
11:40 AM on November 13, 2009
The CIA has been found guilty in that Italian kidnap case we mentioned a while back.
'An Italian court hearing criminal charges against 26 American officials and a smaller group of Italians arising out of a CIA extraordinary rendition has ruled today. The case relates to the CIA's snatching of a Muslim cleric known as Abu Omar off the streets of Milan in 2003.'
- read the full story at Harper's.
'...a type of hell...'
Posted by barry at
2:21 PM on November 12, 2009
'As an Afghan woman who was elected to Parliament, I am in the United States to ask President Barack Obama to immediately end the occupation of my country. Eight years ago, women's rights were used as one of the excuses to start this war. But today, Afghanistan is still facing a women's rights catastrophe. Life for most Afghan women resembles a type of hell that is never reflected in the Western mainstream media. In 2001, the U.S. helped return to power the worst misogynist criminals, such as the Northern Alliance warlords and druglords. These men ought to be considered a photocopy of the Taliban.'
- read the full opinion piece by Malalai Joya in the Mercury News.
Malalai Joya 'was elected to Afghanistan"s parliament in 2005 and kicked out in 2007 by the warlords'.
Kat Penny Dramarama (updated)
Posted by barry at
1:26 AM on November 12, 2009
Jane Ruffino posted this on Facebook and it is so great to watch I basically commented, 'right I am putting this on blather.net'. I can't embed it properly for some reason but you can manage can't you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FmVopEs9yI
My first reaction:
The guy accused Kat Penny of 'standing there' when he was clearly sitting down. The politician who dresses like Prince then seemed to imply that Kat is 'a journalist'. What is this shit?
Update: Vincent Browne's written about it in the Sunday Business Post.
| Comments (1)War and the Noble Savage
Posted by damien at
11:15 AM on November 11, 2009
A fascinating new book from blatherbot Gyrus. I attended his talk on this a few weeks back and was seriously impressed - not least by his challenges on the orthodoxy of Steven Pinker and others self-appointed luminaries who comment on issues of violence in our society.
Continue reading "War and the Noble Savage"
| Comments (0)Hardy Bucks: As sick as a plane to Lourdes
Posted by daev at
11:27 AM on November 9, 2009
While I was summering in high latitudes, the whole country was apparently up in arms over Hardy Bucks, a groundbreaking documentary series, set in the western Irish city of Castletown. I was barely off the plane before the sister was on to me about the "Hardy Bucks". I thought it was some form of extreme bookbinding. But no.
There was a time when RTE would miss out on beautiful opportunities like this one, but they seem to have some good heads above in Montrose at the moment. In a rare of example of not missing out on a beautiful opportunity , RTE named Hardy Bucks the winner of the Storyland competition. I strongly suggest you watch all nine episodes... and wet yourself laughing.
Hardy Bucks on Youtube
Hardy Bucks on Facebook
Hardy Bucks on Wikipedia (includes episode guide"
| Comments (1)Wilfred - the Pot Smoking Dog
Posted by daev at
6:38 PM on November 8, 2009
This is one of the most wonderfully twisted things I've seen in a while. Wilfred is an Australian TV show - that features a pet dog that swears, smokes pot, and watches DVDs. I don't want to give any more away. Watch it for yourself...
Wilfred on Wikipedia
Wilfred Episode guide
Bringing Cannabis to Hempstown
Posted by daev at
4:03 PM on November 8, 2009
From the RTE website on November 3rd:
Cannabis with a potential street value of €1 million was seized by gardaí and Revenue Customs Service officers in Hempstown, Co Wicklow, yesterday afternoon.
The 100kg cannabis - in resin form, was smuggled from Holland. But one is given to wonder if the dealers reckoned that no one would ever think of looking in HEMPstown, or if they'd been attempting an Irish answer to the idiom "bringing coals to Newcastle".
| Comments (0)Karzai's Smack-dealing Brother Works for...
Posted by barry at
3:49 PM on October 29, 2009
Hamid Karzai, 'president' of occupied Afghanistan, well-loved for legalizing rape and record-breaking election fraud, has a brother called Ahmed Wali Karzai. Now, it has been said in some media outlets for years that that guy is a prominent heroin dealer. See the junkies slumped on the ground in your street? That's where the stuff comes from. The big news, though, is that Ahmed Wali Karzai is not only a gangster but is on the payroll of... the CIA. Here's the story in the New York Times. The CIA have been paying him to run a terrorist, sorry, paramilitary force, the 'Kandahar Strike Force' but boys will be boys and gangs of drug dealers will be gangs of drug dealers, and in June they murdered the local police chief. No problem for the CIA, though. The untouchable asset Ahmed Wali Karzai is still on the payroll. It's not like he hasn't helped the Americans out. He kindly helped the DEA arrest an Afghan drug lord Noorzai in New York in 2005... so that he of course could take over Noorzai's drug business. That's the beautiful thing about paid informants.
Meanwhile, whether the media is telling you this or not, the USA continues to lose the war in Afghanistan, and has had to withdraw from Nuristan province.
| Comments (3)
IT at the CIA
Posted by barry at
12:02 AM on October 29, 2009
'Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Cisco, RIM--have nothing to fear from the creative brain trusts in the Federal business development units of SAIC, Northrop Grumman, Booz Allen or others whose names are emblazoned on shiny office towers up and down the Dulles Corridor here in Washington, who lead the IT industry in three-ring binder-bound Federal proposal production, and little else.'
- read the full story from ex-CIA agent Stephen Lee, at his blog CIA Examiner.
| Comments (0)This music video makes me feel like I am dreaming. Same for you?
Posted by barry at
10:33 PM on October 27, 2009
'Violet span of welded flesh' -
In 1983, The Fall made a video for the song 'Wings', the b-side to their single 'Kicker Conspiracy'. In the bar, the band relax with a few pints. Mark in the back room, in some kind of 'alcove' (it looks like someone just wallpapered over a doorway) relates 'his' time travel experience while Brix laughs at length at something off-camera. Seeing as it was a non-album track and a b-side, there was no reason to make this video, which just adds to the weirdness. There are heads on the walls. To say nothing of the talk of wings. There are feathers in a vase... And is that an aerial shot of the pub, in a picture on the pub wall?
| Comments (0)Barah Pal: Photos from India
Posted by damien at
7:46 PM on October 26, 2009
A photo collection by Jennifer Rosen, taken whilst filming a enthnographic documentary in Delhi and Rajasthan, Summer 2009.
Continue reading "Barah Pal: Photos from India"
| Comments (0)Donegal Democrat = Ireland's Daily Mail?
Posted by birdbath at
4:03 PM on October 26, 2009
Yes yes, we know that Ireland has its own Daily Mail, but since they were careful enough to distance themselves from the UK version and its delightful correspondent Jan Moir we should be careful to draw a distinction between them, eh?
Anyway, this from special blather reporter 'serafi':
Apologies for the shitty quality of the picture, it's from my soon to be old phone. Anyway, the Donegal Democrat displayed a hitherto secret homophobia with this headline. Or it might have been a typo; we'll only find out next week.
See image above.
| Comments (1)Neapolis, Greece: Another Atlantis?
Posted by damien at
10:24 AM on October 26, 2009
(image by Giorgos Michalogiorgakis, used under a Creative Commons license)
Another Atlantis is on the horizon. From The Guardian:
Explored by an Anglo-Greek team of archaeologists and marine geologists and known as Pavlopetri, the sunken settlement dates back some 5,000 years to the time of Homer's heroes and in terms of size and wealth of detail is unprecedented, experts say."There is now no doubt that this is the oldest submerged town in the world," said Dr Jon Henderson, associate professor of underwater archaeology at the University of Nottingham. "It has remains dating from 2800 to 1200 BC, long before the glory days of classical Greece. There are older sunken sites in the world but none can be considered to be planned towns such as this, which is why it is unique."
Read the full story on The Guardian
From Blather's Map of the Weird:
View Blather.net's Map of the Weird in a larger map
Hat-tip to Mutate!
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| Comments (1)Afghan women: it's worse for them now than under the Taliban (video)
Posted by barry at
3:18 PM on October 25, 2009
"...efforts in Afghanistan have done nothing for the vast majority of women there. Despite this, politicians, military leaders, and sadly even some misguided American feminist groups continue to use the plight of women in Afghanistan to justify more spending, more troops and more war. People who care for the people of Afghanistan have got to see this for what it is" - blog for the film Rethink Afghanistan by Brave New Films.
Continue reading "Afghan women: it's worse for them now than under the Taliban (video)"
| Comments (0)Fantasies about Iran continue (updated)
Posted by barry at
12:11 PM on October 25, 2009
A 'secret uranium enrichment plant deep inside a mountain' the New York Times calls it. The 'serial deception of many years', the unspeakable Gordon Brown calls it, but all of this is deception itself. The existence of this 'secret', non-operational facility of the Iranians has been known to the US intelligence agencies for years, therefore they knew all about it when they issued the National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007 (pdf), you know, the one that showed that the Iranians had no nuclear weapons programme. Which means this secret plant is harmless junk from the past (Iran abandoned nuclear weapons research in 2003)*. The only reason Obama and Brown and all these other suits are suddenly yapping about it, like the lapdogs of war gnawing at the ankles of world peace, is because the other day the Iranians decided to tell the IAEA it was there. 'Beware politically motivated hype', says former weapons inspector Scott Ritter in his very good article in the Guardian. And never forget that the 'weapons of mass destruction' pundits were never expunged from the media after Iraqi WMDs were found not to exist, they are still taken seriously (by the media) and they'll resort to the same shite to get someone to invade Iran.
*Update, 25 October 2009: it's not, as I wrote, junk from the past, but from the future, and is currently a hole in a mountain! The IAEA has inspected the site and it seems the site is being built to house existing Iranian nuclear material in case the Israelis or US attack. See the United for Peace news report 'IAEA inspection of Fordo site near Qom begins'.
| Comments (0)Kinderkreis: Danse Gooshers!
Posted by birdbath at
11:50 AM on October 19, 2009
'Ve vonts de munny Lewbowski'.
Continue reading "Kinderkreis: Danse Gooshers! "
| Comments (2)War is Peace
Posted by barry at
6:40 PM on October 10, 2009
'It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different... A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This - although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense - is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: War is Peace.'
- Chapter III of 'The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism' by Emmanuel Goldstein, Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell.
See also: peace is war.
| Comments (1)Carls Sagan's 'A Glorious Dawn'
Posted by damien at
9:51 AM on October 8, 2009
I've had a flu this last while and spent some time in bed getting stuck into Carl Sagan's 'Cosmos', which I hadn't watched in many years. The dodgy special effects aside, it remains a masterpiece of film making. So, I was understandably all aflutter when I came across this gem:
Continue reading "Carls Sagan's 'A Glorious Dawn'"
| Comments (0)More about Bagram, Obama's Replacement Guantanamo
Posted by barry at
2:33 PM on October 6, 2009
'On Monday, one day after the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration was planning to introduce tribunals for the prisoners held in the U.S. prison at Bagram airbase, Afghanistan, the reason for the specifically-timed leaks that led to the publication of the stories became clear. The government was hoping that offering tribunals to evaluate the prisoners' status would perform a useful PR function, making the administration appear to be granting important rights to the 600 or so prisoners held in Bagram, and distracting attention from the real reason for its purported generosity: a 76-page brief to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia... submitted yesterday, in which the government attempted to claim that "Habeas rights under the United States Constitution do not extend to enemy aliens detained in the active war zone at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan."' - Andy Worthington, 'Is Bagram Obama's New Secret Prison?' read the full article on counterpunch.org.
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