The London Olympics and the London Riots

Dave Zirin | August 12, 2011
http://www.thenation.com/blog/162742/london-olympics-and-london-riots

And so they played beach volleyball in small bikinis; on imported sand; while the world burned.

It ai'nt exactly Shakespeare, but it is actually what happened earlier this week as the London Olympic Committee staged a beach volleyball exhibition as fires engulfed the city.

Opening Ceremonies for the London Olympics are in less than a year and this week’s explosion of bottled fury has the International Olympic Committee on edge. Even worse for Tory Prime Minister David Cameron, the riots took place as representatives from 200 Olympic Committees across the globe visited the city, just in time for the days of rage. Can you imagine the scene? It would be like Michele Bachman and her 197 children visiting New York City and walking straight into the Gay Pride Parade.

As Tony Travers, a professor at the London School of Economics said, “There’s no doubt that this is a very bad day, a worrying day.... Olympic organizers in London planned to protect London from conventional terrorism. But of all the things they might have thought might happen, I’d be surprised if civil insurrections was high up on their list of expected risk factors.”

The knotty problem however is that the Olympics - courtesy of Tony Blair's Labour Party - aren’t a parallel operation to the mass civic unrest but an aggravator. As social services wither, the Olympics will cost upwards of 20 billion pounds and the Olympic torch has acted as an instrument of arson. Ask the residents of Clays Lane Estate, in East London. Clay’s Lane Estate was the largest housing cooperative in the UK, and the second largest in all of Europe. Over protests, Clay's Lane was demolished to make way for Olympic Facilities. The protests haven’t been heard, and we get riots, or, as Dr. King put it, “the language of the unheard.

But much of the political class choose to hear nothing. London Mayor Boris Johnson rushed back from holiday to say, “In less than 12 months we will welcome the world to a great summer Games in the greatest city on earth – and by then we must all hope that we will look back on these events as a bad dream.”

Tom Jenkins, the European Tour Operators Association executive director, sniffed,“I don’t think the rioting will impact the Olympics. The Olympics is, overwhelmingly, a domestic event. British people won’t be put off from visiting the Olympics in Stratford because a year earlier shop windows were broken in Hackney.”

Former Olympic great, and current Olympic flak Lord Sebastian Coe even called everything this past week, “Business as usual.”

But the many others are far less confident. Paula Radcliffe, the world record holder in the marathon said, “In less than one year we welcome the world, and right now they don't want to come.”

The question now is whether the IOC will demand an even more severe police crackdown to ensure that the games will be run according to plan.

The IOC told us at the Nation that they will keep completely out of any security arrangements altogether. Andrew Mitchell, Media Relations Manage of the IOC emailed, “Security at the Olympic Games is a top priority for the IOC. It is, however, directly handled by the local authorities, as they know best what is appropriate and proportionate. We are confident they will do a good job in this domain.”

This assertion has left many rolling their eyes. Bob Quellos, an organizer for No Games Chicago, which helped keep the Olympics out of the Windy City for 2016, said to me, “Simply, what the IOC wants, it gets. In London next summer, the IOC will be dictating the level of police repression. Billions of dollars have been spent on the security. London's Olympic Park is already a highly militarized zone protected by barbed wire, dogs, and armed patrols.”

Chris Shaw, the author of the book Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games, points out, based on his experience in Vancouver during the 2010 Winter Games, that the harassment would only get worse."[As the games approached] the Charter [their Constitution] went out the window for the duration of the games; People were followed and harassed. Reporters were deported and cops were acting like reporters.”

This has certainly been the case for previous Olympic festivals as well. In other words, every historical precedent points to an increased crackdown in the months ahead, which will only further fan tomorrow's flames. We have a collision coming between the Olympic Monolith and the poor, angry youth of Great Britain. Conflict is ensured if David Cameron’s ultimate response continues to be, “Let them eat beach volleyball.”

Dave Zirin is the author of “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) and just made the new documentary “Not Just a Game.” Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.

Police Were Ordered To Stand Down As London Burned

Inadequate response led public to call for martial law
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
http://www.prisonplanet.com/police-were-ordered-to-stand-down-as-london-burned.html

Precisely as we reported yesterday on the back of numerous eyewitness reports, it has now emerged that police were ordered to stand down and let London burn during the first few nights of rioting, an action that quickly led to a frightened public to demand troops on the streets, rubber bullets, water cannons and curfews.

On Tuesday we highlighted the “lackluster police response, with numerous reports from the public that police stood back and allowed looters to pillage both large department stores and private small businesses for hours on end.”

According to eyewitnesses to the initial riots in Tottenham, police were seen “standing back and allowing rioters to cause havoc,” a trend that continued during subsequent nights before Prime Minister David Cameron ordered 10,000 extra police officers to patrol London last night.

This has now been confirmed by sources within Scotland Yard who said police were ordered to “stand and observe” even as brazen acts of violent crime were committed against both people and private property, a directive which prevented them from arresting any of the troublemakers.

“They had apparently been told to try and contain any violence but not to haul away offenders who would instead be identified through video footage later,” reports the Daily Mail.

The decision to order police to stand down is being explained as a reaction to public outcry following the death of Ian Tomlinson, a newspaper seller who was killed by riot cops during the G20 summit in 2009.

However, as we have exhaustively documented, authorities routinely allow chaos to spiral out of control, even to the extent of hiring their own provocateurs, in order to manipulate the public into demanding greater police state measures that ultimately only serve to oppress legitimate dissent against the state.

The police’s inadequate response quickly led to calls for martial law, curfews and the use of water cannons on streets in England for the first time, a power that Prime Minister David Cameron has now authorized.

Britain’s most widely-read newspaper The Sun ran a poll today which found that two thirds of Brits support the use of rubber bullets to deal with rioters, while 33 per cent supported the use of live bullets.

“Curfews are backed by 82 per cent, using tear gas got 78 per cent support and Tasers 72 per cent,” states the report.

Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.

UFOs Over London

From the Daily Mail:

If UFOs are real and trying to get our attention perhaps they are getting a little more savvy about the way we humans work.

A new video has emerged purporting to show 'a mothership and its fleet' zipping around in the clouds above a BBC building in West London.

Perhaps the group of intergalactic travellers was hoping for some coverage from Auntie.

Instead they were caught on camera by a passer-by, and at least one other person who can be seen filming or taking pictures on his camera phone while the video is filmed...

Are aliens getting less camera shy? UFOs filmed above BBC building in London
29th June 2011
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2008437/UFOs-filmed-BBC-building-London.html

The Path to Recovery

http://www.theatlantic.com/special-report/the-future-of-the-city/archive/2010/05/the-path-to-recovery/56393/

The Path to Recovery
May 7 2010
Richard Florida

Economic peaks and valleys are part of the life cycle of any society. They can be difficult, sometimes horribly painful, but just as trees shed their leaves in the fall to make room for the new growth of spring, economies reset themselves. Times of crisis reveal what is and isn't working. These are the times when obsolete and dysfunctional systems and practices collapse or fall by the wayside. They are the times when the seeds of innovation and invention, of creativity and entrepreneurship, burst into full flower, enabling recovery by remaking both the economy and society. Major periods of economic transformation, such as the Great Depression or the Long Depression of the 1870s before it, unfold over long stretches of time, like motion pictures rather than snapshots. Likewise, the path to recovery can be long and twisted--the better part of three decades in the case of those two previous crises. Seen in the greater context of history, economic crises inevitably give rise to critical periods in which an economy is remade in ways that allow it to recover and begin growing again. These are periods I call Great Resets.

We're still very early on in the current economic Reset, so it's difficult to fully grasp how it will ultimately play out. But we can all sense that our way of life is changing and our economic landscape is too. This emerging new way of life will be less oriented around cars, houses, and suburbs. We'll be spending relatively less on the things that defined the old way of life. We'll have to, if we expect to have money left over to sustain the new industries that will emerge in the Great Reset and usher in an age of renewed prosperity. Before we can nurture the new industries of the future, develop new forms of health care and biotechnologies, or even explore new forms of education or more experiential forms of entertainment and recreation, we first have to free up capital by producing the goods of the old industrial order more cheaply and efficiently.

We've reached the limits of what George W. Bush used to call the "ownership society." Owning your own home made sense when people could hope to hold a job for most or all of their lives. But in an economy that revolves around mobility and flexibility, a house that can't be sold becomes an economic trap, preventing people from moving freely to economic opportunity. Not only has that piece of the American Dream grown dark, but it's also clear that financial excess in the housing sector was one of the central causes of the economic crisis. Housing sucked up far too much of the nation's and the world's capital, and too many people--already overextended by the purchase of outsized houses--used those homes like virtual ATMs to finance carefree consumption. Every Great Reset has seen our system of housing change, and this one is no different. The rate of home ownership has been on the decline for some time now. Many of those who still choose to buy homes will choose smaller ones, while many more will opt for rental housing.

Our new way of life is likely to depend a whole lot less on the car. In October 2009, The New York Times reported, "The recession and a growing awareness of the environment are causing many people to reassess their automobile ownership. After more than a century in which an automobile represented the American dream, car enthusiasm may no longer be a part of Americans' DNA." Car culture no longer exerts the powerful pull it once did. More and more families are deciding to share cars, and young people are putting off buying them and using public transit, bikes, their feet or Zipcars (membership-based, easy-access short-term car rentals) instead. It's not just that oil and gas have become expensive, it's that traffic and gridlock have become a deadweight time cost on us and our economy.

One constant in the history of capitalism is the ever-more-intensive use of land, as mercantile towns replaced agricultural villages, major industrial cities replaced those towns, and massive complexes of suburbs, exurbs, and edge cites expanded the boundaries of those cities. The change we are living through is much more than a movement from suburbs to denser urban communities. What we are seeing is the rise of a new, bigger, and denser economic landscape than ever before--the rise of vast megaregions such as the corridors stretching from Boston to New York and Washington, D.C., around greater London, and from Shanghai to Beijing. These concentrations of population, which encompass several cities and their surrounding suburban rings, have grown swiftly in recent years.

The largest megaregion in North America is the great "Bos-Wash" corridor, initially identified by the geographer Jean Gottmann. Strecthing down the East Coast, it includes Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., and is home to more than 50 million people while producing more than $2 trillion in economic activity. Its economic output is greater than that of either the United Kingdom or France and more than double that of India or Canada. The second biggest, which Gottman dubbed "Chi-Pitts," covers more than 100,000 square miles and is home to 46 million people, producing $1.6 trillion in economic output. Other megaregions in North America include:

•Char-lanta: Atlanta, Charlotte, and Raleigh-Durham, 22 million people
•So-Cal: Around Los Angeles, 21 million people
•Tor-Mon-tawa: 22 million people
•Nor-Cal: Around San Francisco, 12.8 million people
•So-Flo: Miami, Orlando, and Tampa, 15 million people
•Dal-Austin: Dallas and Austin, 10 million people
•Hou-Orleans: Houston and New Orleans, 9.7 million people
•Cascadia: Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, 9 million people
•Pho-Tus: Phoenix and Tucson, 4.7 million people
•Den-Bo: Denver and Boulder, 3.7 million people

Around the world, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, Shanghai, and Mumbai are hubs of giant megaregions. Each of these is a financial and commercial center with tens of millions of people and hundreds of billions of dollars in output.

These megaregions, not nations, really power the global economy. Taken together, the world's 40 largest megaregions account for two-thirds of all global economic activity and 85 percent of the world's technological innovation while housing just 18 percent of its population. Megaregions are the strategic power centers of the economy, housing 85 percent of all corporate headquarters in the United States and Canada.

Though many analysts have predicted that the importance of cities--and that of location--would fade with globalization, the reality is that cities and megaregions have become more important economically than ever before. Even as globalization has spread factories, businesses, and laboratories to places such as India, China, Brazil, and beyond, these activities are being concentrated in the megaregions of those countries. Contrary to the notion that the world is flat, the most successful megaregions, in fact, are becoming economically stronger and spikier, not flatter.

Megaregions are to our time what suburbanization was to the postwar era. They provide the seeds of a new spatial fix. They expand and intensify our use of land and space the way that the industrial city did during the First Reset and suburbia did in the Second. As people pour into the world's great megaregions, inner cities and close-in suburbs are being reclaimed and rebuilt. Older suburbs, especially those on transit routes, are being reorganized and rebuilt into denser communities offering more condos and town houses as well as single-family homes. Suburban malls and office complexes are being retrofitted and turned into walkable areas with a mixture of housing, shops, and restaurants and in some cases even new parks. Subways and rail transit are being expanded as highways clog.

The location decisions made by new college grads have interested me for years. Their choices involve evaluating not just the company they'll work for but the labor market it's located in and what the surrounding area has to offer. Because they are both highly skilled and highly mobile--three to five times as likely to move than, say, a 45-year-old--the decisions they make about where to live are likely to leave a lasting imprint on our economic geography.

To get at the factors that attract and keep young Gen Y members, those born between the years 1979 and 1990, in certain places, my colleague Charlotta Mellander and I analyzed the results of a Gallup survey of some 28,000 Americans. Jobs are clearly important. Gen Y members ranked the availability of jobs second when asked what would keep them in their current location and fourth in terms of their overall satisfaction with their community. From this perspective, big cities make sense for them, as they offer more robust labor markets with more and better job opportunities in a wide number of fields. In an age in which corporate commitment has dwindled, job tenure has grown far shorter, and people switch jobs with much greater frequency, career success involves a great deal more than simply finding the right first job. In these highly mobile and economically tumultuous times, career success for young people depends on locating themselves in a thick labor market that offers diverse and abundant job opportunities. Picking an economically vibrant location is an important hedge against economic uncertainty and the risk of layoff.

But remember that jobs were not the highest-ranked factor. Across the board, the survey respondents said that the ability to meet people and make friends was of paramount importance. These young people intuitively understand what economic sociologists have documented: that vibrant social networks are key to landing jobs, moving forward in your career, and securing personal happiness. They not only desire a thick labor market but also seek what I have come to call a thick mating market, where they can meet new people, go out on dates, and eventually find a life partner. And whereas older Americans see high-quality schools and safe streets for their children as key, Gen Y understandably ranks the availability of outstanding colleges and universities higher. Many are likely to go back to graduate school and want to have good programs nearby. For all these reasons, big cities at the heart of megaregions top the list of their choices.

The auto-dependent transportation system has reached its limit in most major cities and megaregions. Commuting by car is among the least efficient of all our activities--not to mention among the least enjoyable, according to detailed research by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues. Though one might think that the crisis would have reduced traffic (high unemployment means fewer workers traveling to and from work), the opposite has been true. Average commutes have lengthened, and congestion has gotten worse, if anything. The average commute rose in 2008 to 25.5 minutes, "erasing years of decreases to stand at the level of 2000, as people had to leave home earlier in the morning to pick up friends for their ride to work or to catch a bus or subway train," according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which collects the figures. And those are average figures. Commutes are far longer in the big West Coast cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco and the East Coast cities of New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. In many of these cities, gridlock has become the norm, not just at rush hour but all day, every day.

Just about the only remedy for traffic congestion anyone ever suggests is building more roads and highways, which of course only makes the problem worse. New roads generate higher levels of "induced traffic," that is, new roads just invite drivers to drive more and lure people who take mass transit back to their cars. Eventually, we end up with more clogged roads rather than a long-term improvement in traffic flow

More and more people are choosing to take the subway, train, or bus or even walk or bike to work and go about their daily business--providing they live in an environment that allows for such choices. In Manhattan, 82 percent of workers get to work by public transit or bicycle or on foot. That's ten times the rate for Americans in general, eight times the rate for workers in Los Angeles County, and 16 times the rate for residents of metropolitan Atlanta. The New York City subway is a remarkably effective technology for moving masses of people around quickly and efficiently. Between 8 and 9 in the morning on a typical workday, more than 385,000 people use its subway system to commute into the central business district.

New York is not the only place where this kind of change in commuting and local traffic patterns is occurring. In Washington, D.C., 57 percent of commuters get to work by means other than driving a car--more than a third take public transit, 12 percent walk to work, and 2 percent ride their bikes; just four in ten drive to work alone. In Boston and San Francisco, roughly half of workers get to work without their cars--roughly a third of commuters take transit, and 10 to 15 percent walk to work. In Philadelphia, 41 percent commute without cars and 27 percent take transit.

These numbers may seem like a drop in the bucket. But 60 percent of Americans surveyed in 2005 said they want to live in walkable communities with shops, restaurants, movie theaters, schools, and churches nearby. We're already seeing the shift as increasing numbers of people move to walkable communities closer to where they work. That will clearly expand in coming decades.

For the time being, most Americans remain behind the wheel. Today, more than three-quarters of Americans drive to work alone. They have no other choice. There are, however, other things we can do to ease congestion and take more cars off the road. Employers can offer more flexible schedules and the ability to work from home or telecommute. But as we've already seen, in many cities traffic is not just a rush-hour problem. The only alternative left is to price the roads. We pay for everything else: we pay to take the subway, ride the bus, or take the train, we pay to drive through the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels or over the George Washington Bridge. Why should the roads be essentially free? If we want to make traffic better, we have little choice other than to make people pay for the roads they drive on.

Richard Florida is director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto. Adapted from THE GREAT RESET: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity by Richard Florida. Copyright 2010 by Richard Florida. Reprinted by arrangement with Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Princess Diana book claims her driver was framed

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/diana/7446929/Princess-Diana-book-claims-her-driver-was-framed.html

Princess Diana book claims her driver was framed
A raft of alleged inconsistencies in the evidence surrounding the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, has been published in a book by an investigative journalist.
By Andy Bloxham
15 Mar 2010

Australian journalist John Morgan claimed he was disclosing a “tidal wave of evidence” that undermined the official conclusion that her death was an accident.

The inquest into the death of the Princess concluded that she and her boyfriend Dodi Fayed were unlawfully killed through a combination of the gross negligence of their driver, who was speeding and was more than three times the French drink-drive limit.

Lord Justice Scott Baker declared that there was “not a shred of evidence” in support of the several conspiracy theories.

One of which, propounded by the millionaire Mohamed Fayed, the father of Dodi, claimed that the couple were "murdered'' by MI6 on the orders of the Duke of Edinburgh.

The inquest’s verdict in April 2008 did little to quell those conspiracies, however, and Mr Morgan’s book is the latest to claim evidence of an alternative conclusion.

Diana Inquest: The Untold Story alleges a cover-up by the authorities in France and claims the driver, Henri Paul, was not drunk.

The book alleges Parisian investigators bungled the inquiry and that documents prove that there was a second body in the morgue when tests were carried out.

He claims there were inconsistencies in the blood samples taken, errors in identifying the body and said key witnesses were not allowed to give evidence at the inquest.

He alleged that tests revealed traces of prescription drugs which Mr Paul was not taking, while finding no evidence of other medication he was known to be using.

Mr Morgan told the Daily Express: “When you carefully put all the pieces of this huge complex evidential jigsaw together, you can see this is a dead person who has been framed.

“Were it not so serious, I would say the inquest carried out at the Royal Courts of Justice in London was a joke.”

Confusion over whether the samples were taken from Mr Paul’s body was suggested at the inquest.

It was asked whether there were two bodies in the room at the time of the post-mortem examination.

Some photographs showed the only body tag on a wrist, other images showed the only tag on an ankle.

UK Man's Castle Won't Be His Home, Court Says

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123330088

UK Man's Castle Won't Be His Home, Court Says
The Associated Press
February 3, 2010

A man's home is his castle — but not if British authorities say it has to be destroyed.

That's the situation faced by Robert Fidler, a farmer who lost a High Court bid Wednesday to protect the once-secret castle he built 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of London and kept hidden from planning authorities.

The adverse decision means Fidler's roof must come down. He has one year to comply unless an appeal is successful.

To keep prying eyes from noticing his unauthorized abode, Fidler placed bales of hay and tarpaulin around his dream home in Salfords, Surrey, authorities said. The court ruled he could not benefit from his deception.

Mike Miller, a chief planner with the Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, said the council was delighted with the decision, which it viewed as a vindication of the decision to challenge Fidler in court.

"This was a blatant attempt at deception to circumvent the planning process," he said, adding that Fidler now has one year to destroy the castle, remove the ruins and return the property to its original state.

The unusual castle, complete with cannon, ramparts and stained glass, was completed in 2002 and Fidler lived there with family for more than four years before the authorities started legal action against him.

Fidler, who has had disagreements with planning authorities before, anticipated that his request for permission to build the castle would be denied, so he tried to take advantage of a rule that allows a structure to be legalized if it has been lived in for four years.

Fidler's lawyer, Pritpal Singh Swarn, said the decision will go to the Court of Appeal because it raised important planning issues. A further appeal to European courts is possible if British courts again reject Fidler's bid to legitimize his castle.

He said Fidler was extremely disappointed with the ruling and no local residents had complained about the castle.

"It has been pursued at the expense of the taxpayer which we find deeply regrettable — but Mr. Fidler will continue to fight for the right to live in his home," the lawyer said.

Authorities said he incorporated two grain silos into the design, covering them with material to give them a castellated appearance.

"Mr. Fidler made it quite clear that the construction of his house was undertaken in a clandestine fashion," the court ruled.

Brian Butler’s “Night of Pan”

Brian Butler’s “Night of Pan” with Kenneth Anger and Vincent Gallo to Premiere in London at Horse Hospital

Butler will also perform with Death in Vegas’ Richard Fearless

Los Angeles, CA – Los Angeles based filmmaker, artist and musician Brian Butler (www.brianbutler.com) will host the London premiere of his noted short film, “Night of Pan,” along with other works, in London at the Horse Hospital on February 20th at 7:30pm, admission is free. Butler will also perform a live sound performance with projections, accompanied by Death in Vegas’ Richard Fearless. The evening will be rounded out with DJ sets from Fearless and Butler, along with other surprise guest DJs.

The Horse Hospital is a unique arts venue in London which has been providing a space for underground and avant-garde media since 1993. It is located at Colonnade, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 1HX.

“Night of Pan” is a seven and a half minute film featuring film auteur Kenneth Anger and actor Vincent Gallo. The film has been screened in various versions internationally – Beijing, Lisbon, Cannes, Athens, Rome, Berlin, Los Angeles and but never in the world center of occultism, London.

In the film, Anger, Gallo, and Butler depict a pagan ritual that symbolizes the stage of ego death in the process of spiritual attainment.

Brian Butler is a multidisciplinary artist who creates works around dark magical themes. He works extensively as a producer on director Kenneth Anger’s films. Additionally he has written for Dazed & Confused and performs along with Anger in the band Technicolor Skull.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gr58vmhVOg
# # #
For more information on Brian Butler please contact Susan von Seggern at susan@susanvonseggern.com or (011 1) 213-840-0077.

Susan von Seggern
Public Relations Consultant
susan@susanvonseggern.com
213-840-0077

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Victory Over The Pirate Bay Will Be Short-Lived

http://www.pcworld.com/article/163366/hollywoods_victory_over_the_pirate_bay_will_be_shortlived.html

Hollywood's Victory Over The Pirate Bay Will Be Short-Lived
Daniel Ionescu, PC World
Apr 18, 2009

From Sweden to London to Hollywood, protectors of copyrights are celebrating the conviction of the four men behind the world's most popular torrent tracker The Pirate Bay. The four convicted men behind The Pirate Bay -- Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundstrom -- say they can't and won't pay the $3.6 million in damages and promised the site will continue running. So much for Hollywood's sweet victory and happy ending.

Hollywood may have won a battle, but the war against piracy is far from over. Unauthorized file-sharing will continue (and likely intensify), if not through The Pirate Bay, then through dozens of other near-identical swashbuckling Web sites.

Of course, The Pirate Bay's case is nothing new. Eight years ago Napster was shut down after getting sued. It tried a few legal business models, but never managed to even get close to the popularity it had when it was operating illegally. The shutdown of Napster turned its creator, Shawn Fanning, and Napster into a into heroes and martyrs, inspiring others to develop new ways to pirate music.The Pirate Bay site itself is still up and running while the case is appealed.

What Hollywood needs to remember is that sites like The Pirate Bay are like weeds. When you try to kill one, they grow back even stronger. In this case, The Pirate Bay already moved most of its servers to the Netherlands, a change that could keep the site running even if The Pirate Bay loses its appeal.

The bad news for copyright-holders is there is obviously a market demand for this type of content distribution model. And while the entertainment industry seeks compensation via lawsuits, other similar services (which I do not endorse) such as Mininova, Demonoid and Torrentbox to name a few, will continue to thrive. That is, of course, until they get sued into oblivion as well. And then there are always new technologies on the horizon. Hollywood might want to start looking at a budding new peer-to-peer tool called OneSwarm that aims to let file-swappers preserve their privacy by cloaking their IP address.

G20 Summit: university professor suspended

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/g20-summit/5059032/G20-Summit-university-professor-suspended-over-bankers-hanging-from-lampposts-comment.html

G20 Summit: university professor suspended over bankers 'hanging from lampposts'
27 Mar 2009

An organiser of G20 protests, Chris Knight, was suspended from his job as a university professor after he warned bankers could be "hanging from lampposts", it was reported.

Mr Knight, the professor of anthropology at the University of east London who is organising protests under the banner G20 Meltdown, told BBC Radio 4's PM on Wednesday: "We are going to be hanging a lot of people like Fred the Shred from lampposts on April Fool's Day and I can only say let's hope they are just effigies.

"To be honest, if he winds us up any more I'm afraid there will be real bankers hanging from lampposts and let's hope that that doesn't actually have to happen.

"They should realise the amount of fury and hatred there is for them and act quickly, because quite honestly if it isn't humour it is going to be anger.

"I am trying to keep it humorous and let the anger come up in a creative and hopefully productive and peaceful way.

"If the other people don't join in the fun – I'm talking about the bankers and those rather pompous ministers – and come over and surrender their power obviously it's going to get us even more wound up and things could get nasty. Let's hope it doesn't."

The University of east London told the BBC that the professor was yesterday suspended from duties while an investigation took place into his comments.

The statement read: "Professor Chris Knight has been suspended from his duties at the University of east London, pending investigation.

"In order not to prejudice this process we cannot make any further comment."

Plant chooses creativity over Led Zeppelin nostalgia

http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2009/02/grammy-windfall-robert-plant-chooses-creativity-over-led-zeppelin-nostalgia.html

Grammy windfall: Robert Plant chooses creativity over Led Zeppelin nostalgia
Greg Kot
greg@gregkot.com
February 9, 2009

Robert Plant could have been doing something other than winning five Grammys on Sunday with Alison Krauss. He could’ve been out making mega-millions of dollars on tour with the surviving members of his old band, Led Zeppelin.

The opportunity was there for the taking when Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were joined by Jason Bonham, son of the late Zep drummer, John Bonham, for a one-off London reunion gig in 2007.

That same year, Plant collaborated on “Raising Sand,” a relatively low-key yet highly adventurous album with country-pop singer Krauss. It was a risky little effort, with both Plant and Krauss working outside their comfort zones. On Sunday, it brought home a mini-avalanche of five Grammy Awards, including album of the year, topping heavy competition such as Coldplay, Radiohead and Lil Wayne.

But that kind of success couldn’t have been foreseen when the album was released. A Led Zeppelin reunion, on the other hand, would’ve been a sure thing.

Veteran artists with successful brand names (Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd) can make lots of money on the nostalgia circuit. No new music is required. It’s play the hits, and go straight to the bank. Tour promoters have been salivating for decades about the prospects of a Zeppelin reunion; many predict it would be the highest-earning rock tour of all time. But Plant has adamantly refused to go along. He has instead continued to pursue a solo career, defined by its adventurous spirit.

It is not a career arch followed by many of Plant’s peers. Presented with the option of making easy money or creating new music, most choose the money. And who can really blame them? It’s the rock-star equivalent of early retirement.

That’s why Plant’s determination to go his own way, to choose creative impulse over financial expedience, is one of the new year’s most inspiring music stories.

Plant is 60 years old. He no longer needs to prove anything to anyone, having changed the course of rock history once with Zeppelin in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Krauss, 37, has had a successful career as the violin-playing singer in Union Station, a first-rate bluegrass band that has had some crossover hits in pop and country. But “Raising Sand” finds them both breaking ground and making music that doesn’t sound quite like anything else.

Picking up where the acoustic side of the 1970 album “Led Zeppelin III” left off, “Raising Sand” burrows into the mystical side of folk and country music. Burnett proposed the project, picked the songs and assembled the band, which put an eerie 21st Century spin on 20th Century roots music.

Plant had never sung vocal harmonies before. He had always been the golden-god front man, his voice clearly the lead instrument. But on “Raising Sand,” he and Krauss blend with understatement and empathy. Plant’s wordless harmonies on “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” give Krauss and the song exactly what they need, and it’s a goosebump-inducing epiphany. From the shake-rattle-and-shimmy of Allen Toussant’s “Fortune Teller” to the hymn-like heartbreak of Gene Clark’s “Polly Come Home,” the performances reward close attention and rank with the best work either of these artists has done.

Rounder Records, a venerable independent label based in the Northeast, released “Raising Sand” and it has become one of its biggest hits. Its multiple nominations were old hat for Krauss, who before Sunday has already won 21 Grammy awards. But none were for a project quite this adventurous.

"We ostensibly come from such different places on the musical map," Plant said in a media conference backstage Sunday. "Alison showed me so much I never been exposed to."

That Plant is still learning new tricks is a testament to his artistry. That he’s not touring with a reunited Led Zeppelin is a sign of enduring integrity. That’s a lot of money to be passing up, even if “Raising Sand” did win five Grammys.

But Plant was having none of it. The singer again was confronted with the inevitable question Sunday about his future involvement in any Zeppelin tour.

"How old are you, man?" Plant responded. "Because you look older than me. You try to do 'Communication Breakdown' in these pants."

Unprecedented Dollar Collapse?

http://infowars.net/articles/january2009/060109Collapse.htm

Bank Of England Policymaker Predicts Unprecedented Dollar Collapse
Warns that within five years global dumping of dollar assets could be complete
Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Tuesday, Jan 6th, 2009

A former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee has predicted a massive collapse of the dollar within the next two to five years, warning that a government increase in spending under President elect Obama could be disastrous.

Willem Buiter, who served the BOE from June 1997 to May 2000, has stated that he expects to see the plug pulled from under the dollar as foreign investors turn away from the dollar and other US backed assets including government bonds.

Writing for the Financial Times, Buiter, now a Professor with the London School of Economics European Institute, comments: "There will, before long (my best guess is between two and five years from now) be a global dumping of US dollar assets, including US government assets. Old habits die hard. The US dollar and US Treasury bills and bonds are still viewed as a safe haven by many. But learning takes place."

Buiter, who has previously advised the World Bank, the IMF and the European Commission, points out that the dollar has managed to stay afloat due to the misguided notion that the US can make more capital on overseas investments and interests than foreign investors can make on US assets - a hypothesis that economists have referred to as "American alpha".

However, he believes the global financial crisis has exposed the fatal flaws in that assumption.

"The past eight years of imperial overstretch, hubris and domestic and international abuse of power on the part of the Bush administration has left the US materially weakened financially, economically, politically and morally," Prof Buiter writes. "Even the most hard-nosed, Guantanamo Bay-indifferent potential foreign investor in the US must recognise that its financial system has collapsed."

Buiter warns that a Keynesian-style increase in public spending, the economic stimulus plan mooted by President elect Obama, will not work in the long term because underlying the fundamentals of the US economy is what he describes as a "deep structural rot".

"If the authorities go ahead with the short-run Keynesian stimulus without having convinced the global capital markets and domestic producers and consumers that there will be a timely reversal, the policies will not work." Buiter states.

"If the government is believed to be fiscally continent (future taxes will be raised and/or future public spending will be cut by enough to safeguard the solvency of the state) but turns out not be so after all, the Keynesian fiscal policy will be effective in the short run (as long as the public believes in the fiscal virtue of the government) but will become highly contractionary once the truth dawns." he continues.

Buiter also states that he expects Federal authorities to allow the dollar to depreciate under an inflationary monetary policy, rather than default on Federal debt.

"The US Federal government has taken on massive additional contingent liabilities through its bail out/underwriting of the US financial system (and possibly other bits of the US economic system that are too politically connected to fail)." Prof Buiter comments. "Together will the foreseeable increase in actual Federal government liabilities because of vastly increased future Federal deficits, this implies the need for a future private to public sector resource transfer that is most unlikely to be politically feasible without recourse to inflation. The only alternative is default on the Federal debt. There is little doubt, in my view, that the Federal authorities will choose the inflation and currency depreciation route over the default route."

Buiter warns that this course of action on behalf of the Federal government is unsustainable and will ultimately lead to a massive dollar collapse.

"If I can figure this out, so can anyone in the US or abroad who follows recent economic developments. The dawning of the realisation will lead to the dumping of the assets." he concludes.

Inside the Rings

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/25/sports/olympics/25clarey.html

August 25, 2008
Inside the Rings
China Fulfills Its Wish for Olympic Domination
By CHRISTOPHER CLAREY

BEIJING — In a country of numerologists, it was surely not lost on the Chinese that the last medal they won at their undeniably successful Olympics was also their 100th.

It came late Sunday afternoon, shortly before the Closing Ceremony, from boxer Zhang Zhilei in the super heavyweight division, and the only thing that did not seem entirely appropriate as Zhang collected his prize was that he had just finished second.

Gold, not silver, was the color that defined these Games for the Chinese. They finished with 51 gold medals, the highest figure for any nation at an Olympics in 20 years, and they won them across a wider range of sports than any team in Beijing.

“Here the message is clear; you’ve got to win,” said China’s fencing coach Christian Bauer, a Frenchman, in an interview last week with the French newspaper L’Equipe. “When you’ve got a gold medal here, you’re somebody. When you have a silver, you’re not.”

The individual most defined by gold, of course, was Michael Phelps, whose eight gold medals included dramatic, too-close-to-call finishes in the 100-meter butterfly and the 4x100 freestyle relay. It will take an unimaginable effort to trump Phelps. Who will have the ways and means to even compete in nine medal events at a future Olympics, much less win nine?

Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter, certainly did all within his preternatural power to match Phelps’s global impact: winning the 100 and the 200 and the 4x100 relay all in world-record times and giving his ailing sport its latest shot of adrenaline.

One can only hope that there is no dark epilogue to either Bolt’s or Phelps’s phenomenal success stories. This is an era when too many larger-than-life sports figures have turned out to be frauds, including Marion Jones, who has now been stripped of the five track and field medals she won in Sydney at the 2000 Games

“I know, for me, I’m clean,” Phelps said. “I purposely wanted to do more tests to prove it. People can say what they want, but the facts are the facts.”

The only prominent athlete to test positive during these Games was Lyudmila Blonska of Ukraine, who was stripped of her silver medal in the heptathlon and removed from the women’s long jump final. But the Games’ competitive landscape was also altered before the Olympics began when track’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, suspended seven Russian athletes for tampering with their doping samples, including Yelena Soboleva, the overwhelming favorite to win the women’s 1,500 in Beijing.

With Soboleva absent, the Kenyan women won their first Olympic gold medals on the track, taking the 800 and 1,500.

The Russian Olympic team showed signs of decline, dropping to third in the overall medal standings behind the United States, which finished with 110, and China with its conveniently round 100.

The Russians won 36 gold medals and 88 over all in 2000; they won 27 golds and 92 over all in Athens. This time the final tallies were 23 and 72.

It will be intriguing to see whether Russia, with its increased national wealth and intention to upgrade its sports facilities, will be able to reverse the downward trend in time for London 2012.

The Chinese, however, are clearly in the ascendancy. They continue to dominate in diving, weightlifting, badminton and table tennis. But they also won their first Olympic gold medals here in archery, rowing, boxing, sailing and the gymnastics discipline of trampoline. They won their first medals in beach volleyball, synchronized swimming, rhythmic gymnastics and field hockey.

Remarkably, they won the gold medal count despite failing to win any golds in traditional team sports or in track and field, which awards more medals than any other sport. They also failed to win a medal in basketball, the sport that clearly generates the most passion in China, as was evident to anyone who had the earsplitting experience of watching the national teams’ games.

In track and field, the Chinese won just two bronzes and lost their biggest status symbol, Liu Xiang, to an Achilles’ tendon injury before he could even clear the first hurdle. But Chinese athletes were so successful that even the disappointment of Liu could not spoil this extraordinary national celebration.

China’s rise meant less gold for the rest of the world, with 52 nations winning gold medals here compared with 56 in Athens in 2004. But the overall spread was more balanced, with 87 nations winning at least one medal here, including Olympic minnows like Togo and Mauritius, compared with 74 in Athens.

With impeccable timing with London looming, the British were the biggest mover, climbing from 10th in the medals standings last time to fourth by any measure this time. Their 19 gold medals and 47 overall medals gave them their best overall performance at an Olympics in a century.

Rebecca Adlington, their 19-year-old surprise double gold medalist in swimming, and Chris Hoy, their triple gold medalist in track cycling, will surely not lack for attention over the next four years.

Nor, of course, will Phelps or Bolt, both of whom intend to compete in London. But they, like all future Olympians who try to match their achievements, now have an exceedingly difficult act to follow.

True or False: 10 Common Travel Beliefs

http://travel.yahoo.com/p-interests-22859262;_ylc=X3oDMTF1aWZva3I4BF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEX3MDMjcxOTQ4MQRzZWMDZnAtdG9kYXltb2QEc2xrAzEwYmVsaWVmcy0yMDA4LTA0LTMw

True or False: 10 Common Travel Beliefs
Have you heard that New Yorkers are rude, London is rainy, and China is just a shovel away? Here, the truth behind travel rumors

The Rumor: London is always gray and rainy, and the food is terrible.
The Truth: "In terms of rainfall, it's actually low on the list," says Nicole Mitchell, a Weather Channel meteorologist. (The statistics: London gets 23 inches a year, while, on average, supposedly sunny Miami gets a whopping 60 and soggy Seattle gets 39.) "Because London is coastal, it gets drizzly during the winter. But, as with any place, you have to pick the right time to visit," says Mitchell. (She recommends the summer, when it's warmer and sunnier.) And as for the local fare, it has come a long way since the days of ubiquitous bangers and mash. "There was a time when English food was, by definition, bad food, but that reputation is about 10 years out of date," says Tim Zagat, a cofounder of Zagat Survey, a publisher of international restaurant guides. "Now it is one of the best places in the world to eat." (The turnaround is due in part to the increased availability of fresh ingredients.)

The Rumor: It is rude to make eye contact during conversation in Japan.
The Truth: In the Land of the Rising Sun, do not avert your gaze just yet. "That used to be the rule, back in the old days, during the Meiji and Taisho eras (the late 1800s and early 1900s)," explains Robert Whiting, a Japanese-culture expert and the author of "The Samurai Way of Baseball." "It was considered disrespectful, especially when talking to a superior." These days, however, "people in Japan act just like people in the West. Not making eye contact would be considered a bit odd when talking to someone, even the emperor," says Whiting.

The Rumor: Venice is sinking.
The Truth: Not so much, says Fabio Carrera, a native of Venice and a professor of urban studies and planning at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Massachusetts. If by sinking you mean that the land is going under and losing elevation, then, no, that is no longer true," says Carrera. Once upon a time — from around 1900 up until the 1970s — Venice did dip deeper into the water, by nearly five inches, because the aquifer beneath it was being drained to provide water to the mainland. "When people realized what was happening, they stopped pumping water out, and Venice rebounded by about half an inch," says Carrera.

Still, the city is not totally out of hot water. Thanks to global warming and rising sea levels, Venice — along with other low-lying locales, like New Orleans — remains vulnerable to flooding. But as long as it stays one step ahead of the problem by incorporating preventive measures, like the underwater floodgates currently being constructed, Venice should be the home of many a piazza (and pigeon) for years to come.

The Rumor: New Yorkers are rude.
The Truth: Fuhgeddaboudit! "It's absolutely false that New Yorkers are unfriendly — they may seem standoffish at first, but that's just concealing a very big heart," insists Ed Koch, a former New York mayor and a quintessential New Yorker. (Hey, someone who appeared in "The Muppets Take Manhattan" should know.) So what is with the gruff exterior, then? Call it a coping mechanism for living in a city of more than 8 million people. "We believe that people want their own space, so we don't intrude unless asked for assistance. But if you're visiting from out of town, just walk over to any New Yorker and he'll immediately help you out," says Koch. And rather than feeling upset about a brusque cab driver or a bagel guy who seems to toss your change at you, remember that they are just trying to keep the wheels in motion. "People here want to help you get on with your day!" says Koch.

The Rumor: Afternoon thunderstorms in Florida always pass within an hour.
The Truth: "This does not always happen, but a lot of storms are pretty quick," says meteorologist Nicole Mitchell. "In the heat of the afternoon, there is enough of a contrast between the slightly cooler ocean air temperature and the warmer air temperature over land to trigger storms," she says. "By late afternoon, there is less of a contrast and you lose the trigger for the storms, so they start dying out." And Florida is not the only place you should keep an umbrella handy. Mitchell says the same conditions exist up and down the Gulf Coast, making the weather in places such as Biloxi, Miss.; Mobile, Ala.; and New Orleans equally erratic.

The Rumor: South of the equator, toilet water swirls in the opposite direction.
The Truth: This one goes straight down the commode. Wondering where that crackpot theory originated? "South of the equator, tornadoes go clockwise, while north of the equator, they go counterclockwise, because of the earth's rotation and something called Coriolis force. In principle, the same would happen to water in a toilet or a bath," explains Michael Goodchild, a professor of geography at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a 2007 recipient of the field's highest honor, the Prix Vautrin Lud. "But the effect of Coriolis force on a small scale is very weak and outweighed by other forces, like the relative positions of the inlet faucet and the plug hole."

The Rumor: The Leaning Tower of Pisa will eventually topple over.
The Truth: It seems inevitable that the tilting medieval bell tower will take a dive someday. But the structure, which developed its famous wonky posture when its foundation settled into the soft ground beneath it, is actually on surprisingly solid footing. About 10 years ago, the base of the tower was reinforced with a combination of concrete and other bracing methods, decreasing the lean by 17 inches to 13 feet 6 inches. "It was the culmination of years of work and planning — the new foundation will last indefinitely," says Donald Friedman, a structural engineer at Old Structures Engineering, in New York City. "It is not going to tip. Now it has the heaviest foundation of anything in that whole city!"

The Rumor: In Russia, locally made vodka is cheaper than water.
The Truth: The answer is a flat-out nyet, says Paul Richardson, who has visited the country more than 20 times and is the publisher of Russian Life magazine. While locally made vodka can be nearly half as cheap in Russia as the imported stuff we buy here — prices start at around $2 a bottle in Moscow — it still outprices water by a long shot.

The Rumor: If you dug a hole straight through the Earth, you would probably make it to China.
The Truth: "It depends on where you start out," says author Michael Goodchild. "If you dug through the center of the Earth, you would emerge at a point opposite to where you started," he says. "Most of the time, if you started from land, you would end in water. But you would end up in China if you started digging in northern Chile." Oh yeah, there is one more little catch. Says Goodchild, "You would need a machine that could form a tunnel through liquid metal at a temperature of around 5,000 degrees." Um, try eBay?

The Rumor: There is a top-secret city beneath Disneyland.
The Truth: Legend has it that there's a top-secret command center under the theme park in Anaheim, Calif., but, alas, not even a wave of Tinker Bell's wand could make this a reality. "There is not much under there — certainly not a city," says Bob Sehlinger, who has visited the park hundreds of times over the past 20 years and recently wrote "The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2008." It is very likely that this rumor stems from a case of mistaken identity. As it turns out, sister amusement park Disney World, in Orlando, Fla., does have a subterranean setup of sorts, though it is not quite a metropolis. "In Disney World, there is something called utilidors — Disney-speak for a huge system of tunnels under the park, which allow costumed cast members to scurry underneath the property," explains Sehlinger.

Motorola Renews Itself Through Spinoff

http://www.forbes.com/markets/economy/2008/03/26/motorola-restructuring-update-markets-equity-cx_vr_0326markets16.html

Motorola Renews Itself Through Spinoff
Vidya Ram, 03.26.08

LONDON - Motorola has taken heed of pressure from shareholders including billionaire Carl Icahn, and announced it will spin off its mobile handset business.

Motorola shares rose 1.5%, or 15 cents, to $9.91, on Wednesday morning, after a pre-opening rally of over 9.0%.

The changes will be made in 2009, under which two publicly-listed companies will be created, one focusing on mobile phones and the other bringing together Motorola's home and networks business, which sells TV set-top boxes and modems, and its enterprise mobility unit, which sells computing and communications equipment for businesses.

Motorola expects the transaction will be tax-free, allowing shareholders to own stock in both the new companies

Nomura analyst Richard Windsor said this represented the best deal for shareholders. "It is the least disruptive remedy to their recovery plan for their mobile phone division," he added.

He said the company would have struggled to get a good price if it had chosen to sell its mobile handset division, which has suffered from a slump in sales thanks to stiff competition from the likes of Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

"Our decision to separate our Mobile Devices and Broadband & Mobility Solutions businesses follows a review process undertaken by our management team and board of directors, together with independent advisors," Chief Executive Greg Brown said in a press release.

"Creating two industry-leading companies will provide improved flexibility, more tailored capital structures, and increased management focus - as well as more targeted investment opportunities for our shareholders."

Motorola launched a strategic review in January, following a weak set of fourth-quarter earnings that were weighed down by troubles at its handset business, which has failed to repeat the success of its Razr phone.

Just ahead of the announcement, UBS analyst Maynard Um cut his estimates for sales of Motorola handsets for 2008, by 9.0%, to 146.5 million, despite Motorola's plans to launch several new 3G phones and low-cost handsets targeted at emerging markets.

Icahn had pressed for the spin off and for the appointment of a new chief executive for the division, arguing that the company functioned as a conglomerate, and a carving off the handset unit was in the best interests of shareholders. (See: "Icahn Rattles Motorola")

Thomson Financial contributed to this report.

Magazine names 7 wonders of architecture

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20080324/ap_tr_ge/travel_superlatives_architectural_wonders

Magazine names 7 wonders of architecture
Mon Mar 24, 2008

From the tall tower in Dubai to a contemporary art museum on New York's Lower East Side, noteworthy architecture is springing up around the globe. Conde Nast Traveler's April issue picks seven designs as the "new seven wonders of the architecture world." They are:

-Cumulus, an exhibit hall at Danfoss Universe, a science and technology museum in Nordborg, Denmark. The building has an irregular roof, all curves and angles, like a bite taken out of a cloud.

-Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building, which is under construction in the Middle East and is already more than 1,700 feet tall. The final height is a secret but its developer, Emaar Properties, has previously said it will stop somewhere above 2,275 feet and will exceed 160 floors.

-London's new Wembley Stadium, which seats 90,000 with no obstructed sight lines. A massive 436-foot-tall, 1,000-foot-long single arch braces the retractable roof. The stadium will be a centerpiece of the 2012 Olympics.

-New Museum of Contemporary Art, designed to resemble an off-kilter stack of silvery rectangles, located on the Bowery on Manhattan's once-seedy, now-trendy Lower East Side.

-Kogod Courtyard, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., a curved roof made from a patterned grid of glass and steel above shallow pools in the courtyard of the Old Patent Office Building, also known as the Reynolds Center and home to the American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

-Red Ribbon, Tanghe River Park, in Qinhuangdao, China, about 180 miles east of Beijing, a steel bench that runs a third of a mile through a riverbank garden and ecological oasis.

-The Crystal, a controversial new entryway and exhibit space at Toronto's Royal Ontario Museum, whose sharp, even jagged angles have not been universally loved by the locals. It was designed by Daniel Libeskind.

E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0327/p04s01-woeu.html

from the March 27, 2008 edition
E.U. weighs Olympic boycott over Tibet
The European Union meets Friday to discuss ties to China after the unrest in Tibet.
By Robert Marquand Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Paris

If the government of China hopes the world will go for its line on Tibet and the nefarious Dalai Lama and his purported "clique" – Europe isn't buying it.

The response to the Tibetan crisis in London, Paris, and Berlin, rather, is a call for "dialogue" between China and the exiled Tibetan leader, and"restraint" by Beijing.

A boycott of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games is being discussed as a leverage point in Austria, Belgium, Britain, and France – to be determined by how China handles the frustrations of its Tibetan minority.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has "left open the option" of boycotting the ceremony, Germany has blocked talks with China on economic development, and Britain's foreign secretary, David Miliband, says that Tibet demonstrations will be authorized as the Olympic torch is carried through London on April 6.

Prince Charles, a friend of the Dalai Lama, had already decided in January not to attend the opening ceremony, he said, in a letter to a human rights group.

Europeans have long had a fascination with and sympathy for the Himalayan region and its Buddhist spiritual traditions – and the Dalai Lama is a frequent visitor to the Continent.

This Friday, Europe's foreign ministers meet in Slovenia, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, to adopt a common position on relations with Beijing and "the suffering of Tibet," as French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner describes it.

The question in Slovenia is how to balance appreciation for the progress China has made with concern about the heavy handed tactics of an unelected government that has long eschewed any dialogue with those disagreeing with it. Most European states also have significant business interests in China.

While no European Union state is preparing to boycott the 2008 Games – "Let's not be more Tibetan than the Dalai Lama," who did not advocate boycott, says Mr. Kouchner – there is a general revulsion at the scenes out of Tibet, and at what is seen as an overheated Chinese propaganda effort to demonize the Dalai Lama and hold him responsible for violence.

In a clear rebuke to the Chinese position on Dalai Lama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown plans to meet the spiritual leader in May, and the Dalai Lama was invited to speak at a conference in Nantes, France, during the games in August.

As the British Foreign Office issued a human rights report critical of China this week, Mr. Miliband said, "There needs to be mutual respect between all communities and sustained dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities."

On May 22, the Dalai Lama will give a speech at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

On Wednesday Robert Menard, general secretary of Reporters Sans Frontières in Paris, the journalistic watchdog group, stated that Mr. Sarkozy should boycott the opening if China does not release 30 political prisoners who are on the lists of nearly every human rights group, and if foreign correspondents are continued to be banned from working in Tibet.

Mr. Menard's group raced to unfurl a Tibetan flag at the opening ceremony of the games in Athens this week while a Chinese official was speaking – an act widely criticized in the journalistic community, which has depended on RSF to report on press violations.

Prior to the China-Tibet dissatisfaction in Europe, many protest groups here demanded that China stop its support of the Sudanese government, widely regarded as a main culprit in the starvation and chaos in Darfur. The phrase "Genocide Olympics" has been used in Europe among human rights groups to describe the twinning of the Games with China's policy toward Sudan.

Moscow: new world capital for billionaires

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080306001953.xvguehx7

Moscow: new world capital for billionaires
Mar 5, 2008

Moscow has overtaken New York City as home to the most billionaires, according to Forbes magazine, with 74 of the super-rich elite now counting the Russian capital as their home.

By contrast, 71 billionaires live in New York, according to the magazine's annual list, which placed London in third place with 36.

"Russia is again the dominant story in (Europe) this year. Its billionaires are just fast and fearsome. What's fascinating is that every single one of them is self made," said Forbes senior editor Luisa Kroll.

"We're not going to get into exactly how they got it but none of them inherited it and their average age is 46," she added.

Russia now counts a total of 87 billionaires, ousting Germany in second place but still trailing the first-placed United States, which has 469.

Russian oligarchs have made seen their fortunes rise in recent years thanks to booming commodity prices.

Among the top-placed Russian figures were aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, valued at 28 billion dollars and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich, said to be worth 23.5 billion dollars.

Farmer hides castle from building inspectors

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080125/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_britain_castle

Farmer hides castle from building inspectors
By Peter Apps
1-25-8

A farmer built an entire mock castle behind a screen of hay bales and lived there concealed for four years to evade planning regulations, officials said on Friday -- but it may be torn down anyway.

Robert Fidler hopes to take advantage of a provision of planning law that allows buildings without planning permission to be declared legal if no objections have been made after four years

But Reigate and Banstead Borough Council in Surrey is not impressed.

"It does not count because the property was hidden behind hay bales," said a spokeswoman. "No one knew it was there."

The council wants the building near Redhill some 30 km south of London to be demolished, along with an associated conservatory, marquee structure, wooden bridge, patio, decking and tarmac racecourse.

"It looks like a mock-Tudor house from the front and it's got two turrets at the back," the spokeswoman said. "I understand there is also a cannon."

The couple would have been unlikely to get planning permission as the farm was in "green belt" land where building was restricted, she said. A hearing takes place in February.

Fidler's wife Linda told the Daily Mail newspaper the children grew up looking at straw out of the windows of the house and that they kept their son away from playschool on the day his class were due to do paintings of their houses.

"We couldn't have him drawing a big blue haystack," she said. "People might ask questions."

Planning inspectors had been called to the site by concerned neighbours shortly before Fidler took the hay bales down in summer 2006 but had not seen the house.

"When the inspectors went there, all they saw was hay bales and hay bales on agricultural land are not that unusual," the spokeswoman said.

"I think the neighbours thought there might be something going on but it is difficult to tell, isn't it?"

(Editing by Steve Addison)

Jimmy Page Says Reunion Tour May Happen

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1580419/20080128/led_zeppelin.jhtml

Jan 28 2008
Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page Says Reunion Tour May Happen After All
'The amount of work that we put into the O2 [concert] ... was probably what you put into a world tour,' he told Reuters.
By Gil Kaufman and Kurt Orzeck

Led Zeppelin might not be headed over the hills and far away quite yet — the recently reunited rock legends have let it slip that they may actually perform together again after all, but not before September.

Guitarist Jimmy Page revealed the scenario over the weekend, according to Reuters, saying that the legendary band's one-off, strongly received December reunion gig in London, which sparked rumors of a world tour, was likely a precursor to more shows.

"I can assure you the amount of work that we put into the O2 [concert], for ourselves rehearsing and the staging of it, was probably what you put into a world tour," Page said, adding that more shows are off for the moment because of singer Robert Plant's commitments to touring with bluegrass star Alison Krauss in support of their Grammy-nominated joint album, Raising Sand.

"Robert Plant also [has] a parallel project running, and he's really busy with that project, certainly until September, so I can't give you any news," Page added.

In an interview with New York's Madison Square Garden Network during halftime at a Knicks game on Friday, Plant also opened the door to more shows, saying, "You never know what is around the corner. It's just nice to play with those guys," when asked about Zeppelin tour rumors.

That's a sharp contrast from what Plant said in late September, when he shot down claims of a potential tour outright. "There'll be one show and that'll be it," he told British music mag Uncut.

Plant's remarks had come days after Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl apparently volunteered his services for a potential Zep tour. After saying that he had planned to sneak his way into the long-sold-out London show, the former Nirvana drummer added that he wouldn't mind manning the kit for Led Zeppelin if needed. "[I am] at their beck and call," he told British music weekly the New Musical Express.

Abercrombie & Fitch's soft-core porn catalog is coming back

http://www.styledash.com/2008/01/03/abercrombies-soft-core-porn-catalog-is-coming-back/

Abercrombie & Fitch's soft-core porn catalog is coming back
Jan 3rd 2008
Jonathon Morgan

Remember back in 2003 when all you had to do to get your spouse in the mood was leave your Abercrombie & Fitch catalog lying around? In theory, the quarterly publication was supposed to feature the company's clothing line -- though you wouldn't have guessed that from all the photos of sexy 20-somethings, who (for the most part) weren't wearing any clothes at all.

Abercrombie's chief executive claimed the reason A&F Quarterly was pulled was that he was "bored" with it. I suspect it had more to do with all the pressure he was under from religious organizations and women's rights groups.

However, the catalog is on its way back, but this time you'll only be able to find it in London, where the company hopes customers will be more open-minded than their US counterparts.

So Londoners, if you're into checking out a little soft-core porn while you shop for relatively bland clothing, you're in luck!

Tags: abercrombie and fitch, AbercrombieAndFitch, catalogs, london, stores