Paul McGuinness, longtime manager of rock band U2, has called on Internet service providers to immediately introduce disconnection policies to end illegal music downloads and urged governments to make sure they do.

I think what he means is that people who download anything by "U2" should be cut off - possibly he has other motives in saying that - but I don't, because I regard "U2" as an overhyped rock band with second rate tunes that I won't waste my money on - let alone my bandwidth.

Basically I am so sick of "Bozo" and his third rate rock combo that if I never hear any U2 tune again it will be too soon - and as for having yet another rich little ego twit thinking he can save the world - I have a message: "Grow up and ditch the self-narcissim thing before you end up like a certain other celeb that is as crazy as you"

Tags: pseudo caring, twat, bozo, overweening narcisissm, bob geldof, how big are your houses, what is your carbon footprint, perfect convert for scientology, mainstream media garbage, its like rock maaan

Does that sound at all familiar?

A China base in Iran?

China's strategy is confined to the port city of Gwadar along the southwestern coast of Pakistan in Balochistan province, strategically located near the Hormuz Strait. Yet, due to the close US-Pakistan relations, it is highly improbable the US would permit Islamabad to enter into strategic relations with Beijing so that China, still lacking a formidable navy, could utilize it for power projection in the region.

Not so with Iran, which is constantly threatened by the US, and now France, and which already enjoys observer status at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), headed by China and Russia. Iran's bid to join the SCO has been stalled partly as a result of the standoff over its nuclear program, but will likely succeed in the not too distant future should the present patterns of Iran-Russia and Iran-China cooperation continue.

Regarding the latter, China has already surpassed Germany as Iran's number one trade partner. Sinopec, China's largest oil refiner, has just finalized a multi-billion dollar deal to develop the giant Yadavaran oil field, and this is in addition to the "deal of the century" contract for natural gas from Iran's immense North Pars field. Chinese contractors are also busy constructing oil terminals for Iran in the Caspian Sea, extending the Tehran metro, building airports, among other projects. And this while China arms sales to Iran have included such hot items as ballistic-missile technology and air-defense radars.

The growing Iran-China cooperation on the energy and trade fronts is bound sooner or later to spill over into more meaningful military cooperation and, in turn, this depends to some extent on the ebbs and flows of Iran-US and China-US "games of strategy", particularly if China feels additional pressure from the US on the geopolitical front.

For sure, Iran's willingness to show a greater willingness than hitherto to embrace China's naval vessels making port calls to Iran is now in the cards, this as a prelude to more extensive agreements up to and including provisions for a small Chinese naval outpost on one of Iran's Persian Gulf islands.

Read it all

Tags: china, russia, iran, nuclear weapons, threat, wwiv, cold war, old cold war, new cold war, the great game

The Israel Air Force has managed to use that capacity with amazing skill and daring, as it showed last September when a dozen fighter bombers and support aircraft jammed Syria's Russian-supplied air defenses and destroyed a secret nuclear facility on the Euphrates river --- not far from Iran. The nature of that target has still not been revealed, but it must have been important enough to risk triggering a missile attack from Syria. That means the target was believed to be very important: most likely a joint Iranian-Syrian-North Korean nuclear facility.

In a very odd move, the Syrians are now rebuilding that mysterious concrete cube in exactly the same location --- even though the whole world knows about it now. Why should they spend vast amounts of money doing that, if it would only become another fat target?

One possibility is that it's a trap for IAF jets. Surround the concrete cube with enough new Russian anti-aircraft missiles, back it up with radars based on Russian ships that just happen to be doing the biggest naval exercise in years right now in the Mediterranean, and provoke another attack by announcing another nuclear breakthrough. It could be a baited ambush.

The whole thing smells like an Ahmadi-Nejad shell game, with Russian help: put your nuclear materials under a dozen different giant concrete shelters, and dare the enemy to attack all of them, without knowing which one has nuke materials. All of the sites would be heavily defended with state-of-the-art Russian anti-aircraft missiles. Not just one trap for attacking aircraft, but a dozen or more.

Tags: russia, iran, nuclear weapons, threat, wwiv, cold war, old cold war, new cold war, the great game, energy security, uranium prices

For years, Ken Livingstone has been the immovable face of London politics. Yesterday, as an avalanche of sleaze allegations engulfed his office and forced the resignation of a key aide, his position had never looked more precarious. Even for a man who thrives on controversy, the capital's Mayor has not had a good week.

A slew of accusations, including that he fortifies himself with whisky during morning question and answer sessions with members of the London Assembly – have sparked doubts that his astonishing political career can last beyond the mayoral election in May.

Mr Livingstone has cheerfully owned up to that particular habit, but he added: "I don't think I've ever reached Winston Churchill's levels, and as it didn't impair him in the destruction of the greatest evil facing humanity, it won't interfere with my continuing to lead Londoners to the sunny uplands of the future."

Tags: whiskey, whisky, red ken, ken livingstone, alcoholism, for medicinal purposes only, sun over the yardarm, denial, unblended malt, blended malt, blended whisky, cheap whisky, cheap alcohol, aa

The record industry has called on internet service providers and governments to take stronger action against digital piracy, after revealing that another year of strong digital growth had failed to compensate for the continued slump in CD sales.

According to the 2008 IFPI digital music report released today, global sales of digital music via the internet and mobile phones grew by 40% to an estimated $2.9bn (£1.48bn) last year.

Some of the ongoing structural problems of the music industry date back to its delayed and confused reaction to the emergence of file-sharing and digital distribution at the turn of the century.

Tags: piracy, copyright violation, theft, crime, digital canon

German historian compares Tom Cruise speech to Goebbels

Guido Knopp, an expert on Second World War history, told Bild newspaper that Cruise's address to his fellow Scientologists "inevitably" recalled Goebbels.

Mr Knopp was referring to a video recording of a sermon Cruise delivered to Scientology members four years ago that surfaced on the YouTube website this week.

The Mission Impossible star asks fellow members of the church: "Should we clean this place up?"

Mr Knopp said it was bound to remind Germans of Goebbels' notorious speech in Berlin on February 18 1943 when he asked the audience: "Do you want total war?".

Mr Knopp said: "It may be the case that Cruise's delivery style is not uncommon in certain religious movements in the US.

"But for Germans with an interest in history, that scene where he asks whether the Scientologists should clean up the world and everyone shouts 'yes' is inevitably reminiscent of Goebbels' notorious speech."

Scientology - already referred to as a "sect that exploits its members financially" is under investgation in Germany ...

Tags: tom cruise, scientology, bare faced messiah, hubbard, oto, crowley, parsons, osho, bhagwan shree rajneesh

If you want to get an overview of Scientology read "Bare Faced Messiah" about the life and times of L.Ron Hubbard - a hack SF author who had links with the OTO and Crowley (although Crowley - to his credit - disavowed LRH) - and which the Scientologists tried to suppress ...

.. and no - I am not an "SP" - I just make links between the behaviour of Hubbard in his final days with the behaviour of other "cult leaders" such as "Bhagwan" (recently rebranded as "Osho") who died owning nearly 100 "Rolls Royce" cars donated by his followers ..

What’s big, grey and gets you arrested?

What’s big, grey and gets you arrested? Keeping an eye on the news pages, I note with relief that the Government has, finally, made it illegal for anyone to keep an elephant in the back garden. While it would, perhaps, have been ideal for them to have implemented the ban before Christmas - the period when pressure to buy an elephant, as a gift, is most intense - it is good to see that, ultimately, sense has been seen.

For those regretful that they didn’t buy a six-tonne pet before the loophole was closed, there is little comfort. Now you’ll never be able to have that gigantic Diwali elephant parade from the patio to the shed. Not while keeping your respectability, anyway.

Because, yes, there will still be back-garden elephants available. It’s just that their purchase will now, inevitably, follow an established path: a black market will spring up to service the continuing demand.

Just as there are drugs mules, so, now, there will be elephant mules - flying out to Africa, swallowing up to six elephants at a time, then flying back into Gatwick or Heathrow, bearing their illicit cargo. Certain pubs and clubs will become notorious for then fencing the gear - although working out which ones these are should be fairly simple, given that it wouldn’t work anywhere much smaller than the Ministry of Sound, and all guilty venues will have huge piles of dung outside them, consisting of 28 per cent peanuts, 72 per cent buns.

What I’m sure will be most concerning our law enforcement agencies, however, is the knock-on effect of criminalising domestic elephant use. Plunged into a seething underworld, desperate elephant users may find that keeping an elephant ultimately proves to be a “gateway activity”. The more vulnerable in our society may well attempt to keep even more extreme things in their back gardens: a herd of impala. Six million locusts. Volcanoes. A major tributary, or swamp.

Indeed, watching the news reports last week on the flooding in Tewkesbury, I think I may have detected an active hotspot for the last of these already. And all because of a lack of joined-up thinking at No 10. Whoever said that being in government was easy?

Tags: humour

"Researchers at the University of East Anglia are working to develop computerized lip-reading systems. Lip-reading is extremely hard for humans to master, but a software-based system has several benefits over even the most highly trained expert. The ultimate goal of the project is to convert lip-read speech into text. 'Apart from being extremely helpful to hearing-disabled individuals, researchers say that such a system could be used to noiselessly dictate commands to electronic devices equipped with a simple camera - like mobile phones, microwaves or even a car's dashboard. England's Home Office Scientific Development Branch ... is currently investigating the feasibility of using lip-reading software as an additional tool for gathering information about criminals or for collecting evidence.'"

Tags: software engineering, false positives, false negatives, computerised surveillance, 1984, endemic surveillance society