Friday, January 30, 2009

Electric Purgatory: The Fate of the Black Rocker



This is an EXCELLENT documentary on the state of "Black Rock" (it's ALL Black Rock)

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Fake Activism?



the key is to STOP TRAFFIC if you want to be effective (or in Bart's case, shut down the stations)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Mom was right about everything: This time, don't drink soda

Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury

MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.

HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.

"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies.

In the first study, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS. The study was published in current issue of Environmental Health.

In the second study, the agriculture group found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury. The chemical was most common in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments.

The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common. The contamination occurs when mercury cells are used to produce caustic soda.

"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury. The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients," Wallinga said.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Marijuana Policy Project


email obama
Click the link above to email your persoanl message to stop this

Tell President Obama to end medical marijuana raids

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Power & Sex: America's War on Sexual Rights



This is a snippet from a talk I watched on Fora.tv it's very compelling how the argument has been framed.

the full hour and a half talk is here

Friday, January 23, 2009

Thanks Hill, you've been a great help

Can someone PLEASE tell me who the Black guy is standing behind Hillary. I REALLY need to know...
yes these are strictly professional reasons.

Fox News Reaction after ONE day of The Black Guy

Thursday, January 22, 2009

My First Moment of Clarity - Prodigy of Mobb Deep

Honestly I started half reading this article, but he comes real with it. Prodigy's diatribe reminds me of the late night arguments and discussions that are held any given night in and around Berkeley campus. I find it most interesting that he poses his argument against Jay-Z (they grew up under the same pro Black doctrine and he seems to have left it). Although it's clearly misplaced anger, it kind of reinforces what I already didn't like about Jigga.




the rest continues at URB.com

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Welcome to a new era

On the first day of the black presidency, I feel like I need to write about something of substance. It’s been an interesting experience to say the least. African Americans are such a different group than other Blacks, I would soon learn. Our journey here was one of bondage. That legacy, I hadn’t fully realized until lately, has been instilled in us since birth. We grow up with this automatic acceptance that the white man has precedence over our lives, that there are certain places in our own country that we are not welcome to even dream of visiting. This would come about in everyday activities, conversations, actions. So insipid in its limiting power. And then there is today. The day we swore in an African American president of the United States. There is no longer any position, elected or private that is off limits to us. An insulting statement that a former co-worker may have said to you in passing, you won’t let slide today, because somewhere, somehow, we’ve been renewed.

See Black people from Black countries have already had Blacks in power. Over an interesting conversation, I’ve compared the experiences. It’s nothing new to them. But even to them, a Black man, with absolute power over an overwhelmingly white country. That’s legendary. I don’t really know how to explain what I feel today. Is it just going to be a fleeting sense of hope? I can feel that we’re on the brink of great change, real change. Not the change of policy, laws, economics. Those are all a bit too tangible. I feel a huge sense in the shift of power and culture in America. The people want to openly heal from their scars and right their wrongs. We have come together and forced a very staid, very methodical system into submission. America wants to deal with race. America wants to deal with class. America wants to deal with a new era of communication, art and style. We want to dissolve our overseas stereotypes. We want to resolve our differences amongst ourselves.

America wants to be proud again.

Maybe this is all coming from a place of vapid self delusion. But we’re sick of being scared. Sick of being blatantly lied to. Sick of sending our peers, sons, daughters, and friends off to kill someone else’s son, daughter or friend. Sick of watching them come back injured, or not come back at all. And completely sick of watching this happen, just to fill the pocket of a government subcontractor.

America is the story of the underdog reigning supreme. From the defeat of the British, to the free thinking victory of the North. We defeated the Great Depression, and warmed the Cold War. We come back from hardship, and we grow stronger. We are American. It’s what we do. So how appropriate that today we elect a person from the most disenfranchised population of ours to be president. A man to represent us with international roots and the former face of a slave. There is no greater underdog story, than that of the Black man who would be president of the United States.

Congrats Mr. President

Sunday, January 18, 2009

i'm beginning to think vashti and i have the same taste

except in clothes...

cory gunz - richer than richie (promo)



damn gotta get bootleg on youtube now

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Astrobiology Rap

What should happen to women who have abortions, should it be illegal



interesting responses to a very valid question

Dude, why wasn't I invited...? (oh yeah...)

Army Assembles 'Mad Scientist' Conference. Seriously.

By Noah Shachtman EmailJanuary 09, 2009 | 5:25:00 PMCategories: Bizarro

641pxmad_scientistsvg Last August, the U.S. Army held a three-day conference in Portsmouth, Virginia, to look at new developments in military science and hardware. The confab was called the "2008 Mad Scientist Future Technology Seminar." Really. It was.

"The objective of the seminar was to investigate proliferating technologies with the potential to empower individuals and groups in the next 10-25 years," according to an unclassified summary of the Mad Scientist gathering, obtained by Danger Room.

As you'd expect from such a colorfully-titled gathering, the collected brains predicted a world in which individuals would have easy access to everything from ray guns to nano-bots to bioengineered weapons to arms for creating international chaos online.

"The U.S. must accept the reality that it can no longer assume technological superiority over the rest of the world. Ready access to scientific information and technological know-how has and will continue to level the playing field," the Mad Scientist summary notes. "In the operational environment of 2030 and beyond, the destructive/disruptive capability of the individual and small group will be more effective, more lethal, more easily developed/acquired, more efficiently delivered, and more easily concealed and transported... Individuals with access to the global information grid can easily acquire the knowledge needed to develop lethal bio agents, literally in their kitchen sink. Nanotechnology and robotics will offer opportunities to introduce and spread bio and chemical agents into targeted populations."

Turning to forward-looking thinkers is a time-honored government tradition. Shortly after 9/11, for instance, the Army met with Hollywood screenwriters and directors to forecast terrorist scenarios. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security held a gathering of science-fiction writers to solicit advice on which technology programs to fund. In comparison, the Mad Scientist gathering of Ivy League researchers, defense contractors, think tankers, and NASA scientists seems rather conventional.

The Mad Scientist group sees more than just a world of danger in the 2030s. "Most likely results include an increased life span, a solution to the energy crisis, ready availability of food and fresh water to all, a global distribution of technology, education, economics, and -- therefore -- wealth. This will reduce the tension between the 'haves' and 'have-nots' while the capabilities of robotics and access to virtual reality to both care for and entertain will create the perception of well-being almost universally around the globe. Advancements are limited only by imagination and resources."

Who knows what they'll dream up after that?

All Black people really do drink Hennessy


And now we get a commemorative 44 bottle for this presidency. (Hey Bush didn't get a commemorative anything, and he was a drunk)

gObama.

I kinda wanna get one.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Noisettes talk afro-punk (Hey Blood Sugar!!!)


Noisettes Talk Afro-Punk, Wild Young Hearts And Their Favorite Artists Of 2008

Link

Noisettes want Afro-Punk to come to England.
“We’ll look after the lot,” frontwoman Shingai winked when we last spoke to the band in October, backstage at the Afro-Punk showcase at the CMJ Festival in New York.
“[Afro-Punks] are such an amazing group of people who are doing something unbelievable,” Shingai gushed. “I mean, the standard’s good, man. All the events that we’ve been involved with have had great bands. They put on really interesting, eclectic, amazing events. It’s like Earl Greyhound, Santogold, it’s great. [Afro-Punk] knows how to show kids a good time. There’s nothing like it in England. Nothing.”
Guitarist Dan Smith sees the festival as a catalyst, helping to eradicate some old notions. “The [punk] music movement in America has always been perceived as being a white thing, and [Afro-Punk] is making it more inclusive,” he said. “It’s about people getting a wider understanding of rock and roll and its history and its roots, where it comes from and that anyone can do it. And it can be loads of fun, yeah?”
The CMJ crowd loved the Noisettes’ live show (see some of it in the Afro-Punk video below), so we got on the phone with them Wednesday to talk about their new video for “Wild Young Hearts,” their spring ‘09 album of the same name and their list of the artists they fell for in 2008.
We’ve got the goods on the Noisettes after the jump!
The playful “Wild Young Hearts” video currently circulating on YouTube and MySpace was more than just a clip to promote the soon-to-be-released album. It was also created in the spirit of giving.
“We did a benefit show for Big Issue earlier this month at the Proud Gallery in Camden, and all proceeds went to the organization,” Smith explained, referring to a charity that helps the homeless. “We made the video from footage shot at the show, with solo stuff of Shingai done after sound check in the backstage area.”
Wild Young Hearts” will be available December 24 as a 7-inch single and digital release.
Coming soon is a video for their official single, “Don’t Upset the Rhythm,” a project Smith mysteriously described as “a dance piece — psychedelic, with mountains, gold dancers not very covered up, lots of colored gels and silhouettes.” Added Shingai, “We needed a video with loads of dancing in it. We’re tired of videos with just the three of us.”
When Shingai isn’t in Berlin making art films with friends, the band is putting on small shows “here and there” to promote the 11-track Wild Young Hearts. The band described the album as being filled with “loads more sounds.”
“We spent a lot more time writing the songs,” Shingai said. “On the first one, we wrote and recorded a song a day pretty much, and it was just done so quickly in a cheap demo studio, so that is how that came about. This one is a bit different, and there’s a lot more thought and premeditation to it.”
Shingai gave credit to the guidance of “great producer” Jim Abbiss as well as “our moms and dads, who came and helped us as well in the studio, tucked us into bed every night and made sure we didn’t drink too much and got a lot of sleep.
“We can’t wait to play it for you,” she said. “We really hope that you dig it.”
In the spirit of our end-of-the-year coverage (read about other artists’ favorite albums of 2008 here), Smith shared a few bands that the Noisettes have been checking out lately. Enjoy!
Muhsinah — “It’s very psychedelic and R&B,” Smith said. “She’s also the keyboard player for Common. Our friend gave us Muhsinah’s demo while we were touring the States, and we think she’s great.”
Mayor McCa — “He’s a one-man band from Canada. We’ve toured with him, and he’s amazing — check him out on YouTube and look up ‘One Million Songs for You.’ It’s a video he made himself with $50, and it’s all stop-frame animation. He’s someone we’re really into.”
Genesis — “There is an early Genesis song, ‘The Fountain of Salmacis,’ from their album Nursery Cryme, that we’ve been really into. It’s a really long song, sort of epic with swirling sounds, and it fuses a lot of Greek mythology. It talks about Aphrodite and a woman who takes the form of a lake and the man drinks the water so they become one. Really beautiful.”

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

cudi does too $hort



i LOVE this guy!

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Where are the Feminists on stories like this?

Family of Afghan rape victim cut her open and removed foetus without anaesthetic

The mother and brother of a 14-year-old Afghan rape victim face charges after they cut her open and removed her foetus without anaesthetic, it has been reported.

The girl is critically ill in hospital after her family sewn the girl up themselves and said she had been bitten by a dog to cover their crime.

A man accused of raping the girl, from the central Afghan province of Bamiyan, is under arrest.

The rural family apparently decided to perform an abortion when the girl was five months pregnant to protect the family's honour.

Rape victims face extreme social stigma, imprisonment and abandonment or murder by their own families in Afghanistan.

Dr Ghulam Mohammad Nader, head of Bamiyan hospital, told the BBC that the girl had been able to explain what had happened but was in a critical condition with infected wounds. She is now being treated in the capital Kabul.

"The girl stayed at home for three or four days in her condition until her father took her to hospital," he said.

"He said a dog had bitten her so that people in the area wouldn't know what had really happened."

Habiba Sarabi, governor of the province, said the girl had been bound and taken to a stables for the abortion. Police are now trying to arrest her family.

source

Friday, January 9, 2009

Latest Clearest Video of the Bart Shooting



I haven't blogged about this on purpose yet. But I feel, after seeing this latest video that maybe I need to. A friend of mine broke this story to me early New Years day via a clip on youtube that didn't make the news. I started sending it to people (I guess everyone else who saw it did too) and it eventually made it to Channel 2. From here people started sending in cell phone videos, and the story gained traction. On New Years Bart said that there was a struggle and that this was necessary action. Upon all of my viewings there wasn't even a reason to pull a taser, like the officer, who was not issued a taser, said he was reaching for. It would be hard to explain to me, how you mistake a taser (which the other officer shown says didn't make sense because the tasers are on the left side) for a gun. Especially when you have to unstrap and then unlock the safety.

In the first two videos it seemed that maybe the cop wanted to strong-arm Grant with his gun, or use unecessary force and just happened to fire. But this video, I don't know. It just seems like the 2 year rookie just let one off.

I went to the pre-riot rally at Fruitvale Bart because the whole story is apalling. Oakland has been incubating a level of unrest for a few years now. I had a Minnesota transplant tell me about how he loves the Bay, but it's the wild west out here. 100 Black men get killed a year and no one does anything. It's not even news. It's everyone for themselves. You couple that, with police dominance and brutality, gentrification, poverty, and poor organization and leadership (and leadershp that fails to properly represent you), and this is what you're left with. A group of people who are incredibly repressed lashing out at an act of senseless violence.

Was rioting and tearing up our city the answer? No. The victims of the smashed windows and burned cars had nothing to do with this. But can I understand the level of rage and anger? Yes. There is no where to put it. I've seen on the forums people in other cities saying why didn't the people on the train stop the struggle, or the friends of Grant, why didn't they stop the cop. I'd like to say this to answer anyone's questions on that 1. Who knew they were going to shoot him like this? 2. Who would actually stop an altercation between a cop and anyone, technically that's illegal. Who thinks like that? And anyone in a forum who wants to say they would, PLEASE come to Oakland. We could use your help. And lastly 3. This is what happens when we (Black people) interact with cops out here. It's not too different than the Robbie Tolan shooting that happened in Texas the day before. So if you want to help run interference on police with us, please, you're welcome to.

If this cop does not go to jail, with three investigations behind him (Bart police, Oakland Police, FBI) then the situation in Oakland is going to escalate to epic proportions. It may not be this single event, but it is egging on the inevitable in a city of unrest. I will not naively say that all cops are wrong, or that their jobs are easy. It is one of the most thankless jobs to take. But I will say, that something like this, is the reason why we have no faith in the system and will continue to react the way we do. Watching a riot squad, clad in all black with black vans ready to remove people and take them... I don't know where. That's not a scene I ever want to see again. And I have a feeling the rest of Oakland doesn't either. There will be two taxes the people put upon police from now on that I can foresee, we will be filming them, and we may begin interfering. The latter may spark an even larger authority problem.
I pray for my city.

new tim burton

Monday, January 5, 2009

Because Darfur is NOT over

in the face of Mugabe, Israel etc... we still need to remember

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Oh My God. WTF. Hackers: You're supposed to be WITH US, not against us

Trojan Blocks The Pirate Bay and Mininova

Written by Ernesto on January 04, 2009 : on the torrentfreak forums

A new trojan popped up at several torrent sites a few weeks ago, one that blocks access to The Pirate Bay and Mininova, while informing its victims that “downloading is wrong.” The trojan edits the hosts file on Windows machines, and redirects the BitTorrent sites to localhost, making them impossible to load.

trojanThe trojan in question (Troj/Qhost-AC) identified by anti-virus company Sophos, is a rather unusual one. It doesn’t seem to install spyware or traditional malware, but instead blocks access to the two most popular BitTorrent sites.

One of its victims, who got the trojan from downloading a torrent from The Pirate Bay, contacted TorrentFreak. He told us: “I didn’t follow the well established rules of downloading. It was a file with a low number of seeds, many leechers and no comments. I’ve downloaded the file and didn’t visit the torrent page again to view if there were any negative comments.”

It turned out that the trojan originated from a keygen supplied with a copy of pirated software. Instead of generating a key, it modified the hosts file of the computer so that it redirects The Pirate Bay, Suprbay (The Pirate Bay forums) and Mininova to 127.0.0.1, which means that the sites never load.

Aside from blocking the three sites in question, the trojan caused popups and even played a sound file saying that “downloading is wrong”. The bad torrent was removed from The Pirate Bay soon after users commented that the key generator didn’t work, but it is safe to assume that this is not the first and only attempt to spread a trojan like this one.

The question remains, who is behind this? While some might argue that the MPAA, RIAA or other anti-piracy advocates might be the source, we think it more likely that the attack originates from a relatively innocent prankster targeting pirates.

The good news is that it is fairly easy to fix, manually removing the entries from the hosts file solves the problem. “Overall a bad experience, but the computer is fine now,” the affected user told us. Advice and tips about the Windows Hosts file can be found here.

Saturday, January 3, 2009

man can fly


wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

rye rye - shake it to the ground



from baltimore, just got signed to MIA's label

vv brown - crying blood

Friday, January 2, 2009

Definition: Cypher

According to Dictionary.com

Cypher:
  1. The mathematical symbol (0) denoting absence of quantity; zero.
  2. An Arabic numeral or figure; a number.
  3. One having no influence or value; a nonentity.
    1. A cryptographic system in which units of plain text of regular length, usually letters, are arbitrarily transposed or substituted according to a predetermined code.
    2. The key to such a system.
    3. A message written or transmitted in such a system.
  4. A design combining or interweaving letters or initials; a monogram
  5. A secret method of writing.
  6. A message written in secret code.






Seriously I never find our definition of cypher on anybody's list.
Just a thought. (although a message written in secret seems to fit pretty well)