larryni.me.uk

Giant muffins covered in thick chocolate, decorated with Belgian chocolates! I think today I’m finally going to break down and actually buy one (or two) instead of just standing drooling in front of the market stall.

From Wikipedia:

Jon-Rae Fletcher is a Canadian singer-songwriter. He records both as a solo artist and with his back-up band The River. The son of a preacher, Jon-Rae grew up in the Canadian Prairies, where he sang in his church’s choir by day, and fell in love with the music of Kurt Cobain at night. Jon-Rae founded the original River as a collective of Vancouver friends, but broke the band up when he left the West Coast to follow a girl friend (who is today his wife). The River has been reformed with like-minded Toronto musicians (sometimes complimented by an on-stage choir) and they have grown into somewhat of a cult band with an ever-epanding audience. Combining country, gospel, rock and soul, Jon-Rae and the River have truly created a unique blend of music.

Fuck Me – live@George’s Fabulous Roadhouse:

Jon-Rae Fletcher – vocals & guitar; Anne Rust D’Eye – vocals; Ian Russell – bass; Paul Mortimer – guitar, lap steel; Jonathan Adjemian – analog synth; Mike Stafford – keyboard; Dave Clarke – drums

Links: Official site – MySpace

B(oo)tlog has a great post with mp3s of the band playing live at the Grad Club, Kingston (Canada) last year.

South Park’s at it again, this time the Queen gets it:

Satirical US cartoon series South Park has aired a show which features the Queen committing suicide.

In a parody of hit drama series 24, the British monarch is seen to be behind a plot to overthrow the US.

When the plot fails, the cartoon Queen responds by putting a gun in her mouth and shooting herself.

And it has some people complaining:

John Beyer, of TV watchdog Mediawatch, called it “grossly insensitive”.

The latest episode also features US presidential contender Hilary Clinton.

It is not yet known whether the episode will be shown in the UK, where South Park is broadcast by the Paramount Comedy channel.

So what’s the problem here? Because it’s the Queen it’s ‘grossly insensitive’? Bullshit. If it was any other head of state sticking a gun in their mouth and pulling the trigger then John Beyer probably wouldn’t bat an eye lid. Just show the episode, If people are offended then they don’t have to watch it. The normal South Park audience will not be offended in the slightest.

Update: Looks like Hilary is not getting off any lighter than the Queen

OpenOffice.org released the latest version of their free open source software alternative to Microsoft Office today. It includes updates for the word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and database packages. They also patched some security holes which were recently discovered. Here’s a rundown of the improvements:

• improvement in the quality of text display in all parts of OpenOffice.org due to kerning enabled by default
• enhanced pdf export function with the addition of the optional creation of bookmarks feature
• support for user-definable export of form fields.
• new cosmetic changes available in Vista
• smaller download and install size for Apple Mac users
• Apple Mac Intel version has many stability improvements and bug fixes. Version 2.2 now requires Mac OS X 10.4.x running X11.
• additional enhancements to support MS file formats in Calc
• improved support for Pivot Tables and some specialised trigonometric functions
• improved SQL editing functionality as well as a new Queries within Queries feature for Base
• improved compatibility options for some database drivers
• improvements in the handling of hidden Impress slides.

The second most popular petition on Downing Street’s E-Petitions site is ‘Stop proposed restrictions regarding photography in public places’. At the time of writing this there are already over 64000 people who signed it. Which isn’t really surprising with all the stories you hear from the US about people who take pictures of public buildings and structures getting harrassed and threatened by overzealous security men/cops who see ‘terrorists’ lurking at every corner, or people taking pictures of publicly displayed artwork and being told they can’t because of some bullshit copyright claims. The petition is still open until the 14 August 2007.

But now the government has responded, and they posted a statement on the petition’s page in advance of the closing date:

This petition has already attracted over 60,000 signatures from people who obviously share your concern. Not surprisingly, the idea that the Government might be poised to restrict your ability to take photos has caused some puzzlement and even alarm.

We have therefore decided to respond to this petition before its closing date of August, in order to reassure people.

The Government appreciates that millions of people in this country enjoy photography. So we have checked carefully to see if any Government department was considering any proposal that might possibly lead to the sort of restrictions suggested by this petition. We have been assured this is not the case.

There may be cases where individual schools or other bodies believe it is necessary to have some restrictions on photography, for instance to protect children, but that would be a matter for local decisions.

In fact, Simon Taylor, who started the petition, has since made clear that he was not really referring to Government action or legislation. His main concern appears to be that photographic societies and other organisations may introduce voluntary ID cards for members to help them explain why they are taking photographs. Again, any such scheme would not involve the Government.

We hope this re-assures you and clears up the confusion.

Good grief. What’s happened to Kermit? Where did it all go wrong?

China has got a bad track record when it comes to human rights. There have been a lot of protests in the past from human rights organisations and governments against the many people receiving the death penalty in China. And against its practice of exporting organs of death penalty victims, prisoners (mainly Falun Gong members) and minors. Now, with the preparations for the upcoming 2008 Olympics, China is finally doing something to clean up its act, with consequences for one of its neighbours.

But the planning isn’t just taking place on the streets of Beijing. The government is also trying to clean up some of its more blatant human rights violations — like the export of kidneys from death penalty victims and organs harvested from minors. And it’s creating organ shortages in South Korea.

According to a report last week in the daily Chosun Ilbo, the already long list of South Koreans waiting for organs is getting longer — with the number expected to top 10,000 by the beginning of the month — and their chances of getting a transplant are getting slimmer with China having decided to ban organ exports. In addition, executions in China have dropped sharply since the Chinese New Year in February, meaning that one of the primary sources for exported organs has dried up, organ brokers told the Korea Times.

Because South Koreans traditionally shy away from donating their organs, the situation for the seriously ill in the country looks grim. Furthermore, prices for organs have skyrocketed, with kidneys now going for $37,000 whereas prior to China stiffening organ export rules a kidney could have been had for $27,000. China has likewise elected to no longer give foreigners priority when it comes to organ transplant waiting lists.

Looks like Koreans will now have to change their minds about organ donation. I do wonder though what their reasons against organ donation are. If you know, please leave a comment.

Balls of steel or stupidity?

THREE MEMBERS of a Derry criminal gang were given a lift by police officers while on their way to attempting to steal cars from a local garage.

The Crown Court in Derry was told yesterday that, in an attempt to provide an alibi for themselves, the three were given a lift by the police to a local hotel where they were recorded on CCTV drinking in the bar area just hours before other police officers fired shots over their heads during an attempted break-in at a garage on the outskirts of the city.

The defendants, father of five Sean McMonagle, (34), from Manorwood, John Paul Harkin, (27), from Bradley Park, and Kevin McClintock, (23), from John Street, admitted a joint charge of possessing an imitation firearm with criminal intent.

McMonagle also admitted further charges of stealing a VW van and causing criminal damage to the Three Flowers Bar at Buncrana Road close to the border with Co. Donegal.

All the offences were committed on February 24 of last year.

McMonagle, who had 107 previous convictions before yesterday’s sentencing, was jailed for four and a half years. Harkin, who had 75 previousconvictions before the case, and McClintock who had 14 previous convictions, were both jailed for two and a half years, eighteen months of which will be on custody probation.

Looking at the number of previous convictions they had I think we can safely go with the stupidity option.

I’d been wondering what was going on with Channel 9, Derry’s local TV station. All you get to see when you switch it on is Sky News, bad non-stop music video shows, and bad home-made short clips which are usually made with mobile phone cameras. They don’t even have that annoying ‘reporter’ going around town anymore interviewing shop owners and staff and plugging whatever they had on sale. There’s no local content left whatsoever.

Now they are being found in serious breach of the terms and conditions of their broadcast licence by Ofcom:

Ofcom’s latest Broadcast Bulletin, published yesterday, said that Channel 9 was in “serious breach” of the terms and conditions of its broadcasting licence after it failed to provide regulators with a requested sample of its content.

Television broadcasters must retain recordings of their output for 60 days after transmission, and must provide Ofcom with any material on request.

Ofcom said that six viewers had complained that the channel had stopped broadcasting local content, as required by its licence. Ofcom asked Channel 9 to provide a sample of content from a 24 hour period chosen at random, and asked for the channel’s comments in regard to the licence clause which requires it to provide local content.

“Channel 9 said it was unable to provide Ofcom with a copy of the requested broadcast as it had experienced problems with its logging system.

Problems with its logging system?! Could that have anything to do with the fact that they’ve had nothing to log for the past months in the first place? Maybe Ofcom could ask Sky as they are providing the majority of the ‘content’ nowadays.

“The channel explained that once new editorial staff had been recruited, it would begin broadcasting local original content again,” the Bulletin said.

“In addition, a planned expansion of technical facilities would enable the broadcast of novel and enhanced local content. In later correspondence with Ofcom, the channel stated that the expansion work had been delayed and staff problems had continued. It provided Ofcom with details of its future schedule plans, indicating the inclusion of new local content.”

Let’s wait and see.

One of my favourite sources for CC licensed music, Jamendo, announced earlier this afternoon that they have distributed over 1 million albums through their site:

Jamendo, the free music community, has distributed freely and legally more than one million albums using the popular peer to peer technology called BitTorrent.

For sure, the Gold or Platinium record threshold depends of the country and Jamendo acts globally, anyway, we are very proud that our trackers have crossed the million mark.

This figure is the minimum indicative number of the total of complete albums we have distributed so far. Peer to peer technology is not a matter of control and BitTorrent is not the only peer to peer protocol, we also support the eMule/eDonkey technology where it is even harder to have an idea of the number of distributed albums. Projecting the traffic of our mldonkey servers, we believe that we can add 50% more, bringing us to the level of one million and an half of complete albums distributed in 2 years.

That is pretty impressive. Congratulations!