End of the week, time for the third Friday Night Special. Another 45+ minute mix from your friends at LSD. We start off with some smooth minimal, mixed with classic Detroit, but about halfway the techno tchuk-tchuk train starts rolling, leaving no passengers behind. This one’s not for the faint-hearted. Some E Talk at the end to finish off with a smile.
Friday Night Special #3 by FDC
Check out the full tracklist below.
In the 90′s Steve Jobs was apparently bugging Sean Connery to be a spokesperson for Apple. James Bond wasn’t having it:
Or maybe he is a closet PC guy?
Vanwege grote workload en even grote onderbezetting hebben uw doorgaans zo kritische bloggertjes van LSD ernstig gefaald waar het gaat over ACTA -- het in geheime achterkamertjes zonder invloed van parlementen bekokstoofde internationaal-juridische verdrag via welke de copyright-industrie het vrije Internet aan banden meent te gaan leggen. En, bovenal, een elektronische surveillancestaat met permanente monitoring van Internetters (iedereen) aan te gaan leggen waar je U tegen zegt.
Het Europees Parlement -- om precies te zijn, 16 van de 736 Europarlementariërs -- is het laatste wat nog tussen ondertekening en implementatie van ACTA staat.
Daarom deze onbeschaamde re-post van een dringende oproep tot actie van GeenStijl, in samenwerking met D66-Europarlementariër Marietje Schaake. Ook overgenomen door Retecool, Sargasso en Bits of Freedom. Dit is collectieve burgeractie in het Internettijdperk, en wat de Amerikanen konden met SOPA en PIPA kunnen wij met ACTA:
Prima initiatief van Marietje Schaake, europarlementariër voor D66. Via reddit -- dat al eerder zeer succesvol actie voerde tegen copyrightbeschermende maatregelen die het internet aan banden proberen te leggen -- probeert ze internetters te mobiliseren om parlementsleden online te stalken om op die manier ACTA van tafel te krijgen. Waarom? Omdat door ACTA straks individuele F5′ers snoeihard aangepakt gaan worden. Lees maar in het verdrag (PDF) onder Sectie 5, digital enforcement. KIJK MAAR! En omdat een petitie ook maar een middeleeuws middel is dat eigenlijk geen zier helpt. Een ontploffende mailbox maakt natuurlijk veel meer indruk. Eens kijken hoe ze in Brussel en Den Haag reageren wanneer de machtige netwerkgeneratie uit woede massaal haar harige vuist online op tafel slaat. Het internet kan wel een beetje burgerlijke ongehoorzaamheid gebruiken. HIER ziet u wie er in het EP eigenlijk voor en tegen ACTA hebben gestemd. Dat is vooral handig wanneer de PVV voor de zoveelste keer probeert te spinnen dat ze heus wel tegen ACTA zijn, terwijl ze zich destijds gewoon ijskoud van stemmen hebben onthouden. Welnu, een lijst met mailadressen van EP-leden waar u uw grieven omtrent ACTA kunt droppen staat HIER. Eenzelfde lijst met leden van de Tweede Kamer vindt u DAAR. Probeer voor een keer de goatses en tubgirls thuis te laten. Een inhoudelijk verhaal waarom u ACTA niet ziet zitten werkt veel beter. Voor vragen kunt u Marietje natuurlijk ook zelf mailen op marietje.schaake-office@europarl.europa.eu. Met een beetje goede wil scharen meerdere partijen (we denken aan Bits of Freedom, De Piratenpartij en nog meer goedwillende blogs) zich achter deze actie en kunnen we dat verwerpelijke ACTA slopen. Power to the internets! ¡No pasarán!
UPDATE: Mensen opletten: de politici die VOOR die motie stemden zijn TEGEN het ACTA-verdrag. Degene die TEGEN hebben gestemd zijn dus de villains die u moet mailbomben. Duidelijk zo?
UPDATE: Website van EP heeft het zwaar wegens vermeende ddos-aanvallen van scriptkiddies. Hier en hier lijst met mailadressen.
UPDATE: Solidariteit in de blogosfeer: Retecool & Sargasso doen mee.
UPDATE: Ook Bits of Freedom sluit zich aan.
Hier de oproep van Marietje Schaake, die veel nuttige info bevat (dit is waarom ik lid ben van D66 trouwens):
As a Member of the European Parliament (EP), I am concerned about the ACTA treaty in the international trade committee (INTA). Please find some information about the procedure of the ACTA treaty in the EU, especially the EP, below. You can reach me on Twitter via @marietjed66, where I will also post a message about this post.
The internet blackouts by thousands of websites last week in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) have raised lively discussions. Not only in the US but also in the EU the question is how to balance or reform copyright laws whilst preserving an open internet.
The success of the protests against SOPA and PIPA has also given the internet community quite a confidence boost. How will this development influence future legislative proposals? The Anti-Counterfeiting and Trade Agreement (ACTA) is the next controversial treaty which may be about to become law. This is an international trade agreement which aims to halt counterfeited products, but also affects the internet. Already massive protests have taken place on the streets of Poland against ACTA.
A wide range of NGO’s, scholars, civil society organisations, engineers, industry and activists have expressed concern about the impact ACTA will have on online freedom and freedom of speech. But there are also serious questions about access to medicine and the fact that ACTA may violate international law. Certainly, the lack of transparency of the negotiations has made it very difficult for both civil society and the European Parliament to monitor the drafting process.
The European Commission and Member States will sign ACTA on Thursday January 26th in Japan. However, the European Parliament has a decisive voice on ACTA. It can determine whether the EU ratifies the treaty or not. Ratification means the treaty will actually be enacted; the signature itself is not legally binding but expresses intent and agreement on the text.
Next steps
The European Parliament has the decisive voice on ACTA and the INTA committee has the lead. Other committees will be developing their opinions on ACTA in the coming months. You can find some more information about the procedures and relevant committees on this official EP website
The 1st exchange of views on ACTA in the INTA committee is scheduled for either the 29th of February or the 1st of March. The committee will then most likely vote on the ratification of the treaty in April or May.
After that, the most important vote will be during the Strasbourg plenary session on June 11th to 14th, where all MEPs will be able to vote on ACTA. (Please note that these dates may change). If the majority of MEPs vote in favour of ratification ACTA will be ratified by the EU.
So what can we do to stop ACTA?
If you are concerned about ACTA, you can convince the EP to vote against ACTA. In November 2010 we proposed an alternative resolution on ACTA, which intended to take away the main concerns. It was voted down by a very slight majority, please see here (the red section represents MEPs voting against our resolution). As you can see, the difference is only 16 votes, out of 736 (or 754 as it stands now). Another text was then voted in favour, which said the Commission should carry on its negotiations.
If you are concerned about ACTA, contact MEPs (from your country of political party), especially targeting the ones who are in the committees who will vote on ACTA in the coming months. You can find their email addresses on the EP website. Perhaps it won’t have to come to a blackout!
I will organise a hearing in April, where parties that will be affected by ACTA can give their opinion. This meeting will be live streamed. If you wish to be informed about this, please send me an email: marietje.schaake-office@europarl.europa.eu.
I believe internet offers tremendous opportunities to bring makers of music, film and other cultural content closer to audiences at lower prices. However, while Europe offers the most attractive and diverse content in the world, much of it is locked behind fragmented copyright laws. Instead of focusing on enforcement, we must focus on reform, while keeping in mind that it is not the government’s job to preserve certain business models against the forces of the free market.
TL;DR: Important dates for ACTA in the European Parliament:
- 29 February/1 March: Discussion in international trade committee,
- April or May: Vote in international trade committee,
- 12, 13 or 14 June: Final vote in plenary (most important vote).
(Please note, all dates may be changed)
Het zou eens tijd worden dat hier een wet komt die de donaties van individuen en instellingen aan politieke partijen openbaar maakt. In andere beschaafde democratieën bestaat zulke wetgeving meestal al een eeuw, maar in Nederland – kartel- baantjes- en corporatismeparadijs – wordt zoiets anno 2012 gezien als een ‘anti-PVV-wet’. Jawel, inzichtelijk maken hoe particuliere geldstromen naar actoren in een representatieve democratie vloeien is een ‘anti-PVV-wet’, aldus de PVV. Daar hebben de anti-democraten bij GeenStijl ooit nog een van hun meest idiote stukken over geschreven. Hero Brinkman noemt het zelfs een “grof schandaal”.
Nederlandse kiezers hebben er recht op te weten door wie politieke partijen, die hen proberen te overtuigen op hen te stemmen en die macht uitoefenen, gefinancieerd worden. Dat is transparantie en een basisbeginsel van democratie. Helaas zitten er nog wel wat gaten in het huidige Wetsvoorstel financiering politieke partijen (Wfpp), waar al sinds 2005 aan gesleuteld wordt en dat afgelopen mei door Donner namens het kabinet is ingediend: zo zijn lokale en regionale afdelingen van politieke partijen uitgezonderd van openbaarheidsverplichtingen, zit er geen maximumbedrag aan giften, en zijn donaties uit het buitenland niet verboden. Gezien Wilders’ afhankelijkheid van rechts-radicale stichtingen uit Amerika en Israël om beslissingen over Nederlandse burgers te kunnen maken zal hij met name met die laatste maas erg ingenomen zijn.
Maar de Wfpp is niettemin een grote vooruitgang, althans naar Nederlandse maatstaven. Het is echter te hopen dat de PVV het niet op een smerig akkoordje inzake dit wetsvoorstel weet te gooien met VVD en CDA. Dat zal me gezien de gehechtheid van die partijen aan principes (niet) niet verbazen.
Vandaag behandelt de Tweede Kamer het wetsontwerp over de financiering van politieke partijen. Een wet die past bij ‘een zichzelf respecterende democratie’, vindt de één. ‘Een anti-PVV-wet’, oordeelt de PVV.
Volgens het wetsontwerp moeten partijen op straffe van een boete van 25 duizend euro verplicht giften boven de 1.000 euro in hun jaarverslag vermelden. Giften boven de 4.500 euro moeten straks gedetailleerd, met naam en toenaam, worden aangemeld en opgenomen in een register dat iedereen kan raadplegen.
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Dit is tegen het zere been van de PVV, want het brengt de partij in een lastig parket. Hoe de partij van Geert Wilders aan geld komt, is onduidelijk. Door het ontbreken van leden voldoet de PVV niet aan de wettelijke criteria om voor subsidie in aanmerking te komen. Als enige politieke partij krijgt de PVV dan ook geen subsidie. De PVV heeft zich altijd gekeerd tegen bemoeienis van de overheid met de manier waarop partijen hun geld bij elkaar halen. PVV-kamerlid Hero Brinkman verwacht dat zijn partij last krijgt van de nieuwe openheid omdat donateurs zullen terugschrikken voor bekendmaking van hun naam.
Volgens Brinkman heeft voormalig minister Guusje ter Horst (Binnenlandse Zaken) de regels opgesteld om bewegingen als de PVV te dwingen tot meer transparantie. Hij noemt het ‘een grof schandaal’ dat deze wet nu alsnog behandeld wordt, na lang in de la te hebben gelegen.
Ook worden in de nieuwe regelgeving eisen gesteld aan de openbaarmaking van giften die partijen kort voor verkiezingen ontvangen. Die eisen gelden niet uitsluitend voor partijen, maar ook voor individuele kandidaten.
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Op een paar punten wil de oppositie nog aanscherping van het wetsvoorstel. Zo zou de controle op de giften overgelaten moeten worden aan de Kiesraad, en niet het ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken, vinden PvdA en D66. De PvdA pleit verder voor een maximumbedrag voor een gift van 50.000 euro en voor een verbod op giften uit het buitenland. Kamerlid Pierre Heijnen: ‘Van de CPN werd altijd gezegd dat die partij rechtstreeks door het Kremlin werd betaald. Dat soort verdachtmakingen moet je voor zijn.’
Fantastic 1997 hypnotic track by Detroit techno and deep house legend Moodymann. Love that drum machine sound and the constant pauses and plays. Seriously, listen to this!
The bassline of this track comes from this 1983 classic, by the way:
Hey look, what’s that? Is it… the European Central Bank (ECB) taking up a central role in solving the euro crisis? But that’s unheard of! Weren’t budget cuts in Mediterranean countries going to accomplish that?
The ECB may not be issuing eurobonds or print money, but out of the public eye, they’ve definitely taken up a central role. They do this by providing banks with almost interest-free emergency capital. And those banks have come to the rescue of the governments that couldn’t sell bonds for very high interest rates a few months ago. So, as was argued for by a lot of people back then, the ECB, albeit not straightforwardly, has started to act like all other central banks around the world. Only they will not tell us this. And it seems that the eurozone now, unlike a month ago, is not teetering on the brink of collapse.
The question is now: will it be enough?
Throughout the month, countries caught in the eye of the European financial storm, including Italy, Spain and France, have repeatedly defied expectations, selling big batches of bonds to the public at interest rates significantly lower than investors demanded at the height of the euro crisis late last year.
The surprisingly successful auctions owe little to improving economic data around the region. On the contrary, many of the countries that use the euro as their currency appear to be confronting a renewed recession, and pessimism about their growth prospects remains abundant. Just last week, Standard & Poor’s stripped France of its coveted AAA rating for the first time in recent history and downgraded eight others.
Instead, most of the credit seems to go to the European Central Bank, which in late December under its new president, Mario Draghi, quietly began providing emergency loans to European banks — hundreds of billions of dollars of almost interest-free capital that the banks have used to come to the rescue of their national governments.
The central bank, based in Frankfurt, used typically understated and technical language to describe its actions, but it appears to have done what its leadership said throughout 2011 that it would not do: namely, flood the financial markets with euros in a Hail Mary attempt to make sure that the region’s sovereign debt crisis does not lead to a major financial shock.
Though on a smaller scale and in a subtler manner, it has in many ways taken a page from the United States Federal Reserve’s playbook for the 2008 financial crisis, which has been roundly criticized in Europe as a reckless bailout that risks setting off uncontrolled inflation. And, at least for now, the effort has worked. Spain’s 10-year bonds carry interest rates that hover around 5.5 percent, compared with 7 percent and higher in November, and Italy’s five-year bonds are approaching 5 percent, down from nearly 8 percent at their peak.
There have been moments before when European leaders declared the crisis contained, only to see it return with renewed fury. But the central bank’s incentives, combined with a push from the private banks’ home governments, seem to have convinced investors that this time may be different, and financial markets in Asia, Europe and the United States have responded with strong gains this year.
Why not: from early Detroit let’s go to contemporary Berlin. This Real Scenes documentary about techno culture in the German capital I wanted to post for a long time.
Not only does it capture perfectly well the romanticism of rave culture; it also demonstrates the evolution of Berlin from underground freak haven in the 1990s to current hotspot of the international “EasyJet set” (i.e. tourists). Club owners and dj’s talk about their mixed feelings regarding this development, and how they try to retain some of the original Berlin spirit. By means of restrictive door policies, for instance.
It’s a little unfortunate that there’s no original footage of how Berlin used to be in it, but still the images of Bar25 and Tresor make you wanna go there asap. And like the people interviewed say, there’s still enough secret locations and urban exploring going on, even in the center (plus club owners have their roots in the illegal scene), to last for a long time.
For the third edition of Real Scenes, RA and Bench go to one of the most special places for electronic music in the world: Berlin. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, techno became the underground soundtrack to the reunion between East and West. In recent years, it’s become an international destination for ravers—a cheap place to party with clubs that are renowned throughout the world.
Techno has become a business in the meantime. Yet Berlin still maintains a credibility that other cities lack. To understand why, RA and Bench went to the German capital eager to find out about its unique history and the reasons behind its continued relevance.
Techno music -- we’re not talking commercial electro crap like Deadmau5 and Skrillex that is right now gaining mainstream popularity in the US -- is and has been primarily a European thing. The acid house scene in England and techno scene in Berlin made it great. Yet, the roots of techno are firmly in America, in particularly the former industrial metropolis of Detroit. Here, in the early 1980s, a couple of black dj’s later named the Belleville Three listened to Kraftwerk (admittedly, very European) and Chicago house, and turned it into something stripped-down and industrial that reflected the place in which they were living.
NPR -- that’s the American public broadcaster -- has a nice feature on its website with 10 of the most essential Detroit techno tracks. A couple of illustrious names from the Detroit scene like Juan Atkins, Carl Craig and Jeff Mills (who can still be found dj’ing regularly all around Europe) write about these tracks. It’s nice to hear this and notice how tribal and spacey everything sounds. But this is the basis for today’s sound.
Here’s a couple of highlights:
The Friday Night Special is back. New mix, same recipe: a little bit of this and that, but hopefully quite yummy. In a few weeks you will be offered a cooled down, chilled treat. Tracklist after the jump…
Andrew Sullivan, the King of Bloggers, has written a Newsweek cover story which is featuring heavily in American political discussion on tv, in newspapers and on blogs right now. From over here, it’s sometimes difficult to realize that Sullivan is not just a blogger, albeit a big one, but also a pretty prominent “public intellectual” (as they say) in the US, who from time to time -- as a very early advocate of gay marriage, as proponent of the Iraq War, as supporter of Obama -- generates a lot of public debate.
In the Newsweek article, Sullivan argues, as one of the first people to elaborately do so, passionately for Obama’s re-election. He basically says that Obama’s political strategy is a “long game”, of which we have not seen the results yet, which will only play out in eight years. In doing so, he obviously and correctly dismisses the president’s conservative ”critics” (we may just call them lunatics), but also takes on criticism of Obama from “the left”. Personally, while I certainly agree with Sullivan that Obama has by and large been a good president -- in that he has saved the US and the West from plunging into a systemic crisis largely caused by Bush, through the stimulus, the bail-outs of Wall Street and the auto industry, having healthcare reform passed, getting out of Iraq, reaching out to the Muslim world, responding carefully to the Green Revolution and the Arab Spring, and taking on Qadhafi -- he has also failed miserably to keep up to his promises to restore the rule of law. Under Obama, indefinite detention has been enshrined into law, Guantánamo Bay has seen its tenth birthday, military commissions have been kept open, a Drone War killing hundreds of innocents has been started, extrajudicial assassination has become normal, and a war on whistleblowers and transparency-seekers has been waged. Torture has merely been halted by executive order and can easily be reversed by a Republican president.
This, I think, is unforgivable; it is a core reason not to support Obama’s re-election; and Sullivan passes it too easily by. I also think he fails to engage seriously with Obama’s critics that he relents too easily in the face of opposition, as was the case with healthcare and the debt ceiling crisis. Sullivan doesn’t mention anywhere the deep interpenetration of the Obama administration and Wall Street lobbyists. And, finally, I think it’s kind of slavish and rather uncritical to say: “It’s all part of the masterplan, just wait, it will all play out in eight years, just vote now, it’s Obama!” But that is a tendency you see more often in Obama supporters.
Anyway. The only reason I wanted to write this was because I thought it was funny to see Sullivan, whom you almost only know by writing, defend his article on television. And he’s doing it pretty well actually. Enjoy this weird-in-a-sympathetic-way person’s discussion with a Republican supporter:
- Edit: In the best response to Sullivan’s article so far, here’s Conor Friedersdorf, who writes it down better than I can. First he asks if Sullivan would have supported a Republican in 2008 who would have proposed the following:
(1) Codify indefinite detention into law; (2) draw up a secret kill list of people, including American citizens, to assassinate without due process; (3) proceed with warrantless spying on American citizens; (4) prosecute Bush-era whistleblowers for violating state secrets; (5) reinterpret the War Powers Resolution such that entering a war of choice without a Congressional declaration is permissible; (6) enter and prosecute such a war; (7) institutionalize naked scanners and intrusive full body pat-downs in major American airports; (8) oversee a planned expansion of TSA so that its agents are already beginning to patrol American highways, train stations, and bus depots; (9) wage an undeclared drone war on numerous Muslim countries that delegates to the CIA the final call about some strikes that put civilians in jeopardy; (10) invoke the state-secrets privilege to dismiss lawsuits brought by civil-liberties organizations on dubious technicalities rather than litigating them on the merits; (11) preside over federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries; (12) attempt to negotiate an extension of American troops in Iraq beyond 2011 (an effort that thankfully failed); (14) reauthorize the Patriot Act; (13) and select an economic team mostly made up of former and future financial executives from Wall Street firms that played major roles in the financial crisis.
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Yet President Obama has done all of the aforementioned things.
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No, Obama isn’t a radical Kenyan anti-colonialist. But he is a lawbreaker and an advocate of radical executive power. What precedent could be more radical than insisting that the executive is empowered to draw up a kill list of American citizens in secret, without telling anyone what names are on it, or the legal justification for it, or even that it exists? What if Newt Gingrich inherits that power?
He may yet.
(…)
[Sullivan's] Newsweek essay fits the pattern I’ve lamented of Obama apologists who tell a narrative of his administration that ignores some of these issues and minimizes the importance of others, as if they’re a relatively unimportant matter to be set aside in a sentence or three before proceeding to the more important business of whether the president is being critiqued fairly by obtuse partisans.
(…)
Like President Bush, [Obama] is breaking the law, transgressing against civil liberties, and championing a radical view of executive power -- and he is invoking the War on Terror to get away with it. As much as it was in 2003 or 2007, it is vital in 2012 that there be a backlash against these post-9/11 excesses, that liberty-loving citizens push back so that these are anomalies that are reined in, rather than permanent features of a bipartisan consensus that can only end in a catastrophically abusive executive operating in an office stripped by successive presidents and their minions of both constitutional and prudential checks.
That is the best case against Obama I can think of. It is, indeed, vital that there is a backlash against his policies.
Raw, dark and pure old school techno, that’s what this is. Pretty original too, love it.
Also listen to this wonderful brooding dark set by London dj Perc, who will be playing Trouw next week.
Totally cool video of surfers with home-made CGI of an alien invasion on the background. Brilliant.
