This guy plays a medley of British hits from the last five decades. From The Beatles to The Who to The Kinks to Led Zeppelin to Queen to The Clash to The Cure to The Smiths to Blur to Oasis to Pulp to Radiohead to The Libertines. A reminder of how this is the best musical culture in the world.
Nice video clip by OK Go, especially when the night sets in.
That’s the latest. Must be horrifying to be equipped with an electronic tag. Good news though.
3.34pm: Assange’s bail conditions include surrendering his passport, a curfew, and an electronic tag.
3.31pm: Assange’s next court appearance will be January 11 2011. (Sorry about the technical problems in the last few minutes).
3.25pm:Assange has been granted bail, to cheers from inside and outside the court.
NYT coverage here.
Hoppaa. Bedankt, Eerste Kamer. Kletspraatjes over de legitimiteit van dit stuk Staten-Generaal doen niet ter zake, de Eerste Kamer is gewoon een grondwettelijk verankerd vertegenwoordigend orgaan, period.
Nu maar kijken hoe het kabinet-Rutte gaat reageren.
De Eerste Kamer vraagt het kabinet af te zien van de geplande btw-verhoging op toegangskaartjes in de podiumkunsten. Een motie daarover werd dinsdag in de Eerste Kamer aangenomen. De regeringspartijen VVD en CDA stemden tegen.
Het aannemen van de motie betekent nog niet dat de btw-verhoging van 6 naar 19 procent van de baan is. Het kabinet kan de uitspraak negeren. Een meerderheid in de Tweede Kamer van VVD, PVV, CDA, ChristenUnie en SGP steunt het btw-plan.
Het enige wat de Eerste Kamer dan nog kan doen is een ultiem machtsmiddel: volgende week het complete belastingplan, waarvan de btw-verhoging onderdeel is, verwerpen. Maar het lijkt er op dat dat verscheidene senatoren, onder wie die bij de ChristenUnie, te ver zal gaan.(…)
Premier Mark Rutte zei na afloop van de stemming dat het kabinet ‘heel serieus’ naar de motie zal kijken om te zien of de Eerste Kamer ‘op enigerlei manier tegemoet’ gekomen kan worden. ‘Het is ingewikkeld, maar als een Kamer een motie aanneemt is het kabinet gehouden daar serieus en in alle rust naar te kijken.’
French artist Alexandre Oudin has made the most of Facebook’s minimalistic design.
Here, you can learn how to do it yourself. But with this app, you can do it in half the time, before your hipster friends have it!
Since French artist Alexandre Oudin took advantage of the new Facebook design to express himself, we’ve been seeing some creative ways to mess with your (and your friends’) profile pictures. As we predicted, Oudin’s hack has inspired other users to play around with their profile to pretty interesting effect. And for those of you that don’t want to trial and error around with the 532 px by 180 px and 97 by 68 px image limitations, photographer Florian Stravock has made the above Photoshop tutorial to help you perfectly execute on your super profile pic. Abridged steps, below:
1) Take a screenshot of your current Facebook page.
2) Create a new Photoshop doc.
3) Grab the Slice tool (same family as the Crop tool) and select around the pictures.
4) With the Marquee tool, select around the sliced areas.
5) Bring the image that you want on Facebook into Photoshop and position it roughly the way you want it.
6) Drag the image layer under the Facebook layer and refine your positioning.
7) Go to “File,” select “Save for web and devices,” select all your document area, click “Jpeg, set the quality to 100% and save. Under slices select “All user slices.”
Upload your pictures to Facebook and tag them from last to first. When you get to the first picture click “Make this my profile picture.”
You can download Stravock’s Photoshop document here. Don’t have Photoshop or too lazy to sit through a tutorial? TechCrunch reader Trevor Farbo has created a profile picture generator that allows you to get the same effect in half the time.
Kudos to Lesley for the tip
Become a whistleblower yourself with this WikiLeaks flash game. Julian Assange must download secret files from Barack Obama’s computer, but the president is a very light sleeper. Enjoy!
As of yet, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal have all cut off payment systems to WikiLeaks, likely under pressure from the U.S. government, even though this organization has done nothing illegal by the law of any country. Yet one can continue to donate to American organizations that fund Israeli settlements on the West Bank – clearly illegal, in defiance of international law and Israeli law, as well as U.N. Security Council resolutions.
Now what was that H-word again?
Visa, Mastercard and PayPal all enable donations to be made to US-registered groups funding illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international law.
It appears at least one of the major credit cards also enables donations to an extremist Jewish group that has placed a bounty on the lives of Palestinians.
All three have in the last week ceased enabling donations to WikiLeaks. Neither Mastercard nor Visa have explained the basis for their decision to do so. PayPal has backed away from its initial claim that the US State Department told PayPal WikiLeaks had broken the law after the claim was discredited. This is the third occasion on which PayPal has suspended payment services for WikiLeaks.
Israel subsidises over 100 settlements in the West Bank in defiance of international law. Another 100+ are “illegal outposts” even under Israeli law. All benefit from extensive support from the United States, channelled through a range of Jewish and right-wing Christian bodies, all of which have charitable status under US law. The International Crisis Group’s report on settlements in July 2009 identified the important role played by US charities. Israeli newspaper Haaretz has investigated the strong support provided via US charities, and Israeli peace groups have also targeted the generous support provided via private donations from the US and Canada.
(…)
At this stage WikiLeaks has breached no international law and no laws of any country, but Mastercard, Visa and PayPal have all blacklisted it. All three continue to enable the support of settlements that are in breach of international law, in some cases of Israeli law, and in defiance of US policy on settlements under successive Republican and Democrat administrations.
