вторник, 4 марта 2008 г.
Nine Inch Nails New Album Ghosts I-IV Official Torrent
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Nine Inch Nails: Ghosts I (2008)
Hello from Nine Inch Nails.
We\\\'re very proud to present a new collection of instrumental music, Ghosts I-IV. Almost two hours of music recorded over an intense ten week period last fall, Ghosts I-IV sprawls Nine Inch Nails across a variety of new terrain.
Now that we\\\'re no longer constrained by a record label, we\\\'ve decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.
We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc. It\\\'s licensed for all non-commercial use under Creative Commons.
We\\\'ve also made a 40 page PDF book to accompany the album. If you\\\'d like to download it for free, visit http://ghosts.nin.com/main/pdf
Ghosts I is the first part of the 36 track collection Ghosts I-IV. Undoubtedly you\\\'ll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file, but if you\\\'re interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats, including FLAC lossless, for only $5. You can also order it on CD, or as a deluxe package with multitrack audio files, high definition audio on Blu-ray disc, and a large hard-bound book.
We genuinely appreciate your support, and hope you enjoy the new music. Thanks for listening.
http://ghosts.nin.com
The Awful Truth Behind 5 Items Probably On Your Grocery List
Hey, that banana you're eating, it probably killed somebody! Enjoy it you heartless bastard! Sorry, we're just kidding, sort of. Bananas don't kill people, people kill people...over bananas. And soda. And a bunch of other shit.
For example...
Here we have a company whose president was quoted as saying "it's important that I don't get too knowledgable about the past" upon taking control of the company in 1975. The previous president, Eli Black, had just left the company by way of leaping out the window of his 44th floor office in the Pan Am Building in New York rather than face prosecution for giving a bribe to the president of Honduras. The dude didn't even give two weeks notice.
What's this "past" he didn't want to think about? Well, there's the massacre of striking workers in Colombia in 1928, at the hands of the Colombian army and allegedly under the orders of the company. Seriously, how could they top that?
Well, bringing down the democratically elected leader of a South American country by way of a violent coup is one way.
Back in 1951 when they were still called the United Fruit Company, a president by the name of Jacabo Arbenz took office in Guatemala. Among the things that got him elected, the biggest was an ambitious plan that would distribute uncultivated land to over 100,000 peasants in Guatemala. The main obstacle to this plan was the United Fruit Company, who just happened to own the land.
According to their estimates, the land was valued at right around $525,000. When the Guatemalan government made a low ball offer of exactly that fucking amount, United Fruit responded with a completely logical counter offer of $16,000,000. When Arbenz balked, United Fruit reportedly took the term "breakdown in negotiations" to dizzying new heights by asking the CIA to intervene. And boy did they intervene. God-DAMN did they intervene!
Along with other connections in the Eisenhower administration, then CIA head Allen Dulles had previously served on United Fruit's board of trustees. With that kind of direct access to the highest levels of the government and with McCarthyism in full swing, we imagine the telephone conversation that resulted in the CIA intervening on behalf of United Fruit went something like this:
CIA: "Hello?"
United Fruit: "BANANAS blah blah blah OUR LAND blah blah PEASANTS blah blah COMMUNISTS!"
CIA: **click**
United Fruit: "Hello? Hello?"
**Hears explosions in background, takes cover**
With the CIA on board to help with their cause, United Fruit launched a massive and highly successful propaganda campaign to paint Arbenz as a communist threat to the United States. Included in the campaign was a film that linked the taking of United Fruit's land to the Communist Empire, awesomely titled Why The Kremlin Hates Bananas.
Some shit just writes itself. With the general public sufficiently convinced that Guatemala was a threat (good thing we don't fall for shit like that anymore), the CIA was free to pounce and promptly launched "Operation PBSuccess." They didn't call it that because it failed. In short order, the US replaced the freely elected Arbenz with a right wing dictator more willing to answer to the demands of United Fruit and Guatemala's brief flirtation with democracy and prosperity was over.
But this story does have a happy ending. The civil war that resulted from the CIA initiated coup did finally come to an end.
In 1996.
Iams Pet Food
Nutritious Dog Food, Cruelty
Boy do we Americans love us some misguided outrage. If the majority had their way, Michael Vick would have been bludgeoned to death by one of the Heartbreakers during the Super Bowl halftime show. Because, if there is one thing we don't tolerate, it's animal cruelty. At least not from NFL quarterbacks. Animal cruelty from major corporations though? Apparently not a problem.
People for the Ethical Treatmpent of Animals (PETA), known partly for saying batshit crazy things and for having the only public awareness campaign that people have ever masturbated to.
But, in between they sometimes actually do some good. One recent example happened in 2002 when, for nearly ten months, a PETA official went undercover at an Iams testing facility to expose harsh conditions inside the plant. What they found makes Michael Vick's shenanigans look like some Arena League shit in comparison.
And, in case you suspected (as we did) that the stories were the product of PETA's vegetable-induced imagination, they brought back a video of the facility that will ruin your day.
Most of the details, about mutilation and such, you really don't want to hear about. Among the less nightmare-inducing tidbits were cats and dogs gone stir-crazy from constant confinement and an employee overheard talking about a live kitten that was accidentally washed down a drain. For fuck's sake Iams! For you statistics geeks out there, one procedure performed at the Iams facility that involved (seriously, we're not saying) resulted in 27 dogs being killed. Just one more record Michael Vick will never break.
When confronted with the findings from PETA, Iams attempted to turn the tables and blamed the undercover PETA official as the one responsible for the various atrocities, including a claim that the PETA official oversaw an incident in which several dogs were surgically debarked to keep them from crying out for attention. Because that's exactly how PETA gets down. But a review of phone transcripts revealed the exact opposite. The PETA official actually tried to prevent the debarking. Iams officials acknowledged this to be the case also. And then probably beat their dogs out of frustration.
Coca-Cola
Refreshing Soft Drinks, Murder
Corporations don't get much warmer and fuzzier than Coca-Cola. You think of fearsome NFL linemen tossing bright eyed kids their jerseys, playful polar bears frolicking in the snow, the world learning to sing in perfect harmony. Hell, some internet rumors even claim Coke invented Santa Claus.
The sweet bubbly deliciousness that is Coca Cola has been a beacon of happiness for generations of kids and adults alike, even those who weren't lucky enough to have their Coke spiked with nose candy. With all of this universal joy spreading, some people may be surprised to find that Coke II isn't the only atrocity lurking in the Big Red Machine's closet.
If you work at one of the various Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia, South America ... fucking WHY? After all, there is probably less violence to be found working for a cocaine cartel in Colombia, South America. According to some descriptions, Colombia is "a country where union work is like carrying a tombstone on your back." If you spend too much time thinking about it, you'll realize that saying makes no damn sense, but just trust that it means working for a union in Colombia is a death sentence.
This is especially true at the Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia. At the Carepa plant, five union leaders were murdered between 1994 - 1996 alone. In case after case, plant managers at bottlers throughout Colombia, afraid that being forced to give their workers that bump from $200 per month to $205 per month would bring their business to its knees, contracted with paramilitary groups to force unions at their plants to disband. In the most publicized case (meaning not really publicized at all, unless you count on the internet, which you shouldn't), union executive board member Isidro Segundo Gil was shot ten times near the Carepa plant gates by paramilitary thugs purported to have been hired by the plant management.
The details of Gil's assassination were outlined in a lawsuit filed against Coca-Cola by the International Labor Rights Fund. Of course, that the thugs were acting on the direction of plant management is just an allegation, but the fact that the thugs returned the next day demanding that workers quit the union is at least a little suspicious. There is also the issue of them having resignation forms prepared in advance by plant managers in hand when they made these demands. But still, these are just allegations. You shouldn't assume anything. Like the old saying goes, "when you assume, you just make an ass out of u and me and evil corporations that condone the slaughtering of their own employees."
Dole Bananas
Making their second appearance on the list, bananas are the standard bearer when it comes to corporate atrocity. Following in the heinous footsteps of Chiquita, Dole has a long track record of bringing the pain to South American countries unlucky enough to grow their shit. And unlike most other companies on this list, Dole didn't even try to hide their hell raising ways. Kudos!
When several chemical workers became sterile, tests determined the cause to be a pesticide made at the plant where they worked called DBCP. When tests revealed it caused liver, kidney and lung damage, the Environmental Protection Agency banned its use in the United States. Proving themselves to be a paragon of classiness, Dole made note of the "in the United States" part of the ban and continued to use DBCP overseas. When Dow Chemicals informed Dole of their concerns over the safety of DBCP, Dole did what any company concerned with the well being of its fellow man would do. They advised Dow they would be in breach of their contract if they refused to provide them with DBCP for overseas use and agreed to take any liability for the resulting damage it may cause.
A brave move, agreeing to take the liability. Or at least it would be if they thought for a second that they would ever have to act on it. When Nicaraguan banana workers suffering the ill effects of DBCP exposure sought legal advice on how best to proceed with a lawsuit against Dole, they were told about the legal doctrine of forum non conveniens, a latin term meaning "fuck a third world farm worker." Ok, it really means "inconvenient forum" and states a case can be dismissed on the grounds that it would be more appropriate to hear it in another locale, like the impossibly corrupt courts of the plaintiff's home country, for instance.
Rather than taking their case to the Nicaraguan courts, which would be about as effective as taking the case to Judge Judy, the workers pressured the Nicaraguan government to find a different way to see to it that justice was served. The Nicaraguan National Assembly passed Law 364 in January 2001, to help banana workers gain compensation from companies that used DBCP. The law, which establishes a rapid procedure for workers who bring judgments before the courts, was immediately challenged by Dole along with several chemical companies. So far, despite court ordered judgments favoring Nicaraguan banana workers totaling more than $400 million, the workers have yet to see a dime.
One banana worker was quoted as saying "I ask the companies...to have a little bit of conscience with us." We'd like to thank that worker for providing us with the funniest line of this article so far.
Nestle Quik
For any youngster that cringes at the thought of having to choke down a glass of plain milk with their dinner, Nestle Quik is a little box of magic. One tablespoon of the powdery goodness that is Nestle Quik can transform that glass of white nasty into a delectable cup of chocolately awesome. Add to this the fact that every box is emblazoned with an adorable cartoon rabbit, and what you have is a certified childhood dream maker.
At least this much is true for most kids; lazy, shiftless bastards that they are. Some kids, on the other hand, have to work for their Nestle Quik. Without going into the grizzly details that we're sure you aren't coming to a comedy website looking for, we'll just say this. The majority of the world's cocoa supply comes from Africa's Ivory Coast. There are probably a lot of things that are illegal in the Ivory Coast, child labor, trafficking or (oh dear) slavery are not any of them. But hey, if it's alright with the bunny, how bad can it be?
After years of flying under the atrocity radar, word of the unspeakably harsh conditions on Ivory Coast cocoa plantations finally came out in 2001. In the face of an influx of negative publicity, Nestle valiantly leapt into inaction. After issuing a few public statements claiming they had no way of knowing who did what where and when, it took a rider attached to an agricultural bill to get Nestle to even acknowledge the problem. The new legislation, passed in July, 2001, would have created a federal system to certify and label chocolate products as "slave free," a label Nestle would qualify for if it weren't for all the enslaved children making their shit.
Even if they did qualify, on the list of words you don't want printed on the label of your product, "slave" comes in at a solid #3, right behind "Hitler" and "shit." To avoid having to abide by the new legislation, Nestle agreed to a voluntary protocol to end forced labor on cocoa farms by 2005. Being that the major chocolate companies would be overseeing this new program, it wasn't too surprising that nothing ever came of it.
When 2005 came and went with little to no change, Nestle was ready with one of the stupidest excuses imaginable. According to them, an escalating civil war in the Ivory Coast prevented them from sending anyone in to monitor the situation. Amazingly though, their team of buyers, who must consist of nothing but crack military commandos, have yet to have a problem getting in and out completely unscathed.
To add even less credibility to their claim that making delicious treats without at least some slave help wasn't possible, several chocolate companies are now selling "Fair Trade" chocolate which is monitored to insure no slave labor is used in its production, though some sophisticated consumers say that chocolate isn't as good, since it does not contain the unique flavor of the bitter tears of children.
We don't want to pile on Nestle, though. If we wanted to do that, we would bring up the third-world babies that died from Nestle formula, or the company demanding millions from famine-stricken Ethiopia over a 1975 business transaction or ... fuck it, we're getting depressed.
Clinton PAYING black people to hold her signs in Texas
I found this blog entry today and my jaw literally dropped reading it. With everything going on in this campaign, that's saying something.
The entry is from a blog called Back Talk Lakewood/East Texas. The entry is from Keri Mitchell, who says:
"I stopped at the intersection of Lovers Lane and Greenville this afternoon, and immediately noticed people standing on each corner (and on a couple of the medians) holding Hillary Clinton signs. Another thing immediately apparent, especially because of the race and gender issues in this presidential election, was that each person holding a sign was black.
I rolled down the window to ask one of the men what group the sign-holders belonged to, and he told me Southern Fried Marketing. I asked if they supported Hillary Clinton for president, and he replied: "Paid for."
You can read the entry and the comments for yourself here.
- avava's diary :: ::
I work in marketing, so I know how crass an industry it can be, but when we are talking about the election of the president of the United States of America, I have some morals. I would hope that Hillary Clinton's campaign would have some, too, but the way things are going that might be asking a bit much.
Reading this blog post brought to a head something that I've been thinking about the last week or so. Which is that many privileged, liberal white women seem to be very willing to turn a blind eye to issues of race and equality as long as it suits their agenda. And I say this as a privileged, liberal white woman.
I find so many woman I talk to still so enthralled by Hillary Clinton, so in awe of her. I decided to support Barack Obama quite a while ago, yet I have still been able to have reasonable conversations with these woman, friends all, about the primary. But lately I just find myself repulsed that many of these same white women don't seem at all concerned about or aware of issues of racism. About issues of global womanhood. About class. About issues of civil rights and civil liberties. About rising above micro identity politics to demand the best of everyone, instead of falling into the fatal trap of making excuses and pointing fingers.
To me, the idea that Hillary Clinton and the supporters who donate to her campaign are paying black people to hold signs for her, when she's facing the first serious black candidate for president, is simply horrifying.
I look forward to supporting a candidate for president that happens to be female. But never, ever like that.
Update:
The blog is affiliated with a magazine called Advocate. I don't live in Texas, so I don't read it, but here is how it is described on their site:
"Beginning with our Lakewood/ East Dallas publication in 1991, we've been distributing our magazines in four Dallas neighborhoods for 15 years. With a compelling mix of friendly features and hard-hitting news stories, our publications are the best way for our 200,000-plus readers in Preston Hollow, Far North Dallas , Lake Highlands and Lakewood/ East Dallas to find out what's going on in their neighborhoods each month."
The blog is called Back Talk blog, and it's the Lake Highlands edition.
The company that the sign holder mentions is called Southern Fried Marketing. I looked them up, but the most extensive profile of them seems to be their myspace page. They describe themselves on that page as:
"Southern Fried Marketing (S.F. Marketing) is the premiere frontline marketing company for the Southwest region. Our mission is embedded in the very fabric of our company. S.F. Marketing prides itself on providing innovative guerilla marketing opportunities for today's professional that desires a competitive marketing edge."
PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner
PHP 101: PHP For the Absolute Beginner
This area is intended for everyone new to PHP. It opens with a series of informal, entertaining tutorials written by Vikram Vaswani, founder and CEO of Melonfire. These tutorials build on a previously-published 5-part series which has now been updated and extended to embrace PHP 5, making parts of it suitable for those of you who already have worked with PHP 4 in the past.If you came here to learn about elementary PHP 4 or basic PHP 5, this is for you. Enjoy!
PHP 101 (part 1): Down the Rabbit Hole [July 17, 2004]
An introduction to PHP’s variables and operators.
PHP 101 (part 2): Calling All Operators [July 18, 2004]
The rest of the PHP operators (there are many), and simple form processing.
PHP 101 (PART 3): Looping the Loop [July 19, 2004]
Basic control structures explained.
PHP 101 (PART 4): The Food Factor [July 20, 2004]
Arrays, PHP array functions, and what it all means.
PHP 101 (PART 5): Rank and File [July 21, 2004]
Everything you’re ever likely to need to know about dealing with external files from a PHP script.
PHP 101 (PART 6): Functionally Yours [July 28, 2004]
All about functions, arguments, passing by reference, globals and scope.
PHP 101 (PART 7): The Bear Necessities [August 07, 2004]
A gentle introduction to object oriented programming in PHP 4 and PHP 5.
PHP 101 (PART 8): Databases and Other Animals [August 31, 2004]
All about connecting to a MySQL database from PHP, using the mysql or mysqli extensions.
PHP 101 (PART 9): SQLite My Fire! [September 16, 2004]
Introducing another database: SQLite.
PHP 101 (part 10): A Session In The Cookie Jar [October 3, 2004]
Sessions and cookies – how to keep track of visitors to your site.
PHP 101 (part 11): Sinfully Simple [October 3, 2004]
An introduction to PHP’s easiest method for dealing with XML.
PHP 101 (part 12): Bugging Out [January 30, 2005]
Basic error handling.
PHP 101 (part 13): The Trashman Cometh [February 27, 2005]
A primer in basic security.
PHP 101 (part 14): Going to the Polls [March 8, 2005]
Putting the pieces together – a first Web application.
PHP 101 (part 15): No News is Good News [June 4, 2005]
Creating a simple RSS news aggregator.
Click if your computer screen is dirty
Free Screen Cleaner
Is your screen full of dust, smudge marks, maybe even potato chip grease? Clean it today for free!
Update: If you’re looking for the screen saver version of this, please check out Dog Screen Cleaner Screensavers for this pug plus 3 new dogs. Available for PC and Mac.
Also video version (4.7MB AVI file)Thai marijuana [Pics]
From Thailand, to Holland, to Spain: From Thai stick seeds to smoke able weed: Thai Sinse.
The Thai seeds I grew out in Spain did not come from any seed bank, they ended up left over in the plastic containers that hold the bud and hash in our coffeeshops. We sold the Thai sticks as shown in the picture below per gram, so the little buds had to be talen of the bamboo sticks they were tied around with a thin string of rope, a so-called rasta hair.
You can see the seeds it the sticks, that is how Thai sticks come.
This is a Thai stick, it is not a bud, Thai plants grow small, fluffy buds, which are wrapped and tied around a thin bamboo stick to make it in to the traders unit the stick stands for. This stick is posing in front of my monitor, when a question about Thai sticks was asked on Overgrow, in January 2001.
Ten seeds, only 4 came up. One can imagine the seeds were not stored the way they should.
They came out like any other strain, with broad leafs to starts with.
June 10.
June 13.
June 15.
June 19. By now, I started noticing the difference in structure, compared to the rest of my strains, all mainly Indica based. The leafs on the Thai’s were now showing way slimmer, especially next to the Legends Ultimate Indica.
June 21. Three Thai plants, next to the LUI.
June 24. The day I measured all plants, with 64 centimetres in height, the Thai was the largest plant in my garden by far.
June 24. Thai on the left, Legends Ultimate Indica on the right, Sativa next to Indica.
June 27.
July 1. The Thai’s have a very fine structure, with loads of this branches, all growing rapidly towards the sun. The plants are not bushy, I bet they are even thinner in Thailand, where they stand very close together.
July 6.
July 8.
July 15.
July 15. Thai in the sky.
July 31.
August 5. A Thai plant to look up to.
August 10.
August 16.
August 21. The plants are showing tiny flowers.
August 25. This is one on the Thais that turned hermaphrodite, two branches on the same plant, male balls showing on the left, female flowers on the right. I clipped all male looking branches from the plant, and left the rest as it was, keeping an eye on it a few times, the next days. The plant kept turning female branches into hermaphrodite branches, showing both flowers and balls. I kept clipping these branches off, until I finally had to cut it down completely, when the top bud turned hermy.
It left me with three plants I had to watch carefully too, the Thai strains are known for being unreliable in sexual consistency.
August 31.
I must have forgotten to take pictures of the Thais for a while, so I have to do with a picture of the whole garden, on September 4. The Thais are on the far left.
September 23. I had only two Thais left now, another one went hermaphrodite. The two plants left were not looking at all like the other, one of them had its leafs up, like the rest of my garden, but the darker colored Thai had its leafs hanging down most of the time.
September 29. This is the one I called the light Thai, it was partially yellow, by a lack of nitrogen, I guess.
This is the dark Thai, letting it all hang down. They were actually both making some real flowers now.
A fine looking Thai flower, by this time, most of all the other plants in my garden had already been trimmed and was hung up to dry.
October 1. The weather was not getting any better, I had to put the Thais under the terrace roof, sometimes, when it rained heavily. As soon as it was possible, I moved them back in the ever-returning Spanish sunshine.
The dark Thai, clearly showing buds now.
The light Thai.
October 3. With some light behind them you can see the buds way better.
October 5. Dark Thai bud.
October 5. Light Thai buds.
October 14. A bugged Thai, probably with a DEA agent in disguise.
October 15. A dark Thai bud.
October 15. The light Thai in the sun.
October 19. Light Thai bud.
October 21. The main bud of the dark Thai, with a three way split head.
October 21. The main bud of the light Thai, with a normal structure.
October 30. The light Thai back in the sun, after another rain shower spent undercover.
October 30. The strange bud of the dark Thai.
November 1. Light Thai.
November 6. The dark Thai was slowly turning lighter, you can see the leafs are still hanging.
A bud on the dark Thai.
November 6. The light Thai started turning greener, after I served it with some nutrients from Organihum, the Nitro, which was meant for the growing stage actually. I used that on this plant because the product contains 8 % of Nitrogen. It seemed to cure the plant, after only two servings.
December 6. Strange follow up…I took this picture while I was making this report, with the Nitro in front of my monitor, displaying the previous picture. Condemor, the director of www.organihum.com gave me some of his products to try out with my next harvest. I tried it on this one, as a welcome supplement, worked just fine.
November 6. Light Thai buds.
November 7. The Thais are seeking shelter from the rain again.
November 8. Another ‘Thai in the sky’ shot, same plant as the one earlier in this report.
November 13. Another shot of the dark Thai’s main bud, just before trimming it.
November 13. A small bud on the light Thai.
November 13. Maruska is clipping the dark Thai.
The main bud of the dark Thai, trimmed.
A little bit closer.
December 3. A bowl of dry Thai buds, on top the main bud of the light Thai.
A closer look at the light Thai bud.
A small bud of the dark Thai.
Another December 6 shot, I never took a picture of the dry bud of the dark Thai after the harvest. Here it is anyway, you can clearly see the bud split up three ways.
I smoked and smoke the Thai Sinsemilla, as I am typing this report, it gives me a strong, but stimulating high, it makes me do things, I’d better not smoke too much of it now. I will save some in case I am in a physical and mental dip, it will sure get me over it soon.
I have loads more seeds, next year I’ll try to cross the Thai with some Dutch genetics, both ways.
I am really satisfied with the Thai, it took a long wait, but that was well worth it.
Sinsemilla Guerrilla , Sinsemilla Thai for an inspiring high!
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