[A. Heathen]

Simply a new thread for news and that for 2008.

A couple of requests.
Please do not cut and paste entire articles.
Post links, selecte some salient paragraph that highlights your interest,
and perhaps add some personal comments and insight.

Thanks

[electricinca]

http://news.bbc.co.u...ews/7182817.stm

Parted-at-birth twins 'married'

A court annulled the British couple's union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord Alton said.

The peer - who heard of the case from a judge who was involved - said the twins felt an "inevitable attraction".

He said the case showed how important it was for children to be able to find out about their biological parents.

Details of the identities of the twins involved have been kept secret, but Lord Alton said the pair did not realise they were related until after their marriage.

I'm lost for words. Or at least I'm lost for words that wouldn't be wholly inappropriate.

[wolvy]

You know whats funny about that, they had to have fucked before they got married. "DUDE, YOU JUST FUCKED YOUR TWIN SISTER! "

[Bilirubin]

What's strange is that there are no actual facts to support this peer's story. I wonder if it isn't just a shock story to make a point, in a sort of underhanded way.

[Matt]

Yeah I've been thinking the same thing, there's no sources on this beyond the peer.

[Red]

You know whats funny about that, they had to have fucked before they got married. "DUDE, YOU JUST FUCKED YOUR TWIN SISTER! "

For a quick guide to humorous understatement, please refer to the last sentence in Inca's post. We thank you for your cooperation.

[Erue]

www.telegraph.co.uk

Schoolboy hacks into city's tram system


The 14-year-old, described by his teachers as a model pupil and an electronics "genius", adapted a television remote control so it could change track points in the city of Lodz.

Twelve people were injured in one derailment, and the boy is suspected of having been involved in several similar incidents.

[A. Heathen]

I am having an interesting (circular) debate with a friend who sees nothing wrong with the following juxtaposition of "news" (or at least celebs expressing opinions) and advert.

from yesterday's Guardian, pages 7 and 8.


(Click here to get a closer look at those pages.)

[Matt]

To be honest I could give less of a shit about the methods used to reduce intensely farmed chick as long as it is reduced.

Besides wouldn't the opinion of a Celebrity Chef on chicken production methods carry more weight that the opinion of George Clooney on the Darfur crisis, because I'm pretty sure that Jamie cooks a lot more chickens than George rescues refugees.

[James]

I am having an interesting (circular) debate with a friend who sees nothing wrong with the following juxtaposition of "news" (or at least celebs expressing opinions) and advert.

Your friend might not, but I bet the advertisers have a different opinion.

I'd be more inclined to object about them still giving Sam fucking Wollaston paid work.

[A. Heathen]

As my friend and I have just come to an understanding, it's interesting that you take the opposite stance to the one I was advocating.

That is, I think it is a bit weak (and lacking integrity) of The Guardian to have an article about shoddy food practices and then allow a company to have such overt product placement.

Especially one which slants against Jamie Oliver despite going along with the "processed chicken" complaints he made. It mentions that he had to apologise to Sainsburys about comments he made about them - even though the comments were that they could not be arsed to attend his programme (along with several other companies) rather than that they were guilty of bad practice. Sets up the "Sainsburys LOVE chickens!" advert quite nicely. So well that you might suspect them of paying for the article as well as the advert.

Of course the advertiser's point of view might be as you have it, but I'd say my scenario is more likely.

[Red]

For future reference an actual explanation of what you're talking about would help for those of us not in Britain/not reading the Guardian. That is, if you want to talk to us of course

[A. Heathen]

For future reference, if someone suggests you click a link to get a closer look at the photos and you don't, but the answers you seek are in the aforementioned photos, you don't get to be so snotty about not knowing what is being discussed.

[Red]

For future reference, if someone suggests you click a link to get a closer look at the photos and you don't, but the answers you seek are in the aforementioned photos, you don't get to be so snotty about not knowing what is being discussed.

I did, and while my eyesight isn't bad I really can't read a Guardian article rendered in a small photo.

Edit: If I peer very closely at the screen I can make it out. However, it would take you all of ten seconds to write:
"Jamie Oliver has criticized the poultry industry, and the article continues that debate. The other page is an ad for chicken"

[Matt]

Red if you click on the 'all sizes' button just above the photo you can see a full size version with readable text.

I'd be more inclined to object about them still giving Sam fucking Wollaston paid work.

Agreed, what a fucking twat, like something out of Nathan Barley.

[Red]

Oh whatever. I realise that coming from the hicks I shouldn't expect to be able to follow the conversation.

[Josh]

I couldn't figure how to present a news article about this with only one quoted paragraph, so I finally said fuck it, here it is from memory, a story that's so simple-minded that even us rubes from the hinterland can understand:

Philip Agee, author of Inside the Company: CIA Diary, has died.

Agee was a CIA agent who operated in Latin America under the covername Jeremy P. Hodapp. He revealed the names of hundreds of operatives in his book, published in the early 1970s. He was vilified, branded a traitor by highly placed government people who better deserve the label, lied about, and hounded from country to country. Most recently he lived in Cuba, where he was working with a company that I think he founded to get people to come to Cuba as tourists. I think the company had a branch in Europe. He died during surgury for a perforated ulcer. I think he was 72.

The funny thing is, I don't remember any of the names in his book, except his dorkish covername. But what I do remember is the way he described how the CIA got its hands into every part of the political spectrum of a country it was operating in, how it ran phony groups on the right, center, and left. It had groups that took stands against its own positions when that was necessary.

It wasn't just after infilitration, it sought control.

The book detailed how intelligence operations were done, with the technology of the times, the devices that could sense vibrations in a building to "overhear" the key sequence of a mechanical cryptographic device, use of s steam table to steam open people's mail so they woudln't know it was being read, the enticing of targets with hot numbers who had sex with them in rooms with hidden cameras so the CIA could then blackmail the target, an OLD and very generally practice spook game.

It told how operations were run out of embassies, gave the CIA cover names of agents (I only remember EC-CENTRIC). It told of the Mexican government freaking out and machine gunning thousands out in a public area in the late 1960s. A hell of a book. If you want to understand how things are done, to some degree by everyone, and to some degree to the rest of the world by the United States, get hold of a copy of Philip Agee's Inside the Company: CIA Diary and read it. Forget the agents with their long blown covers. this stuff is still happening, right now.

[Christian]

This is from William Blum's news letter, meaning there is no link, only the article in question. Do not worry, as Blum states his work is free to be published anywhere on a not-for-profit basis, as long as he is given credit. I would not attempt to cheat Bill Blum in any way since I've personally talked to him many times.

William Blum's thoughts on Philip Agee's death:

Another tale of a liberal

Gilbert Harrison, former editor and publisher of the influential Washington magazine, New Republic, departed this world on January 3. I never met the man, but in 1975, while living in London, I submitted a review of former CIA officer Philip Agee's new book, "Inside the Company: CIA Diary", to the magazine. The book was a shocker, providing more detail about CIA covert operations in Latin America than any book ever written, revealing the names of hundreds of CIA officers, agents, and front organizations. The book had not yet appeared in the United States and the New Republic was pleased to have what would be one of the first reviews. At that time the magazine was still firmly in the liberal camp. At last my writing résumé would list something other than the alternative press.
A couple of weeks later, another letter arrived from the magazine's literary editor. She was sorry to inform me that the Editor-in-Chief, Gilbert Harrison, had vetoed publication of my review at the last moment. The article was returned to me, already edited for publication, even with an issue date marked on it. Some years later, I came to appreciate that Harrison was a typical Cold-War, anti-communist liberal -- no matter how progressive their views concerning the individual and society, the basic tenets, assumptions, and objectives of American foreign policy were held sacrosanct. In 1961 the New Republic obtained a comprehensive account of the preparations by the CIA for its upcoming invasion of Cuba. Harrison was a friend of President Kennedy and he dutifully submitted the magazine's planned article to the White House for advice. We thus have a case here of the United States about to initiate what the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg called "a war of aggression ... not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime." And an American journalist did not know whether he should expose this. When Kennedy asked that the story not be printed, Harrison complied.[5] If the story had been published, it might have led to the cancellation of the invasion, and thus the saving of a few thousand lives on the two sides.

Ironically and sadly, just four days after Harrison's death, Philip Agee died. We had been friends since I met him in England in 1975, shortly after his book came out. Phil was truly a hero. He gave up his career, his financial security, a normal family life, and his safety to work against the CIA in one country after another that was threatened by the Agency -- Cuba, Jamaica, Grenada, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela. The CIA revoked his US passport, spread all manner of false stories about him (such as his being in the pay of the KGB), and hounded him in Europe, getting him expelled from the UK, the Netherlands, Italy, and other countries. The Agency had him under surveillance for much of the rest of his life. The extreme strain this put on him may well have contributed to the perforated ulcer which led to his death.

The CIA was, as it still is, a force for dreadful things. What could a man of principle and idealism, with so much inside knowledge of the workings of the Agency, do but devote his life to fighting such a force?"

[Bilirubin]

Josh, no links to an obit?

[Josh]

Josh, no links to an obit?

http://news.yahoo.co...am_ca/obit_agee