The BBC has just reported during their coverage of inauguration day that Dick Cheney is in a wheel chair. Apparently he strained a leg muscle while moving boxes into his new home.

Oh dear, poor Mr Cheney. We really feel for him don’t we …. that evil bastard who not only made sure the Iraq war happened but profited from it too.

He will have his comeuppance.

Article

Members of Saudi Arabia’s first all-girl rock band, the Accolade, are clearly not afraid of taboos.

The band’s first single, “Pinocchio,” has become an underground hit here, with hundreds of young Saudis downloading the song from the group’s Web site. Now, the pioneering young foursome, all of them college students, want to start playing regular gigs – inside private compounds, of course – and recording an album.

“In Saudi, yes, it’s a challenge,” said the group’s spiky-haired lead singer, Lamia, who has piercings on her left eyebrow and beneath her bottom lip. (Like other band members, she gave only her first name.) “Maybe we’re crazy. But we wanted to do something different.”

In a country where women are not allowed to drive and rarely appear in public without their faces covered, the band is very different indeed. The prospect of female rockers clutching guitars and belting out angry lyrics about a failed relationship – the theme of “Pinocchio” – would once have been unimaginable here.

But this country’s harsh code of public morals has slowly thawed, especially in Jidda, by far the kingdom’s most cosmopolitan city. A decade ago the cane-wielding religious police terrorized women who were not dressed according to their standards. Young men with long hair were sometimes bundled off to police stations to have their heads shaved, or worse.

Today, there is a growing rock scene with dozens of bands, some of them even selling tickets to their performances. Hip-hop is also popular. The religious police – strictly speaking, the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice – have largely retreated from the streets of Jidda, and they are somewhat less aggressive even in the kingdom’s desert heartland.

Read more.

Go to The Accolade Myspace page.

image: Lee Navigation and Old River Lea at Old Ford, by Peter Marshall

If you’re interested in the Lee Valley in London (UK) I highly recommend a visit to Peter Marshall’s site for an array of excellent images, showing the complexity of land use, the historical combined with the modern including the Olympic 2012 site. I’ve linked you to page 6 but please do view his other pages.

Susology , in their recent free mag, have an article about the underground hip hop & party scene in Tehran. Persian hip hop is known as rap-e-Fars and it’s most well known proponent is Hichkas (aka Soroush Lashkari).

As their music is essentially protest music against the oppressive leaders of Iranian society the artists rely entriely on the internet & an underground network of parties, held in people’s apartments. Here they get to meet the opposite sex, drink alcohol, dance, wear the latest fashions and rally against the state.

This, believe it or not is all very dangerous as the Revolutionary Guards regularly patrol neighbourhoods and enter apartments at will looking to drag away any one who denigrates Islam & the regime.

Check out these sites; www.parshiphop.com

www.zirzamin.se

And hear Hichkas here (in Farsi).

Thom Yorke says it’s the angriest song he’s ever written.

New Venues in Beijing National Stadium

1. National Stadium
2. National Aquatics Center
3. National Indoor Stadium
4. Beijing Shooting Range Hall
5. Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium
6. Laoshan Velodrome
7. Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park
8. China Agricultural University Gymnasium
9. Peking University Gymnasium
10. Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium
11. Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium
12. Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Court

Existing Venues in Beijing Olympic Sports Center Stadium

13. Olympic Sports Center Stadium
14. Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium
15. Beijing Workers’ Stadium
16. Beijing Workers’ Gymnasium
17. Capital Indoor Stadium
18. Fengtai Sports Center Softball Field
19. Yingdong Natatorium of National Olympic Sports Center
20. Laoshan Mountain Bike Course
21. Beijing Shooting Range CTF
22. Beijing Institute of Technology Gymnasium
23. Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics Gymnasium

Temporary Venues in Beijing Fencing Hall of National Convention Center

24. Beijing Olympic Green Hockey Stadium
25. Beijing Olympic Green Archery Field
26. Beijing Wukesong Sports Center Baseball Field
27. Chaoyang Park Beach Volleyball Ground
28. Laoshan Bicycle Moto Cross (BMX) Venue
29. Triathlon Venue
30. Road Cycling Course

Article

Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, did not mince his words in discussing the reckless investments in complex financial products by leading financial institutions in the lead-up to last summer – and how these had contributed to the ongoing credit crunch in global markets.

“They [complex financial instruments] may have looked very clever, but actually they were based on some very poor assumptions,” he told the committee of MPs.

“And the managers of those institutions, who probably knew far less about those instruments than they should have done, will know in future that if they want to keep their jobs they will have to have better control over the design of those instruments.”

King said today that in some ways the City’s economic dominance was regrettable.

“I do think it is rather unattractive that so many young people when contemplating careers look at the compensation packages available in the City and think that these dominate almost any other kind of career,” he said.

“That is not an attractive position to be in when such a high proportion of our talented, young people naturally think of the City as the first place to work in. It shouldn’t be. It should be one of the places, but not the only one.”

Spot on Mervyn. We the common people salute you!

image: found at Beau Bo D’Or

I was in Tiananmen Square 1990. It was creepy. Hardly anyone there.

Now the city has changed beyond almost all recognition. Freedom to block out their past. Freedom to eat American junk food. Freedom to spend.

Freedom to obliterate culture. The Olympics do exactly that. Waste of energy, waste of time. People can have their cultural exchange …. online …. any time.

map: torch route

Today’s run relay carrying the Olympic torch was marred by protest all the way along the London route. A protester in Bayswater, central London got his hand on the torch and almost got it off the torch bearer. See the video action here. 

Later more protestors attempted to put out the torch flame using fire extinguishers. See this video action here.

The day was marred by farce with the Chinese ambassador having to change her route, taking the torch through London’s Chinatown instead. Gordon Brown refused to been seen holding the torch.

The protests will continue wherever this torch may go over the next few months. London has played it’s part and proudly.

1 min 45 secs

People will try anything to get around systems put in place to stop them. The drivers above find out the hard way!