It’s not comfortable or sexy but there are times when sticking some thread up your bum is just good manners! Shouldn’t we just embrace the visible panty line and be done with it? The 70s seem to be bang on trend and that’s what ladies used to sport then. Cecilia Rivers, by email Cecilia, your devotion to the cause is impressive, if misguidedly fanatical. You see, when fashion people say that a decade is – as you say, and get you with the lingo –”bang on trend”, they do not mean this literally, but more half-heartedly. Your mistake in assuming that the rehash of the 70s should usher in a return of the visible panty line (VPL) is similar to that of religious zealots who mistake what was once merely hygienic guidance in the pre-refrigeration era for solemn words of God. In other words, you’re being too kosher. When designers resurrect a decade, they don’t gobble it up, they cherry pick: they choose the elements that worked, and learn from their elders’ mistakes about what didn’t. This means in the specific case of the return of the 70s, long skirts, yes; men with perms, no; gold detailing and blouses, yes; espadrilles and VPL, no. No, no, no. Look, I am no G-string fascist (and considering the image my mind conjures up of a “G-string fascist” is that of Michelle “Bombshell” McGee – Jesse James’s former mistress, whose hobbies included sporting Nazi paraphernalia and posing for allegedly erotic photos, often at the same time – I’m now 200% sure I’m not one.) I
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Exclusive: Air chief marshal says it can cope with planned six months in Libya but extra cash required in 2014-15 review The head of the RAF has issued a blunt warning that the service will need “genuine increases” in its budget over the coming years if it is to continue running the range of operations ministers demand. In an interview with the Guardian, Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton said he was trying to protect the core of the RAF during a turbulent period of spending cuts and redundancies, but insisted ministers would have to sanction proper reinvestment. With the RAF playing an important role in Libya, where bombers, fighter jets and surveillance aircraft have all been involved over the past fortnight, he admitted the service was now stretched to the limit. Dalton, 57, said the RAF was planning to continue operations over Libya for at least six months. His assumption is that planes will be needed “for a number of months rather than a number of days or weeks”. His warning comes amid renewed signs that key figures in Muammar Gaddafi’s regime are seeking an end to the crisis. The country’s deputy foreign minister, Abdul Ati al-Obeidi, flew to Greece on Sunday using the same route out of Libya as his former boss, Moussa Koussa. It was suggested he was in Athens to bring new proposals for a ceasefire or discuss the terms of Gaddafi’s departure. Even as the Libyan conflict continues, the financial difficulties faced by all three British armed services will be underlined on Monday when the army and the Royal Navy set out their redundancy programmes, despite calls from former service chiefs and Labour that the schemes should be shelved because of ongoing operations in north Africa and Afghanistan. Dalton accepted the need for reform, but made clear that the RAF would need an “uplift” in spending. “The key factor is that if we are to meet the requirements laid upon us, there is no question that more investment will be needed to achieve that. What I am seeking to do is maintain core competencies and bricks on which we can then build the future.” Dalton said extra cash was needed long before 2020, which is the target set by government for a wholesale revamping of UK defence strategy, and he claimed prime minister David Cameron had acknowledged this requirement. “It needs to happen from the next comprehensive spending review, 2014-15. If at that point the economy has recovered as the government is predicting it should, they can then start to reinvest in some of the future capabilities we will need,” said Dalton. Without “genuine increases”, the RAF would find it “very difficult to maintain levels of capability”. “On current planning, we can continue in Afghanistan, the Falklands and Libya with what we have got. But that does bring you nearer the point that you have just about exhausted the bag. It’s a heck of a lot to be doing at one time,” Dalton said. The first of the service chiefs to speak out about the current funding crisis, Dalton dismissed outright any suggestion that the RAF might be merged with the army or the navy to save money and said it was inconceivable that the RAF would ever want to scale back and lose its global reach. He also acknowledged that morale had been affected by a massive reduction in the Ministry of Defence’s budget – 8% in real terms. “People do feel concerned. Of course they feel concerned, they have a professional pride in what they do. They don’t join the RAF as if they are joining a bank or an insurance company. They join the RAF because they want to be part of something that does something much bigger and better and, most importantly, has some meaning and value for everyone,” Dalton said. “So of course they are concerned. The world has become a very much more unstable place and again we have seen that in the last few days. “They also think there is a need to make sure the government, the public, understands what they do, and understands that they are prepared to do these things provided what they do is recognised.” Dalton was appointed chief of the air staff in July 2009 and is overseeing one of the most radical overhauls in the history of the service. In last year’s strategic defence and security review, ministers set out proposals to cut 17,000 jobs from the armed forces – 7,000 from the army and 5,000 each from the RAF and the navy. The MoD believes a 6,000 cut can be achieved by not replacing people who have left, but that still leaves another 11,000 jobs to axe. The RAF set out its redundancy programme last month. It is to close its base at Kinloss in Scotland and withdraw two squadrons of Tornados in the summer. The remains of the Tornado fleet was thought to be vulnerable as the MoD has a £1bn overspend to cover from last year’s budget alone. But it is now assumed that the Treasury would not dare push for the rapid withdrawal of the ground attack aircraft because they have been so instrumental in the campaign against Gaddafi. Eight Tornados and 10 Typhoons are currently in Italy, helping to secure the no-fly zone. Dalton said the Nimrod R1, which was due to be scrapped, had been reprieved for as long as it was needed in Libya. Military Defence policy Spending review 2010 Tax and spending Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Sunday that the GOP 2012 budget will exceed even the $4 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade recommended by President Barack Obama’s debt commission. But Ryan wouldn’t commit that his new budget would follow the debt commission’s lead and cut corporate welfare for oil and gas companies. “Widely reported that your budget will cut spending by $2 trillion over the next decade. True?” Fox News Chris Wallace asked Ryan during their Sunday interview. “Well, it’s more than that,” Ryan said. “Quite a bit more than that.” “$4 trillion?” Wallace wondered. “Looking at more than that right now. We’re fine-tuning the numbers. Congressional Budget Office literally today, over the weekend. We’ll cut more than that,” Ryan explained. “We will be exceeding the goals that were put out in the president’s debt commission,” he added. “You talk about the president’s debt commission. They got $1 trillion from closing a lot of tax loopholes, ending a lot of tax deductions. Do you do that?” Wallace asked. “Not only do we want to cut spending, not only do we want to reform government spending, we want economic growth. We want job creation. Pro-growth tax reform is a key ingredient to getting this economy working again, getting the economy growing again. The way to do that — and we agree with the direction of the fiscal commission — lower tax rate and broaden the tax base. And those are the things we’ll be proposing.” “Democrats are already saying, even before they’ve seen your budget, you do all this balancing of the budget on the spending side and unlike the president’s debt commission, you don’t do it on the revenue side,” Wallace noted. “Do you eliminate tax breaks and bring in new revenue by eliminating tax breaks for oil companies, for instance?” “We don’t have a tax problem,” Ryan declared. “The problem with our deficit is not because Americans are taxed too little… and so we’re not going to go down the path of raising taxes on people and raising taxes on the economy.” “Does it mean you won’t eliminate tax breaks for big oil and gas?” Wallace pressed. “Those are the kinds of details that you’ll come out later with, that the Ways and Means Committee will work on. We don’t go into the detail of which tax expenditure goes or stays. We’re going to lower tax rates and broaden base. You’ll see more details Tuesday.” “We are giving [Democrats] a political weapon to go against us,” Ryan later admitted. “But they will have to lie and demagogue to make that a political weapon.” ADDENDUM : (Nicole) Of course, it’s so typically Republican to put the burden of their years of reckless spending on the backs of seniors and protect oil companies. The DCCC put out a fact sheet on Ryan’s draconian plans: “Paul Ryan made clear that the Republican budget will protect Big Oil companies subsidies over seniors health care,” said Jesse Ferguson of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “It’s already becoming clear who will be the priority in the House Republican budget – special interests, not middle class families. Background No Ending Subsidies. When challenged by Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace about whether his budget will include reductions in Oil and Gas subsidies like the Presidents Fiscal Commission did, Ryan responded that “we don’t have a tax problem”. [Fox News Sunday, 4/3/11] House Republicans Cutting Medicare and Medicaid. Chuck Loveless of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees said anything approaching a $1 trillion cut over 10 years would have “devastating consequences for the disabled, the working poor and children” as well as seniors who rely on long-term care. “It shines a bright light, we think, on what the House Republican leaders are attempting to do in these various budget discussions as we go forward. They’re seeking to savage the safety net for the most vulnerable in our society and a time when corporations are enjoying record profits.” [POLITICO, 3/31/11 ] The largest oil companies have made $485 billion in profits. The Democratic Steering & Policy Committee held a hearing on the issue of Oil and Gas subsidies and noted that from 2005 to 2009, the largest oil companies have made $485 billion in profits. [climateprogress.org, 3/01/11 ] Obama’s budget plan targets oil, gas tax breaks. “President Obama’s proposed 2010 budget takes pointed aim at oil and gas companies, eliminating myriad tax breaks and proposing new fees on the providers. The plan put out Thursday would repeal tax breaks intended to spur oil and gas exploration and penalize companies that don’t develop wells on land leased from the government. It could raise tens of billions of dollars the next decade.” [USA Today, 2/27/11 ] Last month, House Republicans opposed a measure that would ensure no “tax benefit” could go to a “major integrated oil company.” [HJ Res 44, Vote #153 , 3/01/11]
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Politico's Roger Simon said Sunday Barack Obama is the greatest orator of modern times. Chatting with Howard Kurtz on CNN's “Reliable Sources,” Simon also said journalists are just now looking beyond the President's speaking skills and analyzing what he's actually saying (video follows with transcript and commentary): HOWARD KURTZ, HOST: So is the press starting to sour on the stalemate in Libya? Joining us now here in Washington, Roger Simon, chief political columnist for Politico; Dana Milbank, columnist for “The Washington Post,” and in San Francisco, Debra Saunders, a columnist for “The San Francisco Chronicle.” Roger Simon, are the journalists and the anchors we just saw now aggressively challenging and acting openly skeptical about the Obama policy in Libya? ROGER SIMON, CHIEF POLITICAL COLUMNIST, POLITICO: Yes, and that's a good thing. We're supposed to be openly skeptical. The bloom isn't entirely off the rose between Obama and the press, but reporters are starting to concentrate more than ever on what he says rather than how he says it. We will stipulate that he's the greatest orator of modern times, but now we're looking beyond that in every speech for what he's actually telling us. “We will stipulate that he's the greatest orator of modern times…” Really? Better than Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt? “…but now we're looking beyond that in every speech for what he's actually telling us.” “We're” just starting to do that now? Shouldn't that have begun in February 2007 when the junior senator from Illinois first threw his hat in the presidential ring? Obama's been president for 26 months in the midst of what many claim was the worst recession since the depression and journalists are just now getting beyond his oratory to actually analyze what the most powerful man in the world is saying. Gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, doesn't it? Of course this isn't at all surprising for if they had done that 48 months ago, Obama would never have become the Democrat nominee let alone America's chief executive. As such, the only things shocking in Simon's revelation was that these shills have actually started doing their jobs as it pertains to the object of their affection and someone on the left finally admitted what most of us on the right have known for years. I'd give kudos to Simon for his honesty but it wouldn't be in order given its tardiness.
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Four days of fighting have stopped Ouattara supporters’ rapid advance and prompted UN to evacuate civilian staff The UN has evacuated civilian staff from its base in Ivory Coast as thousands of rebel troops gather outside Abidjan for what looks set to be a bloody final offensive. France took control of the city’s airport and bolstered its military presence, fuelling president Laurent Gbagbo’s hostile rhetoric against foreign “occupation”. The heightened tensions came as Alassane Ouattara, winner of last November’s presidential election, denied UN accusations that his forces were responsible for a massacre of hundreds of civilians in a western village. The UN evacuation followed four days of attacks on its headquarters and patrols by Gbagbo’s republican guard. Eleven peacekeepers have been injured in two days, including four on Saturday when Gbagbo’s forces fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a UN armoured personnel carrier. The office of the chief of the mission has also been targeted. One UN employee was killed by a stray bullet last week. The UN flew about 170 civilian staff to the rebel-held city of Bouake, where it began expanding its logistical base after Gbagbo’s regime stepped up anti-UN propaganda and tried to cut off fuel and food supplies to the UN headquarters. The coming days could witness a conclusive battle for Abidjan. Thousands of pro-Ouattara troops amassed on the northern edge of the city. An adviser to Ouattara, who did not wish to be named, said they are preparing for a final push to depose Gbagbo. But after swiftly taking control of swaths of the country, pro-Ouattara forces have met fierce resistance in Abidjan over the past four days. Gbagbo troops have held on to positions around the presidential palace, Gbagbo’s residence and state TV buildings. The president’s forces could be seen regrouping on Sunday. Boatloads of young men were ferried into the centre of the city and marched the streets, carrying rudimentary weapons such as pieces of two-by-four wood and metal bars. Hundreds answered Gbagbo’s call to form a human shield around his residence. “There was an attack planned on the presidential residence, but it didn’t happen, possibly because of the human shield around it,” a western diplomat told Reuters. “But it seems to have started up again. I’m hearing some booms from the direction of RTI [state TV].” French troops moved to secure Abidjan’s international airport. Several French cargo planes arrived with 300 soldiers to reinforce the mission, said Commander Frederic Daguillon of the French force, which is now around 1,400 strong. Gbagbo’s state TV accused the French troops of preparing a genocide like that in Rwanda in 1994 in which more than 800,000 people were killed. A caption onscreen read: “[French president Nicolas] Sarkozy’s men are preparing a Rwandan genocide in Ivory Coast. Ivorians, let us go out en masse and occupy the streets. Let us stay standing.” More than 1,650 foreigners – including about 700 French nationals and 600 Lebanese – are sheltering in a French army camp. Sarkozy held an emergency two-hour meeting in Paris to discuss the crisis. Residents of Abidjan braved sporadic shooting and ventured out to pray, get water and buy food after being trapped in their homes during three days of intense fighting. “Many people went to church to pray to God to stop the war in the country,” Sylvie Monnet, a resident of the Yopougon neighbourhood, told Reuters. But the frightening sight of armed young men roaming the streets kept many others locked indoors. A resident of the densely populated neighbourhood of Koumassi told how he had peered out of a window to see a small group of young men wearing jeans and T-shirts and nonchalantly carrying Kalashnikov rifles. “I have seen guys in military uniform, and I think that our neighbourhood is controlled by the invisible commando,” he said, referring to an anti-Gbagbo group that has seized control of some parts of Abidjan. But if they wear civilian clothing, you can’t tell whether they are pro-Gbagbo or pro-Ouattara. It’s unsettling. I voted for Ouattara, but I really do not appreciate this.” Ethnic tension seemed to increase by the day, he said. “There is so much mutual distrust. There is a feeling that the situation can explode any moment.” Some had little choice but to venture out. Pamela Somda, a student, said: “We have nothing more to eat at home. I have just a single fresh fish at home and after that, I do not know what to do. It is really difficult.” Small grocery shops were running out of staples such as eggs, sardines and stock cubes, and prices had soared for the available food. Electricity has been cut intermittently and water was shut off across the city on Sunday morning, although a few women could be seen on the street filling basins with water from the lagoon. Meanwhile Ouattara has clashed with the UN over claims that his forces were involved in a massacre of hundreds of civilians, an allegation that threatens to tarnish his credentials as the democratically elected, internationally supported leader. The UN mission said traditional hunters, known as Dozos, fought alongside Ouattara’s forces and took part in killing 330 people in the western town of Duekoue. The International Committee of the Red Cross said at least 800 people were killed in intercommunal violence in Duekoue last week. It is not clear whether that 330 is included in the larger figure. Guillaume Ngefa, deputy head of the human rights division of the UN mission in Ivory Coast, blamed 220 of the deaths on pro-Ouattara forces. He told France24 TV that the killings happened between Monday and Wednesday as pro-Ouattara troops advanced south. Pro-Gbagbo militias killed more than 110, he added. Ouattara’s camp hit back and blamed the UN. His justice minister, Jeannot Ahoussou-Kouadio, accused the nearly 1,000 peacekeepers based in Duekoue of abandoning the town and leaving civilians at the mercy of vengeful Gbagbo fighters. “The government notes that the [UN mission] retreated from the town of Duekoue before its liberation by the Republican forces at the same time that the town was prey to looting and exactions of every type being committed by the militia and mercenaries of Mr Laurent Gbagbo,” he said. The UN said most of its soldiers were deployed around a Catholic mission, protecting 15,000 people who had sought refuge there. The mood remained tense as Red Cross workers dug a mass grave. An inhabitant of Duekoue said bodies were lining the streets near the neighbourhood Carrefour, which he said was targeted by Ouattara’s forces on Tuesday. Carrefour was known as a neighbourhood “where you could only enter if you were a Guere”, he said, referring to an indigenous western tribe that is fiercely pro-Gbagbo. It also harboured armed militias and Liberian mercenaries who regularly set up roadblocks to extort money from passing trucks and taxis and harass immigrants. “When [Ouattara's] republican forces seized the town, they surrounded the area and killed all the men they suspected of being militias,” said the man, who wished to remain anonymous. “The UN is patrolling here now and aid workers are trying to collect the bodies. You can see piles of 10 bodies here, 20 there, or just one or two lying around. I can’t tell you exactly how many I’ve seen, but I would guess up to 200.” The total number of people killed since the presidential election in November is now more than 1,300. Ivory Coast France Laurent Gbagbo Alassane Ouattara Refugees David Smith Kim Willsher guardian.co.uk
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A MasterChef contestant has inked the show’s logo on his chest. That’s nothing … James Perry, one of the hopefuls in the current series of MasterChef, has proven his devotion to the culinary cause by having the programme’s logo tattooed just above his right breast. Pah. Perry is a lightweight. When it comes to proving one’s commitment to the cause(s), there is only one Idiot King, and that is me. I have had the logo of every magazine I have worked for on a full-time basis inked upon my person, not to mention a quote from The Wire, financed by the PR company that was putting out series 5 of the box set. Club (an adult magazine, popular in the States) proudly sits on my right shoulder, Loaded and Nuts on my lower and upper back respectively, while my inner right forearm is home to “a man’s gotta have a code: Omar”. “Why do it to yourself?” say my girlfriends, around about the time that they dump me. Well, I feel a great deal of affection for anybody deluded enough to offer me full-time employment, and if I can communicate that affection through a permanent etching of their masthead, then it is my duty to do so. Plus I figure it makes me more difficult to fire. And I really like The Wire. The celebrated tattooist Louis Molloy once told me there’s a theory that some people get inked because they don’t like their bodies. When I look in the mirror, I do see a fleshy lump, but it has been neither improved nor destroyed by the designs thereon. By the time I had two magazine logos, it just didn’t seem to matter how many more I got. So when people ask if I would consider the Practical Caravan logo if I worked for them, I inform them very seriously that yes, I
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Anger on streets as demonstrators massacred by Syrian government are buried Thousands of protesters returned to the streets of Greater Damascus as funerals for those killed in a reported massacre by government forces last Friday were held in a suburb of the capital city. Human rights groups have claimed at least 15 people were shot dead on Friday during pro-reform demonstrations in the neighbourhood of Douma, which lies eight miles north-east of the Syrian capital. Some non-governmental organisations claim up to 22 protesters may have been killed, with more than 100 wounded, including 20 in a critical condition. Angry mourners chanted “down with the regime” as eight of Friday’s victims, believed to have been targeted by government snipers, were buried. “This was the systematic killing of peaceful and unarmed citizens by security forces,” said Radwan Ziadeh, head of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights, one of several organisations that has collated matching witness accounts of the incident. Witnesses told the Guardian that thugs were bussed in by government forces to attack demonstrators. Journalists and diplomats were prevented from reaching the area over the weekend, and phone lines to Damascus have been disrupted. Details of the bloodshed in Douma emerged as beleaguered Syrian president Bashar al-Assad appointed former agriculture minister Adel Safar to form a new government. Assad fired his cabinet last Tuesday in an unsuccessful attempt to quell unrest. On Friday, thousands of Syrians marched across the country in protest at the failure of the president to make real reforms. Shots were reportedly fired in the cities of Daraa and Homs as well as in Douma. Human Rights Watch condemned the shooting of peaceful protesters throughout the unrest which has swept Syria in the aftermath of revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. It said Assad’s promises of investigations, reiterated in a speech on Thursday, “rang hollow when security forces are still shooting at protesters”. UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply concerned” by reports of civilian casualties as the known death toll in Syria climbed above 100. An official government source told Sana, the state news agency, that security forces were not responsible for the violence in Douma and blamed the deaths on an “armed group” that opened fire from rooftops on protesters and policemen. State television said “some of the demonstrators had daubed their clothes with red dye to make foreign reporters believe that they had been injured”. But witnesses told human rights groups that snipers opened fire on civilians, including those trying to retrieve dead bodies. Families of the victims claim the authorities are withholding corpses to prevent more funerals taking place. Muslims, who are the religious majority in Syria, believe the dead should be buried as soon as possible. Crowds at Friday’s protests were swelled by residents of Al Tel, a separate town which held its own large anti-government rallies the previous week. Protest organisers said they had travelled to Douma after a member of the ruling Ba’ath party warned them the government would deploy snipers to combat any further protests in Al Tel. The claim could not be independently verified. Friday’s crackdown follows a similarly premeditated attack in the southern city of Deraa, where protests first broke out. On 23 March, government forces cut the internet and electricity before opening fire on unarmed protesters at the Omari mosque, the focal point of protests in the city. On Saturday, authorities carried out a series of arrests as part of an ongoing crackdown against the uprising. In a joint statement, eight human rights groups said 46 people were arrested in raids in the towns of Deraa, Douma and Homs, although the government simultaneously released some of those previously detained. Yusef Abu Rumiyeh, a member of parliament for Deraa, denounced security forces for opening fire on his constituents “without pity” and criticised Assad for not offering his condolences. The appointment of Safar as prime minister is unlikely to appease demonstrators, or please those who previously supported Assad. “We saw him as a reformer,” said one man in Damascus, who described himself as neutral before the latest events. “But the speech and the killings have made me keen to join the protests.” Assad has fuelled further discontent by blaming recent unrest on foreign conspirators and failing to lift the country’s draconian emergency law, in place since 1963. Protests have been planned to coincide with Thursday’s anniversary of Assad’s ruling Ba’ath party. “We will make it the day of its death … and we will walk to all the party’s headquarters and protest in front of them,” said the Syria Revolution 2011 protest group on its Facebook page. “We will paralyse the state’s joints until [Al-Assad] appears and says ‘I understand you.’” Katherine Marsh is the pseudonym of a journalist working in Damascus. Syria Middle East Arab and Middle East unrest guardian.co.uk
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Libya’s revolutionary leadership is split over who is in command of their armed campaign against Muammar Gaddafi Libya’s revolutionary leadership is split over competing claims to command its armed campaign as the rebels attempt to shore up their credibility in the west after losing almost all the territory gained by foreign air strikes. The dispute comes as the military leadership continues to struggle with the lack of discipline that has been so damaging to its campaign and which led to the death of 13 rebel fighters and medics at the weekend after one of them indiscriminately fired an anti-aircraft gun and provoked a western air strike. Four vehicles were destroyed including an ambulance. The revolutionary council described the incident near the town of Brega as a “terrible mistake” for which it took responsibility. The rebels continued a standoff with Muammar Gaddafi’s army near the scene of the air strike after making a show of bringing better trained and more disciplined troops to the front along with larger weapons in an attempt to turn around the image of the their force as chaotic, lacking in tactics and largely unable to fight. Fighting also continued in the two rebel enclaves in the west of the country, Misrata and Zintan, on Sunday. Doctors trapped at the hospital in Misrata said scores of people had died in recent days under attack from Gaddafi’s forces. The revolutionary leadership privately concedes a military victory is unlikely, even with the support of western air strikes. It is increasingly looking to a diplomatic track or the collapse of the regime from within as the best hope of removing Gaddafi, although it is still attempting to encourage popular uprisings in cities under the control of the Libyan leader. There is an awareness in the rebels’ de facto capital, Benghazi, that the military campaign needs to be continued as a means of defence and to keep the pressure on Gaddafi. The revolutionary leadership also recognises that it needs to build a credible military force amid creeping concern in the west over how thousands of evidently undisciplined but armed young men might behave as they move in to other towns. But that effort appears to be undermined by an internal dispute over who is in charge of reviving the rebels’ military fortunes after a week of stunning setbacks. Last week, the revolution’s military wing appointed its own spokesman, Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani. He announced that Colonel Khalifa Belqasim Haftar, who fought in Libya’s war against Chad in the 1980s before he was captured and joined a CIA-run anti-Gaddafi force, had been appointed commander of the military campaign. According to the announcement, he replaced General Abdel Fatah Younis – Gaddafi’s interior minister until two months ago and former head of Libya’s special forces who defected to the rebels at the beginning of the revolution. But at the weekend, the revolutionary administration announced that Younis was back in charge. When confronted with this flip-flop, the council denied there had ever been a change. Both men have their constituencies and their critics given their deeply tainted pasts. Haftar is popular among some of the civilian volunteers who make up the bulk of the rebel forces because of his long opposition to Gaddafi. After the Chad war, he was recruited as commander of an anti-Gaddafi force put together by the CIA and funded in part by Saddam Hussein. When that failed, Haftar moved to Virginia where he lived for 20 years not far from the CIA headquarters, raising questions among his present critics about how close past ties remain. Some members of the revolutionary political leadership say Haftar returned to Libya with a swaggering arrogance and an expectation that he would automatically be put in charge of the armed fight against Gaddafi. The revolutionary council had already appointed Omar Hariri as the de facto defence minister and Younis as the military commander in the belief that he would win over defectors from Gaddafi’s army who are supposed to provide the backbone of the rebel force, although so far there has been limited evidence of it. “We defined the military leadership before the arrival of Haftar from the United States,” said Abdul Hafidh Ghoga, vice president of the Interim National Council. “We told Mr Haftar that if he wants, he can work within the structure that we have laid out.” As Younis failed to deliver, twice losing gains already made against Gaddafi’s forces including more recently by the air strikes, the fighters started to look elsewhere. There was already considerable suspicion about Younis among many ordinary Libyans in the rebel-held territory because of his long service to Gaddafi and the belief that as interior minister it is impossible for him not to be implicated in some of the regime’s crimes. The council had to work hard to get them to accept his appointment. Last week, the military appeared to try to bypass the council by announcing that Haftar had been appointed commander with Younis downgraded to chief of staff. The council disagreed. Libya Arab and Middle East unrest Middle East Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …As if it needed to be said. Pro-Republican astroturf groups will spend an estimated $2,000,000 this week alone for next Tuesday’s State Supreme Court election, including this sleazy one in support of Republican candidate David Prosser. Wisconsin Democrats are asking everyone supporting them to post this video through all the social media. Please help if you can.
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Requiem for the hipster as James Murphy and his band play last ever gig When LCD Soundsystem announced their final gig at New York’s Madison Square Garden, tickets sold out in just 15 seconds. Would-be concert-goers erupted in hysterical rage when touts began selling tickets priced as high as $1,500 (£930). The band’s front man James Murphy tweeted: “NO MATTER WHAT WE DO, IT IS NOT WORTH THAT KIND OF MONEY TO SEE US!” Evidently some 14,000 people thought it was. The atmosphere in the stadium on Saturday night was somewhere between joyous wake and dance party funeral – as the band announced on their website: “If it’s a funeral, let’s have the best funeral ever!!!” The stands were filled with people known as the hipsters, many were dressed in Murphy’s trademark look (black suit, white shirt, skinny black tie), and all had come to pay their respects to the band that Esquire magazine described as “arguably the most influential indie band of the past five years.” From their breakout 2002 single, Losing My Edge, LCD Soundsystem have offered a unique combination of geek knowledge, passion and intelligent, ironic distance. The ultimate hipster band, they are calling it quits just as the decade of the hipster seems to be coming to an end. American Apparel is facing bankruptcy and the market is awash with Tumblr-to-book titles like Stuff Hipsters Hate and Look At This Fucking Hipster. Brooklyn literary magazine n+1 recently proclaimed: “Hipsters are not dead, they still breathe, they live on my block. Yet it is evident that we have reached the end of an epoch of the type.” Murphy himself was never really a hipster. For nearly a decade, Murphy – at 41, at least a good decade older than the crowd on Saturday night – stood as a self-mocking totem to a certain kind of experience. Losing My Edge was an anthem for the aging music nerd, with lyrics detailing a comically epic list of historical dates, bands and attended gigs: the anti-hipster’s defence against “the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties”. Unlike some of the output of those art-school Brooklynites, which has tended to espouse a tone of context free apathy, Murphy has always been interested in creating a record of the times. And as if to prove he’s still one step ahead, Murphy is now bowing out. The three-and-a-half-hour concert included a guest appearance by Arcade Fire, who sang back-up on North American Scum, prompting chants of ‘North American! North American!’ – as close as a hipster can get to shouting “USA! USA!”. And Murphy closed with the unabashedly elegiac New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down, a mournful chronicle of New York’s post-Giuliani transformation. On Twitter, The Believer contributing editor Brandon Stosuy asked: “How many upcoming 30-something novels can we expect to use LCD Soundsystem’s final shows as a metaphor for something?” The question now is what. LCD Soundsystem United States guardian.co.uk
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