KiwiCoromandel

Jeb Bush seeks custody of Terri Schiavo March 24, 2005 - 10:40AM The parents of Amerian woman Terri Schiavo saw their options vanish one by one today as a federal appeals court refused to re-insert her feeding tube and the Florida Legislature decided not to intervene in the epic struggle. Refusing to give up, Florida Governor Jeb Bush sought court permission to take custody of Schiavo. The desperate flurry of activity came as President George W Bush suggested Congress and the White House had done all they could to keep the severely brain-damaged woman alive. As of this afternoon, Schiavo had gone five full days without food or water; doctors have said she could survive one to two weeks. Ten protesters were arrested outside her hospice for trying to bring her water. "When I close my eyes at night, all I can see is Terri's face in front of me, dying, starving to death," Mary Schindler said outside the Pinellas Park hospice. "Please, someone out there, stop this cruelty. Stop the insanity. Please let my daughter live." Read more........ http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Jeb-Bush-...1525261678.html

video of the BP oil refinery blast in texas...... name : kiwibank pass : nzowned..... if the link asks you..feel free.....it`s one of my old passwords and i don`t use it for any other site..... http://media.fairfax.com.au/?rid=15686

It ain't funk without Clinton 24.03.05 When a 64-year-old man advises you to bring a spare booty to his concert, you know he's serious about funking you up. "You can expect to have your butt kicked," says George Clinton, the inventor of P-Funk and founder of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic. As a reference point for P-Funk, think James Brown on stage with Jimi Hendrix, backed by a 25-piece band. But what possesses him to still tour the world and play four-hour shows? He loves it. Yes. But the money helps to pay Clinton's legal fees in his neverending legal battle to secure copyright over his music from licensing company Bridgeport Music. You see, Clinton's music - mostly notably the songs Flashlight by Parliament and Atomic Dog from 1982's Computer Games - have been pillaged by musicians who use the songs as samples. Don't get Clinton wrong, he's a huge supporter of sampling. "It ain't the band members that we have a problem with, it's the people who are collecting the money and not paying us," Clinton says. "The old record companies that we record for is what we have a problem with. "But it'll take care of itself because it ain't going anywhere and we got all the time in the world." Estimates predict the amount Clinton could be owed from the use of his music as being as much as US$20 million ($27 million). Clinton says "it's going to hit the fan" soon and become a very public issue, because sampling is such a wide spread phenomenon. "A lot of careers of different people have been created by the music and it's not going to stop because we're still around. "It's going to happen sooner or later because they're still collecting that money and we'll get it." Those high-profile acts who have used Flashlight include Run DMC (Back From Hell), Public Enemy (Nighttrain), Ice T (Home Invasion), and one-hit wonders C&C Music Factory with Things That Make You Go Hmmmmm. Clinton started out in music in the doo-wop group the Parliaments while at college. While there he met Bernie Worrell, who plays Hammond organ with Clinton to this day. "Everybody knows, even back in the 50s, that music was the thing that impressed the girls and everybody had a group. But I fell in love with music and then Motown came along. "Once I saw Motown getting ready to be left behind - you know, once they started going to Hollywood and making movies - I saw the English rock'n'roll coming through and I realised that Motown was the music that my mother used to like. So by that time I was doing my own thing. "We picked the mid tempo R&B music, which was funk. Rock'n'roll was fast, blues was mostly real slow, but funk was that in-between music where they got drunk and danced, and got nasty. "So we picked that music, and we saw how rock'n'roll music had been preserved and we said we were going to do the same with funk. "Motown was the funky music in the beginning ... but instead of singing 'Reflections of ... '," he croons, "we just kept the mid-tempo and sung about booty." Hip-hop before hip-hop? "Exactly." And P-Funk was born. "A lot of people don't realise it, but hip-hop is what we were talking about when we made the record The Clones of Dr Funkenstein [from 1976]. Hip-hop is basically the clone. Hip-hop is what's keeping funk alive." Clinton's first two bands, Funkadelic (which formed in 1968) and Parliament (formed in 1970) operated throughout the 70s at the same time. Funkadelic was more of a traditional band that played psychedelic rock'n'roll - with some extreme funk thrown in. Parliament was pure, unadulterated funk, and fun to boot, as song titles like Chocolate City and Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker) might suggest. Funkadelic's One Nation Under a Groove from 1978 was the group's most commercially successful album but it was 1971's Maggot Brain that remains their finest work. "I told Eddie [Hazel, the guitarist] we was going to do a song that was so sad that people would remember it forever," says Clinton of the 10-minute title track. "I said, 'Let's think about Grace dying'. That was his mother. "And he said, 'Oh man, that's stuffed up'. "He forgot all about it, but when we started playing ... "I took the bass and drums off it and he was playing with such feeling, and I wanted it to be different to anything else out there. And with the six remaining songs I tried to make them as funky as I could, and just rock'n'roll." He struggles to remember the names of the songs on the album, apart from Maggot Brain, and asks me to name some of the songs. Then he starts rattling off Super Stupid, Hit It and Quit It. What about Can You Get To That? "We haven't played that one in a while. I'm writing that one down. We comin' to funk you up Downunder." The Parliament Funkadelic band still has some of the "old heads" like Worrell, Blackbird McKnight and Michael Hampton playing. "There's a few new ones too but it still maintains all the essence of the years we've been together - there's about 25 of us. "It's still going through a metamorphosis, it's always changing. "But it's a good job. When all else has failed, it's a real good job." *Key albums: Funkadelic - Maggot Brain (1971), Parliament - Mothership Connection (1976), Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove (1978), George Clinton - Computer Games (1982)

Robbie Williams tops funeral charts 11 March 2005 LONDON: Robbie Williams has topped the UK funeral music chart, leaving Mozart trailing in his wake, according to a survey. Williams' Angels was the record most Britons would like played at their funeral, with Mozart's Requiem coming in at five in digital broadcaster Music Choice's poll of top 10 funeral songs released on Thursday. Frank Sinatra's My Way was second, just ahead of Monty Python's Always Look on the Bright Side of Life. The rest of Europe favoured a more soft rock approach. Queen's The Show Must Go On topped the European chart, with Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven and AC/DC's Highway to Hell in second and third place. Over 45,000 music fans from across Europe were polled, with 20,000 Britons taking part.

Hunter 'wants half' Rod's $180m fortune 23 March 2005 New Zealand model Rachel Hunter reportedly plans to sue estranged husband Rod Stewart for 35 million pounds ($NZ91 million), estimated to be half his personal fortune. The Sun says Hunter "flew into a rage" when reading in that London tabloid that Stewart was engaged to marry Penny Lancaster. Hunter, 35, and 60-year-old singer Stewart have two children from their nine-year marriage which ended when she left him in 1999. They are understood to be in the final stages of their divorce, but The Sun reports a friend of Hunter saying she was "upset and humiliated" when she found out about Stewart's marriage plans. "She is now determined to make things difficult for Rod over the divorce," Hunter's unnamed friend said. Read on....... http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3227671a1860,00.html

BP confirms Texas refinery blast deaths 24 March 2005 TEXAS CITY: A massive explosion has rocked BP's huge refining complex in Texas, causing multiple deaths and extensive damage in the second major accident in a year at the nation's third largest refinery. BP confirmed that the blast had caused deaths but could not say how many had been killed. News reports said at least four people died. The blast shook buildings and broke windows miles away and sent a huge plume of black smoke billowing into the sky near the city of Galveston. The explosion took place on the western side of the sprawling 1200-acre complex at about 1.20pm (7.20am NZT) in one of the units used to make high-grade fuels. Company officials said the cause was not immediately known. Television reports showed workers carrying out the injured on stretchers amid piles of twisted metal and rubble. Extreme heat from the fire caused several cars and trucks parked on the site to explode. "It shook everything," Rose Martin, who works near the refinery, told a local television station. "As soon as I walked out the door (to see it), it was nothing but fire and black smoke." A BP spokesman confirmed there were fatalities but said he did not know how many. Another BP spokesman, Hugh Depland, told Reuters there had been "multiple injuries." Read more...... http://stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3227739a12,00.html

a very clever excuse to get shitfaced from what i can see.....i must remember that one... " And then — you know how, sometimes when you're bored, you look up and imagine what it would be like if gravity turned upside down and you got to walk around on the ceiling? " .....yep...that happens to me all the time... :bigsmile:

great to hear you`re coming through things mate...my wife collette is driving her father to hospital as we speak for roughly the same reasons....he has had a couple of recent diagnoses that indicate that stomach cancer could be a real concern........i don`t know where they put the camera for that but he`s very nervous (just retired at 64)..and i`m just waiting to hear back from my other half......did they give you any good drugs?? :bigsmile:

no worries accepting that responsibility mate.......it`ll be an honour.....we`ll be able to compare sad social security stories in a few years as they keep moving the goalposts on us....you become eligible for an old age pension at 65 here...doubt i`ll see it... :bigsmile:

not sure shawn..i usually uninstall and just download the extensions again.....for instance the current adblock extension isn`t compatible with this one at the moment...a bit of a pain..there is this........ Mozilla Backup 1.4 Publisher's Description: Mozilla Backup is a utility for creating backup of Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, and Netscape profiles. It allows you to backup mail, favorites, contacts, etc or this.... :) " The best way to backup is to just go in application data and locate the main mozilla, firefox, or thunderbird folder and just copy them to someplace else. this will backup EVERY aspect of the programs. Bookmarks, plugins, toolbar layouts, email settings, saved local email. all of it. I just go in there once a week and make a rar file of those folders and store them on my second hard drive someplace. To restore you just copy em back into application data. "

very pleasant....... listened to 3 samples..a little on the light side for me...... :)

that looks interesting...wifey definitely isn`t a morning person... :evil:

worser and worser.......gosh i just love living in the 19th century don`t you??

Mozilla Firefox for Windows 1.0.2 Publisher's Description: Mozilla Firefox project (formerly Firebird, which was formerly Phoenix) is a redesign of Mozilla's browser component, written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform. It includes a popup blocker, tabbed browsing, a smarter search, hassle free downloading, and improved privacy and security. Mozilla Firefox has the following other editions available: Mozilla Firefox for Linux and Mozilla Firefox for Mac OS X. Latest Changes: * Security fixes * Stability improvement http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Mozil...ws/1032985422/1 i hope that the security situation on this model has been improved......there`s been a few security flaws and bugs lately..firefox is always the one that i have the most trouble with on this site....... :)

nicely cleaned up thread..obviously professionals on the job...in sicness and in health eh?...

lyrics are perhaps more important for some styles of music than for others....if i want a message with my music then i`ll probably be listening to something in which the lyrics and the message (and the vocals) or subject matter play a much more pivotal role in the structure and writing of the song in question...say bob dylans highway 61 revisited, or someone like richie havens singing antiwar songs (just an example) or say steel pulse for a political or cultural message..if that`s what i want at the time.....if i simply want to hear some good loud driving sound then i`ll probably be listening to steve vai or pantera or status quo or rory gallagher or any other really good lead guitarist or instrumentalist......frank zappa is an exception though....... hearing his lyrics and his message was certainly as important as hearing his guitar playing..... :)

i`ll have a listen to something of theirs... :) ......

my goodness yes..... :)

sorry to hear that koop..i hope all goes well for you...my main thoughts as i turn 55 this year are to make it to 60 in more or less one piece.....i mean what else can you do when you suddenly realise that you`ve lived more years of your life than you`ve probably got left??..... :) a good diet, plenty of greens, heaps of bandwidth, your family around you, nice surroundings, and no booze........ :bigsmile:

A Question of Numbers THE CONSERVATIVE NEW DEAL In 1938, the Social Security Act was only three years old, but its future was already very much in doubt. Conservatives claimed it would bankrupt the nation, and independent critics argued that the way it was financed amounted to ''financial hocus-pocus,'' as one editorial in The New York Times put it. President Franklin D. Roosevelt defended the program, said by a cabinet member to be his favorite, with some of his trademark oratory. ''Because it has become increasingly difficult for individuals to build their own security,'' the president told a national radio audience, ''government must now step in and help them lay the foundation stones.'' Social Security did become the cornerstone -- not only the biggest government entitlement plan but also the most universal, the most popular and the most enduring. But the debate over Social Security never ended. Barry Goldwater wanted to repeal it; Milton Friedman wrote in 1962 that it was an unjustifiable incursion on personal liberty; and David Stockman, the budget director who personified Ronald Reagan's efforts to shrink the federal government, tried to take a hatchet to Social Security, which he called a ''monster.'' But in this 70-year struggle, no other conservative has ever come as close to transforming the program as George W. Bush. He is making Social Security reform, including a partial privatization, a centerpiece of his second term. If the most ardent ideologues have their way, such a reform would be a first step toward a wholly new approach to retirement security -- one that would set aside the notion of collective insurance and guaranteed minimums for that of personal investing and responsibility. This could do more to reverse the New Deal, and even the Great Society, than Goldwater, Stockman and Reagan ever dreamed of. ''We call it a conservative New Deal,'' says Stephen Moore, author of ''Bullish on Bush: How George W. Bush's Ownership Society Will Make America Stronger.'' In Moore's words, it will be a fundamental shift ''from an entitlement society to an ownership society.'' The key to this transformation, according to a generation of conservative thinkers and crusaders, is reducing the size and changing the nature of Social Security, which now pays benefits of half a trillion a year, and which will only grow bigger as America grows older. The campaign to privatize has not only been about ideology; it has also focused on Social Security's supposed insolvency. Moore's book calls Social Security a ''Titanic . . . headed toward the iceberg'' and a program ''on the verge of collapse.'' A stream of other conservatives have bombarded the public, over years and decades, with prophecies of trillion-dollar liabilities and with metaphors intended to frighten -- ''train wreck,'' ''bankruptcy,'' ''cancer'' and so forth. Recently, a White House political deputy wrote a strategy note in which he said that Social Security is ''on an unsustainable course. That reality needs to be seared into the public consciousness.'' The campaign is potentially self-fulfilling: persuade enough people that Social Security is going bankrupt, and it will lose public support. Then Congress will be forced to act. And thanks to such unceasing alarums, many, and perhaps most, people today think the program is in serious financial trouble. But is it? Read on......... http://www.dfnyc.org/cms/node/85749

Norah and all that jazz 23.03.05 The most powerful man in jazz sits in his office six floors above Fifth Ave, New York. He's smiling. Business is good. Bruce Lundvall - who began his career at Columbia Records with a hip young Miles Davis - has been heading the famous Blue Note jazz label for 20 years. And business is getting better. Why? In a word, Norah. Founded by Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff in the late 1940s, Blue Note, the most recognised jazz label in the world, set a standard for recording quality (with producer Rudi Van Gelder) and albums in eye-catching cover art, thanks to designer Reid Miles. By the mid-50s, Blue Note albums were already iconic. The extensive catalogue included some of jazz's greatest albums and most creative players. Then it withered away. When Lion retired in 1967 the company stumbled and by the late 70s the once-proud label was moribund. But when Lundvall took over with the brief of resurrecting it and starting a parallel pop label, Manhattan, things picked up at a pace. Today Blue Note is the market leader in jazz again. Universal offers small competition with its Verve label, but at Sony - formerly Columbia where Lundvall cut his teeth in 1960 and left 22 years later as president - they have all but abandoned jazz. Warners have pushed their few remaining artists on to the Nonesuch imprint, and RCA has a reissue label, Bluebird. That makes Blue Note the biggest, and Lundvall the kingpin. Outside his office is a wall-filling photo of the label's star and money-spinner: Norah Jones. But in Lundvall's crisply efficient and surprisingly small office are paintings and photographs of those artists with whom he has worked and called friends, Miles Davis among them. Lundvall is immaculately groomed, dapper and comfortably chatty. He jokes about the late Art Blakey - who complained about the new generation, "they don't drink, they don't smoke, they just go home and ring their momma" - and enjoys telling how he signed Wynton Marsalis to CBS and has now signed him again at Blue Note. Lundvall knows this music intimately and genuinely cares. He's been in it for the long haul - and that's where he sees problems when discussing the industry today. "There is too much focus on non-career artists, too much flavour of the minute, too much focus on things that don't have musical substance, and on artists who don't have the potential of being career artists and building a catalogue. "When I was at CBS I could look across our rosters from Johnny Mathis signed in 1955, to Dylan to Springsteen, to Barbra Streisand signed in 63, to Earth, Wind and Fire to Chicago ... "In each area of music - in jazz Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Weather Report, Return to Forever - these were the definitive artists. In country we had Willie Nelson. Sure we had one-off hits and novelties, but the focus was on artists of substance, it didn't matter what field. "I don't see so much of that today. It takes a long time to build those rosters but once you do the legacy you can draw upon with catalogue is amazing. At Blue Note we have the legacy of Alfred Lion." Lundvall knows the value of back-catalogue. Half Blue Note's turnover comes from reissues, and when he spent two years between Sony and Blue Note as president at Elektra - where he started the Elektra-Musician jazz label - he undertook an extensive reissue programme from their vaults. Because of that his arrival at Blue Note wasn't greeted with universal approval in jazz. Some felt he had an ear on the past, but no track record of signing new artists. Within a few years he was proving his critics wrong, although he admits some of it was luck. He'd signed singer Bobby McFerrin to Elektra-Musician and picked him up for Blue Note. Immediately McFerrin delivered that irritating but hugely successful single Don't Worry Be Happy for their Manhattan imprint. Where Blue Note under Lion was a label for instrumentalists, Lundvall looked to vocalists, signing Dianne Reeves in 1987. Then he got Cassandra Wilson who - like Kurt Elling and Norah Jones in different ways - has redefined how people perceive jazz. She also sold records. The label also got lucky with the first US3 album Hand on the Torch in 1993 (remixes of classic Blue Note tracks), and the first St Germain album Tourist. Each took jazz to new, young audiences frequenting dance clubs and chillout rooms, not traditional jazz venues. The label's biggest success - 18 million copies of her debut Come Away With Me sold worldwide, around 10 million so far of the follow-up Feels Like Home - is the attractive young woman whose poster dominates the lobby: Norah Jones. "She was signed as a jazz artist then decided what she wanted to do on the record," he laughs, admitting he was stunned by sales on Come Away With Me. He'd heard a three-song demo and watched her play a set of dozens of jazz standards and pop tunes, and knew she was special. He signed her then allowed her - with producer Arif Mardin, a 73-year-old industry veteran - to make the album she wanted. "Some people say she's not really a jazz artist, but she is. "She swings, and one day she may make an album of standards." Again he admits to some luck. EMI, Blue Note's parent company, had an annual convention in Rome. "I played the demo by Norah and showed one slide of her at the end. The place went into a standing ovation - for a demo - and people wanted to know who she was. It might have been the contrast between all the rock'n'roll and rap ... but people wanted a copy. "Our chairman made a wrap-up speech in which he said we'd heard a lot of great music that week but his favourite was Norah Jones. That sent a clear signal to the company." Jones has been under-marketed at her request. She could play on her looks but doesn't - the media works with a handful of supplied photos - and she asked Lundvall to stop promoting her debut album when sales started to spiral skywards. "She is quite shy and doesn't want to be marketed like a commodity, she wants a long-term career. But you couldn't stop it. The second album spent six weeks in a row at number one in the States. "I can't expect it to sell like the first album, how could anything? But it's still selling. "The real question will be the third album."

Home >> World News Women can't lead men in Islamic prayer, says cleric 23.03.05 1.00pm CAIRO - It is wrong for a woman to lead an Islamic prayer service that includes both men and women, Egypt's highest Islamic law authority said on Tuesday, days after a woman led Islamic prayers in the United States. The office of Egypt's chief interpreter of Islamic law announced its position in a statement in response to the actions of Amina Wadud, who led men and women in an Islamic prayer service in New York on Friday, officials told Reuters. "As for the call to prayer by a woman, giving the Friday sermon or leading the Friday prayer ... it is not allowed," the office of Ali Gomaa, The Grand Mufti of Egypt, said in the statement. Read on.......... http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10116796

that`s a good one... :)

CD review: The Massacre - 50 Cent 16 March 2005 Marylin Manson had it sussed. Eminem did too. And it appears 50 Cent has also worked it out: Controversy sells records. The bigger the headlines, the bigger the album sales. That's why 50 Cent's recent "beef" with protege and former G-Unit member The Game appears a little too contrived. Both have new albums out, and - following a war of words and weapons that lasted all of two weeks - both broke sales records. The rappers have since made up. So 50 Cent is a master businessman, of that there is no doubt. He is also a talented rapper: His hooks are catchier than Nelly, his rhymes flow better than XZibit and he plays the role of the lovable thug better than anyone. Some of the best hip-pop you'll hear this year is on The Massacre, 50's second album and the follow-up to his multi-million selling debut Get Rich Or Die Tryin'. From the sickly sweet sexual innuendo of Candy Shop to the Middle-Eastern influenced floor-fillers Disco Inferno and Just A Lil Bit, 50 crafts ridiculously catchy songs that won't leave your head for days. But the problem with The Massacre is 50's arrogance. At 22 tracks and 76 minutes, there is far too much filler. Gatman, a rehash of the Batman theme featuring Eminem, is just plain silly, while on Get In My Car 50 comes across like a seedy old man. And on Piggy Bank, 50 repeatedly mumbles the line "Clikkety clank, clikkety clank, the money goes into my piggy bank," making it plainly obvious that he is only here to make as much money as possible. One critic summed The Massacre up by saying 50 got rich and stopped trying. Sadly, he may be right. The Massacre is out know through Universal

" Over 46 million dogs have suffered genital mutilation in the US ".......that`s not because they`ve been wearing meat flavoured condoms is it????