Ah, the sitar. I absolutely love this instrument, and very much want to own and learn how to play one. Here’s one of my favorite sitar players, Anoushka Shankar, playing “Lasya”.
Enjoy!
No one is safe from being sued.
From Variety…
Twitter has sued the Trump administration over attempts of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to unmask the identity of users behind an account critical of the government. The account in question, @ALT_USCIS, is one of several alt-government accounts which were launched after the new administration took office and proceeded to silence some official Twitter government accounts.
The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of California, alleges that the DHS tried to use a “limited-purpose investigatory tool” to find out who is behind the account in question, which has been critical of the immigration policy of the current administration. “The rights of free speech afforded to Twitter’s users and Twitter itself under the U.S. Constitution include a right to disseminate such anonymous or pseudonymous free speech,” the lawsuit argues.
The lawsuit goes on to argue that many of these alt-government accounts, including @ALT_USCIS claim to be run by government workers, in this case employees of the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services. These users have taken to Twitter to voice their dissent with official government policies.
Remember yesterday, when I pointed out that Jeff Sessions wants to make it even easier for the US police to enforce Patriarchal White Supremacy, and part of that was a 90-day delay on the hearing about how racist the Baltimore PD is?
Well… guess what?
A federal judge refused Wednesday to delay a hearing on a proposed agreement to overhaul the Baltimore Police Department, calling the Trump administration’s request a “burden and inconvenience.”
The Justice Department asked for a delay earlier this week, saying it needed time to review the plan and determine whether the proposal would hinder efforts to fight violent crime. U.S. District Judge James Bredar said the hearing would go on as scheduled Thursday.
Hundreds of people are expected to testify about the court-enforceable agreement and special security measures have been put into place, the judge said.
Pushing back the hearing at the last minute would be a “burden and inconvenience to the court, other parties, and most importantly, the public,” the judge said.
I have good news and bad news.
Let’s go with the good news, first…
Stephen Bannon has been taken off the National Security Council.
President Donald Trump reorganized his National Security Council on Wednesday, removing chief strategist Stephen Bannon from a key committee and restoring the roles of top intelligence and defense officials, according to a person familiar with the decision and a notice published in the Federal Register.
The realignment increases the influence of National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, whose public stances were sometimes at odds with those of Bannon. In addition to gaining greater control over the NSC, McMaster will have the Homeland Security Council under his authority.
The change downgrades the role of Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert, who had been given authority to convene or chair the NSC’s principals committee under Trump’s original structure. He’ll serve those roles now as delegated by McMaster, according to a presidential memorandum dated Tuesday.
The police are already the enforcement force of Patriarchal White Supremacy. Jeff Sessions, of course, apparently wants to just let them go with it…
From the New York Times…
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered a sweeping review of federal agreements with dozens of law enforcement agencies, an examination that reflects President Trump’s emphasis on law and order and could lead to a retreat on consent decrees with troubled police departments nationwide.
In a memorandum dated March 31 and made public Monday, the attorney general directed his staff to look at whether law enforcement programs adhere to principles put forth by the Trump administration, including one declaring that “the individual misdeeds of bad actors should not impugn” the work police officers perform “in keeping American communities safe.”
Yet another really cool Astronomy discovery, this one announced back on March 23rd…
Composite ALMA and optical image of a young Milky Way-like galaxy 12 billion light-years away and a background quasar 12.5 billion light-years away. Light from the quasar passed through the galaxy’s gas on its way to Earth, revealing the presence of the galaxy to astronomers. New ALMA observations of the galaxy’s ionized carbon (green) and dust continuum (blue) emission show that the dusty, star-forming disk of the galaxy is vastly offset from the gas detected by quasar absorption at optical wavelengths (red). This indicates that a massive halo of gas surrounds the galaxy. The optical data are from the Keck I Telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory. Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), M. Neeleman & J. Xavier Prochaska; Keck Observatory
This is gross. Honestly gross. It’s tone-deaf, it appropriates #BlackLivesMatter, the Women’s March, and so on. And it suggests something really fucking disgusting…
All you need to solve police brutality is…
I entirely forgot about these.
This is really fascinating. Turns out I do have three songs recorded. Two are covers, and one is an unfinished original. I’m trying to remember the context. I know I recorded them back in 2006 (holy shit… I wasn’t even 21, yet!), but that’s about it.
The last one, the original, is what fascinates me the most. I managed to find two different versions of lyrics I wrote for it, neither I identify with now (and will not be sharing, because they’re both terrible). But I’ll get more into that with the track.
I’ve been asked in the past when people were gonna hear me sing and play guitar. Well… here you go. They’re from 2006, so it’s been a long time since I put these down, but this is what I actually have recorded…
I am a paying member of TWiBNation. This is one of the reasons why…
(Quick commenting note: there will be ZERO political discussion, here. If you have a problem with the way they talked about Bernie Sanders, that’s fine. But this is not the post for that.
Period.)