Sharisk

Cool sound from Alt J

2017-07-03T04:28:00.000-07:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVeMiVU77wo

Flash fiction by Thatscribblerat

2017-07-03T04:19:00.003-07:00

Nicely written flash fiction by a friend of mine.

https://thatscribblerat.wordpress.com/2017/07/02/flashfiction-ff1-360-words/

Artic Monkeys, new found old band. Beautiful lyrics, awesome music.

2017-05-28T23:24:00.001-07:00

Nepal

2014-10-16T03:06:00.000-07:00

8 Totally Weird Facts about Nepal

By WinterWolf Oct 13, 2014 Edited Oct 15, 2014 0 2

You might have probably heard this for over a hundred times that Nepal is the country of Mount Everest, and it is the roof of the world, it is in the lap of Himalayas... and hundreds of what nots! But those are the real and normalfacts about Nepal, but have you heard what's unique, interesting and weird about this beautiful country?

Let's get started with number 1 weird fact!

1. Everyone lives without electricity for half a day!

The demand of electricity is so much more than the production that the people of Nepal are forced to live without power for as much as 16 hours per day during the peak season. The country largely depends on hydroelectricity as the only source of power. When the water level falls during the winter season, the generation is less than fifty percent of what was being produced during summer and the monsoon. To add more insult to the injury, winter is the time when the power demand surges due to heating requirements.

Currently, the "load shedding" is 8.28 hours per day on average. The Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), that regulates the distribution of electricity in the developing country of Nepal, revises the schedule on a semi-regular basis.

You're buying this fact, right? Because, yes - it IS a fact. No matter how rich or poor you are, you are only supplied current at designated times. Unless you have your own means of generating power (diesel generator, solar, wind), you are in darkness! It might be until late 2016[1] that this problem will be solved when Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Project comes into operation.

2. Nepal has over 6000 lakes and fresh water rivers, but...

...but water supply is a joke! People will literally kill to have drinking water. Not weird enough? What if I tell you that the problem of water supply is more widespread in the most developed cities like the capital Kathmandu? The demand of water in Kathmandu valley is 350 million liters while the supply is less than 180 million liters.

On average, water is supplied through the installed pipelines for only 4 days in a week (on average) and for just 2.4 hours on those designated days.[2] It is common to find people using reserve tanks to store water for the perilous times. We have a 8,000 liters reserve underground tank which is enough for my family of five for a full month.

Attached below is a video that shows the burden Nepali women have to bear for fetching water.

3. Nepal is a top tourist destination, but Nepal Airlines doesn't have planes!

Despite being a popular tourist place, Nepal does not have enough of its own national aircrafts. The national carrier, Nepal Airlines, only has 2 long haul airplanes which are more than 30 years old. These two Boeing 757-200 aircrafts only serve Asian countries and on peak tourist routes like Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Doha. However, Nepal Airlines does have over 95% punctuality on its flights.[3]

Airlines from other countries do connect Nepal, but the lack of a national carrier has led to significant expensive airfare for tourists visiting Nepal. Nepal is still not directly connected to the United States, Africa, Australia, South America and the western Europe. The farthest connection from Kathmandu on the east is Seoul (South Korea) and on the west is Istanbul (Turkey).

How far can you fly from Kathmandu?

Seoul and Istanbul

Map

Satellite

Get Directions
Kathmandu, Nepal

Get Directions
Seoul, South Korea

Get Directions
Istanbul, Turkey

4. No hugging, no kissing, no PDA... nah uh!

Hugging each other is okay (but still strange). But publicly kissing and activities of public display of affection is not only frowned upon, but will land you in police custody. Even Valentine's Day is not an excuse!

Nepal is still a developing country, not just from the point of view of infrastructure and luxuries. People are traditional and conservative, with over 80% following the ancient religion of Hinduism. Don't get us wrong - we watch Hollywood movies with PDA (and not-so-PDA) scenes and we are okay with it. But we're quite not in the place where we're okay with seeing a couple kiss in public.

5. Nepalese have ONE traditional food

And the day gets weird if we skip it. The food is dal-bhat-tarkari, which means dal (lentils), rice (bhat) and a vegetable (tarkari). I have never met a Nepali family that doesn't consume dal-bhat-tarkari without missing a day. Some families never miss a meal too and they have it two times daily as lunch and dinner.

Nepalese generally eat vegetable curry like Gundruk, but it can be any veggie or even meat curry and gravy. Mustard greens, leafy greens like spinach, kale, gardencress and cauliflower is more common than any other vegetable, with radish pickle and tomato chutney (sauce) on the side.

6. Nepal is only slightly larger than Alabama and Arkansas.

But it is much smaller than Georgia and Florida. However, almost 13,225 people live in a tightly packed square kilometer in the metropolitan city of Kathmandu. What's interesting is that in a western district Manang, only 4 people live per square kilometer![4]

This beautiful Manang valley has no roads worth driving!

Despite being a small country, Nepal has much more to offer than several large countries. There are the highest points on earth and also the deepest valleys. There are over 120 Hindu temples in Kathmandu alone and over 300,000 small and big temples, monasteries and stupas. It is the only place in the world where the UNESCO World Heritage Sites are just within 15 km. That's why, Kathmandu is also called the city of temples.

7. Nepal and Portugal are twins!

Portugal

Nepal

If the map of Nepal is turned 90 degrees clockwise, it is literally the same as map of Portugal. This can be a very interesting question in pop quizzes and is asked frequently in general quiz competitions in schools.

8. Nepal is not only the land of Everest, but the land of 8 highest mountains!

Credit: shrimpo1967 on Flickr. With respect to license CC BY-SA 2.0

The Mount Everest, with its sister mountains Lhotse and Nuptse. As seen from a mountain flight to the Himalayas.

Out of the top 10 highest mountains in the entire world, 8 are in Nepal. What's more? All of them are more than 8,000 meters high. The tenth highest mountain in the world is the Annapurna I, which stands 26,545 feet tall.[5]

Lake Tilicho (at 4,919 m) in the Annapurna range, is one of the highest glacial lakes in the world. It is a very popular point in the popular Annapurna Circuit trekking route and also holds the record for one of the highest altitude scuba diving sites[6].

Bibliography

"Salient Features." Upper Tamakoshi Hydropower Limited. 28/09/2014 <Web >
"Summary of Findings - Drinking Water Survey." Central Bureau of Statistics, Nepal. 28/09/2014 <Web >
Nepal Airlines Corporation "Aakash Bhairab - In House Journal." Flight Performance Report for the month of Baisakh and Jestha 2071. 33 17/09/2014.
"District_Profile_Manang." Central Bureau of Statistics. 10/10/2014 <Web >
"List of highest mountains." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 25/September/2014. 11/10/2014 <Web >
Carl Drews "The Highest Lake in the World." The Highest Lake. 11/10/2014 <Web >

basanta - Nabin Gurung .. A Beautiful song

2013-11-25T05:56:00.003-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBhZCx_EUwI

Nepal Demographics Profile 2011

2011-10-24T04:53:00.000-07:00

Nepal Demographics Profile 2011

Population

29,391,883 (July 2011 est.)

Age structure

0-14 years: 34.6% (male 5,177,264/female 4,983,864)
15-64 years: 61.1% (male 8,607,338/female 9,344,537)
65 years and over: 4.4% (male 597,628/female 681,252) (2011 est.)

Median age

total: 21.6 years
male: 20.7 years
female: 22.5 years (2011 est.)

Population growth rate

1.596% (2011 est.)

Birth rate

22.17 births/1,000 population (2011 est.)

Death rate

6.81 deaths/1,000 population (July 2011 est.)

Net migration rate

0.61 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2011 est.)

Urbanization

urban population: 19% of total population (2010)
rate of urbanization: 4.7% annual rate of change (2010-15 est.)

Sex ratio

at birth: 1.04 male(s)/female
under 15 years: 1.04 male(s)/female
15-64 years: 0.92 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.88 male(s)/female
total population: 0.96 male(s)/female (2011 est.)

Infant mortality rate

total: 44.54 deaths/1,000 live births
male: 44.54 deaths/1,000 live births
female: 44.55 deaths/1,000 live births (2011 est.)

Life expectancy at birth

total population: 66.16 years
male: 64.94 years
female: 67.44 years (2011 est.)

Total fertility rate

2.47 children born/woman (2011 est.)

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate

0.4% (2009 est.)

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS

64,000 (2009 est.)

HIV/AIDS - deaths

4,700 (2009 est.)

Major infectious diseases

degree of risk: high
food or waterborne diseases: bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever
vectorborne disease: Japanese encephalitis, malaria, and dengue fever (2009)

Nationality

noun: Nepalese (singular and plural)
adjective: Nepalese

Ethnic groups

Chhettri 15.5%, Brahman-Hill 12.5%, Magar 7%, Tharu 6.6%, Tamang 5.5%, Newar 5.4%, Muslim 4.2%, Kami 3.9%, Yadav 3.9%, other 32.7%, unspecified 2.8% (2001 census)

Religions

Hindu 80.6%, Buddhist 10.7%, Muslim 4.2%, Kirant 3.6%, other 0.9% (2001 census)

Languages

Nepali (official) 47.8%, Maithali 12.1%, Bhojpuri 7.4%, Tharu (Dagaura/Rana) 5.8%, Tamang 5.1%, Newar 3.6%, Magar 3.3%, Awadhi 2.4%, other 10%, unspecified 2.5% (2001 census)
note: many in government and business also speak English (2001 est.)

Literacy

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 48.6%
male: 62.7%
female: 34.9% (2001 census)

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)

total: 9 years
male: 10 years
female: 8 years (2003)

Education expenditures

4.6% of GDP (2009)

Maternal mortality rate

380 deaths/100,000 live births (2008)

Children under the age of 5 years underweight

38.8% (2006)

Health expenditures

5.8% of GDP (2009)

Physicians density

0.21 physicians/1,000 population (2004)

Hospital bed density

5 beds/1,000 population (2006)

Source: CIA World Factbook
Unless otherwise noted, information in this page is accurate as of July 12, 2011

The Night Train to Kathmandu

2011-10-18T06:16:00.000-07:00

Movie Watch linK : http://www.aakarpost.com/2011/04/night-train-to-kathmandu-1988-movie.html

98 min - Adventure | Romance | Fantasy

5.7

Ratings: 5.7/10 from 228 users
Reviews: 13 user

A young girl leaves for Nepal with her parents and brother. She is unhappy to leave her home at first, but soon isn't when she meets a handome young man. The story unfolds into a romantic and daring quest in search of the "Invisible City."

Football Highlights

2010-12-14T02:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.footytube.com/
For All the recent football match-highlights you want to watch online, I suggest this site !!

Naruto photo gallery

2010-12-09T06:28:00.000-08:00

Naruto Wallpapers

Manchester United vs. Valencia December 8 2010

2010-12-09T06:15:00.001-08:00

Manchester United vs. Valencia December 8 2010

Manchester United v Valencia
Uploaded by paScali300. - Check out more sports and extreme sports videos.

Naruto Manga 519

2010-12-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

Naruto Manga 519 Download

PayPal is down, WikiLeak

2010-12-09T03:50:00.000-08:00

PayPal releases WikiLeaks’ funds, caving to pressure from supporters. Now paypal is down!!

UPDATE: As of 12:10am PST on December 9, Paypal.com is widely unreachable according to our own checks and numerous reports on Twitter. We are unsure of the cause for this downtime, but it is very likely that it is under a DDoS attack from WikiLeaks supporters.

In a reversal of course, PayPal has released funds remaining in an account associated withWikiLeaks according to a post on PayPal’s blog.

Last week, a statement from PayPal indicated, the company had suspended the account following claims by the U.S. that the activities of WikiLeaks violated the law. According to the report, PayPal acted of their own volition, without being contacted by any government agency.

Further, the spokesman for PayPal indicated that the company had “permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks due to a violation of the PayPal Acceptable Use Policy, which states that our payment service cannot be used for any activities that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity.”

Now it appears attacks from the supporters of WikiLeaks have caused PayPal to re-think their position.

From the PayPal blog post:

“While the account will remain restricted, PayPal will release all remaining funds in the account to the foundation that was raising funds for WikiLeaks.”

“We understand that PayPal’s decision has become part of a broader story involving political, legal and free speech debates surrounding WikiLeaks’ activities. None of these concerns factored into our decision. Our only consideration was whether or not the account associated with WikiLeaks violated our Acceptable Use Policy and regulations required of us as a global payment company. Our actions in this matter are consistent with any account found to be in violation of our policies”

Release of the funds come after a slew of denial-of-service (DOS) attacks earlier this week aimed at WikiLeaks’ providers. The providers have refused to conduct any business with WikiLeaks after the U.S. government stepped up its pressure on the site, claiming the site’s actions are in violation of U.S. law.

What are your thoughts? Is PayPal right to reverse course and release WikiLeaks’ funds? Do you think WikiLeaks has violated any U.S. laws, and if so, which ones?

Operation Payback by wikileaks

2010-12-08T23:34:00.001-08:00

Operation Payback cripples MasterCard site in revenge for WikiLeaks ban

Hackers attack credit card company and Swedish prosecution authority as 'censorship' row escalates

Operation Payback appears to have orchestrated a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on MasterCard. Photograph: AP

The websites of the international credit card MasterCard and the Swedish prosecution authority are among the latest to be taken offline in the escalating technological battle over WikiLeaks, web censorship and perceived political pressure.

Co-ordinated attacks by online activists who support the site and its founder Julian Assange – who is in UK custody accused of raping two Swedish women – have seen the websites of the alleged victims' Swedish lawyer disabled, while commercial and political targets have also been subject to attack by a loose coalition of global hackers.

The Swedish prosecution authority has confirmed its website was attacked last night and this morning. MasterCard was partially paralysed today in revenge for the payment network's decision to cease taking donations to WikiLeaks.

In an attack referred to as Operation Payback, a group of online activists calling themselves Anonymous appear to have orchestrated a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on the financial site, bringing its service to a halt.

Attempts to access www.mastercard.com have been unsuccessful since shortly after 9.30am.

The site would say only that it was "experiencing heavy traffic on its external corporate website" but insisted this would not interfere with its ability to process transactions.

But one payment service company told the BBC its customers were experiencing "a complete loss of service" on MasterCard SecureCode. The credit card company later confirmed that loss.

MasterCard tonight said in a statement it was "working to restore normal service levels" after "a concentrated effort to flood our corporate web site with traffic and slow access." The company added: "It is important to note that our systems have not been compromised and there is no impact on our cardholders' ability to use their cards for secure transactions globally."

MasterCard announced on Monday that it would no longer process donations to WikiLeaks, which it claimed was engaged in illegal activity.

Visa, Amazon, Swiss bank PostFinance and others have also announced in recent days that they will cease trading with the whistleblowing site.

The moves have led to concerted attempts by hackers to target companies they deem guilty of "censoring" WikiLeaks.

Operation Payback, which has been targeting commercial sites that have cut their ties with WikiLeaks for some days, has also made threats to other organisations including Twitter, which it says is suppressing the site.

"We will fire at anything or anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks, including multibillion-dollar companies such as PayPal," a statement circulating online, apparently from Operation Payback, said.

"Twitter, you're next for censoring #WikiLeaks discussion. The major shitstorm has begun," it added.

Twitter has issued a statement denying it has censored the hashtag, and saying confusion had arisen over its "trending" facility.

Meanwhile it has also emerged that Visa has today ordered DataCell, an IT firm that helps WikiLeaks collect payments, to suspend all of its transactions – even those involving other payees – a day after it cut off all the firm's donations being made to WikiLeaks.

DataCell, a small Icelandic company that facilitates transfers made bycredit cards including Visa and MasterCard, says it will take up "immediate legal actions" and warned that the powerful "duopoly" of Visa and MasterCard could spell "the end of the credit card business worldwide".

Andreas Fink, chief executive of DataCell, said in a statement: "Putting all payments on hold for seven days or more is one thing but rejecting all further attempts to donate is making the donations impossible.

"This does clearly create massive financial losses to WikiLeaks, which seems to be the only purpose of this suspension.

"This is not about the brand of Visa; this is about politics, and Visa should not be involved in this.

"Visa customers are contacting us in masses to confirm that they really donate and they are not happy about Visa rejecting them. It is obvious that Visa is under political pressure to close us down."

Earlier, PayPal, which has also been the subject of technological attack since it suspended payments to WikiLeaks last week, appeared to admit that it had taken the step after an intervention from the US state department.

PayPal's vice-president of platform, Osama Bedier, told an internetconference the site had decided to freeze WikiLeaks' account on 4 December after government representatives said it was engaged in illegal activity. "On November 27th, the state department, the US government basically, wrote a letter saying that the WikiLeaks' activities were deemed illegal in the United States and as a result our policy group had to make the decision of suspending the account," Bedier said. He added: "We ... comply with regulations around the world, making sure that we protect our brand."

His remarks will undoubtedly intensify criticism from supporters of WikiLeaks that the site is being targeted for political reasons.

Operation Payback, which refers to itself as "an anonymous, decentralised movement that fights against censorship and copywrong", and has been linked to the influential internet messageboard 4Chan, argues that such steps "are long strides closer to a world where we cannot say what we think and are unable to express our opinions and ideas".

It added: "We cannot let this happen. This is why our intention is to find out who is responsible for this failed attempt at censorship.

"This is why we intend to utilise our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."

The MasterCard action was confirmed on Twitter at 9.39am by user @Anon_Operation, who later tweeted: "We are glad to tell you that http://www.mastercard.com/ is down and it's confirmed! #ddos #WikiLeaks Operation: Payback (is a bitch!) #PAYBACK"

PostFinance was successfully hacked on Monday after it shut down one of WikiLeaks' key bank accounts, accusing Assange of lying. Its service since has been seriously disrupted.

PayPal has also been targeted a number of times, but while its internal blog was paralysed for more than two hours, the payment processing facility has so far been able to withstand the attacks.

Other cyber attacks were mounted yesterday on EveryDNS.net, which suspended dealings on 3 December, while Amazon, which removed WikiLeaks content from its EC2 cloud on 1 December, may also be a possible target.

According to bloggers monitoring the cyber attacks, those involved in the protests have also been targeting the websites of US senator Joe Lieberman, who is an outspoken critic of WikiLeaks, and Sarah Palin, who said Assange should be treated like a terrorist.

Claes Bergstrom, the lawyer of the two women who claim Assange raped or assaulted them, confirmed his website was shut down overnight, as was the site of a lawyer representing Assange in Sweden. This was the first time such an attack had occurred, he said.

DDoS attacks, which often involve flooding the target site with requests so that it cannot cope with legitimate communication, are illegal.

WiliLeak says twitter is nextt !

2010-12-08T23:34:00.000-08:00

WikiLeaks supporters disrupt Visa and MasterCard sites in 'Operation Payback'

MasterCard and Visa attacked after restricting dealings with WikiLeaks – and hackers say Twitter is next

Supporters of Julian Assange in London. WikiLeaks supporters Anonymous have launched a campaign of online attacks against perceived enemies. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

It is, according to one breathless blogger, "the first great cyber war", or as those behind it put it more prosaically: "The major shitstorm has begun."

The technological and commercial skirmishes over WikiLeaks escalated into a full-blown online assault yesterday when, in a serious breach of internet security, a concerted online attack by activist supporters of WikiLeaks succeeded in disrupting MasterCard and Visa.

The acts were explicitly in "revenge" for the credit card companies' recent decisions to freeze all payments to the site, blaming illegal activity. Though it initially would acknowledge no more than "heavy traffic on its external corporate website", MasterCard was forced to admit last night that it had experienced "a service disruption to the MasterCard directory server", which banking sources said meant disruption throughout its global business.

Later, Visa's website was also inaccessible. A spokeswoman for Visa said the site was "experiencing heavier than normal traffic" and repeated attempts to load the Visa.com site was met without success.

MasterCard said its systems had not been compromised by the "concentrated effort" to flood its corporate website with "traffic and slow access". "We are working to restore normal service levels," it said in a statement. "There is no impact on our cardholders' ability to use their cards for secure transactions globally."

In an attack referred to as Operation Payback, a group of online activists calling themselves Anonymous said they had orchestrated a DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack on the site, and issued threats against other businesses which have restricted WikiLeaks' dealings.

Also targeted in a dramatic day of internet activity was the website of the Swedish prosecution authority, which is currently seeking to extradite the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, on sex assault charges, and that of the Stockholm lawyer who represents them. The sites of the US senator Joe Lieberman and the former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, both vocal critics of Assange, were also attacked and disrupted, according to observers. Palin last night told ABC news that her site had been hacked. "No wonder others are keeping silent about Assange's antics," Palin emailed ABC. "This is what happens when you exercise the First Amendment and speak against his sick, un-American espionage efforts."

An online statement from activists said: "We will fire at anything or anyone that tries to censor WikiLeaks, including multibillion-dollar companies such as PayPal … Twitter, you're next for censoring #WikiLeaks discussion. The major shitstorm has begun." Twitter has denied censoring the hashtag, saying confusion had arisen over its "trending" facility.

A Twitter account linked to the activists was later suspended after it claimed to have leaked credit card details online.

Though DDoS attacks are not uncommon by groups of motivated activists, the scale and intensity of the online assault, and the powerful commercial and political critics of WikiLeaks ranged in opposition to the hackers, make this a high-stakes enterprise that could lead to uncharted territory in the internet age.

A spokesman for the group, a 22-year-old from London who called himself Coldblood, told the Guardian it was acting for the "chaotic good" in defence of internet freedom of speech. It has been distributing software tools to allow anyone with a computer and an internet connection to join in the attacks.

The group has already succeeded this week in bringing down the site of the Swiss bank PostFinance, which was successfully attacked on Monday after it shut down one of WikiLeaks' key bank accounts, accusing Assange of lying. A PostFinance spokesman, Alex Josty, told Associated Press the website had buckled under a barrage of traffic. "It was very, very difficult, then things improved overnight, but it's still not entirely back to normal."

Other possible targets include Amazon, which removed WikiLeaks' content from its EC2 cloud on 1 December, and EveryDNS.net, which suspended dealings with the site two days later. PayPal has also been the subject of a number of DDoS attacks – which often involve flooding the target site with requests so that it cannot cope with legitimate communication – since it suspended all payments to WikiLeaks last week.

A PayPal spokesman told the Guardian that while a site called ThePayPalBlog.com had been successfully silenced for a few hours, attempts to crash its online payment facilities had been unsuccessful.

The site suggested today its decision to freeze payments had been taken after it became aware of the US state department's letter saying WikiLeaks's activities were deemed illegal in the US.

Tonight PayPal said that it was releasing the money held in the WikiLeaks account, although it said the account remains restricted to new payments.

A statement from PayPal's general counsel, John Muller, sought to "set the record straight". He said that the company was required to comply with laws around the world and that the WikiLeaks account was reviewed after "the US department of state publicised a letter to WikiLeaks on November 27, stating that WikiLeaks may be in possession of documents that were provided in violation of US law. PayPal was not contacted by any government organisation in the US or abroad. We restricted the account based on our Acceptable Use Policy review. Ultimately, our difficult decision was based on a belief that the WikiLeaks website was encouraging sources to release classified material, which is likely a violation of law by the source.

"While the account will remain restricted, PayPal will release all remaining funds in the account to the foundation that was raising funds for WikiLeaks. We understand that PayPal's decision has become part of a broader story involving political, legal and free speech debates surrounding WikiLeaks' activities. None of these concerns factored into our decision. Our only consideration was whether or not the account associated with WikiLeaks violated our Acceptable Use Policy and regulations required of us as a global payment company. Our actions in this matter are consistent with any account found to be in violation of our policies."

PayPal did not explain how WikiLeaks violated this policy in their statement and requests for further information went unanswered.

There have been accusations that WikiLeaks is being targeted for political reasons, a criticism repeated yesterday after it emerged that Visa had forced a small IT firm which facilitates transfers made by credit cards including Visa and MasterCard, and has processed payments to WikiLeaks, to suspend all of its transactions – even those involving other payees. Visa had already cut off all donations being made through the firm to WikiLeaks.

DataCell, based in Iceland, said it would take "immediate legal action" and warned that the powerful "duopoly" of Visa and MasterCard could spell "the end of the credit card business worldwide". Andreas Fink, its chief executive, said: "Putting all payments on hold for seven days or more is one thing, but rejecting all further attempts to donate is making the donations impossible.

"This does clearly create massive financial losses to WikiLeaks, which seems to be the only purpose of this suspension. This is not about the brand of Visa, this is about politics and Visa should not be involved in this … It is obvious that Visa is under political pressure to close us down."

Operation Payback, which refers to itself "an anonymous, decentralised movement that fights against censorship and copywrong", argues that the actions taken by Visa, MasterCard and others "are long strides closer to a world where we cannot say what we think and are unable to express our opinions and ideas. We cannot let this happen. This is why our intention is to find out who is responsible for this failed attempt at censorship. This is why we intend to utilise our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."

The group, Coldblood said, is about 1,000-strong. While most of its members are teenagers who are "trying to make an impact on what happens with the limited knowledge they have", others include parents and IT professionals, he said.

Anonymous was born out of the influential internet messageboard 4chan in 2003, a forum popular with hackers and gamers. The group's name is a tribute to 4chan's early days, when any posting to its forums where no name was given was ascribed to "Anonymous".

But the ephemeral group, which picks up causes "whenever it feels like it", has now "gone beyond 4chan into something bigger", its spokesman said. There is no real command structure; membership of the group has been described as being "like a flock of birds" – the only way you can identify members is by what they are doing together. Essentially, once enough people on the 4chan message boards decide some cause is worth pursuing in large enough numbers, it becomes an "Anonymous" cause.

"We're against corporations and government interfering on the internet," Coldblood said. "We believe it should be open and free for everyone. Governments shouldn't try to censor because they don't agree with it.Anonymous is supporting WikiLeaks not because we agree or disagree with the data that is being sent out, but we disagree with any from of censorship on the internet."

Last night WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson said: "Anonymous ... is not affiliated with WikiLeaks. There has been no contact between any WikiLeaks staffer and anyone at Anonymous. We neither condemn nor applaud these attacks. We believe they are a reflection of public opinion on the actions of the targets."

Korean Movies photo gallery

2010-12-07T04:53:00.000-08:00

korean movie gallery pictures

WikiLeaks Wont Die !!

2010-12-07T00:45:00.000-08:00

What about shutting down WikiLeaks? Easier said than done, as it turns out...

News.com.au graphic showing number of WikiLeaks "mirror" sites after attempts to shut down the original. Picture: Simon Wright

WHAT have we learned from WikiLeaks? Among other things, that it's really bloody hard to kill a website.

Maybe even impossible.

What looks to be the biggest campaign in history to censor a single website has failed.

After a concerted, multinational effort to shut it down, WikiLeaks is still alive and kicking. In fact, it's kicking even harder than before.

There are now more than 500 websites around the world — called "mirrors" — containing the secret US diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks.

The whistleblower group says the mirrors "will make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the internet".

And you know what? It looks like they're right.

The mirrors were created by members of the internet community in response to a campaign in recent days to shut WikiLeaks down.

It began last Thursday, when the group's US website, wikileaks.org, stopped responding.

Amazon that day confirmed it had stopped hosting the site, after a plea from US Senator Joe Lieberman for organisations to cut ties with the group.

That wasn't too much of a hurdle for WikiLeaks, which signed up with a new hosting company in France.

Tableau Software followed suit shortly afterwards by removing graphs hosted on its servers showing where the secret cables had originated and what they were classified.

Then, on Friday, the company that operated the website name wikileaks.org cut its ties as well – effectively taking the group off the web.

But even that didn't stop WikiLeaks for long.

A few hours later the group had registered a new website name, wikileaks.ch, in Switzerland.

On Saturday, PayPal said it had "permanently restricted the account used by WikiLeaks", blocking financial transfers to the group.

Meanwhile, in France, Industry Minister Eric Besson began fighting to have WikiLeaks banned from the country. The company hosting the site, OVH, referred the matter to the courts.

"We have decided to ask a judge to rule on the legality or not of this site being on French territory," said OVH managing director Octave Klaba.

Before a decision was made, the WikiLeaks website stopped responding yet again. There was speculation that OVH had switched its servers off, but it's not clear what really happened.

The president of the Swiss Pirate Party, which was operating the wikileaks.ch website name, redirected traffic to another server in Sweden to fix the problem.

And it's about here that WikiLeaks decided to fight back.

On Sunday, the group began calling to its followers on Twitter to sign up and "mirror" the website. By Monday morning, there were hundreds of them. Right now, there's 507, all listed on wikileaks.ch.

News.com.au this morning tested a dozen of the mirrors, selected at random, to check they were active. 11 of the 12 were.

As well as the mirrors, the main site at wikileaks.ch is still active. It appears to be running off the server in Sweden, which has stayed online despite attacks.

The attacks made the website unresponsive for a short time overnight, but it seems to have recovered today. It's not clear who is behind the attacks.

If the Swedish server does fall, WikiLeaks is likely to turn to another backup, or may even return to France. So far the courts have not told OVH they are unable to host the site, according to reports.

But while WikiLeaks has won the fight to stay online for the moment, it's sure to face increasing pressure in coming days and weeks.

The whistleblower group has yet to publish the bulk of the diplomatic cables earning it the wrath of governments around the world. At the time of writing, only 913 of the 251,287 cables had been released.

With wires

Top 10 Animated Christmas Specials

2010-12-07T00:40:00.000-08:00

by misspaddylee | last updated - 1 month ago

1.
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965 Short Film)
8.3/10
2.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966 Short Film)
Boris Karloff, Thurl Ravenscroft
8.4/10
3.
A Christmas Carol (1971 Short Film)
Alastair Sim
7.7/10
4.
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964 TV Movie)
Billie Mae Richards, Burl Ives
8.0/10
5.
Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983 Short Film)
7.7/10
6.
Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol (1962 TV Movie)
Jim Backus
7.6/10
7.
The Small One (1978 Short Film)
7.6/10
8.
The Little Drummer Boy (1968 Short Film)
7.2/10
9.
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970 TV Movie)
Fred Astaire, Mickey Rooney
7.8/10
10.
Frosty the Snowman (1969 Short Film)
Jackie Vernon, Billy De Wolfe
7.3/10

US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workers

2010-12-06T05:11:00.000-08:00

US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workers
Employees unable to call up WikiLeaks on government computers as material is still formally classified, says US

WikiLeaks has been blocked from being accessed by federal employees of the US, because the files are still seen as classified. Photograph: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images

The Obama administration is banning hundreds of thousands of federal employees from calling up the WikiLeaks site on government computers because the leaked material is still formally regarded as classified.

The Library of Congress tonight joined the education department, the commerce department and other government agencies in confirming that the ban is in place.

Although thousands of leaked cables are freely available on the Guardian, New York Times and other newspaper websites, as well as the WikiLeaks site, the Obama administration insists they are still classified and, as such, have to be protected.

The move comes at a time when civil rights and other liberal groups are becoming increasingly critical, inviting parallels with the kind of bans on information imposed by China and other oppressive governments.

The Library of Congress, one of the biggest libraries in the world, serving both Congress and the public, and essentially the library of record for the US, issued a statement tonight, which read: "The library decided to block WikiLeaks because applicable law obligates federal agencies to protect classified information. Unauthorised disclosures of classified documents do not alter the documents' classified status or automatically result in declassification of the documents."

Disclosure of the ban brought a flood of criticism from liberal bloggers, critical of the Library of Congress's behaviour.

News of the ban was first reported by the Washington Post.

The commerce department, in an email circulated to employees on Monday, said the WikiLeaks material remained classified and "is NOT authorised for downloading, viewing, printing, processing, copying or transmitting" on government computers or communication devices.

It warned anyone downloading the WikiLeaks material: "Accessing the WikiLeaks documents will lead to sanitisation of your PC to remove any potentially classified information from your system, and the result in possible data loss."

The education department said any employees who had already looked at the material should contact their internet technology department. An internal email said that IT staff "will work with you to remediate your device".

WikiLeaks cables: Barack Obama is a bigger danger

2010-12-06T05:07:00.000-08:00

WikiLeaks cables: Barack Obama is a bigger danger

WikiLeaks harms the US. But the president's refusal to acknowledge the threats we face is a bigger danger

WikiLeaks has yet again flooded the internet with thousands of classified American documents, this time state department cables. More troubling than WikiLeaks' latest revelation of US secrets, however, is the Obama administration's weak, wrong-headed and erratic response. Unfortunately, the administration has acted consistently with its demonstrated unwillingness to assert and defend US interests across a wide range of threats, such as Iran and North Korea, which, ironically, the leaked cables amply document.

On 29 November, secretary of state Hillary Clinton lamented that this third document dump was "not just an attack on United States foreign policy and interests, [but] an attack on the international community". By contrast, on 1 December, the presidential press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said the White House was "not scared of one guy with one keyboard and a laptop". Hours later, a Pentagon spokesman disdained the notion that the military should have prevented the WikiLeaks release: "The determination of those who are charged with such things, the decision was made not to proceed with any sort of aggressive action of that sort in this case."

Clinton is demonstrably incorrect in being preoccupied with defending the "international community", whatever that is. Her inability to understand WikiLeaks' obsession with causing harm to the US is a major reason why the Obama administration has done little or nothing in response – except talk, its usual foreign-policy default position.

At least Clinton saw it as an attack on someone. The White House/defence department view was that the leaks were no big deal. Obama's ideological predecessors welcomed publication of the Pentagon Papers, and suspected subsequent presidencies of nefarious clandestine dealings internationally, capped by Bush administration "intelligence cherry-picking" on Iraq. The prior WikiLeaks releases were largely military information, which made the Pentagon's earlier rhetoric more high-pitched, but the outcome for all three was the same: no response. What does it matter if half a million classified US documents become instantly unclassified and downloadable by friend and foe alike?

This sustained, collective inaction exemplifies the Obama administration's all-too-common attitude towards threats to America's international interests. The president, unlike the long line of his predecessors since Franklin Roosevelt, simply does not put national security at the centre of his political priorities. Thus, Europeans who welcomed Obama to the Oval Office should reflect on his Warren Harding-like interest in foreign policy. Europeans who believe they will never again face real security threats to their comfortable lifestyle should realise that if by chance one occurs during this administration, the president will be otherwise occupied. He will be continuing his efforts to restructure the US economy, and does not wish to be distracted by foreign affairs.

The more appropriate response is to prosecute everyone associated with these leaks to the fullest extent of US law, which the justice department at least appears to be considering. Next, we must stop oscillating between excessive stove-piping of information, as before 9/11, and excessive access, as demonstrated by WikiLeaks. There is no one final answer, but the balance must be under constant analysis. Finally, the Pentagon's cyber-warriors need target practice in this new form of combat, and they could long ago have practised by obliterating WikiLeaks' electrons. Had we acted after the first release in July, there might not have been subsequent leaks, and lives and critical interests would have been protected.

But that was not to be under Obama. His secretary of state does not comprehend that America is the subject of the attack, his department of defence is not interested in defending us, and the president himself seems utterly indifferent to the whole affair.

All of this underscores the real problem. It is not WikiLeaks that ultimately imperils our national security, but the failing Obama administration, which ignores the nature and extent of threats we face, and which is too often unwilling to act to thwart them. While our economic difficulties have dominated the national debate for two years, national security will inevitably again come to the fore, as Americans see the full extent of the devastation left by Obama's policies. That shift cannot come too soon.

WikiLeaks:

2010-12-06T05:02:00.000-08:00

WikiLeaks: Internet backlash follows US pressure against whistleblowing site

Individuals redirecting parts of their own sites to Swedish internet host amid 'censorship'

WikiLeaks: American pressure to dissuade companies in the US from supporting the WikiLeaks website has led to an online backlash. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

American pressure to dissuade companies in the US from supporting theWikiLeaks website has led to an online backlash in which individuals are redirecting parts of their own sites to its Swedish internet host.

Since early on Friday morning, it has been impossible to reach WikiLeaks by typing wikileaks.org into a web browser because everyDNS, which would redirect queries for the string "wikileaks.org" to that machine address, removed its support for Wikileaks, claiming that it had broken its terms of service by being the target of a huge hacker attack. (See What is DNS?)

Without a DNS record, it is only possible to reach WikiLeaks by typing in the string of numbers which, for most web users, is too unmemorable to make it feasible.

That, campaigners say, points to the principal weakness in the internet's pyramidial DNS setup, where a limited number of site registrars can control whether a site is findable by name or not.

Website hosts are being encouraged to add a "/wikileaks" directory into their sites, redirecting to which redirects to http://88.80.13.160/, run by the Swedish hosting company Bahnhof.

At present, that location redirects users to a Wikleaks page athttp://213.251.145.96/, which is run by a French company, but ifpressure from the French government pushes Wikileaks off that host, it will still have the Swedish location.

At the same time, scores of sites "mirroring" WikiLeaks have sprung up – by lunchtime today, the list was 74-strong and contained sites that have the same content as WikiLeaks and – crucially – link to the downloads of its leaks of 250,000 US diplomatic cables.

The backlash has also gained its own tag on the microblogging service Twitter, where people who have linked to the main site are using the hashtag #imwikileaks.

The technical details of how to make a site's subdirectory point directly to the WikiLeaks site are described by Paul Carvill, a British developer, andJamie McClelland.

"I've done this as a simple gesture of my support for WikiLeaks and my opposition to arbitrary censorship of the web by governments and corporations," Carvill says on his page, while McLelland says that adding his support "seems like a good way for us all to really pitch in and share the risk that the folks at WikiLeaks are taking all by themselves".

Superstars!!

2010-12-05T13:24:00.000-08:00

Lee Ming Jung photo gallery

Hot girls' generation

2010-12-05T07:14:00.000-08:00

Hot girls' generation's photo gallery

Jeon Ji Hyon

2010-12-05T06:57:00.000-08:00

Jeon Ji Hyon Photo Gallery !!

AC Milan vs. Brescia Calcio 4th dec

2010-12-05T05:10:00.000-08:00

Osasuna vs. Barcelona 4th dec

2010-12-05T05:03:00.001-08:00

Osasuna v Barcelona
Uploaded by wcphenix. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.

Sharisk

Cool sound from Alt J

Flash fiction by Thatscribblerat

Artic Monkeys, new found old band. Beautiful lyrics, awesome music.

Nepal

8 Totally Weird Facts about Nepal

1. Everyone lives without electricity for half a day!

2. Nepal has over 6000 lakes and fresh water rivers, but...

3. Nepal is a top tourist destination, but Nepal Airlines doesn't have planes!

How far can you fly from Kathmandu?

Seoul and Istanbul

4. No hugging, no kissing, no PDA... nah uh!

5. Nepalese have ONE traditional food

6. Nepal is only slightly larger than Alabama and Arkansas.

7. Nepal and Portugal are twins!

8. Nepal is not only the land of Everest, but the land of 8 highest mountains!

Bibliography

basanta - Nabin Gurung .. A Beautiful song

Nepal Demographics Profile 2011

Nepal Demographics Profile 2011

Population

Age structure

Median age

Population growth rate

Birth rate

Death rate

Net migration rate

Urbanization

Sex ratio

Infant mortality rate

Life expectancy at birth

Total fertility rate

HIV/AIDS - adult prevalence rate

HIV/AIDS - people living with HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS - deaths

Major infectious diseases

Nationality

Ethnic groups

Religions

Languages

Literacy

School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)

Education expenditures

Maternal mortality rate

Children under the age of 5 years underweight

Health expenditures

Physicians density

Hospital bed density

The Night Train to Kathmandu

The Night Train to Kathmandu(TV 1988)

Director:

Writers:

Stars:

Football Highlights

Naruto photo gallery

Manchester United vs. Valencia December 8 2010

Naruto Manga 519

PayPal is down, WikiLeak

PayPal releases WikiLeaks’ funds, caving to pressure from supporters. Now paypal is down!!

Operation Payback by wikileaks

Operation Payback cripples MasterCard site in revenge for WikiLeaks ban

WiliLeak says twitter is nextt !

WikiLeaks supporters disrupt Visa and MasterCard sites in 'Operation Payback'

Korean Movies photo gallery

WikiLeaks Wont Die !!

Top 10 Animated Christmas Specials

My Top 10 Animated Christmas Specials

US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workers

US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workersEmployees unable to call up WikiLeaks on government computers as material is still formally classified, says US

US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workers

WikiLeaks cables: Barack Obama is a bigger danger

WikiLeaks cables: Barack Obama is a bigger danger

WikiLeaks:

WikiLeaks: Internet backlash follows US pressure against whistleblowing site

Superstars!!

Hot girls' generation

Jeon Ji Hyon

AC Milan vs. Brescia Calcio 4th dec

Osasuna vs. Barcelona 4th dec

US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workers
Employees unable to call up WikiLeaks on government computers as material is still formally classified, says US