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Missing corruption suspect Tony Estrada taunted authorities to ‘come over here and get me’ in a phone call to the LA Times this week, in which he said he was ‘floating around . . . in the jungles of Brazil’.

The former Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum employee faces embezzlement and conspiracy charges alongside leading US rave promoters Pasquale Rotella and Reza Gerami, and went on the run after reportedly liquidating his US assets six months ago.

Speaking to the LA Times this week, however, he claimed to be the ‘whistleblower’ who alerted authorities about the case and insisted he is innocent.

“I am the one who provided the information about the corruption and I have been betrayed,” Estrada, 72, complained, “Instead of being a hero, I am a ‘criminal’.” (LA Times: http://lat.ms/H95txe )

In more developments Pasquale Rotella and Reza Gerami both appeared in court in LA asking the judge to unfreeze their assets after being released the week before on US$1.2milion bail each. Each promoter reportedly claimed the huge bail payments mean they are unable to do business, though prosecutors instead said Pasquale in particular is ‘fabulously wealthy’. (CBS News)

Prosecutor Jennifer Snyder said the bail sums were set to allow taxpayers to have a chance to recover the alleged missing monies.

“It permits you to seize up to three times the value of the loss or the taking, so in this case the loss that we estimate from the charges was approximately $2.5 million,” she said. (http://cbsloc.al/H9VbII )

Spin Magazine, meanwhile, published a feature asking ‘is this  (case) part of the war on raves?’ to be told by prosecutors that it was a straightforward ‘paper case’ based on ‘cut and dry’ evidence of wrongdoing.

“When SPIN asked D.A. spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons if the charges leveled at Rotella could be tainted by politics, she actually laughed,” the US magazine reported. “No. There is nothing politically motivated about this,” Gibbons said by phone.” (Spin: http://bit.ly/HPYBVy )

Pasquale and Reza face up to 13 years in jail if convicted.

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff

Click for Dusty Kid's music

Sardinian tech superstar Dusty Kid joined the chorus of Italians condemning Costa Concordia cruise ship captain, Francesco Schettino, for abandoning ship before his passengers, after steering the giant ship onto rocks.

The cowardly captain attracted increasing vitriol after tape recordings emerged of him ignoring coast-guard Gregorio De Falco’s requests to get back on board after the captain slipped away before any of his ships 4.200 passengers and crew had been evacuated,

As Captain De Falco equivocated, Mr De Falco became increasing angry eventually ordering “Vado a bordo, cazzo”- get back on board, fucker’.

Following the tape’s broadcast, the coast guard was hailed as a hero, while the press turned on the Captain.

“If only half of it is true, we are looking at a type of Italian that we cannot pretend not to recognise: more full of himself than sure of himself,” La Repubblica declared.

“One who does stupid things for the sake of having fun and seeks to hide them with the mantra ‘Everything’s OK, no problem.’”

La Stampa was even harsher.

“He was a dark-haired, sun-tanned “dare devil”, according to one ship’s officer, who drove his 114,000 tonne, 13-storey cruise liner “like a Ferrari” and telephoned his ‘Mamma’ as soon as he realised the trouble he was in,’ La Stampa reported.

Chatting to Skrufff last month, Dusty Kid was already despairing of the attitudes of his countrymen and disgraced former leader Silvio Berlusconi in particular declaring ‘I want Sardinian independence’.

“The worst thing about Italians is that for most of the population Berlusconi is a perfect example of what it means to be a man,” he explained.

“He represents exactly what they’d like to be in their own lives: rich, proud, clever, and Don Giovanni; plus a hustler and corrupt; and these are exactly the terms that people all over the world use to describe Italians.”

This week, he spoke out again.

‘THIS IS ITALY!!!” he roared, “Nothing better than this captain’s actions can explain Italian people’s behaviour,” he stormed.

“Have I ever been on a cruise liner? No. never,” he added. “And I have no plans to book one either, flights are bad enough.”

http://bit.ly/2X3pk1 (David Foster Wallace’s classic- and hilarious- critique on cruising, Harpers)

http://bit.ly/wUCrd (How to swear in italian)

Click to buy the sleeveless T shirts

Scottish rockers Primal Scream issued an incendiary statement attacking Britain’s Conservative Party this week after becoming enraged after learning that the Tories apparently play their hit Rocks at a party political conference.

“Primal Scream are totally disgusted that The Home Secretary Theresa May ended her speech at the Tory party conference with our song Rocks.

How inappropriate. Didn’t they research the political history of our band?” they said (in a statement posted to the Guardian: http://bit.ly/nFSg73 )

“Hasn’t she listened to the words? Does she even know what getting your rocks off means? No. She is a Tory; how could she?”

“Primal Scream are totally opposed to the coalition government, Cameron, Osborne, Gove, Howard, Clegg etc.” they continued.

“They are legalised bullies passing new laws to ensure the wealthy stay wealthy, taking the side of big business while eradicating workers rights and continuing their attacks on young people, single parents and OAP’s by slashing education and social security budgets, and persecuting the poor for being poor.”

We would like to distance ourselves from this sick association. The Tories are waging a war on the disenfranchised, They are the enemy.” (Primal Scream Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/screamofficial )

Conservatives

Disappointingly, it later emerged that the Tories didn’t actually play a Primal Scream song, instead selecting The Dandy Warhols’ ‘Bohemian Like You’.

The row erupted some 14 years after D-Ream’s Peter Cunnah authorized his track ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ to be played at the Labour Party’s Conference soon after Tony Blair came to power.  Speaking more recently, the Irish singer admitted he’d changed his views, declaring ‘we need to give (Tory leader) David Cameron a chance’.

“The way I measure these things is this; My Gran, Cassy Mc Dowel, was born in Derry in 1896 and she told me she went to school in her bare feet in the snow’, the told Irish news portal YourDerry.com.

“My nephew, who’s born nearly 100 years later, has a dad who is a committed work shy but still takes two holidays a year courtesy of the tax payer! If that ain’t progress and life ain’t better then what is?” he suggested. (YourDerry: http://bit.ly/pkJ9Wp )

His memories of his Gran, struck a chord with those of acid house veteran Terry Farley who chatted about his similarly grim childhood with Spoonfed this week.

“I grew up in Latimer Road in North Kensington in the 1960s – all very post war, with an air raid shelter in the back garden where my Nan kept her chickens,” he recalled.

“Outside khazi (toilet), tin bath in front of the fire on a Friday night – proper Oliver Twist turnout.” (Spoonfed; http://bit.ly/oYVcPG )

Jonty Skrufff: http://listn.to/JontySkrufff