Bloggerheads

Jerry Springer: sticking a fork in it

Posted on March 31, 2005 by Tim Ireland

Guardian – BBC rejects Springer complaints: BBC governors rejected a record 63,000 complaints from viewers over the decision to broadcast Jerry Springer – The Opera yesterday, prompting renewed criticism from offended Christian and “decency” campaigners. The governors’ programme complaints committee was split on the wisdom of allowing the show to go ahead in January, but ruled by a majority of four to one that the decision was not in breach of internal guidelines… John Beyer, the director of the pressure group Mediawatch, said the decision was “yet another example of the BBC’s stupefying arrogance”.

Pwhahahahahahahaha! Yes, John Beyer not arrogant. Stephen Green not arrogant. BBC arrogant.

:o)

Media Watch Watch – BBC rejects Springer complaints: The only member of the Committee to disagree with the decision not to uphold complaints was Angela Sarkis, a former Vice-President of the African Caribbean Evangelical Alliance. Stephen Green has called it “a black day for British broadcasting”.

Continue reading →

Posted in Christ... | Comments Off

Rejoice!

Posted on March 30, 2005 by Tim Ireland

Take a look at what Robin just spotted….

It may not last long, so enjoy it while you can.

PS – The Rules still apply.

Posted in Tony 'King Blair | 7 Comments

Seeing as you’re not busy….

Posted on March 30, 2005 by Tim Ireland

I’d like to introduce you chaps and chapettes to a site I’ve been involved with on and off for a while now… StoryCode.

What this site does is make book recommendations based not on genre or buying preferences, but on actual content. You may want to poke around the recommendations feature and get a taste for this, but what I’d really like you to do is choose a few of your favourite books and code them. (You can register before you do this, or not. Your call.)

Some test coders have been at work on this over the last few weeks, but the more people who code stories, the more effective the engine is.

If you have the time, it would be appreciated.

Cheers all.

Posted in Inneresting | 1 Comment

The careful application of pressure stems bleeding

Posted on March 30, 2005 by Tim Ireland

A heads-up via Perfect.co.uk…

Independent – Labour MPs to fight on anti-war ticket: Labour MPs who opposed the Iraq war are to defy Tony Blair by making it a key “issue of trust” at the general election expected on 5 May. In a setback for the Prime Minister’s attempt to “move on” from Iraq two years after the military action, 17 rebel MPs have signed a declaration saying: “I was and remain totally opposed to the war on Iraq. If elected as your parliamentary representative in the forthcoming general election, I will do everything in my power to bring the occupation of Iraq to an end.” The MPs fear a backlash from voters over the war and will try to insulate themselves against one by including the statement in their election leaflets. The rebels’ decision to make Iraq “an issue of trust” is a coded attack on Mr Blair.

The following is anecdotal evidence only, but I keep hearing the same thing from different sources (caveat: but I’ve also been hearing the term ‘self publicist’ repeated a few times lately, too)…

Iraq is a *big* issue on doorsteps. Far bigger than you may suspect. Many constituents who raise this issue with Labour peeps who knock on their door have been told ‘off the record’ by candidates/canvassers that Blair will ‘definitely’ go after the election and be replaced by Brown, so they should just relax and vote Labour (or else the Tories will get in etc. etc. etc.).

UPDATE – Ohh, lookie! Is this them? (Gah! Frames! Frames are death!)

UPDATE – Guido says: The second story, originally told to me by a Labour PPC, is that Labour HQ is giving candidates free licence to drop Tony Blair from their propaganda or even send out anti-Blair signals without fear of censure. Hence the Blair-free ready-made leaflets available from Labour HQ and the 17 anti-War Labour MPs stridently coming out of the closet.

Posted in UK General Election 2005 | 2 Comments

Eclectic link dump #9

Posted on March 30, 2005 by Tim Ireland

Watch this. Pause. *Then* read this.

This is funny.

This isn’t.

(This is mildly amusing, though.)

Christian Voice begs for cash.

Here are some lip-syncing tips for Flash animation.

The voices! The voices!

Look! A squirrel!

I had a play with Copyscape yesterday (link via The Ultimate Insult). I mostly found a few XML feeds that I was unaware of, and not a lot of lifted text. It turns out that most of the stuff that gets ripped off from Bloggerheads is pictures and Flash movies.

Speaking of which… Cublo Games contains some Flash goodness (both classic and fresh). The site’s a bugger to navigate (and I can’t link to individual games) but someone has decided to save and host this little number, which doesn’t appear on the main website for some reason.

BBC – ‘Vigilantes’ set for Mexico border patrol: From 1 April, groups of volunteers from across the US will spend up to a month camped out in the inhospitable Arizona desert. But this is no ordinary hunting or camping trip. Armed with night vision goggles, radios and light aircraft, their quarry are the hundreds of immigrants who each night seek illegally to cross the wire fence separating the US from Mexico.

The official site is here. I’m not sure if it’s cynicism or optimism that makes me suspect that this is a joke.

Posted in Teh Interwebs | Comments Off

Corrupt, inept, and still in power

Posted on March 30, 2005 by Tim Ireland

New York Times – Panel’s Report Assails C.I.A. for Failure on Iraq Weapons: The final report of a presidential commission studying American intelligence failures regarding illicit weapons includes a searing critique of how the C.I.A. and other agencies never properly assessed Saddam Hussein’s political maneuverings or the possibility that he no longer had weapon stockpiles, according to officials who have seen the report’s executive summary… After Iraq’s defeat in the Persian Gulf war in 1991, international inspectors dismantled an active nuclear program – which had not produced a weapon – along with biological agents and chemical weapons. Much of the flawed intelligence was based on a series of assumptions that Mr. Hussein reconstituted those programs after inspectors left the country under duress in 1998. But in retrospect, those assumptions by American and other intelligence analysts turned out to be deeply flawed, even though some of Mr. Hussein’s own commanders said after they were captured in 2003 that they also believed the government held some unconventional weapons. It was a myth Mr. Hussein apparently fostered to retain an air of power.

Meanwhile, the cover-up continues. (You may note that today’s headline are all about Oil for Food… curse the liberal media!)

ACLU – Army’s Own Documents Acknowledge Evidence That Soldiers Used Torture: The American Civil Liberties Union today charged that the government is attempting to bury the torture scandal involving the U.S. military by failing to comply with a court order requiring release of documents to the ACLU. The documents the government does release are being issued in advance to the media in ways calculated to minimize coverage and public access, the ACLU said. The reason for the delay in delivering the more than 1,200 pages of documents was evident, the ACLU said, in the contents, which include reports of brutal beatings, “exercise until exhaustion” and sworn statements that soldiers were told to “beat the fuck out of” detainees. One file cites evidence that Military Intelligence personnel in Iraq “tortured” detainees held in their custody. “These documents provide further evidence that the torture of detainees was much more widespread than the government has acknowledged,” said ACLU attorney Jameel Jaffer. “At a minimum, the documents indicate a colossal failure of leadership.”

But you can’t fool all of the people all of the time…

USA Today – Bush approval slips to 45%, lowest of his presidency

Posted in George W. Bush | Comments Off

Well, that saves me a lot of time

Posted on March 30, 2005 by Tim Ireland

I was going to a do a linkish round-up of all the Tory Fear articles and opinions, but Robin beat me to it:

Perfect.co.uk – Labour In. Blair Out.

Well, all that leaves me to do is throw an extra link or two into the mix:
Emotional Blackmail from John O’Farrell
Hobson’s Choice

Here’s a couple of extras:
ToryScum.com and libdemthistime.org (Next time, Russell, just send an email, OK? There’s no need for comment spam.)

And this, of course…

Guardian – Rise in postal votes fuels fear of fraud: Record numbers of electors are applying for postal votes for the general election, raising fears that it will be open to widespread fraud. A survey by the Guardian of 55 councils covering 135 constituencies reveals applications to vote by post have risen in all cases, tripling in some places, particularly in inner cities. The increase comes as demand grows for urgent changes in the postal-voting system, last week labelled by a judge as “an open invitation to fraud”. There is an ongoing court case, and police are investigating fraud in six areas of the country.

UPDATE – More on this from Nick Barlow.

Posted in UK General Election 2005 | Comments Off

Boris meets Wibbler – and other matters

Posted on March 29, 2005 by Tim Ireland

Simon Stacpoole, aka Boriswatch, at Westminster
Boris, Blogs and a Chinese…

There’s a blink-and-you-miss-it reference in that first link to me moving on to pastures new. (See!? It’s all about me!)

Yes, ’tis true. I have a pretty solid client base when it comes to SEO, but I’d like to (and, in fact need to) do more in the way of communication and online marketing.

I’m not quite sure where I’m moving on to, but I will be moving on shortly.

At this early stage, suggestions are welcome. I could go freelance (again), but I really prefer the mindset and comfort that comes with a J.O.B.

Posted in The Political Weblog Movement | 5 Comments

Backing Blair – Video III now live

Posted on March 29, 2005 by Tim Ireland

Labour in - Blair out Video III isn’t ready yet. Well, the Video III that I describe here isn’t ready yet.

This is:

Backing Blair III – Political Debate
(Flash – 1Mb – NSFW audio)

If you’ve ever watched Blair and Howard bitch and snipe at each other in the House, then you’ll know how entirely fitting this treatment is… but apart from that and a swift reference to right-wing tabloids, that’s about it for the political message in this one. (As you may or may not be aware, Video I and Video II carry a little more weight.)

So… “What is it with this?”, I hear you ask…

Well – and let’s be perfectly frank here – this is bait. It’s meant to have broad appeal and that magic ‘must-share’ factor. I’m hoping to reach a million unique visitors inside a month, and confidence is high (London Underground reached a quarter of a million visitors in a fortnight, and it was pretty London-centric).

You may also note the closing message, which will come to life as a poster (that doesn’t eat up black ink) later today.

The irony is that it may well be this video that makes Labour HQ take Backing Blair seriously.

UPDATE – Yup, thar she blows. New poster design is ready to roll.

Posted in Flash Music Video, Games and Objects, UK General Election 2005 | 1 Comment

Subconscious influence

Posted on March 29, 2005 by Tim Ireland

An article by John Ware, the Panorama reporter behind Iraq, Tony & the Truth…

Guardian – MI6, Jack Straw, defence staff: Blair ignored them all: A reliable source concludes that, as a result of the July 23 prime ministerial summit, “there was a direct cause and effect” between the arrival of last-minute uncorroborated intelligence and the political imperative set by Blair in order to keep his commitment to Bush. It’s now clear that the JIC lost its critical faculties by failing to spot that the intelligence was being fixed around that policy, much as the Americans were doing. The committee had allowed itself to become sucked into helping Blair make the case for war.

UPDATE – See also; Failure to see consequences: psychopathic