Oct 24 2008

Construction Freeze & Outdated Or Incomplete Report

Category: Friends,In The Media,Kazakhstan — ChrisM @ 5:21 am

So here we have a video I recorded from the World News Report – Business Edition from the BBC World channel. (I did try to find one officially uploaded earlier in the day, but couldn’t locate one, so I used my AV card). Anyway, our friend Natalya Kim lives in Almaty, and as I don’t see her city often mentioned on the news, I thought I’d show it here. It contains information on the global financial crisis and how it effects Almaty residents, especially those involved in the construction industry.
I was a little surprised that the correspondent didn’t make mention of the Prime Minister and President’s recent speeches on the matter – you can read more on this over at EurAsiaNet’s article.

I suppose it is possible this was recorded a week or so ago, and they didn’t have time/didn’t think to re-dub it?

[edit]
OK, so that video was originally uploaded and ready for embedding in this post an hour or so ago. Then I checked it’s YouTube page, and the audio had pitch shifted down a few octave! I’d not originally had the speakers on as I didn’t want to risk waking Ira, servers me right for not (quietly) checking it before uploading I suppose. This one should be ok, and don’t blame my poor AV card for the video quality – thats down to YouTube’s conversion process I’m afraid. Better go and find out how you get those ‘Watch In High Quality’ links on your uploaded videos I suppose.

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Oct 24 2008

Caught Out, Closed Down?

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut...,In The Media — ChrisM @ 2:23 am

I was following a story over at The Register, which involved the UK government’s ID card forum. The original article contained allegations that some of the supporters of the ID card scheme were in fact students who had just sat through a presentation by Jacqui Smith (the Home Secretary), and not bona fide people who had registered to actually discuss anything. It appears that the wonderful Labour spin masters had taken parts of the pupil’s original messages (anything pro-ID card obviously), renamed them to Shooter1, Shooter2 etc. Messages querying whether Shooter1 et al were genuine were not answered at the time. (The Shooter part of the user names was based on the school the talk was given at (Shooters Hill College, Greenwich), not anything to excite conspiracy nuts 🙂 ).
Anyway, the forum has now been shut down (as planned), but the discussions that took place appear to show that the alleged (by the government) majority support for ID cards amongst young people may not exist. It will be interesting to see if this sort of public experiment in gathering actual opinions is repeated any time soon for other controversial topics.

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Oct 16 2008

Andy Martin – Who Is He?

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 4:37 am

I assume you will have come across the rumour that Barack Obama is a Muslim? You can obviously argue over whether this should be considered relevant when it comes to his bid for becoming the president, but the fact remains that he would not stand a chance of being elected if this were proved to be so. How did this rumour start? Apparently, a gentleman named Andy Martin originally put forward the theory in 2004. The Republicans were only too happy to extend the lifespan of this theory, as it obviously would benefit their chance of coming to power. However, Andy Martin has an incredibly chequered past, with severe paranoia issues, anti-semitism (back in 1983, he wrote “I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did.” !) So even though Steven Schmidt is the public face for this campaign strategy, it looks as though Mr McCain actually took his cue from a complete nut case with some revolting opnions. Click the previous link for more info.

(This will be the final link to 236.com today.)

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Oct 16 2008

White Skinny Dipping

Category: In The Media,Videos — ChrisM @ 4:12 am

Head over here for the BBC report, or if you find their streaming video has problems with your internet connection, see the following three YouTube videos. On what? Well in case you missed out on the news, a British man dove into the Moat surrounding the Emperor’s residence in Tokyo. The undeniable facts are that he was naked, not likely to get cold this winter with his in-built insulation, either a litttle unhinged or drunk, and splashed water and threw bricks when the police attempted to catch him.

Thanks to Japan Probe for the following picture (and preceding videos)…
Mad Naked Brit In Japan

So why my interest?
Well I saw the following image over at Pundit Kitchen, and wanted to find out more about the background to it.
Obama Pictures and McCain Pictures
see Sarah Palin pictures

So what happened to the crude and aggressive tourist? Detained under the equivalent of Japan’s Metal Health Act? Received a good public beating after throwing bricks around? No, he had a slap on the wrists and was released! At least according to the Daily Telegraph’s article.

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Oct 16 2008

Congratulations To Wales

Category: In The Media,Sport — ChrisM @ 3:45 am

OK, so a score line of 1-0 with the football team you are congratulating being on the losing side wouldn’t normally give rise to a post like this, but when you are playing Germany, 1-0 is quite a respectable result IMO. If you compare the track record of both sides, you can see that managing to not only keep the goal difference down to one, but also only allowing a single goal to be scored in the first place is certainly an achievement. If you are interested in a proper football pundit’s run down on the match, click here.

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Oct 16 2008

He Is Old… Oh… Hang On

Category: In The Media,Videos — ChrisM @ 1:43 am

Another 236 video here. I had not come across this great Palin speech before. In it, she refers to Joe Biden, the Democrat candidate for Vice President. She refers to having heard about his speeches back in the second grade. Obviously a (not very) subtle reference to her opposition’s age. Which is a bad thing. Except who is that man standing behind her, to the right of this video window? John McCain, who is SIX years older than Biden!

I’m guessing that this was either not through through properly by her speech writers, or it was an inspired off the cuff remark she just thought up on the spot. In either case… OOOPS

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Oct 15 2008

Non-Lethal – Still Offensive

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 7:16 pm

Normally if I were to write a post based around Skunk, I would be talking about an upcoming trip to Amsterdam, or very occasionally about the animal itself. However, if you head on over to this article you can see why this is a little different. The Israeli police is introducing this foul smelling concoction as an alternative to other more lethal or at least dangerous weapons.
Although Israeli actions against Palestinian civilians are rarely posted on a favourable light at this blog, this appears to be a step in the right direction. Even if it is used far too early in confrontational situations, or sprayed indiscriminately into a crowd, the fact that no one is going to lose a limb, their eyesight, or loved ones, through its deployment has to be a good thing. Perhaps it is too easy to judge from afar, but if I were over there, I’m pretty sure I would prefer smelling horrendous for a few days to death or serious injury.

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Oct 15 2008

2D TV Style Prediction

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 5:47 pm

OK, to my American readers, apologies, as this post’s title probably doesn’t make a great deal of sense. 2D TV was an ITV satirical show in the same vein as Spitting Image, but portrayed with animation instead of puppets. What do you mean “Spitting Image… Whats that?” go and Google/Wiki away your ignorance 🙂 I’ll wait.
…
Done?
Good, then I’ll continue. Anyway, the following was found on 236.com, and is supposed to be an idea of what would happen in the oval office, should McCain and Palin win the upcoming election.

My thanks to 236 for not making it difficult to embed their work on this site, just a quick view source was enough to find the relevant code, and no amendments were needed for once.

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Oct 15 2008

Is This What We Have To Look Forward To?

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 1:51 am

I occasionally dip into Dom Joly‘s column over at the Independent’s website, and came across his recent piece on organizing children’s parties. Up until reading the article, I’d not considered the politics involved with deciding where to go and what to do or see in such circumstances. The idea that the film ET would somehow be too scary was amusing, though I guess every child is going to be different. One quick thing, Dom states that ET is rated PG (parental guidance), but the IMDB entry shows it as a U in Britain. Maybe the CGI re-release was re-certified?
Anyway, when it comes to the time that our soon-to-be-daughter’s friends are invited to parties, I hope we handle it well, and don’t end up annoying the other parents involved.

[edit]
Ooops, serves me right for not re-reading the article before I posted this – it turns out my memory was faulty, and it was a comment left at the article that inferred ET was a PG film…

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Oct 15 2008

Obama AND McCain Not Eligible?

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut...,In The Media,Videos — ChrisM @ 1:04 am

I was speaking with a friend yesterday about the American presidential election, having just finished watching Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising. I tend not to dip into politics to often on this site, suffice to say I’m not exactly leaning to the right as I type this 🙂 Anyway, after the short conversation, I remember I had bookmarked something a while back, and had forgotten to post the link on here. So, a little belatedly, here it is – Obama’s Birth Certificate Is A Fake?
Personally, I would have been happier if it were something against McCain, rather than Obama, but I still found the article captivating reading. Even if the certificate turns out to be genuine, the processes involved in the testing were interesting, though if you don’t like the CSI series of TV shows, you might want to give it a miss.
Just before hitting the Publish button, I thought I would go and check McCain’s Wiki page. Glad I did, as within the discussion page, some people question McCain’s eligibility to be President as well! Check out the snopes page for a quick summary, and if you want to read a synopsis of a essay on the subject, check here.
Finally, I found the following YouTube video on Michael Moore’s Sicko film where he argues with Wolf Blitzer on CNN.

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