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Construction Freeze & Outdated Or Incomplete Report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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Jun 11 2008

California Dreaming

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 1:27 am

With a refreshing change from the normal bias UK media displays, the BBC published an article (based on a Radio 4 transmission of a From Our Own Correspondent program), where an unnamed journalist did some research into the Medicinal Marijuana scene in California (specifically Los Angeles).

Protesting

Although there were a few ignorant stray remarks (420 being a local slang term for weed itself, the irrelevant nationality of the doctor he saw, as a couple of examples), overall it was quite informative, and interesting to read about from the point of a view of an outsider, rather than the sort of info I’ve read in the past from more deeply interested people on forums. In the end, I hope a at least a few people who were previously on the fence will read the article, and realise that whilst California’s approach is open to some abuse, it certainly seems better all round that the alternative of draconian laws and wasting police time prosecuting people participating in a victimless ‘crime’.

For a bit of further reading, check out this piece, describing an amateur home grower in Britain, and how some police forces are using thermal imaging devices to try and spot where the plant is being cultivated indoors.

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