Cute animals: Parrot shags human

Here's Mark Carwardine talking about the efforts to keep this species alive.



More from this fabulous BBC series.

Murdoch as Mephistopheles

By now you've probably read or heard about James Murdoch's OTT attack on the BBC at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

Murdoch was giving the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, as his father had done twenty years before. Well this reminded me of one of them I have never actually watched - the one Dennis Potter gave in 1993, widely regarded as the greatest ever.

Visibly suffering from cancer though Potter is, it is mesmerisingly brilliant. Vituperative and funny. Sentimental and disturbing (especially to the audience of television big-wigs, some learn forward, some cover their mouths).

In it he tells several tales of Murdoch. Here's one:

At the time Rupert Murdoch was anxiously trying to guild if not renovate his image while lobbying to prevent his cable television company coming under the same rules and regulations that apply to other British television companies, he announced that his main company was going to fund a new Chair at Oxford University to the tune of £3 million. It was to be called - I do beg your pardon, but I cannot keep a straight face – it was to be called the Murdoch Chair in Language Communications. But the announcement came with cack-handed timing on the very same day that the Press Council formally and of course ineffectively censured Murdoch’s Son for calling homosexuals “poofters”. Some language. Some communication.

Murdoch did not turn up for the ceremonial meal to mark the largesse at Oxford, always a place where the gap between the cup and the lip can be measured by more than an inch of the sardonic. But Rupert has a touch of pure cruelty in his make-up. He sent Kelvin MacKenzie, the sharp little weasel that edits that daily stink they call the Sun, and the maladroit fellow had to sit and chew and probably even dribble a bit between two professors.

Transcription



Just before he died of cancer, he sat down with Melvyn Bragg for a final interview. Of course the subject of media mogul Rupert Murdoch came up.

Embedding recommended for Parliament video

Image via Wikipedia

The House of Lords shows itself - again - to be the most thoughtful and progressive chamber in a new report 'Are the Lords listening? Creating connections between people and Parliament' from its Information Committee.

Parliament has some really daft rules against use of video of proceedings, which it has been extremely slow in changing. Leading the charge against this has been LibDem MP Jo Swinson.

The Lords new report backs Swinson's campaign to free up reuse of video and - hurrah! - backs embedding and republication.

42. 'Embedding' is the process whereby a document or file of one type is inserted into a document or file of another type on the internet. Embedding is central to much use of multimedia in web pages, which tend to embed video, animation, and audio files. In our Annual Report 2007-08,[11] we reported the growing number of people asking to embed parliamentary material (such as video footage of proceedings) into their own web sites. Such embedding would, for instance, allow other web sites to include windows within their web pages so that clips of parliamentary proceedings could play within their own pages instead of having to open a separate window and application to view the clips. Under the terms of the current licences, the Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit Limited (PARBUL) cannot allow any of its licensees to offer embedding. Peter Lowe of Sky News found it "extraordinary" that Parliament did not allow embedding (Q 311).

43. The BBC asked Parliament to change this policy so that it could include footage from Westminster in its 'Democracy Live' website, which would also include footage from the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the European Parliament (QQ 308-09, 314; p84). Last year, we called for further research to be carried out on allowing embedding of footage of parliamentary proceedings. During our inquiry, it was made clear to us that embedding would allow wider access to parliamentary proceedings through websites and other channels (pp 16, 143). Peter Riddell, Political Commentator and Assistant Editor of The Times, said that it would be "a tremendous help" to journalists preparing articles online (Q 191). Channel 4 said that enabling users "to embed clips on their own sites, and then use social bookmarking tools to promote these clips to others, is an effective and low-cost way of expanding the reach of Parliament—as the easier it is to spread information the more people will see it" (p 104). Jo Swinson MP told the Committee: "we need to wake up and get into the twenty-first century on this. If we can actually get clips of Parliament out there, particularly in two or three-minute pieces which are easy to watch, easy to forward to friends, that is a much better way and a much easier way for people to understand what is going on in Parliament than having to watch the BBC Parliament channel for hours on end until something they might be interested in comes up."

44. People should be allowed to embed the House's proceedings on their websites, so that our proceedings can have as wide a distribution as possible on the internet. We recommend that a trial start as soon as possible. We have invited the BBC and the House of Lords administration to bring forward proposals for how the House can maximise potential synergies with the BBC's forthcoming 'Democracy Live' website.

Yay! The irony here though is how slow the BBC has been with the option to embed on its video. There does seem to be a lot of internal resistance and only some news video is embeddable. What's bizarre is that you can find loads of BBC news video on YouTube, which they don't police.

As well, people are getting iplayer content and reusing it, here's how to get the iplayer embed code. That's not being policed either.

Here's what the Lords says about Parliament and YouTube

38. In May 2008 Parliament launched a YouTube channel, which it uses primarily to show short films promoting and explaining the work of Parliament. The Hansard Society praised the videos about the work of the House of Lords (p 13). We used YouTube throughout our inquiry, to update people outside Westminster on what had happened during our meetings and to provide an insight into the views of witnesses and members of the Committee. In June 2009, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee and the European Union Committee released videos on YouTube to mark the publication of their reports.

39. We also used Parliament's YouTube channel in our inquiry to allow people to contribute by submitting their views on video. Dr Jackson said that this development was "very exciting": the fact that members of the public can upload videos gives the channel the potential to be "a powerful interactive instrument" (p 139). Parliament would benefit from the interactive nature of such websites, by treating them not simply as publishers and distributors but as places where user-generated content can be created and displayed.

40. Members of either House are allowed to post footage featuring the member on the member's own website. However, at present, the two Houses do not allow parliamentary proceedings to be posted on YouTube or any other third-party hosting website. This ban has attracted negative publicity; and Parliament has been criticised for not embracing new technology. Last November, we agreed that Lords be allowed to place on YouTube (and similar searchable video hosting websites) clips of their contributions to the House's proceedings. The final administrative and legal steps around copyright are being taken, and the Committee will inform members when they can start to upload their contributions to YouTube. Technical training will be provided for members who wish to take advantage of this new possibility.

HT: Emma

Listen to Gay Life After Saddam

Here is the BBC radio report on the situation for Iraqi LGBT. It is nothing but horror (and heroism) and here's the thing: life was better under Saddam.

Iraqi gays report a (discrete) gay life before 2003 which reminds me of the life which currently exists in Beirut. There were clubs, people could meet by the river. An exile says "no one was killed for being gay under Saddam regime".

This brilliant report goes to Baghdad and visits the Iraqi LGBT safe house. It is very hard listening.

"They had thrown [my boyfriend's] corpse in the garbage. His genitals were cut off and a piece of his throat had been cut out."

Some LGBT find their way to the UK. Very, very few. The UK Border Agency in every instance says they can go back and just 'be discrete'. I kid you not.

Not surprisingly (sic) both David Miliband and Phil Woolas refused to give an interview for this programme.

It includes a lot of background from my friend Ali Hilli. I can't begin to express my admiration for him. He is a true hero.

Listen to the show (60').

Gay Life After Saddam

'I'm tempted to extend the metaphor'

Oh, go-on ...



"Every Prime Minister needs a Willie" - of course the famously naive Margaret Thatcher had no concept of a double entendre. Out (but not out) Mandy however ...

BBC making a big gay effort on 40 years since Stonewall

It makes a nice change to be praising the BBC on LGBT content but this week they are carrying some excellent programming.

This is an interview with Martin Boyce, about his memories of the night it all kicked off, 40 years ago on Sunday.



BBC Radio 2 has Stonewall: The Riots That Triggered the Gay Revolution on Tuesday, with legend Tom Robinson.

The BBC News website has an excellent feature, 'Stonewall gave me new gay role models', by David Carter, author of Stonewall: the riots that sparked the gay revolution.

Justin Wells had Armistead Maupin on his 'Americana' Radio 4 show yesterday, reflecting on 40 years of 'Gay Power'.

Today on Thursday had on Jim Fouratt, who was there in 1969.

Let's just hope it isn't another several years before we get such a feast.

'This is a massacre!'

This is an incredibly emotional affecting report from Iran. Today eyewitnesses are reporting a massacre. Live, with Twitter et al - a massacre. I am ashamed to say this is not being relayed prominently via the BBC, who appear to have down-ranked Iran over the past two days.

From Twitter:

"In Baharestan Sq we saw militia with axe choping ppl like meat blood everywhere like butcher"

'What can you say to the family of the 13 year-old boy who died from gunshots and whose dead body then disappeared?'

world needs to know of the atrocities and massacre at Baharestan Sq. & lalezar sq., ppl butchered today

they pull away the dead into trucks - like factory - no human can do this - we beg Allah for save us

@persiankiwi we must go dont know when internet they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names now we must move fast

Via @dailydish More then 150 killed on Saturday? #iranelection http://twitzap.com/u/Gjk

A witness describes beatings at a new protest under way in downtown Tehran.

More on Twitter and the events in Iran

Expanding on the points made by the head of BBC News, Richard Sambrook, about the issues with sorting through the outpouring of tweets from Iran, Kevin Drum writing for Mother Jones underlines some lessons about the way in which Twitter is best used at a moment like this.

Firstly he actually quotes me, unwittingly:

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers writes:

Ahmadinejad's and Khamenei's websites were taken down yesterday — I saw the latter go down within a couple of minutes because of a DDOS attack organised via Twitter. @StopAhmadi is a good source for tweets on this. The other important use of Twitter has been distribution of proxy addresses via Twitter. This would be how most video and pictures of today's rally have gotten out.

That was Andrew quoting from my email (but no credit). It was late GMT Sunday and @stopahmadi linked to an auto-refresh address for Khamenei's website. Literally within a minute of his tweet the site was showing an error.

Drum cites what I'd seen happening by the middle of Sunday with Twitter:

There was just too much of it; it was nearly impossible to know who to trust; and the overwhelming surge of intensely local and intensely personal views made it far too easy to get caught up in events and see things happening that just weren't there.

I kindof agree with Drum but as I pointed out yesterday this was if you just followed the hashtag(s) and hadn't sifted out the best sources (like @stopamadi). I have had a big lot of new followers, I assume because I'm retweeting news and tweeting links on the situation and people have spotted this in the hashtag stream.

Looking at the past few days coverage, who Drum rates are:

The small number of traditional news outlets that do still have foreign bureaus and real expertise. The New York Times. The BBC. Al Jazeera. A few others.

The Times did have a good newsblog up by Sunday, However, on Sunday the BBC's reporting and The Guardian's was terrible because, I assume, it was a Sunday and maybe because the reporters on the ground couldn't get stories past weekend editors. It was very noticeable that the latter launched a 'liveblog' on Monday and the first few hours were spent with the blogger catching up.

I also watched the BBC go from 'Amadi won' to something a bit more nuanced and taking much more reporting from their Tehran guy and their Persian service by yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately we were still treated to the ramblings of the sort of star, flown-in reporter as seen in Drop The Dead Donkey.

Everyone appeared to be caught off guard by Tuesday's events, including most noticeably the BBC's star foreign reporter, John Simpson. And perhaps this was becuase they weren't paying enough attention to Twitter where there was intense chatter about the rally, almost all about encouraging people to go. The UK MSM reporter who has impressed me the most is Channel Four's Lindsey Hilsum.

The real star reporters has been HuffPost. Their Nico Pitney has been going with frequent updates on a liveblog since early Sunday and appears to have had little sleep.

Andy Sullivan, as well, has been open all hours and has been very good but has he repeated a lot of rumours, some posts have consisted of just a lot of tweets, and not put them in context. HuffPost has been a lot more careful and made clear what is rumour and what isn't. Where he has been good is in linking to articles which discuss the shenanigans going on in the background as well as the reaction in American politics.

~~~~~~~

If you are on Twitter and want to help Iranians then this is a MUST READ: #iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners by Esko Reinikaine.

Esko's website appears to have been taken down, so I have taken the liberty of republishing his guidance:

The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through twitter.

1. Do NOT publicise proxy IP’s over twitter, and especially not using the #iranelection hashtag. Security forces are monitoring this hashtag, and the moment they identify a proxy IP they will block it in Iran. If you are creating new proxies for the Iranian bloggers, DM them to @stopAhmadi or @iran09 and they will distributed them discretely to bloggers in Iran.
2. Hashtags, the only two legitimate hashtags being used by bloggers in Iran are #iranelection and #gr88, other hashtag ideas run the risk of diluting the conversation.
3. Keep you bull$hit filter up! Security forces are now setting up twitter accounts to spread disinformation by posing as Iranian protesters. Please don’t retweet impetuosly, try to confirm information with reliable sources before retweeting. The legitimate sources are not hard to find and follow.
4. Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.
5. Don’t blow their cover! If you discover a genuine source, please don’t publicise their name or location on a website. These bloggers are in REAL danger. Spread the word discretely through your own networks but don’t signpost them to the security forces. People are dying there, for real, please keep that in mind.
6. Denial of Service attacks. If you don’t know what you are doing, stay out of this game. Only target those sites the legitimate Iranian bloggers are designating. Be aware that these attacks can have detrimental effects to the network the protesters are relying on. Keep monitoring their traffic to note when you should turn the taps on or off.
7. Do spread the (legitimate) word, it works! When the bloggers asked for twitter maintenance to be postponed using the #nomaintenance tag, it had the desired effect. As long as we spread good information, provide moral support to the protesters, and take our lead from the legitimate bloggers, we can make a constructive contribution.

Please remember that this is about the future of the Iranian people, while it might be exciting to get caught up in the flow of participating in a new meme, do not lose sight of what this is really about.

~~~~~~

Rachel Maddow discusses the use of the web by the opposition with NBC correspondent Richard Engel. Importantly, Engel notes the use of Twitter as an organisational tool.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Twitter and the events in Iran

Head of BBC News, Richard Sambrook, has blogged about the issues with sorting through the outpouring of tweets from Iran.

He cites a list of rumours which I've also seen flowing around. None are yet confirmed but many have the ring of truth (or past practice) behind them.

Interestingly, he doesn't use the rumours to damn Twitter, saying:

If you had a reasonable understanding of social media, how to set up and assess feeds, how to compare and contrast information, if you had a reasonable understanding of news flows, a developed sense of scepticism, and an above average understanding of the political situation in Iran, you would have emerged much better informed than the lay viewer relying on TV or Radio news. The information online ran significantly ahead of the news organisations (who hopefully were taking time to check what they could) but it came at a high noise to signal ratio....(at one point I measured almost 2500 updates in a minute - though usually it was closer to 200)

There are at least two other uses which I have watched Twitter be put to.

• To co-ordinate take-down operations against government websites


• To distribute locations for proxy servers so people in Iran can get news, pictures and video out

This is in addition to being an information distribution channel inside Iran - there is an official Mousavi Twitter account - and a great boost for the protesters seeing the support from the rest of the world.

As well thousands of followers around the world have narrowed down the individual accounts they should follow from the fast-flowing river that #iranelection has become.

Many have been following Change_for_Iran, a student who has been tweeting, sometimes harrowing messages, throughout the siege of Tehran University.

Another good source has been StopAhmadi who has tweeted at a furious rate but has made a point of saying if information is confirmed or not.

For more see this FriendFeed compilation of messages coming from Inside Iran.

• Previous post: Twitter: let the last doubter now shut up

Twitter: let the last doubter now shut up

Cartoon by Nikahang Kosar

First they came for the newspapers, like they always do. Then they went after the opposition's leaders, like they always do. Then they shut down the TV, like they always do. Then they cut the telephone lines including the mobile networks. Then they slowed down the internet and tried to block youtube and social networks, like they now have to.

This left Twitter as the last channel of opposition organisation standing.

And after midnight in Tehran this led to:

@pauloCanning #iran thousands on Tehran rooftops chanting 'Allah O Akbar' http://twitzap.com/u/wC8 sound 'deafening'

This was the update which did it:

ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection

Followed by:

0:05 PM ET -- Twitter goes dark? I noted earlier that Twitter was the only major social network still operating in Iran. Now something has changed. All of the Iran-based Twitter users I've been reading haven't posted for at least 30 minutes or so. The reasons are unclear. Some on Twitter are claiming there is a complete electricity shut-down in Tehran. One Iran-based Twitter user, @tehranelection, last posted an hour ago: "I have to shut down for a bit, the police are looking for satellites." Will update as soon as I hear more.

It is coming to something if in order to completely silence opposition you have to shut off the electricity.

The events I describe here are completely absent from almost all of the MSM (BBC, CNN, Fox) The New York Times is an exception, they have a liveblog running which they're promoting from their homepage. Also, the best UK reporting from Tehran seems to be coming from Channel Four's Lindsey Hilsum.

Not for the first time, has the place to watch and find out the latest been blogs and social networks.

BBC Question Time, as seen from Twitterland

Is Ben Brogan the bastard child of Lady Penelope and Parker?

I managed to be asleep during what was the year’s TV highlight it appears - and the iplayer won’t have it available until tomorrow.

So how to read the mood on the other side of the screen (in Grimsby it was obviously ‘burn the witch!’)? Twitter of course and - what’s this? - it’s ‘trending’? It’s number one trending?!

Thousands of tweets it appears and after sifting through the spam - oh yes, just add #bbcqt for attention for your eco-funerals or whatever - here are some highlights (going backwards, as is the twitway).

bengoldacre: #bbcqt can we have some kind of air raid siren for the next time something that good is on telly please?

jonreed of course, people in Grimsby are always that angry. The #bbcqt cameras just happened to be on them this evening.

barneygale @RhysT #bbcqt Did the irony of the McDonalds CEO talking about the elite few exploiting the weak not strike you? I’d laugh if I wasn’t cryin

stephenpglenn RT @steevbishop: #bbcqt The final question will be about the change to Twitter replies and the audience then burn the hall down.

adlopa I’m voting with my feet at the next election. I have a weeping bunion that I can mark the ballot paper with. #bbcqt

alexchafer #bbcqt, they didnt say it exactly as “it was withn the rules” but it was suggested 8 times in total using different terminology

jjaron And now it’s time to switch over to Question Time: You’re Fired http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7459669.stm #bbcqt

AndySawford #bbcqt none of the panellists happy chatter in the closing credits, they all looked stunned

gift_of_the_fab #bbcqt Arghh… they didn’t get to the bash Michael Martin question. Fail.

dancohen243 RT @craigmcgill Dear Mrs Beckett, journos have always found stories via leaks Don’t whine now or try & bring your staff in as victims #bbcqt

siliconglen #bbcqt And another “one rule for them and another for us”, how come House of Commons bar is exempt from smoking ban? MPs need to get real.

mathewhulbert @doktorb How dare Ming Campbell lecture Ben Brogan? #bbcqt.

andrewl No Ming, no transparency required - the DT are using *private* money - you’re wasting my money away. #bbcqt

KerryMP @doktorb Why - because I’m accusing Ming of being sanctimonious and desperately scrambling for moral high ground? #bbcqt

mutantsounds #bbcqt Sheesh, Margaret, seriously - just shut up and try to look sorry for the rest of the show. It’s working for Theresa May.

petermoore “The first rule of journalism: don’t discuss your sources.” (Ben Brogan of The Telegraph on the expenses ‘disc’) #bbcqt

mattwardman RT @KerryMP: #bbcqt Is Ben Brogan the bastard child of Lady Penelope and Parker?

antagonise Margaret Beckett, #tool of the DNA/data storing gov’t, is worried about personal data of #State employees. The #irony! #bbcqt #questiontime

siwhitehouse #bbcqt Telegraph a “receiver of stolen goods” . . . think I can guess the next audience comment

simonbarrow Good grief, someone on BBC QT wants to ‘knight’ the Telegraph. The kangaroo court’s rage blinds it to other forms of vested interest. #bbcqt

stephenpearne #bbcqt Presumably Beckett is wearing a bright red jacket to conceal the fact that she has been red in the face whenever she’s been speaking.

ComeOnYouReds Ming - afghanistan casulaties overshadowed by expenses debacle - 7 on the clapometer. #bbcqt

wardmanwire #bbcqt Where does one get a tool to manage 50-60 tweets a minute?

patricksmyth That fat guy in the blue shirt has heckled Beckett from the start,when she answers him he says ‘don’t talk to me like that’.Hilarious #bbcqt

crishawes #bbcqt Ming “It’s out job to clean it up”… yeah, like asking an arsonist to put out the fire.

KerronCross “Throw the bums out, on their ear.” I wonder if Ben Brogan is being anatomically correct there? #bbcqt

IanDouglas Margaret Beckett giving Ben Brogan the look of death #bbcqt

kcorrick Ronald McDonald is coming across very well #bbcqt Although is in slightly nicer position. Good point about potential apathy.

EbA Love the guy who said we want action but not spin then went on to talk about David Cameron. You been spun fool. #bbcqt

norock Ah. Beckett now suggesting that EVERYONE is too busy being good MPs to look after the details of claiming millions… #bbcqt

liambillington #bbcqt Theresa May sounds as if she is about to burst into tears.

doktorb #bbcqt - “You’re not trusted!” “You’re too busy fiddling expenses” “Don’t lecture me!” cries audience members.

lexij #bbcqt Margaret Beckett “people are at risk of losing their jobs” Hmmm. Indeed.

StephenMullen Audience member worried that because of the expenses issue, that the BNP may get elected. #bbcqt #votetostopthebnp

norock Wow - where did they find the ‘can’t we just say something nice about politicians’ woman for the #bbcqt audience?

Tweetolla #bbcqt String quartet now playing in background for Menzies Campbell’s 73 hours travelling a week ‘woe is me’ plea.

DarrellGoodliff #bbcqt surprising smattering of applause for attack on the media

KerryMP #bbcqt ‘Cameron showed leadership when he found out what MPs were up to’… Such as claiming £680 to remove wisteria from their chimneys?

doktorb #bbcqt - “Brown is a donkey” calls man from crowd.

ydue impressive fail-off from ming and beckett #bbcqt WHYYYYYYY AM I ONLY PAID 3X THE NATIONAL AVERAGE. WHYYYYYYY DO I HAVE TO WORK SO MANY HOURS

radioproducer The #bbcqt discussion on twitter would appear to be, unplanned, unmanaged, unmoderated, free, and very successful.

.. and that’s where search twitter etc. stop as it goes way over 1000 tweets and my browser blows up …



Postscript: having now watched it I don't see the residents of Grimsby lynching Margaret Beckett. Compared to historical, riotous reaction to the-powers-that-be this was incredibly tame. Twitterland gave its own, quite different, perspective on last night's events.

Postscript: Jon Stewart is god

The Indie has a piece today asking Where’s our Jon Stewart?

This is in response to the, apparently, international fallout of Stewart's ball-shattering interview with business cable channel host Jim Cramer.

The article (rightly) largely laments the demise of British TV satire. But in the wake of the Cramer interview I think some of the other comment I've read is right: we don't need another 'hard-hitting' interviewer. Stewart delivered better than Paxman or Humphrys has ever done (more wit, less arrogance) but we still have far better interviewing than the US MSM has had for years.

The article also laments that chat shows like Graham Norton's don't have the political content that someone like Letterman has, but, again, they're not filling some MSM void. Plus Norton pushes the envelope on a different sort of 'politics'.

What we do lack for sure is decent TV satire. On radio we have it in spades.

How TV should do user contribution

Australia's ABC (their BBC) has a fantastic 'contribute' channel which is packed full of photos and video of the bushfires. Much better content showing you what it's like as fire comes over the mountain and of the aftermath than what's to be found on YouTube.

And they're truly shareable! Very impressive, why can't the Beeb do something like this?

This one especially shows you what the wind speed's like.



Sky blocked out and smoke everywhere at Buln Buln

The threat to the Auschwitz World Heritage site

The BBC has a great piece with an audio slideshow for today, Holocaust Memorial Day.

The Auschwitz site is under real threat due to a vast shortfall in funds.

Some of the site and some of the artifacts will go due to inevitable decay after 65 years. But other parts will go because the money isn't available to preserve them.

Apparently, most of the funding comes from Poland. There is a debate about whether or not to preserve the site as much as it can be preserved, but the testimony of those who have visited it strongly suggests that it should. And as one survivor says, we preserve the relics of past civilisations but ones who are lost we don't remember.

This, from a SkyNews comment:

As a grandchild of 2 Holocaust survivors, I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau last October with my sister. We both grew up with stories from our grandparents about the horrors they had been subjected to and also those of other family members. One story that particularly stuck in my mind was that my great aunt had her womb ripped out of her whilst awake and with no numbing drugs by "Dr" Mengele; the "doctor who liked to experiment". I always wondered why she didnt have children, it was only years later after her passing that I was told. Thousands of stories by thousands of survivors most of whom have since passed away. Auschwitz is a very creepy place, its true that birds dont fly over it. This place must be preserved for future generations from all over the world to see and understand what happened back then.

~~~~~~

Some other coverage from today, the day Auschwitz was liberated.

'Someone had to do it. So the 43 Group did'
VIDEO Meet Jules Konopinski and Harry Kaufman, veterans of an English anti-fascist group set up by Jewish ex-servicemen after the second world war. They waged a five-year war against Oswald Mosley's British fascists in the 1930s.

Here's some amazing newsreel footage of the famous 'Battle of Cable Street' against the fascists, which these guys took part in.



Jonathan Sacks: National Holocaust Memorial Day matters because it is not just about Jewish victims, but all those who are touched by atrocity.

Holocaust recordings put online by British Library

Audio recordings made by Jewish survivors of the Second World War go on the British Library's website from today to mark National Holocaust Memorial Day.

Harsh echoes of history as hard times help Europe's extremists to rise again

There is a fresh impetus within the far Right who will seek to capitalise on the recession through making scapegoats and building support from the unemployed and the disillusioned.

Remembering the Holocaust

In the briefest of moments I imagined a giant steam train labouring towards the main gate of the world’s most notorious concentration camp. It would have been just like this in mid-winter. The powerful engine would have hauled up to 15 or more cattle trucks filled with human beings - the already dead, the dying and the soon to be dead - right across Europe.

Events happened all over the UK. As they should

BBC out of touch with Israelis over Gaza appeal

The BBC's decision not to broadcast a charities appeal for Gaza is being, rightly, condemned from left and right.

The Observer today suggests that the BBC might think the Disasters Emergency Committee's appeal "other than a genuine humanitarian appeal". But:

An alternative interpretation, and one that is ultimately much more damaging to the BBC's reputation, is that any humanitarian intervention in Gaza, by definition, expresses a political position in the long-running conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. In other words, collecting charity for Palestinians is a kind of hostility to Israel.

But if this were the case, why would Israelis themselves be collecting aid?

A student from a college near Sderot, the small town repeatedly hit by Hamas missiles, has over the past week collected 10 truckloads of basic supplies.

Hadas Balas, says she felt she had to take action when she heard the sound of bombs exploding in Gaza and the sound of sirens in Sderot.

"I realized there were people getting killed who had no food and nothing to drink, and that caused me a lot of pain."

"We are working beyond the rules, with the common goal of ensuring the right to live to those who are alive."

She sent off emails which reached human rights organizations, yielding more donations than initially anticipated.

"I thought we might get two truckloads. I wasn't expecting ten."

A few non-profit organizations volunteered to help collect clothes, blankets and basic supplies.

The Jerusalem branch of Hashomer Hatzair, the Zionist youth movement's organization, helped collect the supplies along with the Greek Catholic Church's Beit Hachesed in Haifa.

Kibbutz Kfar Aza, which has seen countless Palestinian missiles slam into its premises, volunteered a warehouse to house all the donated supplies before they get shipped out to the Strip.

People seeking to donate clothes and other supplies continue to arrive to the warehouse in Kfar Aza.

The women's Jerusalem facility has run out of room, and their Tel Aviv storage space is also almost full.

The two women have also opened an Internet site whereby surfers can donate money to purchase food. Their appeal has exploded across the Israeli and Jewish blogosphere.

"We have a lot of money now, which we are going to use to buy food to get into Gaza," Balas said.

This isn't an Israeli propaganda operation, it's come from ordinary Israelis who, as her friend and co-organiser, Lee Ziv, puts it

"Just see an immediate need for blankets for people who have nothing to cover them at night and milk for infants who have nothing to eat.”

I think their efforts puts the BBC's weasel words into an even sharper and more shameful light.

BBC monitored by US agencies 24/7?

Why isn't this news?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Russell Tice was back on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC program Thursday evening to expand on his Wednesday revelations that the NSA spied on individual U.S. journalists, entire U.S. news agencies as well as "tens of thousands" of other Americans.

Surely this also means the BBC's communications within the US?

More from Wired.

Rachel Maddow and Bill Cosby kick Justin Webbe in the head

This is how our of touch he was.

Justin Webb is not "formidable"

According to Radio 4's controller, Mark Damazer, the replacement for Ed Stourton on the Today show, North America Editor Justin Webb, is "one of the joys of the network".

Today editor Ceri Thomas said:

"Justin has always excelled on radio and has become a truly formidable North America editor for the BBC. "

"The chance to bring his foreign affairs expertise home to the programme was too good to miss."

This is the same Webb who oversaw the truly, embarassingly awful election night coverage for the BBC?!

I would love to know on what criteria they are judging him. Mateship? I've cataloged Webb's consistently Washington/MSM-centred, misleading and plain wrong (sometimes amazingly wrong) coverage over the past year. He was just another MSM journo spinning out the 'conflict' in the primaries and the general when by any reasonably criteria the result was known.

And his coverage of race in the election was cringeworthy.

I would also love to know how someone who consistently and rather snootingly ignored the enormous role of blogs in that election is going to fit-in with the now web 2.0-focus of the new Beeb?

My only conclusion is because Webb failed to hide his McCain-leaning sympathies that he'll fit in better with the Daily Mail leaning sympathies of Today.

Plus that I'll be avoiding the show come next September.

BBC 'real player'?

Just tuned into the News Quiz on iPlayer and faced with Real Player and the most bizarre echo and not terribly good sound.

Isn't this going backwards? One would think. I shall investigate ...

Postscript: From what I can tell, it's picking up my RealPlayer installation and hence playing via that rather than Flash-based iPlayer, based on WMP. However, it's only doing this now, it was the Flash player before, so it must be something to do with my Firefox upgrade. Oh well, at least it plays. Just get bizarre echo when it starts ...

Postscript: Election stars .. and Doofuses

The election in one-liners. From This. Fucking. Election

Power concedes nothing without demand
Frederick Douglaas

The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America.
Frank Rich

Stars

Nate Silver. And fivethirtyeight.com (it's a trio that does it, not just Nate). Proven with their on-the-money final calls on the electoral vote and percentages. Traffic went through the roof and the MSM came calling. And if he doesn't get a 'Webbie' award, there's no justice.
Rachel Maddow. A power butch dyke is now the most respected voice in US TV news. Wow! (as she might put it).
Hillary Clinton. Glass ceilings well and truly shattered. Redemption in Denver and, later, Florida.
YouTube. Ok, here's Huffpost's round up of the best. As Techpresident pointed out, just Barack's vids alone ammounted to $46m worth of free advertising.
Techpresident. By far the best place to follow how the Internet MADE Obama. Cannot emphasise this strongly enough - he would not be President-elect without the Internet - and glad to (finally) see some acknowledgment of this gamechanging fact in the MSM.
The web. Not only because without it there would be no Obama, and not just because of the bright light it shone on dirty tricks and lies (Arianna's point), but that the change it's brought will continue on - he himself has said that he wants to continue the momentum after he's elected and use the tools in government, this was in his half-hour infomercial. I'd also note that groups like moveon and sites like dailykos and huffpost will be used as tools to rally support for change. The dems don't have a filibuster proof senate majority so to get things like health care change they will use the web and all the tools. Here was Obama's email to his list post victory: "We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I'll be in touch soon about what comes next."



Tina Fey. Who? You'll know soon enough. Here's her best SNL comedy sketch.
Jon Stewart. Yes, he's a funny guy but his clip compilations were absolute political genius and skewered consistently throughout the campaign.
Web news. Now the main source for the young and, as Pew just showed, now bigger than newspapers overall.
Mike Gravel. Mad, mad, mad. Brought a touch of Dada to the campaign. Bless.
Doris Kearns Goodwin. The historian always ready with an anecdote.
The Onion. For their perfect satire of network news.
Guiliani's drag. Remember that? And then he had the nerve to attack 'cultural elites' in Minneapolis?
David Axelrod. "The past is not prologue we've shattered that".
Romney's dog. Remember this? The one he tied to the car roof?
Red State Update. Just crawl-on-the-floor funny pisstake on 'Appalachia', here they go on the dog:




Doofuses

The BBC. And it all came to a ignominious end on election night itself. Did anyone watch? I have documented how, frankly, biased the coverage was but it was all to one end, the traditional one of pretending it's closer than it is just to make a story where there isn't one. In the primaries it was 'Clinton still might win' - when she had no statistical chance. In the general it was 'McCain still might win' - when the polls said otherwise. One of the key things i spotted was just who BBC America editor Justin Webb linked to - the MSM, consistently. This isn't the sort of approach the beeb has preached about.
"Here's the deal". The 'go to' line for far too many.
Clinton. She redeemed herself but the depths she and her supporters lowered themselves to needs recalling. This included her extensive gay following. Oh, and Bill.
The MSM in general. Keith Olbermann made this point well, if you look at McCain's gaffes vs Obama's it is clear that a different standard was being held. If Obama had made anything like as many (remember Lieberman wispering in his ear when McCain stuffed up to a camera in Iraq about who the enemy was?) he would have been toast.
Joe the plumber. Simply an idiot.
Matt Drudge. At the end he was touting his number's - but they'd been beaten months before by the web's new stars, led by Huffington Post. His major league screw ups and blatant bias can only damn his chief selling-point: that the MSM follows his lead.
PUMAs. Clinton's 'loyalists' damned and screwed by Clinton herself. Until September they screamed the same anti-Obama rubbish as McCain ended on (see image, right).
Capitalism. McCain condoms?
Lieberman. And now comes the reckoning.
Reverend Wright. When the shit hit the fan I actually listened to his speeches and he made a lot of sense. When he took his show to the national Press Club he was nothing but an egotistical showpony.
Green screens. As in McCain's weird appearance in front of one. Should. Be. Banned.
Voter suppresssion. Americans can but hope something will change but it likely won't, Robert Kennedy Jnr and many others leveraged the web to shine a spotlight on this year's suppression efforts. Plus Obama's teams were right-on-it. As I predicted, it counted for nothing in the end but it shouldn't take overwhelming numbers to just about win. (Plus to get on the ballot in the first place).
Six hour waits. For a Brit, this is madness. But Americans haven't yet done anything about what is actually an international shaming
Robocalls. Some reported getting literally dozens a day, more if you were unfortunate enough to live in New Hampshire. They got worse as McCain's campaign got more desperate and were the hollow centre to any claims he ran a 'decent' campaign.
Holograms. CNN's election night tecnowizzadry just highlighted for me the emptiness of their core content. The journalism I watched? MSNBC. Plus they were actually tomograms and the presenters couldn't see them.
Ralph Nader. There is always a space to the left of the Dems but Nader proved he's not it with his narcissistic final (?) run this time. To see how broke his political space has become check this interview where he calls Obama an "Uncle Tom".
Palin. n'est-ce pas, and all she represents for the future of the GOP. As the bloodletting begins on the right, former speechwriter David Frum has a very interesting piece 'Republicans face fraught choice between two roads to revival' and the parallels with 1997 and the Tories are ripe. The argument is that they need to ditch the social conservatism. One good thing though? Because of her we met the brilliant Muckracker and his Mudflats bog - and now we now lots more about the weird and wonderful world of Alaskan politics.


And finally ...

Rachel Maddow's brilliant take on the funniest moments of the campaign:



And some of my posts from the past (arrrrgh .. ) year and a half:

Great videos

Absolutely fabulous
Anonymous woman sets Palin to Lloyd Webber.
Cleese on Olbermann
One long cackle.
Wassup 2008
One of the very best virals came right at the end.
Red State Update With Joe The Plumber
Election funnies
Barack and McCain do a 'roast'.
Scary Americans
(and Less scary Americans)
Paul Canning hits New Hampshire for Obama
(He's a union organiser from the 'International' Union of Painters and Allied Trades in New England.)
Barack in the Virginia Rain
One of his top three speeches.
Michael Palin for President
Hilarious SNL Palin vs Couric skit
Barack Obama’s bold economic recovery plan
'Stop America's shitty jobs from going overseas'.
Palingate
Red State and others take a pop.
Harriett vs Hillary
Great Clinton video that I suggested Harriet Harman might want to take lessons from.
Dems 101
Comedy genius from Robert Klein on Olbermann.
"He will make Cheney look like Ghandi"
Strong anti-McCain viral.
Oh. Knarly
Paris Hilton weighs in.
NSFW: He Said It First
He called her a 'c+++'?!?
Genius viral
"I love cheap Chinese crap", "if people want clean water, buy it in a bottle".
The Empire Strikes Barack
'You're my only hope'.
Whilst Hillary and Obama bash seven types of crap ...
Early anti-McCain virals.
Don't Think of a Black Man
Clinton's campaigns 'never noticed his blackness ... '
More McCain comedy riffs
Featuring Letterman and Red State Update.
A message to Ralph Nader from anonymous
First as tragedy, then as farce ...
The audacity of hope
Another of Obama's great speeches - from the 'bully pulpit' at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
"I Got a Crush...On Hillary" (take that obama girl!)
"Fat and Dumb"
Mike Gravel as the Dada candidate.
"I Got a Crush...On Obama"; By Obama Girl
This was from June last year!
Vote Different
Very early anti-Hillary mega-viral.

Daily Show clips

The gift from heaven
Palin: she'll be missed (by comics).
Apropos
Stewart on 2008 'swiftboating'.
Behind the scenes at the conventions
The, er, 'gay' side of the GOP.
PUMAs meet child psychologists
Healing the Clinton supporters.
Barack has ladyparts!
John Oliver on the Primaries
Ralph Nader on the Daily Show
John shows respect; NB this was from March.
The CNN/YouTube Presidential debate
Jon sets the tone.


My analysis

Snatching victory?
My answer to Tatchell on vote stealing fears.
Landslide
"I should have laid a bookies bet when the odds were a lot better."
The only poll that counts
The electoral vote.
When in doubt .. (or losing)
Turn to fear - and race.
Will McCain drop out?
Got that one wrong!
Notes
Barry in Hawaii, BBC rubbish again and why Hillary lost.
BBC US election coverage - and another thing ...
Nothing but spin.
The Obama=Muslim smear: The London connection
Where it all started.
Obama: good for the gays?
Sky joins BBC in misreporting US Primaries
If it's not close, where's the story?
Great moments from the campaign trail
Obama and the Jews and how a DNC committee meeting turned into high drama.
Follow the worm
The history of the instant, on-screen voter reaction 'worm'.
Hillary's nuclear option
When Tomasky still thought she had a nomination chance.
Americans: don't look to BBC for unbiased election coverage
No Internet, no Obama
You betcha!
Could a British teacher ever do this?
A New York teacher discusses Obama in the classroom - this post sparked a lot of interest.
Turning web buzz into votes: how Obama does it
Going into detail on Obama's web roots.
Rewriting history over Rwanda
One of Hillary's lesser known 'misspeaks'.
More Obama speech reaction - it's positive but you won't read about it
His speech on race pushes up his polls but most of the UK media miss the boat.
Postscript: Obama addresses race: hear the whole speech, not the BBC's meme
More on the BBC's bias.
Obama addresses race: hear the whole speech, not the BBC's meme
Are Hillary's wins bad news for web campaigning fans?
Turns out not.
Climate Change nowhere in US Elections and the world should worry
Fetid pools mark the 'new America'
Some 'sub-prime' crisis coverage from January.
Web oiling US campaign, not so much in London
Comparing the primaries with the London mayoral race.
And so, the Macaca turns ..
Guiliani and Romney hit below the waterline by YouTube.
Evolution of a political web 'brand'
Another early analysis on the Obama and Hillary web ops.
Attack ads move onto YouTube?
US Prez election: Web Video Reviews Are Mixed

Moments

Postscript: Don't piss off Dave!
Don't piss off Dave!
Alaskans for Truth
Manipulation
Wassilians on Sarah.
Republikan police state
'Preemptive strike' hits activists at the GOP convention.
The West Wing analogy still holds
What Rev. Wright actually said
America's pompous journalists
When they collectively went for The Scotsman.
UK searching for Obama
Election viral video numbers go boom
Hillary is not the 'devil'
When AP tried it on.
Hillary mocks Obama
'The Sky Will Open, The Light Will Come Down'
The Tweety Effect
The sexism against Hillary.
Postscript: Obama and accessibility
The Battle to Control Obama's Myspace
Democrats drop Fox News