07.07.05
Least favorite quotes of the day
[editor’s note: this post was “pasted” in — it appeared originally at the old Dawson’s Danube site, which is archived here.]
I admit that Prime Minister Blair did sound Churchillian today, but this part was sure nonsense:
It is particularly barbaric that this has happened on a day when people are meeting to try to help the problems of poverty in Africa, the long-term problems of climate change and the environment.
You’ve all seen Galloway’s remarks by now:
We urge the government to remove people in this country from harms way, as the Spanish government acted to remove its people from harm, by ending the occupation of Iraq and by turning its full attention to the development of a real solution to the wider conflicts in the Middle East.
The BBC’s rolling contributions from readers had a lot of interesting messages. This was not one of them (though the BBC itself thought the message was worthy of a pull-quote):
I just hope that the angry, frightened people don’t turn on all the innocent, law-abiding Muslim families who live peacefully with us in our communities. These attacks affect them too, and they are just as scared and angry as the rest of us, without the added fear of being attacked purely because of their religion. My thoughts are with everyone affected, regardless of race, creed or colour – be strong, every right minded citizen of this planet is behind you.
Tim, London
Der Standard’s “RAU” reminds us that there was never terror in Iraq before the United States arrived, that one should not trust Tony Blair and that George W. Bush can cause physical and emotional pain to those afflicted with Bush-dementia (translations are mine):
We are in a defensive war, albeit with very little trust in our “Command-in-Chief” and his deputies. In his reactions to the London attacks, Tony Blair offered his famous rhetoric that we have come to learn to distrust. To see and hear George W. Bush there induced bodily pain and depression. The man decided to fight the “War against Terror” in Iraq, although there were no terrorists there until the U.S. invasion…
…[T]his war “War Against Terror” is led by the wrong people for the wrong reasons on the wrong front and by the wrong means. [Aber dieser "Krieg gegen den Terror" wird von den falschen Leuten mit der falschen Begründung an der falschen Front und mit den falschen Mitteln geführt.]
This elicited much agreement from RAU’s readers, such as this comment from “vito” (translated):
The democracies of this world, since they have come into existence, have also conducted a merciless struggle for the raw materials of these countries. No wonder that this political system is not trusted there.
I’m sure I could come across tons of other examples, but it’s too depressing. Whither Western Civilization?
Thoughts on trying to keep up with the news in a crisis
[editor’s note: this post was “pasted” in — it appeared originally at the old Dawson’s Danube site, which is archived here.]
Unlike on 9/11, today I was not in front of the TV while the story of the London mass-murders was developing. I was at work and therefore tried to make use of the Internet as much as I could. Some random thoughts on the experience of zooming around the web, looking for updates, etc.:
- Flickr is a great idea. And the idea of having a “pool” dedicated to a topic is also a great idea. It was a bit disappointing that the majority of the contributions were snapshots of television screens. Anybody can do that. What we need are people “on the ground” taking photos and getting them to publically-available websites as fast as any “real” news agency can. Actually it should be faster than MSM agencies since the latter have to receive a photo and then take at least a few moments to fit it in to their pages. All we really want in this day and age when we don’t trust MSM anymore is the photo itself — we don’t care if it’s framed on a page with all sorts of other articles or editorial content surrounding it, with ads, etc. I have a cheap mobile phone, so I haven’t really paid attention to how far along we are in the ease-of-use of mobile phones that have both a (relatively) high speed internet connection (UMTS) and a camera and how the two can be used to get a photo quickly from your hand to a publically-available website.
- Major news sites still can’t keep up with traffic during crises. Of course it’s gotten better over the years, but I look forward to the day when a traffic surge is no longer so noticeable. Today’s particular disappointment in this area was the BBC video and audio feeds that are supposed to be available from http://news.bbc.co.uk. They were completely unusable. The main news page itself, however, did quite well.
- It’s also great to see MSM reporters getting their “raw data” to the public much faster (and without editors, I guess!) through vehicles such as BBC’s Reporters’ Log, which included running commentary from reporters throughout the day. Another good example probably would have been the Guardian blogs, but they were virtually unusable, I assume because of traffic. Now that several hours have passed, I see that they are once again easy to reach.
- Another nice feature at BBC was the running commentary provided by eyewitnesses who e-mailed their stories. One complaint I have with this feature was the lack of a timestamp on each contribution.
- More about timestamps: it drives me crazy when I can’t find a timestamp. Flickr users who post photos during a breaking event should include a comment that includes the time the photo was taken.
- On days like today it suddenly becomes obvious that the ability to locate bloggers geographically is a big plus. Here, for example, are bloggers who have registered themselves as living near the Liverpool Street Tube station in London.
There is no situation so serious, no horror so great…
…that it could divert a committed Bush-hater’s attention from the object of his/her malice.
I’m following Flickr’s “pool” of London-related photos. Note the comments accompanying this photo.
[And then later it got even better. A very relevant photo for the "pool" committed to the London attacks.]
[editor’s note: this post was “pasted” in — it appeared originally at the old Dawson’s Danube site, which is archived here.]
Another African says: “Please don’t help us!”
[editor’s note: this post was “pasted” in — it appeared originally at the old Dawson’s Danube site, which is archived here.]
“Bitte helft uns nicht!” (“Please don’t help us!”) is the title of the article at the Sueddeutsche Zeitung. This time the African making the plea is a journalist from Uganda, Andrew Mwenda. (I say “this time” because of an earlier post re a Kenyan making a similar request.)Mr Mwenda: “I watched on CNN the Live 8 concert. Robbie Williams was fantastic. But as far as help for Africa goes, the whole thing was, as expected, a disaster.”
More: “Blair is making one of the biggest mistakes of his life. He is giving a blank check to African dictators.”
When asked about a Marshall Plan for Africa: “Marshall Plan! I’ve heard that before. At that time the Marshall Plan contributed 2% of German GDP. In the countries south of the Sahara, 13% of the average GDP is already financed from outside.”
His plea: “Stop all financial aid … And ignore Africa.”
Wow, even for someone such as myself who finds it easy to ignore Africa, that “sounds” a bit shocking. But I agree wholeheartedly.
