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August, 2004

  1. Missing posts

    August 27, 2004 by dafyd

    I posted the entry below about being bored… and all the others disappeared! Hmm.

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  2. I’m bored

    August 27, 2004 by dafyd

    Wow. 12 weeks of summer holiday, and I’ve run out of things to do. Drat.

    I have done everything I had on my list, so now I’m going to have to invent new things. There’s a month until I go to uni (3rd October), a week of which I will spend in Paris… so that means 3 1/2 weeks of nothing to do. Aargh!

    Any ideas?

    Please…

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  3. Thank You!

    August 9, 2004 by dafyd

    Thanks to everyone for their gifts for my birthday – you are all my favourite people in the world…

    Anyone who didn’t give me anything – the list is still up at http://www.dafyd.me.uk/birthday.php (minus the things I’ve got…)!

    If you didn’t see my special birthday homepage – it’s still here at http://www.dafyd.me.uk/birthday_index2.php – make sure you have your speakers on!

    Again – thanks to everyone – you made my day very special!

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  4. I’ve finally melted

    August 7, 2004 by dafyd

    It’s true!

    It’s been so hot here over the last couple of days that I have at last been reduced to a puddle on the floor. Drat.

    Anyway, it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any less hot – although the BBC are predicting rain for Monday, the temperature isn’t going to drop much. Double drat.

    Also, I have the world’s worst fan in my room, which does approximately nothing to cool it down…

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  5. Preparing for Emergencies

    August 3, 2004 by dafyd

    Of course, if you a really concerned about the terror risk… you should probably check out the Government’s official Preparing for Emergenices site.

    On the other hand, you might prefer Thomas Scott’s Department of Vague Paranoia at preparingforemergencies.co.uk, containing advice on (among other things) dealing with an alien attack:

    Negotiate using sign language, if possible. Failing that, and assuming they aren’t armed with futuristic ray guns, run like hell.

    Very funny and, apparantly, the site has already felt the wrath of the government:

    “This could confuse people” claimed a Cabinet Office spokesperson, “and it detracts from sensitive advice”. (BBC News)

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  6. Terror Alert?

    August 3, 2004 by dafyd

    From The Independent – 3 August:

    The US has issued numerous terror alerts since the attacks of September 2001, and some people were sceptical yesterday as to the nature of the administration’s latest warning. The former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean highlighted the concerns of many without access to the information. “It’s hard to know what to make [of it]. None of us outside the administration have access to the intelligence which led to this determination,” he said. “I am concerned that every time something happens that’s not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism,” he told CNN. “His whole campaign is based on the notion that ‘I can keep you safe, therefore, at times of difficulty for America, stick with me’ and then out comes Tom Ridge. It’s just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there’s some of both in it.” But Mr Ridge, head of the Department of Homeland Security, and other officials insisted the information was “alarmingly” more specific than the usual intelligence chatter. Information recovered after Mr Khan’s arrest was a “potential treasure trove”, they said. Given that America is in the middle of a closely fought election campaign, there was, perhaps, little surprise that some would accuse the Bush administration of playing politics. With an eye to possible criticism from Republicans, the Democratic candidate, John Kerry, felt the need to distance himself yesterday from Mr Dean’s comments. At the same time, there have been numerous terror alerts since the 11 September attacks that appear to have been based on little more than chatter. Some – such as the arrest of Jose Padilla, the alleged “dirty-bomber” – have been announced in a way designed to have maximum political impact. Other warnings have been based on information later shown to be incorrect. In regard to the latest alert, Mr Ridge admitted the intelligence did not give crucial details about when, where or how terrorists might strike. Officials said, however, the information showed al-Qa’ida operatives had been scouting the targets, seeing how to make contact with employees, as well as traffic patterns and locations of hospitals and police posts.

    This certainly wouldn’t be the first time an embattled leader has ‘invented’ security concerns – Margaret Thatcher, facing election defeat in the early 80s, went to war against Argentina and promptly won a resounding victory in the election.

    As I suggested earlier, a lot of the tactics used by Bush and his gang to divert attention from the Democrat Convention smack of someone who is seriously concerned about losing his office – with good reason: Kerry currently holds a lead in the polls…

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  7. Blogging at the Democrat Convention

    August 1, 2004 by dafyd

    From the BBC News Convention Weblog:

    This will be the first convention covered by bloggers, those opinionated cyber-diarists who have renewed the internet’s promise of self-publishing. Bloggers blog at the bloggers breakfast To celebrate, the Democratic Party threw them a breakfast. “Do you have Wi-Fi?” one of the bloggers asked Michael Feldman who writes for DowBrigade.com. “No, and my server is down,” he answered. But he made the mistake of being the first blogger to whip out his laptop, and the traditional media pounced. Mutual distrust The Bloggers Breakfast was one of those surreal circular media events, where the traditional media cover someone who in turn covers the traditional media. Dean said the traditional media will increasingly become irrelevant I snapped pictures of them. They snapped pictures of me. I interviewed them. They interviewed me. The traditional media and bloggers have a mutual distrust. Bloggers think the traditional media are tapped out, and the traditional media think bloggers are amateur pundits. Even though I’m “blogging”, Michael told me I wasn’t a blogger because I was getting paid by a traditional media outlet, although he said that it was a matter of some debate in the blogging community. The suspicion was obvious. Veteran Associated Press reporter Walter Mears will actually be blogging this convention, and one of the bloggers asked him which candidate he supported so they could take that into account when they read his blog. ‘Not real journalists’ No dice, he wouldn’t tell. And they didn’t need to take his political affiliation into account, he said, because “I’m objective”. The hoots and laughter from the bloggers showed they were less than convinced. And when the blogging political pioneer Howard Dean addressed the audience, he added a large helping of media mistrust to the breakfast on hand. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be insulted if someone said you weren’t a real journalist,” he said, because news has increasingly become entertainment, not information. And he believes the traditional media will increasingly become irrelevant. “The net will become so ubiquitous over the next 25 years, that you will largely be able to bypass traditional media,” he said.

    There were 15,000 accredited journalists at the Convention, of whom nearly half (I believe) were bloggers. As Kevin Anderson says in the BBC blog, even ‘traditional’ media like the BBC or Associated Press have sent their own bloggers – because blogging is an easy, quick way to release news instantly. I can imagine that the PR people for the Democrats had a nightmare of a time – any little mistake, anywhere, anytime, and the blogs would have it immediately. Whereas in the past they could brush it into a corner before press time or the news bulletins, now they have to be permanently alert…

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