Monday, 19th May 2008
3:36pm
There's an interesting line in Matt's account of Brown's talk this morning:
Even foreign policy, he suggested, would be affected: if Rwanda happened today, he said, the images and stories dispersed on the web would make it impossible for the international community not to intervene.
Really?
We are living through a huge tragedy, with stories about it widely dispersed on the web and other media: Burma. And where's the intervention from the international community? There isn't any. There's a lot of hot air, and nothing more.
And there's exactly the same attitude as there was in regard to Rwanda - a craven refusal to upset the order of things, however inhuman that order may be.
So much for the impact of people power.
(BTW, apologies for the formatting on today's posts - a spanner is in the works.)
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10:38am
Gordon Brown is speaking today at the Google Zeitgeist conference at The Grove. That’s The Grove as in the hotel described by Fabio Capello as being
"too swanky" for the England team:
An FA source said: "I think this will be the last time they stay at the Grove. They've been going there for a while, not least because it's favoured by David Beckham and a few others. But Capello thinks it's too grand, too luxurious. He'll be looking for somewhere a bit more modest.
It might be too blingy for the England team, but clearly that's not a worry for the leader of a party running a by-election campaign based on class prejudice. What a hypocrite that man is.
As for Google: there's clearly a natural synergy between a Prime Minister who wants every one of us to carry an ID card and a company which doesn't see why it shouldn't be free to invade our privacy as it sees fit. Google is being sued by a couple in the US for its Street View technology, which has taken a picture of their property and made it available for the rest of us to see:
A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania couple has sued Google for invasion of privacy, accusing the world's largest search engine of photographing their swimming pool and posting it to the web.
Aaron and Christine Boring claim that in offering 360-degree panoramic pics of their private residence via Google Street View, the web giant has "caused them mental suffering and diminished the value of their property."...These pics were acquired, the suit says, when a Google vehicle appeared on their private road without a privacy waiver or other authorization. Claiming this private road is marked with a "Private Road" sign, the suit calls Google's behavior "an intentional and/or grossly reckless invasion of...seclusion." The Borings' lawyer calls it "outlandish."
This is of a piece with
developments in Europe:
Google is hoping to avoid a fight with European privacy campaigners as it prepares to launch its controversial Street View service this side of the Atlantic later in the year, by introducing new technology that blurs the faces of people its cameras inadvertently snap while scanning the streets.
Street View, launched in the US last May, adds street-level pictures to the search engine's existing Google Maps' information. A fleet of vans fitted with cameras have been trawling the streets of more than 20 American cities, photographing the pavements to provide a complete visual map of the area.
But the cameras also take pictures of anyone who happens to be walking by at the time. While this has caused controversy among privacy campaigners in the US, it could result in serious legal problems in countries such as France with strict privacy laws.
Google has done a huge amount for which we should all be grateful. Its search engine is a wonder. But even here, the company behaves as if it is answerable to no one. Google believes that it should be able to hold all sorts of data on us for as long as it sees fit. Take cookies, which Google holds on to for 18 months, despite the EU recommendation being a maximum of 6 months.
This matters. Companies such as Google have the potential to do immense good. But just as we should fear governments which override our privacy and independence, so too we must hold companies which do the same to account.
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8:02am
Snide remarks about William Shatner in a review of his autobiography hardly seem the most important issue of our time. But I want to explain why it matters, and why unless Captain Kirk's books are given fair treatment, the battle to save western civilisation will be lost.
Yes, William Shatner he has always come across as - to be polite - somewhat eccentric and as an actor he has never really challenged Lord Olivier's legacy. But he is, to use an over used word, a legend. As Captain Kirk, he was the lead in possibly the most memorable TV series ever, and is certainly one of the great cultural icons of our time. We are surely entitled to a review of his book which is not wilfully slanted and which is based on accuracy rather than distortion.
So one would have hoped for something more insightful and less determined to put the boot in than this hatchet job from Tom Shone in the Sunday Times. Take this example:
Shatner doesn't let the charge of self-absorption delay him long; there's his appearance on the World Wide Wrestling channel to be getting on with, or the time he sold his kidney stone on eBay... The reader is left to decide whether this is all a sign of incipient postmodernism (the first actor to display knowledge of his own cheesiness) or just an ego so hungry that no crumb is too small to be worth chasing under the table.
Sounds horrific. But Shone doesn't give even a smidgen of the full story:
As some of you might have heard by now, GoldenPalace.com has bought a kidney stone of mine for $75,000. I was delighted to be able to raise that kind of money for Habitat for Humanity along with contributions from the cast of Boston Legal who gave a gift on behalf of the whole Boston Legal company to Habitat.
So rather than self-absorption, it was an act of charity. I wonder when Tom Shone last raised such a sum for charity. Instead of using it a further tool with which to sneer at Shatner, of Shone was doing a proper job he would use it to heap praise on the man.
As I say, it's hardly the most pressing issue of our time that a reviewer has done a hatchet job on William Shatner. But it's this sort of wilfully misleading journalism which, on a bigger scale, leads to warped reporting of the Middle East and warps perceptions of what is going in the war on terror. If Israel, for instance, is attacked for its security cordons without any mention of the threats from which it is tryting to protect its citizens, if any attack on Islamism is treated as an attack on Muslims, and if the liberation of a country from a brutal dictator is described as a war crime, then we are all finished.
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Sunday, 18th May 2008
8:13pm
Forget Epsom (as, unfortunately, it seems a number of leading trainers are doing).
All eyes are now pointing to Belmont on 7th June, when Big Brown, the runaway winner of the first two legs of the US triple crown, could become the champion racing fans have been waiting for for 30 years since Affirmed.
I can't remember seeing such an easy winner of the Kentucky Derby and then, last night, the Preakness. Big Brown looks the real deal - a monster wonderhorse.
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Saturday, 17th May 2008
7:20pm
I'll be on Sky News tomorrow at 12.30 (ish) talking about Gordon Brown.
UPDATE: They forgot to book the promised car to take to me to Osterley, so it'll be sometime after 1pm.
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7:11pm
Ian Jack is fast becoming my least favourite columnist; a man who seems to deeply ignorant and utterly in thrall to prevailing liberal attitudes. A few Saturdays ago he wrote a piece which bemoaned the end of "the grammar school years" without considering that the cause might be, er...the end of grammar schools.
Today, he offers us 1200 words on how:
Israel's behaviour towards its captive Palestinian population is profoundly racist, oppressive and unjust.
That's because, he writes:
According to United Nations figures, there are now 621 Israeli army checkpoints and barriers spread throughout the West Bank - this week Tony Blair was celebrating the good news that he had persuaded the Israelis to remove four of them (though "subject to Israeli security assessments") and at most of those we passed through we witnessed the same kind of caprice in action: Palestinians of all kinds - women, children, old men with hospital appointments - sent back for "security reasons" or because they had the wrong piece of paper, journeys abandoned or started again by circuitous routes.
And not once - not once, anywhere in the entire piece - does he even mention the murder of 1059 Israelis by Palestinian terrorists since 2000, let alone consider its impact. Maybe, just maybe, that has led to the Israeli authorities being somewhat cautious at border controls. Or don't dead Israelis exist on your radar, Mr Jack?
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Thursday, 15th May 2008
3:13pm
I've just recorded a discussion on political memoirs with Steve Richards and Lord Howe for A Week in Westminster. If you're so inclined, you can hear it on Saturday on Radio 4 at 11am.
UPDATE: It's here.
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3:08pm
Hmmm. I've a feeling this could turn out to be Boris' first mistake:
Newly elected London mayor Boris Johnson will return to the Daily Telegraph - where he is expected to earn about £250,000 a year for his weekly column.
Johnson will resume writing for the newspaper in the summer and write the column at weekends for publication on Monday or Tuesday, his spokesman Guto Hari confirmed.
So far, he's been pitch perfect with his appointments and actions. But doesn't this just reek of the part-time mayor notion? Of course there's no reason in theory why Boris - or anyone else - shouldn't do more than one job when holding public office, but it hardly gives off the right vibes.
In the end he'll be judged on how he does as mayor, but I do think it's a mistake for him to appear so cavalier about his main job.
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7:47am
Prince Charles was busy abusing his position again this morning, lecturing us on deforestation on the Today programme.
This man has a choice to make: it he wants to take part in political debates, step aside as heir to the throne. If he wants the privileges that come with his position: shut up and behave like his mother.
There was a line I liked, however, when he was speaking about lobbying President Sarkozy:
I had a word with President Sarkozy the other day. I had to pick him up at the airport and take him to Windsor, so I spoke to him then.
I do like the image of Charles standing waiting at the arrivals gate with a sign saying 'Sarkozy' and helping the French President with his luggage into the back of his car before driving him to his destination.
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Wednesday, 14th May 2008
2:42pm
There's a bizarre post by Conor Ryan on the Democrat nomination process:
A 67-26 victory in West Virginia by the woman whom the media has been declaring a lame duck is a reminder why this contest is not over yet. The maths of the Democratic race may dictate that Obama is the likely candidate, but the maths of the Presidential election are rather more complicated, and suggest Hillary is more likely to beat McCain.
Be that as it may, the fact - fact, not media speculation - is that Obama has more of the primary delgates tied up, and the superdelegates are announcing only one way - for Obama. The contest is over, over, over. It's as over as my ante post bet on New Approach in the 2000 Guineas. It's as over as Brian Clough. It's as over as Gordon Brown.
The argument about who'd be best to beat McCain is now irrelevant. Obama will be the nominee. All Hillary is doing is getting her 'I told you so's in now, ready for 2012. And turning it into a self-fulfilling prophesy by expanding, rather than minimising, voters' splits.
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