Archive for April, 2006

Double Dubya…

April 30th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

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President Bush shares the stage with a Bush impersonator at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Check out the video, it’s funnier than it sounds:

And here’s the story on the event:

You’re a mean one, Mister Grinch…

April 30th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

snidley.jpgOkay, picture this guy in a Snidley Whiplash outfit. 

According to the Kingston Whig-Standard, a restaurant in Canada has lost its liquor license over a number of “epic” violations, one of which was evicting a designated driver for not ordering alcoholic beverages.

That’s right. 

 Here is the story

 

The salmon are running?

April 30th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

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A little bit of Americana: boys taking their fish out for exercise.  Actually, these two young runners are competing  in the codfish relay race at the annual Fishermen’s Festival in Boothbay Harbor, Maine April 29, 2006.   REUTERS/Herb Swanson

Another look at the good stuff

April 30th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

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And finally…. If you missed some of the better offbeat video clips this week, you can either scroll down and find them or you can let Chad Ruble do it, from New York, USA.  Be sure to catch the Broken Heart Museum, and those incredible dangling chefs.

Continue here for Chad’s wrapup:

What’s going on here?

April 28th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

Everybody, what are the three main elements of a great newsphoto? That’s right: a flabby guy in a jockstrap and helmet, a large bonfire, and red shoes.  So, this is a perfect picture. Come up with a good caption, and send it via Post a Comment.

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Spanish artist Cuco Suarez performs on the streets in Oviedo, northern Spain, April 26, 2006. Suarez carried out his performance art piece called ‘News is written in blood,’ a satire about war and warlords. REUTERS/Eloy Alonso

 

“Come and see the violence inherent in the system…”

April 28th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

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This is just Rough Cut Video, and it’s not easy to figure out what is going on, but I’m pretty sure these are out-takes from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” 

Continue to see if you agree:

Slut on a Hot Tin Roof?

April 28th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

Okay, the idea is we take porno stars, plop them onto a London stage and give them parts in a serious drama.  What can possibly go wrong there?  Will they be able to act while standing up? Will they remember lines longer than “Oh, baby, oh baby…”?

We’re not making this up. A new television reality show, “My Bare Lady” will cast four leading ladies from U.S. porn studios in a classic piece of drama.  Here is the story:

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Lady Macbeth? Photographers surround a porno film actress who strikes a pose outside a hotel in Cannes, May 15, 2001. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard

Mystery solved…

April 28th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

Yesterday, we reported on a mysterious code embedded  in the text of a court ruling in the case of Dan Brown’s bestseller “The Da Vinci Code.”

Today, the code has been cracked.  Read all about it:                                                      

 

Citizen journalism climbing up the UK media ladder

April 28th, 2006, filed by Astrid Zweynert

The number 30 double-decker bus, destroyed by a suicide bomb,  is shown in in Tavistock Square in central London in this July 8, 2005 file photo. By Astrid Zweynert

LONDON, April 28 (Reuters) - Videos shot in smoke-filled, bombed-out London underground trains, photos of body-strewn roads — the July 7 bombings on London’s transport system brought the arrival of a new advance guard of amateur reporters to Britain.

Media commentators described it as a sea-change in journalism as mobile phone photographers, text messagers and bloggers dominated initial coverage of the bombings that claimed the lives of 52 commuters.

But while the momentous events of July 7 raised public awareness of how eyewitness-generated content can dominate the the mainstream media’s initial coverage of a big story, citizen journalism is still trying to establish itself in Britain.

“It hasn’t got a proper foothold here yet — citizen journalism hasn’t carved out a niche for itself like in the
United States,” Roy Greenslade, a professor of journalism at City University in London and former editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper, told Reuters.

But more and more news reports in the “old media” have taken their lead from submissions by ordinary citizens and a new wave of political bloggers is challenging Britain’s media commentators.

“It helps us tell the story truthfully and accurately,” said BBC Interactivity Editor Vicky Taylor, referring to the BBC’s use of images sent in by witnesses of the London bombings.

Mainstream media owners also have rushed to tap into the phenomenon by setting up blogs written by their own journalists.

But unlike in the United States, where bloggers have claimed credit for major political upsets, including the resignations of broadcaster Dan Rather and Senate Republican leader Trent Lott, Britain’s newspapers remain in charge for now of exposing the misdemeanours of public figures and institutions.

“The citizen journalist here is a snapper who happens to be passing somewhere where something is going on,” Greenslade said. “What we haven’t developed yet is the citizen journalist who goes out and writes and reports.”

NOT MUCH TO BLOG ABOUT?

Like citizen journalism, blogging has received a lot of coverage in the media. Globally, there has been a massive growth of web logs, or personal online journals.

According to Technorati, a search engine for blogs, a new blog is created every second of every day.

But in Britain, despite a rapid uptake in broadband Internet connections, only 2 percent of Internet users publish a blog, a recent survey by the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) found, while another study said most bloggers quit after three months.

The BMRB also found that only 10 percent, around 2.8 million people, of UK Internet users read blogs.

“There has been disproportionate coverage of blogging — still only a tiny proportion of people publish them,” said Paul Milsom, a senior associate director at the BMRB.

“A lot of media attention has been paid to blogs, which looks a bit overhyped given how few people actually blog,” he told Reuters.

But, as trends in many other countries have shown, bloggers potentially wield a hugely disproportionate influence in setting trends, as those who do publish blogs are more likely to be opinion formers.

“It is definitely set to grow in Britain (but) it will take time to filter through in terms of people having to learn how to publish a blog,” said Milsom.

In the United States, the fastest-growing area of citizen journalism is the so-called “hyper-local” coverage of
high-school sports or petty neighbourhood crime, usually too small even for local newspapers.

That trend is also shaping up in Britain.

“I expect citizen journalism to really take off at regional and local level: citizens reporting about what goes on in their area, on their street,” Greenslade said.

The Press Gazette, a magazine dedicated to UK journalism, is leading the charge in honouring the best in citizen journalism for the first time with its Citizen Journalism Awards, to be announced on July 14.

Among the entries are photographs and films of a local pub siege and of a local teenager being threatened by a knife-wielding man.

The glamorous field of manned space flight

April 27th, 2006, filed by Robert Basler

So kids, you want to reach for the stars, to explore the final frontier?  Sure.  Start with picking up that roadkill.

It turns out, NASA is trying to rid the Kennedy Space Center of vultures, and has set up a “road kill posse” to quickly clear carcasses from its site, in hopes of encouraging the vulture population to relocate by cutting off its food supply.  One small step for man…Here is the story:                                                 vultures300.jpg

 

Vultures hunt baby turtles known as ‘Loras’ on Ostional Beach in Santa Cruz, 350 miles north of the capital of San Jose, Costa Rica, October 24, 2003. REUTERS/Juan Carlos Ulate