Never saw Eccleston (Doctor) sticking with it - he's a much better actor than the role requires and the writing allows. A recent interview on BBC's Jonathan Ross show saw him looking rather bemused with the whole thing (and with the line of Dr Who dolls due to come out this Xmas) he's probably feeling embarrassed by the first ep. The material given to him in the first ep. was p***-poor and the story quickly gravitated towards Billy Piper (Rose) which is one of the many pointers to the soap-like focus that the show will now suffer (after all, the target audience will be young ladies as it is for all drama-based TV shows these days -my sister felt sorry for the Doctor when he pleaded with Rose to come with him). Of course even Eccleston wouldn't want to turn down a paying job but I don't expect the BBC even wanted him to continue in the role otherwise they would have tied him to another series already. BBC Three (which has all the after-show shows here in the good old UK) transmitted the Dr Who Confidential show after the actual ep. on BBC 1 and the new production team kept banging on about their view of the essence of Dr Who, which boiled down to the Doctor character (but without the traditional dandy clothing - i.e. a time traveller that follows 21st century Earth fashions?), a Tardis (but only the exterior and the bigger-on-the-inside tricks have been kept the same), the space/time travelling (but the first episode was set in the now, and the next is supposed to be set at the end of time), and scary creatures (but the first episode had very unfrightening shop dummies). Nothing more! Ok, maybe I'm not sure what the essence of the original series was but I'm sure it was more about presenting new ideas and challenges to the viewer (e.g. what would we do if the earth was invaded by round tin-cans / human-like tin cans / big flies / etc) rather than wondering how long Eccleston will be able to reel of the names of lame galactic accords and stare meaningfully at Rose. The BBC should have looked to the late-70s Quatermass series which resurrected an earlier BBC series with a challenging premise and story line, instead of the long list of Mal Young resurrected soap-dramas. If there is some one in BBC land who is more like Nigel Neale (Quatermass, The Stone Tape*) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/timesh ift/nigel-kneale.shtml) then please let them come forward and seize the day before Dr Who is cancelled once again. Then again, what do I know... * The Stone Tape is superb and highly recommended.
...would see the casts of cancelled shows (both past and present) battling it out to win a new show with Paramount. Enterprise vs. TOS vs. B5 vs. etc; with a special bye for Futurama - naturally the whole thing would be rigged in favour of Futurama because we all know cartoons are so much better than real-actors. The end of each show would see a team eliminated and sent to a community theatre for a year to act out classic plays such as Death of a Salesman or classic TV series such as Magnum and Tour of Duty... in some foreign US-hating country like Iraq or N Korea (US-hating Europe would be exempt but UK's Manchester would not because they have guns). The show would then spawn multiple spin-offs following the fortunes and hilarious misfortunes of the various expelled casts as they struggle with the lack lustre material, lazy stage hands, and random assasination squads. Yes, I did say random. As an added bonus each cast memeber who ever tried to resurrect their original TV show will be required to accompany the local US ambassador where ever s/he goes but without a bullet proof vest. It would be very funny and allow us to let go of cancelled TV shows that should be treated like sleeping dogs and stop old actors from trying to resurrect old TV shows. I say this having just recovered from the first Ep. of the new Dr Who (I knew Billy Piper liked older men but this is getting ricockulous).
Sadly I can't agree - in this case promotion has little to do with it; it's all down to good writing and high production values. Enterprise was clearly a last attempt to drain the last few bucks from die-hard Trek fans and whereas Farscape / Firefly (?) were of better quality, they all shared common - and simplistic - plot devices, with a distinctly 50's Cowboy movie theme. Examples: desperately unsympathetic enemies, overtly moral good guys, happy endings, storylines completed in a single episode (Voyager-style), no story too taxing for the simplest viewer. Production values and in-show technology were also p***-poor. Examples: fixed view-point CGI, laser pistols instead of real guns, minimal dirt, astonishingly short-lived injuries. In an age where kids - the intended audience for Enterprise and their ilk - are increasingly sophisticated and exposed to more and more news and real-life dramas, the likes of Enterprise (and the Star Wars movies) are embarrassingly weak. BG, on the other hand, has better realism and more complex plot devices - a recipe that would have failed several years ago, pre-HBO style programming in the US - and something that myself, as a UK sci-fi fan, have been crying out for since I turned into a teenager, disillusioned with the childish sci-fi TV around at the time. The negative side of BG's quality is that competing shows will look even worse in comparison; already TNG is quickly showing it's age and naivety, Enterprise is smoke, Andromeda / SG-1 should be, and the forthcoming Dr Who series will have a lot to work to do (which, given the BBC's recent record with this series, will not be done). I have to congratulate the BG producers - they did a brave thing taking up the p***-poor Bonanza-style original series and transforming it to a show that is sophisticated for the modern world. Can't wait until they cock it up in that difficult 3rd series;). (I also can't wait until Wheadon recovers his muse, until all the SWars movies are dead and buried, until Bit Torrent destroys the profitability of big movie studios leaving just the smaller players to give us proper TV shows and films. Also I can't wait until I get to see the Sponge Bob movie;) Apologies to any fans I have offended - nothing meant by it...
...mandate fuel efficient motor vehicles, build more nuclear power (the natural, almost God-given, successor to fossil fuels) stations and solar/wind/wave farms.
... have saved me from chewing bits off my laptop when Word crashes out and stopped me from crying as all my in-table formatting suddenly disappers. WYSIWYG is a curse...
I think you have to go on the evidence you have at the time; if Dr Kelly says something in a Select Committee you are happy to dismiss it because his bosses were there to influence him. Kelly was a brave man so why didn't he back up the statements made to Gilligan to the Committee? Maybe he was screwed by Gilligan and his 'dodgy PDA'. Maybe Gilligan screwed Kelly and then got the BBC to back him up. Maybe Gilligan was at fault and the BBC failed to keep an eye on him and respond when first criticised.
Same for Iraq - you have to go on the evidence you have. If the Iraqi's had made it clear that they had WMDs then, at some point, they will also be believed. I, for one, didn't want to wait for Saddam to use his chemical weapons again, and he has used them before don't forget.
I'm not sure what evidence you use to say that the Today programme presenters are 'skilled interviewers' - I think they spend all their time arguing semantics and tiny little points and providing no useful information to their listeners. They got away with being adversarial with the Conservative govt. but Labour trained their MPs up to avoid dropping themselves in it. OK, so it worked for a while, but it doesn't anymore. The BBC needs to use a different approach and try to get real answers.
And when do they spend half an hour with an interviewee?
You couldn't look to any of the media for any objective evidence on this matter - the pro-BBC press backed the BBC and the anti-BBC press sniped away at them (i.e. the Times etc.) - so you have to look at the evidence gathered in the Hutton report.
But hey, enough about the BBC - they are a good bunch of guys who are sometimes sadly let down by a few individuals. I don't mean to slag them off so much, but I do think they are held in far too much adoration...
Other things...
PR is not my favourite electoral system - but this is probably not the area to talk about it (I know, I started the whole conversation - sorry). I'll only a couple of things to indicate my POV: I would never look engineering for guide on how to run my society; I don't want agility in politics (or we would have hanging back by now); maybe Germany needed PR 'imposed' but the UK does not - kind of suggests that we are doing OK. Nes pas?;)
Why don't we intervene in other countries? We do - just not with a war. The UK is involved in Sudan, needs to stay out of Zimbabwe because the UK only winds-up the president there, etc. War is only the last resort - and Saddam had lots of chances. No, he did really. As for N Korea, well they are just too big...
Oil? OK - well you've got me on the question of oil. But you know, it is fact that the whole world runs on oil - it's a very cheap energy source that has helped people all over the world free themselves from living off the land and gain access to education, healthcare, products etc. Oil is important; it saves lives and advances our civilisation. So if the govt. decides to do something to safeguard our oil supply then that is a good thing.
Iraq after the war? Well for many the war hasn't finished so you can't be sure that the "millions "... "knew before the invasion that it would result in needless suffering and not result in a peaceful Iraq afterwards" are right. Look, Iraq has been a terrible place for a long time, and now the release has come off the pressure cooker did you really expect everyone to become nice and peaceful? Did you really expect old scores not to be settled? It will take time - but peace and stability will come.
Doing the right thing? Well you know I just wonder how long the Iraqi people were expected to wait while Saddam murdered (some) of them and nicked the oil-for-food money? The UN had sent several missions to look for WMDs; when they got too close, Saddam sent them away. When he had none left (yeah - I admit it) he let them wander around and used them, and France, Germany, Russian, China, to delay the inevitable. I guess we could discuss the war for a long time - but we will never agree, which is cool - but time consuming...;)
That's OK - I'm rather enjoying this exchange - hope you are too (I'm learning stuff too!).
I believe Dyke did over-react - but maybe I would have too if my staff and their managers didn't do their jobs properly in the first place and they really did stick the knife into Dyke didn't they... "BBC insiders believe Mr Davies quit to protect Mr Dyke, but mistimed his departure so that the remaining governors were free to accept Mr Dyke's offer to go, contrary to expectations."
Anyway, the article also says that Hutton was dismayed about accusations that he produced a "whitewash".
Look - I'm not saying the BBC is a bad organisation - it's just that it is very powerful but not accountable. It's great it challenges the govt., but it goes too far, and that's really the job of the opposition (or the Lib Dems).
Sorry - I didn't mean to imply that Glenda has anything to do with the BBC - just the way the paragraphs were arranged; apologies too for the truism about Kelly's suicide; finally, I admire your stand - I feel just as strongly but in the opposite direction (but they won't let me stop paying the BBC licence fee - so you're one better by being able to vote for some other party...;)
As for Dr Kelly, for whom I do have a great deal of respect; well I would take issue with your comment about Dr Kelly feeling the need to speak out - I recall that he claimed to doubt that he himself was the source for Gilligan's main claim. As for his suicide; well I also recall that Dr Kelly was not happy about a lot of things and while I am sure that being thrown to the media is a pretty rotten thing to have to suffer, he was in fact only thrown to a Commons Committee; he threw himself to the media the first time he talked to Gilligan 'off-the-record' and Gilligan then screwed up so much that everything unravelled. Blair and Campbell were thrown to the media on this issue (I know - they chose the life...) Anyway, considering the considerable media backlash against the war at the time, Dr Kelly probably would have done better to stick around and accept the undoubted adoration he would have received. I recall that he was reported to have felt sidelined and belittled by his 'bosses' and I am sure that some people would look to suicide in such circumstances, but I don't think Blair was there all along pulling the trigger.
As for innocent people, well I would suggest that innocent people get trampled on all of the time - and it is only the duty of the prime minister to make sure that the people in this country (and sometimes in others - like the ones the West screwed up after WW1 and WW2) are, as a whole, protected - sometimes that means taking tough decisions. You only need to look at the prison service in the Uk to recognise the extreme injustice done every day.
I'm not sure, but I think that following a story in the very media that was 'on trial' is not the most objective way to examine this situation. Neither is having the utmost respect for an organisation without drawing a distinction between the organisation itself and the large number of people working within it. The BBC was certainly not to blame but some of its journalists were to blame. Dyke didn't need to resign - I agree - but his staff should have done right by him and examined the early criticisms of their reporting.
Your frustration with the UK political system is clear, well it ain't perfect (I still can't get a Labour candidate where I live) but it's the best we're going to get. Trotting out the usual proportional-representation argument ("A political system where successive governments have massive majorities in the house of commons despite getting substantially less than 50 per cent of the vote is a system in need of reform") looks good on paper, but it this very same system that keeps extreme parties out of parliament and skews in favour of the incumbent unless a massive swing to another party exists. This ain't pretty (or precise) but it does keep our country stable; and I, for one, like stability.
Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't always work out well - it hasn't worked out very well in Iraq, but at least mass-murder will not be a recurring occurrence in the country and one day Iraq will return to its former glory. Nice one Blair! Nice one UK soldiers!
As for the BBC - well Dyke did the honourable thing by resigning but I agree that he should have stayed - he was and is a very talented man who was starting to turn the BBC around. Sadly he didn't have time to turn around the BBC's news coverage, which is still coming in for criticism from the BBC board itself.
Of course it is hard to tell - the media loves to hack itself to pieces so unbiased reporting of this issue was and is hard to come by).
The only thing I believed before, during and after the war is that the people of Iraq were due for a bit he
Oh I must take issue with you there... the BBC made a big thing of the death of Dr Kelly - even trotting out their usual supporters to wring their hands and cry foul on the Govt. - overshadowing reports of troop deaths just to get one over on the govt.
Good old Glenda, and a nice reporter on one of Blair's foreign trips, accused Blair of having blood on his hands - nicely ignoring the fact that Kelly killed himself (and so was responsible for his own death) and that the Blair had a hell of a lot more blood on his hands from the soldiers and civilians (from all sides) that have died because of the war in Iraq.
You cannot - absolutely cannot - "have enormous amount of respect for the BBC and their journalists" without taking these facts - and other criticisms of the BBC - into account.
You cannot have more faith in an establishment organisation the people didn't vote for (i.e. the BBC) and less in one that the people did vote for (the government). If you really do then democracy is, for you, at an end.
If anyone is responsible for the death of Dr Kelly then it is he himself.
If anyone is responsible for the actions of the govt., then it is ourselves, the electorate - we are all responsible for the war, and deaths, in Iraq and everything else.
But who is responsible for the BBC? It seems that in the final analysis only Greg Dyke did the right thing...and just as the BBC was getting good again after Birt-the-twerp.
That said, you can believe whatever you want - after all, lots of people believed the spghetti tree hoax...
As others in this thread have pointed out, Roxio's products are under threat from new functionality in XP so there might not be a lot of growth left in the company.
So they decide to get some cash and shares ("Roxio will receive $70 million cash and $10 million in Sonic shares") and look to invest in a business where growth is possible - and that's on-line music distribution.
So long as they don't fritter away their cash pile they should be able to turn a handsome profit and achieve significant growth.
On-line music distribution has the potential for big bucks because companies are able to charge, and consumers willing to pay, CD-prices for something as cheap as electronic files - the consumer pays for the PCs, MP3 devices and even the distribution channel (the 'net). Roxio/Napster gets to globalise a low-cost business model (bling!), leverage the Napster brand both on-line and badging the p***-poor, but cheaper, iPod alternatives (bling!), consumers feel cool (bling!) and the record industry gets to pay its (mainly) US stars big bucks for doing as little as the do now (bling!).
It's bling-bling all round! Hooray!
Of course, I will miss talking to those record shop sales staff who, over the years, have turned me on to all kinds of different music (Television, Foo Fighters, etc.) - and cool UK bands will have trouble acessing these new 'net-based distribution channels without a fight - but hey, who needs human interaction and good (i.e. not-rap;) music when we can let Napster rip us off in the comfort of our own homes!
... the name of the new Katie site - Katiesplace.com (see here), which is great name and probably better than Katie.com for the purpose it is intended. Good luck to them!
Meanwhile Parry appears to be a self-styled Angel of the Internet which is little odd (from a UK perspective).
She may well be as described (she seems very busy and her aims are to be admired and she did make a good comment about the response of large firms to Y2K) but when someone starts describing themselves as an "Angel" (or acknowledges that other people calls one that) then there is something a little less than great about that (again, from a super-reticent UK perspective).
... for sure, if I had actually given an ex-girlfriend legal ownership of the 'moon & stars', instead of just saying I would 'if I could' - then maybe she wouldn't be an ex-...
Why not just give up TV altogether... I have done this several times here in the UK, where TV is usually pretty c***... only returning to the demon box because I was missing the Simpons.
During my time away from it I found I was sleeping better, reading more, and generally having a better quality of life.
Now I'm back on the box - but seriously considering ditching it once again; especially as each time I settle down to another wasted evening I can't help thinking that television really is the drug of the nation.
Slashdot Mirror
Internet entrepeneur? Video cameras? His girlfriend?
Sounds suspiciously like a mobile porn studio.
...I mean how many more april fools jokes do we have to put up with? Who the hell are Opera?
About a year ago on BBC Four in celebration of it's original showing. ;)
It was just as scary (and that was just the washing machines
Never saw Eccleston (Doctor) sticking with it - he's a much better actor than the role requires and the writing allows. A recent interview on BBC's Jonathan Ross show saw him looking rather bemused with the whole thing (and with the line of Dr Who dolls due to come out this Xmas) he's probably feeling embarrassed by the first ep.h ift/nigel-kneale.shtml) then please let them come forward and seize the day before Dr Who is cancelled once again. ...
The material given to him in the first ep. was p***-poor and the story quickly gravitated towards Billy Piper (Rose) which is one of the many pointers to the soap-like focus that the show will now suffer (after all, the target audience will be young ladies as it is for all drama-based TV shows these days -my sister felt sorry for the Doctor when he pleaded with Rose to come with him).
Of course even Eccleston wouldn't want to turn down a paying job but I don't expect the BBC even wanted him to continue in the role otherwise they would have tied him to another series already.
BBC Three (which has all the after-show shows here in the good old UK) transmitted the Dr Who Confidential show after the actual ep. on BBC 1 and the new production team kept banging on about their view of the essence of Dr Who, which boiled down to the Doctor character (but without the traditional dandy clothing - i.e. a time traveller that follows 21st century Earth fashions?), a Tardis (but only the exterior and the bigger-on-the-inside tricks have been kept the same), the space/time travelling (but the first episode was set in the now, and the next is supposed to be set at the end of time), and scary creatures (but the first episode had very unfrightening shop dummies). Nothing more! Ok, maybe I'm not sure what the essence of the original series was but I'm sure it was more about presenting new ideas and challenges to the viewer (e.g. what would we do if the earth was invaded by round tin-cans / human-like tin cans / big flies / etc) rather than wondering how long Eccleston will be able to reel of the names of lame galactic accords and stare meaningfully at Rose.
The BBC should have looked to the late-70s Quatermass series which resurrected an earlier BBC series with a challenging premise and story line, instead of the long list of Mal Young resurrected soap-dramas. If there is some one in BBC land who is more like Nigel Neale (Quatermass, The Stone Tape*) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/times
Then again, what do I know
* The Stone Tape is superb and highly recommended.
...would see the casts of cancelled shows (both past and present) battling it out to win a new show with Paramount. ... in some foreign US-hating country like Iraq or N Korea (US-hating Europe would be exempt but UK's Manchester would not because they have guns). The show would then spawn multiple spin-offs following the fortunes and hilarious misfortunes of the various expelled casts as they struggle with the lack lustre material, lazy stage hands, and random assasination squads. Yes, I did say random.
Enterprise vs. TOS vs. B5 vs. etc; with a special bye for Futurama - naturally the whole thing would be rigged in favour of Futurama because we all know cartoons are so much better than real-actors.
The end of each show would see a team eliminated and sent to a community theatre for a year to act out classic plays such as Death of a Salesman or classic TV series such as Magnum and Tour of Duty
As an added bonus each cast memeber who ever tried to resurrect their original TV show will be required to accompany the local US ambassador where ever s/he goes but without a bullet proof vest.
It would be very funny and allow us to let go of cancelled TV shows that should be treated like sleeping dogs and stop old actors from trying to resurrect old TV shows.
I say this having just recovered from the first Ep. of the new Dr Who (I knew Billy Piper liked older men but this is getting ricockulous).
Sadly I can't agree - in this case promotion has little to do with it; it's all down to good writing and high production values. ;). ;)
Enterprise was clearly a last attempt to drain the last few bucks from die-hard Trek fans and whereas Farscape / Firefly (?) were of better quality, they all shared common - and simplistic - plot devices, with a distinctly 50's Cowboy movie theme. Examples: desperately unsympathetic enemies, overtly moral good guys, happy endings, storylines completed in a single episode (Voyager-style), no story too taxing for the simplest viewer.
Production values and in-show technology were also p***-poor. Examples: fixed view-point CGI, laser pistols instead of real guns, minimal dirt, astonishingly short-lived injuries.
In an age where kids - the intended audience for Enterprise and their ilk - are increasingly sophisticated and exposed to more and more news and real-life dramas, the likes of Enterprise (and the Star Wars movies) are embarrassingly weak.
BG, on the other hand, has better realism and more complex plot devices - a recipe that would have failed several years ago, pre-HBO style programming in the US - and something that myself, as a UK sci-fi fan, have been crying out for since I turned into a teenager, disillusioned with the childish sci-fi TV around at the time.
The negative side of BG's quality is that competing shows will look even worse in comparison; already TNG is quickly showing it's age and naivety, Enterprise is smoke, Andromeda / SG-1 should be, and the forthcoming Dr Who series will have a lot to work to do (which, given the BBC's recent record with this series, will not be done).
I have to congratulate the BG producers - they did a brave thing taking up the p***-poor Bonanza-style original series and transforming it to a show that is sophisticated for the modern world. Can't wait until they cock it up in that difficult 3rd series
(I also can't wait until Wheadon recovers his muse, until all the SWars movies are dead and buried, until Bit Torrent destroys the profitability of big movie studios leaving just the smaller players to give us proper TV shows and films. Also I can't wait until I get to see the Sponge Bob movie
Apologies to any fans I have offended - nothing meant by it...
Even better in the Simpsons
... and I didn't see much Microsoft bashing in the original article.
Isn't this the same as Same as Google's 'Similar Pages'?
Fusion is FUD ...
Well I watched the trailer, and apart from the dodgy voice-over, it brings back all those warm fuzzy memories.
But hang on - I thought they had taken 'a chainsaw to Moya'; so how come they seem to have scenes inside the ship?
... have saved me from chewing bits off my laptop when Word crashes out and stopped me from crying as all my in-table formatting suddenly disappers. WYSIWYG is a curse...
Now there's a killer app - something that throws random words together to form articles and papers ...
Have used one for 6 months and no problems; even has a cool blue LED ;)
Possibly more expensive than larger models but has the footprint of a credit card and looks super-cool (almost as cool as an ipod).
Same for Iraq - you have to go on the evidence you have. If the Iraqi's had made it clear that they had WMDs then, at some point, they will also be believed. I, for one, didn't want to wait for Saddam to use his chemical weapons again, and he has used them before don't forget.
I'm not sure what evidence you use to say that the Today programme presenters are 'skilled interviewers' - I think they spend all their time arguing semantics and tiny little points and providing no useful information to their listeners. They got away with being adversarial with the Conservative govt. but Labour trained their MPs up to avoid dropping themselves in it. OK, so it worked for a while, but it doesn't anymore. The BBC needs to use a different approach and try to get real answers.
And when do they spend half an hour with an interviewee?
You couldn't look to any of the media for any objective evidence on this matter - the pro-BBC press backed the BBC and the anti-BBC press sniped away at them (i.e. the Times etc.) - so you have to look at the evidence gathered in the Hutton report.
But hey, enough about the BBC - they are a good bunch of guys who are sometimes sadly let down by a few individuals. I don't mean to slag them off so much, but I do think they are held in far too much adoration ...
Other things...
PR is not my favourite electoral system - but this is probably not the area to talk about it (I know, I started the whole conversation - sorry). I'll only a couple of things to indicate my POV: I would never look engineering for guide on how to run my society; I don't want agility in politics (or we would have hanging back by now); maybe Germany needed PR 'imposed' but the UK does not - kind of suggests that we are doing OK. Nes pas? ;)
Why don't we intervene in other countries? We do - just not with a war. The UK is involved in Sudan, needs to stay out of Zimbabwe because the UK only winds-up the president there, etc. War is only the last resort - and Saddam had lots of chances. No, he did really. As for N Korea, well they are just too big...
Oil? OK - well you've got me on the question of oil. But you know, it is fact that the whole world runs on oil - it's a very cheap energy source that has helped people all over the world free themselves from living off the land and gain access to education, healthcare, products etc. Oil is important; it saves lives and advances our civilisation. So if the govt. decides to do something to safeguard our oil supply then that is a good thing.
Iraq after the war? Well for many the war hasn't finished so you can't be sure that the "millions "... "knew before the invasion that it would result in needless suffering and not result in a peaceful Iraq afterwards" are right. Look, Iraq has been a terrible place for a long time, and now the release has come off the pressure cooker did you really expect everyone to become nice and peaceful? Did you really expect old scores not to be settled? It will take time - but peace and stability will come.
Doing the right thing? Well you know I just wonder how long the Iraqi people were expected to wait while Saddam murdered (some) of them and nicked the oil-for-food money? The UN had sent several missions to look for WMDs; when they got too close, Saddam sent them away. When he had none left (yeah - I admit it) he let them wander around and used them, and France, Germany, Russian, China, to delay the inevitable. I guess we could discuss the war for a long time - but we will never agree, which is cool - but time consuming ... ;)
I believe Dyke did over-react - but maybe I would have too if my staff and their managers didn't do their jobs properly in the first place and they really did stick the knife into Dyke didn't they ... "BBC insiders believe Mr Davies quit to protect Mr Dyke, but mistimed his departure so that the remaining governors were free to accept Mr Dyke's offer to go, contrary to expectations."
Anyway, the article also says that Hutton was dismayed about accusations that he produced a "whitewash".
Look - I'm not saying the BBC is a bad organisation - it's just that it is very powerful but not accountable. It's great it challenges the govt., but it goes too far, and that's really the job of the opposition (or the Lib Dems).
As for Dr Kelly, for whom I do have a great deal of respect; well I would take issue with your comment about Dr Kelly feeling the need to speak out - I recall that he claimed to doubt that he himself was the source for Gilligan's main claim. As for his suicide; well I also recall that Dr Kelly was not happy about a lot of things and while I am sure that being thrown to the media is a pretty rotten thing to have to suffer, he was in fact only thrown to a Commons Committee; he threw himself to the media the first time he talked to Gilligan 'off-the-record' and Gilligan then screwed up so much that everything unravelled. Blair and Campbell were thrown to the media on this issue (I know - they chose the life...) Anyway, considering the considerable media backlash against the war at the time, Dr Kelly probably would have done better to stick around and accept the undoubted adoration he would have received. I recall that he was reported to have felt sidelined and belittled by his 'bosses' and I am sure that some people would look to suicide in such circumstances, but I don't think Blair was there all along pulling the trigger.
As for innocent people, well I would suggest that innocent people get trampled on all of the time - and it is only the duty of the prime minister to make sure that the people in this country (and sometimes in others - like the ones the West screwed up after WW1 and WW2) are, as a whole, protected - sometimes that means taking tough decisions. You only need to look at the prison service in the Uk to recognise the extreme injustice done every day.
I'm not sure, but I think that following a story in the very media that was 'on trial' is not the most objective way to examine this situation. Neither is having the utmost respect for an organisation without drawing a distinction between the organisation itself and the large number of people working within it. The BBC was certainly not to blame but some of its journalists were to blame. Dyke didn't need to resign - I agree - but his staff should have done right by him and examined the early criticisms of their reporting.
Your frustration with the UK political system is clear, well it ain't perfect (I still can't get a Labour candidate where I live) but it's the best we're going to get. Trotting out the usual proportional-representation argument ("A political system where successive governments have massive majorities in the house of commons despite getting substantially less than 50 per cent of the vote is a system in need of reform") looks good on paper, but it this very same system that keeps extreme parties out of parliament and skews in favour of the incumbent unless a massive swing to another party exists. This ain't pretty (or precise) but it does keep our country stable; and I, for one, like stability.
Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't always work out well - it hasn't worked out very well in Iraq, but at least mass-murder will not be a recurring occurrence in the country and one day Iraq will return to its former glory. Nice one Blair! Nice one UK soldiers!
As for the BBC - well Dyke did the honourable thing by resigning but I agree that he should have stayed - he was and is a very talented man who was starting to turn the BBC around. Sadly he didn't have time to turn around the BBC's news coverage, which is still coming in for criticism from the BBC board itself.
Of course it is hard to tell - the media loves to hack itself to pieces so unbiased reporting of this issue was and is hard to come by).
The only thing I believed before, during and after the war is that the people of Iraq were due for a bit he
Good old Glenda, and a nice reporter on one of Blair's foreign trips, accused Blair of having blood on his hands - nicely ignoring the fact that Kelly killed himself (and so was responsible for his own death) and that the Blair had a hell of a lot more blood on his hands from the soldiers and civilians (from all sides) that have died because of the war in Iraq.
You cannot - absolutely cannot - "have enormous amount of respect for the BBC and their journalists" without taking these facts - and other criticisms of the BBC - into account.
You cannot have more faith in an establishment organisation the people didn't vote for (i.e. the BBC) and less in one that the people did vote for (the government). If you really do then democracy is, for you, at an end.
If anyone is responsible for the death of Dr Kelly then it is he himself.
If anyone is responsible for the actions of the govt., then it is ourselves, the electorate - we are all responsible for the war, and deaths, in Iraq and everything else.
But who is responsible for the BBC? It seems that in the final analysis only Greg Dyke did the right thing...and just as the BBC was getting good again after Birt-the-twerp.
That said, you can believe whatever you want - after all, lots of people believed the spghetti tree hoax...
Thanks! This is the funniest post I've ever read on Slashdot!
So they decide to get some cash and shares ("Roxio will receive $70 million cash and $10 million in Sonic shares") and look to invest in a business where growth is possible - and that's on-line music distribution.
So long as they don't fritter away their cash pile they should be able to turn a handsome profit and achieve significant growth.
On-line music distribution has the potential for big bucks because companies are able to charge, and consumers willing to pay, CD-prices for something as cheap as electronic files - the consumer pays for the PCs, MP3 devices and even the distribution channel (the 'net). Roxio/Napster gets to globalise a low-cost business model (bling!), leverage the Napster brand both on-line and badging the p***-poor, but cheaper, iPod alternatives (bling!), consumers feel cool (bling!) and the record industry gets to pay its (mainly) US stars big bucks for doing as little as the do now (bling!).
It's bling-bling all round! Hooray!
Of course, I will miss talking to those record shop sales staff who, over the years, have turned me on to all kinds of different music (Television, Foo Fighters, etc.) - and cool UK bands will have trouble acessing these new 'net-based distribution channels without a fight - but hey, who needs human interaction and good (i.e. not-rap;) music when we can let Napster rip us off in the comfort of our own homes!
Meanwhile Parry appears to be a self-styled Angel of the Internet which is little odd (from a UK perspective).
She may well be as described (she seems very busy and her aims are to be admired and she did make a good comment about the response of large firms to Y2K) but when someone starts describing themselves as an "Angel" (or acknowledges that other people calls one that) then there is something a little less than great about that (again, from a super-reticent UK perspective).
Though she might indeed be some sort of super-natural human much like the super-supports of one of her sites such as the Hulk and your friendly-neighbourhood-Spiderman.
... for sure, if I had actually given an ex-girlfriend legal ownership of the 'moon & stars', instead of just saying I would 'if I could' - then maybe she wouldn't be an ex-...
During my time away from it I found I was sleeping better, reading more, and generally having a better quality of life.
Now I'm back on the box - but seriously considering ditching it once again; especially as each time I settle down to another wasted evening I can't help thinking that television really is the drug of the nation.