MH17: Russia did it, endof?

#MH17 victims of #RussiaInvadedUkraine Mo, Evie and Otis Maslin

A year ago today hundreds of Western bodies tumbled out of the sky in the middle of a European war zone.

Nobody predicted the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 but with hindsight they could have. The war in Eastern Ukraine was at a turning point. Despite a corrupt and crumbling army and 92 thrown together groups of ragtag militia, the Ukrainians were turning the tide on the rebels.

But if it was not obvious that the exact same 'little green men' scenario played out in Crimea was being played out in the Donbas it should have by the time that the first planes started getting shot down. The fighter jets started going down and then the high flying transport planes.

Those transport planes were being shot down by some very sophisticated weapons, ones that took a lot of coordination and a lot of training to operate. They did not, to turn around Putin's joking phrase, from when he was still pretending that those in Crimea were 'local volunteers', 'come from a shop'.

We now know thanks in large part to the work of one British man, Eliot Higgins, almost beyond all reasonable doubt, that MH17 was shot down by a Russian missile system. This means a Russian crew, precisely because of the training required to operate such a system and Higgins just said that his Bellingcat team now have Russian names and have provided them to the official investigators, the Dutch Safety Board, where he is an official witness.

How could they know Russian names? Because those Russians posted the evidence themselves, on social media. After the jump watch the film by Vice News' Simon Ostrovsky where he follows up on evidence gathered by Higgins of one Russian soldier's presence on the Donbas battle fields. Ostrovsky finds the exact same spots where one soldier took his selfies. That soldier was from Buryatia, a Russian region whose people are Mongols. Hence the soldier got noticed in Eastern Ukraine.

After MH17 the tide turned back and the rebels with their Russian 'volunteer professional assistants' ensured that the war did not end last August but carried on, as it still does today, Minsk 'peace' or no 'peace'.

10% of Ukraine lost, 6000 dead and over 2 million displaced.

Russia has come up with five, to date, explanations for MH17, none blaming themselves of course and some out of science fiction. One by the Defence Ministry is described by Bellingcat as Russia's "Colin Powell moment".

That moment when the former American Secretary of State went before the UN Security Council to argue for war on Iraq has become a poster for Russia's lavishly funded international propaganda TV network RT. You may have seen it on the Washington Metro or on London's Tube. But just as the West tolerates RT so does Western media have 'balance' and thus MH17 will remain 'he said, she said' until the official report comes out in three months time.

That 'balance' and essential fairness which underpins our Western societies is used against us by Russia. Their security services and their 'political technocrats' know full well that with something like MH17 they can muddy the waters enough that many in the West won't blame Russia. They can somehow wriggle out of this.

The FSB and the Kremlin will find willing partners on both the left and the right but they will also find unwitting ones like journalists. Journalists such as one Mike Kelly writing today for the Newcastle Chronicle. (Newcastle is where two of the British victims hail from.) Kelly presents MH17 as a tale of 'versions' and he condemns the 'squabbling' over whodunnit, comparing this notion of his with the 'quiet dignity' of today's memorials.

Putin could not have said it better - in fact he has said it with his talk of the politicisation of the MH17 inquiry. But just as climate change is not about 'sides' of equal veracity neither is MH17, to say otherwise is to damn the whole profession of investigative journalism and to sign up to the Russian propaganda meme of there being no such thing as the truth! And it is no service to the victims' loved ones to pretend otherwise.

Tomorrow Ukraine will disappear from people's radar but come October we know what the Dutch report will say. Not because we are arrogant but because others have done the hard work.

Even when we then have a Russian war crime spelt out in black and white I predict we will still hear the siren voice of appeasement, from the left and from the right. Business will still go on and London palaces will still be bought with corrupt money.

For shame.

• Others than Higgins have of course investigated. Two are James Miller and Michael Weiss and they have a long read at the Daily Beast spelling out how come we know Russia dunnit.

Watch Simon Ostrovsky's astonishing report tracking down one Buryat soldier to one of Russia's remotest regions.

Postscript: America's shame in one photo

After suggesting that the world shun America over guns and their lack of control I see that The Daily Show has a better idea: Mockery.

They sent John Oliver Down Under to investigate Australia's 1990s conservative-led tightening of gun control laws. Americans are even aware of Australia's example probably because former Prime Minister John Howard published a New York Times Op-Ed post-Sandy Hook, titled 'I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Too'.

Oliver speaks with him, drops the "Whoopty-f—ing do" bomb on him even (word is Howard approved), as well as opponents from then who have changed their mind now and an obligatory deranged American. Oh, and there's a man in a kangaroo suit. Oh, and ...

(Song plays throughout: Land Down Under – Men At Work)

JOHN OLIVER: Mr Prime Minister, let's begin in the formal Australian way. G'day.

JOHN HOWARD, FORMER AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: How do you do?

JOHN OLIVER: Obviously gun control doesn't work, it can't work, it will never work. So how was your scheme a failure?

JOHN HOWARD: Well my scheme was not a failure. We had a massacre at a place called Port Arthur 17 years ago and there have been none since.

JOHN OLIVER (Voiceover): Zero gun massacres? Hold on... did gun control actually work?

PHIILIP VAN CLEAVE, AMERICAN GUN LOBBYIST: It stopped one thing, that could also be a statistical anomaly.

JOHN OLIVER: Yeah. It was just their mass shootings disappeared.

PHIILIP VAN CLEAVE: But there were so few of them. Woopty-doo.

JOHN OLIVER: Woopty-doo?

PHIILIP VAN CLEAVE: Yeah.

JOHN OLIVER: Woopty-doo?

PHIILIP VAN CLEAVE: Yes. Mass shootings were rare anyhow.

JOHN OLIVER (Voiceover): Exactly.

JOHN HOWARD: There were about 13 in the previous 18 years.

JOHN OLIVER (Voiceover): But perhaps there were other non-woopty-doo side effects.

JOHN HOWARD: The homicide rate involving the use of guns has declined significantly by factors of up to 50 and 60 per cent.

JOHN OLIVER: Woopty-f*****g-doo.

Pleased to see Comedy Central has loosened the strings on geoblocks and, even better, Youtube clip uploads so enjoy, in three parts, after the jump:

Channel Four are idiots

Repost for Blogging Against Disablism, 2013.

Australian comedian Adam Hills has attracted worldwide attention for blistering comments he made this week about fellow comedian, the legend that is Joan Rivers.

Rivers has been slagging off pop diva Adele for her weight and Hills went to town on his show The Last Leg. He said:

How dare you make fun of one of the best female role models on the planet for the way she looks. Adele is one of the very few women in pop music that I want my daughter to look up to – and you’re making jokes about the way she looks? When you’re so insecure about your own face, you’ve spent more money on it than the producers of Life of Pi spent on that tiger?

And much more ...

An American blog I follow alerted me to it but the embedded YouTube clip has been taken down because stupid Channel Four made a DMCA take-down request. As it has for the many other attempts to put Hills comments up on YouTube.

Why? What possible negatives could there be for the clip going viral? It makes absolutely no sense.

I'm sure Hills is just delighted (not) at C£4's actions.

Perez Hilton has video up so you can watch thanks to him after the jump:

Public Sector Web Professionals: where's it at?

Interview with me at LocalGovCamp Lincoln by Liz Azyan of LGEO Research.



Post by me about the new group.

Twitter insights: Blaine Cooke @ teacamp

This is the video I shot (with hand-held Flash camera, someone tweeted about how I managed to keep my hand up for an hour) of one of Twitter's creators, Blaine Cooke, visiting Teacamp, a gathering of Whitehall webbies and hangers on.

Cooke kindly spent a hour answering questions about Twitter - where it came from, is now and where it's heading to. In other words, lots of insider knowledge

The fun theory

Volkswagen have launched a left-field marketing campaign through a Swedish agency dedicated, they say, "to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better."

The two videos released for it so far are very original and have gone viral.





Alongside them they're launching a competition about "finding fun ways to change behaviour".

Apparently 'fun theory' is serious:

Fun Theory is the field of knowledge that deals in questions such as "How much fun is there in the universe?", "Will we ever run out of fun?", "Are we having fun yet?" and "Could we be having more fun?"

Fun Theory is serious business. The prospect of endless boredom is routinely fielded by conservatives as a knockdown argument against research on lifespan extension, against cryonics, against all transhumanism, and occasionally against the entire Enlightenment ideal of a better future.

Many critics (including George Orwell) have commented on the inability of authors to imagine Utopias where anyone would actually want to live. If no one can imagine a Future where anyone would want to live, that may drain off motivation to work on the project. But there are some quite understandable biases that get in the way of such visualization.

Fun Theory is also the fully general reply to religious theodicy (attempts to justify why God permits evil). Our present world has flaws even from the standpoint of such eudaimonic considerations as freedom, personal responsibility, and self-reliance. Fun Theory tries to describe the dimensions along which a benevolently designed world can and should be optimized, and our present world is clearly not the result of such optimization - there is room for improvement. Fun Theory also highlights the flaws of any particular religion's perfect afterlife - you wouldn't want to go to their Heaven.

Now here’s an idea …

LGBT history making in DC: Inspirational, evocational, provocational

This twitpic from an inter-racial couple was massively retweeted

Sunday's march for LGBT equality in Washington DC was a non-stop fest of speech making. From the fantabulous youth to the glorious head of the NAACP to 'Let the sunshine in' (and virtually all stops in-between). It was a Call To Action and then some. It made me teary, it would make anyone who believes in civil rights, human rights, teary.

Here are my tweets (back to front):

• pauloCanning #NEM 'Let the sunshine in' frm Hair perfect finish
  
• pauloCanning: RT @ChefMark 'A free and Equal people do not tolerate prioritization of their rights. They do not accept compromises' Cleve Jones #NEM
• pauloCanning: #nem Cleve Jones IS the mountaintop!
  
• pauloCanning: RT @MEGAFamily Urvashi Vaid: 'Battle for the direction of this country' #NEM < she's talkin revolution baby!
  
• pauloCanning: RT @jdillman http://twitpic.com/l5wjw - @jdillman, @jtrybus #"Homomentum!" #NEM < :}}}
  
• pauloCanning: #NEM very moved by Julian Bond citing LG he worked alongside in 60s as reason for his solidairty now 

• pauloCanning: @SunnyStokes I'm right with you! #NEM She was inspirational
  
• pauloCanning: Who is Staceyann Chin? #NEM Jamaican superstar http://bit.ly/4xatwu (expand) It takes a poet
  
• pauloCanning: Michelle Clunie quoting Coretta Scott King #NEM If she were alive she would be there but NAACP head still to come
  
• pauloCanning: RT @teebalicious I'm old enough to remember the Silence = Death days + I am in love with this beautiful sea of #LGBT people #NEM < say it!
  
• pauloCanning: #NEM severe drought of older white men on this platform. This is why it's making such an impact 
• pauloCanning @Becky_R My pleasure! I'm from UK like Billie Myers, watching on C-Span and so moved by #NEM 

• pauloCanning: @Frannyo nope! http://bit.ly/PqY7X (expand) #NEM 
• pauloCanning: Katharine Lee Bates, the lesbian who wrote America The Beautiful http://bit.ly/1fzxOs (expand) #NEM 
• pauloCanning: RT @AngryQueer America the Beautiful was written by a lesbian - #nem 
• pauloCanning: Hah! Billie Myers just said ficking on C-Span! #NEM 
• pauloCanning: Lady GaGa 'Obama: ARE YOU LISTENING!!!!' #NEM 
• pauloCanning: As LadyGaGa takes stage remember was 11 years ago today, Judy Shepard was watching as Matthew lay in a coma in Fort Collins, Colo. #nem 

• pauloCanning: #NEM the announcer reminds me of a character from Best in Show 
• pauloCanning: RT @unitethefight Kim Coco Iwamoto, 'Our children are learning to discriminate. Our children are learning how to hate themselves' #NEM 
• pauloCanning: @toastedgrrl #NEM I related when he spoke about AIDS and what it was like - many there would be remembering (and honouring) 
• pauloCanning BBC reporting already on #NEM http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8301791.stm 
• pauloCanning RT @malik_photog dan choi is a powerful speaker. and WORK for quoting kahlil gibran! #NEM 
• pauloCanning: #NEM Dan Choi just read a poem in Arabic. Incredible  
• pauloCanning: #NEM loudest cheer yet for Judy Sheppard. She is a f*cking saint. 'Evrybody smile. You should be so proud of yrself''
  
• pauloCanning: Go Cynthia Nixon! #nem

• pauloCanning: RT @unitethefight: More pics of hundreds of thousands on Washington Mall! http://bit.ly/Zlb40 (expand) #NEM < + Lt. Dan Choi
• pauloCanning: #NEM Sam Sussman young straight #equality champion speaking is making me tear up! Wow! 'In our America we will not tolerate prejudice'
  
• pauloCanning: RT @hardcorps80204 "How many more tears must be shed" David Mixner #NEM
  
• pauloCanning: @toastedgrrl David Mixner now speaking #nem about the reality of AIDS in the 90s. Incredibly moving
  
• pauloCanning: RT @rodmccullom #NEM #Latino #gay youth activist Richard Aviles http://twitpic.com/l5bpx //very inspirational < totally!
  
• pauloCanning: #socitm09 @liz_azyan sorry Liz no follow :' #NEM LGBT Washington march is history, wonderful, amazing speakers

• pauloCanning: #NEM C-span not showing speakers names, find them here > http://bit.ly/49sMT5 (expand) #NEMrally
  
• pauloCanning: RT @LauraAndRudy WOW, Aiyi'nah Ford (co-host ListenUp internet radio program) is giving one HELL of a speech at #NEM right now!! < she's FAB
  
• pauloCanning RT @Ameriqueer Just took a pic w/ Cynthia Nixon! http://twitpic.com/l4i4h #NEM #NEMrally 
• pauloCanning: RT @jacobbrwr Either the gays are in control of Twitter or the #NEM is actually a big deal. Either way, it's an exciting day < both :]
•  pauloCanning: RT @ahideg RT @dcconcierge Now I'm marching at #NEM with Lady GaGa (and her bodyguards)!!! http://twitpic.com/l4yl3
  
• pauloCanning: So many young people on stage @ #NEM This is wonderful
  
• pauloCanning: RT @elideep 'I say to Barney Frank, you are out of touch from the seat of power you hold.Does this march matter?' >earth-shaking cheers #NEM

• pauloCanning: RT @just_someguy RT @toastedgrrl: They just called out Barney Frank. #nem - YES THEY SURE AS HELL DID! < Good!
  
• pauloCanning: #nem #NATIONAL #EQUALITY #DC live now on C-Span http://c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx
  
• pauloCanning: RT @bethannon RT @LAmaleCA: Fox News just estimated the #NEM crowd at 2.5 million people. Congrats, guys! / SRSLY? FOX??
  
• pauloCanning: RT @veganindigo beautiful RT @dsrbroadway http://twitpic.com/l4oad - There is an actual rainbow above us @broadwayimpact AMAZING!!! #NEM
  
• pauloCanning: RT @LAmaleCA http://twitpic.com/l55c1 - in my lifetime our marriage was illegal too. #nem #NATIONAL #EQUALITY 

You can watch the whole thing here and I will add video highlights as I find them.

Andrew Sullivan explains about this sign: 'It was made in 1965, four years before Stonewall, and the Mattachine heroes held it up in front of the White House on October 23 forty four years ago. Charles Francis brought it, and allowed me to hold it for a while. I am so proud to have been part of this movement, and so honored to touch one its sacred artefacts.'

UPDATE

Video from the day.

Agree with Andrew Sullivan that this over-view of the day is "a little cheesy" but the visuals are great.



Cynthia Nixon asked 'What is the most important issue?'



The wonderful BRIT Billie Myers - "bisexual and fucking proud of it" - performs 'America the beautiful' with Dave Koz.



March organiser, Harvey Milk's friend, AIDS Quilt creator, Cleve Jones: "If you believe that you are equal then it is time to act like it."



The INCREDIBLE Jamaican-American poet Staceyann Chin: "We have to be willing to fight for more than what makes us comfortable because what makes us human is the acknowledgment of a universal humanity,"



Julian Bond leader of the NAACP, American Civil Rights Movement: "When I am asked 'are gay rights civil rights' my answer is always 'of course they are'."




Andrew Sullivan at the previous evening's HIV/AIDS MEMORIAL Ceremony at The National Equality March: "Seems that gay men are more interested in getting a glimpse of Lady GaGa than remembering 300,000 gay men who died. That makes me very sad."



Urvashi Vaid, long time activist: "We must be prepared to engage in a more profound battle, for the direction of this country."



Straight 18 yo young man Sam Sussman also spoke. He'd won the 'Equality Idol' contest by submitting a YouTube video stating the importance of equal rights for everyone.

The Right Side of History Campaign is a movement of young, inspired Americans who have joined together to heed Sam's call.



A big section of young, some very young, speakers opened the Rally. What an inspiring bunch they were.

Obama derangement syndrome

As always, perfect sense from Rachel Maddow on Obama's Nobel - it echoes my feelings about the shock announcement.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Michael Moore has more to say on exactly why Obama deserves the Nobel.

Cute animals: Parrot shags human

Here's Mark Carwardine talking about the efforts to keep this species alive.



More from this fabulous BBC series.

'I feel like when I'm publishing a web page I'm an artist'

'A new 33.6kbps modem will move the internet much faster into your computer'

Video: Convergence and technology - Did You Know

The latest version of the "Shift happens" videos updated for autumn 2009, developed by XPLANE in partnership with The Economist. This 'Did You Know' video focuses on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology.

There are a lot of these videos out there which throw stats at you, this is the best one I've seen yet.

Why peeing in your pants may not be such a good idea

David Sedaris is just about my favourite author, I'm enjoying his new book of short stories 'When You Are Engulfed in Flames' at the moment.

His autobiographical stories are fantastically observant and gently hysterical. They make you smile and very often laugh out loud.

Here he reads one of them on Letterman. If you are drinking whilst watching prepare to splutter.





If you liked that you'll like this, David reading from his new book.

 

Twitteleh: Twitter for your Jewish Mother!

Cute animals: Snooker hot dog

Murdoch as Mephistopheles

By now you've probably read or heard about James Murdoch's OTT attack on the BBC at the Edinburgh Television Festival.

Murdoch was giving the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, as his father had done twenty years before. Well this reminded me of one of them I have never actually watched - the one Dennis Potter gave in 1993, widely regarded as the greatest ever.

Visibly suffering from cancer though Potter is, it is mesmerisingly brilliant. Vituperative and funny. Sentimental and disturbing (especially to the audience of television big-wigs, some learn forward, some cover their mouths).

In it he tells several tales of Murdoch. Here's one:

At the time Rupert Murdoch was anxiously trying to guild if not renovate his image while lobbying to prevent his cable television company coming under the same rules and regulations that apply to other British television companies, he announced that his main company was going to fund a new Chair at Oxford University to the tune of £3 million. It was to be called - I do beg your pardon, but I cannot keep a straight face – it was to be called the Murdoch Chair in Language Communications. But the announcement came with cack-handed timing on the very same day that the Press Council formally and of course ineffectively censured Murdoch’s Son for calling homosexuals “poofters”. Some language. Some communication.

Murdoch did not turn up for the ceremonial meal to mark the largesse at Oxford, always a place where the gap between the cup and the lip can be measured by more than an inch of the sardonic. But Rupert has a touch of pure cruelty in his make-up. He sent Kelvin MacKenzie, the sharp little weasel that edits that daily stink they call the Sun, and the maladroit fellow had to sit and chew and probably even dribble a bit between two professors.

Transcription



Just before he died of cancer, he sat down with Melvyn Bragg for a final interview. Of course the subject of media mogul Rupert Murdoch came up.

When Aussie TV beats British TV

Marketing is one of the biggest influencers on our world, yet when did you last see a TV show devoted to it?

Australia's ABC (the equivalent of the BBC or PBS) has the Gruen Transfer, a fantastic show which is a 101 on how to do two things: make the subject extremely entertaining and also make US stop and think about how this huge industry works and affects our lives.

Where does the title come from?

In shopping mall design, 'the Gruen transfer' refers to the moment when consumers respond to 'scripted disorientation' cues in the environment. It is named for Austrian architect Victor Gruen (who disavowed such manipulative techniques). Recently, the Gruen transfer has been popularised by Douglas Rushkoff.

The show is hosted by comedian Wil Anderson with a panel of advertising industry experts. The two regular panelists are Russel Howcroft of George Patterson Y&R and Todd Sampson of Leo Burnett. Apparently the concept has been sold to TV production companies in the UK, Denmark, France, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, and Spain.

Here's an example of how they combine entertainment with stuff to make you think. Each week they ask two agencies to 'sell the unsellable'.



During last season's penultimate show one agency took the pitch of 'fat pride' one step too far for the ABC's lawyers and produced an ad which didn't get shown. It also didn't win the panelists over - and I agree with them. Here's the ad along with a panel discussion which was only made available online.

It's interesting that the professionals get that the in-your-face abuse of other groups represented in the ad's content, in order to say discrimination-is-discrimination, smothers the overall point. As straight non-Jewish blokes they didn't viscerally feel this but knew it was there. The poofter joke does smack me in the face and totally downgrades what the ad-maker is trying to achieve.





In the best traditions of publicly funded broadcasters failing to police their distributed content, both series can be found on YouTube.

Postscript: I spoke too soon, this has been removed for 'copyright violations'. The spot where the pitch and the discussion was supposed to be hosted - http://www.antiprejudicead.net - is down. The pitch's existence seems to have been removed from the ABC entirely. The pitch itself is still on YouTube, but the debate has been removed.

Now I know Aussie TV and it has some crapolistic shows which make the worst of UK TV look Shakespearean. But it also has a whole terrestrial channel, SBS, devoted to largely 'foreign' programming.

The only non-English speaking UK (non-cable) TV programming we see is out-of-the-park brilliant Wallander and the occasional French film on BBC4. The former is only being shown here three years after Swedish broadcast because we deigned to make an English version of it. We have a shrunken world view as a result of bad programming.

Another thing Aussie TV has is lots of US imports which our rather Little-Englander viewpoint keeps away from primetime. This means that all Aussies know one of the best comedies of all time - Seinfeld - well and - because of the BBC's antics - Brits only know of it through word-of-mouth.

Another thing many a Brit has commented on is how bad UK TV comedy has got over the past few years and in one area this has got politically serious: satire. Yes, there are plenty of Radio Four series which take the piss in a sharp, upset-the-government way, but apart from the (rather weak) Bremner, Bird and Fortune what have we got which stacks up?

By contrast Australia has The Chasers War On Everything (which comes out of a preceding rich satirical TV tradition). This show is so sharp it has landed its stars in serious legal trouble on numerous occasions.

Can you imagine any current UK comedy show doing this?

Cute animals: Watch the birdie

This thrush (I think that's what it is, feel free to correct me! A mate thinks it may be a female blackbird) is completely unfazed by my camera. I've had it hopping around friends legs as we sit out in the backyard, not a care in its world. It's even hopped right onto the plants around me on the bench.

It's after the insects which, apparently, are encouraged by my backyard being slightly 'wild' and having different kinds of plants in it.

I like him/her and always say hello!

Texting + driving = death

This video, produced by Brynmawr filmmaker Peter Watkins-Hughes in conjunction with Gwent Police and Tredegar Comprehensive School, has quickly become an international viral hit. Featuring young women from the school it has very little dialogue so has featured on blogs all over the world because the visual message is extremely impactful (literally).

'Cow' tells the tale of Cassie Cowen, ‘Cow’ to her friends, whose life is changed forever after an horrific crash.

Since the film had its premiere in June, it has attracted attention from the BBC and it is hope the film will become part of the core schools programme across Wales and the UK.

This is the viral hit but it's only one part of a 30' short film which covers the crash itself and its emotional aftermath.



Texting while driving makes you more than five times as likely to end up in an accident.

I understand that some car manufacturers are developing vehicles which will automatically disable mobile phones.

Music: Woodstock 1969

40 years on from the seminal festival and here's two of my faves.

Santana - Soul Sacrifice


Sly & the Family Stone - I want to take you higher



The Guardian has a fantastic interview with Woodstock organiser Michael Lang. Santana has had a career comeback. Unfortunately Sly Stone is now living on social security.