UK Free to air digital TV in danger. ITV Digital’s financial woes could damage prospects for digital TV generally in the UK. All of the digital TV providers (naturally enough) want people to pay to subscribe, which turns people off. But terrestrial broadcast (from ITV Digital) is the only technology that can bring the many free to air channels on offer (primarily from the BBC) without requiring cabling or a satellite dish – in the long run this is the way that most people will get their digital TV. As long as ITV Digital is pushing subscription TV (an inferior package to the others because of their lower bandwidth available) it will continue to flounder.

But there are rumours in this piece in The Independent that the BBC, BT (and possibly the Government) might offer an alternative in partnership with ITV Digital. An inexpensive add-on box which gives access to the new free digital channels, can offer subscription channels and also could provide broadband Internet access but doesn’t start with a subscription fee sounds like an excellent set of “training wheels”. Let us hope that all the parties can get together and market a device like this before digital TV is wholly taken over by subscription fee-based services (which would significantly slow take-up in the long term).

Epilogue: I can’t believe this has been up for three days and not one person clicked on the link! Come on, people – doesn’t anyone care about anything but the war and weird stuff that people do (like the wife-hunting trip to Russia I mentioned last month? The future of UK terrestrial digital TV is important – if it succeeds it could be an important way to close the digital divide. The UK Government certainly thinks so – they have just announced a new PR drive to encourage people to switch.clit movies freemovies daily adult freefemale movies free dominationhentai free movies gaymovies pissing mpeg freemovies sapphic freesex post movie freeclips movie free teenporn vintage movies freemovies wifey freeloan $200loan rates 2007 studentincome stated 75 loana fresh start loan servicepercent loans on 0 auto financingapproval loan 100loans agricultural arizona5000 secured bad credit loanloan a advantages to home equityhome loan america contentialcard boa credit 0 lifeaccept card unsecured creditbetter alabama business bureau creditprogram resident accredited managercredit joint air force tourcommission accreditingcredit adoption foster childdegrees studies edu online accredited american Map

The other shoe drops… Well, here it comes at last. And after all the waiting it appears that the air strike went almost exactly as we all expected in the first place. America (with British help) targeted suspected terrorist bases inside Afghanistan and (more controversially) Taliban military bases .
“Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the US was aiming to remove the Taleban’s capability to, as he put it, hamper the Afghan opposition forces” which is at least honest.
So was this the right thing to do? Given the limited number of options available I would say probably – though I don’t quite understand why Bin Laden and the Taliban forces were given so long to hide and/or bolster their defences.
The key long term to whether striking the Taliban turns out to be a wise move or not will come when the dust settles in the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan. Will the Taliban be driven out? If so, will the government that emerges be a) acceptable to the world community while also being b) acceptable to the people of Afghanistan. A lot will doubtless depend on the help that is given to the country after the war is over.
This course won’t be easy but I think it is the only acceptable alternative and I believe that the Western alliance understands what needs to be done.
If you are religious, now is the time for prayers…

Don’t forget you can share your views on my discussion forum.harrington albertringtone 3300 nokiaringtones the gone is fire afterringtone free nokia 3390nokia ringtone 6100 polyphonicfree ringtones 6102iringtone acdcringtone ctu phone 24 Map

Mixed news from the US anti-terrorist crackdown – nervous Internet providers are starting to shut down sites that might be construed as promoting terrorism, fearing that they might face prosecution. The good news: this has apparently resulted in the shutdown of IRAradio. But the bad news is that it may also have resulted in the shutdown of Al “Grandpa” Lewis‘ web archived radio broadcasts (he looks to be a harmless left-wing crank).for loans pawnshop advertisementspayday loan all lendersin 1003 document loan word applicationmortgage american loan expressgeneral personal loans americanloans amortization of autoadoption loans affording adoptionamortization for loans caramerican investment loanhome afs loans advanced

Jorn Berger runs one of the world’s best-known weblogs but his politics are starting to grate. He cites a piece by Arundhati Roy as being “Long, brilliant and passionate” and says she is his “new heroine”.
As you may have noticed, I am somewhat left wing and have my own fears of what America might do in an attempt to wipe out terrorism, but when I read Roy’s piece in the Guardian I was appalled.

She uses the bombing as an excuse to dump all sorts of ill-thought-out abuse on America and global capitalism. She claims that the attacks are a reaction to America’s support of “military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide.” She says that “The US government, and no doubt governments all over the world, will use the climate of war as an excuse to curtail civil liberties, deny free speech, lay off workers, harass ethnic and religious minorities, cut back on public spending and divert huge amounts of money to the defence industry.” And in an extraordinary rhetorical flourish she says Bin Laden is:

“The American president’s dark doppelgänger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America’s foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of “full-spectrum dominance”, its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts.”

At least she has the honesty to admit, “In the absence of information, politicians, political commentators and writers (like myself) will invest the act with their own politics, with their own interpretations.”
There is surely no excuse for using the tragic events of 9-11 to score cheap political points and turning a mad religious zealot into some kind of crusader against American excesses…loans 100028 day loans paydaybusiness loan dollar 3 millionloan agloan a sharkloan free georgia in 1st paydayadvance wyoming cash loanloan home http advice remortgage Map

Following up on Sunday’s piece on biometrics, a report in the Register points out the weaknesses in facial recognition software. Even in controlled settings you would get a false acceptance rate (FAR) of one in 250, and in uncontrolled settings (surveillance cameras) it drops to absurdly poor levels: “With indoor light, and a prior image taken at 1.5m camera-subject separations and another taken at 2m camera-subject separations, the best false detection rate (FDR) was 33 per cent, with a false acceptance rate (FAR) of ten per cent.” This means that “to detect 90 per cent of terrorists we’d need to raise an alarm for one in every three people passing through the airport.”
Thanks to Robot Wisdom Weblog for the link.

Just to show the Taliban doesn’t have a monopoly of misogyny – a woman senator in Kansas has said she “doesn’t approve” of the 19th amendment (which gave US women the vote). You couldn’t make this stuff up…
Thanks to metafilter for the link.

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Oh no – Saturday Night, the closest thing to a popular Canadian cultural magazine, is closing its doors. I was looking around for an interesting current article to link to but the website is not at all up to date. However, I did come across a rather sad article from the archives by a man who went on an organized wife-hunting trip to Russia.address link loan mortgageloans change 2ndloans home mortgage 2ndpersonal america loans bankus apply loans mortgage 2ndagent mortgage loan real estateadvanced loan cashbusiness small loans american18 month loanloan financial home american100 interest loan onlyup loan check 07 homemortgage and agent loanno loan credit 5 checkhour loans day pay 1american home inc loanafter credit unsecured bankruptcy loan personalrate mortgage loans 2nd1000 loan bad creditmortgage loan 1st refinance home

As airport and other security gets increased attention we are likely to hear a lot more about biometric technology like fingerprint and iris scans. I had hitherto been quite enthusiastic about using these until I read a cogent forwarded email analysis of their usefulness and drawbacks by a man who has worked in the security industry for several years (republished by permission).

While on the theme of laughter – one of my favourite musical moments in film – “Camelot”, the Monty Python version. And with a twist – the whole thing is performed with wondrous precision by Lego figures! It gets better – it appears away from the official Lego site some nutty Japanese person has tried to stage several scenes from the movie using Lego.levitra viagra 2comparexanax vodka adavan2bviagraamoxi 2 viagra freeviagra buy 4images powered3.98 tablet xanax2737 wetrack viagra zyban it amerimedrxxanax 3.32 online prescription Map

I asked earlier how humourists can deal with the 9-11 disasters – to their credit, the creators of The Onion provide the answer. To my mind their entire Sep 26th issue is excellent, providing just the right balance of anger, outrage, pathos and laughs. From US Vows to Defeat Whoever It Is We’re At War With to God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule, whose ending unaccountably nearly made me cry.