The return of old ideas

Wars are money. Pictures and "stories" from warzones are too. Yahoo joins the fun with the latest addition to their news-section: Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone.

"As one of the world's most respected war correspondents, Kevin Sites has spent the past five years covering global war and disaster for several national networks. On September 26, veteran war correspondent Kevin Sites will embark on a year-long journey as a solo journalist to cover every armed conflict in the world.

Sites helped pioneer solo journalism, often working completely alone, traveling, and reporting without a crew. As a solo journalist ("SoJo"), Sites will carry a backpack of portable digital technology to shoot, write, edit, and transmit multimedia reports."

Meet "Sojo", the harboiled superjournalist, in Yahoo's Hot Zone.

"We are in Jefferson Parish, just outside of New Orleans. At the National Guard checkpoint, they are under orders to turn away all media. All of the reporters are turning they’re TV trucks around.

Things are so bad, Bush is now censoring all reporting from NOLA. The First Amendment sank with the city." Operation Flashlight - an independent Blog from Lousiana

"Freedom of the Press Drowns in New Orleans Floodwaters: "If the government is now actively barring members of the press from covering the tragedy in New Orleans, as Williams and others are now claiming, we have reached the point in American history where all our vaunted freedoms—you know, the ones we are trying so hard to export to Iraq and Afghanistan—are nothing more than window-dressing, the remnants of an America that actually believed in its own stated principles. In the new America, the one where everything was changed by 9/11 and where freedom isn’t free, not embarrassing President Photo-Op is more important than keeping the greater population informed about the situation in what used to be New Orleans." 1115.org with a closer look

"Astrodome Radio Station Blocked: HOUSTON -- KAMP 95.3 "Evacuation Radio Services", a low-power FM station for Hurricane Katrina evacuees housed at the Astrodome, is still stuck in limbo. Although the group trying to organize the station has wrangled three 90-day licenses from the FCC, as of Thursday, they were being stymied by a handful of temporary administrators content to maintain radio silence.

While basic needs -- food, water, clothing, shelter -- have been met with remarkable hospitality, the survivors of the hurricane inside the Astrodome complex say they continue to suffer from a lack of information. Parents struggle with paperwork to enroll their children in school while simultaneously attempting to locate housing and employment, not to mention lost family members. Most evacuees sit alone on cots, passing the time playing cards or dominoes. Short blasts of information periodically echo from the Astrodome's " Wired

"Reports continue that communications in and around New Orleans are being purposely jammed (and severed) by the US government. The jamming is having an adverse impact on emergency, disaster recovery, and news media communications. The jamming is even affecting police radio frequencies in Jefferson Parish, according to an Australian news report. The President of Jefferson Parish Aaron Broussard told Meet the Press today that FEMA cut his parish’s emergency communications lines and he had to have his sheriff restore the severed lines and post armed deputies to ensure that FEMA did not try to cut the communications lines again. Broussard’s statement: “Yesterday–yesterday–FEMA comes in and cuts all of our emergency communication lines. They cut them without notice. Our sheriff, Harry Lee, goes back in, he reconnects the line. He posts armed guards on our line and says, ‘No one is getting near these lines.’ UPDATE: We can now report that the jamming of New Orleans' communications is emanating from a pirate radio station in the Caribbean. The noise is continuous and it is jamming frequencies, including emergency high frequency (HF) radios, in the New Orleans area. The radio frequency jammers were heard last night, stopped for a while, and are active again today. The Pentagon must locate the positions of these transmitters and order the Air Force to bomb them immediately.

However, we now have a new unconfirmed report that the culprit may be the Pentagon itself. The emitter is an IF (Intermediate Frequency) jammer that is operating south southwest of New Orleans on board a U.S. Navy ship, according to an anonymous source. The jamming is cross-spectrum and interfering with superheterodyne receiver components, including the emergency radios being used in New Orleans relief efforts. The jammed frequencies are:

72.0MHZ (high end of Channel 4 WWL TV New Orleans)

45.0MHZ (fixed mobile)

10.245MHZ (fixed mobile)

10.240 Mhz (fixed mobile)

11.340 Mhz (aeronautical mobile)

233 MHZ (fixed mobile)

455 IF (jammer)

Read the reports by Wayne Madsen (LT, USN, National Security Agency 1984-85)

Also: azadism.com

If you look at Wonkette, Fleshbot or other members of the Gawker Gang from New York City, you will notice how Berlin's over-hyped Spreeblick is lightyears behind when it comes down to some real journalism. Where is the spark, guys?

Negrophile (Winner of two Black Weblog Awards in 2005) collects the news about the social disaster in the US.

Scary! The Metbloggers are better organized than the officials....

"New Orleans Police Department Status: The situation for the NOPD is critical. This is firsthand information I have from an NOPD officer we're giving shelter to. Their command and control infrastructure is shot. They have limited to no communication whatsoever. He didn't even know the city was under martial law until we told him! His precinct (5th Precinct) is under water! UNDER WATER -- every vehicle under water. They had to commander moving trucks like Ryder and UHaul to get around. The coroner's office is shut down so bodies are being covered in leaves at best or left where they lie at worst.

They don't even know their own rules of engagement. He says the force is impotent right now. They have no idea what's going on, no coordination, virtually no comms, etc. the National Guard is gonna air drop a radio system for them with 200 radios? They are getting very little direction."

From "Interdictor - the Survival of New Orleans blog" reporting live.

List of Blogs dealing with Katrina

The New Orleans blogosphere lives, for now at least

Breaking-news page from the New Orleans Times-Picayune

Stormtrack Forum

hurricanecity.com - Atlantic Hurricane Tracking

Pictures at flickr.com

"Evelyn Turner wept Tuesday as she waited for someone to take away the body of Xavier Bowie in New Orleans, The Associated Press reported.

Bowie, her common-law husband, had lung cancer and couldn't evacuate from the Louisiana city. He died when he ran out of oxygen Tuesday, according to the AP.

Turner wrapped his body and kept a tearful vigil, the AP said, in a devastated city so overwhelmed that rescuers are pushing aside the dead to tend to the living."

CNN has started a folder called "katrina.people/" to keep track of stories like that

"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a Special Report from Jon Stewart." Wired: Reinventing Television with the guy from the "Daily Show" (CNN). No new facts, but worth reading

These guys from Berlin want to let you know they want to start "a monthly free ezine (german/english) with global art and activism news (still looking for new scouts in Canada, USA, Asia, Africa and other countries - would be great to have one or two sources that could feed us with fresh news at the end of the month). For the first issue we'll have also an interview with Kalle Lasn and and and" Guter Artikel in Deutsch: Künstler entdecken das Computerspiel als Protestmedium. Gibt es eigentlich schon "Escape from Guantanamo Bay" als Unreal-Modul?

Time is up for your contribution to the first international stickeraward.

"The LA Times recently ran a story about the Child Exploitation Section of the Toronto Sex Crimes Unit, which contained a mind-boggling statistic: of the more than 100 offenders the unit has arrested over the last four years, "all but one" has been "a hard-core Trekkie." Blogger Ernest Miller thought this claim was improbable. "I could go to a science fiction convention," he explained "and be less likely to find that 99+ percent of the attendees were hard-core Trekkies." While there may be quibbling about the exact numbers, the Toronto detectives claim that the connection is undeniable. In fact, Star Trek paraphernalia has so routinely been found at the homes of the pedophiles they've arrested that it has become a gruesome joke in the squad room. (On the wall, there is a Star Trek poster with the detectives' faces replacing those of the crew members). This does not mean that watching Star Trek makes you a pedophile. It does mean that if you're a pedophile, odds are you've watched a lot of Star Trek."

This is a very strange story indeed. Ellen Ladowsky reports for news.yahoo.com Daniel Ream comments: "Unfortunately, you're all missing one very big element here: The Toronto Sex Crimes Unit/Sexual Exploitation Squad lies like a rug all the time about their busts. They've become masters of manipulating the fact that no one will call them on their exaggerations for fear of being labelled pro-pedophilia. read on...

Thanks to Dr. Snakeskin for the hint.

That's what I call a big ad!

I seriously waited really long for this series of dvds and the first one is finally out: All 24 episodes from the 1976 season completely restored and remastered The original pilot, "Sex and Violence!" The original pitch reel of the show Muppet morsels viewing mode with fun facts about the Muppets Promo gag reel Number of discs: 4"

"The Muppet Show" should have run forever. It's the best concept for a tv-show ever. Fiction meets reality in a shabby theatre run by a frog. Guests of the first season include Vincent Price, Twiggy, Charles Aznavour and Peter Ustinov.

Muppets Central keeps you up to date. Find out about Muppet Radio. It "broadcasts so that people around the world can listen to Muppet music 24 hours a day." The site for The Muppets' Wizard of Oz also went online a second ago. It loads slowly, but it has an exclusive interviews with Quentin Tarantino, Miss Piggy and Kermit in the "behind the scenes"-video-section. Click on the map for lots more. The "remix-tool" in Club Mayhem is very nice.

"DTV is a new, free and open-source platform for internet television and video. An intuitive interface lets users subscribe to channels, watch video, and build a video library. Our publishing software lets you broadcast full-screen video to thousands of people at virtually no cost. The project is non-profit, free and open source, and built on open standards." GET IT HERE! I just turned it on and there is some great stuff up there already! Why collect all these downloads?

boingboingboingboingboingboing.net

Could anyone please tell Al Gore the new economy is over? Current.tv, what is this thing? People can upload their videos, whew! Hey, why don't you let journalists do their job? And, no, sampling, weblogging and videos of people jumping out of planes are not art! No, no, Googles "most wanted search-terms" are not THE NEWS either. None of this shit is relevant. This is the decline of everything that was good about New Media 15 years ago: every idiot has a cellphone-camera and a weblog. I was at this weblog-convention last night. I'm in the same "genre" as these guys? Fuck me!

"Some people are more comfortable in hell!" -Tony Armeida (chief of the CTU) about himself

Als die US-Serie "24" kurz nach dem 11. September 2001 an den Start ging, war man sich einig: die Fernseh-Unterhaltung hatte endlich wieder einen Sympathieträger und sein Name war Jack Bauer, Superagent der Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU). Kiefer Sutherland, ein Schauspieler, den man eigentlich immer gemocht hatte, feierte sein sensationelles Comeback in einer Mini-Serie, die das fast gesteckte Format einer TV-Season endlich wieder ernst nahm. Jede Folge entsprach 60 Minuten in Echtzeit und zusammen ergaben 24 Folgen einen Thriller, der wie am Schnürchen zu begeistern wusste. Der schwarze Präsident sollte ermordet werden und schon die erste Folge machte klar, dass sich "24" nicht hinter einschlägigen Kino-Produktionen verstecken wollte. Spektakuläre Szenen ergänzten scharf geschnittene Sequenzen im Hauptquartier der CTU und wackeligen Aufnahmen von der vordersten Front. Zwar waren überwiegend Menschen zu sehen, die im blauen Flackerlicht vor Computern hockten, aber die Hetzjagd von einem Cliffhanger zum nächsten funktionierte reibungslos. Ähnlich wie das Design der James Bond-Filme in den Sechzigern eine spezielle Ästhetik und das Serien-Format prägten, brachte "24" endlich das notwendige Update für ein neues Jahrtausend. "24" brachte die kindliche Vorfreude auf die nächste Folge zurück, die es zuletzt vermutlich bei den klassischen Kino-Serials in den USA gab.

Es hatte "Twin Peaks", "Wild Palms" und natürlich "The Prisoner" gegeben, aber keine andere TV-Serie hat das eigene Format bisher so sehr zum eigenen Vorteil genutzt wie "24". Natürlich mußte man die Folgen in der richtigen Reihenfolge sehen und konnte dabei keine auslassen, aber man konnte auch bei einem guten Krimi nicht in der Mitte einsteigen oder wahllos einzelne Kapitel lesen. "24" funktionierte schon allein deshalb perfekt als Suchtstoff auf DVD und trieb die Verkaufszahlen der TV-Boxen voran. Krank im Bett und 1080 Minuten Unterhaltung als Geschenk, was will man mehr?

In Deutschland steht die 4. Staffel an, aber die harten Fans haben sich natürlich längst die Raubkopien aus dem Internet besorgt und die Meinungen sind geteilt. Sprechen die Action-Fans von "der besten Staffel seit Season 1" winken andere ab und lassen kein heiles Haar an jener Serie, die sie kurz nach einer längeren Krankheit als sonstwie innovativ gepriesen hatten. Man verdirbt denen nicht den Spaß, die "24" bisher nicht gesehen haben, wenn man verrät, dass die CTU eigentlich ständig mit Maulwürfen zu tun hat. Was in der ersten Staffel noch zu einem spannenden Wendepunkt der Geschichte wurde, entwickelte sich in der Wiederholung zu einem Running Gag. Die Suspense-Split-Screens sind zum Selbstzweck vorkommen und wirken teilweise längst wie eine Parodie der ersten Staffel. Längst ist "24" als Auftakt eines neuen Selbstverständnisses im Fernseh-Business anerkannt und hat seine Schuldigkeit getan. RTL kopiert das Format mit "Eight Days" und Serien wie "Lost" oder "Desperate Housewives" wären sicher in der Entwicklungshölle hängen geblieben, wenn es Agent Jack Bauer nicht gegeben hätte.

Bauer ist der Held dieser Serie und der Rest seiner Truppe ist nur Staffage. "24" hat keine Zeit für Soap-Elemente oder aufwendige Liebesaffären, wenn sie nicht zufällig dem Plot dienen. Die Tatsache, dass man die Handlung eines Action-Filmes auf 24 Stunden Fernsehen aufblasen konnte, wurde von dieser Serie so verblüffend vorgeführt, dass man über die Figuren nicht weiter nachdenken wollte. Man öffnete ein weiteres Bier und hing drei Nächte lang vor der Glotze. Uns Uli Wickert bezeichnete "24" als "das schlimmste Drogenerlebnis meines Lebens" und ist dem Suchtstoff weiter verfallen. Immer wenn die neue Staffel irgendwie zu kriegen ist hat er auch drei Tage diese fetten Augenkringel. Wickert hatte Verständnis für den Mord an Jack Bauers Frau. Genau, man wollte die Frau sterben sehen weil es die Dramatik erhöhte.

Es entwickelte sich allerdings ein Kommen und Sterben bis die kaltschnäuzige Machart zur Fratze wurde. In der Folterkammer der CTU geht es in der 4. Staffel richtig rund. Kaum eine der Hauptfiguren wird nicht irgendwann von Freund oder Feind gefoltert und immer geht es um die gerechte Sache. Als Soldat der CTU muß man bereit sein, sich von den Kollegen foltern oder erschießen zu lassen, wenn Amerika mal wieder in Gefahr ist. Amerika ist immer in Gefahr und "24" etabliert eine fragwürdige Aufarbeitung der jüngsten Folterskandale in Afghanistan, Irak, der "neutralen Zone" Guantanamo Bay und anderswo.

Zusätzlich ist Jack Bauer gezwungen, die chinesische Botschaft zu überfallen, der Botschafter geht dabei drauf und der neue Präsident ist in Schwierigkeiten. Überhaupt ist der neue Präsident ein Waschlappen wie auch einige andere Figuren sich als naive Liberale entpuppten, die nicht begreifen möchten, was eine Option war und was nicht. "That's not an option" ist der am häufigsten gesprochene Satz.

Klar, die Geheimdienste haben immer und überall schon munter gefoltert, aber die Folterknechte und ihre geplagten Hintermänner zu Helden befördern, hat noch keiner gewagt. Die Zeit ist reif. Die 4. Staffel von "24" macht keinen Hehl aus dem ultranationalistischen Weltbild, welches die Serie clever transportiert, keinen Hehl. Der Action-Film war immer schon reaktionär geprägt und so fällt die Gratwanderung von Ballermännern mit flotten Sprüchen zum gestressten CTU-Agenten nicht sofort auf.

Wieder einmal ist Amerika gerettet. Der Kollaterallschaden ist beeindruckend und beim nächsten mal wird man mindestens eine Stadt mehr in die Luft sprengen müßen. Fan-Zombies wie ich werden sicher wieder einschalten. 4 Staffeln, 96 Folgen, 72 Stunden ohne Werbung, 3 Tage ohne eine Minute Pause. Das Runterkommen von der Droge ist immer am schwierigsten.

"An unprecedented move by major stores to stop selling the blockbuster video game "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" over a hidden sex scene will cost its maker millions of dollars in lost sales and ignited a political firestorm by U.S. critics who want a government crackdown.

But the young industry, already rivaling Hollywood box office in sales, is certain it can and should police itself." (Reuters)

LA is the world's cultural capital. Defamer is the gossip rag it deserves." Talking about making money with weblogs and all that: "SPONSORSHIP Gawker Media – Defamer and ten other weblog titles – brings a young and influential audience to brand advertisers." Sponsors, hmmmmm....

Defamer on the Pirate-DVD-Scandal at the Comic Con San Diego: "This may lead the MPAA to commence a violent geek-purge at the convention. The streets of San Diego shall run green with spilled Vulcan blood!"

Don't hurt yourself while Fox is watching, kids! Have a look at methodshop.net, another really cool webmag.

In 2001, Austrian man Alois Gmeiner launched a telephone service that allows callers to record their hatred for the bespectacled boy wonder. A recorded message encourages callers to “Get it off your chest, tell us how much you hate Harry Potter.” As of 2001, Gmeiner was still planning to collect the recorded messages and publish them in a book dedicated to undermining Potter’s popularity. The hate-line has since spread to other countries. Int.: 43-900-515-1216 UK: 44-43-196-233 Germany: 49-190-800-276 Switzerland: 41-906-906-381

If if that aint enough you can also join Anti Wizards Inc and fight that little cretin with some black magic. And here is another guy who doesn't like Harry Potter: "Is it just me, or has this whole Harry Potter thing gotten out of hand? I remember way back when Harry Potter was comprised of a few shitty books that only a few stupid kids enjoyed. It made insulting their worth quite painless and easy - though with this new Harry Potter revolution, including: movies, action figures, coloring books, cartoons, comics, and all sorts of other absolutely pointless bullshit marketing; insulting the value of any Harry Potter manifestation is likely to be followed by a girly voice saying, "You should see the movies, they're really good - I bet they'd make you change your mind!".

Let me be honest here: no, I wouldn't change my mind.

In fact it is safe to say that I'd much rather have Satan tear out my rib cage and smash my face in with it than go watch Harry Potter movies, or read any Harry Potter books."

Some people sure have a really hard time getting their books out!

"The finest radio drama of the 1930’s was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown. This site has many of the surviving shows, and will eventually have all of them.

The show first broadcast on CBS and CBC in July 1938. It ran without a sponsor until December of that year, when it was picked up by Campbell’s Soup and renamed The Campbell Playhouse. All of the surviving Mercury Theatre shows are available from this page in RealAudio format (some are also in MP3 format).. There are several Campbell Playhouse episodes available here as well, in both RealAudio and MP3 formats; the rest are being added gradually."

Check the daily report with your host David Lynch. Probably the strangest idea Mr. Lynch has had yet. There will probably be a dvd collecting all the reports at some point....

The hottest fashion-fanzine in the world is Dong Mag from Berlin. What's that song in the video called, kids?

I just finished watching the first season of "Lost" and I will hold my breath until the 2nd season comes out. The first DVD-Box is coming up!

Smart site about videogames. Check out their "special 30 second preview trailer of the upcoming political documentary game Street Survivor." 'Political documentary game"? Come on!

Try using it in a movie and they will make you pay a gazillion dollars...

Lady Gaby and Lena Braun presented this thing last night at the Barbie Deinhoffs and most celebrities of the local sex scene had a good time. Have a look over here.