Ark's Ark

The Daily Show Writers on the Writer’s Strike. With a little help from John Oliver.

Did I ever mention how great John Oliver is? I’m so glad that the presenters are showing solidarity with the cause. Jon Stewart is funding the writers out of his own pocket while the strike continues.

Sort it out, Viacom. Start giving writers their rightful share from the proceeds of new media.

Dog’s Milk. No bugger’ll drink it.

Heather Mills is in the news again. I know, that surprised me too.

Ms Mills said that livestock created far more carbon emissions than transport, so we should go vegan – someone who eats no meat or dairy produce – or at least find something else to put in tea or coffee.

At Speakers Corner in Hyde Park she said: “There are many other kinds of milk available. Why don’t we try drinking rats’ milk and dogs’ milk?”

Vegan Mills was supposed to be launching a poster campaign for an animal welfare charity.

I shall leave it to Red Dwarf’s Holly to respond:

I wonder how much milk you get from a rat anyway. Likely not enough for my cornflakes. Maybe enough for a single cup of tea. Is Ms Mills suggesting we have farms of battery rats, or does she prefer free-range?

US Writer’s strike expands to News.

Via Atrios, this story could be quite serious.

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) — Nearly 300 CBS News writers who belong to the Writers Guild of America have voted to authorize a strike against the network, the union said Monday.

Some 81% of voting writers moved to approve a possible strike, the WGA said.
The television and radio writers, working in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington, D.C., have been working under an expired contract since April 2005. The workers have not received pay raises since April 2004.

CBS News writers voted to spurn CBS’s contract offer in November of last year, and since then, the network “has refused to put forth any new proposals, insisting on the offer membership rejected,” the WGA said in a statement.

Among other details, the CBS offer would give the network the right to combine WGA-represented entities with non-WGA units. At stations such as WCBS-AM and 1010 WINS in New York and KNX and KFWB in Los Angeles, this could amount to forcing the union out, it said.

If that spreads to the other networks, it might seriously impact news coverage. A lengthy strike might have a real effect upon the primaries, though who it will be good for, I know not. Maybe they’ll have to resort to giving us pure news, without it being shaped to the liking of the proprietor.

Perhaps folks will have to start buying newspapers again. Are newspaper journalists in the WGA too?

It’s not all bad though. If we’re really lucky, Rush and Billo’s joke writers are in the WGA.

FKN News – This Week’s Headlines

He’s kind of angry. I don’t agree with all his viewpoints, but in these dark days of the writers strike, it’s good to have a hit of Fake News. May the Daily Show return to us soon.

I’d love to make a videocast like that. I might have to find out how to plug my video camera into my PC one of these days.

Let Justice Ring Out in Pakistan!

The BBC reports:

Pakistan’s reshaped Supreme Court has dismissed the main legal challenges to Gen Pervez Musharraf being allowed a second term as president.
He has promised to resign as army chief if and when the court validates his victory in October’s presidential poll.

Gen Musharraf sacked a number of independently-minded judges who had been due to consider the case.

What to say? Musharraf sacked all the judges who opposed him, so this verdict is utterly meaningless. Most of those judges are still imprisoned. Yet, oddly, the verdict seems to be being accepted by the world powers. I wonder why that is?

Ah, yes. I forgot. The whole “Bestest ally in the War of Terror” thing. How is that working out?

PARACHINAR, Pakistan, Nov 19 (Reuters) – At least a dozen people were killed in fighting between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslim tribesmen in a Pakistani region near the Afghan border on Monday, taking the death toll to more than 100 in four days of clashes.

Eight people were killed and 18 were wounded when a mortar bomb exploded in a bazaar in the Kurram tribal region, residents said.

Army helicopter gunships pounded militant positions on the outskirts of the main town of Parachinar, killing four people.

Note that the Pakistani media are currently banned from reporting on terrorism. Being reported on would just encourage them, apparently. Clearly Musharraf has been sent a handy pamphlet of Republican talking points to turn to for guidance. Meanwhile, the roundup of journalists, opposition politicians, and lawyers, continues apace. I do hope he’s planning on releasing those politicians before the election…

Beowulf

What follows is my favourite (and public domain) version of the full text of Beowulf. A couple of friends of mine have been bitterly bemoaning having gone to see Beowulf over the weekend. This is for them. There’s no Angelina Jolie in this one, mind you, but in most other ways it’s a whole lot better in the original translation. Sorry, Mr Gaiman :(

BEOWULF
Translated by Gummere

BEOWULF
PRELUDE OF THE FOUNDER OF THE DANISH HOUSE

LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
Continue reading Beowulf

Changes to my feed.

It seems strange to me, but far more people read this blog through RSS feeds than on the blog itself. Probably because folks stay subscribed during my extended periods of inactivity! Hello, feed-readers, I love you!

I’ve just made some changes so that the feed link here on the page redirects to feedburner. My new feed offers some interesting features over the old one, so if you’re a subscriber, you might want to delete your old entry, head on over, and resubscribe. The old one will carry on working fine though, if you want to stick with that.

Alexa