Prize for the worst example of public misinformation by a news broadcaster during this conflict goes to ITV and ITN. On day 2 of the war on their lunch time broadcast, one of their "imbedded" reporters was doing a live piece which was continually being interupted by another signal. ITN blamed it on Iraqi or US psycops jamming. Psycops means Psychological Operations by the way. Don't be fooled by this, they are distracting you - psycops means propoganda. ITN were in fact covering up their own incompetence; the signal interupting their reporter is known in the industry as the KR553 colour bars and audio line ident which eminates from Granada Television up in Manchester (thanks to my ex-ITV colleague for this info). Ironically then, ITN have performed a kind of psycological operation themselves. An operation designed to make you believe that ITN aren't incompetent shits. If they cannot respect their viewers enough to tell the truth about their own broadcasting, what hope do we have?

All this comes as insurance for reporters in the field has leapt up by something like 4000 per cent; equipment by a lesser but still enormous per centage increase. So expect the 24-hour news channels, who only expected a shortish conflict and have small budgets, to start pulling their men and women out under the guise of safety reasons. Increasingly, broadcasters will have to start pooling their resources. Bad for broadcasting, but can only be a good thing for the Internet's growing importance at the moment and with this in mind Charging is here to provide you with yet more linkage....

First up is the rather worrying New American Century a scary organisation who are working to promote American Global Leadership. Read it and soil yourselves.

Damn Fool Kids is a blog worth visiting with some good links to stories plus the usual fantastic blog musings that an individual given the power of public speech tends to drum out. One of the links he posted was this warmonger versus peacenik argument which I have now stolen to link to myself. Cheers.

Another blog of interest is by the chap who plays Dr. Karl Kennedy in Neighbours (which I don't watch so I'm taking someone else's word on this). He has written a song about the war in Iraq, plus he speaks about much else. He is, as he points out, an Australian citizen. Worth saying as people tend to want not to hear the political opinions of soap actors, but the blog gives a voice to members of the public - which includes actors both famed and non-famed (I include both options as I don't know where to include our Mr Fletcher in the fame hierarchy. Pretty low I should have thought). Check out his site.



Grand Theft Auto 3 as a multi-player game!: Multi Theft Auto.

One other thing to say: Anyone got Glastonbury tickets?