Beam be down Scotty - CNN’s hologram via Alan in Belfast
If you were flicking around their satellite or cable channels during the US election count last week, or surfing online and reading reports of the coverage, you’ll have come across CNN’s gimmick of the night.The BBC’s Jeremy Vine had a green screen studio and stabbed his invisible touch screen. ITV had Jon Culshaw to mimic any guests they were unable to get in front of a camera. But CNN projected their Chicago reporter Jessica Yellin into their New York election centre studio by hologram! (Worth remembering that CNN was being broadcast in high def.) It was CNN senior vice president David Bohrman’s idea, and much of the technical nous came from Vizrt and SportVU.Take 1 green screen tent (called “Casper” after the friendly ghost), 35 HD cameras in a 220 degree arc, telemetry...
links and things - saturday 8th november 2008 via iced coffee words
The Election. Aftermath roundup.
It’s going to be alright now.
These pics are so sweet. People can be awesome.
Election maps are fun. Lots of red and blue and some grey. These maps of the results are very cool.
The official website of the office of Change went live yesterday.
How he did it.
Collection of hundreds of Obama newspaper headlines.
Change. Literally. Loose change.
I watched the latest episode of South Park this morning. True to form it was as odd as usual, though the amazingly fast turn around is very impressive.
This sums up the dream in so many ways.
This comic by American Hell sums up the election for me: live coverage from BBC News, 5 news websites open and Twitter.
It is truly one of the greatest sources of photojournalism. Always exceptional images and the election... Generosity in defeat – McCain the statesman goes the extra mile via Alan in Belfast
There will doubtless be many words printed in papers and online today describing Obama’s speech in Chicago early this morning. But it was McCain that captured my attention first last night.Before the US President-elect comes out to speak, the conceding candidate gets to go first.It’s their last chance to communicate to a captive audience. It’s their chance to set a tone. It’s their chance to draw lines under past behaviour and activity. It’s their chance to rise above the debris of a campaign and remind people why they were a candidate in the first place.For me, John McCain nearly stole the show last night when he stepped out on the stage on a “beautiful Arizona evening”.There were no weasel words. No looking for chads on the floor.“My friends, we have -- we have come to...
change is here via iced coffee words
Today is monumental and historic. With months of build up Barack Obama is the new president of the United States of America. The most powerful election in the world, and the best man won.
The time has come when, despite still lingering rasicm throughout the US, a Black man can become president, the people are able to look beyond skin colour and base judgement on what he stands for.
Lets hope we see the change.
And what a win it was:... What the next president could learn from The West Wing via Alan in Belfast
The parallels between the current US presidential election and the last season of The West Wing are staggering. In the Guardian last week, Andrew Mueller draws up some useful lessons that Obama (and presuamably McCain) could learn from the TV series.Some of my favourites from Mueller's list ...Allow the eccentric to be heardIn the past eight years, many voices have been ignored during the tenure of surely the least intellectually curious president in US history. A couple of episodes of The West Wing revolve around an initiative called Big Block of Cheese Day, in which White House staff take meetings with representatives of fringe interests, from map reformers to proponents of highways for wolves. "By the end of the day, there's always one or two converts, right?" notes Bartlet.Use...
don’t vote #2 via iced coffee words
The Slugger Awards - for the wee guy and the big names via Alan in Belfast
Tonight saw the inaugural Slugger Awards, an offshoot from the well politics (and space) group blog Slugger O’Toole. Deserving of a rare, politically-centric post on AiB.Northern Ireland’s been a den of online political conversation, debate and bad-tempered argument for a long time. It’s out of that foundation of dial-up message boards that Slugger was born all those years ago. It’s produced a space where people already engaged by political goings-on at a local or national level can voice their opinions against the melee of other informed individuals - including those with vastly different views.Getting the politically informed to talk to each other is a good first step in Northern Ireland, a land were you’re taught from an early age not to talk to strangers about politics or...
I just realised… via The Levee Breaks
Gerry and his Cookie Monster watch via Alan in Belfast
Now AiB has had a minor fixation with the local Sesame Tree programme, helped by a visit to see the production company with the PCI Tech Campers, and an occasional email conversation on the subject.Martin McGuinness allowed himself to be photographed with Hilda and Potto at the show's launch earlier this year. But according to Mark Devenport's excellent blog last week, Gerry Adams has gone one step further.Gerry and the Cookie MonsterGerry Adams is in the United States, ostensibly telling Americans about the serious nature of the current deadlock. However I suspect that his real purpose is to go shopping for muppet memorabilia.Apparently he ran in to the President of Sesame Workshop, Gary Knell, at last month's meeting of the Bill Clinton's Global Initiative group in New York. Sesame...
don’t vote via iced coffee words
Jonathan Powell - Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland via Alan in Belfast
Bedtime reading over the last week or two seems to have settled upon political matters. Truth be told, my bedside table is littered (well, neatly piled high) with any number of genres of unread books, but the political ones have been the ones to hand as I’ve been settling down for the night.While A Telling Year: Belfast 1972 filled me in one some of the local events just before I was born, Jonathan Powell’s Great Hatred, Little Room: Making Peace in Northern Ireland focussed on more recent events. Powell was Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff during his long years as Prime Minister, perhaps his closest colleague and responsible for organising and pushing through Blair’s agenda.As chief negotiator, he spent an incredible amount of time working behind the scenes of the Northern Ireland...
How can we Breakout from our past? via Alan in Belfast
Last Monday night, BBC1 NI broadcast the documentary Breakout at 9pm. You can still catch it on iPlayer for a few more days. The programme tells the story of the Maze Prison escape back in September 1983.Twenty five years ago I was living in Lisburn and just starting P7. Class mates lived a few hundred yards up the road from the Maze prison, and came into school the next morning with tales of prisoners and/or police running through their back gardens. Even at that young age, there was a sense of the terror and danger associated with the break out.The story was told primarily from the viewpoint and through the voices of three of the IRA inmates who had led the jail break - Bobby Storey, Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane and Gerry Kelly. Being a documentary and not a current affairs...
Brand awareness via Sociable Geek
The US seems to have awoken to the firebrand comic talents that is Russell Brand. Love him or loath him there’s no doubting the man knows how to make an impact and while taking a pop at the current US president might just seem a little redundant with November looming, it does none-the-less hint at the sharp genius lurking behind messy hair and a life or sex and drug addictions.Brand first cropped up on my radar as what I like to term an ‘annoying-as-fuck’ Big Brother host. Actually anything big Brother related tends to get that title. Stand up shows failed to impress me and he bobbled around the telly to a chorus of ‘oh that wanker again’ until I started reading his column in The Guardian. His 300 words or so a week became like ‘Substance D’ to my fragile little mind and in...
A telling tale about A Telling Year – Belfast 1972 (Malachi O’Doherty) via Alan in Belfast
I found Malachi O’Doherty’s book The Telling Year (Belfast 1972) quite scary for two reasons.Firstly, it was scary how little I knew about what the Troubles had been like in 1972. Born the following year, only the occasional event has made it onto my timeline. To be unaware of the sheer level of violence, scale of bombings, and the number of people and families affected in those days troubled me.The second scary aspect involved the details of what Malachi personally witnessed and experienced as he lived in his family home, and as he started work as a journalist on The Sunday News alongside colleagues Jim, Stephen, Paddy, Rick and Eddie.It’s a dark book about a dark time in Northern Ireland’s history. As Malachi looked back at the paper’s output from that year with the benefit of...
15 August … Omagh via Alan in Belfast
I couldn’t resist … an outsider running for the White House!? via Alan in Belfast
The field via Alan in Belfast
The Belfast County parade was long and colourful, albeit monotonously flute and drum. But the Belfast field was something else.The ranks of Orangemen, led by their hired-in bands, have to march to somewhere. And that somewhere is known as “the field”. Belfast’s field has moved over the years: from Finaghy to Edenderry, briefly to Ormeau Park one eventful year, and most recently settled in the Council’s park at Barnett Demesne (Malone House).As part of our tour, after grabbing a sandwich in Tesco (which was thankfully open for the first time on the Twelfth) we drove up towards the House of Sport roundabout and abandoned our cars down a leafy side street.Sometime after 2pm the last of the parade snakes into the grounds. At 2.30pm, the County officers – sitting on their platform (a...
The Glorious First? Witnessing the Belfast parade. via Alan in Belfast
Until this week, I wasn’t aware that the Twelfth would have been commemorated on the first of July (Battle of Boyne = 1 July 1690 Julian calendar) if it hadn’t been for the British adoption of Pope Gregory’s shifting of the calendar in 1752!But then I also wasn’t aware that the Pope had given a mass to celebrate William of Orange’s victory at the Boyne. Something that wasn’t mentioned on the banners or in the field this afternoon – though they were strong on Freedom and Liberty ...A year later in July 1691, the Battle of Aughrim – my old house at school – was won by a battlefield fluke when the Jacobite general (who was winning at the time) was unexpectedly decapitated by an even more unexpected cannon ball, throwing the Jacobite forces into disarray and allowing the...
Orangefest … not to be confused with Oxegen via Alan in Belfast
Having a Swiss journalist staying with us this week has been perhaps a timely excuse to discover a bit more about the history, culture and diversity of this bit of the world. The kind of stuff you normally leave to books and newspapers.It’s easy for some to live in Belfast and never drive up the Falls or the Shankhill. You can even live in East Belfast and drive up and down the Upper Newtownards Road without ever managing to park the car and get out on the lower bit, the actual Newtownards Road. I’ve also lived in East Belfast for three years and never had an excuse to go into the Park Avenue Hotel!So on Tuesday night, it was a trip to the Ballymac centre for their Somme evening. Our guests had spent yesterday talking to all kinds of people in all kinds of areas of Belfast. But last...
A lot of bonfires last night via Alan in Belfast
I'll fill out the post with more thoughts and reflections later ... and perhaps explain why AiB was even there!Though burning the Irish tricolour doesn't exactly do a lot to sell Orangefest ... nor uphold the "responsible leadership" that Peter Robinson, Northern Ireland's First Minister, pointed to last night.Anyone for a game of "Spot the ball burning...
The NI peace process was like a game of chess via Alan in Belfast
Not too long back from David Porter's leaving do at the Centre for Contemporary Christianity in Ireland (formerly ECONI). Quite alarming the number of attendees who were also bloggers. And nice to see Gareth Higgins again in the flesh - as opposed to listening to his thoughtful cinematic musings on The Film Talk podcast alongside co-host and former Belfast flâneur Jett Loe.For someone involved in reconciliation and making a thoughtful contribution into the religious and political mire in the long build-up to the Good Friday agreement, the leaving present was close to perfect.A marvellously carved and painted Northern Ireland political chess...
New Lord Mayor -> Belfast City Council website goes down for maintenance! via Alan in Belfast
On the night that Belfast City Council elect their new Lord Mayor, it’s unfortunate that the website is out of action! Great timing.Part of me wondered whether the outage is connected to the new first citizen Lord Mayor – but that only requires one of two webpages to be changed, and couldn’t possibly require an entire site to be taken down.Oh, and the new Lord Mayor? Sinn Féin’s Tom Hartley who achieved 25 votes against 23 for the DUP's Diane Dodds. The UUP's Davy Browne will be Deputy Mayor.The Irish Times published a colourful pen picture of the new man ...Tom Hartley is a 62 year old who has been involved with Sinn Féin for 40 years and represented the Lower Falls on the council for the past 16 years.Until his election tonight he was chairman of the council’s Audit...
The Barry and Basil Show - Stormont via Alan in Belfast
It's not often you get to walk up the steps in front of Stormont (technically Parliament Buildings) and go in through the main doors. In fact, after the Stone-got-caught-in-the-door incident, you no longer get to go up the steps at the front at all. Instead, you're routed through a perspex security hut - looks a bit like a car wash - to the bottom right hand side of the building, which processes all visitors, conveys their belongings through a "airport" scanner, and allows you out the far side if you're deemed to be clean.After Monday night's reception in the Long Gallery, the two hosting MLAs volunteered to take folk down to the main Assembly Chamber.And so the Barry and Basil show began.While coming from quite different political backgrounds, Barry McElduff (Sinn Fein) and Basil McCrea...
Gordon Brown addresses the Church of Scotland General Assembly via Alan in Belfast
As the UK parliamentary parties have a conference season in the Autumn, so Presbyterian churches worldwide have a season of General Assemblies during May and June.And so the season has kicked off with the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh. They have a superb facility, a by-product of their building being snaffled by the Scottish Parliament for a few years while the Scottish Assembly was being built. So all mod cons like cameras and microphones are built in, and an ability to stream the proceedings online. They even put out a twice-daily update webcast by Rev Douglas Aitken (iTunes feed available).(Update - And BBC Scotland are covering the event with a short series of General Assembly: 2008 programmes.)Twenty years ago, Margaret Thatcher delivered her “Sermon on the Mound”, outlining...
Mayor Boris Johnston wins … in style via Alan in Belfast
Boris Johnston does it and will be the next Mayor of London.He made an eloquent, and sometimes humorous acceptance speech, gracious to his rivals, and with particular praise to Ken Livingstone's stewardship and obvious love of London, including his leadership in the aftermath of the 07/07 bomb attack.Ken speaks with emotion in his voice, admitting that losing after eight years of being Mayor is his fault, and will support the new executive and continue to work for London.Brian Paddick too got a chance to speak. In fourth place, the Green Party's Siân Berry ran to the podium after Brian stepped back. But too late. The producers on News 24 the BBC News channel were already cutting away and back to Jon Sopel on the...
London Mayoral Election – using a voting method we haven’t played with … yet! via Alan in Belfast
Living in Northern Ireland, there’s part of me feels short changed that we’re not getting to vote today. After all, it is the land of vote early, vote often and tends towards there being some kind of election nearly every year.(There’s an –ology for the stuffy of voting and elections, but I can’t figure out what it is!)European elections under Proportional Representation (the Party List system).Westminster elections under straight-forward First-past-the-post (known as Plurality in the trade).Assembly elections to Stormont using Proportional Representation (Single Transferable Vote variant). Also used for local Council elections???Ministerial positions on the Northern Ireland Executive are allocated using the D’Hondt method, and some MLA votes require cross-community...
Who’s running scared? via Everything Ulster
Elections to the 11 new councils won't take place until 2011.
NIO minister Shaun Woodward has announced that the local government elections due to take place in Northern Ireland in 2009 have been put back to 2011 at the request of executive ministers.
Effectively the councillors who were elected for 4 year terms in 2005 are getting the length of their contracts extended by 50%. The official reason is something to do with the local government reform that will see the reshaping of the council boundaries and the reduction in the number of councils from 26 to 11.
What I want to know is which executive ministers, and why? I have my suspicions about certain currently dominant parties being worried about losing vote share with voters quickly realising that this wonderful new dispensation... Report - must try harder via Everything Ulster
Everyone’s favourite unelected legislator has had an idea.
I can't drive. I've just never bothered to learn. So lets say I get my licence next month and I drive to my girlfriend's parents in south Down. Alastair Ross will be very upset if I leave for Belfast much after 8pm. Who is he to have an opinion on what time I drive home at? What right does the state have to extend the fairly reasonable restrictions on driving to such an extent? He also wants to ban me from driving my girlfriends sister anywhere for the first year. Total ban on alcohol, perhaps, but the reason zero tolerance on this doesn't work, is that small amounts of blood alcohol are (as far as I remember) naturally occurring!
Lisburn man/Larne MLA Alastair Ross really has let it go to his head. If he wants a...
Where we were in 1998 via Everything Ulster
I was recently required to do an analysis of an academic research paper. A colleague I was working with chose this one, which I hadn't read before. There are some fascinating things in the responses.
Page 6 of the PDF shows the huge swing in support for the agreement before finally resting where it started. I'm a bit dubious about the unexplained sharp rises towards the end of the campaign, but maybe I'm just forgetting something. Page 8 highlights the fact that the republic had a vote one third larger than in the north, but 10 times more spoilt ballots.
On page 11 we get into the really interesting stuff. Only half of Protestant no voters objected to power sharing. Two thirds of them supported the establishment of an assembly. 86% of catholic nationalists supported NI remaining...