Just a quick post for anyone with nothing better to do for the rest of the evening.

BBC Two is showing the new series of the excellent Dragon’s Den starting at 8PM (NOW!!!) and then at 10PM Armando Iannucci’s latest creation Time Trumpet gets its first airing.

The concept behind Dragon’s Den is quite simple; a panel of investors and entrepreneurs hear various pitches for new companies, products and inventions. If they like it they’ll invest their money for a portion of the profit, if they don’t (and they usually don’t) they tend to verbally tear the bright-eyed start-up limb from limb until they have zero faith in their own abilities.
From what I can gather Time Trumpet is a satirical spin on the “I love 19**” crap that pollutes our airwaves and sees a host of aged celebrities and “experts” discuss the events of the first thirty years of the 21st Century. It seems to be in a similar vein to “The Day Today” and that is far from a bad thing in my opinion.

Update: Apparently Time Trumpet is now on at 11:50

True to my word I’ve quickly thrown together a little Podcasting list section on the right sidebar.

The list includes some direct feeds to Irish podcasts and is by no means representative of the entire podcasting community here; any and all suggestions are welcome in the comments (I just know I’ve missed out on plenty of decent shows).

I’m avoiding links to radio station podcasts, however as I feel that while they do have they’re use they’re not genuine podcasts; in reality they’re just repeated programming that offer nothing that deviates from the content on traditional radio.

Any suggestion of resources, Irish or otherwise are also welcome are very welcome too.

Thanks.

Irish Election has just launched it’s first podcast, featuring an exclusive interview with Labour party leader Pat Rabbitte.

Congratulations to Cian and co. on an impressive inaugural podcast; hopefully we’ll see plenty more of the same over the coming weeks and months, all of this going towards making IrishElection.com a more and more important voice on the Irish political scene as the election draws close.

Podcasting in Ireland is really on the up as of late; for example Conn’s great news on BCI funding has been bolstered by the news that Raidio na Life will also be broadcasting his upcoming social media show “An Líonra Sóisialta”. Plenty of other worthwhile podcasts have been making their mark across the community too, it will never match blogging for its ease of use but there’s certainly a justification in it; IE.PODcast being just one example.

I’m hoping to add a ‘Podcast’ section on the right to represent this growth in quality podcasts from Ireland and eventually I’m hoping to get podcasting myself, although probably not until early 2007.

Sarah Carey’s post on the latest chapter in the Waghorne/Udaras spat has weaved its way towards the debate over internet anonymity, something that is a big part of blogging in Ireland.

There is no right or wrong as far as anonymity online goes; being anonymous and being public both have their positives and negatives and they can help and hinder in equal measure.

There are many genuine reasons why an individual may choose to be anonymous when blogging. Perhaps the topic they are discussing is a private or personal one and not something they want to publically be associated with. Perhaps they are blogging about their workplace, and while not revealing corporate secrets still cautious about their company’s policy on blogging. Perhaps they are even feeding controversial but worthwhile information to the wider world, acting as a type of source to anyone who wishes to read. Or, in the case of one of our most celebrated blog comedians, it’s done to enhance the whole experience of the site.
Of course then there are more negative reasons for blogging anonymously; it may be done as a tool to facelessly attack other people, spread vicious rumours about members of the public or perhaps even carelessly defame whoever comes to mind with little chance of recourse.

The positives of “anonblogging” are quite apparent; they allow the blogger more freedom to discuss issues they otherwise could or would not and it may allow for the creation of characters and facade’s that aid a routine or act. The negatives are equally obvious; besides anonblogging giving people the opportunity to say things they may not be brave enough or legally entitled to say in public it can also lessen the impact of said blogger’s statements.

For example, should a public blogger break a story or make a claim on their website they are putting their name and reputation on the line and even leaving themselves open to legal action. While that doesn’t automatically make what they say reliable it certainly creates a level of trust that an anonblogger may have a harder time building.
It is probably no coincidence that the Irish blogosphere’s best and brightest are hiding nothing; look at Damien, Piaras, Sarah, Tom Raftery, Cian O’Flaherty, Mick Fealty, Cian Ginty and Fiona to name but a few. the same comment may have a harder time earning.

From a professional point of view anonblogging isn’t extremely advantagious. Sarah herself has benefitted from being crystal clear about who she is. For someone in a position like myself, where a blog can be used as a platform for ideas, work and as a showcase of talents blogging under a pseudonym is not going to be of any great benefit.

The Irish blog community has its fair share of anonbloggers; the good, the bad and the cunty and each one offers a different justification for blogging without a name, for better or for worse.

Anonymous commenting is a slightly different beast however; just like in bulletin boards pseudomyns are used and abused to back up points of view. Some muppets might continually comment under different names to make it look like there are many voices singing off the same hymnsheet while others may post under different names just to make comments they’d rather not be associated with (possibly due to their obscene or trolly nature).

The only remedy for this problem is to force people to register with each site in order to comment or worse still disable the comment feature entirely. It is my opinion that both of these factors are completely counter-productive and where the former may not stop discussion it will certainly injure it.

WordPress gives IP details of commentators to its admin’s so at least the comment spam can be dealt with at the best of times. Other than that the natural order of things is likely to return; a commentator who states their name (or pseudonym) and links to their site is far more likely to be conversed with than one with a made up name, fake e-mail address and no weblink, especially when they later just spouts out crap.

The internet is always going to have relative anonymity (that is anonymity in general terms that can be removed in extreme circumstances by authorities), however it is not something that should be despaired over.

Anonymous blogs and anonymous comments all have their use and place, even if they are abused from time to time. Even in the real world we have to deal with people who just want to cause trouble for fun, and the safety net that is the anonymous internet is only going to encourage them. Just like everything online though the dreggs quickly sink to the bottom and the good bloggers and commentators, secret or public, will quickly make themselves known.

Running With Bulls has mentioned that Chairman of Digital Rights Ireland, TJ McIntyre will be a guest on tomorrow morning’s Today Show which broadcasts on RTÉ Radio 1 from 9AM to 11AM.

Mr. McIntyre will be discussing the contentious issue, which looks likely to be hitting the courts in the near future, with Minister for Communication, Marine and Natural Resources Noel Dempsey.

If you want to throw your weight into the debate, head over to RWB for the shows contact details.

Best of luck to McIntyre tomorrow and to DRI over the coming weeks and months.

In DRI-related news those wishing to contribute to the group or even just spread the word about their legal campaign should read this post.

The EU has just published a statement in which its members call for an immediate end to hostilities in Lebanon with a view to creating a ceasefire at a later date.
The exact wording of the release is seen as a get-out for the likes of the UK who have so far avoided calls for an immediate ceasefire.

A BBC correspondant on News 24 mentioned that he asked a UK Foreign Office diplomat what the difference was between an end to hostility and a ceasefire; the diplomat stated that a ceasefire is a more formal way of ending violence in which both sides may sign an agreement or clause.

In reality the term ‘ceasefire’ is pretty self explanatory; to call for an immediate one is to state your wish for both sides to cease their fire against each other; formal arrangements are quite easily exclusive of the term and the UK knows this well.

The move is in reality a careful balancing act by Tony Blair in which he is standing by the US line on the conflict while not making his country the only EU state to oppose such a progressive statement.

While it is easy to say that Blair is Bush’s poodle it must be noted that Blair is much quicker to side with the US than the EU and it seems as though his country’s foreign policy depends entirely on that of the American administration. It is possible that he honestly believes it is not the right time for a ceasefire but in reality today’s EU statement is a matter of semantics which prove that he does support the notion; he just doesn’t want anyone to know yet.