Weekend Open Thread: You’re Gonna’ Need a Bigger Boat
We’ve been rather busy around the emptywheel this weekend, but it looks like we need something for conversations about two big topics.
First, the Panama Papers — here’s a short and sweet explainer at The Guardian to get you started. It’s the biggest leak-based, multi-outlet, global journalistic investigation to date. The server where the papers are located is already ready flooded with traffic (or attempts at DDoSing).
You might be interested in watching the story’s impact on world media. Go to Newsmap (turn off technology, sports, entertainment, and health news in the very bottom toolbar if necessary). Then notice how often “Panama Papers” is mentioned. Australia and some of the earliest EU outlets have picked up this story. Watch for the story to roll westward.
Second, the Associated Press announced this weekend its style would henceforth use ‘internet’ (lowercase i) versus Internet (uppercase I) in all cases. Which is all groovy for journalists who write using AP style, but a misrepresentation of the existence of the Internet versus the internet, because the Internet is still very much a thing. In my opinion, this looks more like word guys not understanding the technology they rely on once again. Hello, future shock?
Have at it below. I’ll catch you tomorrow morning as usual.
Craig Murray has a very good response to the ‘revelations’ here.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
It’s gotten to dKos, or at least the earlier parts have.
(I was thinking that we need a bigger Waaaahmbulance for Trump. He’s whining about Kasich taking ‘his’ votes instead of dropping out. We might need one the size of an aircraft carrier for that ego, though.)
Yo, Bev! 10 points and a Kewpie doll for getting the poll position,
and on an open thread!
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But I found Mr. Murray’s piece less than helpful. Apparently he
read the Guardian report and concluded that the fix is on by the
corporate media and, hence, only Putin will get splattered by this
shit-bomb.
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Mr. Murray’s probably a nice enough bloke, but anyone who refers
to cricket as “a deeply satisfying sport” is not likely to ever stoop
down far enough to see what the demotic Daily Mail has to say.
.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3521830/Tax-havens-world-s-rich-famous-revealed-huge-data-leak.html
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I don’t know how they do it, but when other sources are pissin’
around with BS speculation, the DM gets in there and digs out names
and details and puts up tons of photos. In this case they already
have a splatter-diagram of how the shit has hit Putin’s gang. They’ve
got David Cameron pulling on the hip-boots b/c his father is involved.
.
They’re naming and shaming everyone from Iraqi ex-PM Ayad Allawi
to Iceland PM Sigmundur Gunnluagsson – no joke, that’s his name.
He looks like the late Rob Ford as a teenager, before he became
Canada’s most famous crack-head.
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In all, the DM lists a dozen leaders of various countries – mostly
Arab countries. Qatar and Ukraine are represented 2x on the list.
.
I like the part where Mossack Fonseca says: ‘Our firm has never
been accused or charged in connection with criminal wrongdoing.”
That’s more than Hillary or the Rose law firm can say.
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This will all blow over in a month and whoever released the data will
end up holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and the rest
of the world will just let him rot there, which brings me to my
soap-box, this being an open thread and all.
.
It is shameful the way the world has let Assange lose such a large
chunk of his life packed away in that embassy. By the world I mean
the people like us, who should be rioting and throwing bricks through
every US, UK and Swedish embassy window in the world until they
let Assange go to wherever the hell he wants to go – well, OK, maybe
not bricks, but signing petitions or doing something to force these UK/US/Swedish pricks to let the guy go already.
.
What Assange has done for the world and the promotion of
transparent government cannot be overstated. Without him
and the data Wikileaks has released, EmptyWheel would not likely
even exist. The Swedes should be asking him to go to Stockholm
to receive the Nobel Prize rather than to face charges filed by
a couple of one-night-stand-tarts who want to vent their fury at
being spurned – which fury Hell hath not, or so I am told – egged
on by a rabid fem prosecutor, Marianne Ny.
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Hope everything is cool with you guys at EmptyWheel. From this
side of the server it’s beginning to feel like you may have taken a
hit of some sort. We’ll keep the comments going and Tom Bodett
will keep the light on for ya’.
The important thing that Murray does is to point out that actually there is no story about Putin and he is linked to this one in a curiously contrived manner. Or, to put it another way, The Guardian’s Luke Harding is using the Panama Papers as a hook on which to hang his daily ration of anti-Putin propaganda. It is becoming laughable.
As to the Mail it did a good job, in its first few months of existence, covering the Presidential Election of 1896. Since then it has been going downhill.
Rayne: “the Associated Press announced this weekend its style would henceforth use ‘internet’ (lowercase i) versus Internet (uppercase I) in all cases.”
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The use of “internet” rather than “Internet” would imply the use of “net” rather than “Net”, which (just MHO) is confusing. Speaking of “the net” may be OK if you’re playing tennis, not if you’re playing on the Net.
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BTW, and totally off-topic, Emptywheel.net’s every-helpful automated spelling corrector keeps trying to change your name to “Wayne”! I had to battle with it to keep its sexist urges at bay! :-)