Shire Network News is the podcast of Silent Running , an Anglospheric group blog. You can contact the presenter, "Tom Paine", here.
In the Full of Crap Report this week, Laurence Simon channels the ghost of Andy Rooney and opines on the topic of cell phones. Exploding Palestinian cell phones like the one that Shin Bet used to nail Yihye Ayash, the"Engineer"? Er...no. Just cell phones. Be thankful he doesn't get started on those airline peanuts.
Meryl Yourish in "On Second Thought" has examples of what the Council on American-Islamic Relations considers free speech ("Rupert Murdoch is a Zionist Jew!") and what is hate speech ("Hadji Girl" by a US Marine who the brass are trying to sacrifice for political purposes).
Canadian blogger Damian Penny brings us the warm-hearted response of a typical cheery working class Englishman to the prospect of a jolly good bit of World Cup Soccer featuring our firm comrades across the channel, the French. Warning - language! Hey, Damian is in Canada, don't they have lots of French people there? Oh. I see. Subtext, right, I get it now. Dead clever, that is.
The feature interview is with Australian uber-blogger Tim Blair, who gves us all a master class in fake-plastic-turkey-blogging, which is such a growth sector of the blogosphere to this day that it's estimated to have generated revenue greater than that of Volvo and Nokia combined, and even rivals the GNP of several African nations.
As explained last week, this is my last Shire Network News, at least as writer and presenter. It is in fact show number 50, which seems a nice round number. My day job has become much more time and energy intensive, and I simply can't do justice to both that and this podcast.
Alternatives are being examined, especially the idea of getting someone else to step into the breah. A technical producer has already been found, who has kindly agreed to stitch the show together and post it, and I can still do the feature interviews, but SNN still needs a front person.
Could it be you, or do you know of someone who might fit the bill? Then contact me here. And although I feel slightly like a fraud for asking now that I've podfaded, if you have enjoyed SNN over the past year, why not drop a contribution in the tip jar below as a gesture of appreciation?
You can subscribe to SNN on Applie iTunes using the iTunes 1-click button at the top of this post, or download it directly from the Blogmatrix site.
Do keep an eye out, Shire Network News may still return in the future, although perhaps like Dr Who or one of Elizabeth Montgomery's TV husbands, in a slightly different form. And I still like the second Becky on Roseanne better than the first one (Sarah Chalke, if you're out there, have you ever considered dating a handsome Jewish reporter from Australia? I love you in "Scrubs"!)
