Monday, 27 March 2017

radio 4 in 4 minutes

Some nice little authentic listening from BBC Radio 4:

Radio 4 in FourClips

BBC Radio 4 - Radio 4 in Four - Clips
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Wednesday, 15 March 2017

why we're being watched

Very much in the news:
Jay Doubleyou: information wars

And more so:

Why We're Being Watched

Monday, March 13, 2017

Wikileaks has just published over 8,000 files they say were leaked from the CIA, explaining how the CIA developed the capacity to spy on you through your phone, your computer, and even your television. And Wikileaks’s Julian Assange claims these “Vault 7” documents are just one percent of all the CIA documents they have.

The media will be combing through these for weeks or months, so now is a perfect moment for us to reconsider the role of privacy, transparency, and limited government in a free society.

We’ve put together a quick list of the six best Learn Liberty resources on government spying and whistleblowing to help inform this discussion.

1. War Is Why We’re Being Watched

Why is the US government spying on its citizens in the first place? Professor Abby Hall Blanco says that expansive state snooping at home is actually the result of America’s military interventionism abroad:

2. Is Privacy the Price of Security?

Yes, you may think, the government is snooping on us, but it’s doing that to keep us safe!

That’s the most common justification for sweeping and intrusive surveillance, so we held a debate between two experts to get right to the heart of it. Moderated by TK Coleman, this debate between Professor Ronald Sievert and Cindy Cohn, the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, was inspired in part by the revelations about NSA surveillance leaked by Edward Snowden in June 2013.

3. Freedom Requires Whistleblowers

People are already drawing parallels between the Snowden leaks and the Vault 7 revelations. If the leaks are indeed coming from a Snowden-like whistleblower, that will once again raise the issue of government prosecution of people who reveal classified information to the public.

Professor James Otteson argues that a free society requires a transparent government, and whistleblowers play a key role in creating that accountability. Otteson also sounds a warning that should resonate with many Americans today:

Maybe you’re not concerned about the invasions of privacy that the federal government agencies are engaging in because you think, “Well, I haven’t done anything wrong. What do I have to fear?” Maybe you think, “I like and support this president. I voted for him.”

But what about the next president? The powers that we let the government have under one president are the same powers that the next president will have too.

What if the next president is one you don’t support? He, too, will have all the power that you were willing to give the president you now support."

4. Encryption Is a Human Rights Issue

Documents from Vault 7 suggest that the CIA has been so stymied by encrypted-messaging apps, such as Signal and Whatsapp, that it has resorted to taking over entire smartphones to read messages before they are sent.

That turns out to be a costly, targeted, and time-consuming business that doesn’t allow for mass data collection. But for decades, government officials have tried to require tech companies to give the government a backdoor into their encryption. In “Encryption Is a Human Rights Issue,” Amul Kalia argues that protecting encryption from government is essential to our safety and freedom.

5. The Police Know Where You Live

It turns out that it’s not just spy agencies that have access to detailed information about your life. Ordinary police officers have it, too, and they often face little supervision or accountability. As Cassie Whalen explains, “Across the United States, police officers abuse their access to confidential databases to look up information on neighbors, love interests, politicians, and others who had no connection to a criminal investigation.”

Surveillance is a serious issue at every level of government.

6. Understanding NSA Surveillance

If you’re ready to take your learning to the next level, check out our complete video course on mass government surveillance with Professor Elizabeth Foley. In it, you’ll learn what you need to know to make sense of the NSA scandal in particular and mass surveillance in general.

Reprinted from Learn Liberty.

Kelly Wright

Kelly Wright is an Online Programs Coordinator at the Institute for Humane Studies.

Why We're Being Watched | Foundation for Economic Education
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Monday, 6 March 2017

the shadowing technique

This blog has already looked several times at the technique called 'shadowing':
Jay Doubleyou: speaking fluently
Jay Doubleyou: improving my second language
Jay Doubleyou: business english: how to improve your pronunciation by watching youtube videos
Jay Doubleyou: from narrow reading and listening to fluency: part two

And here:
Jay Doubleyou: learn english from movies
Jay Doubleyou: how watching films can help your english

Here are some more recent ideas:

From the Voice of America:

Improve Your Pronunciation By 'Shadowing' Others

It's about getting the sound right:
How to Improve Your Pronunciation: Shadowing - Deep English
Jay Doubleyou: how english sounds to non-english speakers

Here's some research:
Using ‘A Shadowing’ Technique’ to ImproveEnglish Pronunciation Deficient Adult JapaneseLearners: An Action Research on ExpatriateJapanese Adult Learners

Here are some very clear steps:
Speech Shadowing Technique for English – English with a Smile

This is from the OUP:
Shadowing: a useful technique for autonomous practice of listening and speaking | Oxford University Press

This is from Wikipedia:
Speech shadowing - Wikipedia

And finally from Teacher Luke:
331. How’s your English? (and why speaking is so important) | Luke’s ENGLISH Podcast
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information wars

Russia is the news:
Russia's propoganda campaign is weakening Europe from the inside - Business Insider
Labour MP claims it's 'highly probable' Russia interfered with Brexit referendum | The Independent

So is CNSnewand the Media Research Center
Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream media | Politics | The Guardian
Watchdog to launch inquiry into misuse of data in politics | Technology | The Guardian

Here are a few questions:

How much news can we trust?
Jay Doubleyou: fake news

Is it all 'post-truth' anyway?
Jay Doubleyou: facts don't matter!

How do our politicians use language?
Jay Doubleyou: the language of donald trump

What sort of people voted for the President?
Jay Doubleyou: losers!
Jay Doubleyou: education levels and voting trump

How is Russia and the West playing its games in the Ukraine?
Jay Doubleyou: english language media as propaganda in the ukraine

... and elsewhere?
Jay Doubleyou: colour revolutions

What media can we trust?
Jay Doubleyou: english-language news media - part two

How much history is being rewritten?
Jay Doubleyou: rewriting history
Jay Doubleyou: how different countries see the same bit of history... differently

... including the idea that 'we invented everything?
Jay Doubleyou: inventions

Is there any privacy on-line?
Jay Doubleyou: internet privacy

How old is 'propaganda'?
Jay Doubleyou: propaganda, public relations and manufacturing consent

Back to Russia:
Putin's Propaganda Man | by Amy Knight | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
Peter Pomerantsev · Putin’s Rasputin · LRB 20 October 2011

And for a little more:
"Where does the independent critical analysis stop, and the manipulative lobbying begin?"
Peter Pomerantsev - Wikipedia
Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev review – Putinism and the oil-boom years | Books | The Guardian (Feb 2015)
Peter Pomerantsev: Why We’re Post-Fact (July 2016)
Wolves in nationalist clothing – POLITICO (feb 2017)
Radio Prague - It’s not Russia vs. the US any more, the big threat is a Trump-Putin alliance, says writer Peter Pomerantsev (Feb 2017)
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Thursday, 2 March 2017

theresa may's empire of the mind

This is where we are today in the UK, according to the New York Times:

Theresa May’s Empire of the Mind

By TOM WHYMANFEB. 15, 2017

COLCHESTER, England — After Prime Minister Theresa May gave a bullish speech last month outlining her plans for Britain’s negotiations to leave the European Union, the front page of The Daily Mail, a right-wing tabloid, displayed a triumphant cartoon depicting Mrs. May, head thrust proudly into the air, standing on the edge of what I assume is one of the White Cliffs of Dover. The Union Jack flew behind her as she trampled a European Union flag.

This image resembled nothing more than “The Rhodes Colossus,” a famous jingoistic cartoon from 1892 in which the racist, empire-building diamond tycoon Cecil Rhodes stood similarly astride Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town. “We’ll walk away from a bad deal — and make E.U. pay,” read the text beside the illustration, as if the Lord Kitchener Wants You poster had been blessed with the eloquence of Mrs. May’s new best friend, Donald J. Trump.

But was she supposed to look like she was about to jump off that cliff?

Sober analysts agree that Mrs. May’s plans are deeply foolish. Her intention is to sacrifice Britain’s membership in the European single market, something necessary for the economy to function as it is now configured, to gain full control over immigration policy, which is not. In short, she is planning to profoundly alienate key industries and trading partners to score populist popularity points.

British Prime Minister Theresa May adjusts the earpiece during a press conference inside 10 Downing street in London, February 9, 2017. CreditPool photo by Facundo Arrizabalaga

Parliament will be afforded little oversight in relation to the process and frankly doesn’t seem interested in opposing it, no matter how extreme Mrs. May’s plans are. The House of Commons voted recently to give itself as little power as possible to reject whatever terms Mrs. May eventually puts to it, a bizarre move for a legislative body in an apparently functioning liberal democracy. The prime minister’s Brexit plans will alienate Britain’s regions as well: Scotland saw support for independence spike after the June 23 referendum result, while in Northern Ireland there are profound fears over what Brexit will mean for the Good Friday Agreement.

All this domestic turmoil is indicative of the way in which Brexit goes to the heart of Britain’s national identity. For this reason, it is hard to believe that the jingoistic associations of The Daily Mail’s cartoon were a coincidence. Brexit is rooted in imperial nostalgia and myths of British exceptionalism, coming up as they have — especially since 2008 — against the reality that Britain is no longer a major world power.

This is evident in Mrs. May’s rhetoric. Her Brexit speech, for instance, invited us to imagine the “Global Britain” that will somehow emerge once the country has left the European Union, its citizens “instinctively” looking, as she has claimed the British do, to expand their horizons beyond Europe and exploit opportunities across the world. This is simply a sanitized version of the dream of a British Empire in which every eastern and southern corner of the globe could be imagined as an Englishman’s rightful backyard, ready for him to stride into, whenever he so chose, to impose his will and make his fortune.

The bullishness of the Brexiteers represents a progression from an earlier era of revived empire nostalgia that might be described as the “Keep Calm and Carry On” era. From the mid-2000s, tropes such as the titular wartime posters, alongside a rediscovered love for old-timey delicacies like tea, cupcakes and gin, offered a retreat from a world made freshly hostile to the middle class by the global financial crisis.

But no matter how confident the Brexiteers might be, their grip on reality remains patchy at best. Global Britain’s delusions are unlikely to withstand the shock of actually leaving the European Union. One indication of this came shortly after the referendum result, when it emerged that Marmite, an iconic British food, was actually owned by a Dutch company, Unilever. Its prices are set to go up after Britain leaves the European Union. Andrea Leadsom, the minister for the environment, food and rural affairs, has indicated that Britain’s post-Brexit trade strategy will be primarily based around the export of jam, biscuits and cheese. Britain, it seems, is in danger of becoming the world’s largest church fete.These tropes abide today — but they have ceased acting merely as a shelter, for those who live surrounded by them, against politics. They have now become an active, transformative political force. It’s not just The Daily Mail cartoon, or Mrs. May’s crypto-imperialist rhetoric. It’s the U.K. Independence Party leader Paul Nuttall, striding about in a tweed jacket and matching hat like a Victorian country squire. It’s the Brexit secretary David Davis, responding to complaints from the Civil Service that it lacks the budget to deal with the logistics of leaving the European Union by invoking the Blitz spirit of World War II. It’s the foreign secretary Boris Johnson saying that France’s president, François Hollande, “wants to administer punishment beatings to anyone who chooses to escape, rather in the manner of some World War II movie.” Those most under the spell of imperial nostalgia have now become the sorcerers themselves, having somehow managed to conjure up a mandate to transform Britain in their image.

Still, Mrs. May will probably be able to carry the public with her. Her Brexit plans have generally polled well, and since taking office she has remained by far the most popular of all the major party leaders. Even if there is an economic collapse when Britain leaves the European Union — as most analysts think is likely — her mandate probably won’t be hurt: Already the right-wing press is lining up to lay the blame for the coming crisis on the bad attitude of “Remoaners,” as it has labeled the “liberal elitists” who remain pro-Europe even after the referendum result.

So what’s going to happen? These days, it feels like the worst-case scenario always prevails. If that happens this time, too, Brexit will mean that England, shorn of Scotland, Northern Ireland and maybe even Wales, contracts into a small, isolated, one-party state governed by schoolteacherly Conservatives who persist in wild-eyed delusions about their country’s special grandeur. In this desperate fantasy Britain, there are no jobs, and any dissent — from disseminating pro-foreigner propaganda to having a nonregulation haircut — will be punished by forced participation in the government’s “Clean for the Queen” program (which incidentally is a real initiative that was pioneered last year to encourage Her Majesty’s subjects to de-litter their neighborhoods in preparation for her birthday).

All of this might sound bizarre, over-the-top, even actively demented. But if what the Brexiteers want is to return Britain to a utopia they have devised by splicing a few rose-tinted memories of the 1950s together with an understanding of imperial history derived largely from images on vintage biscuit tins, then all of this seems chillingly plausible, insofar as it would, in many ways, constitute the realization of that dream. Viva Britannia!

Theresa May’s Empire of the Mind - The New York Times
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Jay Doubleyou

Monday, 27 March 2017

radio 4 in 4 minutes

Radio 4 in FourClips

Black Pet Syndrome: Why are black pets so unloved?

The clandestine British plot to overthrow the Bolshevik government

The extreme selfie daredevil who jumped from a nine-story building

Are mismatched shoes the latest fashion trend?

The Auschwitz survivor who forgave the Nazi doctors who experimented on her

Would you pay to put your plans for a family on ice?

Meet the ice swimmers

A guide to how to vape politely

Wednesday, 15 March 2017

why we're being watched

Why We're Being Watched

Kelly Wright

Monday, March 13, 2017

Kelly Wright

Monday, 6 March 2017

the shadowing technique

information wars

Thursday, 2 March 2017

theresa may's empire of the mind

Theresa May’s Empire of the Mind