I had fotgotten what an idol Bruce Lee was during my teenage years and a trawl through some nostalgia recently had me looking up some clips for old times sake. I expected to be rather disappointed. On the contrary…

When I first saw this engrossing documentary, I was struck by the tragic figure of Fred A. Leuchter Jr. A sad, almost comedic, character who started out as an engineer, before revolutionising the state of execution equipment in the states and finally losing everything after becoming something of a posterboy for holocaust revisionists. On the face of it, obviously, he does sound abhorrent but he comes across so inoffensive, that it becomes very hard to correlate the man with the deeds. Thanks to Smashing Telly and GoogleVideo.

Here’s a lesson in unbiased reporting from Irish state broadcaster, and tv license fee recipient, Radio Telefis Eireann. An Oireachtas Commitee hold a public consultation on new broadcasting legislation, part of which would expand the scope of the television license to cover mobile and internet content etc. Up steps technology expert Ronan Coy to offer his opinion. RTE news quote him as saying…

…television can include anything that is made visually available to the consumer, including developments such as Internet-based television stations and video blogging.

Which earns both RTE and Ronan Coy the wrath of Feckoff.net. Only Ronan himself sees the post and points out that he wasn’t actually speaking in support of the new legislation, quite the contrary.

I’m the Ronan Coy that made those comments but they are taken out of context… I was referring to the definition in the new Broadcasting law. I am arguing against this new law and its crazy implementation. I stated that the new law would include any device capable of recieving a TV signal which is total bullshit. As far as I am concerned YouTube, video blogging, molbile TV should not be included as forms of TV subject to a license, unfortunately the new law wants to change all that. I want to have the law modified or scrapped entirely as there are other ways for RTE to make its money.

As the man says, so much for the independent media. Here’s what I say. If RTE can’t manage on the money they get or can’t think of alternative ways to earn, let’s take the fucking license fee off them, kick Pat Kenny, Joe Duffy and Ryan Tubridy out on their over-paid arses and give the bobs to TG4, who, even with their meagre resources, have at least attempted to fill the remit of a public service broadcaster.

Fark TV - about as odd, haphazard and mildly irritating as you might expect.

I have to say that not so long ago I wouldn’t have bothered with last nights Storyville on BBC4. But since Frank surreptitiously plunged me into the world of the online journal presented in a chronological order, Blog Wars now held a certain interest for me.

The show looked at the impact blogging has had on politics stateside eventually focusing it’s attentions on the Conneticut Democratic Primaries where, bolstered by huge left-wing blogger support, unknown Ned Lamont took on incumbent and Democratic Party stalwart Joe Lieberman. Besides being an almost text-book example of how to make a simple but effective documentary, it also produced some of the most unwittingly funny moments on tv. For instance on the day of the elections one blogger described it as feeling like they were “amassing at the gates of Mordor” (and something about attacking the Death Star too). There was also the Lamont aide, after they’d won, telling them all that blogging was, struggling to find the right phrase, the thing.

In the end though, Blog Wars is unlikely to change anyone’s opinion of blogging or bloggers as very few of them managed to come across as anything other than smug geeks. The bitter irony came later, after the cameras stopped rolling, when Lieberman ran as an independent and beat Lamont in the senate elections - where, after all is said and done, it really matters. Still, Blog Wars did demonstrate the speed at which their influence is growing and how stupid it’d be to start writing them off.