Online video editing is now possible in a similar way to how sites like Picknik offer online photo editing. You don't need any software, all the work can be done through your web browser.

Today's announcement about MySpaceTV and it's editing features courtesy of Flektor raise the question of whether online video editors actually make sense.

For the more technically inclined, online video editing seems at first like a bad idea. Editing video is one of the most processor intensive applications you can do on a computer, and trying to replicate that experience through a web browser seems like it would be an exercise in futility.

Nonetheless, several online video editor websites already exist, MySpaceTV notwithstanding, and with YouTube recently rolling out the YouTube remixer, this article takes a closer look at what's out there in this space, and whether you should give these online video editor sites a closer look.

First however some cold hard facts about video editing in general...

Editing video is quite frankly a pain in the @^$£ no matter how you approach it. As someone who worked for many years in television I can tell you that even at a professional level, editing is the least fun part of TV. It takes a long time, you have to watch the same footage over and over again, and to produce even a 5 minute story can mean days of notetaking and transcribing (of interviews) before you even get into the edit suite. Often that same 5 minute story can mean hours of raw footage to deal with!

There are different levels of course - I've seen news editors (the fastest cutters in the west) put together decent 90 second news stories in as little as 15 minutes. At the other end of the scale a feature film or documentary editor might spend weeks or months to do their thing. But in most cases it's a fair rule of thumb that for every minute of finished output, you should figure on at least an hour of editing.

So if that hasn't put you off completely, and you're still reading, what do online video editors have to offer?

Well surprisingly a fair bit...

Online video editors won't put the likes of Adobe Premiere, Avid, Final Cut Pro or Sony Vegas out of business any time soon, but they do offer serviceable features for editing lower quality video destined for the web.

Online video editors all work basically the same way. You upload video, or in some cases import the video from another site via a URL, and then work to edit the video within your browser. At the end you download the finished product to your computer, or place it into a webpage, which usually means a page on the site you are using. Most sites have video sharing communities that they encourage you to participate in.

Sites such as Jumpcut, OneTrueMedia, Eyespot and Cuts offer surprisingly full feature sets that include transitions, special effects, audio dubbing and more, basically approaching what you would expect to find in low cost consumer video editing software such as Ulead Video Studio, Pinnacle Studio or Adobe Premiere Elements.

But herein lies the problem. All online video editing sites require you to upload video from your computer before you can edit it. This is a simple inescapable practicality of the proposition. There's a double whammy because most broadband connections are far slower when it comes to uploading than they are for downloading. And remember that editing in general means uploading a much greater amount of raw footage than will be in the finished product.

There's not much these sites can do about this (although Adobe AIR, formerly Apollo, presents interesting options for the future) so fundamentally I seriously question their actual usefulness. It is simply far more efficient to edit footage on your computer 'locally' using traditional editing software, and then upload the (much smaller) finished file to a video sharing site. You're using much better software, it's faster, and you also have the benefit of having a much higher quality version (your master copy) that you can burn to DVD or watch on a high-def screen.

There is one exception to all of this, and that is if the source of your video is already on the web. This is an area that we're heavily involved in here at WorldTV and I have to say I think that it really is the future of online video editing. Forget complicated, Hollywood style featuresets and multi-layer timelines, the next generation mainstream video sharing audience will simply want the ability to find, aggregate, perhaps trim and add a soundtrack. Anything else is is overkill.

That might just be my admittedly biased opinion, but the numbers below bear this theory out. All the pure play online video editing sites are hurting at the moment, despite decent publicity. Sixty thousand visitors per month is simply not enough to keep a company in Skype credits and lava lamps.

If you are wondering where this leaves you, and are reading this from the perspective of someone who is looking for a video editing solution for your web destined video, my advice is to stick with a low cost software based video editor such as the always friendly Ulead VideoStudio, or a free editor such as Avid Free DV, iMovie for the Mac or Windows Movie Maker. Chances are you have one of these last two on your machine already and they are at least as good as the best of the online editors.

If you really do want to try out the online video editors, I would be remiss not to suggest signing up for WorldTV Beta (it won't be a full featured editor but it will be very cool) and if you would like a well written review of the main options out there, this article is very good.

In summary, the simple physics of the proposition make online video editing a poor choice in comparison to software based editors. Online editors are fun from a 'wow I didn't think that could be possible' perspective, but ultimately they are a poor replacement for the existing methods and as such a solution for a problem that doesn't exist.

Comments as always are most welcome...

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In most businesses it is fairly simple to establish an approximate valuation for a particular company.

There are known rules of thumb such as multiple x annual sales (typically 3-5 as the multiple) or multiple x annual profit (typically 12-15 as the multiple).

For web 2.0 businesses with little in the way of either profit or sales, but a loyal and fast growing audience, another method is needed. Using either of the approaches above, such a site would appear worthless.

The good news is that 'eyeballs' are back. Big companies are finally realizing that they can't come up with all the new ideas, and that younger, smaller and more nimble web companies can deliver them a large audience or community on a plate, thanks to a great idea - well implemented, and the larger company can do what they do best which is figuring out how to monetize it. This explains why there have been so many acquisitions of websites and web development teams in the last couple of years.

So how do you value a website?

One approach that is becoming increasingly popular is to use a multiple x number of users approach. Here you basically assign a value for each unique user that you have to your site.

Depending on the type of website, this might be the number of registered members, the number of active users, or the number of unique visitors who visit the site in a month. This last approach is becoming increasingly popular among venture capitalists and angel investors.

It's important to distinguish unique visitors from other web statistics such as page views and hits, as these are very different numbers. Anyone who talks to you these days about 'hits' should be viewed with some concern.

In Google Analytics for instance, a free service which I recommend for any site owner, this figure is known as Absolute Unique Visitors.

For the current crop of web 2.0 websites, the kind of multiples being paid to buy companies is around $30-40 per unique visitor. (Note that unique visitors should be counted over a period of one month, usually the most recent). This well known and oft-quoted article from November 2005 establishes an average of $38 per unique visitor based on a range of different website sales.

The trick in valuing your own company is to choose a suitable multiple and here it is best to be conservative. Unless you really are the size of a YouTube, Twitter or Facebook, it's unlikely you'll be able to justify such lofty valuations. Within our diversified web publishing company for instance, we use multiples in the range of $3-8 depending on the site in question. This might be too conservative for some people but I would suggest using no more than $12-15 per unique user, unless you have an extremely popular site. There is definitely a higher value placed on larger sites, as these are attractive to the major players.

If your site does have revenue you should incorporate that into your calculation too for a more detailed valuation. You can establish a multiple for your unique visitors and then add in a more traditional calculation such as the ones at the beginning of this article. If you have assets such as domain names or 'people assets' such as a highly cohesive and transferable team, you should place a value on that too. You might also value an e-mail database separately, again using a suitable multiple.

Basically you should break your site down into its component parts and figure out which bits have value. There are no set rules for how you should do this, just be as reasonable as you can and as detailed as you desire. Do you have extensive technical plans already written? These have value. Do you have patents filed for your technologies? These (might) have value. Do you have ideas that you are willing to throw into the business wholeheartedly? These too can be valued.

The more detailed you get, the further you get away from a 'rule of thumb'. If you do get highly detailed with your valuation you should be prepared to tone down on 'rule of thumb' multiples to compensate.

Doing all this and being reasonable in everything, with research to back it up, will ensure that a buyer or investor will be far more likely to accept your valuation. If you are valuing your e-mail database separately for instance, what are the standard industry rates for buying an e-mail database?

If you need help getting started with your own valuation, feel free to use this spreadsheet as a starting point. It's a stripped down version of the one we use in our own company with figures changed to protect the innocent. You should adjust the multiples to numbers that you are comfortable with and add or remove any line items that make sense for your business.

Above all, taking a sensible and realistic approach to valuing your business will demonstrate that you too are realistic, and this will give investors, acquirers, directors and other stake holders confidence that you are on the right track. Even if you are not at the stage of selling your business to others, establishing a valuation methodology that works for you, and doing a valuation each month, will give you a very clear idea of how you are progressing each month, and how much 'value' you are creating.

I welcome any comments or helpful suggestions others may have...

Interesting links

Valuation approach for blogs (with online calculator)

YouTube, Zillow, and the return of eyeballs

Website Value 101 - A more detailed approach to valuing websites

Posted by Alx Klive at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Here's a cool site which should appeal to lovers of user interfaces and technology nuts.

Fast Digg lets you scan the latest technology stories from popular site Digg.com, using only a keyboard for control, no mouse required. It's great if you fancy leaning back a little to take in a world of news - simply use the cursor keys to control, and an occasional CTRL-W.

It works best in Firefox for the PC and Safari for the Mac. Unfortunately Internet Explorer is hopeless as usual.

Fast Digg

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WorldTV Beta is a pre-release version of the WorldTV Internet TV system. It allows people to try out the service before it launches publicly.

A beta is a trial of a software system in its latter stages of development, as hard working programmers look to put the finishing touches on their creations. People involved in a beta are usually friends & family, followed by progressively more and more members of the public.

Beta participants are usually expected to provide some helpful feedback in return for getting to play with something new before other people. This is a tradition that goes back many years in programming and is greatly appreciated by the programmers and creators. There can also be great satisfaction if you suggest a new feature and you get to see it materialize before your eyes.

Depending on the stage of the beta, you might expect the occasional bug or feature that doesn't quite work properly. You might also expect the product to come 'without lipstick or frills', as programmers are not usually known for their graphic design skills, although there are exceptions. Graphic designers are usually the last people to work on a software product.

A beta can last from a couple of weeks to many months - depending on how complex the software is and how perfectionist the programmers are. It is an unfortunate fact that many software products ship without sufficient care and attention, and these are where the beta period has been rushed, usually by upper management.

We are a pretty small team at WorldTV and believe in doing things right. We take our time to make things easy-to-use and we like to think.. with a healthy dose of common sense.

You can join our beta program here

Posted by Alx Klive at 2:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We love the Dell Inspiron 1300 laptops here in our office - we have 3 of them.

Until recently they were Dell's lowest end laptop, and as I always preach - buy the cheapest laptop you can. They only last a year or two at most, and even the lowest end machines these days are more than powerful enough for what most people need.

Lately the oldest of our 3 laptops has been overheating. Having scalded my partners legs one too many times, it was finally clear that something was seriously wrong with his machine. This was confirmed with a M1004 error code (a Dell overheating code) that tells you to call their service centre.

My partner followed the instructions but was given poor advice. Dell told him it probably needed a new motherboard, but that it was out of warranty. Ka ching.

Dell Inspiron 1300 laptops are usually very easy to fix if they are overheating. I may add photos later but basically you remove the plate that is in the back left position of the laptop (on the underside), assuming you are looking at the laptop as if you were using it normally.

With the plate removed (one screw only), you will see a gold metal heatsink held down by 4 screws on springs. Undo the screws and use the plastic gripper to pull the heatsink straight up and off. Now remove any rectangular blocks of fluff that have built up in the space between where the heatsink was, and the fan that is next to it. Look at the heatsink and see if there's fluff stuck to it too.

Get rid of all the fluff and check there's no fluff on the fan itself. Blowing into the fan a few times should be sufficient to do this.

Replace everything and you're done. 5 mins, no motherboard replacement needed.

**UPDATED June 2009** - Due to the many thankful comments for this and my other popular posts - with people offering me their first born, a dozen cookies, among others (!), I've now added a donation page. If this article has helped you, help me!

Bonus tip.... If the battery on your Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop is not working well anymore, you can get a replacement battery from Dell that is reasonably priced. Make sure to get a 6 cell as the 4 cell are useless. Also, be aware of the improvements you can make to battery life by how you use it. It is generally better to let the battery discharge to around 40% capacity before recharging it, rather than frequent small discharges to say 90% capacity and then back again. Do a full discharge/recharge cycle every so often, to re-calibrate the battery meter in your computer. Also. Leaving a fully charged battery in your laptop while working off the mains supply for extended periods is bad. Consider removing the battery in this case - easy in the case of the Dell Inspiron. Basically fully charged laptop batteries degrade quickly when they are hot, Lithium Ion batteries like to be kept cool. If you need to store a Lithium Ion battery for an extended period of time, store it in the fridge at 40% capacity. For more info than you would probably want to know about batteries, visit the battery university.

Posted by Alx Klive at 1:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (55)

Here are some sister sites of ours which I'm giving some link love to...

The following is a list of football news sites. Most are Premiership news sites but there are also a couple of sites for the MLS soccer league in America.

Great Football News Sites

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Let me start in saying that I feel Facebook is the freshest and most genius site to come along in a long time. There really is 'genius at work' going on.

Since they opened it up to anyone and everyone it has grown in popularity immensely and is now crossing into Canada, the UK, South Africa and elsewhere. In the last couple of months, the number of users has doubled.

If you don't yet think that you need to be on Facebook then consider this a very firm 'wink' that you do. It's where all the action is and will almost certainly help reconnect you with old friends and find new people (and new distribution outlets) too.

If like me you were put off by the spam-a-minute MySpace and its still ridiculously pathetic search facility then you'll be very pleased to know that Facebook has nailed both these issues. Use of the site is a pleasure in comparison to MySpace.

Everything on Facebook is executed brilliantly and nowhere more is this obvious than the recent 'mixing desk' addition for adjusting the frequency and substance of your newsfeed content from friends.

Facebook is a much better and more grown up MySpace, and as a 'social utility', to connect you with old friends and keep you connected with existing ones, it fulfills its mandate brilliantly. Post some photos of your recent holiday, friends will be notified, find a link that you think is interesting, share it easily with your friends - text, audio or video.

Facebook's recent opening up of its site to outside developers means that new applications are coming along thick and fast, although I question the ramifications of this down the road. Facebook has a reputation for delivering in-house applications that 'just work' - they must have been sorely tempted to stay a closed system like Apple.

Growth of the site is mind-blowing. According to Compete.com they've grown 33% in the last couple of months to 20 million users. According to Alexa, which tracks better for global trends, they've doubled in size in the same period.

But Facebook and all social networking sites for that matter face a growing problem - the problem of fashion.

Social networking sites by their very nature are trend based. They can be fashionable for a bit, but after a while a new one comes along which is cooler. Switching between two social networking applications is becoming a right of passage, 'you're still using Friendster? That's so last year'.

Facebook have partly addressed this by pitching their offering as an application - a social utility. This is smart on their part, but by itself may not be enough to save them in the long run. The truth of the matter is that once you get over the initial euphoria of finding old friends, and becoming comfortable with the actual number of friends you have listed, your use of the site dwindles. Friendster faced this problem and has fallen by the wayside. Bebo, after initially even more explosive growth than Facebook, has now levelled off and is treading water.

So does this mean social networking sites are no different from trendy nightclubs or this season's clothes? To an extent yes. Websites have entered the world of fashion by exposing the site we use most to our friends.

It may well be that social networking sites transcend all this by continuing to offer genuine utility or huge lock in. MySpace is still huge, but that's because of the heavy customization it allows its users which Facebook has stayed clear from, and its URL structure. Users of MySpace are less likely to switch to another site than users of Facebook - there's more investment. Facebook almost makes it too easy.

Be interesting to see how it all pans out...

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After effectively going into hiding in France, David Chase has given an interview about the final episode of the Sopranos and the controversy it has created. He certainly doesn't dismiss the idea of a Sopranos movie.

David Chase interview

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night was the final episode of the Sopranos, as aired by HBO in the States and as watched by countless tens of thousands all over the world through bittorrent.

If you didn't watch it by one of these means then you will have had a hard time steering clear of any mention of it today online - it's been talked about everywhere. Three times today I nearly caught a spoiler before watching it.

So spoiler alert notwithstanding, here's my take on the end of this incredible series. (This posting has been updated at the end)

The final episode itself was, unquestionably, a rip off to fans. To take arguably the best television programme of all time and to end it in the way it did, with a sudden black screen in the middle of nothing (the family meeting for dinner) was such a cheap exit as to be almost worthy of calling a hit on the producers.

It was one of those 'oh so different and arty but ultimately what a load of nonsense' endings that could do little to disguise the fact that it was poorly written and conceived. And they've had 7 years to plan this!

The truth of the matter is that David Chase, the show's producer must be tired and weary. Tired of continuing a series he probably would have liked to have ended 2 seasons ago, now that he's made his money and proven his genius. He clearly couldn't bring himself to write one last piece of brilliance.

The show's 'owners' also couldn't stand the idea no doubt of killing off Tony Soprano, so in classic TV style they've left things open for a movie or another series, or christmas special, or who freaking knows. But the problem is that the Sopranos was loved because it eschewed classic TV stereotypes. This is why fans are so upset. Message boards and blogs are awash in anger and fans are crashing the HBO website by deluging it with vitriol.

There are many subtle and creative theories over the possible significence of the ending - the idea I like most is that the sudden black screen was a 'hit on all the viewers'. This is apt as I feel like I've been shot in the stomach.

I'm sure David Chase has a nice explanation in his mind that 'explains' his ending. It doesn't take away from the fact that viewers feel extremely cheated. They wanted more than this, not a simple cop out by a creative - too easy.

The good news is however it does mean there may be more to come from everybody's favourite Mafiosi.

UPDATED JUNE 17th

Blogger Bob Harris has detailed an impressive analysis of the ending of the Sopranos. It shows the possible clues as to what might have happened - that thing we didn't see. It shows the 'Masquerade' style detective work that a former TV writer (experienced in writing death scenes) went through to arrive at his certain conclusion that Tony was shot and killed and the final frame of blackness was Tony's Point of View.

It's impressive work and has certainly caused me to revisit my feelings a little. If even partly true, and if David Chase confirms it in the future, and we never see Tony Soprano alive on our screens again, I will probably feel a little embarrassed.

But frustrations remain. I consider myself a pretty full on Sopranos fan. I may not have dissected the symbolism of every episode with others, nor taken part in Sopranos fan websites or web forums, but I did watch every episode and made a point of doing so. I can't remember the last time I showed such dedication to watching a TV series.

The Sopranos was great because it left little to the imagination. It was harsh, it was in-your-face, and it served up equal does of brutality and sensitivity that were weirdly reassuring in a world that is pretty brutal. You didn't need to turn on your thinking cap to watch it - you could be a thug and join in.

Most viewers, I'm still pretty sure, (at least the people I know), are still feeling pretty cheated by the end. It may well turn out to be a brilliant piece of detailed symbolism and suggestion - dare say genius, but I guess I just didn't want to be left with a complex detective puzzle to solve at the end. A bit too 'old boys' network for me...

(Comments are welcome below)

Posted by Alx Klive at 12:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WorldTV's RCTV Venezuela broadcasts reached 100,000 viewers in their first 7 days, with viewers from as far afield as Mongolia, Azerbaijan and Syria. The majority of the viewers however were from Venezuela, showing the huge demand that still exists in the country.

Our full press release

Posted by Alx Klive at 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Phil Butler over at Profy.com has given WorldTV a couple of big thumbs up and we're thrilled to bits.

He says...

"The video on WorldTV comes though crystal clear right in the browser and the simple editor makes every function a snap. Every video I searched for resulted in a very relevant and functional scrolling pull down with relevant results that were easy to preview and add."

He also says...

"The service is perhaps one of the most interesting early phase startups we have tested and users will be treated to video viewing that is altogether different from what they have experienced so far on Web 2.0."

Watching WorldTV is a blast (profy.com)

Posted by Alx Klive at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Comments are working again on the blog after nearly a month without them. While I don't relish the need once again to have to filter through automated spam comments (joy), it is a relief to have everything working again for the real people out there.

In case the solution is useful to anyone else running Movable Type on their blog, here is the fix that worked here at WorldTV to solve the No entry_id error. It was an annoying problem to solve but in the end pretty easy to do.

A month ago we switched our URL format on the WorldTV site using .htaccess rules so that instead of www.worldtv.com URL's we now use worldtv.com (without the www) . If this sounds like something you have done on your site recently, the following fix will almost certainly help you.

Athough the old URL addresses redirect to the new format (so blog postings appear fine), the submit comments form uses a POST method which doesn't seem to like the redirect.

If you look at the source code for a blog page with a comments form on it, you can see the address it is trying to POST the comments form to. In our case it was http://www.worldtv.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi. Also within that form are a couple of hidden attributes including the famous 'entry_id' value, which refers to the blog entry you are trying to comment on.

I suspect that although the POST works at one level with the redirect (the comments 'results' page appears in your browser) the hidden attributes don't get passed through following the redirect, hence the no entry_id error.

The fix is to change the CGI path in your mt-config.cgi file, which is located in your cgi-bin/mt folder, to match the new URL structure and then (importantly) rebuild your site pages.

In our case we changed our CGI path to http://worldtv.com/cgi-bin/mt/ and did a full site rebuild from within the Movable Type control panel. After we had done this we were able to view the source of the blog pages and confirm that the POST address correctly showed as http://worldtv.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi. Fortunately doing this didn't introduce any new errors and everything is working swimmingly.

Movable Type's website was not very helpful on this issue and merely refers to another potential cause for the no entry_id error, involving the Berkeley database which I don't think most people use.

Sure enough the comments are now working, so please comment if this helps you!

Posted by Alx Klive at 5:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Following our move to rebroadcast news bulletins from Venezuelan channel RCTV, which lost almost all of its broadcasting power when it had its terrestrial broadcast frequency taken away a week ago (with protests in the streets - pictured), people watching the broadcasts on WorldTV have grown rapidly.

In the first full day of broadcasts yesterday, there were 6431 unique viewers and almost all of the views were from Venezuela, as the table below shows...

What is happening in Venezuela, a rapidly developing (and cool) country, is something the whole world should be aware of. There are arguments for and against the recent actions of Hugo Chavez, the country's president, and in the past I've been generally supportive of his policies, but the messages coming out of Venezuela are very mixed at the moment and it's growing increasingly hard to know what is real and what isn't.

On the one hand there is no doubt that Chavez has done much to help the poor of Venezuela, but on the other, is the growing concern about whether he is increasingly heading towards a worrying dictatorship.

This alone makes it important that people try to educate themselves about the situation, speak to any Venezuelans they know, and read (with an open mind) all reports they can on the subject.

In the meantime we will continue to offer re-broadcasts of RCTV's six daily newscasts updated once a day. Freedom of speech at least deserves a helping hand.

Posted by Alx Klive at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The RCTV broadcasts have been watched by more than 5000 people today

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday here at WorldTV we began re-broadcasting news bulletins from Venezuela's RCTV which was closed down last Sunday by the Venezuelan government in a dramatic affront to free speech.

The broadcasts are taking off with over 1000 people visiting them in the first few hours, and 946 of those visitors coming from Venezuela.

While these numbers may pale in comparison to RCTV's usual audience, it shows that you can't keep a good broadcaster down in an age of global communications and alternative communications channels.

We plan to keep the broadcasts going so long as RCTV continues to make them. Long may they last...

Posted by Alx Klive at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Comments are currently not working on the blog. I will try to get it sorted asap. By the looks of things they have not been working since the beginning of the month.

Sorry for any inconvenience.

Posted by Alx Klive at 5:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Firstly an apology to regular readers for the rather formulaic WorldTV posts of late.

All this excitement about preparing WorldTV for launch has left me rather devoid of time for other posts. A belated honeymoon with the wife, a growing addiction to Facebook, and a first child on the way has added to the mild confusion.

It's been an exciting day round here though - news that RCTV in Venezuela were beginning to put out their now banned broadcasts via YouTube spurred us to rebroadcast them in a WorldTV style. It should be a good test of our hardware and systems and is leading us to develop some new features which will benefit all users.

We were shocked by the actions of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in silencing the independant media in a move that can only be seen as leading to a dictatorship. Should the government there move to block YouTube, we hope to be able to offer an alternative source for RCTV's bulletins out of Caracas for Venezuelan's worldwide.

If you don't know about the situation in Venezuela, read up on it. It's a pretty worrisome state of affairs. In the past I've always thought of Hugo Chavez as something of a welcome revolutionary, but when you silence the opposition media, push through bills that eliminate elections (thus allowing indefinite terms of office) and create new laws for creating new laws (so they don't have to be referred to Parliament), revolution turns to something more sinister.

Posted by Alx Klive at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WorldTV is re-broadcasting daily shows of RCTV's El Observador news bulletins in full screen at worldtv.com/rctv. The assistance follows the recent shutting down of RCTV by the Venezuelan government.

Posted by Alx Klive at 3:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)