Bahrain GP situation: postponed, reinstated, cancelled

[GrizzleBoy]

People always have the right idea, till in requires any effort on their behalf.

[andartop]

Don't even get me started on the whole Sky deal issue.

As for the bbc, this is to the best of my knowledge how they get their ratings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcaste ... arch_Board

and this:

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/media/news/ ... ystem.html

some more info here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressr ... ence.shtml

and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appreciation_Index

I am by no means an expert, but from all these I gather that they are NOT monitoring every single TV set to get their figures, and I know I am not participating in any of the aforementioned ways of data collection. So, indeed, no one will ever know whether I watch the race or not on my telly.

[raymondu999]

Only on F1T

[myurr]

So, indeed, no one will ever know whether I watch the race or not on my telly.

And yet one very important person will know whether you watch the race - you. If you want to claim the moral high ground and criticise those holding the race and openly accuse them of corruption, then it is very hypocritical for you to then watch that race. I hope you can see that.

[andartop]

So, indeed, no one will ever know whether I watch the race or not on my telly.

And yet one very important person will know whether you watch the race - you. If you want to claim the moral high ground and criticise those holding the race and openly accuse them of corruption, then it is very hypocritical for you to then watch that race. I hope you can see that.

Obviously you have confused me with someone else. I never claimed any moral high or low ground, and haven't even argued that the race should not go ahead.

[myurr]

You did wade into the debate so sorry if you weren't personally calling for the race to not go ahead. Plenty were though and plenty of those have commented on the race weekend thus far.

[raymondu999]

Yeah - myurr's point is that if people were saying to boycott the race, but then secretly watched it anyways on the telly "because no one will ever know," then that's hypocritical.

[andartop]

Hypocritical?

I thought we were all hypocrites, sitting on our desk/couch/armchair thousands of miles away from Bahrain and arguing for or against a multi-billion dollar TV show pretending to be a sport while we have no idea what's going on in that part of the world!

Interesting read:

"In 1797, fourteen years later after gaining the power of the Bani Utbah, the Al Khalifa family moved to Bahrain and settled in Jaww, later moving to Riffa. They were originally from Kuwait having left in 1766. Al-Sabah family traditions relates that the ancestors of their tribe and those of the Al-Khalifa tribe came to Kuwait after their expulsion from Umm Qasr upon Khor Zubair by the Turks, an earlier base from which they preyed on the caravans of Basra and pirated ships in the Shatt al-Arab waterway."

Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman, and Central Arabia, John Gordon Lorimer, Volume 1 Historical, Part 1, p1000, 1905

Who is this guy?

http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news ... to-rely-on

Now, one could argue that labeling the people who are rising up against this dynasty (I won't use the word tyranny) of thieves and pirates as "terrorists" may be more hypocritical than arguing the race should not go ahead and then watching it on the telly, would you disagree?

But as I said, we're all hypocrites, so it's just the same.

[myurr]

I'll bite. You're dredging up the 215 year old history of a family as justification for hating them now?

A terrorist has no legal definition, but in my book is someone who specifically seeks to injure and murder civilian (soft) targets. It doesn't matter what the reasons are, the deliberate targeting of civilians for random acts of violence should never ever be tolerated regardless of whether or not someones great great great great great great grand daddy was a pirate.

[andartop]

Don't bite. We're dragging this off topic. My example was used to show hypocrisy and irony have many faces. As always in life (well, outside Hollywood) there's no black and white but all shades of gray.

[GrizzleBoy]

Don't bite. We're dragging this off topic. My example was used to show hypocrisy and irony have many faces. As always in life (well, outside Hollywood) there's no black and white but all shades of gray.

He's right though.

There's no point citing the Al-Khalifas 250 year old history justification for terrorist attacks on F1 driving teams.

It's like me trying to justify an attempting to maim/kill an accountant because one of their clients kidnapped my daughter. I cant get to the client, so anyone slightly related gets f'd up/killed. That's me sending a message in protest.

It doesn't matter how angry or upset I am.

Attempting to ruin or end an unrelated, innocent others life to make a statement is a terrorist act. That's pretty much how it goes.

You can be a protester, or you can be a person who fires into a crowd because a person in a palace miles away is doing you wrong.

You dont get to be both.

[Richard]

Another difference is that the terrorist will seek out those targets, if the target retreats to a safe place, then the terrorist will follow. In fact the terrorist has the greatest impact if the target is in a perceived safe place. They'll barge into your community.

Meanwhile civil disorder happens in the protagonists' own community. They don't target bystanders, if you don't walk into the line of fire you'll not get caught up in it.

The situation in Bahrain seems more like the latter than the former.

Finally as far as I can gather from measured correspondents, the majority of people Bahrain seem to want reform through dialogue. However, the polarised idealists on both sides hold the attention, while the majority want to have a better life via the middle ground.

I think that's largely true of most of life, such as this forum to the local politics in your own community. However, the non committal shrug with a request for a little bit of this and little bit of that doesn't win elections or grab headlines does it?

[andartop]

I did not use the royal family's history to justify anything. I showed the hypocrisy in labeling the protesters as "terrorists" while the ones they are opposing are a dynasty originating from thugs and pirates. Follow the links already provided and you'll see how this family managed to stay in power for 200+ years with the blessing of the British. I didn't label the protesters as "revolutionaries" either, for obvious reasons. There's just more to it than meets the eye, and it's all out there for anyone to find and read about.

As for the "terrorist attacks" on F1 teams, well, that's the whole point people have been arguing here for ages. Given the circumstances, F1 could have avoided giving a target by not staging the race. Staying out of the politics was never an option. Being there and not being a target was never an option, given all the Royal family tried to make out of it and what F1 currently represents. And - you guessed it - it's not the Olympic ideals that F1 represents, it's something else.

[ESPImperium]

Adam Cooper‏@adamcooperf1
#F1 Had first personal experience of Bahrain troubles few minutes ago passing massive road block fire on highway

Adam Cooper‏@adamcooperf1
#F1 Fortunately it was on other side of road, heading to track. Police arriving, traffic building up, quite a scary sight

Adam Cooper‏@adamcooperf1
#F1 I guess it's routine here, but still hard to believe they can stop a 3-lane highway with so many police vehicles on patrol

Adam Cooper‏@adamcooperf1
#F1 Let's hope we have a safe Sunday in Bahrain but don't forget 300 GP2 folk are staying 6 extra days for their second event

Adam Cooper‏@adamcooperf1
#F1 I'm not convinced that the 'lock down' security measures for F1 will remain in place until the GP2 guys leave

Adam Cooper‏@adamcooperf1Reply
@GP2_Official I'm talking about the roads between the city and the track, and the stuff we don't see, not at BIC as such.
In reply to GP2 Series Official

GP2 Series Official ‏@GP2_OfficialReply
@adamcooperf1 it will be. Security will remain
Retweeted by Adam Cooper

[Richard]

Update on the hacking below. It seems the timing site was targeted with denial of service, that's where they swamp the site with requests to make it very slow and unresponsive. So that's why some people could get timing and others (including me) couldn't. I still can't access the live timing.

The hacktivist group Anonymous yesterday performed a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack against Formula 1’s main website (formula1.com), which is operational again today. The group also hacked and defaced a Formula 1 fan site ( f1-racers.net), which is still not operational today. Other websites attacked include f1officialpartners.com, live-timing.formula1.com, and totalf1.com.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/anon ... la-1/11661