In The Independent today:



THE CRIME EXCHANGE: MARK HUGHES IN BALTIMORE
Today marks the first part of a "The Wire"-inspired, unique collaboration between The Independent and The Baltimore Sun in which our crime correspondent, Mark Hughes, swaps places with his counterpart, Justin Fenton.



ROBERT SALAAAM: ONE MAN'S ACTIONS WILL AFFECT LOYAL U.S. MUSLIMS
The American Muslim blogger on the Fort Hood killing spree



SCHOOLBOY CONFRONTS GRIFFIN AT MEMORIAL
BNP leader argues with a 13-year-old at WWI monument to Indian troops. By Chris Green and Tom Peck

As America responded to last night's attack at Fort Hood carried out by Malik Nadal Hasan, Twitter once again showed its value as a tool for breaking news with the updates of "Tearah Moore", who tweeted pics and updates from inside the camp, before being shut down after roughly an hour. 

Her account is now locked, but I've reconstructed the most recent tweets here from people rebroadcasting her updates using their own accounts. Thanks to Twitter's lax indexing policy for older tweets, messages before the first posted below are no longer available to view.


MissTearah's updates raise some major ethical questions about the appropriateness of using Twitter in such situations where others' security might be at risk, as discussions on the TwitPic site used to post the picture above showed; while some commenters questioned whether legal restrictions (HIPAA in particular) should prevent the pictures being posted, others debated the moral implications of the postings, with one commenter saying "We are ALREADY freaking out and this shit just makes it worse".

In The Independent today:



BRITAIN RULES OUT CLIMATE TREATY AT SUMMIT
Officials say major powers too far apart for legal deal in Copenhagen next month. By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor



CASH CRISIS THREAT TO VICTIMS OF HONOUR VIOLENCE
Government pulls funding for groups that tackle forced marriage and murder. By Jerome Taylor



LOST CHAPLIN FILM DISCOVERED IN $5 CAN BOUGHT ON EBAY
Rare footage – and possibly unknown work – found in nitrate film container from 1916, writes Kaleem Aftab

We’ve all been caught with an unopened bottle of wine and no corkscrew. But I doubt many of us was familiar with this solution demonstrated, naturally, by a Frenchman – opening it with a shoe. Maybe try it when you’re less drunk than him, though



Faster than skis
Ken Block, rally driver and co-founder of DC shoes – for whom this appears to be a viral advertisment – races around the snowy slopes of the Utah Rockies in a Subaru Impreza, modified to make it the world’s fastest snow cat vehicle



Ewok this way
The Today Show on NBC in the US obviously decided to go with a Star Wars theme for their Halloween edition. But they probably didn’t count on the children/dwarves in the Ewok suits getting drunk and horny and breaking out the moonwalk
tinyurl.com/ydlfcw6


Blog-iful design
Smashing Magazine has published a showcase of “50 fresh, beautiful, inventive and, hopefully, inspiring blog designs”, from across the world.
tinyurl.com/ylgkozg

In The Independent today:


SLAUGHTER RAISES AFGHAN FEARS OF THE ENEMY WITHIN
Five British soldiers are shot dead by a rogue policeman at the same base where five Afghan officers were killed recently in a roadside blast. Kim Sengupta reports, while here Patrick Cockburn argues that this latest attack calls the whole Afghan strategy into question.

CAMERON BACKS DOWN ON EU TREATY REFERENDUM
Any "cast iron" guarantee is well and truly rust now. David Cameron has declared that he would not allow his premiership to be dominated by a "massive bust-up" with the European Union as he shelved any Europe referendum for at least five years. Is this the Conservative Clause IV moment? By Andrew Grice.


AND FINALLY: HAS FIREWORKS NIGHT LOST ITS SPARKLE?
With just hours until bonfire night begins, Jonathan Brown asks whether our fixation with health and safety has killed the traditional British bonfire party.

 

 Uni-Q is a new online show - best described as ‘Question Time’ meets ‘TFI Friday’ - providing a forum for 16-25 year olds to pose questions to MPs and other high profile figures. Created by a group of University of Hull politics graduates as a way to engage young people in politics, Uni-Q is the first programme of its kind to tour universities and colleges across the UK. And it's being backed by the Independent, which is nice.

The first edition include former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears in her first media appearance since her rather controversial departure from the government earlier in the year.

More on how to join in with future UniQ programmes here.

Uni-Q is a new online show - best described as ‘Question Time’ meets ‘TFI Friday’ - providing a forum for 16-25 year olds to pose questions to MPs and other high profile figures. Created by a group of University of Hull politics graduates as a way to engage young people in politics, Uni-Q is the first programme of its kind to tour universities and colleges across the UK. And it's being backed by the Independent, which is nice.

The first edition include former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears in her first media appearance since her rather controversial departure from the government earlier in the year.

More on how to join in with future UniQ programmes here.

Here is a brief – and terrifying - glimpse into the world of those people who spend time commentating on the Daily Mail’s website.

 

This morning the paper posted a story about a paedophile who is to be beheaded and then crucified in Saudi Arabia under the country’s Sharia law (not normally a Mail favourite).

 

So far the story has attracted nearly 300 comments. To gauge the tone of the debate we decided to look at the top rated comments and then the worst rated.

Very instructive.

Here they are:

TOP RATED

Sounds reasonable to me.

- mike randall, worcester england, 4/11/2009 9:14

In The Independent today:

GREEN BELIEFS WIN LEGAL PROTECTION
Employees who raise concerns about their company's environmental practices won the right to legal redress yesterday after a judge ruled that green beliefs deserved the same protection in the workplace as religious convictions. By Robert Verkaik and Michael McCarthy.


LABOUR'S CAMPUS REVOLUTION
Plans for the biggest shake-up of universities for decades, including the first charter of rights for students, have been unveiled by the Government. By Richard Garner, Education Editor.


THE A-Z OF CONFLICTING HEALTH ADVICE
For years we were told a daily aspirin was good for us, then yesterday doctors revealed it was dangerous for many. So when can we trust expert guidance, asks Jeremy Laurance.


 

 You wouldn't believe the tension, the bitching, the glee and the misery as I unveil the top ten most read bloggers on the Independent for last month. And you'd be right to, because it wouldn't be true - but our bloggers pay more heed to this than they would admit.

You wouldn't believe the tension, the bitching, the glee and the misery as I unveil the top ten most read bloggers on the Independent for last month. And you'd be right to, because it wouldn't be true - but our bloggers pay more heed to this than they would admit.

 The usual melange of the serious, the frivolous and the kinky. These are the top ten most read stories on the Independent website last week.

The usual melange of the serious, the frivolous and the kinky. These are the top ten most read stories on the Independent website last week.

This week's Spotify playlist is brought to you courtesy of the nice people at Black Cab Sessions, purveyors of the finest musical performances to be found in the back of a black cab anywhere in London.

Here's the tracklist. Enjoy.

The XX: Infinity
Noah and the Whale: The First Days of Spring
Sunset Rubdown: Shut Up I'm Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings
Alele Diane: Lady Divine
Patrick Watson: The Great Escape
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson: Buriedfed
Louis Armstrong: Gone Fishing
MIA: Bamboo Banger
Bob Marley: My Cup
Paul Simon: Hearts and Bones

Click here to listen to the playlist on Spotify (free, painless and not-at-all spammy registration required)

Matt Damon’s agent can pat himself on the back again as two trailers for highly-anticipated Damon flicks drop on the same day. Green Zone is Paul Greengrass’s Iraq movie, while Invictus is Clint Eastwood’s version of South Africa’s famous Rugby World Cup victory in 1995 (also starring Morgan Freeman as Mandela)
tinyurl.com/ygjws4w
apple.com/trailers/wb/invictus

Family values
“My parents were awesome” is by far the most charming Tumblr photo blog we’ve seen in a while. “Before the fanny packs and Andrea Bocelli concerts, your parents (and grandparents) were once free-wheeling, fashion-forward, and super awesome”
myparentswereawesome.tumblr.com

Psychic celebrity
Tomorrow night, for Halloween, Twitter is hosting its first online séance, or “tweance”, during which psychic Jayne Wallace will be tweeting her Q&As with the four dead celebrities that users have nominated – including, inevitably, Michael Jackson. It’s all really an ad for the Angels fancy dress shop
twitter.com/tweance

Super-symphonic
What if a classical concert were not interrupted by the beep of a mobile phone, but played entirely on mobile phones? Watch Vodafone New Zealand’s a beautiful new ad, “Vodafone Symphonia”, and find out.

Levis has embraced the depression retro of these troubled times with its new advertisment, a black and white montage by Sin Nombre director Cary Fukunaga, with a narration courtesy of poet Walt Whitman. Here’s the clip and Slate’s analysis
slate.com/id/2233597

All in the ink
Harking back to the glory days of the cassette, Wired has posted a useful list for romantics, of the eight best ways to share “mixtapes” (nowadays known as playlists) online
tinyurl.com/ykavtnz

Travel tweets
Forget Terminal Five. Now Heathrow has really embraced the modern age, by joining Twitter. @HeathrowAirport brings you the travel info and ideas for what to eat in the departures lounge. You can even use it to contact the airport when it loses your luggage
twitter.com/HeathrowAirport

Wheel life
Watching a hamster running on a wheel is always good for a laugh. Watching a hamster fall off a wheel is worth maybe two. What happens at the end of this clip will keep you chuckling inwardly for, oh, a good five minutes
collegehumor.com/video:1819391

Lifebrowser’s viral ad of the month has to be this brilliant commercial for the French pay-per-view TV channel Canal Plus. It’s a miniature action comedy with a twist that even M Night Shyamalan would be proud of.



Wolfman cometh
The new trailer for Joe Johnston’s Wolfman, starring Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt is a corker. Sadly it won’t be around until next year, but maybe you should just invite a few friends to watch the clip on Halloween
apple.com/trailers/universal/thewolfman

Video smash hit
Russia is home to the world’s luckiest pedestrian, if this clip (which ought to be watched from behind your hands) is anything to go by. Oh, and it’s also home to world’s worst bus drivers
avclub.com/videocracy/12166/

Apple sour grapes
Apple isn’t going to let Microsoft get away with all that great publicity for the Windows 7 operating system. Here’s Apple’s riposte, in the vein of past ads starring John Hodgman as “PC” and Justin Long as “Mac”

In The Independent today:


MILIBAND: THIS IS MY AMBITION FOR EUROPE
David Miliband has issued an impassioned plea to the European Union to "get our act together" or risk being sidelined by America and China as he stepped up the campaign to elect Tony Blair as its first president. But Nigel Morris asks if his pro-EU speech was actually a job application?


HATE FILLED AND BIGOTED
That's how Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning film maker, handed his resignation into the Church of Scientology in an explosive letter that damned the organisation's attitude to gay marriage. By Guy Adams in Los Angeles.


FRENCH TO ELECT THE MEMBER FOR SOUTH KENSINGTON
It has a French language school, French consulate and French cultural institute, now South Kensington is to get its own representative in the French parliament after a law was passed in Paris meaning that French nationals living abroad will be able to elect their own MPs. By Kevin Rawlinson.

Shameless promotion it may be, there is something nonetheless poetic about watching a PlayStation 3 smash into a top of the range LCD television at 50 mph, as this new TV ad from Sony Australia attests.

GOOD MORNING, AFGHANISTAN
British Forces radio has hit the airwaves in Helmand. Terri Judd reports



RESTAURANT CRITIC GILL DELIGHTS IN KILLING A BABOON
The backlash begins as critic AA Gill shoots a baboon in Tanzania. By Kunal Dutta



KISS AND TELL: THE 2011 CENSUS WANTS TO KNOW YOUR SLEEPING PARTNER
Survey already criticised for level of intrusion, with more questions than ever about citizens' domestic arrangements By Andy McSmith