One thing that is perhaps being overlooked by people discussing whether or not it would be wise to impose a no-fly zone over Libya is exactly what such a zone would set out to prevent. When it was first suggested, it was inspired by the general horror that the Libyan government was having crowds of…
Read More And it’s one jet airliner, for ten prisoners…It is now reasonably certain that I’ll be in Palo Alto from Saturday evening to Thursday evening. I’m going to be carless but close to a CalTrain station, if that helps anyone. The explanation is of course here. Update: I will be here from 6pm tonight with some bloggers.
Read More fake tales of San Francisco echo through the airMike Konczal and the snark: We are perpetually in a spiritual crisis that can only be fixed by a woman in the kitchen. It’s a huge win for the second half of the 20th century that this argument has been moved from leading political figures addressing graduating classes to the shadier alleyways of the Wall…
Read More Tab-clearing link fartThis Realclimate thread provides some interesting insight into how Nigel Lawson and sports scientist Benny Peiser’s wanktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, the dodgy journal Energy & Environment, and the little gang of rightwing nutters at the University of Buckingham are being progressively integrated into a single meta-wanktank. They’re all sitting on each other’s boards…
Read More A case studyHere’s something interesting, from a post at Owen Jones‘s. Has Donal Blaney’s “Young Britons’ Foundation”, the Tory wanktank that was too wanky for the Tories, been reactivated? I will not distance myself from the right wing spin machine which attempts to bring down NUS’ credibility, but tackle it head on. Both of those occasions have…
Read More Enduring stare: Donal Blaney editionSensible piece about US State Department funding for mobile anonymity projects, and some interesting stuff. The crack about looking with disfavour on the drowning man and then encumbering him with help once he reaches ground is relevant. The real prize (as alluded to here) would be a mesh network application that works either instead of…
Read More a patron, Sir?OK, so I’ve been getting referrals from The Social Media Library, which describes itself as follows: Social Media Library contains the first ever regionally-focused directory of influential blogs read in the UK. Social Media Library’s proprietary BlogScore™ ranks each blog in terms of its influence and its visibility in search engines – providing you with…
Read More So what are the other side using?…And I feel fine. These two columns appeared on the same page of today’s Obscurer. I believe this is probably the most incoherent single page to ever appear in a British national newspaper. For a start, there’s Nick Cohen with a piece that accuses essentially everybody of being obsessed with Israel, because of the Protocols…
Read More The Observer’s comment page has been overrun by zombiesChurnalism is a brilliant idea – no surprise that it was originally one of Chris Lightfoot’s. Basically, it allows you to determine how much of a given newspaper article was copied from which press release. There’s a nice graphic visualisation, and a diff, so you can see precisely what was altered and what taken over…
Read More Fun with nonsense and hash functionsSultan al-Qassemi kicks in a data point to the ArseDex. Apparently Libyan agents are distributing flyers in Guinea and Nigeria calling for mercenaries to fight for $2,000 a day. Yesterday, loyalist thugs cost $500 a day in Libya. Even with the huge supply of potential thugs in sub-Saharan Africa’s demobilised militias being available, the ArseDex…
Read More the CIA decided they wanted Roland dead, so that son of a bitch Van Owen cut off Roland’s head