Nick Cohen is wrong about the liberal-left
This was in the Observer letters page today:
Cohen needs to find a new column to write. Yet again last Sunday, he declaimed that the liberal-left has failed to engage or support liberal Muslims, asserting that leading voices and institutions refuse to challenge Islamist extremism as well as opposing the BNP. But this is nonsense. It can be easily disproved by what we have all said and done.
Top Stories and Blog Review Sunday 22nd March
Nationwide
RBS faces probe over ‘threats’ to directors
Borat-style satire on faith causes outrage
Britain to be most populous EU country
Lord Mandelson spawns new spin empire
International
Americans angered by bigger AIG’s bonuses
Iran says it will change if the U.S. changes
Sesame Street explains the Madoff scandal
India to launch Israel-backed satellite
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Jennie Rigg
Think you’ve spotted a blog we should be linking to? Email
and let us know!
Matt Taibbi has a very long but very good article on how the financial crisis isn’t about money, but about power.
Chicken Yoghurt compares the labour government to a drunken abusive husband.
Alas, a Blog! has video of Edward James Olmos discussing how we use the word “race”. Cthulhu, I’m going to miss BSG.
James Graham says the Lib Dems don’t need a blogging stategy, they need a Lembit strategy.
Ben Six on why Nick Cohen is a lying liar.
Kevin Williamson looks into his crystal balls and predicts that the summer of rage will start on April 1st.
Jonathan Calder has an exciting competition with fabulous prizes!
And if you hanker after more linkage, there’s lots at Septicisle, or you can browse through previous Netcasts
Oh yeah, and happy Mother’s Day to all my fellow mums.
Watch: Bloggers summit at CoML
Finally, I offer you the video discussion and presentations from the successful (I thought) bloggers summit at the Convention on Modern Liberty. The team had to upload tons of videos so unfortunately this took longer than expected. I also briefly wrote about the presentations on CIF after the event.
Below is the presentations: by Sam Smith of MySociety, Heather Brooke of Your Right To Know, Ben Goldacre of Bad Science and Phil Booth of No2ID. Then a discussion follows after.
continue reading… »
Killing mosquitos with laser
Star Wars scientists use laser gun to kill mosquitoes in fight against malaria
Yes, that’s the actual headline the Telegraph used, reporting on an article in the Wall Street Journal this week, reporting on work to develop a laser weapon that can shoot individual mosquitoes out of the air. It homes in on the distinctive sound frequency produced by their wingbeats. 1980s Star Wars technology being used in the fight against disease. Excuse my Americanism: That’s awesome.
Well, unless you’re the kind of person who sees a story like this and immediately asks What’s the point?
and Can picking off one mosquito at a time really make a difference?
or an ecology minded person who wonders what kind of effect genus-level genocide would have on an ecology in which Anopheles have been a factor for about 70 million years.
continue reading… »
Top Stories and Weekend Video – 21st March
Nationwide
Sportswomen trail-blaze, but cameras?
The rising power of ‘geek mums’
Greens: We were right all along
BNP claims on Churchill ‘absurd’
International
You’re not welcome, Canada tells Galloway
More allegations surface in Israel/Gaza war
US banking losses revised upward
Space station unfurls solar wings
Weekend Video / by Sunny
Can the Obama revolution come here?
I spent several months in the UK in 2008 before I shipped back to North Carolina to work on Obama’s campaign. I was struck how at some point the British press stopped bothering to contextualise US election stories as being about another country. The candidates were named and discussed in shorthand just as if they were running for Parliament – and usually given much more coverage than the latest row in Westminster.
Yet at the same time, I kept hearing the rueful opinion that none of this would be possible over here. The British people, I was told, were far too apathetic, far too disengaged, far too convinced that their voice – no matter how loud – would fall on the deaf ears of politicians who couldn’t be bothered. Plus, as I was frequently reminded, “there is no British Obama”.
All of this casts a rather sad tinge to the cathartic obsession with the America election – it’s as if many Brits gave up looking for vibrant democracy in their own lives and resolved to experience it vicariously in ours.
continue reading… »
We’re not barred by Barclays are we?
A reader sent in a link to a cryptic comment on the Guardian:
Surely this can’t be right. There must be a better way to ensure accountability and transparency. While institutions keep important legal evidence all kin suffer. People have a right to know.
Why yes, people do have a right to know. Barclays obtained a gag order against the Guardian, but its not a libellous document so I can link to the full papers on WikiLeaks without perpetuating a libel. The order against the Guardian doesn’t apply to everyone does it?
A lawyer during the proceedings argued: “The quality of confidentiality is lost if the information is available from other public sources.” — so I wonder how the courts would react if British blogs started carrying links to the documents. Wouldn’t that then void the confidentiality?
This is why these documents are important. If you’re going to or have blogged this, let me know so I can add you to the list.
Linked:
Andrew Grant-Adamson
newsjiffy
septicisle
John Band
Richard Murphy / Tax Research UK
CharlieMcMenamin / Excuse me whilst I step outside
Rick B / Ten Percent
D-Notice
BenSix / Back towards the Locus
Aaron H / Tygerland
Jamie K / Blood & Treasure
Pickled Politics
Shiraz Socialist
Common Endeavour
FT Alphaville has its own artists’ rendition.
Max Dunbar
Andrew Adams / mutantBlog
Index on Censorship
OurKingdom / openDemocracy
Sean / Error Gorilla
Modernityblog
Claude / Hagley Road to Ladywood
Amused Cynicism
Ben suggests Twitter tag #barclaysmemo.
Beau Bo D’Or sends in the Wikileaks / Barclays banner – thanks mate. Use the top image if you like, but pls don’t hotlink them from BBDO as he doesn’t have bandwidth.
Don’t let tax-scrounging scum Barclays get away with it.
Mind-boggling power: Balls on education
Following a request to write out some of my views on Ed Balls’ latest proposals. Presumably, since I was asked by a homeschooler, I’m supposed to defend the rampant centralisation of education. I am, of course, not going to.
It is a frightening thought that for a government that continues to make noises about empowering communities, the man in charge of DCSF seems intent on grabbing an insane amount of power. Despite claims that it would only be used to counteract something like the scrapping of Shakespeare, one wonders if this government actually believes its own communitarian rhetoric.
continue reading… »
Met’s propaganda poster lies about terrorism and CCTV
The contract of advertising agency Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy with the Metropolitan Police Service expires at the end of March. They are being replaced by Gordon Brown’s favourite ad agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, who gave him “Design services” during his Labour party leadership non-election “coronation” campaign.
ABV BBDO have also been awarded the lucrative Home Office ID Cards propaganda account. Presumably Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy are at least partly to blame for the current Metropolitan Police Service anti-terrorism advertising campaign launched this week.
continue reading… »
Top Stories and Blog Review – 20th March
Original Haaretz story
Nationwide
Hewitt seeking suicide law change
Britain’s first black chief executive
Brown was ‘complacent’ over banking collapse
Greens to attack Labour’s ‘lies’
International
Obama reaches out to Iran in new video msg
Record numbers protest against Sarkozy
The march of Mussolini into Italy’s mainstream
Rocket attack kills at least 11 in Pakistan
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Douglas Johnson
Craig Murray - to accuse Jack Straw of Torture in the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.
OpenDemocracy - What are we targetting, exactly?
Peter Cranie - on that No2EU slate.
Pickled Politics - Obama has recorded a video for Iranians. With Farsi subtitles, usefully…
Same Difference - Disabled CBeebies Cerrie Burnell investigates prejudice against the disabled in the media.
Liberal Bureaucracy - on being stopped and searched.
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» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
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» UK debt hasn’t hit £1 trillion – mostly because of QE
» The benefits of being a “burden” on society
» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
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» The world is entering the third phase of the crisis, warns ILO
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