Monthly archives: October 2011


Daily Blog 10/31/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 10/30/2011

  • My congratulations to the encampment outside St Paul’s for sending almost the entire British establishment into a tizzy every bit as confused as some of the protesters themselves. Amazing what you can achieve by occupying a small, albeit famous, patch of the capital with a few nylon tents and some amateurish banners expressing well-mannered rage about capitalism. You have brought a frown to the forehead of the prime minister, hyperbolic froth to the lips of Boris Johnson, attracted the disdain of a pomposity of pontificators and thrown the state church into something approaching a constitutional crisis. It is twisted knickers time among pundits, politicians and prelates. Imagine what might be achieved if this movement can get really serious and starts taking its protest more directly to the avaricious bankers, corporate larcenists and crony capitalists who are the central source of their discontent with how we live now.

    tags: comment OccupyLondon

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 10/27/2011

  • Arouse –
    agitate, awaken, electrify, enliven, excite, entice, foment, goad, incite, inflame, instigate, kindle, provoke, rally, rouse, spark, stimulate, stir, thrill, waken, warm, whet, attract, charm, coax, fire up, fuel, heat up, lure, produce, stir up, tantalize, tease, tempt, thrum, torment, wind up, work up,

    tags: thesaurus erotic

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 10/24/2011

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 10/23/2011

  • The Earth’s surface really is getting warmer, a new analysis by a US scientific group set up in the wake of the “Climategate” affair has concluded.

    The Berkeley Earth Project has used new methods and some new data, but finds the same warming trend seen by groups such as the UK Met Office and Nasa.

    The project received funds from sources that back organisations lobbying against action on climate change.

    tags: climate global warming

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 10/21/2011

  • At the centre of the latest controversy is a set of documents, obtained by the Guardian and the BBC’s Newsnight, indicating that another police spy, Jim Boyling, who lived undercover among the environmental group Reclaim the Streets, concealed his identity in a criminal trial, giving false evidence under oath about his real name.

    The accusation that police deliberately subverted the judicial process, and at worst sanctioned perjury, prompted outrage among lawyers and parts of the judiciary and led to the last-minute postponement of a major report into undercover policing of protests by the newly appointed commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Bernard Hogan-Howe.

    tags: police

  • He turned up with long hair, tattoos and an insatiable appetite for climbing trees. Few people suspected anything odd of the man who introduced himself as Mark Stone on a dairy farm turned spiritual sanctuary in North Yorkshire.

    He had come alone on 12 August 2003, in the middle of a heatwave, for a gathering of environmental activists known as Earth First.

    Apart from the fact that “Stone” was apparently well-paid and ate meat, he appeared no different from the hundreds of other activists who gathered under marquees to smoke weed, play guitars and plan protests.

    What no one could have known was that, despite appearances, the 33-year-old “freelance climber” was actually PC Mark Kennedy, an undercover police officer beginning an audacious operation to live deep undercover among environmental activists.

    tags: police

  • ‘In 1978, the US government waged a war against organised crime. One man was left behind enemy lines.” That is the tagline for the movie Donnie Brasco, the story of an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the mafia. How do you think the trailer for the movie of the Metropolitan police’s calamitous undercover spying operation would run? “For decades, Scotland Yard waged a war against pro-cycling campaigners and people worried about where some bats would go if a wood was reduced in size. Several were left behind enemy lines. But what they didn’t bargain on was falling in love!”

    tags: police

  • Some places that used to be mighty once lose their importance with time. ZIL factory in Moscow is a bright example of it.

    tags: russia

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 10/17/2011

  • Poe’s Law is an axiom suggesting that it’s difficult to distinguish between parodies of religious fundamentalism (or, more generally, parodies of any crackpot or extremist belief) and its genuine proponents, since they both seem equally insane. For example, some conservatives consider noted homophobe Fred Phelps to be so over-the-top that they argue he’s a “deep cover liberal” trying to discredit more mainstream homophobes.

    tags: internet

  • Vodafone paid just £1,400 tax on profits of £3,500,000,000 accounts filed last week showed. HMRC Tax Officials have described Vodafone’s holding company in Luxembourg as an elaborate tax avoidance structure. Vodafone pay knock down taxes in havens around the world and avoid liability for tax due to share write-downs. This is the murky world of corporate greed at its worst. Ordinary families struggle with a tax burden while Vodafone escape.

    tags: tax vodafone

  • The Daily Mail has always struggled to cover climate change in a competent manner, particularly as its opinion columns have acted as havens for ludicrous ideological outbursts by the likes of Melanie Phillips, who last month ranted against “the faddish fixation with man-made global warming, for which no shred of reputable scientific evidence exists”.

    But there has been a step-change over the past few months in the newspaper’s anti-science campaign on climate change, thanks to a plan allegedly stitched up at a lunch between Dacre and Lord Lawson of Blaby, who heads the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

    tags: environment DailyMail climate

  • Thirty five years ago the Cold war was on it highest speed. There was a Western plan “Drop Shot”. According to the plan, twelve nuclear bombs could be thrown to the region of the Black sea, in order to destroy Balaklava, Sevastopol and other objects on the Black Sea. Russian commandment decided to avoid these circumstances and to build an underground fort, the second commandment point for the army forces.

    tags: underground russia

  • Adult content covers a lot of ground. While the media of the day kept mentioning pornography in this context, existing “adult” filters often block gambling sites and dating sites (both subjects that are generally considered “adult” but aren’t anything like pornography), while others block information about reproductive health and counselling services aimed at GBLT teens (gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender).

    tags: internet

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.


Daily Blog 10/15/2011

  • Last night I watched ‘Inside Job’ as I mentioned here earlier, and it’s stayed with me.
    These pudding faced men in their expensive suits are the focus of the documentary, failing to answer questions in Senate hearings, attempting to justify the absurdity of their actions, lying to the camera then realizing they’ve been caught out and clamming up.
    After multiple examples of their despicable behaviour Bob Crow would have to get a bonus of £6 million a year for bringing about a perpetual rail strike, then once the union was bankrupt he’d have to get it bailed out by the tax payer and then get another enormous bonus before he had a hope in hell of being more of an ass than the average executive of Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup etc etc.

    tags: bankers

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.