2005 May
Blogebrity is obviously a fake, but even though that that is fairly widely known, it still spreads. A magazine that launches it’s site as part of a competition to create the best meme, where the only content not ‘coming soon’ is a list of the people most likely to help drive this particular meme, bloggers, oh cummon. The wonderfully sarcastic strapline, worthy of Andrew Orlowski “isn’t it about time that someone talked about bloggers” will make any blogger gullible enough to believe it, regret having been so vain. Regardless of the scam, Blogebrity is really, really interesting: it’s a weblog with ZERO content which has grown faster than almost any other. This is not a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes, here the Emperor knows he is naked but the people cannot see it. Strip away the graphics and rearrange the content and what do you have: A two column…
Imagine if someone sailed up the Hudson and made off with the Statue of Liberty's crown. The marble frieze, hacked from the Parthenon, Greece's greatest treasure, is 'owned' by the British museum. And now, a moron of a judge, (vice chancellor Andrew Morritt) has ruled that: the British Museum Act – which protects the collections for posterity – cannot be overridden by a "moral obligation" to return works known to have been plundered. " In effect this means that museum pieces are protected by the law, even if the law was broken to acquire them. It means that museums can receive stolen goods, something which is illegal for everyone else. This creates a moral justification for the Greeks to plunder the UK at some point in the future, I guess. But it gets worse. This ruling was based on: Four drawings that "were stolen from the home of Dr Arthur…
Answer, write a blog about Gawker – do it well, show that you can write and it will end up on their radar. Which after all is a repeat of Gawkers’ method itself: Write a gossip column where the initial subjects are other gossip columnists, hacks and flacks, then it will get noticed by the people who promote stuff. Down right PReditorial! Flattery will get you everywhere. Chris Mohney did just that, with arguably the longest ever resume: Gawkerist: Nick Denton Finally Pays Us to Stop Blogging
If it is clear, Manhattan will flood dramatically with sunlight just as the Sun sets precisely on the centerline of every street. Usually, the tall buildings that line the gridded streets of New York City's tallest borough will hide the setting Sun. This effect makes Manhattan a type of modern Stonehenge. Via Nick Dentonlink » tags: [architecture] [nyc] permamark in: Wists
Salman Rushdie attacks an article in the Guardian by Dylan Evans which proposes a moderate atheist stance. The problem with the moderate stance is that there is no compromise between belief and non-belief in the context of religion
Arianna Huffington: "Now that the Democrats have won the battle over the nuclear option" Oh please – this was a bi-partisan victory a victory for moderation. Claiming it as a win for the Democrats just does not do any good at all. link » tags: [politics] permamark in: Wists
Byron LaMasters reports on the Stem Cell debate in Congress. Bush has threatened to Veto on the grounds that: He opposes that which “destroys life in order to save life”. By logical extension, this means that Bush is opposed to most defense spending.
Phil Spector in court, looking like he has just grabbed the end of a stray 1,000,000 Volt cable.link » tags: [weird] [dgblog] permamark in: Wists
HuffPo scoops Richard Dawkin's first weblog post. I am waiting for the day he has his own blog. Dawkins on creationists: The standard methodology of creationists is to find some phenomenon in nature which Darwinism cannot readily explain. Darwin said: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Creationists mine ignorance and uncertainty in order to abuse his challenge. "Bet you canâ
Great account by David Corn of his Fox news confrontation with the Family Research Council, an Unchristian Wrong lobby group: Fighting the Family Research Council in the Religious War. It includes a tragi-comic description of government funded contraception group that not only believes that sex is dirty but that you can only practice abstinence if you believe in Jesus – otherwise you will, apparently, burn in hell, forever. (Off Fuck and Die?) The FRC are one of the main lobby groups pushing for no compromise in the 1.5% of judicial nominations that couldn’t get through, thus causing the current constitutional mess. It is easy to blame the standoff on the executive branch and Jeff blames it on the Senate, but the real problem is that the marginal extremists are throwing such a hissy fit that the government is being bullied by them. Moderate Republicans are being bitch slapped by the…