Del.icio.us links for January 29th through January 30th:
- Government must release cabinet minutes on lead-up to Iraq war | Politics | guardian.co.uk – “Secret government discussions about the Iraq war are to be disclosed after an information tribunal today ordered the release of cabinet minutes from 2003. The decision follows a lengthy battle by campaigners, who have argued that the public interest in learning what was said about the planned invasion outweighs the public interest in cabinet discussions being kept secret.”
- Israel acts to block war crimes charges, The National, 25 January 2009 – “Mounting fear in Israel that the country’s leaders face war crimes charges over their involvement in the recent Gaza offensive pushed officials into a frenzy of activity at the weekend to forestall legal actions abroad. The urgency was underlined after rumours last week that Belgian authorities might arrest Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, if she attended a summit of European counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday. In an indication of how seriously the matter is judged, Ms Livni’s advisers were on the verge of cancelling her trip when the story was revealed to be a hoax.”
- Punknews.org | How to be punk (in 9 steps) – “How-To video site, Howcast, has put together an irony-free video explaining “How to Be Punk.” The video explains everything from music to tattoos and notes: “You don’t need to have anything to rebel against, you just need to look like you do.” Turns out horizontal stripes are crucial to the whole punkification process. Try to stay on top of that.”
- Digital 101: Top five mistakes « The other side of the river – Neil Beynon has a good list of five common mistakes made in self-publicity and blogging online.
- Dumping iron in the ocean may not fix the climate – 28 January 2009 – New Scientist – “As arguments rage over the legality of an attempt to fertilise algae in Antarctic seas, evidence is emerging that, legal or not, this kind of quot;ocean engineeringquot; may not suck enough carbon out of the atmosphere to reverse climate change.”
- Alison Weir: Killing Palestinians Doesn’t Count – “On January 27th media headlines trumpeted that Palestinians had broken the latest cease-fire: a bomb had killed one Israeli soldier and injured two or three. There’s just one problem. Israeli forces had already violated the ceasefire at least seven times.”
- Riot Police Playsuit at Toys Direct – “Deluxe riot style policeman costume, including padded top with armband, trousers with intergrated over boots, fabric helmet with adjustable pvc eye mask, plastic toy gun, truncheon and handcuffs.” I fear for our future.
- Just don’t call it grunge: Leeds’ new music scene | Music | The Guardian – “There’s a new music scene in Leeds. It has harsh guitars, anthemic lyrics, check shirts and a fiercely independent attitude. You may think it sounds familiar – but you’re wrong. Dave Simpson reports”. Hey look, another weak attempt to manufacture a movement!
- The roar of the Centaur | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine – “Centaurus A is a nearby galaxy — at 13 million light years distant, only a handful of big galaxies are closer to us. And it’s weird: it’s an elliptical galaxy eating a spiral! They’re in the last stages of merging into one bigger and messier galaxy. Dust from the spiral forms a huge ring around the center of the galaxy, with the gas and dust from both galaxies being dumped into the core.” Seriously, you want to look at the picture, and read the explanation of what you’re seeing.
- steveless/sydhowells on MySpace Music – I think it’s well past time I stopped listening to bands recommended by Organ.
- BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Bush shoe attack spawns artwork – “A sculpture of an enormous bronze-coloured shoe has been erected in Iraq to honour the journalist who threw his shoes at ex-US President George W Bush.” It seems six years of war and occupation hasn’t killed senses of humour in Iraq…
- Iraq won’t allow Blackwater security firm to stay in country – Yahoo! News – “Iraq told the United States this week that it won’t renew the license of Blackwater Worldwide, a North Carolina -based security firm that’s provided protection for U.S. diplomats in Iraq but has been widely criticized as using force excessively.” Hooray!
- Reasonably Unscrewed-Up Character ≠ Mary Sue « Whatever – “I’m aware that the term “Mary Sue” is experiencing some definition creep so that aside from meaning “author wish fulfillment character” it’s also come to mean “supercompetent, non-screwed-up main character.” But this seems like critical and linguistic laziness to me — Let “Mary Sue” mean what it’s supposed to mean, and let something else mean that other thing; I vote for “Campbellian Competent,” myself.”
- Pornoheft on MySpace Music – Ooo it’s so crazy! And wacky!
- Emperor on MySpace Music – IST KRIEG!
- No Rock And Roll Fun: Subsidising the war on downloading – “Part of the Digital Britain paper that catches our eye is the proposal that there should be a fighting fund to’stamp out’ piracy online. You have to weep at the idea that anyone could publish a document supposedly shaping the nation’s electronic future while believing that online piracy is something that can be stamped out. It’s like thinking that taking on a few more police and making Crimewatch UK go weekly will stop all burglaries, forever.”
- PC Game Sales: 47% Of PC Purchases Are Digital | Rock, Paper, Shotgun – “Almost two thousand PC gamers contributed to the poll. This isn’t a bad sample size at all. And the picture which it presents seems to confirm many’s gut feeling about the direction of PC gaming.” [...] “We’re left with an undeniable portrait of PC gamers increasingly at home with the digital present.”
- Punknews.org | About Pegasuses-XL – Full album stream for Pegasuses-XL.
- WebAIM: Creating Accessible Flash Content – “Adobe Flash content can be viewed on nearly all computers. The Flash technology, in a general sense, may be one of the most widely available technologies used on the web. For developers, the ability to program one multimedia presentation that can be viewed the same on nearly all computers makes the technology very appealing. However, for individuals with disabilities, Flash can introduce unique accessibility problems.”