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Below are the most recent 25 friends' journal entries.
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | ||
| marklazarowicz | 12:00a | EU Emissions Trading Scheme | Treasury | Written Answers To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans the Government have for the use of revenues received by the UK from the auctioning of emission allowances in future phases of the European emissions trading scheme. |
| marklazarowicz | 6:51p | Vehicle Excise Duty | Deferred Divisions | Commons debates Would the Exchequer Secretary clarify the Government's expectation of the CO2 savings from this measure over the period for which we have projections? |
| marklazarowicz | 4:30p | Vehicle Excise Duty | Deferred Divisions | Commons debates The hon. Gentleman's argument as to why the increase in VED has little environmental benefit is remarkably similar to the argument we sometimes hear from Government Front Benchers as to why a few airport extensions are no bad thing because the effect is only minimal. Leaving that aside, I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he raises important points, but if he is wants people to accept that his party is not just trying to jump on the bandwagon, he should at least make suggestions as to how we can bring down vehicle omissions more substantially. It is only fair to ask him to do that because if he just simply attacks this policy, while at the same time attacking congestion charging, car park charges and so on, we return to the point that politicians talk green in general, but when it comes to the particular, they oppose any specific policies. |
| marklazarowicz | 4:30p | Vehicle Excise Duty | Deferred Divisions | Commons debates Will the hon. Gentleman give way? |
| marklazarowicz | 4:30p | Vehicle Excise Duty | Deferred Divisions | Commons debates rose— |
| marklazarowicz | 4:30p | Vehicle Excise Duty | Deferred Divisions | Commons debates Is not this yet another example of politicians saying that they are in favour of environmental policies and green taxation in general, but when it comes to the particular, finding a reason why a policy is not any good? This week, American scientists have pointed out that the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are 40 per cent. higher—higher than anyone expected. Have we not got to get serious and get real and all of us, across the parties, recognise this and act on it? |
| marklazarowicz | 4:05p | Burma | Deferred Divisions | Commons debates Is it not a scandal that in the midst of this crisis the Burmese regime proceeded with its sham referendum? Does my hon. Friend agree that it was a sham referendum, a sham consultative process, and not the kind of action that will build the democratic civil society that Burma needs if it is to be able to deal with the problem it currently faces, and its other underlying problems over the long term? |
| marklazarowicz | 4:05p | Burma | Deferred Divisions | Commons debates Will my hon. Friend give way? |
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | ||
| memantonina | 8:59a | Bust of Caesar? You may have seen reports (e.g. here, here, here or here) that a bust of Julius Caesar has been found, that dates to the last five years of his life. Mary Beard fairly comprehensively demolishes most of the claims made for it; in short, there's no evidence that it's Caesar (though it might be, with the eye of faith), none that it dates to the early 40s BC, and none that it was thrown in the river in the aftermath of Caesar's assassination (which is intrinsically unlikely). The best we can say for sure is that it's Roman. It all reminds me of an edition of Hidden Treasure, BBC's rather breathless archaeology programme of a few years back, when they talked about the quality of the torc from the Winchester hoard, and concluded that it was 'very likely' a gift from Julius Caesar to a British chieftain, on the flimsiest of evidence. |
| boingfeed | 2:24a | BBtv - Google's "Great Firewall of China": Fun with the Billboard Liberation Front and monochrom The San Francisco-based Billboard Liberation Front has been transforming the world of advertising since 1977. When Austrian art-pranksters and regular BBtv guests monochrom recently visited the United States to spread their Sculpture Mob dogma, a historic meeting with the elusive BLF took place. BBtv's hidden cameras captured everything. And in part two of today's BBtv episode, Xeni travels with the BLF and monochrom to document their first-ever joint exploit to build "The Great Firewall of China" around one of the Google signs on the internet giant's Mountain View campus. Hijinks ensued; dogs, cops, and GOOG security guards pursued; TV news crews newsed. The goal of their "unpaid advertising services"? To draw attention to Google's role in online censorship within China. As it happened, this particular day was the same day of a Google shareholder meeting, during which related proposals came up for vote. Link to Billboard Liberation Front press release, and here's monochrom's side of the story. Here are previous BBtv episodes with monochrom.
Link to Boing Boing tv episode with discussion and downloadable video. |
| progressiveau | 8:04a | Reason 1,567,802 Hot on the heels of the news that the US government drugs people it deports comes the cautionary tale of an Italian man who fell in love with an American woman and visited America one time too many to see her:
His crime? Nothing. Visitors from the European Union do not need a visum to visit the States, as long as they stay no longer than ninety days and don’t come over to work, but admission isn’t automatic, as the article explains:
< p> Apart from the danger it puts any visitors in, this idea that because you haven’t been formally allowed into the US even though you are incarcenated on US soil, you’re not entitled to the protection of the US law and constitution, is more evidence of a worrying trend to hollow out these rights by defining more and more categories of non-citizens; the same happened with Guantanamo Bay, remember? |
|
digitalraven |
9:16a | Fight Like a Legend! It's been a while since I mentioned Æternal Legends. Fortunately, that can change now. Our first supplement, Fight Like a Legend, is out right now as a PDF for just $3.25. For folks in the UK, that's about £1.70. That's less than my bus fare to and from work, and believe me this is a hell of a lot more fun. I didn't have a hand in Fight Like a Legend. It's all ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} eyebeams' work, which makes sense: Æternal Legends uses the R2R system, and R2R is his baby. Nobody's better qualified to deconstruct and reconstruct combat.This is just the first release of a range of short supplements that focus on making the game feel like it's yours. Next up is The Ties That Bind, an introductory adventure originally run at Conpulsion 2008 that comes complete with pre-generated characters and a fleshed-out setting. After that, we've got a book on modifying Sphere mechanics and even more. If there's part of the game that you think could benefit from a supplement, let me know in a comment below! ( The Full Release ) Current Mood:  Awesomesauce |
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jamesb |
8:44a | comics BBC 4 Today; Phillip Pullman and Graham Kibble-White were on this morning talking about the new comic DFC. I had heard about it ages ago (somewhere) and have signed up, first issue pops through the door sometime at the end of the month. Still time to sign up in time. There was also a number of artists promoting it at Bristol Comic Con, as they have contributed. Its a Random House project I think. Pullman is writing a script that he said he is basing on Storm Nelson in some way, from the Eagle comic. http://www.thedfc.co.uk/ is the website and subscription is required, it won't be available in newsagents/shops. (which is disappointing as I am sure there would be justification of listing it in Diamond for COMIC shops at least) meanwhile, is anyone going to Cheltenham this evening, I am working a late and cannot make it. I am looking forward to the new Captain Britain and MI 13 comic, from Marvel Comics, its being written by Paul Cornell. You can see a preview here: http://www.marvel.com/news/comicsto Its out today so maybe pop round to the comic shop. James |
|
nhw |
9:44a | Sign of the times For most of the last twelve years I have been a subscriber to the daily digest of news from Eastern Europe provided by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty from Prague, and before that by the Open Media Research Institute in Munich. While its political leanings (pro-US and NATO, often euro-sceptic) were often visible in its reporting, it never missed a big story or even a medium-sized one in the course of breaking, and was certainly a more reliable tracker of events than any of the mainstream English language media. They cut back much of their Eastern Europe reporting after the EU enlargement of 2004, and last night came a message from Jeff Gedmin, who was head-hunted to run RFE/RL a couple of years back, to say that due to the weakness of the dollar they will no longer produce the daily newsline. It's a shame; I can get pretty much the same information by setting up the relevant Google news alerts (and indeed have done so) but it was nice to have RFE/RL as a backstop reference point. At least the archives will remain on-line. |
| progressiveau | 6:31a | Deporting people difficult? Not if you drug them Reason 1,567,801 not to move to the US anytime soon:
It’s tempting to lay this yet again at the feet of the Bush administration, but I doubt it would’ve been any different under a Democratic president. The entire justice and law enforcement industry in the US operates on a level of casual cruelness that is unthinkable here. Police officers can taser or murder people with impunity, prison rape is at best seen as a joke, at worst as an extra punishment and in general there’s a culture that demands the complete and utter subjugation of a detainee or suspect and which harshly punishes anybody who steps out of line. The news that returned asylum seekers are routinely drugged therefore should come as no surprise. |
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nhw |
8:04a | Birthday Happy birthday, my love! Wish I was there with you! |
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | ||
| boingfeed | 11:46p | Censorship in China targeted by RSF's new ad campaign 
A creative new advertising campaign from journalist advocacy organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), aimed at various regimes hostile to press freedom, including China. Click for larger size to see the detail that makes this such a compelling design. (thanks, Oxblood!) |
| Thursday, May 15th, 2008 | ||
|
thomasyan |
1:01a | Annoying /m/a/g/i/c tech trick in Spider Star ( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. ) |
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thomasyan |
12:55a | Spider Star by Mike Brotherton ( You are about to view content that may only be appropriate for adults. ) |
| apod | 4:52a | A Supply Ship Docks with the International Space Station
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| liberalconsp_fd | 4:52a | Fixed Term campaign re-surfaces The Fixed Term Parliaments Bill, introduced by David Howarth MP, receives its second reading debate in the House of Commons this Friday. LibdemVoice urges readers to get active. |
| liberalconsp_fd | 4:52a | Labour grassroots survey A survey on LabourHome has found that just under a half are motivated to campaign for the party. "Shoring up the core vote" seems to be the most popular policy going forward. Is the party top-brass listening? |
| Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | ||
| boingfeed | 11:36p | US Air Force wants "full control" of "any and all" computers Over at the Wired defense technology blog "Danger Room," Noah Shachtman writes: The Air Force wants a suite of hacker tools, to give it "access" to -- and "full control" of -- any kind of computer there is. And once the info warriors are in, the Air Force wants them to keep tabs on their "adversaries' information infrastructure completely undetected."Link to full post. |
| boingfeed | 10:05p | Steampunk in the Boston Phoenix The cover story on the Boston Phoenix this week is a wicked, long feature on steampunk! Link (Thanks, Jake!) |
| boingfeed | 10:02p | Spokane County employee run to ground by Feds for taking pic of weigh station John sez, "This is from Spokane County's official transportation blog. The county employee who runs the blog was taking pictures of a weigh station that is going to be moved. Ten minutes later he was contacted by the state patrol on his phone." I was out taking pictures this morning of sites of transportation projects to be completed over the next twenty years. One of those projects is to move of the weigh station near Stateline further east along I-90. I stopped at the pretty much deserted weigh station and took a couple pictures, then drove off. About 10 minutes later I received a call on my cell phone from Washington State Patrol asking why I had been taking pictures of the weigh station!Link (Thanks, John!)
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