Tag: politics

  • Sudden outbreak of democracy baffles US pundits

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    Something very spooky happened in the United States last week. The chances are you noticed it too, many days before it was reported. Tuesday found me in New York, on my first stateside visit in a couple of years. The details of the Bailout plan had just been revealed and the slow burn of outrage…

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  • The New Statesman’s NuLab IT Awards

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    Although the New Statesman magazine’s annual New Media Awards (NMA) don’t quite match up to the EFF’s annual Nepotism Award – nothing quite does – they’re still a rich source of humour and embarrassment. Getting an NMA is the equivalent of getting an orange at half time from the coach of your village football team,…

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  • Obama mounts ‘Neutrality’ bandwaggon

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    Politicians long ago gave up on politics. Instead of articulating great ideas, the choice that faces voters today is between identikit managerial bureaucrats who’ve never had a job outside politics. Most of their adult lives have been spent in the hermetic world of wonkdom. So it’s little wonder, then, that they have trouble distinguishing between…

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  • Miliband goes mad for Web 2.0

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    David Miliband, the environment minister tipped to be the next Labour Party leader by a friendly Westminster press, says “a new spirit” is afoot in the UK, brought about by Web 2.0. Miliband said the web had polarised debate into competing extremities, where the truth was decided by whoever shouted the loudest. Traditional engineering values,…

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  • Miliband goes mad for Web 2.0

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    David Miliband, the environment minister tipped to be the next Labour Party leader by a friendly Westminster press, says “a new spirit” is afoot in the UK, brought about by Web 2.0. Miliband said the web had polarised debate into competing extremities, where the truth was decided by whoever shouted the loudest. Traditional engineering values,…

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  • Police stake out bar, hoping to catch man drunk

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    Canadian cops staked out a bar in the hope of finding a journalist drunk, a court heard today. The journalist in question, Edmonton newspaper columnist Kerry Diotte, wasn’t suspected of involvement in any crime. But Diotte had written a column criticizing the police force’s radar and camera technology as being more of a cash cow…

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