Conspiracy or Cock-up?

I know it's been a while. About four years I believe since I last posted. I doubt if anyone's going to read this, but what the hell, here goes...

Two days ago an American drone strike obliterated a Taliban leader called Hakimullah Mehsud. This is in line with US strategy of removing the leadership of terrorist organisations to disrupt the chain of command, with minimum risk to American military personnel.

As you will know, Mehsud was due to meet the next day with representatives of the Pakistan government for peace talks. Maybe something would have come of them or maybe not. We shall never know now.

To say that the people of Pakistan are a bit peeved would be an understatement.  A fragile structure - like a house built of playing cards - has been literally blown away, and they are seriously pissed!

So far, so sad, but so understandable.

But

To the world, it looks like the USA has deliberately sabotaged this peace process. And to be honest, I can't see any other way this can be interpreted, other than incompetence. If the drone operators were unaware of the upcoming meeting, then the mission was an unfortunate coincidence. But that implies US intelligence didn't pass on the information.... Nah! I don't think so either.

So what's the strategy?

And why is nobody in America discussing this?

If you Google using keywords such as 'drone strike', 'American reaction', you get plenty about what they're saying in Pakistan, but trying to find out if Americans are for or against it is very difficult. On Yahoo news, the commentators are 99% for! But then I guess they're American.

Tweet Tweet

Good Grief! It's been over a year since I last posted something here. I've just joined Twitter, and I thought it might be a fun idea to post tweets here. You can see them in the side bar. Let's see where this leads.

Long time no blog

I thought I'd better look in to celebrate this blog's second blogiversary. I haven't been updating since starting Bill the Klingon, which is taking up my creative energies. I got the top rated strip today - w00t! Will I be able to get alpha by the end of the month? Who knows?
If you want to see what I've been doing, drop in to www.stripgenerator.com and look for strips by DeaconBarry. If you go into the bribed section, you'll see several of my best strips.

Resurrection

It seems reports of the NHS Blogdoctor's demise may be premature. A troll has admitted to hoaxing the news of his death in order to provoke Dr John Crippen into a denial. Thanks to Julie for letting me know.
You've got to be very careful what you read on the internet, obviously. Everything should be corroborated before you publish. In the rush to be first with the news, you're likely to be burned.
He still hasn't spoken though, so we're none the wiser as to what's happened to him.

Dr Crippen - the last post

Sad news from Julie. The NHS Blog Doctor - Dr Crippen, we've just found out, was killed in a car accident in October. His practice partners only found out his secret online identity when they were going through his computer records. They've posted an announcement in the comments to his final post.
Any blogger interested in the field of healthcare will have encountered his blog. It was very critical of the current state of the NHS and the roles played by politicians - a necessary function that I hope other bloggers will take on now. My sympathies go to his family and friends who may now be finding out what a stature he had in the blogging community.

Neologistics

Today I saw inscribed upon the window of my local bus shelter these words:

BLOG SURJ

Now recently I have come across a few neologisms using the word blog, such as blogswarm and blogosphere, but this surely demands a photo of a cute kitten with,

I CAN HAS BLOG SURJ

written underneath it.

The question is, what exactly is a blog surj (or surge) and how does it differ from a blog swarm?

First with the news

Booyah! I scooped the Scotland on Sunday with my previous post! I went up on Saturday with it, and they, of course, ran it the next day. A small victory I grant you, but now I feel I'm starting to pull ahead of the game. The next goal is to have somebody in the media mention this blog as a source for a story.

Enter the Blogswarm

What do Alisher Usmanov and Disney have in common? They've both had bloggers censored. You'll remember at the beginning of this year that Disney had Spocko's blog silenced because he was speaking out against their hate speech radio station. Well this week, Usmanov, a russian tycoon, hoping to buy Arsenal Football Club, has thrown his money against two british bloggers, Tim Ireland and Craig Murray, who dared to criticise him. (note: the last two links don't go anywhere, because both those blogs have been wiped from the Blogosphere.)
The problem is one of resources. Usmanov and Disney have vast amounts of money. Bloggers have nothing but their keyboards. Their sites are crashed and burned by the service providers at the first hint of legal action. It doesn't even matter if the blogger complies instantly with any cease or desist order - they're toast!
The only recourse bloggers have is to publicise this censorship. Let the public be aware that Usmanov and Disney believe in stifling free speech on the internet. Only bad publicity can make them pause.
Usmanov wants to put the arse into Arsenal. If his mickey-mouse operation is stalled due to the ensuing blogswarm he's engendered, that will be justice.

Blog anzeigen

Can anyone explain why Blogger has started speaking German?

Wolves in the wires

It looks like it was just a rumour after all. We're nearly a week post 11th September, and the charm offensive against Iran hasn't materialised so far. It's a bit of a relief, because as long as they don't start persuading, then an attack on Iran seems unlikely.
Of course, the rumour could be disinformation. If the Iranians can be made to believe that Bush and his crew are batshit crazy enough to launch an attack, they might take the desired measures to avert conflict, ie halt Uranium enrichment. A few carefully baited nuggets seeded into the blogosphere setting off blogswarms like Roman Candles, gives the illusion of veracity to an imaginary policy of invasion.
Another purpose of manufactured rumour could be to make bloggers cry wolf. If blog rumours are seen as unreliable, then future unintended leaks might be ignored.
The blogosphere is a battleground, and the unscrupulous and machiavellian will manipulate it for their own ends.

Eight little secrets

It's meme time. JanieBelle has tagged me (the cheeky minx) so now I've got to inflict you with Eight Dirty Little Secrets.
1.I'm not Scottish - well not completely, Dad is English, and I was born near Banbury Cross (yup, the 'ride a cock horse' one.)
2.I didn't learn to read at school.
3.I'm crap at swimming.
4.I have curly hair. It's self-perming.
5.I was in the school orchestra, playing the cello.
6.I have never flown in a plane.
7.I have flown in a helicopter.
8.David Cameron and Lord Byron are both my fourth cousins.

Let's make it a threesome

I've won again! Another of JanieBelle's poetry competitions. This time the seed phrase was 'Quietly naked in the pouring rain'. You can see what I did with it here.
And the best bit, as well as getting a guest post, is that my poem is the new starting point for the next competition. If you want to have a go, read the poem, and then write about the same event from a different point of view. The closing date is 30th June at midnight in the States, or in the wee small hours over here.
That's three poems now that wouldn't have existed were it not for these competitions. The second one didn't win, so I don't get it all my own way. It's important when writing to have something to focus on, such as a seed phrase, or picture, just to get you started.
So have a go! It's fun!

Change of Shift : One year in.

Change of Shift is a year old today. It's over at Nurse Ratched's Place, so go over and get your fix of good nursing blogginess.

Birth of a blog

My friend Martyne has started a blog.
Here's the URL
www.martynemartynesogoodtheymamedmetwice.blogspot.com
It started today, so now's your chance to get a comment in the very first post.

Qualified to blog?

Are bloggers born rather than made? It's a common theme among writers that their favourite subject at school was English (or whatever their first language is) specifically, the creative writing part of the subject. Is it the same for bloggers?
It was definitely my favourite part of the school week. It was no chore. My regret was that it didn't give me enough time to finish any of the stories I started. I'd be just getting onto page two of my science-fiction epic (hey! I said I enjoyed writing, I never said I had any taste!) when the bell would ring, and it would be on to the next lesson.
The question for today is, should prospective bloggers be people who enjoyed writing at school?

Out of the doldrums

Bloggers have been mentioning that they've recently been through a hiatus or dry spell with their blogging. I've felt that way too, certainly two weeks ago. And now I'm back to regular output. There's been something about mid May that has acted like a miasma on the surface of the Blogosphere. Could this emerging cyberworld be developing a climate? Will we see warm fronts and anticyclones in lower Blogistan? Will we start needing weather reports before we can post?
Am I taking this extended metaphor too far...?
The thing with metaphor is that it can lead you by a chain of association to strange places. I'm thinking of this recent slump as a cyber analogue of the Doldrums - a part of the Atlantic Ocean outwith the trade winds where ships used to be stranded. That, of course, makes me think of pirates who have risen in the public consciousness at the same time as blogging, and how the mainstream media view us. And of course, you can't mention pirates without thinking of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This, I feel is the ultimate symbol and embodiment of the Blogosphere. If you think of how the Blogosphere would look physically, you'd see it as a spherical mass of interconnected wiring, like a ball of spaghetti...
Ramen to you all.

Happy Blogiversary!

I've done it! I have blogged for one year. I wasn't even sure when I started if I would last one week. But here I am, with a blog that's a year old today.
I am so glad I started this blog. I have made so many friends in this community that I would never have encountered otherwise. I wouldn't have been a contributor to Change of Shift or the Scottish Blogging Round-up. I wouldn't have been published in Shaggy Blog Stories. I wouldn't have won Janie's poetry competition. All these things I would have missed out on if I hadn't started this blog.
And I have you to thank. You who have read my words, and left comments, and who have linked to me. Without your support and encouragement, I would have found it hard to carry on. Here's to my second year of blogging. Let's hope it brings new exciting things, new directions and challenges.

Two new links

Two blogs have just linked to me. I've just added them to my blogroll. Don't call me Joe is a new blog - a very new blog. He only started a couple of weeks ago. And I was the very first person to comment! He seems to have got into the blogging way, so he could be around for some time.
The other is code blog : tales of a nurse. She hosted Change of Shift a few weeks ago, and came up with a limerick for each post! Pure genius! And just have a look at her blogroll! An icon for each link! Pure dead posh, so it is!
I love my one. It makes me want to keep visiting her blog, just to press it.

Change of Shift : Key of the Door

Change of Shift is now up at Emergiblog. It's volume one, number twenty-one, so hop over and wish it a happy coming-of-age. Here's the link:
http://www.emergiblog.com/2007/04/change-of-shift-vol-one-number-21.html

Blogger reconnected

I'm back online! I managed to get to B&Q today and got a telephone line extension to replace the one that mysteriously stopped working, cutting me off from the blogosphere. Not a pleasant experience I can assure you. You miss not being able to check things up on the internet when you want to. For the past three days, I've been forced to sit and watch television, then go to bed before midnight! My normal bedtime is round about 1am, with 2am sessions not unheard of. So being in bed at 11:30 was a bit of a culture shock. Mind you, I have been working the last two days, which means getting up at 5:30. I'll be a bit later tonight. I'm definitely an owl. Late nights are no problem at all. My wife, on the other hand is a lark. She has no trouble getting up at the crack of dawn, whereas I refuse to emerge until after 9:00. (on my days off that is - it compensates for the early starts on my days on.)