Linkspam, aka first ‘real’ post, aka THIS IS THE NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWS.

Stuff I read in lunch break today, with ramblings that make gratuitous use of parentheses and footnotes:

1) I am a bit confused over this story. It made the BBC front page, but the reporting is pretty sketchy, and I am blaming the lack of internet in the flat (a situation, hopefully, soon to be resolved) and the intrinsically limited length of my lunch hour for the difficulty in following regional news in regions that aren’t London (I have a horrible feeling that, after three months of getting my news from a blend of the Guardian, the awful tube freesheets and mostly-London-based political blogs that I have become one of the bloody Londoners who considers anywhere north of Tottenham to be highly suspicious and possibly populated by Reavers). Anyway. Any Sheffield/Yorkshire people able to expand on what the deal was? Was she cancelling the Muslim!religious assemblies and reverting to only having Christian!religious assemblies? Alternating between the two for all the pupils? Either way, I am not quite sure what the backstory is, or how it became a big story…

(NB: my general opinion on such matters is that I wish I did not live in a country with an established religion, and whilst I’m not exercised enough about this to necessarily want religion assemblies to be banned I definitely don’t think of them as Harmless Instruction in Common-Sense British Valuuuues (due, among other things, to personal special-snowflakey experiences) and would be more than happy to see a culture shift that involved them becoming occasional or obsolete. Nonetheless, if we’re going with the idea that kidlets need religious instruction before they’ve digested their breakfast, I think it’s generally a good idea to take steps so minority groups don’t feel excluded or irrelevant. Similar to my views on marriage, in fact. This is the general area I’m coming from. Anyone, for example, from the area of “we must take aggressive steps to defend our cultural heritage so at risk from being SWAMPED BY THE BE-TURBANED HORDES IN OUR NATION IMPOSING THEIR SHARIA LAW” is unlikely to have anything to say I find interesting or helpful.)

2) WHAAAT. My sceptical hackles were raised when I saw who the poll was for* – it doesn’t say anything about their selection, and 2000 is not many – but the questions are well-phrased, as far as methodology goes. Rentoul picks out the slim majority supporting ID, but I think the 32 fucking per cent thinking Young Earth Creation is “definitely or probably true” is far more distressing. It’s polls like this that make me wish I had embarked down a completely different educational and vocational path, and also actually had ‘people skills’, so that I could teach science and do it RIGHT.
* This may well say more about my prejudices than the group in question. I don’t know them, they may be a superlatively progressive and rational group of theologians, but I don’t really have time to check on account of aforementioned No Bloody Internet.

3) Ben Goldacre is being threatened with legal action for putting a radio clip on his website. Entirely not embarrassment at what HORRIBLE ANTI-SCIENTIFIC TOOLS they are.
(This is as good a place as any to mention the minor issues I had with his book, though (my booklog is in still Moleskine form) if I haven’t said already it is very very good and entirely worthy of a place in my Bookshelf Pile of Sanity that I wave at all unfortunate guests with discomfiting and inarticulate enthusiasm. Fellow travellers: this, this and this, to be joined by this when I get round to buying a copy, and probably others I am forgetting offhand.

4) A non-political interlude: an essay on Sandman’s reflection of ethics, adolescence and the 1990s.

5) A review of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism for which I believe the word is ‘pwned’. I have not read this book, but everything I have heard about it makes me disappointed but unsurprised that Nick Cohen is cooing over it. Oh, Nick Cohen. What’s Left? was pretty good, annoying tendency to shoehorn everything he disagreed with into his argument aside! You were supposed to be a reflective leftist conscience! What happened to you? When did you start thinking “well, it’s short for National SOCIALIST, hur hur hur” was a reasonable argument?

6) Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press. US-focussed, not much different to the normal “gives voice and a rallying space to views not politically acceptable/commercially viable enough to be reflected in mainstream media, la la fishcakes” arguments, but well written.

7) An interesting and, so far as it fits with the bits of internal politics I picked up despite not having studied Israel in the depth I would like, IIRC pretty accurate run-down of how social cleavages generally play out in terms of Israeli political divides.

Belatedly: a smashing post on tabloid hypocrisy over Carol Thatcher. (For Americans: a former PM’s offspring who has made a minor celebrity career out of this got ditched from her BBC show after referring to a tennis player as a ‘golliwog’ and refusing to apologise or indicate there was anything wrong with this. Yeah, I know. Most tabloids have lept on this as PC Gone MAAAAAAAAAAAD, the BBC at the last count had far more complaints at the decision than supporting it, and it’s all horribly fail. “But there’s no racism in Britain!”) the_whybird also did a proper post at the time.

9) I will be watching the front pages tomorrow morning eagerly to see if this prediction is accurate. (Background/explanation of a sort)

10) A nice round number: that’s enough politics. Look at New York City in Lego, a clock for geeks or the Baby Animal Alphabet and tell me you don’t feel a bit better.