#politics (122 links)
Although these stories are reports about medical research, they are really about computing – in the sense that neither would have been possible without the application of serious computer power to masses of data. In that way they reflect a new – but so far unacknowledged – reality; that in many important fields leading-edge scientific research cannot be done without access to vast computational and data-handling facilities, with sophisticated software for analysing huge data-sets.
- Charlie's Diary: Merciless antipope.org
There is a cancer in the collective American soul — a mercy deficit that has in recent years grown as alarmingly as the budget deficit. Nor is it as simple as a left/right thing: no political party has a monopoly on merciless behaviour. Rather, a creeping draconian absolutism has cast its penumbra across the entire arena of public discourse, tainting every debate, poisoning and hardening attitudes across the board.
- Four crowdsourcing lessons from the Guardian’s (spectacular) expenses-scandal experiment » Nieman Journalism Lab niemanlab.org
"Journalism has been crowdsourced before, but it’s the scale of the Guardian’s project — 170,000 documents reviewed in the first 80 hours, thanks to a visitor participation rate of 56 percent — that’s breathtaking." Brilliant.
You are the weakest link. T'ra.
- The Straight Choice | The election leaflet project thestraightchoice.org
Election leaflets are one of the main weapons in the fight for votes in the UK. They are targeted, effective and sometimes very bitter. We need your help to photograph and map them so we can keep an eye on what the parties are up to, and try to keep them honest.
- EU Profiler euprofiler.eu
Discover your position in the political landscape for the 2009 European Parliament Elections
What does this site do? It keeps track of predictions of the future by public figures.
- Charlie Brooker: To politicians, we're little more than meaningless blobs on a monitor | Comment is free | The Guardian guardian.co.uk
Straw and co blocked the release of the minutes, claiming that to actually let us know what was going on would set a dangerous precedent that would harm good government. Ministers wouldn't speak frankly at cabinet meetings if they felt their discussions would be subjected to the sort of scrutiny that, say, our every waking move is.
- With friends like these ... guardian.co.uk
Facebook has 59 million users [but] you won't catch Tom Hodgkinson volunteering his personal information - not now that he knows the politics of the people behind the social networking site
mySociety provide petition tool for PM.
- Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Jonathan Freedland: Al Gore on his mission to save the planet guardian.co.uk
Al Gore was the nearly man of US politics, the wooden Clinton sidekick who never made it to the top job. But now he's back with a mission to save the planet - and this time he's passionate.
"I'll tell you where they are. They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing vide
The most common retort against privacy advocates -- by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Environmental affairs magazine. "Each month we examine the connection between a wide range of subjects[...] food, war, politics, pharmaceuticals, farming, toxic chemicals, corporate fraud, mass media ."
- Responsible Shopper: What Does Your Shopping Support? responsibleshopper.org
Discover the good, the bad and the ugly behind the products you buy everyday—from clothing to shoes to toothpaste. Investigate hundreds of companies on a range of issues, including: Sweatshops, Pollution, Ethics, Discrimination and more.
- Corporate Watch : Home : HOME corporatewatch.org
- Open Letter venganza.org
" I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster." Genius.
- Rough Guide to a Better World roughguide-betterworld.com
The essential guide to how the world can be a better place for everyone. Poverty in the developing world is well known, but less publicised are the efforts of those who combat hunger, disease and illiteracy. This guide shows how you can get involved.
- Designing the Future - Newsweek Technology - MSNBC.com msnbc.msn.com
NEWSWEEK talks to a leading ecological architect whose goal is nothing less than eliminating waste and pollution.