Post Christmas Blogburst…

Sutff you might have missed, and I kick off with an excellent and thoughtful piece from Brendan Hughes on how our world is getting smaller… It’s essential reading for anyone still struggling with over why they should (or should not) read blogs…

So what will the small world look like? There will be no big centre for one. Rather, there will be distributed networks of individuals, collectives and smaller organisations. It is a world that is self-organising where people develop relationships that are mutually beneficial with new ways of talking, new ways of working and new ways of having fun.

Small economies – economies that are based on networks – will become dominant and exist alongside larger more traditional geo-specific economies. Connected economies have no borders and so are more difficult to regulate and control, but then we haven’t been that great at regulating traditional economies. These new economies are fluid and in constant flux as they develop out of a need and dissolve once that need is met.

– On Keep Sinn Fein Left Starry Plough has a thoughtful consideration of KIllian Forde’s breaking of the party whip in Dublin to go with a Labour Party budget he had worked with them closely with in amending on behalf of the party… The only precedent I can think of was Francie Molloy sticking with the 11 council model… He was suspended for breaking the whip.. Can Sinn Fein afford to take such action on a council in which they only hold five seats?

– On the Unionist compass, Chekov notes the entry of Daphne Trimble into the blogosphere with a piece on why (literally and metaphorically) the Human Rights Consortium is right up the left

– Jeff starts of with ten predictions for 2010, starting off with the lowest hanging fruit… (What about giving us yours for the next twelve months in the comments below?)

– David Blackburn has a nicely argued piece on the cost to Brown of the marginalisation of Mandelson

– Sunny has a graph showing how the US is burning dollars on private health care for outcomes that are only marginally better than the UK‘s…

– It is extraordinary the amount of money government with throw away on technology that promises community, and delivers nothing but expensive invoices… People and common purpose matter, technology will follow… Dizzy finds a piece on of government community corporate real estate floating aimlessly in cyberspace

– With the UK general election in the offing para campaigning is now order of the day… And according to Bob Piper Iain’s been involved in a friendly fire incident

– As they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

– And Fox News new anchor Brit Hume tells Tiger Woods to get Christianity and “you can become a great example to the world”…

– And finally, Anthony McIntyre’s piece on Gerry Adams and the gapping void opening up between his accounts of the past and the reality thereof…

The cult of personality in Sinn Fein, assiduously cultivated over the years, is so strong that not a mute of discord has been heard from within the ranks. Its senior officials including elected representatives seem prepared to go down in history, not as activists who for political-strategic reasons defended the IRA against allegations of robbing banks ok killing and kidnapping those it took umbrage to, but as swindlers on a par with Irish bishops who thought that safeguarding the political career of one man should trump the need of a raped and tormented woman for justice.

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