[ethical blogging] increasingly in demand these days

The whole question of blog ethics is a minefield. So glad the Devil's Kitchen posted on the topic because its owner illustrates exactly what Bloghounds is also trying to do.

DK points out that if you are shown to be wrong, you should at least concede it. Yes, yes and yes. Bloghounds believes that ethics means this type of thing, not that you need to be a goody-two-shoes, for whom butter wouldn't melt in the mouth.

Imprecate vocabulary and hitting hard, as long as you can back it up with sources, does not mean you are unethical. Making wild statements without backup is unethical. Shooting off at the mouth without some facts to point to is unethical. Threatening litigation at the drop of a hat, rather than arguing your case - I include that as unethical as well.

Like it or not, only blogs following scholarly standards, no matter how swearbloggy they are, are likely to survive in the long term [or at least keep readers coming back]. Everyone knows that.

Like it or not, we are coming into a period of official pressure to regulate and "clean-up" the blogosphere. We need to look to ourselves and clean up our own act first, the better to resist this trend towards regulation and sanction.

Bloghounds arose from the ashes of some very unethical behaviour from certain quarters which we won't rake over here. Its intellectual capital, the value of its very name, depends on ethics and that's why we go through a complicated process with new membership, with no beg pardons.

The value of your name is not established by bully boy tactics - it's established by how far readers accept your arguments and if yours are better, then they'll be believed. That's the ethical way to go and its the only way we're interested in.

[7 января] с рождеством Христовым

C Рождеством Христовым !

Сердечно поздравляю вас с Рождеством Христовым.

Этот великий праздник объединяет и сближает семьи, поколения и народы в стремлении к духовному преображению и обновлению, в желании делиться друг с другом теплом.

Рождество для миллионов людей служит непреходящим символом чистоты, искренности, человечности и милосердия. В прекрасные рождественские дни наши сердца наполняют вера, надежда и сострадание, вдохновляющие на свершение добрых дел, оказание помощи всем, кто в ней нуждается.

Пусть праздник Рождества придаст вам силы для осуществления самых заветных желаний и планов. Пусть наступающий год порадует новыми достижениями, принесет в каждый дом спокойствие, взаимопонимание, благополучие и любовь.

Желаю вам крепкого здоровья, успехов в делах, счастья и мира.

For non-Russians

January 6th here is Epiphany but January 7th in the East is Christmas.

Today I received a message from someone special and then another [plus photos] from someone else special in Russia and so this is one of those days, Orthodox Christmas, when things get a bit shaky in my psyche. Some years back I chose to follow the January 7th Christmas as it seemed altogether better, as I've tried to explain to my friends over here.

Let's face it, at the end of the previous year, we're all knackered and the last thing we need is the enforced smiles and jollity. It's much better to go off and do something nice with family or partner, to let all the worries fade away and then, invigorated in the new year, you can address yourself to Christmas. An added bonus is that the traffic is lighter then and people are in a better frame of mind.

However, the western tradition dies hard and thank goodness people are still celebrating it here at all.

What I particularly liked about this day was that I got to visit grandparents and that meant a scrumptuous luncheon and a little wine. Unfortunately, it was also a time to make me reflect on where I was and how precarious were all our lots and this is how I'm thinking right now.

The words above in Russian are quite beautiful and basically wish you peace, prosperity and happiness.

Who could argue with that?

[real life] about to curtail this blog

Most bloggers who've been at it for some time would claim that Real Life transcends any blog matters and yet it seems to me, from what I've seen, that many bloggers cannot let it go, even when they run out of things to say.

Let's face it, our blog is probably the only forum where more than our immediate circle get to hear [or read] our views on matters. That's at least so for the political blogger. The food and garden blogger is a different creature but his or her motivation might be the sense of community in that corner of the sphere. That's a motivation for many political bloggers as well.

Real Life does intrude and any day now it's going to with me.

Not to put too fine a point on it, when I go, my internet connection goes too. I don't think it's going to be a total thing, as there is always the local library membership which allows an hour a day and so I'd aim to keep one post up a day but it is going to severely curtail the research time. Quite frankly, I shouldn't be spending hours in the local library when I need to be out following the recovery plan.

I can't see it ever being permanent or even a hiatus but it's certainly going to be a dent in the output for some time, for very necessary reasons and it must be any day now. I now have a commitment to Bloghounds as well and there are advertisers starting to trickle in who are expecting the blog to be maintained.

I don't know how many of us consider our loyalty to the readers either; after all, a reader is a person who clicks in from time to time to see if anything interesting is happening but each of us, in these troubled times, does like to see certain faces in the blog firmament and are sad when they drop away.

So that's the current state of play.

[iran] are they gun running to gaza

The allegation that Iran is providing arms and assistance to Hamas has been denied as "illogical" by many pundits. Gaza is sealed, they say and so it is just not possible for Iran to get in there.

Here is another point of view:

Reva Bhalla, a Middle East analyst with the private intelligence firm Stratfor, said Iran uses a sophisticated Hezbollah smuggling network to get arms to Hamas.

"Basically, you'll have a bunch of Hezbollah agents who will procure arms through Sudan. They'll enter Egypt under forged documents, pay off disgruntled Bedouins in the Sinai with things like light arms, cash, Lebanese hashish - which they can sell in the black market - and pay off Egyptian security guards as well so that they can travel covertly into Gaza to pass off the weapons shipments through Hamas' pretty extensive underground tunnel network," she said.

But most analysts agree that even if Iran is arming Hamas, it would produce little practical gain for Tehran other than to make life difficult for Israel. It is on the political front, they say, where Iran looks to benefit from the crisis in Gaza as it tries to project itself as the leader of the Islamic world.

Analyst Reva Bhalla said Iran is trying boost its standing in the region by embarrassing moderate Arab states.

"It basically makes Iran stand apart from the Arab regimes. And note that the Arab regimes are the most silent on this issue. Most are quite happy seeing Hamas contained, [they] really have no problem with the Palestinians being contained in the region by the Israelis. It's that huge disconnect between what you hear in the Arab street and what you see being actually discussed within these regimes. And so Iran is trying to exploit that," she said.

[wordless wednesday] captions please

Oops - shouldn't have run this one at Christmas time [see next post].

[rfk] in the shadow of brother john

The assassination of RFK doesn't get the same attention as that of JFK or JFK Jnr's "accident". This is an interesting piece of investigation into RFK's demise:

And incidentally, that youtube on JFK I couldn't find has been found by a correspondent. It's a worry the way the investigator constantly speaks of "scientific, mathematical measurements" and "precise measurements" but he does seem to have the angle fairly right and more importantly - he shows, physically, that it was possible.

Combine that with the other video of a car going past from that pov and the sewer looks a bit difficult but the storm drain would have been quite possible.