{"id":2189,"date":"2008-12-05T04:00:15","date_gmt":"2008-12-05T04:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/?p=2189"},"modified":"2008-12-05T04:00:15","modified_gmt":"2008-12-05T04:00:15","slug":"unrequired-reading-41208","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/2008\/12\/unrequired-reading-41208\/","title":{"rendered":"Unrequired Reading {4.12.08}"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/unrequired-reading.jpg\" alt=\"Unrequired Reading\" width=\"480\" height=\"206\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/unrequired-reading.jpg 480w, https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/unrequired-reading-100x42.jpg 100w, https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/09\/unrequired-reading-200x85.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>These are some of the things that have caught my attention lately. It&#8217;s a more eclectic mix than just the news business, but then so&#8217;s life: <!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/sci\/tech\/7760659.stm\"><b>World &#8216;must tackle space threat&#8217; | BBC News<\/b><\/a> &#8211; Whilst we fret about the credit crunch: &quot;The international community must work together to tackle the threat of asteroids colliding with Earth, a leading UN scientist says.<br \/>\nProfessor Richard Crowther&#39;s comments come as a group of space experts called for a co-ordinated science-led response to the asteroid threat.<br \/>\nThe Association of Space Explorers (ASE) says missions to intercept asteroids will need global approval.&quot;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/virtualeconomics.typepad.com\/virtualeconomics\/2008\/12\/lies-damned-lies-and-actually-just-more-damned-lies.html\"><b>Lies, damned lies and actually just more damned lies | Virtual Economics<\/b><\/a> &#8211; &quot;I am overjoyed by the proposal contained in the Queen&#39;s speech to subject benefit claimants to lie detector tests. Not that I have any particular axe to grind with benefit claimants, nor any real hope that that lie detectors are more than pseudoscience &#8211; I&#39;m just delighted by the precedent it sets that it is acceptable for dealings between citizens and the state to be monitored by lie detector where there is a reasonable expectation that one party is lying at the expense of the other.\n<p>So I look forward to extending this precedent to all my dealings with the government: with my local authority (&quot;so you&#39;re quite sure I need to pay this bill again even though I paid it last month and you seem to have simply lost the cheque?&quot;); with the police (&quot;just hold this wire officer while you tell me precisely what law I&#39;m breaking and under what authority I am being detained&quot;); and of course PMQs and all other Commons debates (&quot;so these weapons of mass destruction, Tony. Really sure?&quot;)&quot;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/student\/postgraduate\/postgraduate-study\/journalist-or-campaigner-you-can-be-both-with-citys-new-postgraduate-degree-1049871.html\"><b>Journalist or campaigner? You can be both with City&#8217;s new postgraduate degree &#8211; Postgraduate Study, Postgraduate &#8211; The Independent<\/b><\/a> &#8211; &quot;City University &#8230; is steadily building a reputation as the Oxbridge of journalism.&quot;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/media\/2008\/dec\/04\/bbc-world-service-piracy\"><b>World Service dropped report on piracy after Foreign Office request | The Guardian<\/b><\/a> &#8211; &quot;The BBC has been accused of putting the independence of the World Service at risk after agreeing to pull an episode of the series From Our Own Correspondent following a request from the Foreign Office.\n<p>Angry World Service staff and union officials said the decision to withdraw the programme, about the Somalia pirate hijackings, could &quot;seriously damage&quot; the Foreign Office-funded operation&#39;s reputation for independent journalism.<\/p>\n<p>The programme, about how reporter Mary Harper was able to speak to the pirates holding the Sirius Star and its captain, had been broadcast on Radio 4 and 48 times on the World Service network before the Foreign Office intervention on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Sources said the FCO had asked for the programme to be pulled as it claimed that after each broadcast the phonelines to the Sirius Star were blocked by callers &#8211; even though the number was not aired &#8211; and that it was hampering efforts by Saudi Arabia to end the hijack.&quot;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2205948\/pagenum\/all\/#p2\"><b>Why you should take reports from the scene of a massacre with a grain of salt | Jack Shafer<\/b><\/a> &#8211; &quot;[H]ere&#39;s an assortment of misinformation, quarreling facts, and bunk published by the world press about the Mumbai rampage.&quot;<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2205995\/\"><b>Eliot Spitzer: We&#8217;re using the bailouts to rebuild giant financial institutions. But what we really need are small ones | Slate<\/b><\/a> &#8211; &quot;We are realizing that the service sector&mdash;all the lawyers, investment bankers, advertising agencies, and accountants&mdash;follows its clients and wealth creation. This, not over-regulation, is the reason investment-banking activity has begun to migrate overseas.&quot;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These are some of the things that have caught my attention lately. It&#8217;s a more eclectic mix than just the news business, but then so&#8217;s life:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unrequired-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2189"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2213,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2189\/revisions\/2213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adrianmonck.com\/about\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}