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Bangkok Pundit – Keeps me up to date on Thailand news. Recommended to me by some academic.
North Stand Chat
La Prensa – Honduras news
for a centrist/right view on todays market and global economy…
I was looking for a certain US libertarian author and I came across this
http://www.solomonstarnews.com/
Solomon Islands News
For news, analysis and information junkies, this is simply the best site on the internet.
Warning: This will consume hours of your time.
@ROB wrote:
For news, analysis and information junkies, this is simply the best site on the internet.
Warning: This will consume hours of your time.
Thank you, ROB. It is excellent. And the warning is spot on: I’ve already spent an hour and a half on it this morning.
Knights of Afghanistan
Lots of great first hand on the ground reports from a contractor working in Afganstan
http://knightsofafghanistan.blogspot.com/
James
@jamesintheworld wrote:
Knights of Afghanistan
Lots of great first hand on the ground reports from a contractor working in Afganstan
http://knightsofafghanistan.blogspot.com/
James
nice one mate. read a few entries and its full of really interesting stuff from people on the ground. cheers
http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/
Check the regions applicable to your needs.
Hey, it’s the playoffs! Who cares about politics! Go Habs! Go Canucks! Go Sharks! Go buy an $8 beer at the concession stand! w00T!!1
@DrDave wrote:
http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/
Check the regions applicable to your needs.
I have been checking this one regularly since you mentioned it a few years back. Good stuff.
I think you guys will like this one. It’s the remnants of Exiled magazine which used to run out of Russia and was good on stuff from the Caucasus and Russia. Kind of gonzo journalism with some real crack pot writers too. It was also the platform that guy used to launch himself as “the war nerd” and he ended up in a heap of mainstream press.
Small Wars Journal – is kinda an online journal with some pretty good writers from time to time. Some interesting political stuff as well as the military type stuff.
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/
and
Naxalite Rage – a pretty good blog on the Naxalite rebellion in India. These guys just keep getting stronger and stronger.
Provider of reports and strategic insight into geopolitics and economics.
Another one you guys may already know, but they do a nice little weekly newsletter on which areas have deteriorated or improved in conflict areas.
Most of you probably know this one, but it’s a good wrap up of world disasters that don’t seem to make it into the mainstream press too much.
Wired Threat Level – Privacy, Crime and Security Online – A good one for geeks who like political intrigue with a tech twist.
on the philosophy of uncertainty
Here’s a good one to keep up with the senanigans in Central Asia. Obviousl pretty hevaily skewed to events in Afghanistant at the moment but good for other stuff too.
IRIN.org: Humanitarian news and reports featuring individuals and groups getting involved, showing initiative and making a difference.
you folks are waaay too serious
http://beeradvocate.com/I much prefer http://www.ratebeer.com, lots of obscure beers and they’re a bit more open to non-registered types poking around.
Had a beer with Luke (founding editor of PBs) last night.
We were screaming at each other so much during a heated political discussion that people started moving away from us. It was hilarious. :D
He put me on to this site which is pretty good:
Not really an adventure website – but a Hamburger a Day is a great website if you love burgers like I do
Also Wired Mag and its blogs should be a must read for folks
~JITW
Keep all of your daily reading in one place:
It’s an online rss aggregator so you give it the feeds of each of the sites you like and it will only feed you the updates content that you haven’t read yet.
Correction James:
That’s one of the things a woman’s for.
However, when stuck in construction/mining camps in the mountains or the deserts of the world I live and work in, decent meals and the other fine touches that women are capable of, and usually not available for, virtual reality must suffice.
I’ve yet to find a virtual beer that even comes close to reality, though.
Good for photography tips.
I like this MEP…
@_JohnnyF_ wrote:
I like this MEP…
The one libertarian who doesn’t scare the blue rinse hordes of Middle England
I like to mix it with good old fashioned “eat the rich” working class demagoguery – you’ve got to take the good bits (personal freedom: drugs, debauch, fun, whatever thrills you, pushing the limits without the killjoys who always rise to the top slots with The Man in a ‘democratic’ or totalitarian system), and dispense with the unworkable crap.
Minarchism seems a good bet
Ahh yes, “wowsers” – another pet hate of mine.
In fact just this week, Australia’s main gay hating, porn hating, sex hating fundamentalist christian was busted for…. wait for it… accessing porn 200,000 times on his work computer.
I had been predicting his demise in such a fashion for several years.
Never really pegged you in the libertarian left though. ;)
Great site at IMB:
http://icc-ccs.org/home/piracy-reporting-centre/live-piracy-report
http://icc-ccs.org/home/piracy-reporting-centre/imb-live-piracy-map-2010
Definitely a “daily website” now
How about this?
I like the battleship one and the colonels house at Petersburg
http://chaosandpain.blogspot.com/?zx=17cf25f6822bd56b
How I learned to stop worrying, and love squats and deadlifts. NSFW by the way. He shows evil things like boobiez and uses naughty words.
A great site
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html@ROB wrote:
Go to university to be educated.
If money’s what drives you, become a bookie or money lender.
Indeed, however an entire generation of young people were sold the idea that more education = more money.
Universities capitalized on this by expanding obscure departments and printing degrees in spades for unmarketable education.
It is only very recently that this practice has been questioned (i.e. the British governnment’s requirement that all universities publish career earning outcomes for every single degree).
A better education generally does mean you will earn more. I think the mistake is that people think the process is to get a degree, then become a professional in whatever the degree was, then make more money as a result.
That’s not really how it works.
It’s more get a degree. Become more educated and learn to problem solve. Get a job at the bottom wherever you can, but progress more quickly because of your superior problem solving skills.
Most of the folks I know who have post grad degrees in humanities easily clear six figures in their jobs, but their jobs usually have nothing to do with their degrees.
All of that said however, I think an educated populace is desirable for it’s own sake. It keeps leaders in line. It reduces sloganism as a legitimate political tactic. It progresses humanity in general. It makes my chardonnay and caviar afternoons more interesting due to superior company.
“superior company”
This, I think, is the key to the whole issue.
Universities tend to attract smart people. Therefore, more smart people get degrees and tend to succeed at their chosen career because they are smart and hard working. Ergo, someone in government thought that if everyone went to university, everyone would earn more money.
One study to my knowledge that has never been done is whether people who would normally have gone to university would be successful anyways; university is a positive feedback loop in itself. Having a degree doesn’t necessarily make you successful, but successful people often have degrees.
Besides, who would serve your champagne and caviar if all were equally educated? Do you not realize how difficult it is to manage a well-educated proletariat? Soon, they may demand outlandish things such as voting and property rights!
@ROB wrote:
Actually you bring up an interesting causation/correlation scenario that I hadn’t really thought of before. It goes quite a way to explaining why I find some educated people to be quite dim.
In England (less so Scotland and Wales, I’d say) there’ve long been fairly dim people (specifically men, to be honest) who went to university, even when it was only 4 or 5% of the age cohort. That was because of the way the top public (i.e. private) schools trained the boys to get in. (Earlier, the less academically gifted ones went to agricultural college to learn to manage their estates, or joined the services or the clergy.) Now they pretty much all go to university (girls too, hurray). And so do kids from state schools, and no longer only the very brightest.
What I find with them is that they can be bright but have never been taught how to write properly. I’ve often been asked to help students tidy up their undergraduate dissertations and been seriously shocked at the atrocious writing, even of people I know to be very intelligent. (I soon realised I was giving them an unfair advantage and refused to help any longer. I’ve recently discovered that some lecturers know no better themselves.) In my own case, I could read and write competently, but as soon as I got to university I discovered how shockingly ignorant my so-called secondary education had left me. But then deportment, the ability to dance Scottish reels and the quickstep and to make polite small talk weren’t exactly valuable currency by then. ;)
This is all really an excuse to link to my favourite YouTube thing:
On that topic, this essay caught me eye:
http://www.johnlocke.org/acrobat/pope_articles/the_overselling_of_higher_education_report.pdf
…”there is reason to believe that the typical college graduate today is no better educated than was the typical high school graduate of
1955.”Yeah, those internet memes occasionally go around asking “Are you smarter than a 1930 fifth grader” with a copy of an old exam.
Problem is that education changed for a reason. A 1930 high school graduate was great if you wanted a robot for a factory (most jobs back then being industrial). Now you need somebody who can think beyond a step or two because now we have a services economy. Hence education needed to change. A 1930s high school student would get slaughtered by today’s exams too.
http://www.al-bab.com/default.htm
All about the Arab world.
I used to read it a while back and then forgot about it. Brian Whitaker is very knowledgeable, especially on Yemen.Trippy.
http://www.flightradar24.com/On a perpendicular note:
http://givemesexjesus.com/post/15472320540/heres-a-sneak-peak-at-the-documentary
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