“But one astonishing PR coup is getting the media to quote unquestioningly Scientology’s supposed membership figures: ten million worldwide, 120,000 of them in Britain. As I’ve shown elsewhere the 2001 Census revealed just 1781 Scientologists in England and Wales – less than 1.5% of the figure claimed by the Church. An official survey in America the same year estimated there were just 55,000 Scientologists in the USA, meaning that the world total can’t really be any higher than 100,000 – a little different from 10 million.”
—How Scientologists pressurise publishers | Books | guardian.co.uk
December 2008
64 posts
“TORONTO - Toronto City Council voted on Tuesday to ban the sale of plastic water bottles on all municipal premises from City Hall to golf courses by 2011. Stuart Green, spokesman for Toronto Mayor David Miller, said the plastic-water-bottle ban, along with other measures, is all part of the city’s plan to divert 70 per cent of Toronto’s waste from the dump by 2010. He added in conjunction with the plastic-water-bottle ban on municipal premises the city would upgrade drinking fountains to ensure Torontonians access to clean as safe drinking water.”
—Toronto bans water bottles
Inappropriate link ?
One of the things I’ve started doing with this site is having it auto update all the sites I mark to read later. I do this pretty indiscriminaetly using del.icio.us and instapaper, I then filter the rubbish out later. Inevitably not all of it is good, and some of the marked items I don’t want to read, let alone have anyone think I would recommend reading. I certainly wouldn’t want it to reflect badly on St Columba’s. So if occasionally a link pops up here that falls into that category I’m sorry. Please just ignore it. If its really bad let me know and I’ll take it down.
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Best of 2008 – Last.fm →
last.fm
While other annual retrospectives are based on editors’ picks or sales data, the Last.fm Best of 2008 list is based entirely on what the Last.fm community has been listening to this year and shows which artist, albums and tracks defined the musical landscape in 2008.
(PS - Scrobbling a song means that when you listen to it, the name of the song is sent to Last.fm and added to your music profile. My profile is here: http://www.last.fm/user/u17tw )
Best Book Covers of 2008 →
3.bp.blogspot.com
I lnked to this before but I really like this list of the best book covers of 2008.
This is my favourite.
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November 2008
148 posts
Nerdy art joke from The Onion
Best bit:
Magritte’s work has often been the subject of litigation, most notably in 2003 when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art filed a Treachery of Images charge against the artist’s estate after purchasing a piece by Magritte that was believed to be a pipe, but was later revealed not to be a pipe.
back at work now. im not good at being sick - i cant sit still long enough
