From Cork to Toronto

Slashdot discusses the Wall Street Journal's reporting on the vanishing of fact-checking in publishing , following the Oprah-James Frey controversy. Apparently publishers don't make enough money to check facts and the publisher of Frey's book was lauded for "taking one for the team" following Oprah's tongue-lashing . This all makes criticisms of Wikipedia , which survives on donations, rather amusing in their ferocity when the so-called professionals aren't doing it and the printed word is much harder to amend once released. This is not to say Wikipedia shouldn't get it right and keep doing so, merely that relying on the word of Doubleday as a primary reference source doesn't seem safe either. The Minneapolis-St Paul StarTribune reminds us of their 2003 reporting of questions about Frey's book which makes the publisher's defence rather less tenable. The verdict from one Slashdot user: "Money has a strong influence on the weak minde...

It beats pestering the Letters editors of the various Toronto and Irish newspapers with my spleen I suppose. Never thought this blog thing would keep going - in fact now I've given in and started one seems like about time it died... back in the days of Mosaic it was so much harder to interest people in Tim Berners-Lee 's invention and now you can't pry them off it. There's just too many things that just bug me - especially during this federal election campaign as I still have taxation without representation, (roll on 2008) but even if I did have a vote, there's just no place for a socially liberal fiscal conservative. The lunatics have taken over the asylum . The incumbents are floundering and attempting to buy off all and sundry, forgetting that's what got them in trouble in the first place. Then there's the other crowd who constantly display their schizophrenia, really wanting to be fluffy bunnies but unwilling to forgo their buddies in Big Auto , ...