Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its condition is improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are illusional spin from the liberal media. Illuminating rooms is hard work. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effort. Why do you hate freedom?



According to Romenesko:

"George Herbert Walker Bush is Deep Throat," says author
"Deep Truth" author Adrian Havill explains in a Romenesko letter why George H.W. Bush would have it out for Richard Nixon. "When I presented this theory to Len Garment, a former Nixon aide he demurred, saying that Bush wasn't the type of daredevil to skulk around in underground garages," says Havill. "Perhaps, but then who would have figured the former President to go skydiving in his eighties."



Seems like it's happening all over. In the middle of our own cull of the newsroom floor, something like 90 editorial jobs are to go over at the Daily Telegraph. One in six of the journalistic staff, apparently.

Here, meanwhile, things seem to have resolved themselves pretty well for me. Turns out they won't let me go this time around, which I'd sort of expected, but held out the possibility that a similar arrangement might be on the cards later in the year, after the new editorial system is bedded in.



Thanks to my colleague John Mason for this: "Students of unconvincing radio God-slots may have appreciated this morning’s Radio Two offering on world peace - "..we should hope that President Bush follows the example of Nelson Mandela...."

Yes.... this would be just the place for him.



And, it turns out the damage inflicted by these cost the equivalent of $490.


Finally, for those of you who have read Simon Hoggart's book of unintentionally hilarious roundrobin letters, the genre has leaked into the blogosphere... here's one completely at random.
Somehow the words "the drama unfolds" are starting to sound like "..but meanwhile offstage everything was falling apart" (copyright VH1 Behind The Music).

I honestly thought this was a spoof when I came across it, so apologies....


Have a nice weekend!

Today's High Court ruling in the WSJ Online's libel case has, simply, huge implications for online publishing.

In short, it tears up the notion of general publication as being actionable. Now it seems the legal watermark is publication plus an audience deemed large enough to have any impact.

Surely this raises more questions than it answers. Who decides how many people have to read a piece to make it defensible? Does it matter what size the potential audience might be? How does anyone know that the five people who read the article weren't, say, clients of the plaintiff, and as such his professional reputation may have been fundamentally damaged more by that limited exposure than by a broader, less influential audience?

And also, if the ruling is dependent on technological criteria such as the number of page views of the story in question, how can anyone know that the five people who read the story didn't copy it and circulate it via email to a million others?

I, for example, only read the details of the court case in a forwarded email.

Here's how it was reported in The Guardian today:

Libel action lost because only five people read story
Thursday February 03 2005
The Guardian

A high court judge today overturned a libel ruling against a newspaper's online operations because technical investigations had shown that only five people in the UK had read the story in question.

The ruling in favour of the Wall Street Journal's American publisher, Dow Jones, has been hailed as a "major development in English law".

Dow Jones' successful appeal related to an original judgment in favour of Saudi businessman Yousef Jameel, who had sued for libel over a story on the Wall Street Journal Online website that falsely linked him to funding al-Qaida.

The high court today accepted Dow Jones' argument that the case was a waste of the court's time because it transpired that only five people had read the article. This is because, unlike printed newspapers, online newspapers can tell how many times any given story has been opened by a remote user.

The proceedings related to a story headlined "War on Terror. List of Early al Qaeda donors points to Saudi elite, charities", which included an interactive link to the so-called list of donors, which included Mr Jameel's name.

Lord Phillips said today there must be a substantial number of hits on a website to merit court action, otherwise proceedings amounted to an abuse of process.

Mr Jameel's lawyers said he began legal proceeding in the belief that the website had between 5,000-6,000 subscribers in the UK, according to Dow Jones' marketing information. It was not until later that it emerged that only five people had looked at the story.

The Wall Street Journal's lawyer, Mark Stephens, said the ruling has introduced a new substantiality test because it contrasted with a previous ruling in Australia that awarded damages against an online publication even though only nine people had read the article.

Somehow, this just looks wrong.....

Good luck and thanks for everything.


(Happy birthday, Mark. It wasn't what I was planning to get you but something I knew you need....!)

oh, the humanity...


Fan melee erupts at girls basketball game at Alabama high school, stun-guns fired (AP Photo pursuing)

PRATTVILLE, Alabama (AP) A fight broke out in the stands of a girls high school basketball game, prompting police to fire Tasers to stop it and clear the gym, authorities said. Nine people face charges.

Arrest warrants were issued for three adults and six juveniles, including three teens taken into custody Tuesday night, District Attorney Randall Houston said Thursday. Among the charges were assault, disorderly conduct and refusing to obey an officer, he said.

Witnesses said Tuesday night’s melee, involving dozens of fans, began in an upper deck and spilled onto the floor. It was apparently sparked by an earlier dispute between students of the two rival schools, Prattville and Stanhope Elmore.

Police hit some participants with Tasers, which can incapacitate a person with an electrical jolt, Police Chief Alfred Wadsworth said.

The fight was captured on video and shown on television.

‘‘People were screaming and running,’’ Prattville cheerleader Cherish Cartee said. ‘‘Girls lost their cell phones. Keys got lost. It’s something I will never forget.’’


And, elsewhere in the South:

AP 1 US Sherry WOMAN ACCUSED OF KILLING HUSBAND WITH SHERRY ENEMA



Fiction? maybe... Andy Borowitz is consistently funny.


Finally, brightening up your boring business section this evening....

The new chairman of China Telecom is Mr Wang. No confirmation that it is really Dr Dow (who of course played Mr Wang in this ...)

Crypt-o-blog today. Lots of "this's"... bear with me.


Phew! back again after playing what felt like a starring role in this.. (and I don't mean any of the cool, spy-related stuff...)

And this is fun. Isn't the web great? Isn't the world weird? Doesn't this guy have any patients??

As if regular decay wasn't enough, a friend of mine had to go and mistreat her person with one of these...

(and don't you just love a recipe that has as its ingredients "1 cup Vodka, 1 packet Gummi Bears")


Interesting piece by Timothy Noah in Slate yesterday - well, the 'newsy' part of the argument anyway. Surprised no-one else seems to have picked up on the money part.


And talking of stuff I've missed over the last couple of days, this is just great. Damn, I missed my calling... should've taken that job on Page Six...


Respectfully, of course, the news from the Vatican last night reminded me of a time last year when one of the guys on the desk overheard us talking as he was putting together his newslist. "The Pope's dead?", he said.

"No, Bob Hope's dead," we said.

"Who's Bob Hope?" came the sad, sad reply....


On a sort of related note, this typo from PA the other night:

JACKO TRIAL STARTS WITH SEARCH FOR UNBIASED JURORS
The tortuous task of finding 12 jurors who can ignore everything they have read about Michael Jackson began in a California court today and could last for a month.
The fallen king of pope arrived for the start of his child-molestation trial in Santa Maria to be greeted by a crowd of fans shouting encouragement...