Sim-O

Mr Eugenides…

…this outbreak of blogospheric solidarity, to put it into context, is akin to the Russians and the Germans taking a time-out from slaughtering each other to erect a big sign in downtown Stalingrad telling everyone that Cary Grant was a poof.

(via Chicken Yoghurt, I think)

from: Britney Rowley
reply-to: rowleybritney@yahoo.co.uk
to:
date: 12 August 2009 02:19
subject:
From: Britney Rowley (Ms)
mailed-by : msn.com

Dear Friend,

I am Ms. Britney Rowley, a co-recording producer for late Michael Jackson the great legend King of Pop who has just passed away on June 25, 2009. While I was working with Mr. Jackson, he deposited some funds for charitable trust organizations with a secured private institution and up till date nobody knows about the existence of these funds.

Due to the recent crisis going on in Jackson’s family concerning his assets. The Jackson family is now searching for late Michael Jackson undiscovered properties and money which might lead to the discovery of these existing funds. My reason for writing you is that I have decided to retire and resettle and now want the money to be moved out of this institution to you, where you will receive it and keep it safe for me until I come over to meet with you there. I need a trustworthy business partner and friend who will advise me on proper investments in your country and how I can live comfortably. I have obtained and secured all back up documents to support whoever I chose as help to this money.

For your assistance and help in receiving and investing this money, you will benefit a reasonable part of the total money. I will give you my full contact details and I would appreciate it very much if you give me yours including your phone number where I can reach you. Please send your reply through my e-mail rowleybritney@yahoo.co.uk

Best regards,
Britney Rowley (Ms)

Thanks for the offer Ms Rowley, but I think Jackos’ assets should go to his family not me and you.

I am boycotting this years Total Politics Blogging Guide.
I’m not so deluded to think that this place is popular enough to get in and so me saying I’m not going to participate is a bit like saying ‘next week, I’m not going to walk on the moon’. The same amount of effort is required to achieve both.

But I am saying I want no part of it. Rather than just watch the poll happen and have no part in it, by not voting for anyone, although there is a fucking huge list of people that deserve a vote in a propor poll, and also by virtue of being part of that niche blog genre I like to term Rather Shite.

The reasons are two fold.

1. All the underhand techniques used by the Fail Dale to keep himself ‘right’ and the results of stuff like this poll with the right results.
   All that stuff is understandable. The blog is part of Iains’ revenue generation machine. It is a small part of his TV appearances, speaking engagements and publishing ‘things’. It may not actually generate revenue itself, apart from a small amount from Messagespace, but it is where people can find him, where Iain can show off his expertise, his knowledge.
   Iaian needs to be right on his blog, otherwise it will impact on his other areas. And a man’s gotta eat. Right? It may not be right, but it’s understandable. That’s business.
2. The second reason is because Iain Dale is a cunt.
   It’s one thing having a commentor leave a comment accusing someone of being a member of the Labour Party or refusing to engage in debate on neutral territory, so that you can’t control it, when you’ve been called on a point. It’s really childish to play the victim instead of just apologising for/removing the offending article. They’re relatively small things. Leave teh internets and these things disappear, or at the worst need a little explanation/can be laughed off.
   It’s a completely different when help is requested and offered but then not given and still insistent that it was. Especially when the help is to investigate proper, serious accusations and isn’t just a load of hot air but involve the Rozzers, in the real world.

So there you have it.
Who needs a rigged and flawed beauty contest anyway?

Guardian…

Shares in Phorm, the Aim-listed technology firm, have plunged after it emerged that BT has quietly pulled plans to roll out its controversial advertising system, which tracks the internet habits of customers and has been attacked as online snooping by privacy campaigners.

BT was a key player in the development of Phorm’s Webwise system, which uses information about which sites an internet user visits to target them with relevant advertising on subsequent pages. News that BT has in effect mothballed the technology sent shares in Phorm down 40% by lunchtime today.

Via Manic

From Project Hone Pot…

Regardless of how the rest of your day goes, here’s something to be happy
about — today one of your donated MXs helped to identify a previously
unknown email harvester (IP: 80.56.154.147). The harvester was
caught a spam trap email address created with your donated MX

It’s been a pretty good day today and this just made it a teeny bit better.

As one of the many editors of the the Sun Lies I thought it would be an idea to be on the mailing list of Jon Gaunt and odious columnist with the Sun and now presenter of SunTalk, their 2 hour daily internet radio show.

I just received an email from it, and I think they’re trying to tell me something…

That’s it. Just unsubscribing info.
/gets coat

Iain Dale has posted about Mark Thomas’ campaign to send the Queen postcards urging the Queen not to give Maggie Thatcher a state funeral.

Iains’ post is entitled ‘The Disgusting Face Of The Left‘.

Well, Maggie can have a nice dignified funeral, just not one paid for by me.

Teh disgusting face of the left? How about milk, Pinochet, neo-liberalism, selling national assets, poll tax, Mark Thatcher, Carol Thatcher and numerus other fucking shit?
Never mind the latest wheeze from those Caring Conservatives, the minimum wage opt-out.

Cunts, the lot of them.

Phorm have got a bit of an image problem. That is one thing that everyone can agree on. So what do they do about it? They hire a Patrick Robertson…

Hmm. This couldn’t be the same Patrick Robertson who first came to prominence in 1995 as the technologically-challenged spin doctor of arms dealing perjurer Jonathan Aitken MP, could it? That Patrick Robertson had a little trouble operating his fax machine, and his collywobbles about his boss’ political prospects found their way into the papers.

Could be…

And this couldn’t be the same Patrick Robertson who went on to run the PR operation for right wing billionaire Sir James Goldsmith’s Referendum Party, could it? The party contested the 1997 general election on a single issue platform of crazed warnings of an imminent “federal European super-state”.

Possibly…

And this couldn’t be the same “PR guru” Patrick Robertson who orchestrated the £200,000 campaign by Tory grandees against the extradition of ex-Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet, could it?

In 1998 a Spanish judge asked Britain to send Pinochet over for a chat about the thousands of dissidents who were “disappeared” under his bloody rule. This didn’t go down well with Thatcher-era Tories, who viewed him as a fellow free marketeer, and were grateful for his support of the war in the Falklands, which saved their collective skin in the 1983 general election.

Among those prominent Pinochet-defenders? Give us a wave, Phorm chairman Norman Lamont

Well…

Unbelievably, yes it can.

There’s lots of stats on the Messagespace site. So I’ve just spent the evening looking through the list of Messagespace advert publishers according to Messagespace, all 35 of them, looking for more stats.

Just out of curiosity, like.

And what did I find?

On the 35 publishers there were:

• 45 advert spaces
• 36 visible adverts for Messagespace.
• 1 publisher had 2 visible adverts served by Messagespace (advertising Messagespace) also had 10 other Messagespace codeblocks, but not showing ads on the page (I don’t know why, I didn’t look that closely)
• 3 publishers listed on the Messagespace site had no adverts showing or any Messagespace code in the source code
• the two magazines were advertising themselves
• erm. That’s about it

I’m not going to do any percentages cos it’s late and I can’t be arsed now, but 36 ads for the ad server on 35 publishers with 46 ad spaces. What is it? Some sort of ad world Ponzi scheme*? How many of these 800,000 users** are gonna need the services of an internet advertising network?

The raw data (.xls) (it doesn’t tell you anything I haven’t already)

*I’m not implying there is something illegal is being done, but all those bloggers advertising the ad agency that’s serving them ads? Where is all this money coming from?
**A bit of a contentious issue is figures

Thinking of putting ads on your blog? Thinking of using Messagespace?

Wait!

Do you really want to associate yourself with any of this stuff?