Voting TaKtiX

Admin stuff, but readers using a Windows PC should read the bottom bit

Blogger and Blog-Spot are playing up, wrote a post about the cartoons; now displaying. Shouldn’t complain too much about a free service I guess, no idea what was wrong.

Anyway. We’re now syndicated on NewsNow, which I’ve been using as a source on breaking news for years. I’ve also added a lot of syndication buttons to the right; can’t personally recommend any of the services as a blog feedreader, I use LiveJournal, but they all seem to be popular. Open offer again; if anyone wants a LiveJournal syndication for their feed (which I recommend), email me with your feed address (matbowles at gmail dot com); we’ve got several regular readers through ours.

I plan to be reorganising the BlogRoll; I’d like to link to every political blog UK related, but, well, that’s going to be a huge, ever growing list. As search engines don’t like huge link lists (they treat you as a link farm), that’s Not Good. So I’ll be bringing the front page links down to about 50 (ish), and creating a spare page for the rest and the newly discovered. However…

50 is still too much display space, so I’ll be using the nice CSS coding that DK pointed us all towards awhileback and embedding the lists in menus. Unfortunately, this won’t work properly in Internet Explorer 6, which approximately 40% of readers to this site use.

Windows PC users

If you’re reading this website using a Windows PC, and you’ve not installed software of your own to browse the Web with, the odds are that you’re using the default software you get with every PC, called Internet Explorer (that little ‘e’ icon? That’s the one). Problem. It’s not very good to read the web with, doesn’t display many websites properly and is a lot more vulnerable to security attacks than other ‘browsers’ you can choose to use. Specifically, while I’ll always try to make sure you can read everything here, my coding skills aren’t up to much, so fixing what I’ve done so faulty software can read it will be hard work. Much better if you install a better browser, doing so is really easy. Trust me, I managed it.

There are many other options out there, the Too Cool for IE site lists a fair few, but I personally recommend FireFox. In fact, as a specific, if you click on the icon at the bottom of the google ads to the left, you can get a free, easy to install copy of FireFox and, when you first try it, Google will give me money. All you have to do is try it, once. Fair warning though, there are some privacy concerns with the Google version, explained here on The Snow in Summer, and here in a comment, but as I personally use Google - and Gmail - all the time, it’s one of those cost/benefit things, the quality of the product, to me, outweighs the concerns. You can get the free version directly from FireFox without the toolbar, but then I don’t get any money!

FireFox is easy to use, and has many useful features (such as tabbed browsing, pop up blocking, built in search bars) and can have optional plugins installed to do many, many things. If you try it, and want some help getting it working properly, feel free to mail me or comment here.

Of course, you may be forced to use Internet Explorer at work, in which case, you could do what I managed, and talk the IT guy into changing company policy, the security benefits were what won my argument, but simple speed and utility benefits would also help. But, if you’re at home on your own PC? Give it a go, nothing to lose except that little ‘e’ icon, the FireFox logo is much better anyway…

Biodun asks why we haven’t covered the cartoon fuss. Can’t speak for Paul, but given my reaction is similar to Nosemonkey’s, I’m guessing it’s because, well, the whole thing is so overblown and stupid. A small, right-wing Danish newspaper published some badly drawn, unfunny cartoons. An extremist cleric reprinted them into a booklet, alongside 3 fake cartoons that really were offensive, and circulated them in the Islamic world. Fuss happens, some people apologise, people proclaim it a ‘freedom of speech’ issue, more fuss happens, and extremists stoke up reactions. Owen muses:

I am offended when the Pope argues against using condoms in Africa, even though they would help to prevent the spread of AIDS. I am offended by the treatment of women by Christian and Islamic religious traditions. I am offended by the way that Judaism treats homosexuals. But just because I am offended by these things does not give me the right to prevent others from believing them, or to try to stop them from acting in accordance with their beliefs.

He’s right. You have the right to believe the moon is made of green cheese. I have the right to tell you you’re a fool. However, I have to bear in mind that, by doing so, I’m insulting you, so I’ll generally be careful how I say it, and the context. If sat in a seminar room, fine, if we’re in a pub, you’re drunk, and built like a brick shithouse, I’d be the fool for calling you out on your insane beliefs.

Just because you can publish something, doesn’t mean you should. Those media outlets that keep printing them are, now, provoking more reactions and feeding extremists on both sides. If anyone wants to look at them, they’re all over the place online. They’re not being censored, they’re not being repressed, they’re just bloody stupid, unfunny and crap. A lot of the complaints and furore is being caused by the aggressive obstinacy of the need to publish them.

Extremists have taken control; embassies are under attack (and I wonder how many of the attackers have seen the cartoons, and if so, were the fake ones included?), lunatic fringe organisations are protesting in London. Lest we forget, Hizb ut Tahir is on the Govts “We’ll ban them whent he legislation is passed” list of undesirable organisations, tis they organising the London marches.

Idiotic media types are stoking fires, dangerous extremists are stoking fires, and many of us are looking on and hoping the idiots will calm down.

I’d like to link to and quote from an article I wrote awhileback about the right to cause offense. I can’t, blogger and blog-spot are playing up. I am absolutely free to condemn religion. But generally I find it best not to do so in the face of an angry crowd who feel insulted, many of whom probably have no real knowledge of the actual issue, only what they’ve been told. Muslim extremists shouting about cartoons, Christian “voice” complaining about a musical they’d never even watched, all adherents to a misguided delusion that there is some higher power to which they owe their allegiance.

People matter, life matters. The whole world is just being bloody stupid. Calm down FFS.