I usually avoid politics on LibraryPlanet.com. I even have another place to write about them, but since that site needs some work done right now, I am going to break with my usual modus operandi and do it here. Dave Winer wrote a post yesterday, and in the proud tradition of Scripting News, it disappeared [...]
I was preparing to write about the recent events at the Montgomery County Public Library and the Newton Free Library, when as interesting as those stories, I came across this. bq.The would-be terrorist who threatened Brandeis University from a computer in the Newton library, far from relying on an expectation of privacy and the “right [...]
bq.The House appears likely to make main parts of the act permanent, but in what form remains unclear. The Rules Committee met into the night on Wednesday to consider dozens of amendments offered by Democrats to impose more limits on the government’s surveillance powers in terrorism investigations. Ultimately, the committee decided to include 20 of [...]
bq.Another successful landmark has been reached in our occupation of Iraq: The World Monuments Fund has just placed the country on its list of the Earth’s 100 most endangered sites. (“Widespread looting, military occupation, artillery fire, vandalism, and other acts of violence are devastating Iraq, long considered the cradle of human civilization.”) This is the [...]
Before today, I thought of Kings Cross Station as the place where the train ride in 4:50 from Paddington began. Or where Harry Potter and his fellow students got on the train to Hogwarts via Platform 9 3/4. From now on, it will always have a darker meaning.
We are having a staff meeting this morning so I took the opportunity to get up early and get dressed. Having a few extra minutes, I chose to go online. A quick look through my Live Bookmarks led me to Terrorist Acts in London. For the first few seconds, I thought it was a prediction [...]
A lot of frivolous and ridiculous charges have swirled over the events of that day ever since it happened. Popular Mechanics has taken a serious look and debunked them all.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory has a reputation for losing things. Incidents took place in 2000, 2002, and 2003. But things were even more serious in 2004. bq.In an announcement last Friday, the lab confirmed that “two items of Classified Removable Electronic Media (CREM) were discovered missing from the Weapons Physics Directorate” inside the lab [...]
I happened to be in the room earlier when some books were being unpacked. Among them was The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq. I flipped through it and thought it a rather unlikely account, but was not concerned about it. It was a short time later that I happened to read Alia’s [...]
A message for librarians: If you are going traveling anytime soon, be sure to leave the almanac back at the library in your reference collection. Update: or your fish, either.