How many blogs does the world need?
Good article on TIME.com
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1860888,00.html
People had been predicting it for years, and in 2008, it finally happened. This was the first presidential election dominated by the Internet. Those ancient debates about whether the Internet lowers journalistic standards and drags the Mainstream Media into the slime have become irrelevant. For a large chunk of the electorate–the young chunk–the Internet has become the major source of information.
But while the chin pullers can hold their symposiums about the quality of that information, it’s the quantity that’s truly remarkable–and oppressive. Way back in 2004, when we last held an election, no one was complaining that there wasn’t enough to see or read on the Internet. And that was before YouTube, Politico, Huffington Post, Twitter and Facebook became daily or hourly necessities for millions. In 2004 newspaper websites were still mostly “shovelware”–the paper edition reproduced. They weren’t bloated with blogs and video and interviews with the reporters who wrote the story. But now everyone has a blog. The opportunity for us all to express an opinion is wonderful. Having to read all those opinions isn’t. In 2004 there were probably still more people reading blogs than writing them. Not so now, or so it seems. And even if most blogs are skippable, there are one or two or maybe two dozen worth checking out a couple of times–or maybe three or four times–a day just to be sure you’re not missing anything. (See the Top 25 blogs.)
Then there are the sites that are supposed to help you sort the wheat from the chaff on all the other sites. They filter out the stories you can ignore, and they aggregate the ones they think you should read. Some have computer algorithms to do their sorting, while others induce readers themselves to do the heavy lifting. Sixty-three percent of those who enjoyed a story about cannibalism in suburban Paris, it turns out, recommend another story about werewolves in Rio de Janeiro. Hey, better check it out.
Fine. But aggregation has become a hall of mirrors. “Did you see Romenesko this morning? Yeah, very interesting. He’s got a link to a piece in LA Observed that links to a column on the London Times website where this guy says that a Russian blogger is saying that Obama will make Sarah Palin Secretary of State.”
“Wow. Sounds true. Where did the Russian guy get it?”
“He says it was in Romenesko.”
And if readers are suffering from information overload, imagine the new life of political writers. First, they have to be totally up to speed to make sure that some blogger or newspaper competitor hasn’t already made the point or reported the factlet that they intend to write about. Second, they have to be fast, fast, fast to beat that other fellow to the punch. This has always been true in journalism and used to be considered part of the fun. But it’s less fun when half the people in the world could now be that other fellow.
Third, while an article a day used to be a typical reporter’s quota (or in the leisurely precincts of newsmagazines, an article a week), reporters are now expected to blog 24/7 as well. Not only that, they must perpetually update their stories, as in the old days of multiple newspaper editions. And they may well be handed a voice recorder and/or webcam and told to file audio and video too. Meanwhile, they are glancing over their shoulder and awaiting the Grim Reaper from HR with word of the latest round of layoffs.
How many blogs does the world need? There is already blog gridlock. When the Washington Post editorial page started a blog before this year’s conventions, participants (I was one) were told: Don’t forget that the Post political staff also has a complete set of blogs. It wasn’t clear what we were supposed to do about this, but the implication was that there are only so many aperçus to go around, so don’t be greedy.
The great thing about blogs, in my view, is that they share the voice of e-mail. It’s a genuinely new literary form, which, at its best, combines the immediacy of talking with the reflectiveness of writing. But many readers may be reaching the point with blogs and websites that I reached long ago with the Sunday New York Times Magazine–actively hoping there isn’t anything interesting in there because then I’ll have to take the time to read it.
Low Cost Airlines in Europe negative trend
Latest available figures for eight of Europe’s biggest LCCs shows that only three of them (easyJet, Norwegian and Ryanair) reported increased passenger numbers in November compared with the previous year. Aer Lingus which had reported growth in its short-haul markets in October saw traffic slip by just over 1% in November.
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| Source: Airline websites, UK CAA |
SkyEurope, which was still growing in September, saw traffic down over 20% in November as load factors fell below 70%. However, Vueling’s traffic was down over 25% in both October and November, though its financial results are improving significantly.
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| Source: Airline websites, AENA, UK CAA |
Load factors continued to fall in October and November as is traditional for European carriers. Vueling and clickair (based on its Barcelona routes) had the lowest load factors while easyJet was the only LCC to report a load factor of better than 80% in November.
On a positive note seven of nine airlines reported higher load factors in November compared with the previous year with Norwegian’s seat occupancy rate down just 0.6 percentage points and SkyEurope down only 1.2 percentage points. In September only easyJet had reported an improvement in year-on-year load factor.
Vilnius may no longer be European Capital of Culture for 2009
Due to the recent economic crisis, the government wants to cut back costs, and one of the main cost cutting measures may be the reduction by half of the European Capital of Culture 2009 budget.
According to The Baltic Times:
VILNIUS- Vilnius may have to give up its title as European Capital of Culture 2009, as parliament may decide to cut funding.
The director of the project said she expected 40 million litas. Now the parliament is considering only spending 20 million or nothing at all.
“If, indeed, we receive 20 million litas instead of the planned 40 million, I tell you very responsibly, that this sum will not bring Vilnius European Capital of Culture into existence,” director Elona Bajoriniene told news portal alfa.lt.
Vilnius is the first culture capital of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States. Vilnius was to share the culture title with Linz, Austria.
Latvia receives IMF money - GDP could contract by 10%
RIGA- International Monetary Fund Managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn detailed a 7.5 billion euro stabilization package agreed between the IMF and the Latvian.A press release from the IMF headquarters said that the plan still needs approval from management and executive boards, but that the 7.5 billion euro is a multinational stabilization package. It also includes a 27 month standby arrangement for 1.7 billion euro.
Contributing to the package are World Bank with 400 million euro, Czech Republic with 200 million euro and Estonia and Poland each contributing 100 million euro.
The EU’s contribution is still waiting approval which will be voted on mid January.
On Dec. 20, local and international economists expressed their shock at the large size of the package.
“It is much larger than anyone expected, equivalent to around half of Latvia’s external financing requirement,” Neil Shearing of London-based Capital Economics explained to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
contract by 10 per cent,” Shearing said.
Should shopping be a patriotic duty?
 Politicians and central bankers in the UK and across the world are battling to get you to spend more money on non-essential items so lack of demand does not send the global economy into freefall.
But even in the current hard times there are still dissenting voices who want to use this opportunity to tackle consumerism once and for all. They say our love of stuff we often don’t really need and can’t afford is what got us into this mess in the first place. Shopping became our god and must be toppled, they say. At the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty of people who will stick up for shopping - as something to cheer us up when we are down, as a social activity, as an assertion of freedom and as the “vice” that could save us. THE ANTI-CONSUMERISM CAMPAIGNER Neil Boorman, author of Bonfire of the Brands, an account of his rejection of a way of life dominated by branded goods, has made a film to support Buy Nothing Day, an annual protest against consumerism. “There are millions of choices available to us consumers. But the one choice we seem to have lost is the choice not to shop,” says Mr Boorman, who believes it’s become “economic heresy” to stop spending. “Consumer confidence, so the government tells us, is vital for the recovery of the economy. A splurge at M&S’s one-day sale is the socially responsible thing to do, like buying bonds in the war.” Habits of the good consumer - Neil Boorman’s video Mr Boorman believes we have an absolute right to save rather than spend. After all, we worked hard to earn the money. “Let’s be clear what economists mean by the term ‘consumer confidence’ - it is the willingness of the public to spend money on luxury items - essentially products that we don’t really need.” And while shoppers have racked up £1.5 trillion of personal debt, they have little to show for it, he argues. “New cars halve in value the minute we drive them out the showroom, most gadgets become outdated or breakdown soon after their guarantee expires and clothes are virtually worthless once they’re worn. These luxuries are all very exciting when we are carrying them home from the shops, but as investments they’re worse bets than Woolworth’s shares. Essentially, we are being ripped off.” Mr Boorman wants us all to take a holiday from the shops on International Buy Nothing Day, this Saturday.
“Imagine if we all made a lasting commitment to consuming less - we could pay off those credit cards, save money, even spend less time at work. Faced with the choice - a new car or a four-day week - I know which I would choose. "As an anti-consumerism campaigner, I’m frequently labelled as irresponsible when I encourage people to stop shopping. But the government is being much more reckless, when they ask us to shop our way out of the crash.” Over-consumption is also the root cause of environmental destruction, says Mr Boorman. “If ever there was a time to rethink our reliance upon consumerism, when the economic rules are being re-written, it would be now. And it’s worth remembering that we used to enjoy a buy nothing day every week of the year. It was called Sundays.” THE SHOPPING GURU Lucia van der Post founded the Financial Times’ glossy magazine How To Spend It more than a decade ago. An upcoming edition will feature a defence of shopping penned by her. Now freelance, she has been advising people on how to pleasurably use their money since the 1970s. “I have never written about stuff that I just thought was mindless luxury,” she says. “And I was never one for persuading people to spend money they didn’t have. Micawber had it right. It’s miserable to get into debt.”
But the fact remains, she says, that in a capitalist society, people should be able to spend money - that they’ve earned and paid tax on - on whatever they like. “Fun is an essential to us all - as essential as food and water,” she notes. “I am fundamentally libertarian. I will never be able to afford a yacht but I like to live in a world where some people have yachts. Do we want a world where no-one knows how to make a yacht or a fine watch?” The UK is a country that has its fair share of people who look down their nose at the idea of enjoying shopping for non-essentials and spending large sums of money while doing it. “Conspicuous consumption? It’s when the other guy spends more than you.” But while shopping for non-essentials can be viewed as frivolous activity, there’s an argument it connects us to the places we go.
“If you go to a place like India and you don’t shop you don’t engage with the local culture,” says Ms Van der Post. And for some, shopping can also be viewed as an assertion of freedom in a capitalist liberal democracy. “The way of austerity and only buying things we strictly need leads to Cambodia under Pol Pot, Afghanistan under the Taleban or China under Mao,” she concludes. THE RETAIL WRITER Amanda Ford, author of Retail Therapy: Life Lessons Learned While Shopping, has a lot of sympathy for the anti-consumerism campaigners. “When we spend money on things that we do not need, or for that matter, really even want, we are contributing to a system that negatively impacts our physical environment, our political and social landscapes, and - most importantly, I would argue - our spiritual development.”
But the answer is to be found in shopping more intelligently she suggests. “There is absolutely no joy to be found in mindless shopping. Less truly is more. When it comes to consumption, bigger is not better. "Does this mean we should shove our money under the mattress and run around wearing clothes crafted of twigs and leaves from our back yards? No. "I don’t think we need to stop shopping altogether in order to cure our consuming culture, but we do need to shop differently.” The idea of lives ruled by shopping and a love of things must be stopped, Ms Ford suggests. “We must stop purchasing things because we are bored, lonely, stressed or simply going through the motions of obligation and routine. We must support small, local shopkeepers, artisans and farmers. We must buy things that will serve a distinct purpose in our lives for years, not just keep us entertained for a season.” People should continue shopping, but do it with the state of the world at the back of their minds. “We must not be afraid to our spend our money. Money is a tremendous force and even a little bit has power to create positive change. "Every time you shop, ask yourself, 'Does this purchase support or negate the type of change I want to see in the world? Is this purchase life-affirming or soul-draining.’ Then take a deep breath, centre yourself and listen. I think you will know your answer.” THE PSYCHOLOGIST For Michael Gutteridge, a business and social psychologist, shopping can act as a motivational activity. In the UK, where people work long hours and lead stressful lives, shopping can be a way of rewarding oneself.
“If people don’t get rewarded by their colleagues or their bosses they give themselves a reward. "It’s about boosting your self-esteem and giving yourself a reward. We want to lift our mood,” says Mr Gutteridge. And in these times of atomised families, shopping has become an important social event. “It’s reinforcing shared social behaviour. You see families at shopping centres - it’s like an outing. You spend the day there and you have a meal there.” THE ECONOMIST And the most stark argument against stopping the shopping comes from Prof John Sloman, director of the Economics Network, the Economics subject centre of the Higher Education Academy, based at the University of Bristol. The consequences of us completely ceasing to purchase non-essentials would mean that the people who create them would be out of work and unable to even purchase essentials. Even if you were to take an anti-consumerist stance, a short sharp shock to the system would be a catastrophic way of achieving your goals, he suggests. “It’s a bit like a drug. If you suddenly come off a drug you have cold turkey. You have to wean people off after many years. If you have a sudden shock you are going to get serious problems - high unemployment, certain sectors going into freefall.” |
The way of austerity and only buying things we strictly need leads to Cambodia under Pol Pot, Afghanistan under the Taleban or China under Mao 
Station bridges Iberian divide - now they just have to settle the bill
It was a problem that set two neighbouring countries - old rivals doing their best to be friends - at one another’s throats.
Spain and Portugal both wanted a new high-speed train line to link their capitals, Madrid and Lisbon. They even agreed that one of the handful of stations along the route should be between the border cities of Badajoz, Spain, and Elvas, Portugal, which are just 9 miles (14km) apart.
But where should the station go? The Portuguese declared it must be on their side of the frontier. The Spaniards demanded it be on their soil. The deadlock was such that two stations, one on either side of the frontier, were proposed, but that was not just expensive, it would also have slowed the 220mph trains and pushed the total journey time between the cities above the three hour target.
Now Spain and Portugal have reached a compromise. The new station will be in both countries.
Architects and engineers have been told to come up with a design that will see Badajoz-Elvas international station straddle the border. Planners say the station will be a unique monument to a Europe without borders.
“This way everyone feels as if it is their own,” said the president of Spain’s Extremadura region, Guillermo Fernández Vara, after reaching an agreement with the Portuguese transport minister Mário Lino Soares.
One major problem is still to be overcome. The frontier is marked by the murky waters of the River Caya. As a result, the station will have to incorporate a bridge.
“One part [of the station] could be on top of the river, one part on this side and another on that side,” Fernández suggested.
Spain opened its first high-speed rail line in 1992. The country’s prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero boasts it will soon have the biggest network in Europe, outdoing neighbouring France. By 2020 it aims to have 6,200 miles (10,000km) of high-speed track laid so that 90% of Spaniards are within 30 miles of a station.
This week’s agreement opens the way for the Lisbon-Madrid line to be completed within two years and provides a high-speed station for one of western Europe’s poorer areas, combining Extremadura with Portugal’s Alentejo.
The politicians, however, may be storing up an even greater problem. Which country is going to pay for the station? Or, rather, how much should each pay?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/29/spain-portugal-train-line
Anti-Bologna movement spreads in Spain
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Opposition to the Bologna Process, an EU-inspired series of university and college reforms, has expanded substantially across Spain in recent weeks, as students protest, occupy school buildings and even block rail lines.
In the last week, demonstrations and occupations have in particular stepped up in Madrid with sit-ins taking over faculties or otherwise protesting at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), the rectorate of the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) and University of Alcalá de Henares northeast of the capital.
Actions have also taken place in Valencia, Seville and further afield. In Barcelona, students blocked railway lines. The Bologna Process has also provoked significant student opposition in Italy, Finland and Croatia.
Protests against the reform of European higher education have rolled across the continent in the past year, with students attacking the Bologna Process as a way to commercialise public universities and impose an Anglo-Saxon style tertiary education system on other countries.
But the protests in Spain have been more militant than in other EU member states and other countries participating in the reforms.
The Bologna Process bills itself as a series of changes to post-secondary education that are primarily intended to ease mobility for both students and academics.
A recent survey by the Erasmus Student Network revealed that only 58 percent of Erasmus students (the European post-secondary student exchange programme) are receiving recognition for all the courses they take abroad. The Bologna Process aims to fix this problem.
The process kicked off in 1999, when the EU’s four largest member states, France, Germany, Italy and the UK, said they wanted to see a harmonised higher eduction system “which has been a bit of a jigsaw puzzle,” according to John MacDonald, the European Commission’s education, training and culture spokesman.
The heart of the process is twofold: the development of a system of credits for both academic learning, and the design of a common degree structure for university education. A similar mechanism is also under way for vocational training – the Copenhagen Process.
The common structure that was chosen is partially modelled on the Anglo-American three-cycle Bachelor’s-Master’s-Doctorate system.
The process has been so popular amongst governments not just in Europe, but well beyond, with 46 states signing up. Australia, Israel and Thailand have even expressed interest.
Intergovernmental agreements
The EU itself has no competence in the realm of education and the Bologna Process was not based on any EU initiative or legislation, but rather through a series of intergovernmental agreements. However, despite this, the European Commission plays an increasingly key role in the implementation of the process.
But students argue that while it may be popular amongst politicians, it is this very intergovernmental level bargaining that has produced the reform mechanisms that has left them out of the loop.
Students in Spain fear that the streamlining of education systems is being done more for the sake of employers’ than their. They are strongly critical of allowing companies to fund certain degrees, saying this commercialises public universities.
They are also worried that in a country with few grants and no loans, changes increasing class hours and boosting the number of assessments, they will no longer be able to work to support themselves while they study.
Additionally, they are frustrated by the decision to introduce the Anglo-American system, in which they will now have to obtain a pricey master’s degree to win the same recognised level of educational achievement as previously with just one degree.
John MacDonald told this news site that the Bologna Process is solely a curricular reform, “but some governments have chosen to use the impetus of the Bologna Process to institute other changes over funding and governance at the same time.”
“It is more these aspects they are protesting over. Despite all you hear about the demonstrations and so on being anti-Bologna, the irony is that aspects that they are opposed to have nothing to do with the process,” he said.
“They’re not really anti-Bologna as such, it’s about the governance changes,” which, as the European Commission has no competence in education and the Bologna Process is entirely voluntary, he underscored that such changes were up to the governments themselves.
Greek riots
Some of the students have been emboldened in recent days by the ongoing youth revolt in Greece.
Mr MacDonald underscored that European institutions did attempt to take youth concerns into account into every policy area, but added that he is worried that there was something of a disconnect between political leaders and Europe’s youth.
“Speaking to young people, through the European Youth Forum for example,” he said, “we find that prominent amongst their concerns is fear of unemployment - it’s double the rate of unemployment amongst older workers. Greece after Spain has the highest levels of youth unemployment in Europe.”
“They’ve lost a sense of social belonging. There’s a strong feeling of alienation from the society around them.”
“If we have a reaction to what’s happening in Greece, the French riots a few years ago and to a lesser extent in Spain - of course we don’t endorse the violent actions, but that said, there’s clearly a signal being sent that politicians need to be paying better attention to the concerns of young people.”
Montenegro Formally Seeks EU Accession
Montenegro has submitted a formal application for European Union membership at a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said in Paris.
Montenegro, a nation of around 650,000 people, took its first concrete step towards EU accession during a meeting with Sarkozy on Monday, Dec. 15.
“We are aware that we are now facing a phase that will be difficult, but we are ready to work with our partners and deal with all the challenges that we will encounter,” Djukanovic said.
“By taking this step, Montenegro commits itself to the accession process and the building of a united Europe which is a strategic goal in which the founders of the European Community invested their vision and commitment,” the government press office said earlier in a statement.
The move by Podgorica is expected to add impetus to EU membership bids by other Balkan states such as Albania and Serbia.
Montenegro recently split from Serbia
Djukanovic also met in Paris with EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, who had gone on record last week saying that Montenegro still had a lot of ground to cover before it could join the EU.
“It is now up to the council (of Europe) and the presidency to decide the course to take. I can tell you that the commission is ready to prepare an opinion on the candidacy of Montenegro,” Rehn had said when the Montenegrin government first announced its intentions last Thursday.
Montenegrin growth
A former Yugoslav republic, Montenegro has posted an average growth of eight percent since 2006, when it ended its union with Serbia.
Montenegro already uses the euro, but is not a formal member of the euro zone. It signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the EU in October 2007.
Around 43 percent of people in the Adriatic nation consider themselves as ethnic Montenegrin, with Serbs making up 25-30 percent of the population and Bosnians 7.7 percent.
Some 74 percent of Montenegrins say they belong to the Orthodox Church, with Islam as the second largest religion at 18 percent.
The European Commission is also said to be preparing itself for an EU bid from Iceland. The commission is “mentally prepared” for a membership proposal from Iceland early in 2009, and negotiations could be swift because the island state already has such close ties with Europe, Rehn said last week.