For this edition of Linkage I have a roundup of excellent posts from the smaller blogs in the World section of my blogroll, inspired by Hidden Unities’ “Simply The Best” and Strategist’s “Snapshots,” etc.

First up is Eddie at Hidden Unities, with posts on child soldiers - Children at War Part I, Part II, and Part […]

Africa, Black globalization, Linkage, Failed states, World | 4 Comments »

Protest at the dawn service
The dawn service in Wellington this morning, as described in the previous post, was a moving and solemn ceremony. There was only one thing that marred it: the protesters. From our vantage point all we could see were the two large banners, but the writing on them didn’t stand […]

Police, Wellington, Politics, Personal | 10 Comments »

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon, “For the Fallen”

Leanne and I left for the Dawn Service at about 5:30 this morning. We turned up to find […]

Culture, Wellington, Personal, New Zealand | 5 Comments »

Boris Yeltsin, the first President of the Russian Federation, died yesterday aged 76. Rather than start from scratch, I’ll begin this post with quotes from the best obituaries I’ve seen so far. First up, Not PC:
Yeltsin brought a measure of political freedom, for a time, but economic freedom and fuller supermarkets proved somewhat […]

Europe, Empire, World | 1 Comment »

Keith Ng has a chilling report from one of the world’s forgotten but bloody civil wars - the endless LTTE campaign for Tamil independence in Sri Lanka.
“The Future. Today.” boasts a rusty billboard in Batticaloa.
The coastal town in Sri Lanka’s troubled eastern province is at the centre of a renewed military campaign to drive out […]

Catastrophes, Development, Failed states, Non-state actors, South Asia | 5 Comments »

Pacific internet domains like .tk (Tokelau), .tv (Tuvalu), .ws (Samoa) and .nu (Niue) and .to (Tonga) are among the worst domains in terms of for online fraud, spam, malware and viruses, a survey has found. Many Pacific domains are cheap or free, and most are administered by foreign companies. Niue has accused the […]

Technology, Pacific | 1 Comment »

An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Robert A. Heinlein
Because it’s always the right time to quote Heinlein…
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what […]

Quotable, Politics, Art, Technology | 6 Comments »

Pacific Empire reader Chris asked a very pertinent question last week, after reading my Wikipedia profile, in which I declare that I am a
Speciesist (intelligence is special, so humans are more important than animals)
Chris asks,
I would like to know why you think intelligence is “special” and also what you mean by that. And if, as […]

Culture, Personal | 6 Comments »

I believe that drugs should be legal. All drugs. Thats why I was extremely amused by the following drug-smuggling excuse story. It’s ridiculous, but then, drug laws which lock people up for victimless crimes are ridiculous too.
An accused New Zealand drug smuggler says he brought ephedrine into Australia not to make illicit […]

Police, Black globalization | 11 Comments »

IHT: 300,000 protest Islamic hue of Turkish system

ANKARA, Turkey: Tens of thousands of people filled the central streets of Turkey’s capital on Saturday to protest what they see as an increasingly Islamic tint to their government… News reports said demonstrators numbered as many as 300,000, an unexpectedly high turnout for a gathering that was initially […]

Islam, Middle East | 3 Comments »