No geek
is an island

I remember an old file on CIX that used to have a big list of blonde jokes, but Steve at For Love Nor Money seems to have found the best blonde joke yet.

Two choice selections from Wednesday’s paper. First, in the corrections column, the paper withdraws an entire story:

We said in error that the rap artist 50 Cent is billed to appear in a Sunderland pub on February 29. Neither the performance nor the date will take place. The next leap year is 2008.

Goodness knows how they managed that but the words “press” and “release” and the phrase “cut and paste” spring to mind. Meanwhile, Simon Hoggart on Mark Oaten’s chances:

The reason why [Lembit] is backing Mark’s campaign may be because it is slightly more likely that a heavenly body will destroy all life on earth than that his candidate will become leader of the Lib Dems.

OpenURL COinS (ContextObjects in Spans) is “a simple, ad hoc community specification for publishing OpenURL references in HTML”. It uses the <span> element to hold OpenURL information. This has potential uses for creating links to cited articles, especially on free publishing platforms.

For details on the specification, see ocoins.info.

Rob Fenwick has set up the following pledge:

“I will donate £20 to Cancer Research UK on the first anniversary of the death of Ivan Noble, 31st January 2006 but only if 50 other people will too.”

To help raise £1,000 for cancer research, sign the pledge here.

Don’t worry, the Dewey blog have already worked it out:

we would class works on kakuro as we do works on sudoku — at 793.73 Puzzles and puzzle games, not 793.74 Mathematical games and recreations

The Scotsman: For Whitehall, protecting Nessie wasn’t such a monstrous idea:

If Nessie was discovered she, or he, would be protected under the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act which made it an offence for anyone to snare, shoot or blow up Nessie

BBC News: Under-fire Kennedy to step down: He will announce at 3pm that he is stepping down as party leader.

There is no way Charles Kennedy can continue as Liberal Democrat party leader.

I was one of the many grassroots activists backing Charles over the last few weeks despite the anonymous briefings against him. His announcement last night was a shock, despite the rumours about his drinking in the past. I could probably accept having an ex-alcoholic as leader (assuming he stayed that way), although his repeated earlier denials of a drinking problem do not sit well with a slogan of “Freedom, Fairness, Trust“.

A parliamentary leader without MPs behind him, though, is not a leader at all. Charles has lost the support of so many MPs, including previously supportive members of the 2005 intake, that his position is untenable. If he can’t keep the best Commons performers on the front bench then he can’t possibly run an “effective opposition”. Even though the membership elects the leader, if he doesn’t have the support of his MPs, he can’t continue. Many of the MPs who signed the letter asking him to consider his position are people I like and respect. Charles as leader may have been worth one or two of his colleagues, but not 25 MPs.

Over the last few weeks, Charles has been able to say that he counted on grassroots support, but that is evaporating too. Most of my friends in the party backed him in December. I’ve spoken to many today and every one of them agrees that he cannot continue as leader.

Charles was one of the reason I joined the LibDems and has done great things for us so I’ll be sad to see him go, but go he must. There will be a leadership election, but Charles should not be a candidate.