In the UK and Ireland, this is the time of year when fresh batches of secret state papers and documents are removed from the 30-year 'classified' list and go into the public domain, providing some surprising insights into the working mind of governments in recent history. On this side of the water, that means lots of items relating to 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland, which were at a brutal pitch in 1972. Sean McCann highlights the new batch of papers, one revelation being that some in the British govt. thought it might be a good idea to physically remove all the Irish Catholics from the North:

In 1972, the British government was prepared to ethnically cleanse Northern Ireland of its Irish community on a massive scale.

At the same time, the British top-brass were surprisingly well-informed about the causes of the conflict in Northern Ireland:

"Opinions differed as to who was responsible for the troubles," the home secretary, James Callaghan, told his cabinet colleagues that day. He added: "There was a good deal of corroboration for the view that the [Irish population] had acted largely in self-defence, and there was little evidence to support the view of the Northern Ireland government that the IRA were mainly responsible".

In a report dated October 1968 and headed "Features of the current political situation", British Home Office officials said: "There are legitimate grievances in Northern Ireland and it is entirely legitimate that they should be ventilated by demonstration."

"History demonstrates the failure of English intervention in Irish affairs... The situation is explosive; civil war is not impossible."

This is what the Irish Times had to say:

The British government had contingency plans in July 1972 to re-partition Ireland and forcibly move hundreds of thousands of Catholics and Protestants in what would today be called an "ethnic cleansing" operation.

The result would have been a virtual Protestant-only "sectarian statelet", the planners admitted.

Sean has strong feelings on the subject. Personally, I hope the obvious hypocrisies on all sides, of both governments and the paramilitaries, serve to remind all involved in the Northern peace process that no one has the moral high ground and that the only future lies in continued peaceful negotiation.

5:33:53 PM  #   your two cents []

Blog potatoes:  LazyWeb lets you throw an idea out, something you'd like to see solved in and for the blog world but are too darn lazy (or not technical enough) to do yourself. You blog it, they link to it, and maybe someone actually does it. Sounds good to me. Think I'll go pop a can of Pringles and recline...
5:11:09 PM  #   your two cents []

The Growth of Picture Phones [Slashdot]
5:06:50 PM  #   your two cents []

And Now, a Scooter That Can Be Driven on the Sidewalk. Thirty-three states have passed legislation that classify Segways as "electric personal assistive mobility devices" rather than motor vehicles. [New York Times: Technology] ...I'm stunned -- and alarmed -- at the success of Segway supporters in getting states to "reclassify" in this way a comparitively large vehicle which moves much faster than pedestrians and is theoretically going to operate on city sidewalks. I admit, I don't get it -- especially given the hostility to skateboarders who are on little tiny motorless wheeled vehicles! I don't want these things on walkways. Now, we can expect to be bombarded by a bunch of overgrown 30-40-something "boys" with too much discretionary income.

I also don't understand why cities continue to provide woefully substandard bicycle lanes yet are legally welcoming the Segway. But then, bicycles are used by *everybody*, especially people (like kids and students and those who can't afford cars) that don't have the lobby power to push for adequate (just *adequate* would be very nice!) cycle networks. I say, put Segways on the streets and let the cars accommodate them. They shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a sidewalk, ever. In bike lanes? -- sure, if cities accept they need to improve their bike networks first, in a major way (really, only bike-enthusiastic European cities like Amsterdam and Copenhagen are Segway-ready). But for now? To me, the Segway looks to be the SUV of personal transport -- overpriced, a space hog on walkways, and allowed all sorts of exemptions from regulations. And yet another (expensive) way to avoid exercise...

11:30:44 AM  #   your two cents []

Danny O'Brien on life in the Valley: "Unemployment is one-third higher than the American average, offices are barely occupied and the industry giants have been offering nothing but toil, sweat and lowered financial result predictions. There is even torrential rain here, which, as any Californian will tell you, simply isn’t right." [London Sunday Times, reg required]
11:19:35 AM  #   your two cents []

Which? to stop watching the web: "THE Consumers’ Association is to close down its Which? Web Trader service, which monitors the standards of more than 2,300 internet retailers and reassures shoppers that they are dealing with reputable businesses." [London Sunday Times, reg required]
11:16:49 AM  #   your two cents []

$8.6m for loss-making eWare [Irish Independent, reg required]:

TELECOMS millionaire Sean Melly, DCC chief Jim Flavin and former NIB chairman Alex Spain could be set for a bumper payout as US firm ACCPAC has agreed to buy loss-making Dublin software company eWare in an $8.6m cash and stock deal.

Shareholders of the company, which develops customer relationship software, also include Sharptext founder and CARA chairman Pat Garvey and Microsoft millionaire Mark Keane.

11:13:02 AM  #   your two cents []

NSF Works Toward A Digital Science Library [Slashdot]
11:09:27 AM  #   your two cents []

John Naughton: The networker: What (Groucho) Marx can tell us about Bill Gates. "The Microsoft case may make sense to a trademark lawyer, but it is preposterous in both computer-science and common-sense terms. As far as computing is concerned, Microsoft was a late comer on the windows technology scene - in the sense of resizable rectangular frames displayed on a bit mapped screen." [Guardian Unlimited]
11:08:04 AM  #   your two cents []

Women writers top class of 2003. Books: The inclusion of one unknown writer is not the only surprise on Granta's new list of Britain's best young authors, revealed here for the first time. [Guardian Unlimited]
11:05:04 AM  #   your two cents []

Tutu attacks Blair on Iraq. Archbishop Desmond Tutu will attack Tony Blair today for his 'mind-boggling' support for military action against Iraq. [Guardian Unlimited]
11:04:23 AM  #   your two cents []

Tech Rally Is Not Yet a Revival. Despite the steep slide in stock prices, valuations of many telecom and tech stocks still appear high, as expectations for revenue and earnings growth have come down. [New York Times: Technology]
11:03:27 AM  #   your two cents []

The ethics of linkage. "If you read "meta" sites like Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Fark, Met4filter (natch), and Memepool you've probably encountered links to stories that you can't reach -- namely because the act of linking to a server not prepared for massive traffic has brought down the server, or worse, put the hapless soul over their bandwidth cap denying any use to anyone for the rest of the month or day or whatever time period the ISP or hosting provider uses to allocate bandwidth." [kuro5hin.org]
11:02:23 AM  #   your two cents []

A million bad jokes come to mind: On the Scent of Terrorists. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is looking to develop a sniffing machine that can detect the enemy by their body odor. [New York Times: Technology]
11:01:18 AM  #   your two cents []