No sooner had I made the move to my new home than the server for mentalspace and drivelwarehouse domains crashed, taking out a fair part of Ozplogistan. You can read the gory details here.

However, everything seems to be fixed now, and I plan to start working on improvements to this site. Suggestions gratefully accepted.

Update I’ve implemented a number of suggestions, including some changes in colour scheme and the addition of a photo. It’s newer (that is, older) than the one on the website, which I’ll update soon. More suggestions and criticism still very much welcome.

Salam Pax has posted a diary of the war in Baghdad, sent as a Word file to a friend. Obviously, rumors reported here that he was injured and in hospital were, like most rumors, false.

Welcome, everyone to my new site! I’d appreciate a comment just to let me know that people are finding their way here.

After a period when departures seemed to outnumber arrivals, there are quite a few new blogs. Moreover, the general trend to the left (or rather, to a blogworld more representative of the political views of the Australian population than it was a year or two ago) seems to be continuing. I’ll mention some that I’ve noticed and invite anyone I’ve omitted to email me.

Alerion’s Southerly Buster is an excellent blog, except that my name is misspelt in the blogroll. Alerion is currently running pieces by Jorge Luis Borges, always a worthwhile thing to do. Carl’s Smiling Politely is another new entrant well worth a visit. PineappleTown, another Queensland blog, is mostly links to news reports, but the selection is interesting.

Reader Belinda Weaver points me to the Australian Public Intellectual network and her blog for journalists both of which look interesting. Readers with an NQ connection may be interested in the Magnetic Times, a local paper to which I have occasionally contributed.

‘Truly this is the sweetest of theologies’, William said, with perfect humility, and I thought he was using that insidious figure of speech that rhetors call irony, which must always be prefaced by the pronunciato, representing its signal and its justification – something that William never did. For which reason the abbot, more inclined to the use of figures of speech, took William literally …

Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose

Along with James Morrow and Gareth Parker, I’ve been interviewed for a possible 7:30 Report segment on blogs and the war, presumably to be aired when the straight war news has slowed down a bit. Mick O’Donnell, the ABC journalist also mentioned that he might interview Gianna, and some US bloggers.

Actually, I don’t think that the war is a topic where blogs have a comparative advantage. The traditional media are the primary source and are devoting huge analytical resources to it. Blogs are better for longer-running stories where careful analysis and public domain research are the strong point. An exception is the Baghdad blog of Salam Pax. Assuming (as I have no reason to doubt) that this is a genuine insider’s account, it is better than anything that visiting journalists can do. If it is a work of fiction, it’s a compelling one.

According to The Guardian, Labour MP Tom Watson is the first UK MP to have a blog. In an example of the reverse process, Jim Capozzola of The Rittenhouse Review is planning a run for the US Senate.

I was also interested by this para

Currently Mr Watson is transferring content from the original site – tomatwestbrom.com – to his new blog, powered by transferable type, at tom-watson.co.uk.

I must investigate this “transferable type”.

Just when it might be worth something (see previous post), this blog has finally made it on to a top 10 list (not counting top 10 referrers to myself, my blogtwin etc). It’s No 7 on the Technorati Top 50 Interesting Newcomers list. Thanks to those whose newly noted links to me seem to have triggered the listing:
Angry Bear
Ken Parish
Gummo Trotsky
Gary Sauer-Thompson
James Russell

Update 11/3 Number 5! With a bullet!

It’s been a very quiet week in my corner of Ozplogistan. Nobody at Catallaxy has posted anything since Heath Gibson presented a very effective critique of my friend Clive Hamilton’s proposals to regulate Internet p0rn.Ken Parish has just resurfaced after a week in the Red Centre trying to salvage the NTU operation there – sounds like a lost cause – with Wayne Wood holding the fort in the meantime. Kim Weatherall is also just back after a long hiatus. “Simon Crean” seems to have vanished entirely, perhaps in a tribute to the many pieces recently that have noted the invisibility of his real-life counterpart (my take: > This is an anti-Crean beatup. For Opposition leaders, invisibility is the rule rather than the exception). Simon’s blog hasn’t been updated since Xmas and he has disappeared from my comments threads.

On the plus side, Gareth Parker has responded to Jason Soon’s challenge by revealing his outward appearance. Scott Wickstein has gone one better by revealing his inner self. And in far-off Washington DC, Tim Dunlop upholds the virtual nature of Ozplogistan with the observation that this blog is among his top 5 referrers for February. I don’t think Xtreme tracking gives this information, which makes me think perhaps I should be investigating alternative hit counters. OTOH, the last thing I need is more stats to look at!

Others who’ve been busy and interesting this week include Gary Sauer-Thompson, Rob Corr, Carita Kazakoff and Gianna.

Update I should have known this would happen. I forgot to mention Gummo Trotsky and he immediately spat the dummy. What makes it worse is that I really enjoyed Gummo’s post earlier in the week on how to annoy a libertarian. Maybe this could be the beginning of a series for other political alignments.

While I’m at it, I’ll dig an even deeper hole for myself by mentioning some interesting posts from William Burrough’s Baboon and , so now the people I haven’t mentioned will be even more annoyed.