"The reason this government's moving so quickly to divide the NHS into privatised contractual fiefdoms for its mates, and to divert education budgets into "free" schools for its mates' children, is because it can. Resistance has been atomised. Working-class rage, once articulated by powerful unions representing people doing proper jobs, has dissipated." Developers: unionise!

"Taking this tack has allowed the renaissance right to do a very remarkable thing: to pretend to be an enemy of big business, on the grounds that big business is insufficiently capitalist."

"For all its wit, "Hooligan"—written at a time of really horrible racial tension in Britain—had a serious purpose: to urge readers in 1982 to avoid moral panic and a rush to historically-illiterate judgement. Its lessons hold just as true today."

"Jon Kyl developed his own line of hair care products just so he could test them on bunnies."

"Jon Kyl developed his own line of hair care products just so he could test them on bunnies."

"Politicians should be aware that these are the stakes. They either get used operating in the open, where the people they're governing are in on everything they do, or they go totalitarian, around the globe, now."

"In the longer term the odds are stacked against secrecy, particularly in countries that practise openness in other areas. One reason is that though individual jurisdictions often prevent a specific libel, privacy breach or copyright infringement, a story with a global reach will get out somewhere. Short of imposing Chinese-style firewalls and censorship, free countries cannot consistently stop their citizens finding out what their enemies tell them, including tales of the shadowy, sordid or sensational deeds done in their names."

"In the longer term the odds are stacked against secrecy, particularly in countries that practise openness in other areas. One reason is that though individual jurisdictions often prevent a specific libel, privacy breach or copyright infringement, a story with a global reach will get out somewhere. Short of imposing Chinese-style firewalls and censorship, free countries cannot consistently stop their citizens finding out what their enemies tell them, including tales of the shadowy, sordid or sensational deeds done in their names."

This is brilliant. But argh, Farmville. "The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies. As the French sociologist Marcel Mauss tells us, gifts are never free: they bind the giver and receiver in a loop of reciprocity. It is rude to refuse a gift, and ruder still to not return the kindness."

"Although these stories are reports about medical research, they are really about computing – in the sense that neither would have been possible without the application of serious computer power to masses of data. In that way they reflect a new – but so far unacknowledged – reality; that in many important fields leading-edge scientific research cannot be done without access to vast computational and data-handling facilities, with sophisticated software for analysing huge data-sets."

"There is a cancer in the collective American soul — a mercy deficit that has in recent years grown as alarmingly as the budget deficit. Nor is it as simple as a left/right thing: no political party has a monopoly on merciless behaviour. Rather, a creeping draconian absolutism has cast its penumbra across the entire arena of public discourse, tainting every debate, poisoning and hardening attitudes across the board."

"Journalism has been crowdsourced before, but it’s the scale of the Guardian’s project — 170,000 documents reviewed in the first 80 hours, thanks to a visitor participation rate of 56 percent — that’s breathtaking." Brilliant.

You are the weakest link. T'ra.

"Election leaflets are one of the main weapons in the fight for votes in the UK. They are targeted, effective and sometimes very bitter. We need your help to photograph and map them so we can keep an eye on what the parties are up to, and try to keep them honest."

"Discover your position in the political landscape for the 2009 European Parliament Elections"

"What does this site do? It keeps track of predictions of the future by public figures."

"Straw and co blocked the release of the minutes, claiming that to actually let us know what was going on would set a dangerous precedent that would harm good government. Ministers wouldn't speak frankly at cabinet meetings if they felt their discussions would be subjected to the sort of scrutiny that, say, our every waking move is."

"To mark the 70th anniversary of the [Orwell] diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written."

"Designed to help Londoners decide how to vote in the London elections on 1 May". My results were exactly as expected.

"Facebook has 59 million users [but] you won't catch Tom Hodgkinson volunteering his personal information - not now that he knows the politics of the people behind the social networking site"

"As Borges wrote reviews of non-existent books, I have notes for essays I'll never write. Here I've collected what's been on my mind the last couple of months."

"Estonia started issuing electronic Identity Cards (eID) in 2002 to its citizens. Those eID’s will be OpenID’s soon!" OpenID, wooh!

mySociety provide petition tool for PM.

"Al Gore was the nearly man of US politics, the wooden Clinton sidekick who never made it to the top job. But now he's back with a mission to save the planet - and this time he's passionate. "

"I'll tell you where they are. They're at home, tuning in to root for the next "American idol." They're plugged into their iPods, utterly self-involved and disconnected from what lies just outside their doors. They're spending 25 hours a week playing vide

The most common retort against privacy advocates -- by those in favor of ID checks, cameras, databases, data mining and other wholesale surveillance measures -- is this line: "If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"

Environmental affairs magazine. "Each month we examine the connection between a wide range of subjects[...] food, war, politics, pharmaceuticals, farming, toxic chemicals, corporate fraud, mass media ."

"Discover the good, the bad and the ugly behind the products you buy everyday—from clothing to shoes to toothpaste. Investigate hundreds of companies on a range of issues, including: Sweatshops, Pollution, Ethics, Discrimination and more."

" I and many others around the world are of the strong belief that the universe was created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster." Genius.

"The essential guide to how the world can be a better place for everyone. Poverty in the developing world is well known, but less publicised are the efforts of those who combat hunger, disease and illiteracy. This guide shows how you can get involved."

"NEWSWEEK talks to a leading ecological architect whose goal is nothing less than eliminating waste and pollution."