Tag Archives: Websites

A major media event

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Slate announces that its parent, Microsoft, has sold the pioneering online magazine (where afoe‘s own Scott MacMillan’s byline appears from time to time) to the Washington Post. I haven’t seen Slate‘s figures, but it’s just possible that Microsoft might not need to show its financial statements pro forma for the divestiture.

At this juncture it would be as well to remind our readers that the rumours of afoe‘s impending acquisition by Rupert Murdoch are just that, rumours. All the same, we take comfort from Mr Murdoch’s long-standing policy of respecting his journals’ editorial independence and treating his employees decently. Coming soon: ‘The French-Democratic-Islamofascist Conspiracy to Deprive New Europe of Christmas — An afoe Special Report‘.

2004 Koufax Awards

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If you want to, you can take a break from nominating blogs for the European Weblog Awards, and go and nominate A Fistful of Euros for the 2004 Koufax Awards. I think we’re a credible choice for Best Group Blog, Most Deserving of Wider Recognition, Best Writing (Mrs Tilton on her own would qualify us), and Best Series (our Ukraine coverage). We were a finalist for Best Group blog last year.

The Koufax are great, easily the best of the many blog awards, mainly because they’re the best for discovering excellent blogs you never heard of.

Pluggage

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A couple of newish blogs that Fistful readers might find interesting: Transition Trends, a blog from the people behind Transitions Online, and Lose The Delusion, a British blog that describes itself as ‘proudly battling Euroscepticism’. Feel free to plug any other new and interesting blogs in the comments.

And to plug ourselves, if you’re a LiveJournal user then you might be interested to know that Fistful is available as an LJ feed.

Wizbang 2004 Weblog Awards.

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I just noticed that afoe has been nominated for the Wizbang 2004 Weblog Awards in the category “Best European (non-UK) Blog”. As usual with blog awards, the opportunity to find great blogs one has not been aware of so far seems more important than winning. But if you, gentle readers, should decide afoe is worth a vote while browsing the other nominations, we certainly won’t mind…

Remember back in the days when uh

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The wayback machine is a marvellous thing. It can serve a more useful purpose than letting you see the 1996 Yahoo front page. There are a lot of bloggers whose archives or old sites are gone, by design or accident. What they and their readers may not realize is that their sites are probably preserved by the Internet archive.

Pre-scoop Tacitus

Matthew Yglesias has lost most of his archives.

The old pre-scoop MyDD

Eric Alterman He never had any archives in the first place. (Update: all but the latest of these only gives you ‘redirect error’.)

Marshall Whitman aka the Bull Moose’s first blog

Kevin Drum’s old Calpundit site which seems to’ve gone down just this week, maybe temporarily?

They don’t just archive the front pages so in most cases you can most easily get all writings by clicking on the blogs’ monthly archives.

I was overjoyed to see that Yglesias’ stuff wasn’t lost, and if calpundit really is gone, I’ll be extremely grateful I can still read it. It seems blogs mean curiously much to me.

Ukraine digest

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I’ve created a Kinja digest of blogs and websites that are covering the events in Ukraine. Should be very useful.

Update: You might want to use the “collapsed” version to get a sampling of all the blogs.

You’re welcome to suggest more sites.

Update: (Tobias, 18:11 CET) – Amidst rumors about audiotapes that allegedly prove the election fraud being released to journalists, conflicting news about regional authorities/assemblies in Eastern Ukraine demanding autonomy or secession, reports about more support for the Yushenko camp in the East (via Victor Katolyk) and first sightings of orange in Moscow (Maidan.net), there is no news about the roundtable talks between the parties and the European mediators, except a statement from incumbent President Kuchma urging protesters to go home now that negotiations will be held.

CNN has a recent summary of the events online.

Update (Tobias 18:45, CET) . The Kyiv Post has two Ukrainian political analysts assessing the situaion. Denis Trifonov, a defense consultant wih the Kyiv-based International Centre for Policy Studies blames Putin’s paleo-conservative, cold-war-minded advisors for the Russian President’s serious error of judgment –

“President Vladimir Putin should have seen it coming, but he evidently did not … The long-term damage to Ukraine’s relations with Russia has been done … and few in Moscow have grasped just how much real influence Russia has lost in Kyiv as a result of her clumsy and irrational policy.”

Interestingly, according to the article, after claiming that only fraudulent exit polls funded by the West led to the outbreak of protest, Ukrainian pro-government analyst Mykhailo Pohrebinsky, who advises, among others, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, said that it is now

“‘very likely’ that the election results will be reversed and that Yushchenko will become president thanks to an ‘illegal revolution.'”

Update: (Tobias, 19:29 CET) I don’t know what in the Russian attitude makes them think so (the article is not really clear in this respect), but The Economist now believes Putin is already hedging his bets.

Given the high stakes, the international pressure on Ukraine’s leaders has been strong. As well as the pressure from America and the EU, a key determining factor will be the attitude of Mr Putin. He would risk serious difficulties in his relations with both Europe and America if he were to back Mr Yanukovich in repressing the protests. Towards the climax of the Georgian revolution last year, Mr Putin seemed to lose patience with Mr Shevardnadze, perhaps contributing to his downfall. Does his wavering response to the Ukrainian conflict mean he is already hedging his bets?

Update: (Tobias, 21:20 CET) So that’s what it’s all about 😉 – according to the (conspiracy) theory of Sergei Markov, a Russian political scientist with alleged close ties to the Kremlin, published by MosNews.com (via chrenkoff), former President Carter’s Polish born National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (the guy who lured the Russians into Afghanistan) is behind Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, and he wants to weaken Europe as well Russia, and drive a wedge between Putin and Bush –

[T]he original plan is for Poland to impose its patronage over Ukraine. Polish politicians are seeking more influence within the European Union, currently dominated by France and Germany, and to achieve this, they want to become patrons of the whole of Central and Eastern Europe, the Russian analyst said.

Markov said the United States would benefit from a Yushchenko victory as it would weaken Germany and France on the world arena and also split Ukraine and Russia. He also added that ?the majority of the representatives of the Polish diaspora in the United States hate George Bush and want to cause a quarrel between him and Russian President Vladimir Putin?.

Glad we know that now.

The Constitution Is Being Blogged.

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For all the uncertainty surrounding the events in Ukraine, they have – once again – made clear to which extent Europe, and our conception thereof, is changing. While EU spokespeople make every effort to reiterate in the run-up to the EU-Russian summit that nothing than a partnership is on the table, even longer-term, it appears as if the continent’s agenda has already been changed – by the events.

The list of contentious issues is indeed increasing – but luckily, there are some people who are attempting to provide the context. As we here at afoe have not paid too much attention to the French referendum debate yet, I am only too happy to announce that a new group blog is taking care of it: Publius l’europ?en will provide news, analyses and commentary about the European consitution from a French point of view – in French.

I think it was during the French conservative debate in the run-up to the Maastricht-treaty referendum that people began to notice that Jaques Chirac had held every possible opinion, yet never one of his own. Maybe he should have read more blogs ;).

Warning Labels

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Everybody knows cigarette warning labels. They are a fact of life, although evidence of their effectiveness in preventing people from smoking is scarce. Frankly, no one knows if they really have any significant effect given that, these days, everyone already knows about the health endangering nature of smoking. In fact, at least in Europe, warning labels are also supporting scores of accessory designers, who now create and sell special cigarette cases. It’s hard to believe, but they have become something of a fashion item…

Now, after the re-election of President Bush, will the US lead the world in creating another accessory category? Lyssa may well have the definitive “four more years” entry.

Now don’t say Germans can’t be funny.