A 3rd anniversary random collection of things
It's three years to the day since I started this place going, but I have precisely nothing profound or interesting to add to this post from August, celebrating a solid year of blogging. So have a random collection of vaguely interesting things instead:
First up, have a gander at an interesting interview with Chris Patten on Europe, the EU and the world, and the Boston Globe on why Europe's economy may be doing better than many have assumed (both via the always excellent Political Theory Daily Review). Atlantic Rift on the Tories and the EU is also worth look - especially taken along with Patten's judgement that David Cameron "doesn't know very much" about the EU...
Also well worth a shufty - as there's only a month to go before the elections there - is Cafe Babel's series of articles on Italy - in particular this one on Berlusconi's enduring electoral appeal:
"It would be too simple to dismiss Berlusconi's voters as pitiable immature citizens without a sense of political responsibility"Much the same could be said for people who still vote for Blair... So If you haven't already, read the angry Rachel on the many reasons she's pissed off with Labour. (Our dear messrs McKeating and Hamster on the fact that we're being led by a man who reckons only his invisible friend can tell him what to do should also be on your reading list for today.) If you haven't yet, also check out Liberty Central - still finding its way, but showing promise.
In any case, if you look at Belarus, we should count ourselves lucky we've only got Blair to cope with. Our man Worstall, meanwhile, highlights a prime example of ill-informed bullshit from a journalist/blogger seemingly claiming that Belarus is actually all honey and roses. Amusingly, immediately after telling us not to believe anyone who says that a dictatorship which routinely uses political violence is, erm... a dictatorship that routinely uses political violence, the chap posts bemoaning "the appalling arrogance of journalists who tell the families of murder victims not to feel angry" - methinks the irony may be lost on the chap... (How DO these people get work?) Update: There's more on Belarus dodginess at Publius Pundit, Radio Free Europe and plenty of info at br23 blog, which will shortly be joining the blogroll.
Oh, and I've been tagged with a meme - but as it's all about music, which for no apparent reason I never really listen to, my answer to all the questions would be "no idea", so doubt it would make particularly interesting reading. Much like this post, really...
In other news, is it just me, or is Blogger getting increasingly shit? Comment spam is escalating, crappy spam blogs are everywhere, and the server seems to be going offline every other day. Perhaps it's time to start pondering a move - anyone able to fill me in on the cheapest options?
Update: This week's Britblog Roundup is up for more linky goodness...
8 Comments:
Happy anniversary.
As for other blogging options, if you want to spend nothing, Wordpress.com could be worth a shot. But if you want to spend a little, getting a decent hosting company isn't too expensive and you could install Wordpress for free.
After a bit of a mooch about looking at options, I settled for bluehost.com. $166 for two years and Worpress as DoctorVee says, comes for free.
Early days yet, but all seems okay.
How cheap do you want to be? I have some reseller space with Hostroute.co.uk which has been pretty good, mostly used for my own site and various freebie sites for friends and organisations... if you're interested in making a contribution to help me pay for it, drop me a line :-) [500MB web space, MySQL, PHP, Perl, all the usual stuff].
I see europhobia.co.uk and europhobia.com are already registered (as is nosemonkey.com, but one Kyle Gibbons, no less), but all other flavours of europhobia and nosemonkey are still available.
.uk names are no more than about £6 inc VAT for two years.
And of course Wordpress for blogging as everyone else says! If you want something simple to manage the rest of a site beyond the blog, I quite like Website Baker.
I use wordpress for Taking Aim (and used it for siberianlight before that).
The software itself is, of course, free, and can be customised relatively easily if you know a little about weblog customisation. Might take you a while to rebuild the Europhobia look, though.
I'm sure there are plenty of good hosting companies out there, but I use, and can thoroughly recommend the US based Aqhost - http://www.aqhost.com
Their basic package costs $6.99 a month, which is pretty reasonable, I think.
And, (one of the best bits in my opinion) they have a piece of software called Fantastico, which will install wordpress (or movable type) for you, no hassle.
Many happy returns. From now on can we refer to you as "veteran blogger..."?
I've just bought a .net domain name from these guys for a tenner and I'm paying four quid a month for hosting from these guys who I can't recommend highly enough - top hosters.
Blogger/Blogspot just seems to have made the first post on the Ranter read-only, so we are offline until further notice.
Joyeaux anniversaire xx
Happy Bloggenversary! :D There are lots of options for hosting nowadays, depending on how "managed" you want it to be. Though for the domain name, I'm sure that being an EU citizen... it's a no-brainer to polute the new ccTLD made just for us! ;)
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