Google Reader clips catch up

• Grand Theft Auto: Prostitute killing is a big hit
  Feministing drawing attention to one of the hideous promo vids. Catherin Bennett had a good point in the Observer though today - oldies should play it before criticising, plus game play has some researched benefits: I'm game for Grand Theft Auto. You should be too.
• China and the Internet
  HT: Richard Sambrook. More on their censorship regime.
• So long, Canada
  Salon. Zealous new border regime - to the point of stopping fire trucks and ambulances - makes Canadians foreigners.
• Websites go crazy tracking urban eccentrics
  Wired. New local website trend creates new 'micro-celebrities'.
• I would like to pay my council tax please
  Lindsay from Ideal Government's travails trying to give money to Southwark council.
  
  
• If you get free data, what will you do with it?
  Guardian. Now it's out there, what to do with it. 'Can anyone think what you’d do with a lot of weather data?'
• In pursuit of Digital Inclusion
  Helen Milner from local online centres describes the positive economic spin-offs from addressing the - enormous - digital divide.
  
  The Guardian newspaper recently calculated the cost of dealing with the 1.3 million most disadvantaged people in the UK at a staggering £44,538 per person*
  
  Liz, somewhere in her 80s, who is a regular at a UK online centre in the South West. She keeps in touch with family, friends and community services by email, maintains her independence by getting groceries and prescriptions delivered to her door, and finds pension, health and other information at the click of an adapted mouse. She’s also made innumerable friends at the centre, follows hobbies on the internet and reads large text books online.
  
  
• A day’s reporting
  Dave Briggs @ the £295 at head 'digital inclusion' conference. Shurely shome misshtake here ... ?
• POLL: Bush more problematic for McCain than Wright is for Obama
  Via Crooks and Liars.
• How do we fund journalism in future?
  Roy Greenslade reporting from Aussie conference. He's pessimistic.
• Facebook and privacy
  Rory Cellan-Jones about 'how much data is accessible to developers who make applications for Facebook'.
  
  
• Tel Aviv Mayor Announces Monument to Gay Victims of Holocaust
  Which is wonderful news.
• Microsoft's Vista Struggling As Business Customers Snub It
• Public sector blogging in the Guardian
  Via Dave Briggs. Patchy article. Highlights Richard Brunstrom, chief constable of North Wales police.
• BBC iPlayer On Virgin Media TV
  Lovely. Just a pity VirginMedia interactive is so b****y snails pace ...

Not on reader

• Mick Phythian from Leicester Uni is running research into electronic government channel measurement via greatemancipator.wordpress.com
  
  If you have anything to do with this, please go and help him out by filling in the short survey and maybe commenting.
  
  
• New and very interesting EU project the 'Semantic Interoperability Centre Europe'. It aims to build a platform for interoperability assets and services available to the public sector and its stakeholders in Europe, focusing on semantic (ie. content) interoperability.
• Not new (but just seen it) Farmsubsidy.org is a project coordinated by EU Transparency, a non-profit organisation in the UK and Kaas og Mulvad, a data consultancy in Denmark. The aim is to obtain detailed data relating to payments and recipients of farm subsidies in every EU member state and make this data available in a way that is useful to European citizens. The project has brought together journalists, analysts and campaigners in more than ten countries.
• The word on the web: 7 keyword trending tools
  Dan Taylor has a useful survey.
• The Most Dangerous Men in Kenya
  Fascinating, rare interview with young men in Kisumu, on the banks of Lake Victoria and scene of some of the worst violence.
  
• Nepal gets its first gay representative in parliament
  
  
• And finally ...
  Mommy 2.0 - A new picture book about plastic surgery aims to explain why mom is getting a flatter tummy and a 'prettier' nose.
  

  "My Beautiful Mommy" is aimed at kids ages four to seven and features a plastic surgeon named Dr. Michael (a musclebound superhero type) and a girl whose mother gets a tummy tuck, a nose job and breast implants. Before her surgery the mom explains that she is getting a smaller tummy: "You see, as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better." Mom comes home looking like a slightly bruised Barbie doll with demure bandages on her nose and around her waist.