York University Libraries » Death of Evidence.

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For Open Access Week, join us in mourning the passing of evidence-based decision making in Canada.  From the cancelling of the long form census, to the cuts at Library and Archives Canada, to the muzzling of Canadian government scientists, it’s been a tough few years for evidence in Canada. Our beloved friend has finally given up the ghost.

Canada’s Tory PM has come under a lot of criticism lately, from around the world, even including an editorial in The New York _Times_, for suppressing and otherwise obscuring research contrary to Tory energy policy. That policy is most visible in the case of the tar sands and the transportation of the toxic tarry sludge, esp. via pipeline. Alberta is far, far from any coast. For me, the problem is that it seems that the PM wants Canada to be seen for its oil and other mined or felled resources; as a petronation with some trees and minerals, too. And less for the value of its labour or intellectual work.

The New Economics.

The group constituting the party and their ideas, as well as those they draw upon, are original and interesting. The Australian radio show, Renegade Economics, http://goo.gl/JG73x7, has featured many of them and is, in itself, a rich and great resource.

Is Facebook The World’s Largest Open Source Company? – ReadWrite.

Why Pierre Omidyar decided to join forces with Glenn Greenwald for a new venture in news » Pressthink.

Mobile writing app reviews: UX Write : The Writing Center.

UX Write is quite ready for use by those who are turning to the iPad over a MacBook or any other laptop. But it needs to support ODF. And, beyond the iPad, it needs to be ported to Android.

Tendenci by tendenci.

About Tendenci CMS

Tendenci is a content management system (CMS) specifically designed for nonprofit and community organizations with the features associations require including online donation management, membership management, event registrations, and communications tools for movement building built into the Core of the software.

From the Start, Signs of Trouble at Health Portal – NYTimes.com.

One thing that’s interesting–oh, many things are, about this–is that the hostile political climate in the US seemingly made accountability difficult and established “best practices” something to ignore or bypass.

What’s more, the code itself seems at best obscure. Is the actual code being used by the user at all expandable? Is it open source? Does it use open standards? And so on. And would it work, say, with other national models and programs?

via El Universal – DF – DF: 70% de reos, por robo de mercancías.

This is a really interesting article. El U is famed for being a, well, trashy version of a newspaper, kind of like The Sun but with a distinctive Mexican twist. (I grew up with some of this….) So it’s not uncommon to find an article touting the importance of sunscreen and illustrated by a gallery of bikini-clad big-breasted women. Sigh. (And it very much participates in the general campaign to distract attention from the collapse of large sections of society in Mex.)

But it also does real journalism. Like this article, which points out that, in Mexico City, the capital, of the 41K prisoners 70% are incarcerated for minor robbery, often for food, clothes and other personal articles. And it seems that the principal store robbed is WalMart, an unfortunate choice: WalMart prosecutes even the most minor thefts to prison, without pardon, according to internal policy.

Is this a useful or constructive policy? I doubt it.

Avoiding layoffs motivates South Tyrol province-wide switch | Joinup.

KwaMoja: Africa and Open Source software.