A Bit More Detail

• Writer Jamie Bradburn, a person known for excellent essays exploring the history of Toronto at Torontoist and elsewhere, writes about his goals for new content at his Wordpress blog. (Bringing old material from the missed The Grid would be great.)


• The Island Review is a blog that brings together interesting links about islands. This post, a map depicting the forms of the different minor islands around Great Britain, is fun, is a good start.


• TVO journalist Steve Paikin's blog is a great source for information on politics in Ontario. This post takes a look at the first meeting of the new NDP provincial caucus.


• Author Patricia C. Wrede has a nice blog focusing on writing fiction, as with this post concentrating on well-intended advice that can wreck stories.

• Architectuul. the blog is associated with Architectuul, an open-source blog on architecture and architectural theory. The most recent post takes a look at totalitarian structures of power, from Nazi Germany to Romania to North Korea.


• Drew Ex Machina is the blog of Andrew LePage, a physicist who concentrates on exoplanets and vintage space missions. His latest post examines the lunar mission of Surveyor 7.


• The Finger Post is the photo-heavy travel-heavy blog of David Finger. His most recent post describes a visit to the city of Cebu, in the Philippines.


• Marshall's Musings is the blog of Toronto-based urbanist Sean Marshall. His most recent post maps the new ward boundaries of Toronto.

• I've added Sean CW Korsgaard's Korsgaard's Commentary, a blog focusing on cultural reviews. In one interesting recent post, Korsgaard makes the case for the excellence of the 1999 film The Mummy.


• Toronto writer and critic Drew Rowsome also has his own blog. He has recently shared his shortlist of picks for the Toronto Fringe festival.

• To the news section, I'm adding the Canadian news website National Observer, which has interesting longer articles analyzing Canadian events. Of their recent articles, I would recommend Lorimer Shenher's "LGBTQ officers need to pick the right target", which argues that LGBTQ police officers should step back and consider the import of the police, as an organization, to many queer people.


• To the blog section, I'm adding Strange Company, a great blog that assembles links of interesting and odd things around the world, in the past and present, and takes the occasional longer look at particular events. This link, examining the history of one Reverend Griffiths who was something of a ghostbuster in 19th century Wales, is a good example of the latter category of post.

• Anglican priest, SF/fantasy fan, and former Torontonian Rachel Kessler blogs at Rev Rachel Rambles. Most recently she has blogged about Room, examining it as a metaphor for growing up.


• The Fifteenth is the blog of former Livejournaler Steve Roby, containing short reviews of books, television, and other forms of pop culture. I liked his review of a book on David Bowie that concentrated on the post-Scary Monsters period of his career.

CNBC is right that Elaine Garzarelli forecast a stock market crash not long before the great plunge of 1987. It made her a superstar. But what about Garzarelli's other calls? How accurate were they? Was her successful prediction a typical result or was it more like the occasional bull's eye that even a chimpanzee could be expected to nail if it threw hundreds of darts at a board? The article doesn't say. The only reference to Garzarelli's record is that one spectacular hit.

CNBC is right that Elaine Garzarelli forecast a stock market crash not long before the great plunge of 1987. It made her a superstar. But what about Garzarelli's other calls? How accurate were they? Was her successful prediction a typical result or was it more like the occasional bull's eye that even a chimpanzee could be expected to nail if it threw hundreds of darts at a board? The article doesn't say. The only reference to Garzarelli's record is that one spectacular hit.

Here's what the story should have noted but did not: After Garzarelli shot to fame for calling the crash of '87, she struggled. Even though she continued to use the same analytical system that supposedly called the crash, the mutual fund she managed did poorly. In 1994, the fund was closed and Garzarelli's firm showed its former superstar the door.

Maybe Garzarelli's current prediction will prove to be bang on. I don't know. But I do know that someone who knew only what CNBC said about Elaine Garzarelli would have a lot more faith in that prediction than someone who knew more.

• BAGnewsNotes, a group blog featuring the talents of Alan Chin, Nina Berman, and John Lucaites, analyzes news photos for their hidden symbolisms. The look at the sexist framing of Nancy Pelosi in a recent shot as a freak-show hysteric is classic.


• Bruce Sterling's Beyond the Beyond covers an "eclectic range of technology topics." His observations about the bizarre pro-Saakashvili Russian invasion hoax in Georgia is interesting.


• I don't know why I didn't link to czalex's blog before now, but it's now on my blogroll. It's an interesting blog examining Belarus and Russia. His commentary on Belarus' very weak bargaining position re: Russia on gas transit and other issues is worth reading.