It’s like a blog, but in book form

Adam Bellow, son of the novelist Saul Bellow, has his own publishing house, aimed at “bloggers who yearn to see their words printed offline”.

Works already produced by The New Pamphleteer include Embrace the Suck, by Colonel Austin Bay, “a pocket guide to ‘milspeak’ [military slang] in Iraq”, Everything Could Explode at Any Moment, a collection of dispatches from the Lebanese-Israeli front by Michael Totten, and Best Recipes from the Jewish Blogosphere, by Judith Weiss.

Mr Bellow told time.com that the works would pander to “people who know that blogs exist but lack the time or inclination to sift through the enormous flow of verbiage to find the best that has been thought and said online”. pamphleteerpress.com time.com

Klingon love

A blow for internet dating agencies: the polling company Zogby said that “parents would rather their daughter meet a date at a biker bar or a Star Trek convention than through online dating”. informationweek.com zogby.com

Despots online

“Dictatorship 2.0” looms over the world’s cyber-dissidents, according to Reporters sans Frontiãres. The press freedom body says that despots have recognised the potential of sites that allow users to spread opposition views and are now bent on smothering them.

“With the success of YouTube, China and Iran are keen to filter the videos that appear there — too much ‘subversive’ content for China and too much ‘immorality’ for Iran,” Reporters sans Frontiãres says. Moreover, it insisted that covert monitoring of internet traffic would be easily achievable anywhere in the world. Skype, the internet telephony site, “has already signed an agreement with China to block key words, so how can we be sure our conversations are not being listened to?” rsf.org news.com.com

Professor Spam, I presume

“Are you tired of your deadend job? Want to make some cash without actually working? Earn the money you deserve in the exciting and fast-growing spam industry,” implores Arnie “Smarmy” Stanford, the dean of Spam University.

If you are confident and can meet the stiff admissions criteria — an ability to count to 20 without removing your socks — then fill in the mailing list form on the university’s homepage. And if you are intrepid, there are two dubious spaces in which to give your e-mail address and credit card number. j-walk.com/other/spamu /index.htm I

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