NYT: The Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera urged Britain and the United States on Tuesday to investigate a British newspaper report that Prime Minister Tony Blair had dissuaded President Bush from bombing the station’s headquarters in the Persian Gulf.

In case you didn’t know, the Financial Review has a pro-Mark hiring policy. Well, almost. Today’s front page contains no less than four Mark bylines: Mark Phillips, Mark Davis, Mark Fenton-Jones (no we’re not related, and PR people would you please stop getting us confused), and yours truly who penned a yarn about Telstra.

I’ve always said that "Mark Jones" as a name was not common, but "popular." And today it seems I’m proven right as far as my Christian name is concerned.

Now, I’ve got a lot of time for Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s COO and chief spruiker. But I’m starting to really question the Schwartz editorial overload.

I’m at work today on my rostered Sunday duties, and was surprised to find this Business Week piece penned by Schwartz. He’s also a frequent contributor to the very fine AlwaysOn, and this interview looks like his latest – it picks up on the same electricity/computing is a utility story that he’s been selling for years now.

So linking those two examples together and doing a quick bit of introspection, I think what’s bugging me is that it’s not that I don’t like what he has to say – in fact, quite the opposite – it’s that he’s so prolific. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being prolific. The ability to generate tons of copy is one quality that gets you a long way in media circles. What’s wrong is that he’s completely out-gunning traditional competitors. We don’t hear enough *directly* from the Ballmers, Ellisons, Page/Brins of the world. Schwartz is proving that if you start talking openly, honestly, and directly – even though it’s clear you have a commerical agenda – you’ll get attention because there’s a massive conversation void out there waiting to be filled.

It’s interesting how the blog/media virtuous circle works. First, The Australian writes a story, Frank Arrigo comments on it, then IT Journo writes about the comments behind the subs-only firewall, and Frank’s back again with more comments on the saga after getting a copy of ITJ’s story. Just proves (again) that you can’t expect firewalled copy to stay protected…You can pick up the thread on Frank’s blog here.

And speaking of Frank, he’s over in NZ and suffering from a bad hotel experience. What’s up with A/NZ hotels simply not getting the whole WiFi revolution? It boggles the mind.

Forget all that talk of layoffs, we’re hiring! I’m happy to announce that we’ve made some decisions about staffing on MIS Magazine, following a change of structure earlier this year in which the editorial operations become part of the Australian Financial Review’s editorial team.

Effective today, acting editor Paul Smith has been appointed Editor, MIS Magazine. And Julian Bajkowski will join the team on 21 November as Deputy Editor. Julian will be known to many in tech circles as the news editor at Computerworld Australia. Both Paul and Julian are extremely talented journalists and reporters, and will make a great addition to the Fin’s IT team. They now have the opportunity to write for the paper as required. Both gentlemen report to yours truly.

Updated below

When you’ve got four helicopters hovering above your house for an hour from 6:30am that’s usually a good sign that something’s wrong.

So imagine my surprise when I turned on the TV to see images of Epping Road, 50 metres from my house in Lane Cove, completely blocked with traffic. A hole about 6 metres wide had opened up underneath the corner of a unit block about 200 metres from my house. Here’s the SMH story.

The unit is close to my bus stop, so I had to walk with my fellow commuters a short distance up to the Pacific Highway, get a different bus, and catch a train to work.

I’ve got just a few questions that need answering given that the tunnel almost runs directly under my house, not too far from where the ground has already given way.

Here are a few pics taken on the camera phone.

On Thursday afternoon it looked like this:

And on Friday while various media reports say they’ve plugged the hole with truckloads of concrete, an amusing document fell into my inbox containing the following words (not the ominous absence of "location, location, location"

“Affordable Living… On the Edge!”

Recently renovated

Large windows 360o views… down

Good airflow – cool all summer!

Open-plan living

Split Level

½ a bathroom

Large basement

Easy access to Lane Cove tunnel

Owners anxious to sell

Hurry, this offer won’t last. Many expressions of interest already!

Yesterday during the intensity of our usual Monday deadlines I was deep in conversation with a contact for one of the stories we ran in today’s paper. I’d called him in Melbourne from our Sydney office over what I typically presume is a regular phone line. Without warning the line went silent, as if he’d stopped talking. Confused, I hung up, and he called back. Turns out his VoIP connection had dropped out.

So this is the new reality of IP-based telephones: No good old "beep beep beep" when you hang up on somone or the line drops out. And it was interesting that I could not tell the difference between digital and analogue phone call quality.