Welcome to the second edition of Lib Dig Pig, being a roundup of non-Lib Dem oriented gems on the internet, as voted by Lib Dem members using Lib Dig (if you aren’t one, and are a Lib Dem member, sign up here: http://libdig.co.uk).

The rules for inclusion here are simple: they must have been “dug” for the first time in the last seven days and they can’t be Lib Dem-related or come from a Lib Dem blog. The top rated article of each category will be listed, along with three runners up, will be listed here. And finally, for the purposes of this column, my votes will be discounted. Finally, I may bend or break any of these rules as I see fit (this is absolutely terrible and I am dreadfully sorry about it).

What trends do we see this week? Well, it is clear that most Lib Dig users are a godless bunch of science geeks who enjoy drinking themselves into oblivion. So they are pretty representative of the wider party then. This is what you voted for this week:

Blog post of the week

NHS Takes Aim at Daily Mail over Baby Buggy Bollocks: Last week, Dundee University published tentative research which suggested that babies sitting in outward facing buggies suffered more “stress” than those in inward looking prams. The media went wild, with the Daily Fail screaming about babies suffering from “trauma.” Except, as Layscience explains, the research is dubious in the extreme. It was so tenuous that the NHS saw fit to accuse the media of “scaremongering.”

News item of the week

Darling admits whisky duty error: Yep, never mind Mumbai, Damian Green’s arrest or Britney Spears’ appearance on X-Factor, what Lib Dems care about is the price of their tipple. The serious point is that this, combined with the total confusion over VAT, rather suggests that the main preparatory work for the Pre-Budget Report was done on the back of a fag-packet the weekend before.

Video of the week

Gordon Brown just can’t get enough of those embarrassing government leaks:

Other stuff we dug this week

• Open source software won Obama the Presidency: so claims the impeccably neutral Linux Journal. In other news, Microsoft blame open source software for the JFK assassination. Who to believe?
• Is Haringey a “rotten borough”? The Standard seems to think so and compiles a list of Haringey’s many failures.
• In defence of renewable energy, Chris Goodall debunks 10 “energy myths”.
• Fewer Down’s Syndrome babies being aborted? Ben Goldacre is having none of it.
• Charlie Brooker has some imaginative ideas for making community service more eye-catching.
• David Cameron thinks the Conservative Shadow Cabinet is useless, according to the Spectator’s Coffee House. Do keep up, Dave!
• Confused about whether Damian Green broke the law? Let Head of Legal guide you.
• Tory Troll notes the Evening Standard’s vaulting 180 degree u-turn over the scrapping of the Western Extension Congestion Charge Zone to keep Boris happy.
• Robert Peston continues to reassure us that yes, we are indeed utterly doomed.
• That’s *EXPLETIVE DELETED* stupid provides us with a graph to show how the number of measles cases have exploded since the MMR scare.

Upcoming events

• West Yorkshire Liberal Drinks (4 December, The Old Ship Inn, Brighouse): “Come on guys, come and have a few drinks with us”.
• Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People (Sunday 21 December, Hammersmith Apollo): “A night of music and comedy to celebrate the rational and scientific and debunk Winterval myths spouted by religious and media ninnies.” With guest appearances from, well, pretty much every famous atheist you can think of.
• The Convention on Modern Liberty (Saturday 28 February, Institute for Education): The launch of a major national debate over what liberty means in the early 21st century, backed by the Guardian, Amnesty International, Open Democracy, Liberty, Unlock Democracy and NO2ID. Don’t worry if you can’t make the London event - they will be announcing regional and local events soon.

See you again next week!

Special thanks to Ryan Cullen for hosting LibDig and for helping to make it easier for me to compile this column.

PS LibDig the easy way – add the LibDig bookmarklet to your toolbar!

Related posts:

1. Lib Dig Pig #3
2. Lib Dig Pig #1
3. Lib Dig Pig #4