Read my Online CV!

Go on, you know you want to.

Martin Lloyd's CV

OK, now thats finished it's time to see what the slave traders have to offer me.

Ten (thousand?) strong and counting

Jenny Brown may not be a Hah-vahd socialite, but as online doyenne of the MBA bloggers she has unearthed another addition to our ranks. Michael Rutner is at Wharton, and he knows what irony is, so we have to take his claims to be an American with a pinch of salt ;-) Michael is a second generation MBA blogger

"Before starting this blog, I learned a great deal about the life of an MBA applicant / student by reading blogs like these."

and since that was the point of me writing this blog in the first place the emergence of a new set of blogs for the next academic year makes me very happy indeed. Go check out Michaels stuff and see what happens when an innocent lawyer is thrust into the hectic world of Wharton.

Now, any of you Said accepts out there feel like having a go? I promise its not as much work as it looks like...

Jobhunting

My jobhunt starts today. First emails to all those people I can think of who might be useful, and then updates to this site to create an online resume. From that comprehensive document I'll produce cut down .doc's tailored to particular jobs. Before I do that though I have to find the jobs. What am I looking for?

New MBA WLTM stimulating, exciting job in the brand / technology / marketing space for mutual learning, exchange of ideas and the chance to achieve some really cool stuff. Investment banks need not apply

News from the front?

Iraqwar.ru is a very interesting organisation. All anyone seems to know for sure about them is what's available on their 'about us' section. There have been some newsgroup discussions about it, most of which seem to agree that it is more or less what it claims to be with most objectors being broadly disbelieving for no reason, and most proponents cautiously positive. It's not helped that its English translation is by a Russian guy called Venik, who while not responsible for any of the content has a reputation for trolling newsgroups.

So these are the caveats. After an hour of looking through this I can't find a conclusive piece of evidence that the Russian Intelligence Briefings from this site are what they claim to be, namely transcripts of GRU intelligence briefings. On the other hand, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that points towards them being at least partially accurate. Several times the updates predate western media sources by several days, and they successfully predict several Anglo-US offensives. (They are however completely foxed on day 1 when the ground assault co-incides with the air one)

The quotes from soldiers, journalists and others seem reasonable, and their reporting seems to parallel the general pattern of the war emerging through western media. Its also worth noting that while they make Anglo-US casualties sound far higher than has been reported here, they describe the losses as 'militarily insignificant' , while the Iraqi army has lost 8-10% of its fighting power (as of 2 days ago).

So, if we believe the breifings are what they say they are does this mean they're true? Of course not. First Russian intelligence has its own axe to grind. Secondly Russian Intelligence may not be accurate, radio intercepts, spy planes and so on all require interpretation and are easily confused, even by experts. I imagine it's easy to 'hear' the same event repeated times in radio traffic and then imagine (say) multiple reports of a tank being lost. So, read the reports starting on day one, and make up your own mind. But there's no denying that this is more compelling than CNN and if accurate far more detailed information.

Oh, I'm back from holiday. Next things to do, get a job and get on with a freelance copywriting job I've picked up. More on that later.

UPDATE This has just appeared. Whoever the people producing those updates were they weren't the GRU. They may have been ex GRU. They may have been Russian embassy staff, they may even have been Iraqi intelligence, but I very much doubt that. They seem to be claiming to be ex-GRU who wrote reports for the good of mankind. They also seem to have fallen foul of whichever government it is they operate on behalf of. I'm off to archive their material before its removed, and for the purposes of checking it after the war.