Such a nice metaphor from Japan, cited by Ethan Zuckerman in an entry about a vanished blog on Nigeria:

The Japanese call dead blogs “ishikoro” – pebbles. A missing blog is something else, a hole, like a dropped stitch in a row of knitting.

While you’re there, check out the account of Nigeria that’s the point of the post too. And for more on Nigeria and oil, see this presentation from photographer Ed Kashi.