2008

Arms Control Wonk has been running a series on how Iranian missiles work and how well. It’s bloody brilliant; go read, and you’ll come away thinking you could maybe start your own launcher project. Elsewhere, incredible interview with Bill Janeway about the financial crisis, Ministry of Truth on Baby P, Felix Salmon spanks rightwing mythology…

Read More Blog

OK, so I’ve spent some time getting more data together on the correlates of BNP membership. I’ve created a table which contains the following metrics: population growth (%), change in population density (%), Gross Value Added(GVA) in 1991, 2006, change in GVA, % GVA growth, unemployment, long-term unemployment as a % of total unemployment, the…

Read More Yet More BNP Data Analysis: Does Not Compute!

You will hear all kinds of people in authority say that immigration, or population growth, is causing people to turn into racists and vote BNP, either just because (the rightwing version) or because of “pressure” on public services (the Decent Left version).Therefore, they usually say, we need a stingier immigration policy. If you’re reading this,…

Read More The Swamping Myth

OK, so there’s this Il-76 with something called “East Wing” stuck a week in northeastern Brazil on its way from Dakar to Cochabamba in Bolivia. Not the busiest route, you might think. But “East Wing” was formed as a successor to none other than GST Aero, sez ATDB.aero; and out of their six aircraft, three…

Read More we give it straight, it ain’t no trivia…