Great post of Dan Lockton‘s about what demand for energy actually is. Amory Lovins’ remark that no-one wants “energy”, they want cold beer, is of course another version of this. Which, once it had got together with this story about financing solar installation and marinated nicely in my del.icio.us queue for a while, made me…
Read More a question of demandThings are getting better in Iraq. If you’re mercenaries-turned-oil pushers Tim Spicer and Anthony Buckingham, that is! Heritage Oil has, indeed, struck oil. Up to 4.2 billion barrels of the stuff. This is of course very much subject to drilling, and even more so to Kurdish/Baghdad politics. If you’re trying to distribute wheelchairs, however, not…
Read More things are getting better in Iraq, for some values of better, for some values of Iraq…Much-discussed article; American goes to Holland, finds welfare state actually quite OK really! I was amused by the pleasantly clueless quote below: I asked a management consultant and a longtime American expat, Buford Alexander, former director of McKinsey & Company in the Netherlands, for his thoughts on this. “If you tell a Dutch person you’re…
Read More no ponyVia Worldchanging, the machine that turns up the music, flashes lights, and eventually produces fog if you do enough freaky dancin’. Its specifications and much more stuff are here. Of course, it’s a fairly obvious feedback loop, with a side order of poking fun at superstar DJs here we go! But there’s something I like…
Read More loopProponents of UAVs like to talk about the “enduring stare”; their ability to remain on station, to keep pointing at the target, rather than taking discrete reels of photos. Blogging ought to be a bit like that; keep after the story, don’t accept the official news (or bullshit) cycle. Hence, this McClatchy story, which has…
Read More can’t we, you know, move on?Reader “Ajay” has a theory that aviators are uniquely unfitted for government. There are a considerable number of data points in his favour. However, here’s a possible counter-example. Ernest Millington has died; he was one of three MPs for the brief Common Wealth Party, a radical leftist group that emerged during the second world war,…
Read More party of oneIs tragic diva SNLI cracking up, ask friends? “Creepy obsession” with blogger raises old rumours about starlet; Max Clifford is holding on line one. “He’s very good with colours”, says Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security. “Everyone around here relies on him for style tips before their TV appearances. I’d never…
Read More I am troll, hear me roar!Great rant at Kosmograd against Kirstie Allsopp and much more economic-aesthetic crappery. I recall her grinning chops advertising some sort of Sink Your Life Savings And More In Bulgarian Property for Riches! fest on Tube hoardings in the winter of 2007-2008, which must take some sort of award for televisual irresponsibility. Swinging from branch to…
Read More get ready for another low dishonest decadeIn support of the last post, here’s some more top Pakistan blogging: intelligent comment about the Army in comments at AM, as well as sense from Chris “Chris” Williams, behind a post that demonstrates one of the core failings of Western thought about Pakistan. Specifically, Andy reckons the Pakistani army is failing; but failing to…
Read More tabdumpLaura Rozen reports that the US government is talking about Pakistan’s “existential crisis”. (They do not mean, apparently, brooding about lobsters and smoking too much.) It’s currently being manifested by the Pakistani army fighting its way back into the Malakand Division; basic details here. Fans of Winston Churchill’s My Early Life will of course remember…
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