Just a couple of disorganised thoughts on this. There’s a sort of integrated cultural package of denialism out there; rather like Michael Berube’s Wingnut Software Package. Key components: Computer hate. I encountered people complaining that the Eyjafjallajokull ash cloud was being forecast with “the same computer models that forecast global warming”. No doubt we’ll soon…
Read More notes on denial cultureMeanwhile, Dave from PR reckons his own spending cuts aren’t tough enough. All election campaigns go into the surreal phase eventually.
Read More self-refuting dave is self-refutingQuietly, as the election campaign goes on, the NHS IT programme has gone from “heading for the rocks” to “sailing into the cliff”. Has NPfIT put us back 10 years? asks the NHS chief in Rotherham, who’s taken the recently announced option to bail out of the project and deploy something of his own choice.…
Read More failApple’s internal security team may be scary – and especially the name (Worldwide Loyalty Team). But they are as nothing, in terms of creepiness, to this Microsoft web page, which provides the criteria against which MS employees are assessed for their use of humour and the targets they are given to improve. You will not…
Read More killer meme watchThe Institute for Public Policy Research has issued a report on the correlates of BNP membership and support (pdf). Fascinatingly, they reckon that there is very little or no correlation between BNP support and key socio-economic indicators like GVA per capita, growth, unemployment, immigration, etc. It’s as if a typical BNP supporter was, well, a…
Read More IPPR: I agree with…This story from Rajiv Chandrasekharan about two rival approaches to sorting out Kandahar’s electricity supply is informative, but not just about its apparent topic. Basically, the US Army wants to go for a quick fix, installing a lot of mobile generators and trucking in the diesel fuel, in order to get the lights on as…
Read More it’s called “power” for a reasonJamie Kenny mentions Thailand’s “black clads”. Who they? Reuters has an excellent article that gets into this question. WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE MEN IN BLACK? Witnesses and grainy video footage revealed armed men with assault rifles and M-79 grenade launchers appeared under cover of darkness on April 10 during a heated standoff between…
Read More they’re protecting us, but we don’t know who they are