a black square on a white background

October 25, 2009 in Tories

Without comment: Mr Cameron has said he would relish the opportunity: “Prime Ministers Questions in the House of Commons are no substitute for a proper prime time studio debate…” David Cameron is surely the ultimate anti-blogging candidate; look at what he said. Discursive, textual culture has no value for him.

wkay – update

October 25, 2009 in WhoseKidAreYou

So where’s WhoseKidAreYou? “Well, I’m working on it” is the short answer. I have recently reorganised the code in the user script, and I’ve been fiddling with Sindice, a semantic/linked data search engine. I’m fairly certain, however, that the first version out will work like this. User script tries a range of XPath and DOM [...]

the GOP speaks, and so does the unconscious

October 25, 2009 in conservatives, ideology

Speaking of new Soviet men, The GOP Speaks continues to be a fantastic resource on authoritarian thinking. Short version – chap writes to every county- and state-level Republican chairman in the US and asks them to fill in a questionnaire. Blogs the results as they come in. Here’s number 26. 1) So long as it’s [...]

the new Soviet man

October 25, 2009 in can you believe we don't have a "science" tag?

While we’re kicking the remains of Superfreakonomics around the car park, here’s something else. Via Kevin Drum, it seems that John Meriwether, the chap whose hedge fund LTCM nearly killed the banking sector in 1998, has started another hedge fund, a few months after his come-back ended up being crushed under the financial panic of [...]

scary monsters and super freaks keep me running

October 25, 2009 in can you believe we don't have a "science" tag?

One consequence of the whole Superfreakonomics fiasco, which has been thoroughly reported elsewhere in the blogosphere, is that I’ve changed my mind about geoengineering ideas. Up until now, I was of the opinion that the various proposals to check climate change by doing various things to the atmosphere or the oceans were no substitute for [...]

the problem with a submarine is that there’s nowhere to have a decent cocktail party

October 25, 2009 in admin, glob-Al

The blog is going to call in Amsterdam this week. I’m going to be attending eComm, the less tiresome telecoms conference. Readers there are welcome to meet up; I’d also be interested in recommendations of anything, really, as I haven’t been there since 1996, and using the various hangouts referenced in Charlie Stross novels as [...]

arguing about Afghanistan

October 18, 2009 in Afghanistan

Daniel Davies speaks on Afghanistan, and comments ensue. Dan Hardie is mostly making sense; he argues that there are essentially three options – a strategy of trying to win the tribes, one of defending the cities and key locations and pouring in aid to the Afghans, or one of unilateral withdrawal. The first would be [...]

sorry funds are not available, we’ve got you by the balls

October 18, 2009 in economics, Tories

I’m surprised more people didn’t pick this up, but the Guardian quietly confirmed all the rumours about cash points and BACS payments nearly not making it through the banking crisis. Here’s the story: The Guardian has learnt that a year ago the City regulator was so concerned about customers’ fears over the soundness of RBS [...]

false consensus, part two

October 18, 2009 in economics, ideology

More fake consensus. “It’s like a three ring circus in here!” Here’s Chris Dillow, making the excellent point that the promises of cuts are significantly less than the average errors on forecasts of the budget balance. Here’s Samuel Brittan making the excellent point that the cure for the budget deficit is economic recovery. Here’s Economic [...]

Hogging the chamber

October 18, 2009 in Tories

You think the attack on libertarians was troll bait? Well, this thing goes up to 11. Douglas Hogg is right, possibly for the first time in his career. Consider the great kerfuffle about MPs’ expenses. Some of them were in the habit of doing things that were within the rules but looked embarrassingly extravagant, some [...]