Economics is an agenda-setting system. Here’s a working example – Noah Smith engaging Robert Gordon (who is in his turn drinking from the poisoned well of Tyler Cowan). Gordon’s big idea is that y’know how things aren’t so great? Well, they’re always going to be awful, so there’s nothing can be done about it! And…
Read More Economic reality is yesterday’s political choiceFrank Field, still an idiot, but not a very useful one. The Labour MP, who was appointed poverty advisor shortly after the coalition took power in 2010, delivered his Review on Poverty and Life Chances in November that year. He now says he doesn’t believe the prime minister has read the paper, and despite some…
Read More what is your major malfunction, Pyle?Over the next 12 months, no fewer than four railway operating franchises are coming up for renewal (the list is here) and three more are subject to a review. The closest deadline is December, by which time the West Coast Main Line franchise must be either transferred to the new boss (First Group) or it…
Read More Procrastination means transportation for the nationAfter the westalgie post, here’s a classic quote: The stores were always full and we had spares for everything He’s talking about working in a British power station during the nationalised era. He also says it was wasteful and bureaucratic, but then, I only came for the ironic resonance.
Read More a case in pointReally superb study of the Iraqi post-Ba’athist insurgent movement led by Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri. Yes, that’s the guy who was a deputy of Saddam’s and about number three in the pack of cards, still out there to this day. Similarly, how the Americans were still trying to make Iyad Allawi boss of Iraq, even backing…
Read More LinksThis piece on Android Police is painfully true, even though to be honest the screenshots show a huge improvement over the versions I’ve used. But the UX is really the last thing to hate about Android. Well, it was on the first one I had, which was a poorly integrated hacky mess. No, the worst…
Read More Whining about AndroidInteresting PPRuNe thread on airports. Unsurprisingly for an aviation forum, if there is anything like consensus, it’s for Heathrow. Unsurprisingly, there’s one single, hyper-boosterish Borisland proponent, possibly even a sockpuppet. Surprisingly, the experts have some really wonderfully crazy ideas. Why not build two more runways at LHR, not just one – putting the fourth between…
Read More ask the expertsSo, if this new localism stuff is meant to be so fucking local, why is the NHS foundation trust I joined, which covers this area, holding its AGM in Rainham, Essex*, and its board meeting the next day in Ilford (at 10am, so nobody who has a job can possibly attend)? Come to think of…
Read More Beware of the leopardEnjoyed that K-pop Downfall refix viral? Here’s something, from following various twitter feeds. China’s Navy Flexes Its Muscles (i.e. stages a fleet live-fire exercise) and We Just Out Here Trying To Function And Smoke. The news broadcast about the Chinese naval exercise fits really well over the intro, as I discovered thanks to a browser…
Read More [frivolous]So, the Southern Investigations wing of the Murdoch scandal just woke up again. It seems that Jonathan Rees, the guy whose business partner in the dodgy detective agency run by moonlighting cops got axed to death and the cop investigating the case took his place before he went to jail as a kiddy fiddler –…
Read More the intersection of Leveson and political plane-spotting