2010

Next slide, please. At last, we’re there – Chapter 4 of the SDR Green Paper tackles the classic question of alignment with the EU, NATO, and the special relationships. And it’s a highly post-American document. Our current relationships are mutually reinforcing. NATO remains the cornerstone of our security. However, as Europeans, we must take greater…

Read More Sunday SDR, Chapter 4: Partnership

Well, it’s going to be more like “All SDR, All the Time”, as I’ve just noticed that MOD is planning to close the consultation in two weeks. Here goes. Well, Chapter 3 is in my mind the most impressive bit of the SDR Green Paper so far. It basically sets out the notion that, although…

Read More Sunday SDR, Chapter 3: Adaptability and Influence

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level is a vigorous polemic for social democracy, something we’re probably in need of as the neo-liberals recover from the 2008 experience. Unlike most such, this one is based on data – specifically, a whole battery of socioeconomic indicators that turn out to be strongly correlated with income…

Read More Premature evaluation – The Spirit Level

Some data points relating to my last Sunday SDR post and specifically the points about the way in which some forms of advanced technology are becoming much more evenly distributed. Here’s Armscontrolwonk getting the wrong year, but more importantly, linking to India experimenting with hit-to-kill antiballistic missile/antisatellite technology. Here’s DARPA starting an app store for…

Read More Sunday SDR data points

Well, well, well. The Conservative chairman, Eric Pickles, last night appeared to disown the leadership of the Young Britons’ Foundation, a rightwing training organisation for young Conservatives whose officials have described the NHS as “the biggest waste of money in the UK” and suggested the waterboarding of prisoners can be justified. Pickles spoke last week…

Read More tha mun laike wi’t gangling-iron, Councillor Duxbury

It’s been a while since this referrer’s been in: proxy-ext-76.osd.mil [Srv] [entrypoint #81] 2007/05/falklands-myths-4-american-and-european.html Mar 04, 17:36:34 [0:00:00] views: 1 Google (ascension island 1982 jet fuel) Proxy: proxy-ext-76.osd.mil – RSRCNISA01 I think that counts as a Disturbing Search Request, if not quite as disturbing as when the S in OSD was Donald Rumsfeld.

Read More marginally less disturbing search request

Something interesting on the Air Cocaine story. A lurker dropped off this: El avión, Boeing 727, siglas J5-GCU de Guinea Bissau, aterrizó en el aeropuerto internacional La Chinita de Maracaibo a las 11:00 pm del 16 de octubre, procedente de Panamá. Allí permaneció poco más de una hora, mientras llenaba los tanques de combustible. Antes…

Read More a technical stop