Once upon a time telephone calls went down specific lines; a ‘switchboard’ was a large, er, board at which an operator sat switching plugs to and fro into holes to connect individual people. That got automated. Calls became cheaper and cheaper. Then along came computers. Then the Internet. Based on (very cool) packet-switching […]
The UK’s ‘devolution’ arrangements are complicated and either stupidly inconsistent or elegantly tailored to meet varying local requirements, depending how you look at it. Here is the official summary: Devolution of powers Following referendums in Scotland and Wales in 1997, and in both parts of Ireland in 1998, the UK […]
Talking of education, President Obama’s idea of exhorting America’s children to work hard via a nationwide address to schools is (of course) encountering resistance as did a similar initiative by President Bush in 1991: … Critics are particularly upset about lesson plans the administration created to accompany the speech. The lesson […]
Via Ed Driscoll, this fine rant from 2000 against those who insist that urban life is the best there is: The book frowns on gated communities, of course, because they’re exclusionary. Conversely, they praise urban developments with dense housing – which include, I presume, apartment buildings with doormen and security […]
Edwin Forprogress helpfully comments on one of my postings about Edward Kennedy and briefs us on the legacy of the great man: edwin forprogress.org So much of his ‘The Dream Shall Never Die’ speech is relevant now. It makes me sad that so many Americans do not know how much it was […]
A youthful Crawf asks me what I make of the sending to Libya of the ‘Lockerbie bomber’. Very difficult to say, because it’s a fiendishly long and complicated story about which I know next to nothing on the inner detail. My only professional diplomatic encounter with Libya came on the […]
As the world forgets about Honduras again, the former President’s hopes of returning to power look to be ebbing. Soon the country will be looking to new elections. Hurrah. Here is an interesting piece about how the Organisation of American States might have managed its diplomacy differently. By suspending Honduras […]
Most of the noise generated by Foreign Secretary David Miliband’s observations on a BBC Great Lives radio programme has been linked to his words on terrorism: Asked by presenter Matthew Parris whether there were any circumstances in which terrorism was justified, Mr Miliband said: ‘Yes, there are circumstances in which […]
William Hague’s interview with the Independent earlier this week was especially gloomy about Bosnia: Mr Hague, who also had extensive meetings with political leaders in a visit to Bosnia last autumn, said he feared the tensions could deteriorate into something worse. He said: "In some form [Bosnia] could break down […]
If (as you do) you wanted to sell to a peevish US public the idea of more state intervention in healthcare, what would be a Really Bad way to do it? Give a rambling example of the private sector flourishing and the ‘official’ sector failing in the same market! That would […]
