How to run a railway system with startling incompetence and/or amazing system destabilizing losses? Learn from Greece: Losses at Hellenic Railways, however, continue to mount — at the rate of 3 million euros ($3.8 million) a day. Its total debt has increased to $13 billion, or about 5 percent of […]
The FCO has a new Permanent Under Secretary (ie top HQ civil servant cheese), namely Simon Fraser. The Guardian of course gets it wrong: Although the highly regarded Fraser has worked in the Foreign Office before, it is unusual for the permanent secretary to be recruited from outside the ranks […]
Or if the BBC website front page as of 0947 this morning is anything to go by, is he bowing to us? Plus how many other bowlers have managed to take 800 wickets on any given day in their fine Test careers, let alone their final day? Sigh: Muralitharan reaches […]
Christian faith centres on giving up the claim to be yourself at everyone else’s expense… What a tendentious and generally problematic pronouncement. “Love your neighbour as yourself" Yes. But what does it mean to love yourself? As Ayn Rand famously put it, "To say ‘I love you,’ one must know […]
A curious article over at Foreign Affairs about the efficacy of democracies in doing better to protect citizens from earthquakes. Is it because democracies are simply richer and so build better buildings? No: In a democracy, leaders must maintain the confidence of large portions of the population in order to […]
Here is an interesting account from Devil’s Knife of his participation in a public discussion on Freedom and all that. I can imagine that his account of the end of Friendly Societies had some people bemused, but it is an interesting story: As in other things where the state starts […]
I bewail the creepy drift in our political culture from Reason to Emotion, from Objective to Subjective – over at Business and Politics.
Bored? Frustrated? Check out the I Write Like website. It’s simple. Cut and paste in some text you’ve written, press the button and Bingo!, it tells you which famous writer your work emulates. Only problem is, it can’t make its mind up. Having cut and pasted in various passages from […]
The legal processes surrounding the attempt by Belgrade to get former BH Presidency member Ejup Ganic extradited from London to Serbia to face war crimes charges rumble on. The latest hearing has ended. According to the Sarajevo media, judgement is expected on 27 July. Needless to say, media reports of […]
H/t Samizdata who lead us to this vivid site featuring three Texas fun-lovin’ ladies. One a Polysomnography Technician (what else?), another at college, the third looking after her family. Yup. Beautiful smart strong women who have it all. The feminist’s dream come true? That said, men with a nervous or unfaithful disposition might […]
