I hope to be back to normal again soon, as I have been preoccupied this week trying (a) to earn money, and (b) to sort out our proposed house sale as we move from lofty palatial Ambassadorial Crawford Towers to something more, hem affordable and compatible with our post-Ambassadorial much […]
Belgium emits the usual confidence that the UK even under the Conservatives will be absorbed into EU processes … nicely: Belgian negotiators are convinced that Mr Cameron’s hard line opposition to giving more sovereignty up to the EU, a pledge written into his coalition government’s agreement, will be sacrificed in […]
It’s a tiring job reading Tim Worstall’s blog every day, as he demolishes one idiotic idea after another, a fevered lumberjack in the wide leafy Forest of Nonsense felling tree after tree with mighty blows. Where does he find the energy? For a good example of another tree toppling to […]
The latest BBRU is pinkly hosted by Trixy. It’s notable for a link to a profoundly depressing link to a piece noting the OK contents of the free condom device at the British Embassy in Hanoi. Have these people no taste?
This site always praises good technique. So let’s hear it for the FBI, who have done a most impressive number on cracking open a sophisticated Russian spy ring. Most of the lurid media reports this morning simply rehash what is in the US Justice Department published material. Check out the […]
Brian Micklethwait asks a pertinent and subversive question. If we know which Euro currency notes are issued by which country, why not start insisting to be paid only in notes issued by countries which are unlikely to default? … supposing lots of people do know this, or get to know […]
We all agree that government spending in many Western countries is too high – stupidly high. We are cranking up debts to pay for current consumption at a rate which suggests to the markets that we have lost our minds. The markets look to charge us higher interest rates, as […]
A little-understood feature of modern conflict is the impact of the so-called ‘rules of engagement’. Basically, these rules lay down when it is and is not lawful to shoot at the enemy or otherwise act in self-defence. A version of them should be carried by each soldier on a handy […]
Sorry not to have been more active recently, folks. But I have had to travel to Stuttgart, Geneva, Warsaw/Cracow and now Brussels all in the past ten days, while keeping an eye on our attempts to sell Crawford Towers. My latest manoeuvres involved leading a course on Ethical Dilemmas in […]
Excellent NYT piece by Errol Morris via Browser exploring the Dunning-Kruger Effect: the fact that our incompetence/ignorance masks our ability to recognize our incompetence/ignorance: Donald Rumsfeld gave this speech about “unknown unknowns.” It goes something like this: “There are things we know we know about terrorism. There are things we know […]
