The FT’s distinguished columnists are fearing for the worst as they look at the Eurozone debacle unfold. And, of course, many of them had glowing words to say in favour of the whole idea when it was set up. Wolfgang Münchau gives more doom-laden analysis today (tuck’d away behind the FT […]
Walter Russell Mead pours out one fine article after another. Look at his blunt observations on the desperate situation in Rhode Island where years of not decades of public sector greed and a refusal by politicians and unions there to accept underlying financial realities (especially for pensions) is creating a […]
You’ve no doubt been wondering what sort of food Brits throw away, as compared to (say) Poles. Here’s the subtle analysis from W-Wa Jeziorki: … we agreed as to why this should be. Polish bread – which is wonderfully tasty, nourishing and generally fabulous – has an ‘best by’ date […]
A few years back I joined a seminar organised in the margins of a FCO Leadership Conference in London. The discussion focused on global trends. A striking observation was made: “in the past ten years or so we have seen one of the greatest changes in human history–a billion people […]
In case you haven’t seen it already, here is my latest DIPLOMAT article – this one on the flawed first principles underlying the EU’s current problems. It considers several basic principles of the way the EU works and notes that the current crisis is so painful because it is putting […]
Who’s not seen Japanese mayhem movie classic RoboGeisha? It’s all about young ladies who get captured by a wicked arms corporation which turns itself into a giant robot and tries to drop an H-bomb down Mt Fuji to make the Japanese people ‘rise up’. Quite why they would rise […]
Update Apologies for the earlier version – struggling with new voice recognition software… The chaotic rule of Col Gaddafi looks to have ended in predictable, chaotic circumstances. Contradictory reports are flooding in about what exactly has happened to Gaddafi, but it looks pretty safe to bet that something Pretty Bad […]
Sorry that there hasn’t been much blogging here recently. A sudden surge of work and a certain vivid domestic drama – about which I may write in due course (but don’t bank on it) – have been overwhelming me this week. Anyway, here I am marooned in Vienna Airport […]
Are you following the stupidity and incoherence of the Occupy Wall Street #OWS tendency with its lumpen supporters in differemnt US cities? Ed Driscoll gives us a helpful round up of why the phoney idea of Liberaltarianism (ie the supposed new synthesis between libertarian and left-liberal thinking) is meaningless. And […]
Last week I attended the UK premiere of a new Polish film, Battle of Warsaw 1920. It gives a lurid and (inevitably) hugely simplified account of one of Europe’s greatest battles. As I left the cinema I found myself wrestling with a grim and unwelcome question. Had it been the worst […]
