The Least Accountable Regime in the Middle East

I might just have mentioned this before, but Iraq - what a bloody disaster! Just read this piece by Ed Harriman in the LRB - The Least Accountable Regime in the Middle East (login required for full article) - and the sheer incompetence, waste and idiocy of the enterprise is staggering. It's about the cash spent on reconstruction projects and the like. Billions and billions have been spent to achieve the merest fraction of what they were supposed to. Nobody knows where most of it has gone, other than to corrupt Iraqi politicians, western security firms and consultants of various shades. Electricity levels are only just now getting back to Saddam era crapness, and water and sewage not even that. All the cash for hospitals, schools, roads and other infrastructure is gone and they haven't finished anything. Why have the people responsible not been toppled from office and put in jail?

Watchful Eyes

How long has that strapline been there then? I've only just noticed it. And was the original poster genuine or a spoof?

UK 'tops energy wasters league'

UK 'tops energy wasters league'. Great, isn't it? We're also the fattest, worst binge drinkers, have the most anti-social behaviour, most congested roads with longest commuting times, the least job security etc etc. In fact, it's quite interesting to put 'uk worst in europe' and 'uk best in europe' into google and compare the results. We have the best roadworks, apparently!

Breeding for God

This'll cheer you up Tom (!) - an article in Prospect predicting the decline of secularism in Europe and a shift towards a more US-style religious democracy - based partly on the fact that the more devout elements of the population have more kids. Except monks, obviously. Have only skimmed it, so not yet convinced that the theory stands up.

Darwin Online

One for Tom: The complete work of Charles Darwin Online, as reported on BBC.

Imagine Earth without people

Quite interesting piece in New Scientist. Think the world would be better off if global warming and the rest get rid of humans altogether!

The numbers do add up

Quite good, informed stuff on the Guardian comment is free site on the methodology and implications of the 655,000 dead study in the Lancet. Whatever the margin of error of the 'point estimate' figure quoted, the study definitely shows that things have gotten a hell of a lot worse since the war. The sample is much bigger than those Mori polls of political support in Britain, and politicians are quite happy to gross those up to represent an entire country - so why dismiss the figures for Iraq?

655,000 dead

Death toll could be 10 times the official estimate. If true, that's 1 in 40 of the country's population. F***ing disaster.

Russia's WTO talks stall over allofmp3.com

Russia might be denied membership of WTO unless it does something about allofmp3.com, according to The Times and others. But allofmp3 say they conform to local copyright laws, but users should check their local laws!

Paxo Redux

Don't know if you saw Newsnight tonight, but Paxman demolished some dithering mediocrity of a junior govt minister, with responsibility for climate change. Following a 'package' claiming that we need to spend 1% of global gdp to avert catastrophic climate change, Paxo quizzed our man.
Him: We're spending £500m on renewables.
Pax: Over what period?
Him: er, 5 or 6 years
Pax: So how much have you spent on Iraq?
Him: Well I don't have the exact figures to hand, Jeremy
Pax: Well let me refresh your memory - £4.5bn and counting. Do you think that's proportionate?

John Reid!?

Surely not.

POW Rolex

This is really cool. Nice watch too...

Branson Pickle

Further to our earlier discussion, the new scientist blog's got something about Branson's largesse.

War on Bathtubs

Just read this in an old paper from last week - quite a good John Allen Paulos-esque piece by Gavyn Davies on over-reacting to terrorism.

At last, a genuinely useful keyboard

Posh Wikipedia

Citizendium

The Economist comes out in favour of action on global warming.

This is a change of direction for them - they used to take a "let the free market sort it out when it happens" line.

The heat is on

Bush 'prepares emissions U-turn'

So says the indescribably boring anyway.

Happiness

Just finished this excellent book by Richard Layard, a Professor at LSE and expert on the economics of happiness. Interesting findings about how British/US society has got so much richer in the last fifty years but no happier. A lot of this is to do with rising expectations and status anxiety. His social and personal remedies include: less television, better clinical drugs, more taxation, less inequality, less geographic mobility, more membership organisations, restrictions on advertising, meditation...

Environmental Freakout Part NN

SIBERIAN PERMAFROST!!! AAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!