The Manifesto

In the week I laughed out loud at the advert for Ford’s newest and best American 4×4, promising a green future with ‘up to 22 mpg’ (not a misprint), I was humoured to find the CEO of Ford on the Observer’s ‘Eco-Power List’.  So was Geroge Monbiot.  Read his critique here.  Read the ‘eco-power list’ [...]

I’ve been off the radar for a few weeks – I’m back in the States on holiday.  So to all of you who check in, happy new year and may all your dreams not kill you.  I’m hoping to get a bit of momentum on the site again, and even do some proper, and long [...]

One of the best summaries of the so-called ‘economic wisdom’ being forced upon the Irish people at the moment.  Oh for a Jonathan Swift today.  http://tinyurl.com/35vd6w9

The two, maybe three, occasional readers of this blog will have to forgive my current Amercian slant – I am, as mentioned previously, spending a month in Austin, Texas – an intriguing, and enjoyable place to be.  Nonetheless, I am surprised, as again I have mentioned previously, on the paucity of public political debate here [...]

Interestingly concise, and hard to fault, description of what our politicians’ continual kowtowing to ‘market demands’ actually is: http://tinyurl.com/2eqsmhx Which reminded me of this.

I recently attended the Austin version of The Rally To Restore Sanity and/or Fear (the main one, hosted by America’s most popular political comedian, Jon Stewart, was in DC at the same time) and came away with a fairly sour taste in my mouth.  Political comedy is an interesting animal – it can be hugely [...]

V interesting article by Monbiot exploring the failure of the left as a misunderstanding of psychology – a mistake which advertisers, and the Tea Party, rarely make.  http://tinyurl.com/26zxdu4

I’m currently in the US, Austin Texas to be precise.  And just time time for election season.  It is sobering, and saddening, to see what passes for political debate in the current US climate.  For some time I’ve been interested in the evident failure of liberalism in America, and in Western society in general (think [...]

Superb write-up on the untold aspects of the Chilean miners’ story: http://tinyurl.com/25ddtk7

I came across a substantial but very readable discussion between Patrick Bond, a South African activist and academic, and Shanta Devarajan, the World Bank’s chief economist.  It’s rare to find genuine engagement on behalf of the World Bank, and credit to Devarajan for responding to Bond’s critique directly – but his response, as Bond shows, [...]