IMD just sent out promotion for the World Competitiveness Yearbook. The table here was highlighted. My beloved Hong Kong, where you can get things done, is at the top, but Ireland, mired in government sloth, is comparable to centrally controlled Mainland China. Anyone who has taken initiative will know that much red tape is wasteful …
Continue reading Government bureaucracy is keeping us down.
Category:2 Geopolitics
Aren’t The King’s New Clothes Wonderful!?!
Danny Kaye’s is the version I loved as a boy, though Bernard Cribbins does it well too. If you can’t listen, the lyrics are all you need. If you don’t cry at the the irony, smile at the knowledge that there is an answer staring us in the face, even if we choose not to …
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ACTA is more dangerous than PIPA or SOPA
ACTA — a global treaty — could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties – even prison sentences – against …
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Humanity’s ready for a heart attack.
“Current patterns of consumption are not sustainable.” No, really!??! The High-level Panel on Global Sustainability report “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing“. http://www.un.org/gsp/report
Who governs FIFA? Alcohol and sports are not compatible.
It is outrageous that FIFA, sponsored by Budweiser, is demanding the Brazilian government change their law banning alcohol at matches. Soccer is soccer. Fans might like to have a pint while watching teh game in their local, but thousands of intoxicated men in confined spaces – that’s just stupid. Anyone who has seen crowd violence …
Continue reading Who governs FIFA? Alcohol and sports are not compatible.
Protest US “anti-piracy” moves
The US Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa) are proposed to be debated by Congress in a week. The legislation would allow the Justice Department and content owners to seek court orders requiring search engines to block results associated with piracy. The bill is too broad and so badly written …
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We love factory food.
Factory farming is bad. The new movie Contagion, based on the book Viral Storm, dramatises the kind of risk we nurture with intensive farming techniques. The kind of techniques that deliver the variety and volume of food at such low prices that we demand. From The Ecologist: Viral storm: why factory farming is bad for …
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Victory! Or shame?
Gaddafi is gone. That’s good. And right. Gaddafi is dead. Maybe that’s not right. Almost inevitable in this world. But it was not the best we could have done. The evidence streamed around the world of a battered, bloodied old man, interspersed with rejoicing is an embarrassing show of primitive instinct. All male. Guns. Blood. …
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Corporate nation states.
What makes a nation state? It becomes more difficult to define as sovereignty is shared in management of public global assets and for economic and social pragmatism. Think about money for a moment. A nation’s currency might be considered sacrosanct, but the reality of economics is that nations have given up their currencies to save …
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Watch the dead cat bounce.
or here. The Western Economic System (capitalism?) is the cat. 🙁