Economics and similar, for the sleep-deprived
Does anyone have any idea what might be done about the pointless blob of white space above this paragraph? It seems to be resistant to all my efforts. Update haha, it succumbed.
Friday, August 06, 2010
I just don't get invited to the right parties
Just something that struck me in the context of the Charles Taylor trial (and rilly, does anyone at all believe that the mysterious gift to a supermodel is the only piece of evidence connecting Taylor to the RUF?[1] Is this a bad movie?). Everyone's concentrating on Naomi Campbell, but what the fuck was Quincy Jones doing there? Why was Mia Farrow scoffing appetizers with Charles Taylor? Imran Khan, anyone? This was 1997, shortly after Taylor had been elected post-civil-war President of Liberia and at least three or four years after anyone might have had any excuse at all for not knowing what kind of a bastard he was.
More to the point, what was Nelson Mandela doing there? The presence of Campbell, Farrow, Jones and the other celebs is actually quite easy to understand; this was a promotional dinner for a luxury train service that had just been launched. The PR agency had, correctly, assessed that if they got Mandela in as the super-double-alpha-prime-A-list "anchor tenant", it would be child's play to get a bunch of merely A-list celebrities in to bask in the glamour, which would ensure sufficient publicity and attract the real targets of the dinner - various rich people and corporate cronies who they wanted to book seats on their train. It's a simple matter of topology; the purpose of having Naomi Campbell there is that not everyone can sit next to Nelson Mandela, and the purpose of having Mia Farrow there is that not everyone can sit next to Naomi Campbell. I presume that the celebrities present are under the impression that they're attending a salon to discuss world peace, but I know a lad who has a job organising similar events, and for brutal commercial cynicism, he makes me look like Vashti Bunyan.
I am not sure whether Taylor was invited in his capacity as a celebrity (any president of anywhere is someone that people will pay money to sit next to, especially in the land of natural resource curse), or in his personal capacity as a consumer of luxury goods. But it's pretty clear to me that the event basically revolved around the man who people who people pay money to sit next to will pay money to sit next to; Mandela himself, who was apparently giving the apostolic seal of approval to one of the last twenty years' worst people.[2]
I think that the underlying story here is one that South African journalists regularly write about - the fact that for the last ten to fifteen years, Mandela has suffered from an inability to say no to a crowd of hangers-on, particularly when one of his charities (who in my opinion really ought to have a lot more imagination in their fund raising than constantly relying on the personal star power of their patron) is involved. As a result of this, he has been spread out thinner than jam on a boarding-house scone.
[1] Or even that having given a bag of diamonds to a model is actually anything more than circumstantial evidence of gun running in any case. Quite apart from the fact that Liberia mines its own diamonds and so there's no way of telling that the presents were Leonean, the bad thing that Taylor is accused of is sending guns to Sierra Leone, not taking diamonds from it, per se. If you followed the press coverage of this trial you would conclude that it was a case that was all about "blood diamonds" and wonder if the Hague tribunal attached some religious significance to handling stones that had not been blessed by the De Beers corporation. I've written on "blood diamonds" before, but I honestly think some people writing about the Campbell appearance seem to believe that they are literally covered in blood.
[2] There is an off-chance that there's more to the Mandela/Taylor connection than meets the eye here, as they are both friends of Moammar Qadaffi. But the timing doesn't really match up here, and I don't see why the Mandela/Qadaffi relationship, which is based partly on Qadaffi's support for the ANC in the tough years, and partly on the fact that two regional superpowers ought to make an effort to get along, would translate into a relationship with one of Qadaffi's old proteges.
posted by the management 8/06/2010 12:00:00 AM
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Thursday Music Link
The trouble is, there's no such thing as a double-blind thought experiment.
Time for a bit of very metal
the bleepcore version is also curiously interesting
posted by the management 8/05/2010 08:45:00 AM
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Ay oop, it's Selwyn Froggit Ahmad Chalabi!
Here he is, giving the bad news to al-Maliki and apparently repositioning himself as the acceptable face of the Sadrist movement (political version of; Moqtada has apparently been sipping tea in Damascus with Ayad Allawi, which is interesting). Looks like Sadrism is now a genuine political movement for sure (I seem to remember arguing the opposite with Alex once). Also, for an unpopular politician whose career is finished, Chalabi maintains quite a bit of relevance, doesn't he? I think what is going on here is that despite the war, being "seen as close to Iran" in Iraqi politics is a bit like "seen as close to the USA" in Canadian politics - ie, it's probably not really liked all that much, but if you were going to be implacably opposed to it, you'd rule out more or less your entire political class.
posted by the management 8/03/2010 04:24:00 AM
Around and about in Companies House Webcheck
Overdue CH return - Biteback Publishing Limited, due since 17 July. Biteback Publishing is an Iain Dale outfit which has the same registered office as Biteback Media Limited, which is the publisher of "Total Politics", Biteback Media has a different year end and is currently up to date; Publishing is a new company set up last year which doesn't seem to have filed its first return on time. While filing the CH return, perhaps somebody could take the trouble to update the Total Politics terms & conditions for the correct registered office address (or, if the CH registered one is wrong, they need to submit the form and change that).
Well done to: EISCA Ltd, which got it filed on time this year.
Holding our breath for: Respublica Policy Limited, due 25 August.
remember, as this has caused needless trouble before: Having an overdue CH return is a fairly minor administrative peccadillo in the grand scheme of things. They do matter, and they ought to be filed on time (that's why there is a criminal offence on the books if they're more than 28 days late, albeit one that's vanishingly rarely prosecuted), and in my personal opinion it really isn't much to ask of any organisation that they get their act together to make their required filings. But it isn't really all that sinister. I just put these up to tease people who screw up.
Update!: Note that although EISCA has filed its return for this year, it's not clear to me why they bothered. The most recent update on the front page of its website is the launch of its report last July (the only one it's ever produced), and the most recent update on its blog is from March. The page listing its Advisory Board and Patrons no longer displays any names. There doesn't appear to be much going on here. Denis Macshane is still commenting on issues in the general sphere of EISCA's interests, but newspapers no longer seem to be mentioning his chairmanship of this think tank and I can see why.
posted by the management 8/03/2010 03:05:00 AM
Friday, July 30, 2010
Once more unto the paddock
Apparently a salary schedule for the Afghan security forces was in the Wikileaks dump, meaning that once more, the "Taliban pay more than NATO" idea is getting a canter out. (See discussion here (comments) and here (comments).)
At least this time there's recognition that you can't compare the salaries like for like (I'd also note that as far as I can tell from their reputation, the job-related income of an Afghan policeman is a lot bigger than his salary). But the basic problem is that the Taliban aren't like an army, they don't pay like an army and in general the economic relationship is not one that's sensibly analysed by comparison to a monthly wage. The idea that you can bid up the wage of casual labour so that the Taliban can't afford it just isn't going to work.
Edit: "Afghan", not "Afghani", see comments. I got this right once and wrong once, showing that I just wasn't paying attention.
posted by the management 7/30/2010 03:33:00 AM
Wikicide
Err yes. Although government spokesmen should always be given a sceptical hearing when they say "revealing this information will cost lives", it's clearly not OK to just bellyflop a load of information about identifiable individuals onto the Web without checking through it to make sure you're not putting someone's life at risk. I frankly don't understand what Assange thought he was playing at and Charli Carpenter is right to say that the journalists working with him ought to have put their foot down. Nick Davies is usually a total mensch, but he really screwed up on this.
posted by the management 7/30/2010 02:38:00 AM
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Is it me, or is this (while quite cool) not puzzling at all?
"Sailing" directly downwind, faster than the wind speed.
It's a cool vehicle, but there is no puzzle or paradox here, and it is not sailing downwind. It is powered by a propellor/windmill, the movement of which is perpendicular to the wind. A propellor is not a sail; in as much as the blades are analogous to the sails of a windmill wings of a bird, they're moving perpendicular to the wind, not parallel to it, and there's nothing particularly odd or counterintuitive in the idea that you can move faster than the windspeed when you're travelling at an angle to the wind - nearly anyone who sails on their local reservoir has probably done so, on a reach on a light wind day.
I think the thing that is confusing all the amateur physicists and which accounts for the slight does-your-head-in effect of the video is that when you look at the vehicle, you sort of want to consider the plane of rotation of the propellor as if it were a physical object that the wind was blowing against, analogous to a sail. But it isn't; all of the wind power in this thing is perpendicular to the direction of the wind, not directly downwind. It's moving directly downwind under wind power, but it isn't sailing.
Update: Looking at that comments thread, the other thing that confuses people is that the propellor is a propellor, not a windmill - it isn't being turned by the wind. I have made a strikethrough above accordingly.
posted by the management 7/29/2010 11:53:00 PM
Thursday Music Link
The people who didn't like the disco/classical crossovers last week are going to hate my current Daniel Barenboim/The Wurzels mashup project - "I've got a brand new Hammerklavier".
Derek Bailey plays ballads
posted by the management 7/29/2010 07:28:00 AM
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