stereotypes

Yesterday I was walking up one of those streets that go from the Meadows to Lauriston Place. Two german-looking cyclists passed me, both wearing helmets. They might have been a couple. Guess what they were talking about? Whether they should recycle more cardboard.

pop-leftism

“The Popular Left”, by Ms. Kok

Al

Now that he’s no longer the #1 American Loser, will he run? And, if he does, how long will it take the GOP to notice that his first name smells very Arabic?

cars, ad infinitum

Jackie Ashley is starting to annoy me: I can take scepticism about new media; I can take sarcasm against Blair (sometime I even indulge in it myself); but I can’t take bad arguments. Today she writes about the road-pricing petition: she claims that building new roads would not help with congestion. Her argument? The fact that, over the last 10 years, the number of cars in the country has gone from 26m to 33m. So building new roads won’t help, because the number of cars will keep growing. But it is silly to think that the number of cars will grow indefinitely. We know why Ashley doesn’t want new roads – the environment. And that’s fair enough. So please let it not be disguised behind poor argument.

Having said that, don’t sign the petition.

Blair’s doing

Will we finally hear a word of praise for Tony?

changes and chances

Jackie Ashley tells us today in The Guardian about Blair’s after10 plans to fight global warming. But if Blair wants to change the climate, he will first have to acclimatize to change.

Climate change: means and ends

George Monbiot is ugly, boring, and slightly annoying – in a word, academic; but he does his homework, providing a useful service to his readers. Today, Monbiot didn’t do his homework as well as usual: he was trying to refute the American plan to reflect sunlight back into space rather than cut emissions; but the dismissive vagueness with which he dealt with the arguments left you with a bad feeling: that environmentalists are not wanting to cut emissions as a means to the end of stopping climate change, but that they campaign on climate change as a means to the end of cutting emissions.

Climate change: an ocean apart

“Us, the Americans, and the wolf”

poor wee veggies

customer: Do you have any vegetarian option?
waiter: Yes, Sir, we do. Our vegetarian option is get-the-fuck-out-of-here!

from here

death of the future

magnetic trains were going to change the relationship between transport and environment, and win mid-range distances back from planes (at least that’s what Dave Cameron claimed). now, it won’t happen anymore… too bad.