Fight of the Century: Keynes vs. Hayek Round Two

Previously.

Now here is round two…

My favourite line is this one:

Give us a chance and we can discover the most valuable ways to serve one another

The physics of something awful

Watch this until you get the point.

Now watch this.

The most pointless article ever?

The Earth could find itself with a ‘second sun’ for a period of weeks later this year when one of the night sky’s most luminous stars explodes, scientists have claimed.

So runs this recent article in The Telegraph entitled “‘Second sun’ on its way”.

Apparently…

…the explosion could take place before the end of the year – or indeed at any point over the next million years.

 

The ecology of cities

As water flows along streams and rivers, maybe spreads out, and creates a habitat; so money flows and creates an industrial quarter in a city. Sometimes the river is diverted, or dries up, and the watery habitat disappears, and is replaced with something else. Sometimes too, money is diverted, and the industrial habitat disappears, and is replaced with something else.

When an industrial area loses its sustaining flow of money, a typical ecological succession ensues.

First to populate the newly vacated habitat is broken glass, graffiti and litter. These pioneer species indicate that the habitat is changing. These are typically followed by Buddleia and discarded shopping trolleys – hardier species than the pioneers, but slower to colonise. These species slowly spread to dominate the area over several years.

Later, when the area seems to have reached equilibrium, giant grazing animals appear. These noisy, smelly yellow animals feed on bricks and building materials, the carcasses of the inhabitants from the earlier times. These act as “ecological engineers”, species that significantly change the habitat. Where once skeletal structures were, there now are flattened areas of rubble. Encroaching at the margins of these are the pioneer species, but more significant are the new arrivals – temporary car parks and their attendant signs, cones, and cars.

Later still, a distinct breed of human re-emerges, having been all but chased out when the money dried up. These are the artists and artisans, living at the fringes of the economy and in need of cheap space. They generally form a mutually tolerant relationship with the few light-industry humans that survived the money drought.

These humans encourage a trickle of money to re-enter the area, at which point the noisy smelly yellow animals begin to reappear although these ones, unlike their forerunners, begin to convert the temporary car parks back into new buildings.

The climax community of such a succession is one of superficially attractive but over-priced city-living, and computer games developers. Typical species thus include young city professionals (lawyers, accountants, consultants) and computer programmers. The former head to the city centre to graze during the day and return at night; the latter graze in the area during the day and leave at night to rest elsewhere.

Beer Beer Beer

Sinister logo

Look at the logo below.

The good ol’ TPH Criteria Working Group, beloved of contaminated land consultants and risk assessors everywhere. It’s harmless right?

Wrong.

Look at the symbols in the corners. Alchemy at the top, bizarre scripture and rituals to the right, and unnecessary surgery to the left.

And that family in the middle. Thrown into a  pool of green liquid with their hands tied behind their backs – and a tree trunk tied to the boy to weigh him down.

And you still trust these people??

Guest post

Hello.

I am Pete’s computer and he has asked me to write this blog post for him because he is busy. By busy, I mean he has been out this evening and was too lazy to write a post in advance over the weekend. He wastes too much of his time on the internet you see.

If you see Pete in the real world, tell him to stop being a lazy arse and get on with something productive.

10 reasons numbered list articles suck

1. The writing is more likely to be derivative and contrived.
2. The thinking behind the writing is more likely to be derivative and contrived.
3. It implies that the reader does not have to analyse their predicament – just do these tips and your sorted!
4. Blatant linkbait.
5. They reinforce our ever-decreasing attention span.
6. To artificially inflate the number of items in the list, some points may merely be a rehash of others.
7. Some points may merely be a rehash of others in order to artificially inflate the number of items in the list.
8. The likelihood that the number of pertinent points relevant to the topic is a nice round number is small.
9. There is always at least one ridiculous item with no bearing on the topic – probably to get to the nice round number.
10. Potatoes.

This idea was stolen from Nancy Bartlett. Sorry Nancy!

I am an Austrian

Hat-tip to The Cobden Centre.

Surprises are more valuable than confirmation of what you think you know

Daniel Hannan (UK Conservative Member of the European Parliament) was describing a speech he did at a Republican committee meeting in the Deep South of the States.  In the context of something else he mentioned gay marriage, and immediately felt that he had dropped a clanger.

Sure enough, after I had finished, a man with a beard and a red baseball cap sauntered up to me.

“Son,” he said, “Ah ’preciate you comin’, an’ Ah ’greed with most of wut you said. But Ah must disagree with your position on so-called homosexual marriage.”

He paused to hitch his jeans up his great belly, looking into the middle distance.

“Far as Ah kin see, not bein’ under any pressure to git married is one of the main advantages Ah enjoy as a gay man.”