More B&T:
BRIC – MIST – MAYHEM: “the creation of random geopolitical blocs is kind of fun. I mean, if you group Mexico with Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, Egypt and Moldova then you have MAYHEM; as indeed you do.“
Libyan nukes:
Actually, come to think about it there seemed to be a fair amount of ritual involved in Libya giving up its nuke programme.Step one: Libya buys a bunch of stuff from the Khan network
Step two: Libya hands it over and renounces its programme
Stepo three: Welcome to the international community! Here’s a guy we jugged earlier.
I always wondered if step one was taken in anticipation of taking step two.
On Torygeddon
it’s important not to get paranoid about this. Just because the management of the economy resembles something from a political science textbook about the period of destabilisation engineered to lay the groundwork for a coup doesn’t mean that it’s actually happening that way.
On Tunisia: “It obviously wasn’t a twitter revolution, or a wikileaks one for that matter. It was a “man burning himself alive in despair” revolution. The only thing digital about it was when he flicked his bic“
Empire numerology: “So, Britain as superpower, 1759-1945. US as superpower, 1919-2008. USSR as superpower, 1945-1989. Clearly there’s a pattern here; each new power lasts approximately half the length of its predecessor. ..Unfortunately, this only gives the Chinese from 2008-2033 or thereabouts. Which sounds about right for a really serious demographic/elite incompetence crisis. India and Brazil only get 12 or 6 years, and at some point in the 2050s the world order starts to move like a singulatarian’s fantasy“