The Galley Slave

The Food Chain - Hoarding Nations Drive Food Costs Ever Higher - Series - NYTimes.com

This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Look for this situation to worsen if oil prices remain anywhere even close to where they currently are. Frankly, I’m not sure how the agricultural free trade folks are going to make their collective case as things progress, but you can be sure that the developing world will take a big hit. This is one of those points where the green energy lobby misses the mark with the downstream effects of their policies (think biofuel subsidies). How can scoring political points be acceptable when we’re starving a good chunk of the Third World?

Prediction: Drilling in ANWR and in protected offshore areas will be back on the table before the end of the year.

BBC NEWS | Africa | Kenya urges AU to suspend Mugabe

Very interesting. I’m glad to see the AU starting to get serious about Mugabe, but really, it would have been better to see this type of action a few years ago. All of that being said - people need to realize that this is how things work in the Realist Foreign Policy paradigm.

Introduction to the Wikinomics Playbook / Wikinomics

I fumbled the ball last week and didn’t blog about Don Tapscott coming to AOL and giving a nice presentation covering a number of his books, but centering on Wikinomics. I had seen him at another AOL event in the Autumn of last year and was impressed, but I thought that he did an even better job this time. I’ve seen a number of good speakers at AOL over the years, but it’s always these folks who get us to stand back, take a deep breath and look at how time has passed and what changes have taken place and put all of that in perspective.

Leader of Zimbabwe Opposition Seeks Refuge - NYTimes.com

This is so NOT funny anymore. It’s good to see South Africa and some other nearby countries finally starting to put pressure on Mugabe, but unfortunately this is years overdue.

Howdy! This is my first day back in the office after a nice long break doing some fishing in the Shenandoah Valley. And for the first time in recent years I caught more fish than my wife and caught the bigger ones! It’s good to disconnect from the Rat Race from time to time and hang out with the family as well as enjoying the pursuits that nature has to offer. We’re becoming quite the authority on Page County! Two thumbs up - I recommend it highly

The return of real men: Ladies, get ready to meet Mr Retrosexual | Mail Online

I like to post this stuff mostly to annoy my lovely wife

skippermarc.com

A good friend of mine has bought a boat and is actively sailing along the East coast and Caribbean. He is unmarried - and still a scourge of the female population - and left AOL at a good time, around 2003/04 as I recall. Anyway, it looks like he’s having a great time and I - for one - am envious!

BBC20NEWS207C20Asia-Pacific207C20China20quake20toll2027to20top20502C00027

It seems like I’ve been blogging a lot about China lately, and unfortunately it hasn’t been for good reasons. There have been a lot of stories in the media about shoddy construction standards, but people continually want to compare them to Europe or the US and in this sense they are more 3rd world than 1st world. The cold reality is that the economic trade off for building standards and earthquake risk is a chance they are willing to take. A few more incidents like this could galvanize the populace, though.

Wow, it’s been a while since the last post and I sort of missed not being able to post things and point folks at this site to see what we were doing in the Old Country. Dublin was a total blast - we saw pretty much everyone that we wanted to see (with one notable exception) and went almost everywhere we wanted to go (I now owe the wife a trip to Howth). We had a great night with the old troops and even a swanky night at the French Chipper - which remains the finest restaurant that we’ve ever dined at.
Now we’re trying to figure out a way to get back again - sans children!

Olympic Torch Run in Paris Halted as Protests Spread - New York Times

I’ve blogged about this before, but this is really the last thing the Chinese government needs. I wonder if they knew then what they know now whether or not they would take a pass at bidding for the Games. I really was hoping that the Olympics would go off well - on balance I think they would bring more good than bad, but now I suspect that the run up will not be pretty. The Games themselves could well be a disaster.