What follows was triggered by a debate with arcana_mundiWe were discussing, inter alia, the relatively poor showing of the US on many population health indicators despite the US spending more on health than the rest of the OECD and whether the US healthcare financing and delivery model was responsible for that.  She argued that there are many factors affecting ( Read more... )

The recent spat between Admiral Brownship, General Brownjob, Mr Brown the Prime minister, Mr Browne the Defence Minister and Captain Darling the Chancellor (Where was Colonel Mustard?) about the size of the British Defence Budge was a classic example of ignoring the elephant in the room. Yes, the British defence budget is too small to support ( Read more... )

Norman Naimark - "The Russians in Germany A History of the Soviet Zone of Occupation, 1945-1949", Cambridge, Mass 1995This a hefty read; almost five hundred pages plus apparatus. It's a good reminder too that history is not inevitable. Few events seem more inevitable in hindsight than the division of Germany or the collapse of Soviet communism ( Read more... )

On July 17th last year I wrote a piece on the cynical nature of the H&S prosecution in the De Menezes killing.

Among other things I prognosticated as follows:

I foresee the usual official reaction when the Met is convicted two years from now. "Procedures have been changed to prevent a recurrence of this unfortunate event and no useful purpose ( Read more... )

So the government has now defended infiltrating a peaceful demonstration with masked, rock carrying cops..

Mosley, Hitler and that crowd at least had the decency to recruit their own thugs for breaking up demonstrations. Harper seems to think the police are there to be used as his personal goon squad. Worse, the police seem to be happy to

Reflecting on Harper's new cabinet yesterday I had a revelation. The true purpose of the Afghan war became clear to me. It exists so that there is always going to be one minister who is less popular than the PM and there is always one job that the PM can dispatch a feared/hated rival to. It now becomes clear why the 'troubles' in Northern ( Read more... )

This article in the Globe and Mail is more interesting for what it says about how the Harper government operates than for what it says about detainees and Afghanistan. If I read this right Harper has gone the American route of removing the diplomats from diplomacy and giving control of key aspects of foreign policy to DND and the generals. We all ( Read more... )

Andy Bevan emerges as Stephane Dion's eminence grise. Nomads, taking over Canada one day at a time...

Today's Globe and Mail leads on an investigation of the received by prisoners handed over by the Canadian armed forces to the Afghan authorities. There has been concern for some time that the agreement Canada has with the Afghan government on this issue is weak but ministers and DND brass have repeatedly assured Canadians that the prisoners are ( Read more... )

The Globe and Mail this morning mentions Dion strategist Andrew Bevan in the context of the weekend's high jinks.  Andy is a former president of the Toronto Nomads and a former team mate of mine. Rugby players taking over the world one ruck at a time!