Boris makes a difference. Good news if you like dead women.

Q: When is a low-carbon fuel not a low-carbon fuel?
A: When it’s hydrogen.
If you think that’s not funny, you’re right. It’s not. Hydrogen is being touted as a climate saviour, yet would actually lead to greater carbon emissions.

Software, whether that’s a CD, a text file of a book, or a computer program, is a good with a marginal cost of zero. Hence basic economics tells us an individual act of software copying makes society in aggregate better off and harms nobody (because the total producer surplus plus consumer surplus is maximised when [...]

Targets *do* produce better healthcare outcomes

DK has managed to dig up an extremely wrong-headed article on the Georgia versus Russia conflict over South Ossetia. Marius Ostrowski tries to put the ‘Russia is terribly terribly bad; just because the people of South Ossetia are Russian, want to be part of Russia and the Georgians keep trying to kill them doesn’t mean [...]

Best Glossary Ever

I found this lurking in one of my outboxes, and though it deserved an airing:
In the course of a single Crooked Timber thread, I seem to have come worryingly close to defending both genocide and forced child marriage
More than usual, please read the rest…

Blogger Lenin has some impartial [*] words on the future for the Caucasus after the current willy-waving:
a new Brzezinski-advised Obama administration would certainly focus far more intently on shoring up US power in Central Asia than continuing to fight the lost battle in Iraq.
It’s what we should have been doing for the last 15 years; [...]