Decision points

Nothing to do now but watch the news and wait for the next decision point. The thousand or so demonstrators on the streets of Oxford last night may have been a little late to the party, but the start of the war doesn't mean the end of the protests. The question of course is not whether the war can be stopped, but whether the decisions taken by the politicians can be altered. Right now the war is on autopilot and the two armies are being left to sort things out among themselves.

But at some point there will be decisions to be made, and they'll be decisions that go beyond the theatre of war. Perhaps that might not happen till Saddam is gone and the regime broken, or they might come sooner. Wars are too unpredictable for predicitions. Of course the one decision we know we have to make in the UK will come at the local elections. How will we vote, will those who took to the streets take to the ballot box, or will a significant number of British people continue to claim that there's no point voting cause politics is too detatched from reality?

I hope not.

Explain (in one paragraph) the following concepts

1. M1 to M4
2. Total Factor Productivity
3. Purchasing Power Parity
4. The Gold Standard

A few people were foxed by the in one paragraph thing. (it meant a paragraph each) and much email resulted. Jeff Pittman set the tone for last nights discussion

"Hmm, maybe I wasn't supposed to write just one paragraph. Here's the gist of what I wrote:
"1M represents is the liquidity of one bloody Mary, 2M represents Modigliani and Miller who took away my dividends and terrorized my dreams last night, 3M represents an example of my overreaction to stock prices and 4M represents the money supply on steriods. TFP is the residual of the factors which made me feel so low last night, aka two f*ing pints over the convergence of accumulation and depreciation. The gold standard is what I hold my socks' toes to, and purchasing power normalization is what happened when I moved to Oxford and bought into this program.""

As you can tell, we're taking the exams very seriously this time around.

Exams underway

In fact exams nearly over. Only four this term, sat in three papers. Today was a two hour paper on Macroeconomics and Finance II and a one and a half hour paper on Management Accounting. The first and last went pretty well, the Finance paper was, well, tough. Fortunately I spent most of yesterday with my quantitatively gifted girlfriend who patiently explained many of the things I didn't understand, while simultaneously discovering just how little I really know about maths.

How I ever got good marks on last terms finance paper is beyond me. In the unlikely event of it happening again I'll be convinced that our marks are assigned by examiners throwing darts, blindfold at a roulette wheel and have nothing to do with what we actually know. Tomorrow is Operations Management. I reckon passing won't be too hard (hey, fortune, have a hostage) but doing well will be extremely difficult.

Commons debate in real time

Don't worry, I have done plenty of revision for tomorrows exams. This is all a bit more interesting though.

Back later, Jack Straw is summing up and he's showing everything that's wrong with the parliamentary culture. What should be a serious debate loaded with gravitas is turning into a shouting match, a public school boys contest of one upmanship and a frankly obnoxious display. How the hell people are supposed to take us serioiusly after watching this is beyond me.

He's summing up by saying that he 'cannot impune the intentions of anyone in this house' which given that half his speech has comprised character attacks on those who disagree with him and pathetic party political comments has knocked him back even further in my esteem.

hmm, biggest rebellion in modern british political history, biggest demonstration ever and what do we get, nothing. 250 000 countryside alliance supporters was all it took to derail Labours long standing commitment to abolish bloodsports. 1 million suggest killing people is wrong and ... nada

In other news the US published a list of nations it has successfully bribed. "Boucher said the 30 countries on the list are Afghanistan, Albania, Australia, Azerbaijan, Britain, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador (news - web sites), Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, South Korea (news - web sites), Spain, Turkey and Uzbekistan. "

Sorry, that's the 30 countries who support it. We know Turkey have been promised $16 bn and places like Columbia and Afghanistan are in no position to say no. I'm a little skeptical personally.

Now go here and ask about civil disobedience

Baghdad is big

"The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforseeable and uncontrollable events" - Winston Churchill. (credit for the quote)

Reading CNN I've just discovered that Baghdad contains five million people. That's about 2/3rds the size of London. London is very very big indeed. When Churchill was contemplating a German invasion of Britain he consoled himself with the thought that at least London would swallow an entire German division before being broken. Popular resistance, he thought, would make an occupation impossible. Up till now I've imagined Baghdad as a kind of town, in a desert, the kind of thing you could walk through in an hour or two, not an enormous, sprawling metropolis, thousands of streets, a million houses.

In comparison the US has 250 000 troops in the region, including only 120 000 combat troops, the rest are support personnel for the Army and Navy. The UK adds another 30 000 or so combat effectives. Regardless of whether Saddam goes or not if Baghdad doesn't welcome our forces with open arms, but instead sees them as an occupying power could this city swallow the entire invasion force? There are other cities to occupy, supply lines to guard and all the rest. What if the Iraqi regime survives the initial onslaught, what if the Iraqi people oppose invasion more than they loath Saddam?

What if Baghdad is to become the Arab Sarajevo, beseiged for months, bombarded and surrounded. Starved into submission by the 'liberating' troops? Even worse, what if it becomes the next Stalingrad, plenty of people have proved willing to die for obnoxious regimes before now.

Perhaps this is why Stormin Norman turned back at the approach to Baghdad, perhaps this is why so few US generals think this is a good idea. Perhaps this is why the US army wanted so many more troops before they went into action. For a year there have been suggestions that the US military is not happy with the plan it is being asked to follow, is this why? I don't know where I'm going with all this. I oppose the war, I don't think we need it. On the other hand, if it has to come lets hope Bush is right. Lets hope Saddam goes, the Iraqi's elect a benign government, the Kurds are happy with whatever they get, the Shia's and the Sunni live in peace and the monstrous Ba'ath party is consigned to history.

Lets hope Baghdad doesn't swallow all our hopes.

That Robin Cook Speech in full

I never quite got what people meant when they talked about Robin Cook as an impressive politician and a prime ministerial candidate. Well, his resignation speech made that, and a whole lot of other things very clear indeed.

Told you so

Worth some friendly coverage in the Guardian. Thats what I said would be the minimum payoff for the first MP to get a blog. Actually I think his payoff will be several hundred constituents who feel they have a relationship with him, talk to him and promote him. Expect this mans majority to be unassailable by the next election.

Can weblogs get a good man a great job

Well Tim seems to think so. Read all about the latest attempt to expoit networked blogs for the benefit of mankind here
Can Weblogs Get a Good Man a Great Job?

[update] Hmm, #17 on Blogdex and rising. If the usual rules hold and each step up the results ladder doubles the traffic a few more links will see this generate loads of traffic. Not sure its going to result in a job offer though. I am of course ready to be proved wrong.

Maybe he should try Phill Wolff's bloggers for hire page instead.