Finally, a compelling reason to upgrade to premium: a business model at last ?

via waxy

Andy Baio links to Quarrygirl’s undercover investigation of the dubious ingredients in LA-based vegan restaurants.

It’s an interesting riposte the David Simon’s assertion that

“The internet does froth and commentary very well, but you don’t meet many internet reporters down at the courthouse,” he says. “Oh to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model. To gambol freely across the wastelands of an American city as a local politician! It’s got to be one of the great dreams in the history of American corruption.”

Can passionate, single issue advocates find a way to fill some of the gap left by the fall of traditional journalism ?

Anyone with a more than a passing interest in sport, especially in football (but not specifically in Arsenal) should read Jason Cowley’s wonderful account of the final game of the 1988-89 season.

It’s all happening so fast, yet there’s also something curiously hallucinatory about what’s unfolding, as if time itself is being slowed.

Here he comes, Thomas, free, lost to the moment, as he would later describe it. He must know that the defenders are closing on him, must feel the hot rush and strain of their exertion. He has the ball and is moving towards the penalty spot.

An amazing example of the transformational power of sport.

(pic via boooooooom)

Sorry for the quietness round these parts in recent days/weeks.

Real life has been real busy and there is another project taking up most of my time at the moment.

All will be revealed shortly.

In the meantime we saw Watchmen (on IMAX!!) at the weekend. I think it worked pretty well considering the context. It’s obviously made by someone who loves the comic book (perhaps too much to make it into a great film). The more you think about what is missing, the more more you wish he’d had the budget to make it as a 12 episode HBO series-and really done it justice.

That said, I can’t wait to see the extended cut and the ‘Tales of the Black Freighter‘ looks amazing and if you’re in the mood for more Moore, there’s a great interview with the charmingly obtuse scribe/magician/beard from yesterday’s Guardian that’s really worth reading.

Speak soon.

Buy here

From the lats.

See you in 09.

pic via

Who would have thought you would ever would see a serious op-ed piece with this as it’s first line ?

And from the New York Times’s widely respected Paul Krugman no less.

Credit where it’s due,  he seems to have done as well as could be expected in the circumstances.

(not that we’ll be seeing any such warm praise from the British press)

Now if he can only save himself….

link

Back in February when all this credit crunch talk seemed like some fairly abstract, far fetched nightmare, we wrote about an article called Nouriel Roubini’s Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster, partly because like, Yves at Naked Capitalism, we quite enjoy those kind of apocalyptic economics lessons and partly because it felt important to try and better understand the likely outcomes of the financial upheavals which were dominating the headlines at the time. This week, perhaps unsurprisingly it’s HL’s most read article and horrifyingly enough, as Brad Setser pointed out yesterday, we’ve pretty much reached step 12.

Nobody knows what comes next-we are (and have been for sometime) in expectional and unknown waters, the affects of which will be felt for years and years to come by everyone of us. As Paul Krugman notes;

Angela Merkel has revealed her deep limitations…..Her comments echo word for word the “we’re alright Jack” attitudes of Euro-pols during the first US banking crises in 1930-1931, until the storm hit Europe and the entire cast was swept away by furious electorates, or simply shot.

It’s the stuff of revolutions and wars and Neil Young songs.

(but not necessarily in that order)

To quote the mighty Canadian prophet;

Don’t let it bring you down
It’s only castles burning,
Just find someone who’s turning
And you will come around.

image via

If you’ve ever spent any time on OilDrum finding out the lastest dire predictions on Peak Oil, you’ll know how quickly any lingering hopes for a bright and secure future can wither and die.

Whilst I can well accept the severity of the problems now facing athe globalized, consumer driven society, I wonder if our collective guilt over years of living selfishly hasn’t made us embrace a vision of a post-Oil apocalypse a little too readily.

Obviously things have to change dramatically-and probably that’s where most of the hope evaporates, but every so often something comes along to challenge my overbearing cynicism and allow a brief and fragile hope for redemption.

BlackLight Power is one such thing. The company claims to have created a technology which generates electricity from water at almost no cost.

Too good to be true ? Probably

You can read all about it here, and make sure you trawl through the comments at the bottom where couple of people seemingly close to the project weigh-in. It’s almost enough to make you believe that maybe it won’t be so bad after all.

Almost.

Sometimes (most of the time) I find Monbiot just a little a little bit too harsh but true.

But this sounds like something that could work.