Draw Breath

I know lots of people have this up already but it is hilarious. Consider this post to be for my records...

Fair dues to United Irelander, who though I do tend to find him annoying at times (which is not necessarily a bad thing), tends to be a generally honest interlocutor. Anyway, he's massively anti-Lisbon but did post a long email interview with Diana Panke at UCD on Lisbon and other matters. Check it out. My only quibble is that the format doesn't give UI an opportunity to reveal whether what Panke has to say makes him change his mind (or if not, why not), but still, this the discursive element in the Irish blogosphere at its best.

I'm sure, like me, you spend most of your waking hours speculating as to why it is that Boeing is doing so much better than Airbus. Of course, to a large extent it has to do with the weakness of the dollar and with the spectacular governance near-meltdown of EADS, Airbus's parent company.

But don't underestimate the power of government intervention. There is of course the thorny issue of who pisses highest (or lowest) on the subsidies wall (see also here and here).

And then there's all that military revenue...

 read more »

I'm engaged in two simultaneous projects for the day: trying to make sense of an article I'm writing on 'hyperactive regulation' (more on that when I'm finished it) and writing a brief blog post on Turkey and EU expansion.

Anyway, I've just come across a very informative site: the European Country of Origin Information Network. It collates country reports from the UK, the EU and the US as well as reports from NGOs in one handy spot. Very useful!