…as I argued a few weeks ago, before the monoline crisis fully blew up in public, no business that requires a AAA rating in order to be viable deserves a AAA rating in the first place. – Nouriel Roubini * (N. Roubini:macroecon::J. Kunstler:energy policy – h/t Tom)
- Friedrich von Blowhard has an interesting analysis of the ratings theater surrounding the monoline insurers here.
- John Robb posts on MEND, Henry Okah and 4GW in Nigeria.
- Reclaiming the concept of the go bag.
- Obsolete skills. Some are funny, some are (IMHO) just plain WRONG. Funny: Swapping floppy disks. Wrong: Starting a car that has a manual choke (my ’85 LandCruiser had a manual choke – fabulous vehicle), Map Reading (tell the S&R team that map reading is an obsolete skill).
An aside – I have this cranky-old-man theory that an entire science and math curriculum could be built around teaching/learning/doing celestial navigation. (sticks head out door – “Hey, you kids, get off my lawn!”)