Month: October 2007

Those Nutty Brits

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I always thought that the British were mad because of what they ate for breakfast. Kippers, bloaters and liver.

I know that not every person from England eats that stuff, but c’mon! “Bloaters”?

Back in the days when I worked for the police, we would have to fingerprint corpses to see if we could figure out who they were. Bloaters were what we called the ones who had been in the sun for awhile. You had to skin the finger tips and stretch the skin on wooden dowels to get a print.

No, I’m not saying that the English are cannibals that prefer food they don’t have to chew. I’m just not about to put anything in my mouth if the word “bloat” can be used as a descriptive.

But I have found a completely non-gastronomic reason to think the Brits are completely crazy. They are sending their juvenile delinquents to juvenile court. What I mean by that is not a court that specializes in hearing cases where the accused is a child, but a court where the judges are children themselves.

The idea behind this scheme, if the word “idea” is appropriate, seems to be that young punks don’t listen to adults anyway. If the judge is also a kid, then maybe a little peer pressure will get them to walk the straight and narrow.

I always wanted to visit England. You know, do some sightseeing, visit the points of interest, enjoy all that history. If this is any indication of where British society is headed, I better hurry up and get that done before the place starts to look like it does in 28 Days Later. Except that they won’t need any virus that turns people into mindless zombies to wreck the joint.

(Hat tip to Ace. This essay is cross posted at Hell in a Handbasket.)

Management Advice From 1797

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Yesterday I went to see Elizabeth: The Golden Age….not a great movie, but worth seeing, and better than you would think from reading the reviews. The battle scenes with the Armada reminded me of something written by a Spanish government official, which I posted about a couple of years ago. Don Domingo Perez de Grandallana was writing about the battle of Cape St Vincent, in 1797, but the factors he discusses were likely also major influences on the fate of the Armada, 200 years earlier. And they are also major influences today, 200 years later, on the fate of many efforts in business and government.

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Today’s Crab

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Can’t get enough crab? Visit Chicagoboyz for all of your crab needs.
 


 
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“Recursive Self-Doubt” and Decisionmaking

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A very insightful post.

Rob’s argument also partly explains why individuals tend to become increasingly risk-averse with age, since most people know more than they did when they were younger and can therefore more easily rationalize inaction. Perhaps, then, older people tend to be too risk-averse, and might accomplish more if they were more aware of this cognitive bias.

(via David Foster)