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The increasingly inaccurately-named blog of journalist and futurist Chris Taylor. Either the most sporadically brilliant amateur blog, the most brilliantly amateur sporadic blog, or the most amateur sporadic brilliance on the Web since 2001.
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Daily Blah FAQ
Who are you?
I'm the newly-appointed Future editor at Business 2.0 and the former San Francisco correspondent for Time Magazine.
Wow, so does this mean everything you write reflects Time Inc's opinion? Or do you perhaps have some sort of standard disclaimer to the effect that it doesn't?
Naturally, the opinions contained in this blog are not those of my employers. In fact, some opinions may be the polar opposite of my employers. Some may be the same, for all I know. Hey, it's not like I ask my employers their opinions about everything in the news, okay? Let's just say that if this were a Venn diagram with one circle marked "my opinions" and the other one marked "my employers' opinions", there would doubtless be some overlap. But neither I nor my employers are able to pinpoint exactly where that overlap is.
What is this Daily Blah thing?
An experiment for a column I wrote about blogging back in December 2001. All these years later, I haven't been able to kick the habit.
Do you write any other blogs, by chance? Could that have something to do with the fact that Daily Blah isn't always Daily?
Yes -- the Future Boy blog for Business 2.0. And yes. If you want true, editorially-mandated daily coverage from me, that's probably the best place to look.
Mister, you talk funny. Are you one of them furrners?
Why yes I am, as it happens. I was born, raised and educated in Great Britain. I've been living in the U.S. since 1996 and identify as British.
I say, old chap, you forgot the "u" in "colour."
No I didn't. I may identify as British, but I am also an American journalist writing for an American audience about mostly American issues. These two different sides of me are a constant source of tension. Nevertheless, Daily Blah will adhere to American English grammar and spelling.
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Daily Blah for... Tuesday, March 12, 2002
The Nukes of hazard
Speaking of military intelligence, I'm still having nightmares about the Pentagon's decision to effectively extend Axis of Evil membership to Russia, China, Libya and Syria by henceforth figuring out new ways of dropping nukes on these countries. Who in the name of Dr. Strangelove is in charge of nuclear policy down at the DoD these days, General Buck Turgidson? As with Bush's original Axis of Evil declaration, you're left gasping "which countries? Why, exactly?" Perhaps this is just covering fire so that it won't actually look like such a lunatic move when we eventually invade Iraq. More likely, it is the most cynical and shameless attempt yet by the military-industrial complex to cash in on September 11. A multi-billion dollar boondoggle like missile defense and a trillion-dollar hike in the defense budget, it seems, wasn't enough for the big contracting firms. We must have more enemies! We must build more nukes! Oh, and we must explode them, too: the Pentagon report calls for the resumption of nuclear testing.
Never mind that we just signed a massive disarmament treaty with the Russians.
Never mind that this could upset the delicate balance of the Middle East, given that Syria just gave its tentative approval to the Saudi plan for peace with Israel.
Never mind that we have now infuriated the Chinese for no reason, or that we have an agreement not to target nukes at them.
Never mind that missile defense was supposed to take care of deterrence.
Never mind that we've signed countless treaties preventing us from testing nukes, or that all necessary testing can be done via a computer simulation, or that testing would send the whole world into a frenzy, possibly destabilize the Indian subcontinent and have a hazardous effect on the environment.
What can be done? There is no effective democratic supervization of the Pentagon. Congress is terrified of opposing it in an election year, during the War on Terror, or indeed ever. It makes my heart sink every time legislators vote the Pentagon more funds than it even asked for. Nothing can be done. We're being led back down the nuclear path -- not by some shadowy terrorist, but by even more shadowy fat cats and their four-star friends.
Sigh. Time to break open a fresh pack of mushroom-cloud mental images. Thought I was done with those back in '89.
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