When do you think this was written:

"...at some point in a...boom all aspects of property ownership become irrelevant except the prospect for an early rise in price. Income from the property, or enjoyment ot its use, or even its long-run worth are now academic...[they] may be non-existent or even negative. What is important is that...market values will rise...and a profit can be realised."

Sound like credit-default swaps to you?

It was written by J K Galbraith in 1954 in 'The Great Crash 1929'

But nobody saw it coming in 2007?

Away from home at the moment for work - testing out the internet access in my hotel room. Seems to work fine - currently waiting for an episode of Time Team to load in Channel4's youtube channel, which works fine using flash on Opera in Wine on FreeBSD. It's running now, so signing off to watch :-)

Maybe I'm wrong, but this seems tragic to me. We are approaching the very final end of the last of Byzantium:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/08/26/wus.patriarch/index.html

Really interesting segment at the beginning of Mark Whittow's "The Making of Orthodox Byzantium". He is outlining the position of the Roman Empire in 600 (chapter 3), and specifically talking about the Monophysite controversy. His point is that historians have overplayed it's significance. In fact, differently nuanced Christians had more in common, and this gave them a common identity when compared to non-Christians. In fact, even provincial citizens considered themselves 'Christian' and 'Roman' rather than from smaller ethnic groups. There is a clear shared culture (but is this just the elite?).

In other words, this is Byzantium's historic achievement - to weld a cohesive state out of disparate parts, something which modern nation states seem very unsuccesful at doing.

I'm reading Michael Angold's Political History of Byzantium 1025-1204 at the moment. There's a really interesting section in there about the search for a new policy under Constantine Monomachos, and it's ultimate failure. I think there's the bones of a discussion here about growth and change in the Byzantine economy, and it's impact on politics. Following Alan Harvey's thesis about growth in the 11th century economy - Constantine Monomachos' administration is fostering this as a route to prosperity, and stepping the atate down from it's war footing - hence the runing down of the themes. I think Haldon has also pointed out that employing professional soldiers ('mercenaries') is a rational decision. I guess what I'm working towards is the idea that there is a nascent blossoming in civil society which is abruptly cut short after Manzikert and the capture of the state by the feudal aristocracy (Comnenus) who run the administration in the narrow interests of their own class.

BBC report about the diagnostic brain scan for autism:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/health-10929032

The BBC article on the new brain scan to diagnose autism was an interesting piece on a number of levels. First of all, it focussed very strongly on adults with high functioning autism. This is a group which doesn't tend to receive a lot of coverage - which usually highlights children specifically, and lower functioning autism generally.

Second it included the phrase "autism is a disabling and little understood condition". This is very true, but most recent press has sought to highlight how parents 'celebrate' their child's autism. Whilst I love my son dearly, I never want anyone to lose sight of the enormous negative impact autism will have on his life. He is disabled, and that doesn't mean he won't live a happy and fulfilled life, but it does mean that that life will be much much harder (and probably poorer) than his peers. To focus too hard on celebrating difference seems to me to verge on denying how hard life for someone with autism will be. So that phrase is the most insightful thing I've seen on TV about autism for a very long time.

Third, it said nothing about what this scan tells us about what causes autism. I suspect that this encapsulates the current scientific position. Progress has been made on identifying what autism is (ie. what the brain of someone with autism looks like) but we are a long way from understanding what makes their brain look like that. And if we don't understand the underlying cause, then all this scan delivers is a better understanding of the symptoms. In other words, we are no where near either prevention or cure.

But at least it was a more realistic picture than is normally given of the reality of autism for most people - and Rain Man was nowhere to be seen!

I agree with Michael White's analysis of the folly of PCS tactics:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/jul/05/michael-white-government-civil-servants

Serwotka has been a disaster. But 40% cuts? My god!

Couple of books I need to look out for cheap - Byzantine Aesthetics, and Three Byzantine Saints.

'I warn you not to fall ill, I warn you not to grow old....'. After the budget, how right Jonathan Freedland was to quote Neil Kinnock:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/05/1983-cameron-victory-kinnocks-words