The question was asked at the Barbastro Peak Oil Conference. If we are justified in poisoning people in order to produce combustible liquids and gas, why don’t we jump to the ultimate consequence and turn human corpses into oil? Swift’s Modest Proposal returns, with increased poignancy.

Been thinking lately about industrialism and the erosion of the particular, the enthronement of the generic. The train of thought is a familiar one but it took on new definition when I was working on the battens for the new sails for my junk-rigged boat (also my home). The boat is steel but the battens [...]

As I watch the corporate/financial/political elite in the US rediscover more and more of the advantages and habits of aristocracy — from Enclosure to divine right — and build their tacky monuments to ego and accumulation (what a pity none of said monuments are as pretty as Neuschwannstein say, or the Taj Mahal), I keep [...]

A cluster of news stories, whiffing slightly of hope, crossed my virtual desk over the last couple of days. Their scope varies from the global (UN) to the regional (U of Guelph, ON) to the very local (town of Sedgwick Maine). But their conclusions are harmonious: food sovereignty is a hot issue, agribusiness propaganda is [...]

Okay, here is a short video with a broad outline of the Dunbar thesis… a fuzzy concept, but not necessarily invalid on that account. The reason it’s fuzzy is because Dunbar’s number – 150 as the fuzzy constant – is the number of significant relationships a person can manage without interlocutors, that is, emotional cut-outs [...]