Imports make us rich: SF blogger wins Nobel

This is cool. Noted Science Fiction fan and blogger Paul Krugman has won the Nobel Memorial Prize for economics for studying:

the effects of free trade and globalization & the driving forces behind worldwide urbanization

or, in other words, making it fairly clear that imports make us rich, and exports are the boring shite we do to pay for them, something that's fairly well known to anyone that understands Ricardo. Shame that most journalists and politicians don't.

Go Vote! Free boat for Britannia

My old friend Gareth sent me a link this morning, the Torbay commercial radio station is running a competion in which my old Sea Scout group the 6th Torbay could win a Sea Swift boat. All you have to do is go to their crappy website and vote for them which, y'know, would be really cool.

I transferred to the 6th after I met Gareth in my first year at secondary school—I left my coat at their bring and buy and Mum used that as leverage to get me in to them. Given they're one of the best Scout groups in the country (hence the links to Britannia Naval College and the right to use the name) that was a rather fortuitous loss. Gareth's Mum had taught me to swim when I was really little, and his Dad is still their Group Scout Leader last I looked, which is cool. Many happy memories of messing about in boats around Paignton harbour, good to know they're still going strong.