Its my Friday blog lay day which today means a short blog day. I am finalising the manuscript for my Europe book. I have a complete edited version now (348 pages) and am now checking all referencing etc. It will be sent to the publisher next week and I will breath a sigh of relief. Anyway, as a followup to yesterday’s blog – When you’ve got friends like this – Part 11 – the Guardian carried an article written by the Shadow UK Chancellor Ed Balls today (July 25, 2014) – Conservative complacency won’t help working people. It outlines a radical economic plan. Anticipation nearly got the better of me …

Its my Friday blog lay day which today means a short blog day. Yesterday, July 17, 2014, the Australian government voted to scrap the Carbon Tax as the climate change denialists proved that the destiny of our nation is in the hands of those who are ignorant of reality. We shouldn’t be surprised by that. The abandonment of respect for knowledge in favour of sham works in favour of the financial and corporate elites who fund the political parties. Society used to value education. Now it rejects the research findings that educated people, who know far more about things in specific areas, in favour of views propagated by morons. I wasn’t a great fan of the Carbon Tax (I prefer regulative approaches aka telling the coal industry it has 20 years to close down, no questions), but Australia now has no official position on combatting global warming. That will make us the pariahs of the world in years to come.

It is Friday, my blog lay day, so no real blog. I am editing my Europe book in the freezing weather down in Melbourne. The laugh of the week was the Federal governments bungled attempt to get rid of the carbon tax. It will probably go next week and then we will rely on that expert on the environment, Prime Minister Tony Abbott (see credentials overleaf) to lead the way into the future.

It is Friday, my blog lay day, so no real blog. I am editing my Europe book and up in the North of Australia today dealing with various projects I have been working on. But here is an example of what happens when climate change denialists merge with fiscal austerians. Mindless and damaging confusion! Here is my non-blog for today!

I have been doing the final edits on my euro-zone book all day today. The final stages are always a slog and I am ready to move on. But I have had some great music to keep me company. Read more if you want to swing a bit on a late Friday afternoon.

A few years ago I decided that I would not write a blog on Fridays unless something big was happening. Instead I was using it as my notes for the development of our textbook, which you will pleased (or not) to know is nearing completion and should be published before year’s end. This year I have been using the Friday spot for on-going development of my Europe book, which is in the final stages of editing. So today I decided that I could use all my time for that latter task and the product of that editing is not of ‘blog interest’. Therefore, a blog lay day. Although I have been studying all the documents surrounding the Argentinean debt saga, which would have made a nice story today. The Argies have the vultures licked and I hope they know that!