Wednesday, March 19, 2003

The Economist from time to time runs a 'recession watch', in which it counts how many times the word 'recession' appears in the global press. In the past if has found that this is a reasonable forward looking indicator of recessionary activity. In the same way I think it would be constructive to look at how many times 'iran' and 'north korea' appear in blogs.

Such a measure will probably be a reasonable forward indicator of the next stage of the War Against Terror. With the war against Iraq almost over (let's give it until Saturday) the hawk's attention is bound to turn to Iran and North Korea. Already serious (well..as serious as they get) right-wing commentators are suggesting nuking North Korea. and a quick victory in Iraq will surely turn the sights of the Rumsfeld, Perle and the other one onto Iran?

posted by Matthew @ 3/19/2003 11:42:00 AM Comments: 0