Against women
Stumbling and Mumbling lists seven things that are wrong with women. While some will no doubt be offended, can someone explain how it is any worse than the common suggestions that men are worse at communicating, multi-tasking etc., as Flip Chart Fairy Tales points out. In addition, there is the logical link between what women are supposed to be better than men at, and what women are supposed to be worse than men at. (more…)
If Mandela is a terrorist, who else is?
at 5:53 pm on Saturday, 28 June 2008
So, the US has finally removed Nelson Mandela from its list of terrorists. It says a lot about the law, that Mandela was on the list in the first place. Anyone, other than a government, who uses violence for a political end is classified as a terrorist.
This is exactly what George Washington did. Perhaps it is time that American’s should stop regarding his as a hero and acknowledge that he was a terrorist who headed a violent rebellion? Perhaps they should start hunting down former members of the French Resistance who also did the same — and used terrorist tactics such as bombings and assassinations.
The obvious riposte to this is that their actions were justified by the justice of their cause. If George Washington was justified in using armed force against the fairly mild oppressiveness of being ruled by Britain, why an Uzbek or Saudi Washington not justified in doing the same against their far more oppressive and brutal governments.
The only logic is that those who oppose useful governments are terrorists, those who the governments backs are not terrorists, and those who have managed to win their battles are never terrorists. There is no moral dimension, only a useful irregular verb, as Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister explained “I am a freedom fighter, you are a guerilla, he is a terrorist”.
Of course I am theoretically risking the wrath of the British law for glorifying terrorism by suggesting that Uzbeks or Saudis might be justified in using violence. An actual prosecution may be unlikely in my case, but I would be quite frightened to way this is I was Muslim or a little more left wing.
As there is little chance of either the British changing the laws, the only consistent solution is imprison any one who praises George Washington (visiting Americans, history teachers, etc.) for glorifying terrorism.
Why tax havens are fraudulent
I usually enjoy reading Economic Logic, but this post defending tax havens seems badly wrong headed to me. It misses the essentially fraudulent character of tax havens. (more…)
America vs the world
Listening to a funny and relentless condemnation of the American Imperium and its current government from Gore Vidal, I felt rather sorry for the American ambassador who was in the audience. It was clear the feelings of the audience were very much with Gore Vidal, and very much against everything it is the ambassador’s job to push. (more…)
Ban football, not video games
at 3:14 pm on Thursday, 17 January 2008
Lots of people (especially American politicians like Hillary Clinton) are worried about the effects of violent video games, despite the complete lack of evidence that there is any effect. Perhaps the regular calls for restrictions on children’s exposure to corrupting material should instead focus on team games, now that there is evidence that watching American Football makes people violent. (more…)
The gospel according to neo-conservatives
Here is my attempt to bring the in line with modern values. I am particularly trying to help neo-conservatives and neo-liberals who have an exceptionally hard time in reconciling what they know to be right with Jesus’s old fashioned ideas.
Immigrants: less criminal than native borns and essential
at 3:25 am on Monday, 1 October 2007
In the last few days I have seen two solid pieces of evidence emerge for my views on immigration. The first is research showing that immigrants are more law abiding than the native born (found via Unintended Consequences). The other is the experience of American towns which cracked down on illegal immigrants, only to rethink after seeing how damaging this could be to their economies (thanks to Brad De Long). (more…)
Free speech is dead
at 10:19 am on Friday, 21 September 2007
Alisher Usmanov’s shut down of Criag Murray’s blog is yet another example of how British law makes it easy for the rich to shut down less well heeled critics with the threat of legal action. They do not need to actually convince a court that they have been libelled. (more…)
Abolish planning laws; solve housing “crisis”
Imagine that the UK had enough housing that every single household occupied a detached or semi-detached house (two thirds of them in detached houses) and all the country’s 12 million currently occupied terraced houses, maisonettes and flats were empty. You might think that to provide so much housing we would need to “concrete over the countryside”, in fact we would need to switch just 2.5% of the UK’s land area to urban residential use. Switching much less would provide a more than adequate supply. (more…)
The City and the tax haven
Richard Murphy has a good definition of a tax haven, but I disagree with his idea that having a large financial services sector is an important characteristic, although I do agree with his view that the UK and Ireland are both tax havens. (more…)
