If Mandela is a terrorist, who else is?
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. (more…)
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 [book]Gore Vidal[/book], 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
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 Bible into 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
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
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…)
Don’t eat killer fruit!
One of the reasons given by The Guardian for the failure of a scheme to encourage children to eat more fruit, is that schools are reluctant to give children fruit with stones because they might choke. What is even more amazing is that the journalist writing it could let this idiocy, and the disturbing reasons for it, pass with absolutely no comment. (more…)
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