Putin’s Russia continues its heroic great march backwards in time. The ‘weaponization of psychiatry‘ is something that never went out of style in China, where people can be described as ‘politically deranged’. The use of psychiatric detention against political enemies has a long history in the not-so-post Communist world and so I can hardly say I am surprised to see this being done again in Russia.
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Earlier this evening I was reading the on-line Telegraph and clicked on a link about a Taliban leader being killed in a NATO air strike in what I assumed was going to be Afghanistan… and to my surprise I ended up at an article about the interminable queues at British airports! So this NATO air strike against the Taliban was where exactly? I looked again a bit later and the links were appropriately sorted out but as someone who has just passed through the nightmare that is Heathrow, for one glorious moment I thought some public spirited member of the armed forces stuck in one of what Adriana calls “the security theatre queues” had snapped and called in a long over due air strike on Terminal 2. August 4th, 2007 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
 To someone like me who is desperate to see the regulatory centrist ‘Conservative’ party lose the next election to the regulatory centrist ‘Labour’ party, is always agreeable to see the Tories turn on their own. Even those benighted party loyalists who think that it does not matter what policies one advocates just as long as you win, it is finally starting to dawn on them that Dave is not even going to do that. So I must say I had a few chuckles at Simon Heffer’s delightfully bitchy sneer at Dave Cameron’s crass duplicity (everyone expects a politician to be duplicitous but crassness is unforgivable).
More and faster please. August 4th, 2007 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
The impulse to control everything pervades those who make up the governmental class. That is, after all, why someone decides to spend their working life in politics and applying the collective means of coercion to others. The extent to which this desire to impose force backed control can be realised is exactly what defines whether or not you are ‘free’ or a ‘slave’ of the state. So when yesterday I read that the state plans to take DNA samples that will be retained forever, from people accused of speeding or littering or failing to wear a seatbelt, I realised that if this happens, we will have finally reached the point where the only response left to being stopped for even the most minor offence, is to run and if need be to use violence to escape, and to make no apology for that if you are caught. The offences are trivial but the prospect of being DNA sampled upon being accused of a trivial offence, and that being kept on record forever, is something worth getting violent about. Being fingerprinted is bad enough but this is intolerable. The only thing that will stop this appalling state of affairs from coming to pass is if enough people react with outrage to this proposal. The sooner my affairs contrive to let me get out of this godforsaken country the better. August 3rd, 2007 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
James Porter, the headmaster of a private school, has been convicted over the death of a three year old child who fell from some playground steps and died. The implications of this monstrous and truly idiotic ruling are that soon visits to the playground will become a thing of the past unless the students are wearing safety helmets and body armour and are supervised by a team of lawyers at all times. It is a tragedy that a young child died after jumping down a few stairs but that is just the way life is… sometimes it ends in premature death for no good reason other that children are wont to act like children. That is sad but it is also not just no one’s fault, it is entirely acceptable as life has its casualties and to blame this teacher is truly, truly monstrous. Of course it cannot have helped that James Porter made the supremely sensible but very politically politically incorrect statement that “[Children] need to learn how to move in any given situation in a way that will protect them from injury. If they don’t have that facility, if we simply wrap them in cotton wool, they will never learn that lesson.” But never mind that everyone seems to agree that there was nothing unusually unsafe or in any way exceptional about this particular flight of steps, this man has been found guilty under some preposterous health and safety regulations regardless. We seem to be heading down the enervating and idiotic path blazed by the United States in which every mishaps has to be someone else’s fault regardless of common sense or natural justice. Appalling. August 1st, 2007 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
Now I am always quick to say nasty things about the British state and the state’s educational system in particular, but this article is really strange (as in ‘has little relation to reality’ type strange).
Sorry but much as I might slag off the state and all it’s works, this is preposterous. In fact of all the screwed up things I have heard about the goings on in British schools, I have never heard of anything even close to this. I suppose it shows the dangers of deriving your views of the situation in some other country on a casual conversation with a single group of strangers. July 30th, 2007 | 41 comments - (Comments are closed)
The plans by the state to extend the period of educational conscription in Britain could well be the issue that helps radicalise future generations in a most useful way, at least if you see the world the way I do.
I am also delighted to see someone in the mainstream media making the self-evident point that state education is indeed conscription. The absurdity of trying to teach children who are determined to not be taught is evident at sinkhole schools across the country so why the state thinks digging the same hole deeper is going to solve anything is not obvious to me. Still, never interrupt the enemy when he is making a mistake as there is a clear upside to all this. What the government intends to do will engender disaffection and hostility to the impositions of the state at an early age, and without doubt mischievous political activists will fan the flames by pointing out to the internet savvy blog reading schoolyard conscripts of the future that they are not wrong to feel angry and they are not wrong to refuse to cooperate. Excellent. July 30th, 2007 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am delighted that contrary to my early expectations they they would do nothing at all other than make an official grimace and then politely forget about the whole affair, the UK government’s action in expelling Russian diplomats is both all but openly stating the Russian government was behind the Litvinenko assassination and actually trying to impose some political cost on Putin’s regime. It is only a small step but psychologically it is a very important one. As Blair was showing signs of going soft on this horrendous issue,this is a welcome indication that the Brown government is really not going to let Putin’s regime murder people in Britain in an ostentatiously obvious manner and let it pass with a shrug. I was pleased that Downing Street is actively discouraging British companies from investing in Russia in the aftermath of the Shell Oil Sakhalin Island appropriations but more pressure over the Litvineko affair is now needed, if only to discourage more of the same. Of course I expect the Russian government to over-react at all but being called murderers and thereby help the process of de-normalising relations with that far from normal state. There is truly no upside to allowing Putin and his cronies to imagine they can do what they want in Britain without consequences. July 17th, 2007 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yes, I know what the actual charges filed against Black were, but there is an interesting article in the Guardian by former Telegraph editorial director Kim Fletcher called The wages of envy which raises some interesting points.
Given that the central charges failed, it does make me wonder if he was not in truth convicted of being unapologetic about being rich and being called Lord Black. Perhaps the verdict had as much to do with the jury selection process and where the prosecution chose to hold the trial than whatever Lord Black actually did or did not do. July 14th, 2007 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Commission for Racial Equality in the UK has taken on a decidedly sinister tone by calling for a Tintin book, Tintin in the Congo, to be removed from sale because it is racist.
I am pleased to say Borders’ reply was a polite NO:
Choice? CHOICE? That will never do! Clearly we need some more laws! The fact is, Tintin is racist. So what? It is a very good illustration of the attitudes of the era in which these stories were written (Tintin in the Congo was published in 1930), which was during the Indian summer of colonialism (with apologies to the people of Tibet still under Chinese colonial occupation circa 2007). I personally find books glorifying socialism hideous as history has proven again and again that socialism is repression and its end state is mass murder and horror. Maybe I should demand Borders stop selling those. Better yet, maybe books shops should not sell anything that offends anyone, which should limit them to selling phone books in all likelihood. You can get your very own copy of Tintin in the Congo here (UK) or here (US) (I notice that Amazon in the USA wimped out and did not show the cover illustration). July 12th, 2007 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
It will come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog that when I come to the USA, I use the opportunity to and do some shootin’ and visit my weapons-in-exile (such as one of which is featured on the Karl Popper book at the top of the page, although technically that particular 9mm weapon belongs to my fairer half, my otherwise identical piece is in .40 cal). Of course this trip was no exception and so I have been rescheduled my ongoing homages to the Yuengling Brewing Company until the evening and headed to one of the more remote parts of Pennsylvania to frighten the wild life and try to resurrect some rusty rifle and pistol skills.  As mere possession of a handgun is illegal, it is at times like this that just how far Britain has fallen really hits home. For all its many and variegated flaws, in the USA enough people with some attachment to liberty have managed to fight off the worst excesses of those authoritarians who favour crime victim disarmament. It is interesting that many PA Democrats are actually quite pro-gun, even though many politicos in that sinkhole called Philadelphia are quite authoritarian and anti-gun (note that NRA ratings are not all that good an indication of a politician’s true position). It is good to see that the right to self-defence and to own and shoot guns is widely respected even on the political left. However man does not live by guns alone and the USA has many other things to offer… 
Apple pie and a dawg… how American is that, eh?
Big Ice Cream, Big Bikes, Short Shorts… I must be in the USA again! Back in London tomorrow. Oh crap. July 9th, 2007 | 49 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is a very interesting article in the Telegraph about middle class Islamic terrorism. For me the ‘money quote’ came from Ed Husain, a former member of the extremist Hizb ut-Tahir group.
That is what makes these people so different from the IRA or ETA or any of the West’s entirely indigenous terrorists: there can be no possible meeting of the minds or compromise or middle ground to be found with the current crop of Wahhabi inspired mass murderers. It really is them or us. July 7th, 2007 | 74 comments - (Comments are closed)
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