Tessa Jowell is the first British minister in recorded history to retire from her family on order to spend more time with her government.
– Andy Hamilton
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March 13th, 2006 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
 It seems we will be reading Mark Steyn mostly on-line now in the UK. If the irascible New Hampshire based Canadian has indeed been axed from two UK media syndication outlets (The Telegraph and The Spectator), does anyone have any information on what caused this? Lionel Shriver of the Guardian ponders that it might be a case of ‘political self-censorship’. As it happens Steyn was one of the few reasons I look at either of those sadly diminished publications (particularly the Spectator, which I find almost unreadable these days). Any industry insiders out there have any scandal they want to share on what happened? Leave a comments or drop us an e-mail, you know you want to… March 13th, 2006 | 74 comments - (Comments are closed)
No doubt Harold Pinter will be sad that his favourite masss murderer and communist/national socialist despot has snuffed it but my guess is that they will be celebrating in the streets in Croatia, much of Bosnia and in more the rational circles in Serbia. Good riddence to bad rubbish. March 11th, 2006 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
We are still wresting with configuring the anti-spam defences and some other work on the blog will be continuing for a few days yet in all likelihood, so apologies in advance if things are a bit slow or if the comment system is a bit tetchy at times. We will have things running more smoothly as soon as we can. Because of all the processes going on (such as batch republishing 108,000 comments and over 7,000 articles), the site may run rather slow today. March 11th, 2006 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
There are moves afoot to ban the burqa in the Netherlands on the basis that they are oppressive to women and in the words of Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of parliament…
Which is quite curious logic because if he believes in equal rights, does that not include the right to wear what you damn well please without it having to be politically approved by the state? Will other forms of clothing be banned in order to make this an ‘equal right’? Moreover it sets a horrific president: does that mean ‘offensive’ clothing can be banned, such as, say, a mini-skirt that some Muslims with sexual hang-ups find offensive? This proposal is a dreadful idea with only one thing to recommend it, and that with proviso is does not actually pass into law. The notion of making Muslim fundamentalists (and I would argue that anyone wearing a burqa is a fundamentalist) feel that they are not accepted and that even toleration of them is hanging in the balance is not such a bad message to send. Yet this is nevertheless an appalling notion for the state to decide what people can wear. A vastly better idea would be to just scale back the welfare state which brough many of these people to Europe and most importantly return the abridged property rights and freedom of association and dis-association to individuals to deal with who they please and freely (but peaceably) express themselves without fear of prosecution for ‘discrimination’. That way, if enough individuals decide that not make people who wear burqas welcome into their places of business, the problem of state supported non-assimilation would quickly disappear. If people really do not care, then that too is the ‘voice of the people’. Either way, the state has no business enforcing dress codes. Provide some real social motivation to assimilate and adopt western norms of behaviour. If some un-assimilated Muslims find that notion offensive and choose to leave for some nation which is more accepting of dark ages mores. Either way the problem is reduced. March 10th, 2006 | 236 comments - (Comments are closed)
As our regular readers will have noticed, we have been ‘off the air’ whilst we under went a major site upgrade under the hood. There still may be a few bugs to stamp on but things will soon return to normal. March 10th, 2006 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
March 8th, 2006 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Sadly I have had to block all trackbacks from blogspot sites as we are getting hundred of spam trackback from spam sites using them for hosting. Bloody annoying. Blogger needs to find some of the people behind this and sue the crap out of them. March 4th, 2006 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Perhaps it is the little things that gradually turn people against the priggish, curtain twitching statists who cannot bare the idea of people doing as they please. People generally shrug wearily at the annoying impositions and regulations that grow by the year but that is why it is important that folks like us and journalists like Tom Utley let it be known that it is not alright that these things happen. We also need to convince people that those who enforce and apologise for the endless regulations are not alright either, they are psychologically twisted by compulsions to impose their will on others. Perhaps it will be when enough of society see the idea of prohibiting people from doing peaceably doing consensual things as the psychologically disordered behaviour that it is will real progress be possible. March 3rd, 2006 | 128 comments - (Comments are closed)
… and why not? After all, as we now live in a de facto one ideology state (and that ideology is populist utilitarianism), what difference do the antics of what goes on in Parliament really make? The sooner we have the government doing away with this fiction of political process and just start ruling mostly by administrative edict, the better really. Far too many people are just hiding behind comfortable fictions. March 2nd, 2006 | 40 comments - (Comments are closed)
I find the notion that it is news that Tory leader David Cameron is a Blairite so unremarkable that I am puzzled the Telegraph even runs with the story. The closest thing to an actual conservative party is the UKIP because it sure as hell is not the Conservative Party. March 1st, 2006 | 94 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Khaleej Times is reporting that the Danish consul to Dubai has said:
Well that is both quite correct and completely false, but of course a diplomat is someone whose job it is to lie for his country. It has indeed given millions of Europeans a better understanding of Islam… and thereby led them to an utter lack of respect for it. Now every time I hear someone saying “Islam is one of the world’s great religions”, I tend to get very rude rather quickly. The diplomat was quite sound on the core issue however.
And that is why this site has a ‘support Denmark: no burqa on free speech’ graphic in the sidebar. Hold the line. Update: It would appear that Imran Khan is now officially a moron:
These cartoons are more ‘painful’ that the mass extermination of six million Jews? And this from a much acclaimed ‘moderate’? Yes indeed, I think a great many people’s understanding of Islam is improving pretty much by the day. March 1st, 2006 | 142 comments - (Comments are closed)
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