How I feel about Africans is not relevant. Even if I hate them, it is not relevant. Trade barriers are relevant, and removing them is crucial.
-David Carr
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December 27th, 2004 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
 There is an interesting article about the decline of religious belief in Britian that got me thinking. I am also one of those ‘shoulder shrugging agnostics’ yet it is not that I do not have ‘beliefs’, just not religious ones. I often wonder though if the decline of religious belief across great swathes of western society is a product of the growth of rationalism… or is it a decline in the ability to think about abstractions by millions of folks who think ‘Reality TV’ has something to do with reality? December 27th, 2004 | 58 comments - (Comments are closed)
December 27th, 2004 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
December 26th, 2004 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
With a natural catastrophe of this proportion, it is clear that the whole region will be picking up the pieces for the foreseeable future. Death toll is now 10,000 and rising, depending upon your news site, and the emergency situation has been publicised for ten hours The Foreign Secretary sent out the message of condolences and said “stand by for action“. However, there are no links or help on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website for families to telephone or leave messages for family members or friends, holidaying in the tropics. Nothing on the State Department for US citizens either, although such aid may be dealt with at a local level. Australia is far better prepared with a hotline. The BBC, agitprop wing of the government, wishes to hear your experiences of the tsunami, but does not provide you with a number if you wish to let your loved ones know that you are still alive. Especially as it is the holiday period, such emergencies are the time when government departments should place themselves at the service of their citizens. Should, but do not. UPDATE: The FCO emergency telephone number is 0207 008 0000. However, if you wish to obtain more direct information on each country, you have to visit the ‘Travel Advice by Country’ pages on the FCO website. These will give you direct numbers for the embassies in individual countries: India, Indonesia, Thailand, Maldives, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia. If you were to visit the frontispiece of the FCO website, there is still no indication where such information is held. The BBC does not hold this information on its indepth webpage concerning the disaster. Both the BBC and Skynews tuck the number away at the bottom of their webpages reporting the deaths of Britons. December 26th, 2004 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
This was too good to pass on… while browsing the Telegraph pages and stumbling across their Review of 2004, I must have caught one of the billion monkeys at work!  December 26th, 2004 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
Tory MP Patrick Mercer has tabled legislation to ‘rebalance’ the right to defend life, limb and property in favour of the victims of crime. And how exactly will that make a lone 60 year old woman safer if someone breaks into her house? Please remember that it was a Tory government which decided she will have no right whatsoever to have effective means to defend herself by restricting firearms. The Mercer Bill is welcome but all it does is make Britain a little bit safer for houses containing one or more adult males from their late teens to their late sixties who are actually capable of picking up a blunt instrument and taking on an intruder with a reasonable chance of success. The unpalatable truth is that most people are not able to effectively defend themselves against your typical house intruder (one or more young men between 16 and 35) unless they have an effective weapon. And that means a gun. “God made man but Colonel Colt made them equal” December 26th, 2004 | 41 comments - (Comments are closed)
The goose is nothing, but man has made it an instrument for the output of a marvellous product, a kind of living hothouse in which there grows the supreme fruit of gastronomy. December 25th, 2004 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
December 25th, 2004 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
A Merry Christmas to all of our loyal readership and most especially to those serving the cause of liberty in far and dangerous corners of the world. December 25th, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
The little iPod portable sound system that allows you access to thousands of your favourite tunes is likely to be flying off the shelves this Christmas. No wonder. The device is a marvel and one of those trendy “must-have” items that our modern capitalist system seems to excel in. Apple’s sales growth has gone up tremendously over the past year partly as a result of the gadget. Interestingly, this emblem of shameless materialism is also finding uses in the field of medical science, if this story, which I came across via libertarian author Virginia Postrel, is a guide. Medical researchers use the device to help them keep records of medical data and relay it back. Clever. It shows how certain types of technology that start off in a supposedly frivolous field like portable music gadgets can accomplish something more serious, as Postrel points out. Side point: I wish she would increase the font size of her blog. It is killing my eyesight. As I pointed out a week or so ago, another product of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, the eBay auction site, has been used by buyers as unusual as the London Underground for the purposes of getting obscure spare parts. I think what this demonstrates in general is the yawning gap between the dynamism and creativity of the private sector and the plodding performance of all too much of what goes under under the aegis of the State. It also reminds us a bit I think of the good news that continues to be out there, if we want to look for it. Let’s be honest, a lot of what we have written about lately, such as the ID card issue and free speech infringements, makes for dark reading. Let’s not lose sight of the ways in which free enterprise is still on the march. On that cheery note, have a very merry Christmas and happy 2005, and hopefully, a prosperous and peaceful one too. Thanks to my fellow contributors for making this blog so much stimulating fun. December 24th, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
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