Compassionate conservatism is as insubstantial a notion as the Third Way — a circumlocution to avoid having to choose among conflicting values and competing claims to scarce resources. To talk of a compassionate or caring society is to turn a noble personal virtue into a destructive political affectation.
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It seems that the same idea has indeed gone out like a clarion call from many watchtowers and mountain tops and it must be a great time to be in the gun store business in the good ol’ U.S. of A.  (joyous tip of the hat to Freedom Sight for the link) September 15th, 2004 | 78 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Here, at last, is the truth that the US Government tried to suppress. They did not want the world to know but, thanks to the painstaking forensic skill and integrity of the Fourth Estate, the skeleton is finally out of the closet! 
Case closed. September 14th, 2004 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)
Freedom and Its Betrayal: Six Enemies of Human Liberty The Roots of Romanticism Berlin’s stock is probably drifting down, as is the way of things after an author’s death. This may be why the transcripts of these dozen lectures have been remaindered to the PostScript shop. A contemptuous review in this August’s The Oldie (which may be getting nastier, or I more sensitive) of a volume of Berlin’s Letters may also be indicative – Berlin’s work is all cod-Macaulay, he’s the most celebrated windbag in history, responsible for Stalin’s persecution of Anna Akhmatova and for failing to cop Burgess and Maclean and Anthony Blunt. So he can’t be much good, can he? But oh yes he can.
To anyone who can remember what broadcasting was like fifty years ago, and it was, of course, entirely by the BBC, this is perfectly believable. I never heard them, and a recording of only one survives, but anyone who has heard Berlin’s wonderful spoken delivery, as I have when his later Mellon Lectures, The Roots of Romanticism, given in 1965, were re-broadcast in 1989, recordings of which are accessible, can believe it too. Berlin prepared his lectures with great care, first as complete works, then boiling them down to notes and finally to headings, then delivering them extempore in rapid-fire mode. Whether by design or not his method of composition employs consecutive adjectives, similes, near-synonyms or other modifiers that elaborate and as it were surround each point as it is made, at the same time illuminating it and yet introducing that element of redundancy which helps the reader stay on track while the vehicle containing the subject bounds and bounces exhilaratingly and unstoppably on. → Continue reading: Isaiah Berlin lectures on Liberty and Romanticism September 14th, 2004 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
NO2ID is launching its activities publicly: Saturday, 18 September There will be a couple of speakers before lunch, including a Labour ‘rebel’, Neil Gerrard MP followed by campaigning around central London, i.e. handing out leaflets, setting up stalls on the street in a number of locations until mid-afternoon. Please join them to Stop ID Cards and the Database State!  The NO2ID Coalition, who are trying to make sure Blunkett fails in his attempts to introduce mandatory ID cards, argue that:
September 14th, 2004 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
NO2ID is launching its activities publicly:
There will be a couple of speakers before lunch, including a Labour ‘rebel’, Neil Gerrard MP followed by campaigning around central London, i.e. handing out leaflets, setting up stalls on the street in a number of locations until mid-afternoon. Please join them to Stop ID Cards and the Database State! The NO2ID Coalition, who are trying to make sure Blunkett fails in his attempts to introduce mandatory ID cards, argue that:
Cross-posted from White Rose. September 14th, 2004 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
The six stages of an election campaign: 1. Enthusiasm. September 13th, 2004 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
…well, arms shops actually. The absurd ‘assault weapon’ ban which prohibited certain weapons on the basis of largely aesthetic criteria, has expired in the USA as of today. However as Dubya made it clear that if there had been enough support for extending the ban in Congress, he would have signed it into law rather than try and veto it, please resist the urge to feel much gratitude for his lukewarm support for the Second Amendment. However it was passed before and could certainly happen again. And so I urge all the redoubtable gun owning men and women of the USA to run, not walk, to their nearest gun shop and purchase nice Kalashnikov or AR-15 or Ruger Mini-14 or FAL or M-14 or whatever, plus a goodly selection of flash suppressors and high capacity magazines, thus ensuring that there are soooooo many of the damn things in circulation that any future ban will simply have no effect. Use the power of the Buycott, have fun at the range, arm yourself to the teeth and, best of all, absolutely enrage advocates of gun control in the process. I mean, how good it that? 
Good stance and correct breathing: now that is what I call gun control September 13th, 2004 | 65 comments - (Comments are closed)
One of the downmarket rags that sullies the newsstand on Sunday mornings here in Britain, The People, reports on a story that is so absurd that I would think it an urban legend if I had not read the official reaction to it. A man who works for Southern Railways and scrawls a daily joke on a whiteboard at Hove Station in order to cheer up miserable commuters has been suspended from his job, pending an official investigation. Why? Because one of his jokes was about a dyslexic who went to a toga party dressed as a goat. According to a Southern Railways official:
Yes, “certain people” definitely make it their business to be offended by things. Howsabout ignoring them and catering for the customers who find it offensive that Southern Railways could be so incredibly silly? Another rail official tried to justify the suspension and investigation thusly:
This is not “political correctness gone mad”. It is madness masquerading as corporate responsibility. September 13th, 2004 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
CNet new.com reports that a key patent holder’s demand for royalties has triggered concerns that promising RFID technology could become embroiled in an intellectual property battle. The royalty flap stems from a new protocol, the Electronic Product Code Generation 2 standard, designed to improve the compatibility of radio-frequency identification (RFID) equipment from different suppliers and iron out a number of other technical kinks. The patent claim comes on the eve of a new protocol’s debut. EPC Global, the organization that helped create the protocol, expects to finalize it at an Oct. 5 meeting. Now, some RFID backers fear other patent holders could come forward and demand royalties, slowing RFID’s progress. Major companies, including Albertsons, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart Stores and German retailer Metro, have already begun to set up RFID systems and are eagerly awaiting the release of the new protocol to advance their projects. They expect RFID, a wireless tracking technology that may someday replace bar codes, to help them reduce theft, shave labor costs and handle inventory more efficiently. September 13th, 2004 | Comments are closed
Something tells me that HMG does not expect their proposed fox-hunting ban to be awfully popular with the country folk:
They used to warn that ‘walls have ears’. Now walls will have eyes as well. I suppose the panopticon countryside is nothing more than a logical extension of our panoptican cities. It is merely a matter of time before every workplace and every home is wired up to the Big Eye of Big Brother. Then the nightmare really begins. There exist all manner of varying justifications for this surveillance-fever but there is only one reason that our political masters are deploying it with such alacrity: because they can. The same technology that enables us to chatter with each other across national boundaries is being used to create a tightly-wrapped police state. What a very, very grim future we face. Cross-posted from Samizdata.net September 13th, 2004 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
Something tells me that HMG does not expect their proposed fox-hunting ban to be awfully popular with the country folk:
They used to warn that ‘walls have ears’. Now walls will have eyes as well. I suppose the panopticon countryside is nothing more than a logical extension of our panoptican cities. It is merely a matter of time before every workplace and every home is wired up to the Big Eye of Big Brother. Then the nightmare really begins. There exist all manner of varying justifications for this surveillance-fever but there is only one reason that our political masters are deploying it with such alacrity: because they can. The same technology that enables us to chatter with each other across national boundaries is being used to create a tightly-wrapped police state. What a very, very grim future we face. September 13th, 2004 | 56 comments - (Comments are closed)
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