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I ran across this item in a Janes newsletter today:
Now however much anyone may wish for a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, such a strike will be a clear and unmistakable act of war. I find it exceedingly strange anyone would believe it would not be considered a casus belli. The Iranian leadership would have to either accept the war gauntlet or hang themselves then and there and save someone else the trouble. If attacked, they damn well are going to fight back. That is to be expected and any one who believes otherwise is a damn fool. For us to say a war will only be started if Iran closes off the straits as their first counter attack is utterly dishonest. Let us get this straight. Nations act in their own interest. If the US government decides it is of overriding Interests of State to take out the nuclear facilities of Iran, then it has declared war. Iran could, like the US with the Panay, choose to ignore the incident… but I doubt it. You may argue over the need for starting that war but calling black, white is not going to pass my semantic muster. I have long said we should change the name of the DOD back to the Department of War. If you are going to make war, then you should damn well be a man and say so. That said, I would really prefer we not do so. July 4th, 2008 | 72 comments - (Comments are closed)
 At my education blog late last night, I found myself putting, in connection with this (which is a story about how two French science students were brutally murdered in London yesterday), this:
Something about the extreme savagery of that double murder yesterday made me think that now was the exact time to be saying such a thing, not just to those few of my devoted libertarian friends so devoted that they read that education blog of mine, but also to any eco-friendly home-schoolers or weary school teachers who happen to drop by there. Suddenly, the anti-gun-control message felt very right, like an idea whose time, finally, might have come. → Continue reading: Is gun control about to be rolled back in Britain? July 4th, 2008 | 30 comments - (Comments are closed)
That is not a sensational boxing headline being concocted; it is the name of an American athlete, being yanked around by some rather pompously programmed software. This morning one of David Thompson’s bits of Friday ephemera is a link to this, which is a link to this, which says this:
This was of course hastily corrected, but the magic of copy-and-paste had already done the damage. Most quoters have quoted the searched-and-replaced version, but I’ll let you do it. Change “Gay” to “Homosexual” in this, from the revised-and-then-revised-back-again version:
Or this:
Or, my favourite, this:
But amidst all the joking, it should not be forgotten that this guy sounds like he might be a real athletics superstar.
I say “might”, because when you hear that an athlete is really, really fast your first thought may be wow, but a close second in a photo-finish is: I wonder if it’s just that the dopesters have now found a new and cleverer way to do it. Gay might, that is to say, be a very quick runner but a fake superstar. If you don’t want to be at the centre of universal suspicion, do not be a superstar sprinter, and in particular, do not come to the boil just for the Olympics. Lawyers may forbid constant reference to this suspicion in official big-media sports reports, but this is what all of us casual onlookers now think, and all the lawyers on earth cannot stop us. For Gay’s sake, I hope that this proves to be a real, drug-free record. I also hope that, come the Olympics, Gay doesn’t choke. Ditto all the other athletes. But then again, if such a PR catastrophe in some way makes the government of China a little less nasty, maybe a bit of athletic choking would be a good thing. Sadly, however, if the story so far is anything to go by, such an eventuality would probably cause that government behave even more nastily, perhaps by inprisoning all the TV cameramen who concentrated too much on the choking. July 4th, 2008 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
Another senior UK figure – one of the most senior judges in the land – has argued that some aspects of Sharia law should be permissable when it comes to settling certain disputes between Muslim couples. This re-ignites the controversy sparked by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who argued for the same. Once more, the bedrock principle of a liberal order, that men and women should be treated equally before the law, is potentially at odds with a code that, by definition, does not accept this equality as part of its essence. The inherently anti-women bias of Sharia is not a bug, it is a feature. Take cases where, for instance, a young English guy who is an atheist or Christian tries to take a Muslim girl out on a date and the latter gets physically intimidated by her family (this is not a hypothetical situation, it has happened). To what authority should the woman or man appeal in dealing with such cases? Unless the judge is able to answer that sort of hard question, which goes to the heart of why sharia is considered unworkable in a liberal order, the judge would be well advised to focus on his core responsibility, of seeing that justice is done under the laws of this land. This is one of those examples of why I do not think that a polycentric legal order can really work unless it is possible for its members to elect to choose under which code they wish to be treated. Muslim women would not have that choice if sharia law was incorporated. More importantly, they do not have the key right of “exit”, the right to choose no longer to be treated under a specific code of their families. The judge, like the Archbishop, is proof to radical Islamists that some of the most senior figures in what might pass for the British Establishment lack the intellectual or moral fibre to defend the core values of this nation. July 4th, 2008 | 65 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have been perhaps less fascinated by the current political season than some, but despite my loathing for one media darling and disregard for the other, I have watched the rather normal campaign season unfold. It is all so predictable. The Democrats are running a Chicago politician, and that means someone who knows ‘machine’ politics inside out. Whatever Obama does, Obama does for political reasons. “Change” is just a nice meaningless word with which to whip up the party workers. One can well imagine that each ‘problem’ has been orchestrated to make some faction of the Democratic base feel he is ‘their’ man and is being ‘pushed’ toward the middle. Instead of seeing campaign events through the lens you are accustomed to, start looking at it from the viewpoint of “which constituency does it play to?” Take the Reverend Wright bruhaha. It simultaneously solidified support for him amongst the radical black constituency, made him appear to them as an oppressed victim, and allowed him to move toward the center. That is one brilliant bit of maneuvering, a double play that would do Karl Rove proud. Democratic candidates have a certain problem to deal with. The activists who will get out and work and who will secure the nomination are significantly (consider that an understatement of British proportions) to the left of the general population. Without their support, a candidate will have a difficult time getting the money and workers required for a successful nomination. Then comes the problem: once nominated they must be positioned for electability. That requires a bit of legerdemain. The best way to handle it is to appear ‘forced’ to the right. The base believes they ‘know’ what the candidate really believes and continues to support them. There is always enough new blood around that either did not learn through a previous election what happens next or else is gullible enough to believe it will somehow be different this time. My prediction? By September Obama will be so centrist and mainstream you will be hard pressed to find light of day between him and the polled positions of the American public. July 4th, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
As a voracious reader and hoarder of books, I have a bit of a problem. I live in a small flat in Pimlico. My wife is also an avid reader. I work from home for some of my day before heading to the office and have to keep a fair amount of literature connected to my job at home. The place is getting full. There is some advice here on how to handle it. I would like to ask commenters what you folk do about this. I have thought about putting some of my books into storage, but the rental price on storage can be pretty high. I have given away some books to charity shops and flogged a few of them on E-Bay, but I am reluctant to part with some of them as I like to dip into them if I am researching anything. And I am not yet ready to move into a larger house, although one day I shall do so and create my own private library. I guess this is a problem if you are a libertarian geek like yours truly. The late Chris R. Tame, founder of the Libertarian Alliance, had a huge personal library; his flat in Bloomsbury was crammed with books, which I happily enjoyed going through when I briefly lived at his flat. Sadly, when he died two years ago, dealing with his book collection proved quite a headache for the executors of his estate. I have wondered whether, in my own case, I should create a sort of virtual online “library” that close friends and ideological comrades can use to borrow some of my stuff – and send it back of course – to ensure that my collection does get read and valued by people who might enjoy them. I honestly do not know whether that is workable, though. In my experience, lending books or DVDs to friends can often be a problem if you want them back by a certain stage. Of course, some people may argue that in the internet age, this issue will eventually no longer be a problem because all books can be stored online. Up to a point. The trouble is that this old fart rather likes to have the physical examples of his favourite books on hand, on the shelf. I like them as physical objects as well as for their content. July 4th, 2008 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
From the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. It is a melancholy thought that in much of the Anglosphere today, the concepts of classical liberalism: natural rights, limited government, private property, free trade, freedom of speech, rational enquiry, and the pursuit of a happy life, are under attack. The US has been and still is an imperfect exemplar of those values, but in my mind it still is the best of them, amd I wish my American Anglosphere cousins a very happy Fourth of July. Fire up the barbecues! July 4th, 2008 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
The reason I ask is that I was half listening and I heard a really good and rather funny quote go by. I stopped what I was doing and typed as much of it into the computer as I could remember. Then I went to the ABC News website and replayed the story. The quote was either removed from the story or I am confusing two similar stories on the same night. That is why I am asking for help. As I recall, a reporter, I think but I’m not certain it was the John Berman piece, was reporting Obama’s latest policy shift as he maneuvers against McCain. Apparently a campaign staffer said or was quoted as saying : ” [Obama] makes decisions based on what he thinks is right.” To which the reporter added rhetorically “The question is ‘how far to the right?” Great quote. Where’d it go? Obamabots? And as an aside, I realize that Obama is promising us “change”. But does it have to be so often? July 4th, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
Last night, flicking through the TV channels after watching Andy Murray get pulverised by Nadal, the muscle-bound Spaniard, in the tennis, I watched in bemused fascination as ITV and the BBC both devoted quite a lot of air time to celebrating – that word was used repeatedly – the 60th anniversary of the National Health Service. There has even been a church service, attended by Prince Charles and the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to mark the anniversary of Britain’s monopoly provider of health care, an essentially socialist creation that is hardly emulated anywhere else in the world, and for good reason. None of the major objections to health care that is provided via tax and distributed “free” at the point of use were mentioned. Last night’s stories gave no balancing comments from skeptics or opponents of the NHS to counter the general feel-good presentations. At the Institute of Economic Affairs, here is a rather more sober treatment of the NHS. As the US writer PJ O’Rourke once warned his countrymen about socialised medical care, if you think US private sector healthcare is expensive, just wait until it is “free”. July 3rd, 2008 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Duchy of Cornwall proudly announces that the Prince of Wales’s old Aston Martin has been converted to run on bio-ethanol – which is sourced as surplus wine from one of his Wiltshire estates. Which is fine by me. If a very rich man wishes to spend his own money in mildly strange ways, and is not really hurting anyone, then who am I to complain? (I personally benefit from the other-wordly advantages of living on the Crown Estates, and very nice it is too, even as a humble tenant without grace and favour.) I think he should sack his PR, though. What is presented as a noble austerity for the sake of the planet comes across as a highly elaborate self-indulgence, when just laying up the Aston for a slightly less thirsty car would surely achieve the same thing. One might also say (and it might be the truth): “We had a lot of wine we couldn’t sell, so we looked around for something sensible to do with it, and discovered we could use it as fuel – even for the Aston Martin.” But they didn’t. Quite the reverse:
That quote’s in all press, so it isn’t a mis-statement coming out in a single interview. It was what the Clarence House establishment decided it would be best to say. They seem to think it is better to advertise not sane frugality, but his massive use of resources in being green – in judgment. ‘Champagne socialism?’ Is that when middle-class people drink it? In – you know… – restaurants? July 2nd, 2008 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket has been test fired at Kwajalein as the last step in preparation for a July launch. This will be the first flight of the new regen engine which does not require an ablative coating on the nozzle. It is also the same technology as the engines for the larger Falcon-9 slated for launch at Cape Canaveral next year. Protestations to the contrary, I would consider this to still be a developmental flight, even though it is carrying a customer payload. I wish them the best but it is still early days for their family of boosters. They are going to revolutionize the launch industry but revolutions require hard work and determination in the face of adversity. That is why they call it rocket science. July 1st, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
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