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It’s a tough job but somebody has to do it. I have been doing my bit for the War against woman-hating, religious bigotry by checking out the Miss Universe finalists. Personally I think the registered Republican Miss USA looked much better than Miss Australia, the eventual winner. Useful sociological experiment: check out Miss Sweden and try to focus on horrible tax rates in that country. So if Sweden had the burqah, perhaps they would have lower taxes. Tough call. June 3rd, 2004 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
 While researching for my weekly CNE Environment column I came across a barking mad website. This led me to another loony story. Unfortunately, neither of these would do for an environment column that is meant to present a credible analysis of the eco-fascist movement. So I ended up with this story from the French TV station TF1. In what has to be the most perfect economic suicide note since the 1920 Soviet Constitution, the French National Assembly has voted to amend the French constitution so as to enshrine the precautionary principle by 328 votes to 10. This could make any future government decision to deregulate anything illegal. It is a shame that the precautionary principle is not applied to government regulation: in the absence of any overwhelming proof that it will work, such regulation ought to be prohibited. One might expect such lunacy in the French Assembly to be supported by the extreme left and the Green parties (there are several of these in France). But no. The “centre-right” parties of the UMP and the UDF voted in favour, the Socialists and the Communists abstained, and the Greens voted against. If this was appeasement, it failed. So which story was the barmiest? June 2nd, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Mark Steyn describes an incident that confirms my impression that the politicians are botching up Iraq. During the Falklands War, a bayonet charge on enemy positions would have been publicly applauded by the Prime Minister, honours and medals would have been discussed and the British public would have been in doubt that the government and the military knew exactly what they were doing. We could agree or disagree with the objective or the means, but not the operational competence or the political will. Where Iraq is going wrong is not that the military are incapable (unless they run out of ammunition, boots, flak-jackets etc). It is that military action will be undermined by political ‘arse-covering’. The resolution shown by troops is frittered away by Colin Powell and his cronies in the US, and by the Labour government in the UK. Powell looks more and more like his caricature in the Tim Burton movie Mars Attacks! played by Paul Winfield. My view on Vietnam is that it would have been better if the US had not got involved after the French pull-out, given that they were going to do so eventually anyway, or that the US should have fought to win. I take a Barry Goldwater position rather than a Eugene McCarthy one. It used to be Colin Powell’s position too. May 30th, 2004 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
I took some rather hot flak when I opposed international gun control as an excuse for invading Iraq (if Iraq’s nukes are “bad”, are France’s and China’s nukes “good”?). I have also taken some sharp criticism for saying that invading a country in order to make friends is an odd strategy (worthy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau “We will force you to be free!”). From Wires blog:
Now I do not take everything fiona says as Gospel, although her first act in Iraq was to try out an AK-47 so she can’t be all bad! It is clear however that there is no abatement of the resistance to foreign occupation of Iraq. It does not really matter whether the fault is that the occupying forces are too forceful, or failing to keep the peace because of politcally correct instructions, or a row between the US State Department and the Department of Defense. Either way it has all the potential for Vietnam II. The only worthwhile achievement of invasion was the removal of Saddam Hussein. He has gone, it is time to leave also. The only worthwhile debate now is whether to recognise an independent Kurdistan or not before the troops pull out and allow Iraqis to sort out their civil affairs. May 27th, 2004 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have just started a weekly environment column for the Brussels-based Centre for the New Europe. My first article called Reports of My Extinction are Greatly Exaggerated is about the ‘reappearance’ of previously ‘extinct’ species, in this case the New Zealand storm petrel, believed extinct for 150 years. No animal conservation programme can claim credit for this, although with a ban on trafficking, expect a market to develop in contraband. So governmental action may actually provoke the extinction of the bird. [I am aware that at the moment individual articles do not link, I shall be speaking to the CNE webmaster about this.] May 5th, 2004 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
This is not about sport. Libertarian and conservative policy obsessives tend not to read the sports pages of newspapers. There is a theory that most politicians were victimised at schools and their pursuit of politics is a form of revenge. Even those libertarians who are sporty are often practitioners of solo sports: jogging, skiing, suba-diving. I merely point this out to explain why the collectivist drivel which infests the sports sections of newspapers rarely gets challenged. One of the the great myths of modern England is that the cricket team is rubbish because of the ‘polluting’ effect of foreigners. Some people have suggested that the solution would be to ban non-white players from the England team. Others suggest a more merchantile approach: ban foreign players from playing for the counties. The argument is exactly the same as for US steel tariffs, or restricting the number of American TV shows on European TV stations. This article in the Daily Telegraph describes a development in the labour laws that should be welcomed. But English cricket keeps its ostrich head rammed into the ground. The problem is that cricket does not generate enough money to pay for squads of highly paid professionals. The bulk of the money comes from televised matches involing the national team only. Therefore if a team is going to shell out a large sum of money for a couple of players, it wants a big name, which means an established international player. Perversely, restrictions on foreign players mean that each club is only allowed to hire two, roughly the number of players who could be paid big wages. Result, cricket is not a viable professional sport for most young English players. The sensible commercial decision would be for cricket to go either go semi-professional (part-time players paid appearance money), or cut the number of teams to a level that is affordable. Instead we have demands for EU citizens who are allowed to work anywhere in the EU to be banned from playing cricket in England. Is this the way to spread one’s market? Imagine if the software industry worked like this. Californian firms would initially be banned from hiring more than one programmer from outside the state of California. These firms would also refuse to serve customers outside Silcon Valley, except at international trade fairs. Then when the Supreme Court prohibited restraint of trade for non Californians there would be a moan about the number of Texans etc in Californian software firms. With a market restricted to one state there would be demands for subsidies, wage control, and repressive immigration laws. This is the economic orthodoxy of cricket, yet there is no reason why it should be. Other sports such as baseball, gridiron football, soccer, basketball, even rugby union in recent years, are profiting from globalisation. What English cricket needs are better business models, not laws. April 28th, 2004 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
A French-based imam who preached polygamy, the right of husbands to beat their wives, the stoning of adulterous women, and the eventual conversion of the whole planet to Islam was bundled on a flight to Algeria at 9.20 this morning (European Summer Time). Abdelkader Bouziane, a father of 16 children who hold French citizenship was arrested at Lyon airport on Tuesday. The expulsion was justified by the French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkhozy (since moved to the Finance Ministry) in a ministerial decree dated 26 February 2004 on the grounds of incitement of violence, especially against women, as well as because the imam was allegedly “an apologist for terrorism”, a charge disputed by Mr Bouziane’s lawyers. A complaint had been submitted to the French government by the Deputy Mayor of Lyon following remarks published in a local paper, which are the subject of dispute. In unrelated news, official unemployment figures in France suggest that unemployment reached 2,707,000 in December or 9.9 per cent of the workforce. Meanwhile a proposed law – which would prohibit the wearing of the Islamic veil and other visible religious symbols in state schools – now proposes that bandanas would be exempt if worn as a fashion accessory but banned if worn as a religious statement. April 21st, 2004 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
There will be much muttering in their beards in the caves of Tora Bora. There will be much gnashing of teeth and gnawing of livers in the ghettos of the Democratic National Committee. A new front has opened in the struggle for freedom.  Age 25, single, 5 foot 11 inches: the new Miss America describes herself as “a Republican” and says that she will use her influence to explain America’s involvement in Iraq. Miss Shandi Finnessey is a statuesque blonde from St Louis, Missouri and replaces last year’s winner from Massachusetts. [Thanks to Pejmanesque.com for the link.] Note: Missouri voted Republican last presidential election. Any bets this time? April 20th, 2004 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
There is a fuss going on in the USA over something called Air America Radio, a pro-Democrat talk-radio project. The shows have been taken off the air in Chicago and Los Angeles last week amidst a row over payments arrears. This review published before the furore of Air America Radio is from Press Action, a bunch of US libertarians of the leftist sort. It had me in stitches. It seems that the predominently white radio presenters have shoved off the air the black presenters in New York, when the majority of the audience is black. As a result the cricket scores and news from the Caribbean are being shunted off to slots between midnight and 5am, to the dismay of many Jamaican listeners. Also one show involved the presenter screaming and ranting at Ralph Nader, who promptly dubbed the radio station “Hot Air America Radio”. Great job of unifying the comrades, Comrade. I also noted that the Press Action crowd would elect Noam Chomsky for president on their site poll. The funny bit is that Bush gets 13 per cent and Kerry gets 19 per cent. If Bush gets 13 per cent of the goofy left vote, I must call my bookie. As I recall, Air America was the name of a CIA spook job in South East Asia during the Viewnam War. Anyone thinking what I’m thinking? April 19th, 2004 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
The recent offer of truces by both Al Quaeda and Muqtada al Sadr’s followers in Iraq suggests an incompetence for guerrilla warfare, or that they are losing. There are two dangers in the weeks ahead. The first is that since the 1960s, a different sort of guerrilla warfare has emerged, which consists of sacrificing cannon-fodder until your opponent can no longer morally take it. The first historical case of this that I can find comes from the First World War, on the second day of the Battle of Loos. It was an accident. Ten thousand British troops were lined up in ten ranks and marched slowly across muddy open terrain with range markers placed by the Germans. The German machine gunners simply mowed down rank after rank of the British, without taking any casualties themselves. The British came up to the barbed wire that was supposed to have been cut by the artillery bombardment, only it had not been. None of the British troops was equipped with wire cutters (this bit has not changed). So groups of British soldiers ran up and down the barbed wire looking for a way through. The result was virtually 100 per cent casualties on the British side. Now it is not true that this battle left the Germans unscathed. About a dozen German machine gunners were so traumatised by the massacre that they suffered nervous breakdowns and needed to be hospitalized (the British would have shot them for cowardice). Since the Vietnam War, it has become a deliberate tactic of the weaker combattant to make a point of losing hundreds or thousands of casualties in the belief that the West does not have the stomach for slaughtering poorly armed enemies. To return to the Mao quote, now is the time to press even more firmly with military force: “enemy tires, we attack”. Failure to do so merely confuses by-standers who consider compassion to be effeminate weakness, and encourages the enemy. The second threat is the ‘compromise’ with the UN. Letting the UN organise the hand-over of power to an Iraqi government (which will surely be different from the one the US wants) is rather like inviting the USSR to decide who governs Germany and Japan in 1945. Except that the USSR was an ally. April 19th, 2004 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
This could all be a tease (there have been hundreds of similar reports about a referendum on scrapping the pound for the euro). The EU constitution in itself may not be worse than what the British version is mutating into. If adopted our choices become a pan-European libertarian movement or a secession. The latter may not be as easy as the Confederate attempt in 1861 from the USA (less public support in the UK, more heavily outnumbered by the rest of the EU etc). Hopefully such a secession could be more Slovenian than Croatian. The advantage of a referendum is that it cannot be worse than letting the Prime Minister decide alone. The disadvantage is that it will only happen once the result is known in advance to suit the government, so that when they win, it can slip through the single currency without a vote (that is what the French government did with the Maastricht Treaty in 1992). Either way spread the word: by next weekend we could have a live campaign on our hands. April 18th, 2004 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
Now it would be easy and gratuitous of me to imply that both are one and the same, but this is obviously unfair. One is a harmless pervert who engages in fantasies in private that involve no coercion against other people. The other is a dangerous pervert who conspires in private, and who needs to be exposed and subjected to public embarrassment. The ‘e’ makes all the difference. April 13th, 2004 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
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