Being the hip young thing that I am, the other night I found myself listening to Radio 4. Cunningly avoiding the Archers, the Moral Maze and discovering what LPs this week’s has-been pseudo-celebrity would listen to while gnawing their arms off on a desert island, I tuned in to Dave Gorman’s Genius, a show where inspired-although-a-bit-daft ideas were appraised by Mr Gorman’s guest, Geordie linguistic legend Sid Waddell.

One enterprising fellow had the audacity to take on the premier barge-pole topic of capital punishment, and presented an idea worthy of the show’s name. Read More

You Have To Go On Living Afterwards, Or, Some Complaints Against Left-Libertarianism

On the 12^th of October 2000, al Qaeda conducted a suicide bomb attack on the American destroyer, the USS Cole. Seventeen members of the crew were killed in the attack.

Those who define terrorism as the deliberate killing of innocent civilians might find it difficult to argue that this al Qaeda suicide bomb attack was terrorism but let’s not get into the difficulty of defining terrorism here. What is now beyond dispute is that this attack was organised and carried out under the umbrella of the al Qaeda organisation. Bin Laden himself is thought to have selected the target and provided the money necessary to carry out the attack.

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Creationism again
Truth in Science on the march in British schools

Nick Barlow: Mission Accomplished

Free aviation consulting
The wireless Airbus

Imagine if a Muslim MP declared that he had asked his female visitors to cover-up if they were ‘inappropriately’ dressed. We would be deluged with outraged articles of Muslims trying to “Islamicise” Britain no doubt.

Either way, whether Muslim women with veils are requested they drop them, or women with mini-skirts are asked to cover up, we are faced with really silly debates over these issues.

In order to cut through some of the emotional outrage being hurdled about, there are a few points to be made.

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Enemies of civilisation
Among whom, Melanie Phillips

Islamic schools, not Muslim schools
Equalizing separate education in Scotland

Politics is a beautiful and comic thing. Unfortunately, it’s ruined by the people that think it’s something worth giving a crap about, whether they’re ambitious and able enough to get involved properly, or whether they have to settle for doing dumb things like writing a blog about it instead. Read More