Will the polluters pay for climate change?
The ethics of compensation

You can define a thing in many ways, especially when it’s an abstract concept (“terrorism”, “democracy”, “British values”…). You can define to persuade, by emphasising features you believe people will find desirable (or, in some cases, undesirable). Alternatively, you can define to exclude, emphasising features some people will find it impossible to sign up to. You can even define to provoke, emphasising features some people will positively object to; this is particularly effective when other listeners aren’t in on the disagreement in question, and are thus faced with the unattractive sight of a minority making a fuss about nothing.

A more radical approach, and one which New Labour is particularly fond of, is the un-definition or anti-definition. Read More

What Muslims want
… according to Jon Snow

Strategic bombing and double effect
Ethics and Israeli bombs

Carnival of Liberty 57

Anti-semitism and apartheid
Gaardner v. Sullivan reconsidered

Spamalot
Reading blogs of bile

Sex, lies and factionalism: civil war in the SSP

A while back, I had cause to wonder whether right-wing libertarians were just cleverer Tories, on the matter of inheritance tax. The new war for the Litani makes me ask the same question.
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At Least 100,000 March Against US-Israeli Aggression
Live from London