Norman Geras has written a response to my post about Richard Dawkins. This is my reply to him.
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Britain’s top political commentators last week descended on Richard Dawkins with all the careful analysis of a flock of vultures.

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I’ve just invented a new word:

usmanov /’us mÉ™ nÉ’v/ verb to unsuccessfully attempt to stifle undesired content on the Internet by taking legal action against websites where the content appears, with the result that the undesired content becomes more widespread and better known. [named after Alisher Usmanov, a Russian/Uzbek billionaire who did this regarding allegations made against him by Craig Murray. First use 2007.]
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Most of the concern about the government’s proposed ID card scheme stems not from the cards themselves, but from the enormous pool of centralized information which would underlie them. Plenty of suspicious minds believe that this is actually the real purpose of the plan.

But if Gordon Brown wants access to a vast system of interlinked databases, containing the personal details of millions of people, wouldn’t it be cheaper and easier for him just to join Facebook?

The allegations that Craig Murray made against Alisher Usmanov (see here for backstory) have been repeated in the European Parliament by Tom Wise MEP. This means they are now covered by parliamentary privilege and can be repeated by anyone. Way to go, Schillings.

You can hear the allegations on blip.tv, or download the MP3 file.

Alternately, here is a transcript I’ve made of Wise’s speech:
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Dan Davies’ Freakonomics review: at last

I like to think that, despite living a champagne-and-caviar lifestyle, spending my time with models and rock stars, and living in a luxury penthouse [*], I’m still in touch with my left-wing roots.

As a result, I’m always slightly reluctant to denounce trade unions and strikers: had they not existed in the past, there’s a reasonable chance we’d still be in some kind of neo-Victorian exploitationist hell [**]; there are still plenty of employers playing the kind of dirty tricks that unions would be wholly justified in fighting against; and without the ultimate mutually-assured-destruction logic of striking (‘unless resolved, this strike will destroy your business and our jobs’), unions might as well not exist in the first place.

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Between 2003 and 2006 I had a blog called “Cabalamat Journal”. That blog is now defunct, but I have a new one: Amused Cynicism.

Uses for a dead kid

Apparently due to Boris, the debate over the value of a degree is raging again. Unsurprisingly, various sorts are criticising the value of ‘academic’ rather than ‘vocational’ degrees. Also unsurprisingly, they’re wrong.

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