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Geert Wilders is dangerously ill-informed about the developement of liberal democracy in the West, and while I winced at his description of Islam as a ‘retarded culture’ on Sky News yesterday, I’m also appalled at his cavalier assertion that “”Our cultures, based on humanism, Judaism and Christianity, are far better than the Islamic culture.” This is to ignore how our modern freedoms were brought about by centuries of bloody struggle against the dead hand of theocracy in Europe. Continue reading “Ecrasez l’infâme”
Raising the Pandemic Alert level to 5 shows how crude the WHO system of pandemic threat levels is – one more notch and we’re all dead? Surely not. News media all over the world are obviously featuring the story, but many people will find a Level 5 alert on a 6 point scale unduly alarmist at this stage. More people die in road traffic accidents everyday, but you don’t see that as the top news on CNN or Sky. The WHO pandemic level is a simple measure, and we don’t live in a simple world. The rapid escalation of the alert level could lead to people treating this as another false alarm, like the SARS scare. Continue reading Crying WHOlf?
Well, faith and begoraah but isn’t it great to be Irish today? The government actually made a decision (quick – when was the last time an Irish cabinet made a decision?) to guarantee all savings in Irish banks and now cash is flowing from the UK into Dublin; to such an extent that Alasdair Darling is very upset and the UK banks are up in arms. Aside from the “yeah sucks boo to you”, I actually think the blanket guarantee to all depositors, which probably should only be a short term measure, is better than the US bailout which tries to protect shareholders as well as depositors.
Continue reading Swop Finance Ministers and we’ll fight again!
The EU and its allies are now losing 50% of the votes in the UN Human Rights Commission to opponents of basic human rights led by an “Axis of Sovereignty”; a group of states who value the rights of the state over the rights of the people. Ratifying the Lisbon Treaty wouldn’t have automatically stopped this [...]
….but it is nice to see the UN Security Council agreeing something about Zimbabwe, even if it will make no difference to Mugabe and his political machine. Yesterdays Statement from the Security Council does say some interesting things about legitimacy and democracy, but nothing in the media tackles the interesting question of who in ZANU-PF will replace the aging Mugabe and what direction will they move in.
Continue reading Its a Statement, not a Resolution…
Charlie Wilsons War is a book which should get onto quite a few academic reading lists as an interesting case study in several areas – it sheds light on the workings of US government and politics, on how some clandestine agencies work, at least some of the time, and is one of the most interesting books on how to organise irregular warfare since Lawrence’s “Seven Pillars of Wisdom”, and Charlie Wilson certainly saw himself as a modern Lawrence of Afghanistan. Continue reading Charlie Wilson’s War
Libya slipped a nice bit of diplomacy past the posts in the most recent UN resolution on Iran’s nuclear program by getting a half sentence inserted about creating a regional nuclear free zone – that, of course, would require Israel to give up her nuclear weapons. Of course nothing will happen about it anytime soon, but it is the thin end of a wedge which allows the Libyans to feel they earned their keep on the Security Council, and to show that their spots haven’t entirely changed.
Continue reading Israel 0, Libya 1 on a long ball
I had a bad moment yesterday morning when I found myself agreeing with things John Bolton and other neo-cons said in a New York Times report. However, there were only a couple of points I agreed with – that elections in Pakistan may produce instability, that sanctions won’t work against Iran and that the Bush administration has been somewhat tamed by the bureaucracy in Washington. I might agree with some neo-con fears, but I doubt I’d agree with any of their solutions. Continue reading Shoot me now please..I agree with John Bolton
The sub-prime mortgage lending bubble continues to bite back, with the news of Northern Rock’s misfortune – a temporary cash flow problem which arose because they expected the market to recover sooner than it did. Indeed – I’ve got news for you lads, the market won’t recover for a long time yet. Commentators this evening were speculating that it would be taken over, rather than close down, but I don’t think there will be much to take over. Apparently Rock had cash of about 24bn and ‘assets and loans’ of about 113bn – but that was last night.
Continue reading Sinking like a Northern Rock
Moqtada al-Sadr is what we’d call a ‘cute hoor’ – we’d also call him a ‘bad bastard’ but his announcement of a 6 month truce by his Mahdi army is a smart move if he can make it stick. In the old ‘Scarlet Pimpernel’ novels, it was referred to as a ‘policy of masterly inactivity’.
Continue reading The best way to win is by..declaring a truce
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Blog of a middle aged liberal historian and gamer - insert 'occasional' where needed!
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