Tim Worstall

The Americans have their knickers in a twist over this. I hav a feeling I know who is the catering manager for that camp. Indeed, I might even be related to him…..

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It has to be said: Nigel Farage will step down as leader of the UK Independence Party today to concentrate on the European Parliament and his general election battle against the Commons Speaker John Bercow. Probably a good idea too.

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Dim woman living in one of the most free societies ever created, with the least gender discrimination since we came down out of the trees, says that yes, gender pay inequity largely based upon decisions that women make themselves is indeed to be equated with sexual slavery and honour killings. Do bugger off lass would [...]

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Jeebus. Ms. Pollock: Professor Allyson Pollock is assistant principal for International Health Policy and director of the Centre for International Public Health Policy at Edinburgh University. You would expect such to know what she is talking about. Sadly not: Take for example the costs of the new market bureaucracy; for more than 40 years administration [...]

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And then there is the downright peculiar. Someone, for example, has recorded an Assamese woodworm as it chews away at a window frame at 4am with crickets chirruping away in the background. “It is not easy to record a woodworm,” said Fargion. Will this be the source for Moby’s next record? (For those unaware, Moby’s [...]

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Eric Joyce and Jackart, separated at birth perhaps?

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Here. France’s new education minister has become a national laughing stock after he handed out a document on how to tackle poor spelling which was full of mistakes. Muphry’s points out that any attempt to correct the spelling or grammar of another piece will contain further errors of spelling or grammar of greater magnitude than [...]

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Scott Sumner asks, well, just what was the best prediction 20 years ago about what the future would hold? Strangely, it’s this. The best prediction that could have been made 20 years ago is that things can only get better. That’s also the best prediction that can be made now about the future and has [...]

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Who has rights over property and why? Chris, Norm, John all weigh in. To respond only to one part of it: Scepticism towards the moral robustness of an affirmative answer to these questions, of property rights resting on an entitlement to the ‘fruits of one’s labour’, may suggest that the real principle at work is, [...]

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Here he is on December 18th 2008. A Tobin Tax is a wonderful idea and it should be implemented. Here he is on September 2 2009. One country is floating the idea of a Tobin Tax. This is a very bad idea which must be opposed. The difference seems to be that we should impose [...]

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Man goes on diet and loses weight. No fatty meat etc etc. However, I think this might just have something to do with it: I am lucky enough to live in France, in the Vosges, with their silent forests and trout-filled lakes, and most days, if the thunderstorms hold off, I walk for at least [...]

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This is a tragedy. The core problem over the past few decades was not bankers’ greed or the complex financial instruments that enabled them to satisfy it. It was the immense pyramids of debt built up by the Anglo-Saxon half of the world, and the equally massive mountains of savings created in the other. Almost [...]

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They’ve got a competition for free t shirts: September Competition: win a counter-culture T-Shirt Tuesday, September 01 2009 In opposition to the corporatisation of everyday life Philosophy Football’s ingenious ‘Counter Culture’ T-shirt. Available from www.philosophyfootball.com we have 5 to be won in our August competition. To enter simply answer the following question. Who is the [...]

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Interesting point being made: Since 1999 the Home Office has known that its methods for calculating rape convictions are wrong. The real conviction rate is not the publicly broadcast 10 per cent but closer to 50 per cent (it varies slightly from year to year). In a Minority Report (1) which I wrote for a [...]

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There’s an old little jokette that of Edward Heath’s book, “Sailing, a course of my life” that it is the unsigned first editions which are worth more than the signed. For he spent so much time tramping the bookshops of the country that there are many fewer without his scribble. On seeing a copy this [...]

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Ritchie keeps telling us that government spending pays for itself. Spend on the infrastructure and growth comes which pays the debt. Cayman islanders say the previous government spent a huge amount of money upgrading the island’s ancient infrastructure, betting it would be able to pay back a budget deficit of $67.5m as its financial sector [...]

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The first reason for this should hardly need saying, but it does. Communism was a malign doctrine, responsible for murder and oppression on a vast scale. Brought up the son of victims of the Nazis and the Communists, I wasn’t raised to spend my time distinguishing between their crimes, and I don’t. Such distinctions quickly [...]

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Wondrous, really quite wondrous. Lots of politicians don’t want to get rid of selective schools, of grammars. Lots of local councils don’t want to get rid of them. The only time the people in an area with selective schools were actually asked they voted overwhelmingly to keep selection. So thus here is Melissa’s plan to [...]

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The grandson of Joseph Stalin has launched a libel suit against one of Russia’s leading liberal newspapers, accusing it of lying in an article which stated the wartime leader had killed Soviet citizens. Sad thing is, with the current system in Russia he might even win the case.

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I might just be a tad too cynical to be writing pieces on High School Musical songs.

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