Tim Worstall

So, Loma Linda, place in California where the health nuts hang out. And half the city are 7 th day Adventists. And McDonalds whishes to p[ollute the heaqlthy air of this mostly vegetarian town with a store selling burgers and the like. We know how this is going to turn out, don’t we? The freedom [...]

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The occasion of Peter Tatchell’s 60 th birthday. Man’s a loon of course. His various forays into the world of economics have been laughably ignorant. Certain of his campaigns have been based upon very, very, odd readings of the world. Yet, as Sellars and Yeatman didn’t put it, he’s not been wrong but wromatic, nor [...]

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Writing in today’s Observer, Baroness Warnock, a leading expert in medical ethics, backs a change to the law, which currently leaves someone who assists in the suicide of a friend or loved one liable to up to 14 years in prison. Yes, this is true, it does. Although the current law is clear that assisting [...]

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The home secretary, Theresa May, has ordered Muslims Against Crusades, an Islamist group which is planning to disrupt Friday’s Armistice Day ceremonies, be banned from midnight. Sigh. Freedom of speech means that people are indeed allowed to burn poppies if they want to be idiot enough to do so. Freedom of association also means that [...]

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So, George Monbiot tells us all that advertising is ‘orrible and links to a WWF (ya, wildlife people telling us all about advertising!) report which says: It is incumbent on the advertising industry to demonstrate that the cultural impacts of advertising are benign. No mateys, that isn’t how it works. It could be of course, [...]

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For, as the UK supreme court made clear in July, the right to know the case against you remains a fundamental common law principle – as Lord Kerr described it, “an elementary and essential prerequisite of fairness”. Ken Clarke and the security services can bugger off then, can’t they?

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Under the government’s plans, all “sensitive” information held by MI5 and MI6 would be discussed in secret court hearings. “Special advocates”, security vetted and approved by the government, would see the information on behalf of individual defendants or claimants but not would not be able to reveal it to them. Such procedures, or alternatively vetted [...]

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There is, however, one great benefit from this decision: perhaps for the first time, the judges’ way of thinking has been made absolutely clear. They think it is for the Supreme Court to decide when the elected government doesn’t know what it’s doing, and then to correct its legislative blunders. Lord Brown does not spell [...]

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Via.

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Among the approximately 3,250 prisoners on death row in the US, the vast majority will serve years in solitary and crippling conditions, awaiting execution. Of the 34 states that still kill people, at least 25 hold death row inmates in solitary confinement for 23 hours or more a day. Sensory deprivation is prevalent. On death [...]

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I wonder if a certain female police officer is going to find herself charged with damaging equipment? Assault even?

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This woman’s vying for the Laurie Penny Award. Because this is not solely about stamping out the under-represented but over-reported incidents of violent protest. Taking part in peaceful civil disobedience will become much more frightening as those arrested at protests are dragged through the courts system. Eh? Despite the piecemeal nature of sentencing for those [...]

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I’ve never understood why we allow our print media to support a particular political viewpoint. Words fail.

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But so profoundly unfashionable that no one will say so: Philip Davies, the MP for Shipley, claimed the disabled or those with mental health problems were at a disadvantage because they could not offer to work for less money. Relaxing the law would help some to compete more effectively for jobs in “the real world” [...]

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Perhaps Ed Balls, the Children’s Secretary at the time, should have given Miss Shoesmith more of a chance to put her case (although it isn’t true that she was denied a hearing altogether: she was able to put her arguments to Haringey Council, the body that fired her). But, as Mr Balls said on Friday, [...]

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Martin Kettle that is: Morality and the rule of law should apply on the internet as elsewhere in human conduct. This is absolutely true. What needs to be acknowledged, however, is that Sarkozy is right about the principle. The internet cannot exist in some undiscussable and untouchable dimension of human activity. It is a human [...]

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“The majority of homophobic attacks are never reported,” says the gay-rights campaigner Peter Tatchell. “Low-level assaults could easily be multiplying under the radar. It can be even worse for prominent gay figures like Philip. I myself have been attacked more than 300 times in the past 20 years. As a result, I suffer from permanent [...]

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Well, no, not really, despite the Telegraph leader telling us so. The law protects those we accuse but cannot prove of seeking to do us harm. If we can prove it then we can bang them up: there’s no problem with jailing someone convicted of conspiracy to commit terrorist offences. Either in law or morality. [...]

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Via, a decent court ruling. The case stated raised four questions for consideration by this court. Having analysed the issues, this court considers that the four questions in essence amount to one question: in a case of cash forfeiture does a customs officer have to show that the property seized was obtained through conduct of [...]

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That’s the only possible meaning of this: As part of this, we condemn any politically motivated policing which provokes, intimidates or criminalises protestors. Isn’t it? And/or they support the right of the BNP to march? Or is “any” restricted to those marching for what they approve of?

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