Norman Geras has written a response to my post about Richard Dawkins. This is my reply to him.

Britain’s top political commentators last week descended on Richard Dawkins with all the careful analysis of a flock of vultures.

David Cameron thinks that if enough people sign an online petition, an issue should be debated by parliament. From the BBC:

Online petitions could be used to decide the subject of debates and votes in Parliament under a Tory government. Tory leader David Cameron said this would show the public “what their elected representatives actually think [...]

There was an interesting item on the Today programme this morning, which was guest edited by Sir Clive Woodward, about boxing and the Olympics (scroll down for the listen again feature to 8.50 am). It has been suggested that investing in boxing, including encouraging boxing in schools, would be a good way to increase possible [...]

It’s gedankenexperiment time!
Suppose mafioso A pays hitman B to kill politician C. Is B any less a murderer than if he’d committed the crime off his own back? Obviously not: he’s 100% guilty. But does it follow that A is not responsible for the killing? Again, clearly not: it was his actions and his intentions [...]

Short one, food for thought. Given a 61% turnout in the 2005 general election, with Labour winning 35% of votes cast, Tony Blair has a mandate from 22% of the electorate.
In other countries, President Bush has a mandate from 21% of voters. The Iraqi parliament from 27% of voters, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a staggering 36% [...]

The Americans have been known to legally prohibit the burning of their own flag and there are some who would like this to be the case again. But the present legal situation rests on a sensible Supreme Court decision from 1989, which held that the burning of the American flag was a form of free [...]

In classical formal logic, every statement is either true or false: those which are false are precisely those which are not true. In the early 20th century however, constructivist mathematicians wanted to see how far they could get without this “law of the excluded middle” and began to develop new intuitionistic logics in which some [...]

Philippe Legrain describes John Reid’s plans for the Bulgars shortly to be flooding our shores, doing our jobs, claiming our dole, taking our women and reducing the value of our properties thusly:

In the tradition of the New Shorter Sharpener - snappy posts for a busy world - here is everything I want to say about the issue of labour mobility from Bulgaria and Romania in one equation.
Illiberal Home Secretary Pandering to Rabid Anti-Immigration Tabloid Gallery and Demonstrating Penchant to create New Criminal Offences + Romanian and [...]

Imagine if a Muslim MP declared that he had asked his female visitors to cover-up if they were ‘inappropriately’ dressed. We would be deluged with outraged articles of Muslims trying to “Islamicise” Britain no doubt.
Either way, whether Muslim women with veils are requested they drop them, or women with mini-skirts are asked to cover up, [...]

Livingstone and Chavez, stirring it:
Ken Livingstone has been criticised for a proposed deal to get cheap Venezuelan oil for London’s buses, in return for consultancy services…
The deal could subsidise Oyster travel cards for the poorest Londoners, Mr Livingstone said.
Fare’s fair, Chavez-style, or oil-for-wonks scandal?

I’m sorry but I just don’t buy it.
A group of prominent MPs, alarmed at the rise of anti-semitism in Britain, will accuse some left-wing activists and Muslim extremists this week of using criticism of Israel as ‘a pretext’ for spreading hatred against British Jews.
The charge is made in a hard-hitting report - by MPs from [...]

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. [...]