Stick the proverbial boot-metaphor in before they get a chance to stick an strawman ASBO on you.
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¡Ole Catalunya! The end of bullfighting in Catalunya
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¡Ole Catalunya!
It ended in tears, joy and applauses, but following three months of intense public debate, Catalonia has exercised its autonomy by giving a big "no" to bullfighting, and in doing so joins the Canary Islands (they did so in 1991) in banning this tradition.
The debate and vote in the Catalan parliament, and within the wider Catalan community, was the result of a democratic response to a popular petition to prohibit bullfighting in Catalonia, one that was supported by more than 180,000 signatures.
Up until the vote in the Catalan Parliament...
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Stephen Pollard: No Worries
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Walk away whistling
The always thought-provoking Tim Worstall asks this question, to which we all know the answer:
Absolutely every commentator even vaguely left of centre says that
the fiscal contraction (ie, the combination of spending cuts and tax
rises) is going to devastate the economy. We’re going to get a double
dip recession, unemployment will go over 4 million etc.
Let us imagine that this doesn’t happen: will we then have put to
bed the idea that only government spending can get us out of such
recessions?
Or if, in two or three years time, this hasn’t...
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Open season in the NHS
Tim Montgomerie, the editor of the ConservativeHome.com blog has suggested that the NHS budget should lose its ring-fenced status; I think he is fundamentally wrong, and is completely mistaken in this proposal, wrong about the nature of the NHS and wrong about the rationale for its very existence, I also think that similar suggestions come from a dark cavernous recess of highly dubious instrumental reason and fetid dogma, rather than being the result of any well thought out, coherent, cohesive and humane rationale. Of course, I could be wrong. This is speculation and opinion after all. Occasionally, some things are...
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Liberals, who'd trust 'em?
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Comment on: George Osborne defends tax gamble as prospective chancellors clash live
MartynInEurope 30 Mar 10, 11:27am
Cable is a populist - do the liberals have any policies that they are prepared to stick with, even if it means less votes? Anyway, at least people should know where Darling and Osborne are coming from.
· Comment on: Nick Clegg at Hay: call for questions
MartynInEurope 02 Jun 10, 1:44pm
In relations between Liberals and Tories would you advise the use of protection?
· Comment on: Image conscious
MartynInEurope 15 Jul 08, 7:21pm
I dont personally...
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So, 21st Century Enlightenment, is it?
In the UK, Matthew Taylor of the Royal Society of Artists has come up with a brand new big idea, which is being touted as a call for calling for a "21st-century Enlightenment". This was my response to an article by Madeleine Bunting (guardian.co.uk, Sunday 13 June 2010 21.00 BST), Comment is free - Hail the 21st-century Enlightenment - Ideas don't come much bigger. We need to live very differently, argues a bold new text. And that calls for nothing less than a revolution of the mind.
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UK Financial Sector versus Manufacturing Sector: It's not a game you know
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The article, written by Jonathan Todd, and published on Saturday 12 June 2010, was titled "No need to choose between finance and manufacturing" with the argument "Broad-brush commitments to rebalance our economy are an incomplete response to our economic growth challenge". The following text was essentially my response.
Let’s be clear about this, the suggestion that a sector of a business should contribute a larger percent to the overall business does not, in any capitalist sense, mean necessarily that you will deliberately diminish the net contribution of other sectors, and even large...
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JM and the Bank Bail-out
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John McDonell - Trades Union Bill
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John McDonell for Labour Party Leader
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John McDonnell is the best hope for Labour supporters, for a fast return to an honourable, decent, democratic, egalitarian and inclusive Labour Party. John McDonnell is the best candidate, and one of the very few potential leaders who can avoid a humiliating six or more years in the wilderness, consisting of in-fighting, bickering and destructive abrasion between New Labour factions/sects.
Get back to Labour basics, bring back the Labour party of real values, kick out the spin, the superficial policies of surfaces, the meaningless sound bites and more importantly, scrap notions such...
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Stupid Boys and Tall Stories
The stupid things idiots will claim in support of their own brand of nationalism and in opposition to other people's brand of nationalism.
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The liberal warmonger, the bourgoise reactionary and the mendacious mercenary
Ultra-nationalists of a feather, flock together. Take one reactionary bourgeoisie, mix together some well dodgy intellectual and cultural basis, don't allow to set, then serve up on a layer of instinct and blind prejudice, to the delight of a pack of baying pack of shrieking -racist and misanthropic twits.
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Gay Radicalism
When I was a Welsh kid, growing up in England, there was a lot of very nasty homophobia around. At best, homosexuals were barely tolerated, and were frequently considered a deviancy. My own parents, quite liberal in many aspects, didn't know how to come to terms with homosexuality, never mind what has now become LGBT, and even more, if reports from the USA are to be believed.
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Elections in Iran - More heat than light in the media
From one perspective, it's hard to imagine Ahmadinejad getting more than a handful of votes. Would I vote for him? Good grief no, and not in a month of Sundays. But that isn't the issue is it. If the voting choice and election in this case had been based on the international projection of what Ahmadinejad has supposed to have said, and what he is supposed to be plotting, and that instead of Iranians going to the polls, it was the vote of western critics that mattered the most, then I would agree
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With friends like these: Israel and the non-Jewish right
WORK IN PROGRESS
When little boys and girls have more hate and blind prejudice than reason:
Vile and nasty comments that I have encountered on The Guardian's CiF blog pages from so-called supporters of Israel.
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Viva La Quinta Brigada
The men and women of the International Brigade are to be applauded for their effort to save Europe from fascism, and to save a democratic and constitutional state from the vicious onslaught of a band of internationally backed criminal insurgents.
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Palin, Letterman and the Outrage of Moral Shysters
Me: Would you care to explain yourself?
Just to qualify the comment. Compared to killing hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children based on duff intelligence and lies, it was a very small error of judgement.
Now go back to your shapes, colours, sounds, lights .....
ContedeQuincy: Look at your past posts and you'll soon find out why. I really would not like to add "selective amnesia" to the list.
Me: Ok, so let's assume I have "selective amnesia". Just what are you refer
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Rapid Response Team Replies to Peter Tatchell and Fellow Travellers
You just couldn't make it up! The following is a statement issued by The Righwing Rapid Response Team in response to an alarming and malicious article published by known leftwing green guardianista Peter Tatchell, who goes by the name of "Peter Tatchell", and which was published today (or yesterday) in The Guardian. And which has been supported by a number of treasonous and traitorous Britain hating, minority supporting, LGBT loving, race denying, feminazi gits!
Today, we call upon every upst
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The Eagleton has landed .. splat!
WORK IN PROGRESS
My responses to:
God, Dawkins and tragic humanism: In a new book, Terry Eagleton argues that liberal humanism woefully underestimates the horrors of which humans are capable.
By: Mark Vernon
Published: guardian.co.uk, Thursday 11 June 2009 11.00 BST
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/11/humanism-eagleton-dawkins-christianity-atheism
Or consider Christianity. Christians in history have undoubtedly perpetrated many crimes. But their most fearsome judge is the very individual they claim to follow, the man who blessed peacemakers, tended lepers and loved enemies.
Well, if you follow the Christian narrative, then yes. However, if Christianity were a criminal offence - and I am not suggesting for one minute that it should be a...
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Revisiting The Euston Manifesto
The Euston Manfesto. I never really wanted to comment on The Euston Manifesto, not wanting to legitimise a document that I considered a pretty duff manifesto.
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The extreme right are left: I read it in a blog
If I had a Euro for every time I have read the claim that right is left, then I would be seriously rich.