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Continue reading →: Let the debate continue
Stephen Fry provides support for my thesis that atheists tend to be "a" a particular "theos." Fry is not just an atheist from the Christian God, but from the Catholic version of Him. He is, like me, a Protestant Atheist. This speech (from a televised BBC World debate) is a…
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Continue reading →: Worse and worst?
New Details on Tiger's Prenup – The Daily Beast. I am sorry to return to a subject that upsets my valued female readers, but I am interested to know how they react to the linked story. It seems that Tiger Woods has been unfaithful to his wife. It is reported…
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Continue reading →: Sarah Palin and me
American Thinker: Palin and the future. Sarah Palin is not my type, politically. She’s no libertarian. She’s a real conservative, with the sort of small town values I grew up with and could not wait to escape from. I should not like her, but something in me rebels at the…
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Continue reading →: Finally, a business the Guardian approves of…
Why journalism needs paywalls | Tim Luckhurst | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk. All my life I have longed for the day when the truth about business would be published in the Guardian. As it happens (no doubt to the horror of some readers) I agree with Tim Luckhurst's basic…
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Continue reading →: Scent of a Woman
Scent of a Woman (1992). This film review is 17 years late, but I do not apologise. After all, it's free. Let me explain though. I went to a reception on Saturday; to celebrate the opening of a new office complex in Moscow. The developer is an old friend of…
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Continue reading →: Tory Zac Goldsmith admits he is a non-dom
Tory Zac Goldsmith admits he is a non-dom – Times Online. Another headline lusciously loaded with malevolent meaning. An "admission" carries the unspoken connotation of guilt, as in this headline we shall sadly never see; "Labour Gordon Brown admits whole life warped by envy" Labour has not learned from Crewe…
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Continue reading →: An inconvenient lame excuse
David Adam on controversy over leaked climate change emails | Environment | guardian.co.uk. I am reserving my view on the "climategate" emails. Frankly, I am still finding it hard to believe that the University of East Anglia is as important as the furore suggests. Would anyone really jeopardise the global…
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Continue reading →: Too much information?
FT.com / Columnists / Lucy Kellaway – When too much information harms the office. In the past, books were a rare luxury. Even a wealthy man's library consisted only of a collection of classics to be re-read at intervals. English language publishers today produce more books in a day than…
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Continue reading →: Rule of law, or rule of men?
MPs' expenses: Scotland Yard chief says more MPs could face investigation – Telegraph. To me, this story is a litmus test. Do we have the rule of law in Britain in the sense of Thomas Fuller's splendid words "Be you never so high, the law is above you," or not?…
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Continue reading →: Why Normblog isn’t
normblog: Bow – wow – ow!. I read every post published on "Normblog" with interest. Generally, it is intelligent, well written and wrong. Occasionally it's intelligent, well-written and right. Sometimes it's about cricket and I can't judge. But it's never a blog. I am not being a purist. Nor am…
THE LAST DITCH
Your blogger
Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.
Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.
He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that
“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”
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There are many reasons they’re not passed down, Tom. The Triune code, laid out in scripture in all reputable versions…
I’ve always tried to live my life doing no wrong but life isn’t like that so you make compromised but…
Hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to end until you end it. You think people to whom…
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The Last Ditch by Tom Paine 
A little bird tweeted in my ear that it was time to come over and see how things are.