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Continue reading →: Visiting with the Sopranos
Link: Tour Sopranos Sites in New York City and New Jersey. I don’t think I have ever mentioned here how much I have enjoyed the TV series, "The Sopranos." Although it is uncomfortable viewing at times (your blogger is a sensitive soul with no appetite for violence) it is also…
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Continue reading →: Slavery in Modern Britain
Yesterday, I walked around the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. On my iPod I was listening to Copland’s "Lincoln Portrait", which includes a narration featuring some of President Lincoln’s own words. One passage struck me as I enjoyed the Chinese art I had gone to see. It is…
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Continue reading →: Merry Christmas
…and a very happy 18th birthday to the younger Miss Paine. Kudos to any commenter who can identify the subject of the picture.
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Continue reading →: New power to seize passports
Link: New power to seize passports – Times Online. It’s Christmas. I am trying to focus on the good things of life. This blog is about civil liberties though, so how can I ignore this story? The phrase "police state" is over-used in dealing with the New Labour Project and…
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Continue reading →: Clarity at Christmas?
Link: seasons_greetings.swf (application/x-shockwave-flash Object). I guess this London law firm (follow link above) is simply making a seasonal joke about its marketing tagline – Clarity Matters – but this sort of thing still mildly gets my goat. Had they wished me "Happy Hannukah" or "Happy Eid" (as some very politically…
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Continue reading →: The Custodian: The government as paedophile
Link: The Custodian: The government as paedophile. The Custodian is a new blog to me. Thanks are due to Fabian Tassano at Mediocracy for directing me to this interesting piece. I am not sure I buy the paedophile analogy, but I certainly think all prudent citizens should approach government as…
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Continue reading →: National Debt
Link: The Devil’s Kitchen: National Debt. Don’t click through to the linked post if you are offended by bad language or economic mismanagement. Frankly, the details of the latter are so shocking, that you will be a sensitive soul indeed if you even notice The Devil’s Kitchen’s foul language.…
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Continue reading →: Pension details of 6,500 lost in new data fiasco
Link: Pension details of 6,500 lost in new data fiasco – Telegraph. The Daily Telegraph says the Government is "reeling." In what sense? Lord Denning used to say that he had "all the Christian virtues, except resignation." The members of this Government don’t have that, or any other, virtue. They…
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Continue reading →: NHS may deny care to woman over Avastin
Link: NHS may deny care to woman over Avastin – Telegraph. Our Government does not believe in the death penalty for murder or even treason. However, it is ready to sentence a woman to death if she pays for a drug which the National Health Service cannot afford. Her crime,…
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Continue reading →: Chief scientist in sports cars warning to women
Link: Chief scientist in sports cars warning to women – Telegraph. It’s official. The Government acknowledges no boundaries to its role in our lives. Now it is trying to tell women to which men they should be sexually attracted. One can’t help wondering if they are being disinterested though. Does…
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…
[…] – Tom Paine […]
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First post (in case you want to read it from the beginning)
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.