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Continue reading →: Another ethical dilemma. Maybe I am just confused?
'Circumcision ban makes Ger… JPost – Jewish World – Jewish News. I am troubled by the German court decision on circumcision (and relieved that the Bundestag is apparently going to over-rule it). Yet I don't really understand why? My libertarian principles certainly don't allow parents a free hand to mutilate…
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Continue reading →: Is LOCOG restricting free speech?
Terms of use 2012 Olympics | London 2012. There is some kerfuffle about the London Organising Committee of the Olympic games restricting free speech by its linking policy. Some are asking how, by linking to the site, you could be said to be using it. Therefore they argue, even by…
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Continue reading →: Is Suzanne Moore’s thought maturing?
On social media the new religion is sharing. Some of that sharing may not be very nice | Suzanne Moore | Comment is free | The Guardian. Ms Moore is one of my least favourite writers. She is of the militant busybody tendency. To put it politely (and I don't…
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Continue reading →: Is the internet as addictive as tobacco?
Is the internet as addictive as tobacco? | Anonymous | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk. Here we go. First tobacco. Then drink. Then food. Now the internet. There are literally no decisions about our own lives the true Guardianisti think we are adult enough to take. In their patronising world…
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Continue reading →: Pinheads dancing on angles
Rio Ferdinand: I’m not racist, I was calling Ashley Cole a fake | Football | guardian.co.uk. Is anyone else as amused as me by the confusion of the PC classes over the Ferdinand/Terry kerfuffle? For the masses, the question of whether one can call a black man a f****** black…
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Continue reading →: Relativistic Baseball and other “What ifs”
Relativistic Baseball. I learned all my science from the back of the Economist, the late lamented Tomorrow's World, the plotlnes of Star Trek and the pages of DC Comics. That has served me well enough to bluff myself through a legal career (including a phase acting for computer scientists in…
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Continue reading →: “Let Unsound Money Wither Away”
Let Unsound Money Wither Away – Joseph T. Salerno – Mises Daily. I cannot conceive of a view more diametrically-opposed to the conventional wisdom than that of Ludwig von Mises as explained in the linked article. The reason why trillions in taxpayers' money was kicked in to save the banks…
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Continue reading →: They work for you? Ha!
Simon Clark – Taking Liberties – How stupid is Plain Packs Protect?. I have never smoked (apart from the occasional celebratory cigar). However I do not understand the current campaign to denormalise (or is it demonise?) those who enjoy a legal, if dangerous, pleasure. Lots of pleasures are dangerous. I never…
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Continue reading →: Even more nachas
To add to my burgeoning parental pride, Miss Paine the Elder, already a Cambridge graduate, has earned a masters degree with distinction from the University of London. I fear I may burst.
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Continue reading →: Not nachos, nachas.
Apropos of nothing else, but in sheer parental exuberance, I wish to announce that Miss Paine the Younger took a first in her Politics & History degree from LSE. Given her upbringing in post-communist Eastern Europe, it's somehow right that her favourite subject of study is the Cold War. For…
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.