Pot/Kettle Fallacy

Chris (Stumbling and Mumbling) get in a well-aimed shot at Oliver Kamm for his trenchant criticism of the Greenpeace activists who disrupted yesterday’s CBI conference, which appears in today’s Times. Kamm’s expansion of a bit of typical Greenpeace rhetoric – a claim that the intent behind the protest […]

Those who cannot remember the past…

I pointed out only the other day that one of the problems with inveterate modernisers is that they frequently lack any real sense of history. Today I come across an interesting illustration of this particular point in the form of this post from Lee Gregory on the subject […]

Fish, Barrel, Shotgun

Yep, as you might guess from the title there’s more of Polly Pot’s patented pearls of wisdom to be shot at. In today’s edition of ‘Polly’s Follies’ we find her turning her attention to the thorny question of removing juries from complex fraud trials – she’s in favour, […]

Mything the obvious

Yep, I was right. The ongoing shambles that is the CSA is rapidly turning into amother issue in which it is impossible to conduct a reasoned and mature debate. Today’s dose of crass gender politics comes courtesy of Zoe William’s in the Guardian who’s pissed off that men […]

Credit where none is due

Plenty of good material on Bush, Blair and the Al-Jazeera memo out there with honourable mentions going out to Bloggerheads, Blairwatch and one of Scaryduck’s alter egos, Robber Rabbit – must also mention Don’t Bomb Us, a blog by Al-Jazeera staffers. Meanwhile, over at the Observer, Peter Preston […]

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

This report (quoted below) from Friday’s Independent, has quite rightly attracted the opprobrium of several bloggers including Justin (Chicken Yoghurt), Jeremy (My Way Of Thinking) and Mark (Longrider). A day earlier, Mr Blair had told MPs: “We do not agree with the use of torture.” Pressed over whether […]

Not just for Jesus?

From Jesus’s General

Whaddya mean Victoria isn’t Queen?

Having found myself broadly agreeing with something written by Polly Pot the other day I now find myself faced with a saluatory reminder that as vapid and ill-conceived as many of her columns are there is one thing going her favour as journalist. She isn’t Melanie Phillips. There […]

More bad stats

Via Recess Monkey comes this prime example of statistical hyperbole from the PM no less. Written answers Monday, 21 November 2005 Prime Minister Terrorism Legislation Grant Shapps (Welwyn Hatfield, Con) “To ask the Prime Minister pursuant to his oral answer of 9 November 2005, Official Report, column 298W, […]

Rape, Responsibility and Bad Statistics

Lots of ground to cover here so I’ll straight down to business. First up Tim Worstall notes an interesting statistical claim from Julie Bindel in today’s Grauniad, which he files under the category ‘idiotarians’: Violence against women is the cause of more deaths and disability around the world […]