People on social media seem to like to tell me my opinion of Vladimir Putin, the president of the Russian Federation. It seems a rather strange and arrogant attitude to me -- "If I want your opinion I'll give it to you", so though I don't normally like giving my opinion of people, I thought I might try to write it down, so I can refer people to it ( Read more... )

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How much do you know about terrorism and terrorists?

Since 1967 at least, when the Terrorism Act was passed by the South African parliament, I've known that at least nine times out of every ten times the word is used it is used for disinformation rather than information, so whenever I've seen it in print since then it has made my bullshit detectors ( Read more... )

After having worked for several years as an editor of academic texts, I've tended to be a bit of a language pedant, and I seem to be becoming more pedantic and curmudgeonly about it as I get older.

About a week ago I made a language pedant comment on someone's blog, about a statement that "family planning is as everyone knows a code for abortion".

( Read more... )

All over the internet I've been seeing people discussing Jonathan Haidt's research findings on the moral foundations of liberals and conservatives.

I was curious, and took a coule of his tests, and the result was quite scarey. Not only are Haidt's conclusions not warranted by his data, but the questions don't measure what he says they do. His ( Read more... )

About a month ago over in coinherence I challenged Charles Williams fans to enter the National Novel Writing Month challenge to write a 50000 word novel in a month, and to try to write a Charles Williams-type novel ( Read more... )

Tony Blair has put British security at risk by his uncritical support for US foreign policy of warmongering and aggression in the Middle East, thereby provoking anger among British Muslims ( Read more... )

The following article used to be on the web page ( Read more... )

Stella Sigcau, the South African Minister of Public Works, died about 10 pm on Sunday 7 May 2006 at the age of 69.

She didn't waste much time in getting online in her new abode, because on
the following Tuesday she sent this e-mail:
First, let me start by introducing myself as Mrs.Stella Sigcau, a mother of three children and the Minister of ( Read more... )

Yesterday the news media were reporting the death of John Profumo at the age of 91. For those under the age of 50 or so, who probably won't remember it, John Profumo was the British Minister of War who was forced to resign in 1963 after a the biggest political sex scandal of the 20th century. He was sleeping with a prostitute who was also sleeping ( Read more... )