Voting TaKtiX

Never had one, don’t really want to have one, but we’re getting enough comments now to discuss it. Preferences:

1. Put at least a nickname in if you want to be anonymous
2. Keep it civil, discuss the position, not the person putting it
3. Direct insults because you disagree with the post/commenter will probably get deleted
4. Moderate “colourful” language is fine, I swear a bit, but moderation in all things is good

A fair few of the recent posts have had long comment threads; this is great, but I hate having to say things Anon@19.05 you’re wrong, Anon@20.50 agree completely. Much better to say Nosemonkey, agree, Bondwoman, disagree, Snoo, you’re nuts. All completely anonymous titles, but at least it gives me something to talk to, and means I don’t have to check the logs to see if you’ve commented before.

Doesn’t mean a thing, of course. But if you’re both anonymous and insulting, likelihood is I’ll consider deleting the comment. Doesn’t mean I will; being called a “statist anti-English twat” amused me so much I let it stand; statist? Anti-English? Right, decentralist and very English, I obviously hate myself and don’t know my own opinions…

Lengthy comments: I’d prefer, if you want to really critique something, to do so on a blog of your own, and either trackback or comment to link. Comments are very welcome, but cross-blog conversations are good for all of us; building blogging as a form of dialogue is a good thing. Especially when you start getting comments from your local MP.

Still enjoying this blogging lark a lot though.

In this comment, BondWoman asks:

What I cannot understand is why people get so exercised about the smoking ban as an infringement of “civil liberties”. That seems to me to be a complete abuse of the term civil liberties which hardly does justice to the work done by people such as Martin Luther King or Nelson Mandela as *real* campaigns for *really meaningful* liberties. The right to pollute the atmosphere (whether in public or private) with loathsome fumes seems to me, whether you support the case or not, to be on a wholly different scale.

Well, I think I’ve covered it fairly well before, but summary:

I don’t smoke, have never smoked, and don’t plan to start anytime soon. But I have friends that do. I also have friends with heavy asthma who need smoke free environments. If you encourage pubs to ban it through [tax] breaks, etc, then many will, but due to the demand that will exist for premises that allow smoking, not all will. So my smoking friends can go where they wish, my asthmatic friends can go out safely, and I, as a rational actor within a functioning market*, can make my own choices.

I work in a small town in the back end of beyond. There are already pubs, with no incentives other than the market, that have switched to being non-smoking. Give them some tax incentives, make them advertise their smoking policy, make them ensure ventilation for staff benefit?

Prod the market in the right direction, let rational economic behaviour do the rest. It’s not hard. It’s just not a headline grabbing “vote winner”. Oh, it’s a “stealth tax on business” as well. FFS.

Update: At the top. Unity; read. Now.

What we have here is quite simply a framework for law-maling by propaganda; an attempt to define the precise parameters of this offence by banging away at the public in the press with their preferred definition - which does include glorification - in the hope that when the time comes and a relevant case comes to court, jurors will have swallowed their bullshit wholesale and deliver a precedent that suits their purposes.

Bastards. PaulJ, last October:

How do you glorify terrorism?

Pretty much no change to my opinion since then either. Lords ping-pong anyone?

This and this. Which leads me to:

1. Has the author/sub editor been reading Tim?
2. Does anyone have any dirt on Oborne/the Centre for Policy Studies? While great, it’s not exactly impartial

At work, read it at lunch, never normally blog from the desk but…

The problems with NuLabour

The New Labour project started as a method of making Labour electable again, by bringing under control their less, shall we say, thoughtful, elements. In government, it has taken that controlling tendency further. It is taking control of our lives. (more…)