Harry's Place

Shocked by the consequences of what they considered to be a joke, the Australian DJs Mel Grieg and Michael Christian seem distraught.
Many people are discussing their actions. Writing in the Independent, Dom Joly discusses the concept of using consent forms before broadcasting a practical joke, in order to avoid pranks escalating into tense or tragic situations.
Mark [...]

Unfortunately.

A principle sometimes discussed here is “opposing extremism in the round”. It means opposing the vile racists of the BNP, the horrid thugs of the EDL, and Islamist hate preachers as well.
Here is a case where ”in the round” has failed.
Abdul Qadir Baksh is a prominent imam at the Luton Islamic Centre. Just [...]

Have a look at the scene at last Friday’s “Global march to Jerusalem” demonstration in London. “From the river to the sea” calls for Israel’s annihilation. A Hezbollah flag (it wasn’t the only one). The Neturei Karta freak show. “Zionism, terrorism”. This is what deranged Israel hated looks like.

This woman [...]

Then:

Now:

The Telegraph reports:
Billionaire Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev has physically attacked a fellow tycoon on national TV after the other man told him he would like to “punch someone’s lights out.”
Mr Lebedev, who owns The Independent and The London Evening Standard, said he felt the threat was directed at him and that he was left [...]

A couple of months ago I moved from Washington, DC, about 180 miles south to Lexington, Virginia, a town of about 7,000 in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley.

My niece also lives in the area (in a remote community in the woods) and teaches English and environmental studies at Washington and Lee University. In his post-Civil War [...]

Riots in England? Earthquakes on the East Coast of the US? A continuing weak economy? The European banking system facing possible collapse?
Never mind. The good news is that Donald Trump has a brand new private 757 jet.

Thank you, Mr. Trump, for allowing us to even take a look. (I’m actually semi-serious about that. In a [...]

I was taking a break from blogging last week, and so you were spared my thoughts about the rioting, arson and looting in parts of London and other UK cities (I hate alarmist headlines of the “London Is Burning” variety) as it was happening.
However if I had posted something, it probably would have been along [...]

The Government has just published its first batch of “e-petitions“.
Channelling e.e. cummings, we are told:
e-petitions is an easy way for you to influence government policy in the UK. You can create an e-petitionabout anything that the government is responsible for and if it gets at least 100,000 signatures, it will be eligible for debate in the [...]