Peter Risdon

The Palestinians have the inalienable right to indoctrinate their kids to blind evil and hate, but Norway and the West have the moral obligation to stop paying for it.

In some ways, I’d like to see Barack Obama win the election next week. There’s a symbolism about the prospect of a black President, and it is the product of America’s history of slaving. The first black President wouldn’t signify that racism, the peculiar pseudo-scientific racism that developed in the wake of Darwin’s theory*, is [...]

A V8 chainsaw:

Palestinian Media Watch reports by email bulletin (not yet on web) that “Gaza residents are randomly calling American homes trying to convince Americans to support Barack Obama for president”.
Smart thinking, guys. That should work well.

Most of the time, attempts to discredit political candidates by association are fallacious. Obama’s candidacy is a case in point. His past contacts with William Ayers do not mean he is sympathetic to violent revolutionary politics; that case would have to be made on the basis of Obama’s own words and actions. Ayers’ attitudes don’t [...]

Malalai Kakar:
In the mornings she cooked her children breakfast and got them ready for school or their household duties. She spent a long time saying goodbye to them because she could never be sure what would happen. She did not discuss police work with them and tried to prevent them worrying about the death threats [...]

NYU Department of Psychology has asked me to invite readers of this blog to participate in a survey about political attitudes and voting behaviour. You don’t have to be American to take part. The survey can be found at the following address:
http://www.psychsurveys.org/brietruesdell/2008elections

Since I posted some blues?
Here’s John Lee, and Ry Cooder. Nice and easy.

George “Oswald” Galloway feels strongly about child labour. In this audio clip he speaks about how Tesco’s profits are built by “wringing the blood sweat and tears of the young workers in Bangaladesh”. Such classic Gallowayan rhetoric – grandiose, clichéd yet incoherent – leaves the listener in no doubt of the genuine moral impulse he [...]