Iain Dale says:
It’s a bit like pro abortion people being against the death penalty or pro death penalty people being pro life.
Which allows me again to mention my favourite newspaper headline, from Rolling Stone Magazine’s review of the year for 1981 (not online):
Right to Lifers Demand Mandatory Death Penalty
Archive for May, 2010
Life and death
Limits of Federal political responsibility
Katrina wasn’t George Bush’s fault, and the BP oil leak isn’t Obama’s.
Don’t give it to him
The man accused of the murders of at least three prostitutes in Bradford called himself the “crossbow cannibal” during a court appearance. It would be better if the media called him anything but the crossbow cannibal. This man seems to have developed an idea of himself as notorious serial killer and it would be unfortunate [...]
Quotes of the day
A wife-basher’s violence would no doubt be less damaging if carried out under medical supervision, but that doesn’t mean our hospitals should feature supervised domestic violence evenings.
From an editorial about Female Genital Mutilation at the Australian Daily Telegraph. In a paraphrase of an older quotation, it ends:
And if people want to play the [...]
Quote of the day
I have been trying to digest this Krugman article in the NY Times about the Tea Party movement. Sooper genius Krugman has worked it out: the Tea Partiers think the GOP is about helping people, but it’s really about helping corporations.
“The mood on the right may be populist, but it’s a kind [...]
Statistician joke
Three statisticians go duck hunting. The first one’s bullet sails straight past the duck, about six inches above its head. The second one aims more accurately but the duck, startled by the noise of the first shot, jumps six inches into the air and the bullet misses again, this time whizzing [...]
Question begging, again
Coming back, after a week or so, to the discussion with Norm about question begging, let me start by accepting completely this definition, also quoted by Norm in a later post:
To “beg the question” does not mean to raise or prompt the question. It means to assume in your premises the truth of your [...]
Rephrasing
Wouldn’t this:
What is your favourite piece of political wisdom? > That there are not necessarily solutions to political problems.
be better with one word moved?
That there are not necessarily political solutions to problems.
Celebration
From the Economist:
AT A time when the world is short of causes for celebration, here is a candidate: within the next few months women will cross the 50% threshold and become the majority of the American workforce. Women already make up the majority of university graduates in the OECD countries and the [...]
At least the trains might run on time
This is the most ridiculous post I’ve read so far, since the election, and surprisingly it’s from the normally level-headed Richard North:
In 1933, a certain party just failed to win an overall majority, polling 43.9 percent of the vote. To take power, therefore, it too formed a coalition government.
Once in power, of [...]