Playing catch-up

The RSS thingie was well into three figures this morning, so instead of the customary ramblings a short, controlled burst:

An excellent article by Dr. Sean Gabb on the ‘Gary Glitter’ case, to be compared and contrasted with one on a related topic by Nightjack.

A few words of plain common sense from leg-iron (underdogs bite upwards) on the subject of sexuality in sport. He goes on to remark upon a Times story about MI5 wanting to recruit more gays. Personally I would have thought that they could have borrowed a few from MI6.

Agonised musings from Matt Davies (Woking Libertarians). No, Sir; it is not just you. Indeed, you may wish to join the club…

Obnoxio the Clown (LPUK) suggests the idea of selecting democratic representatives at random. This works perfectly well for jury service and has always seemed to me to be to be worth going into in more detail.

I am not quite sure why the police do not like Mr. Pete Doherty, the celebrated musical entertainer, nor his popular beat combo ‘Babyshambles’, but I would agree with Harry Haddock that they ought to stop persecuting him. It is not for the police to decide who lives on their patch, not should it ever be.

Like a breath of fresh air An Englishman succinctly sums up one view of the the Olympics:

…drug addled lycra bondage fascist body worship…

while the erudite Mr. Eugenides provides an historically altogether more encouraging analysis of the results than than is available from the official propaganda; nice graphics too.

Unpleasant, if predictable, news from The Register (h/t: Trooper Thompson), about the government’s new ’snooping silo’. Thompson has even provided an illustration of what appears to be this sinister organisation’s insignia. Very nasty.

Words of wisdom from Tom Paine on defence and energy matters.

Words of ominous import from Old Holborn:

If I am going to be treated as a criminal, I am going to act like one. You have been warned.

Would you buy a used grey squirrel from this man?

Finally a cheering report from Nanny Knows Best about some people in Yorkshire who took direct action to deal with their council’s rubbish service, which had evidently undergone ‘ungraceful degradation’. They trapped and picketed a dustcart, forcing its binmen to do their duty.

And none, it would seem, were arrested for doing this. There’s still hope.