All entries by this author

Lawrence Tribe on Judicial Review *

Jul 19th, 2005 | Filed by

Let the people decide? Dangerous sport.… Read the rest



Mark Tushnet Replies to Waldron and Tribe *

Jul 19th, 2005 | Filed by

Democracy, rights, interests; legislators, judges; how to reconcile.… Read the rest



Jeremy Waldron on Judicial Review *

Jul 19th, 2005 | Filed by

What passes for ‘reasoning’ in Supreme Court decisions is not about rights at all.… Read the rest



No One Goes to Marylebone Starbucks to Shoot Up *

Jul 19th, 2005 | Filed by

But why does anyone go to Starbucks? Frappucino, music, comfy chairs.… Read the rest



Women Are Known to Like Everything New *

Jul 19th, 2005 | Filed by

So they’d always want a new car so they must not be allowed to drive.… Read the rest



Virtue Trounces Vice Again

Jul 19th, 2005 4:22 am | By

This is funny. I know, I shouldn’t laugh, it’s serious, but it’s funny.

A statement that has warned against the dangers of allowing women to drive in Saudi Arabia was released on the Internet on Friday…It said the enemies of Islam have portrayed the image of Muslim women being without rights and having “a broken wing,” saying that their homes are prisons, their husbands mistreat them, and their hijabs are a sign of backwardness. It said that they have come up with the terminology of “injustice for women” in our country and have used it in the media lately introducing the fact that they are not allowed to drive as a sign of injustice.

They did? Those bastards. … Read the rest



Aporias and Avatars

Jul 19th, 2005 2:02 am | By

Tzvetan Todorov has a good essay in Theory’s Empire. I’ll give you a quotation from it.

The renunciation of judgment and of values leads to insurmountable aporias, as well. To make their own task easier, deconstructionists seem to have assimliated all values to religious values, thus rejecting the distinction between faith and reason, and they treat reason as an avatar – no more and no less – of God, thus wiping out several centuries of struggle with a single stroke of the pen.

Rejecting that distinction between faith and reason is – such a bottomlessly terrible idea.… Read the rest



Marx Only Philosopher People Have Heard Of? *

Jul 18th, 2005 | Filed by

Nor do our home-grown philosophers really punch their weight.… Read the rest



Marx’s Philosophy, a Summary: You Get Screwed *

Jul 18th, 2005 | Filed by

Marx good on symptoms, but vague – a born-again amateur Hegelian – on cures.… Read the rest



Problem is a Pernicious Ideology *

Jul 18th, 2005 | Filed by

The cricket test is not all that informative.… Read the rest



Apologists for Jihadists Not ‘Left’ *

Jul 18th, 2005 | Filed by

They are representatives of an illiberal post-modernist dunciad.… Read the rest



Why We Signed ‘Unite Against Terror’ *

Jul 18th, 2005 | Filed by

Compelling reasons.… Read the rest



The Increasingly Fraught Word ‘Multiculturalism’ *

Jul 18th, 2005 | Filed by

People who come from small villages and know nothing about living in the outside world.… Read the rest



Reform

Jul 17th, 2005 10:15 pm | By

It’s time to reform Islam, a lot of people are pointing out. (The other big religions could do with some reforming too, while you’re at it – though Islam’s need is obviously fairly urgent.)

Tariq Panja thinks UK mosques should do better.

The trouble for many young Muslims in Britain comes from the one-dimensional nature of Islamic instruction given in most mosques. Islamic consciousness comes from visits to the mosque and by going to madrassas to learn to read the Koran in Arabic. For many, though they can read the language, it is incomprehensible. Then there are the sermons delivered at Friday prayers, which are read in the language of the founders of the mosque. So in Beeston they are

Read the rest


Lose Ten Points

Jul 17th, 2005 9:33 pm | By

Open Democracy made en error – at least, one of its writers did, which comes to the same thing. It’s a fairly gross error, too. (I emailed them about it – I wonder if they’ll fix it.)

Coming from a sophisticated thinker, that is a surprising assessment of the man who declared during last year’s election: “I’m not here offering myself to you because that’s how it’s done in a democracy, but because that’s just how I am, and I don’t give a damn who says different.” For Ignatieff, Bush is a “gambler from Texas” because he is the first president “risking his presidency on the premise that Jefferson was right”.

Trouble is, if you follow the link, you … Read the rest



Basic Training

Jul 17th, 2005 7:28 pm | By

Here’s this one again. I’ve pointed it out before, but it’s a mistake that crops up all the time, so it bears repeating. This one is via the drink-soaked Trotskyist popinjays quoting Christopher Hitchens.

RR: I guess because I listen to the 9/11 Commission, and read their report, and they said that Saddam Hussein was not exporting terror. I suppose that’s how, Christopher…

CH; Well, I’m not sure that they actually did say that. What they did say was they didn’t know of any actual operational connection…which was the Iraqi Baath Party and…excuse me…and Al Qaeda. A direct operational connection. Now, that’s because they don’t know. They don’t say there isn’t one. They say they couldn’t find one.

There. It’s … Read the rest



Daily Mail Vilifies Penniless Asylum Seeker *

Jul 17th, 2005 | Filed by

Because he won greatest philosopher poll. Francis Wheen on Marx.… Read the rest



Tariq Panja on Religious Automatons *

Jul 17th, 2005 | Filed by

‘He’s only six; he’s finished the Koran’. So what? What has the child understood?… Read the rest



Nick Cohen on the BBC’s Special Vocabulary *

Jul 17th, 2005 | Filed by

The pressure of events has pushed neutrality into euphemism.… Read the rest



Toronto Conference on Sharia Law [pdf] *

Jul 17th, 2005 | Filed by

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, Homa Arjomand on globalization of political Islam.… Read the rest