Top Stories and Blog Review – 14th February
Nationwide
Anti-Vatican protest hits London
Jacqui’s jihad on web extremism flops
De Menezes family to sue Scotland Yard
Storm grows over play dubbed racist and offensive
International
Has the ‘Obama effect’ come to fashion industry?
British envoy banned in war Sri Lanka
UN man in Pakistan kidnap video
Stimulus plan receives final approval in Congress
WEEKEND VIDEO / by Sunny
Action demanded over war crimes
Acclaimed actors, directors and other artists are spearheading a new drive for accountability over war crimes committed during the Israel-Gaza conflict.
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Who should speak at the liberty bloggers event?
On 28th February, at the massive Convention on Modern Liberty, Liberal Conspiracy will be holding a bloggers summit in association with the Guardian Comment is Free. Our aim is to discuss how online tools can be used effectively to protect our civil liberties. The event is open to all attendees, not just bloggers. Speaking at our event will be Phil Booth from No2ID.
Who else would be good? Who or which organisation has used online tools and tricks to spread word of their work and protect civil liberties? Please make your nominations in the comments or even put yourself forward (explaining why). I’d like to get your thoughts on who would be good candidates that have used technology to protect our civil liberties. I’m trying to get someone from MySociety to join us too.
Church of England: No BNP here
Church of England clergy will shortly be forbidden from joining the fascist BNP. Yesterday, the General Synod voted by an overwhelming majority of 322 to 13 for the CoE to become like the prison service or the police in proscribing membership.
It’s a good idea, since it prevents the BNP from using the name of the Church of England at any meetings or six-person rallies they might hold, but it rather misses the point.
The power of sterotypes
Reputations can be self-fulfilling prophecies ; if you give a man a bad name, he‘ll live down to it. A new paper (pdf) by Thomas Dee shows this.
He did an experiment at Swarthmore College, asking a group of students to take a GRE test. Before the test, some students were asked about their sporting activities, and whether these conflicted with their academic work, whilst others were not asked.
And Mr Dee found that the athletes who were asked these questions performed significantly worse than the athletes who weren’t.
This corroborates the finding of an immediate “Obama effect” upon blacks’ exam performance. As Obama became more prominent, the stereotype of blacks as non-cerebral declined, and so test scores improved.
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Geert Wilders and the search for identity
I’ve written an article, in the Times today, on the good that came out of the Salman Rushdie / Satanic Verses controversy 20 years ago. There’s two additional points I want to make.
The controversy, its aftermath, and the controversies around race and religion that have since followed, are essentially about a search for identity. What I love about Britain is that despite the attempts of racists such as Melanie Phillips, we haven’t been tempted into the authoritarianism and myopia that is prevalent across Europe towards minorities. This search for identity isn’t going go away yet because we still haven’t found the right language to describe ourselves. Simply hoping that everyone will call themselves ‘British’ and that will be the end of that is naive thinking. Life is more complicated, richer and diverse than that for many people across this country. So why put them into label straight-jackets?
Secondly, I find the hysteria surrounding Geert Wilders’ ban as quite hypocritical. The list of people previously banned from coming into the UK include ‘Bounty Killer’, rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg, Louis Farrakhan (Nation of Islam) and Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Would Melanie Phillips or Douglas Murray stand up for the rights of Farrakhan to speak? I doubt it – he’s black.
Douglas Murray makes various unsourced assertions. First, there’s no evidence that a mass protest was planned. Lord Ahmed has denied claims that first surfaced on a right-wing blog. But then Murray needs to push the ‘Angry Muslim Man’ stereotype I guess. Secondly, and this really illustrates how poor his research is, Murray claims: “Wilders attacks Islam, not Muslims.” He forgets that Wilders wants:
the ‘fascist Koran’ outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim ‘criminals’ stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported ‘back where they came from’.
Quite the liberal chap isn’t he? It comes as no surprise that Douglas Murray is dishonestly defending someone who echoes the BNP’s policies. What’s more amusing to watch is how confused and hypocritical right-wingers are over such controversies. They want free speech until nasty Muslims say nasty things.
Top Stories and Blog Review – 13th February
Nationwide
Marriage rates crash to all-time low
Gordon Brown vows to ‘claw back’ bonuses
BT warns of more losses after profits plunge 81%
Icy roads warning amid big freeze
International
Mumbai terror attack planned in Pakistan
Hamas ‘set for truce with Israel’
World in denial about trafficking, says UN
Sri Lanka accused of planning concentration camps
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin
Andy Worthington has a superb analysis of where we are with the Binyam Mohamed case.
Vino S reviews the outcome of the Israeli elections.
Gareth Aubrey wonders why we’re spending £7bn on a set of diesel trains if we’re supposed to be helping the environment?
Jailhouselawyer discusses what purpose religion serves inside prisons and the danger of radicalisation alongside it.
Adrian Smith: surprise, surprise, government figures don’t add up to actually helping those that need it.
Chris Davies MEP blogs about his view in Gaza, and he can see the bright side of this awful situation.
Program your own mind (shameless plug) wonders why so little is being done to encourage school attendance rather than punish truancy.
Click for previous editions of the netcast.
Bankers and bonuses
Listening to the Today Programme the other morning, it seems a consensus has been reached: the problem in the banking industry is big bonuses, and if the politicians can command the banks to stop paying big bonuses, then the “bonus problem” will be solved.
Why are big bonuses are paid in the first place? Unpleasant as they may be, the reasons described by Chris Dillow cannot simply be wished away. Individual bankers generate huge quantities of revenue, and if they walk out the door they take the revenue with them, giving them bargaining power that (partially) explains their incomes.
We – the taxpayer – own some banks now, and our interests will not be served if the revenue generators walk out the door and take the business with them. The general impression appears to be that big bonuses exist simply because bankers are greedy and like paying themselves lots of money, as if people in other industries wouldn’t pay themselves lavishly if they could.
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Top Stories and Blog Review – 12th February
Nationwide
Lloyds faces new loans allegations
Hundreds march at station over foreign labour
Dutch MP banned from entering UK
Plan to scrap council tax dropped
International
Tsvangirai sworn in as PM
Guantánamo inmate Binyam Mohamed close to release
US banks defend bail-out spending
France faces revolt over poverty on Caribbean islands
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Lee Griffin
Wardman Wire. The first rule of government is: Jacqui Smith (or her department) is breaking the law and getting away with it.
Mark Reckons. The second rule of government is: Jacqui Smith (or her department) is breaking the law and getting away with it.
Lib Dem Voice/ Mark Pack casts his doubts on the “public belief in evolution” poll.
Disgruntled Radical posts his thoughts on the nuances of being a Liberal Democrat, sparked by this discussion started by Charlotte Gore.
Potlach thinks carefully about copyright and protectionism for industries that rely on it.
CiF/Yvonne Bradley is Binyam Mohamed’s lawyer and wants her client home and away from the torturers he’s been subjected to. Jacqui Smith (or her department) would comment if not too busy breaking the law.
Lib Dem Voice/Alix Mortimer likes the ring to “Say-anything-do-nothing Prime Minister.”
Extended list up on my (slow) blog due to increased quality of writing out there!
Click for previous editions of the netcast.
Should Geert Wilders be allowed in?
The vaguely ridiculous figure of Geert Wilders will be no stranger to those on the internet who keep an eye on the politics of our continental cousins. Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, has been informed by the government that he will be denied leave to enter the UK under the laws which permit EU member states to deny any citizen entry on the basis of danger to public security. Whatever that means.
His film “Fitna” caused a stir amidst right and left wing circles when it was released last year. I got a chance to watch it last year and frankly I can’t see what the fuss is about. It shows quotes from the Koran and from Islamic fundamentalists besides images of 9/11, the 7/7 bombings and various other attacks by terrorists. Now he has been invited to show it in the House of Lords by (who else?) a UKIP peer.
Whether Wilders should be permitted to come to the UK, whether he should be permitted to show his video and whether or not the thesis of his video is correct are three different matters. To answer these questions, we must begin by categorizing him; is he racist? A fascist? “Just” anti-Islamic? I find the last troubling since I am anti-Islamic, and anti-all organised religions myself, but in no way similar to Geert.
continue reading… »
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