Politics, news, libertarianism, Science Fiction, religion, sewing. You got a problem, bud? I like sewing.

E-mail: nataliesolent-at-aol-dot-com (I assume it's OK to quote senders by name.)

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Jane's Blogosphere: blogtrack for Natalie Solent.



Links

( 'Nother Solent is this blog's good twin. Same words, searchable archives, RSS feed. Provided by a benefactor, to whom thanks.
I also sometimes write for Samizdata and Biased BBC.)

The Old Comrades:

• Samizdata
  
• The Edge of England's Sword
  
• Daily Bleat
  
• Ain't No Bad Dude
  
• Dawson.com
  
  
• Random Jottings
  
• Progressive Reaction
  
• Mind Over What Matters
  
• Daimnation!
  
• Tim Blair
  
  
• Instapundit
  
• Dr. Frank's What's-it
  
• Joanne Jacobs
  
• Ranting and Roaring
  
• Midwest Conservative Journal
  
  
• Airstrip One
  
• Amygdala
  
• Ken Layne
  
• Matt Welch
  
• Andrew Sullivan
  
  
  
  The New Model Army:
  
  
• Adam Smith Institute Blog
  
• Adloyada
  
• Albion's Seedling
  
• Antoine Clarke
  
• Au Currant
  
• Benjamin Kepple
  
• Best of the Web
  
• Biased BBC
  
• Bilious Young Fogey
  
• Black Triangle
  
• Blithering Bunny
  
• Brian Micklethwait
  
• Bjørn Stærk blog
  
• Blogosophical Investigations
  
• Body and Soul
  
• Brendan O'Neill
  
• Chase Me Ladies
  
• Chicago Boyz
  
• Common Sense and Wonder
  
• Christian Hate?
  
• The Corner
  
• Conservative Commentary
  
• Crooked Timber
  
• CrozierVision
  
• Cut on the Bias
  
• Daily Ablution
  
• Davids Medienkritik
  
• Dodgeblogium
  
• Electrolite
  
• EU Referendum Blog
  
• EU Rota
  
• EU Serf
  
• Freedom and Whisky
  
• Globalisation Institute blog
  
• Heirs of Hammurabi
  
• Hell in a Handbasket
  
• Happy Fun Pundit
  
• Harry's Place
  
• Hokiepundit.
  
• Iain Dale's Diary
  
• It Can't Rain All The Time
  
• Jackie Danicki
  
• Jim Miller on Politics
• Junius
  
• Layman's Logic
  
• Letter from Gotham
  
• Liberty Log
  
• Like a Tea-tray in the Sky
  
• Little Green Footballs
  
• Live from the WTC
  
• Machinery of Night
  
• Marduk's Babylonian Musings
  
• Matthew Turner
• Mark Steyn
  
• Michael Jennings
  
• Mr Chalk
  
• Muslimpundit
  
• Normblog
  
• No Pasaran!
  
• Odious and Peculiar
  
• Oliver Kamm
  
• One Sided Wonder
  
• On the Third Hand
  
• Oxblog
  
• Patio Pundit
  
• Photon Courier
  
• Public Interest
  
• Right Wing News
  
• The Rittenhouse Review
  
• Sand in the Gears
  
• Shot By Both Sides
  
• Squander Two
  
• Stephen Pollard
  
• Steve Chapman
  
• Silflay Hraka
  
• Sporadic Chronicle
  
• Tanstaafl
  
• Talking Hoarsely
  
• Transterrestrial Musings
  
• Thought Mesh
• Tim Worstall
  
• Transport Blog
  
• Turkeyblog
  
• Unremitting Verse
  
• Winds of Change
  
• UK Commentators - Laban Tall's blog
  
• Uncommon Sense
  
• Unqualified Offerings
  
• USS Clueless
  
• Val-e-Diction
  
• The Volokh Conspiracy
  
• The Welfare State We're In
  
• Yourish.com
  

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Get used to it: two more minor acts of oppression in developed countries

No one was killed, no one was injured. Do not excite yourselves.

From Adrian Hilton in the Spectator: Revd Dr Alan Clifford’s ‘homophobic’ comments referred to the CPS

The Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 contains the offence of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation. Anyone using threatening words or behaviour, or anyone displaying, publishing or distributing any written material which is threatening, is liable for prosecution. Former Conservative Home Secretary Lord Waddington won an amendment to an earlier version of the law, which established that no one might be prosecuted for stating their belief that homosexuality is sinful or wrong. It read: ‘For the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred.’

But that protection will be illusory for as long as homophobia is defined and understood by the police as ‘any incident which is perceived to be homophobic by the victim or any other person’. Against that background, all mission-orientated Christians will need to temper their proselytism – especially on Gay Pride marches.

Dr Clifford tells me that Huguenot Calvinists are not easily intimidated, and that his faith in God is sustaining him: ‘I am not in deep shock: I enjoy perfect peace,’ he said. Others, of course, may not be so robust and may indeed prefer to pay a £90 fine. Much may depend on the tone and manner of the interrogating police officer.

From Damien Gayle in the Daily Mail via Tim Worstall: Armed police turn up at family home with a battering ram to seize their children after they defy Germany's ban on home schooling

A team of 20 social workers, police officers, and special agents stormed the home of Dirk and Petra Wunderlich because they refused to send their children to state schools. The youngsters were taken to unknown locations after officials allegedly ominously promised the parents that they would not be seeing them again 'any time soon'.

The only legal grounds for the removal of the children, aged from seven to 14, were the family's insistence on home schooling their children, with no other allegations of abuse or neglect.

posted by Natalie at 9:41 PM

 

George Clooney has a private spy satellite over Sudan

This is old news to some but new to me, and to the Huffington Post, judging from their headline. I had thought Clooney to be the standard Hollywood "liberal", looking down from a lofty height on the barbarians below. Instead he is looking down from a lofty height on one particular barbarian below in order to deter him from atrocities and warn his potential victims. Cool.

Next stop, armaments.

Which might get hairy, given that some private individuals and nearly all states of the satellite-owning classes are prone to think of themselves as gods already, even without the power to strike down malefactors from the heavens.

posted by Natalie at 9:38 PM

 

David Cameron will sleep well tonight

Humiliated? As a prime minister and party leader, yes. But there are compensations.

To President Obama he can say, "Sorry guv, tried to help, but the boys just wouldn't let me. We are going to remain neutral". And then sotto voce he can add, "Neutral like you are 'in terms of the Maldives or the Falklands, whatever your preferred term is'"

To Parliament, and through Parliament to the voters, he can say, with great ceremony "I respect your decision" and get all sorts of strange new respect from anti-war people while not losing the respect of those who thought British support for US military action against Assad was necessary, because, after all, he did try.

To Syria he can say all the right things without having to do anything. Given that it is damned difficult to know what to do, or even what is happening over there, that is a silver lining for him. In that link, Jim Miller says, "we need an explanation for the attack — whoever is responsible — that includes a motive." Assad was winning. Why jeopardize that? A member of my family suggested that Assad might have said to his henchmen something equivalent to Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" "Destroy those rebels in Ghouta, and I don't care how you do it." Bashar Assad is an evil man, which does not make his enemies good.

Was this vote a good thing or a bad thing to happen? I do not know.

It is a generator of ironies, and not just for Cameron.

posted by Natalie at 12:01 AM

 

Samizdata quote of the day

All suspicions which have been raised have been dispelled

- German interior minister, Hans-Peter Friedrich, referring to reassurances that Britain and US agencies "had observed German laws in Germany".

It is compulsory to recite this quote in the voice of Cecil Baldwin from Welcome to Night Vale.
Dogs are not allowed in the dog park.
People are not allowed in the dog park.
All suspicions which have been raised have been dispelled.
Do not approach the dog park.

posted by Natalie at 5:13 PM

 

Blackmail plot fails by reason of sucker shortage

Yasuni: Ecuador abandons plan to stave off Amazon drilling

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa has abandoned a unique and ambitious plan to persuade rich countries to pay his country not to drill for oil in a pristine Amazon rainforest preserve.

Environmentalists had hailed the initiative when Correa first proposed it in 2007, saying he was setting a precedent in the fight against global warming by reducing the high cost to poor countries of preserving the environment.

"The world has failed us," Correa said in a nationally televised speech. He blamed "the great hypocrisy" of nations who emit most of the world's greenhouse gases.

"It was not charity that we sought from the international community, but co-responsibility in the face of climate change."

Correa had sought US$3.6bn in contributions to maintain a moratorium on drilling in the remote Yasuni national park, which was declared a biosphere reserve by the United Nations in 1989 and is home to two indigenous tribes living in voluntary isolation.

But on Thursday evening he said Ecuador had raised just $13m in actual donations and $116 million in pledges and he had an obligation to his people, particularly the poor, to move ahead with drilling.

Schemes outwardly quite like this, that ask people to put their money where their mouths are, might yet turn out to be a great way to find the balance between development and preservation that actually pleases most people as revealed by what they are willing to pay for. But given that Mr Correa has already shown, as Tim Worstall points out, that he considers payment of his country's debts to be optional, I think the required foundation of trust might be lacking for this one. Sadly there were quite a few private individuals who contributed to this scheme even though the rich world's governments prudently refrained - some of these individuals lament their wasted money in the comments to this second Guardian story. Someone else replies that it is a sin to leave a sucker in charge of his money, but there are worse things to be than a sucker. They are not the environmentalists who should arouse our scorn. Reserve that for the first commenter, who says to general approval, "If we want to save the planet, we are going to have to do this by force."

posted by Natalie at 10:26 AM