Monthly Archives: March 2010

One reason why I’m sure that the smoking ban will eventually be amended or repealed is because I simply don’t believe that cultural values can be changed by coercion. If people have to be forced to do something, it can … Continue reading →

I dropped into the River this afternoon, and was told a sad story. One of the regulars said that someone he knew had just been given two weeks to live. She was only 39, and riddled with cancer. ‘Imagine it,’ … Continue reading →

Are we going to have an election? Everyone seems to think we are. But no date has been set. A lot of people seem to be sure that it will be on May 6. But I have my doubts. That … Continue reading →

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) was a French economist and politician. It was once proposed that a railway be built between France and Spain, passing through Bordeaux. A Monsieur Simiot wrote to a Bordeaux newspaper suggesting that there should be a break … Continue reading →

What is it with these people? The BBC reports: Doctors call for smoking ban in all enclosed spaces What, even in your own home? Well, not yet. Smoking should be banned in all cars, according to a leading group of … Continue reading →

One of the heart-warming features of the recent successful appeal to raise the money to free Nick Hogan was that quite a few non-smokers chipped in as well. I even read an antismoker declare that he was going to help … Continue reading →

If there were no climate scientists, would we be facing a climate crisis? If there were no such scientists (and they’ve only been around for 30 years or so), then we’d only have our native reason and common sense. There’d … Continue reading →

The Royal Society is going to run an “independent” inquiry into the science behind the Climategate scandal. The chairman is to be Lord Oxburgh who is President of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association Chairman of wind energy firm Falck … Continue reading →

One of the things that deters me from voting Tory has been David Cameron’s embrace of environmentalism and greenery and global warming/climate change at more or less just the moment that I was becoming thoroughly disenchanted by it all, and … Continue reading →

A fascinating argument about statistics has broken out with the publication of “Odds Are, It’s Wrong” by Tom Siegfried in Science News. It’s science’s dirtiest secret: The “scientific method” of testing hypotheses by statistical analysis stands on a flimsy foundation. … Continue reading →