You remember biorhythms, the theory that our bodies operate according to varying biological cycles that periodically coincide, for better or worse? The Wikipedia page on Biorhythms absurdly suggests that this idea is all pseudoscience: Critics state that biorhythms are based only upon numerological associations. The plausibility of biorhythmics is contested by mathematicians, […]
Here is an excellent and readable analysis of a failed attempt by a Congolese national based in Brussels to persuade a Belgian court to ban the 1930s book Tintin in the Congo on (basically) the grounds that it promoted and still promotes racist hatred. The legal move failed: This is all […]
Lordy! Boris Johnson, has, says the decorous newspaper, been involved in a foul-mouth rant against Ken Livingstone. By which they mean he used the F-word in denouncing Livingstone when they had an encounter in a lift at LBC. Yet run a word-search on the F-word in the Guardian and you […]
I have written to Graham Norton at the Daily Telegraph to ask for his advice: I have a problem with my newspaper. It carries an advice column’ by a well-known TV personality and supposed comedian who is giving obnoxious if not improper advice. Someone wrote to him asking about a […]
Here is our old friend Robert Fisk showing what a great war reporter he is: I’ve been increasingly discomfited by all these reporters in their blue space-suits, standing among and interviewing the victims of war, who have no such protection. I know that insurers insist correspondents and crews wear this […]
Frugaldad has sent me this interesting infographic. As the proud but broke owner of ever more Apple products, I share it with you: Source: https://frugaldad.com
Here’s my latest LSE book review, on a new book by Charlie Beckett with James Ball describing the rise and fall of Wikileaks: One of the key advantages of WikiLeaks as seen by its avowedly radical ‘hacktivist’ creators led (loosely speaking) by Julian Assange is that it subverts all existing […]
We cherish the idea that we clever Westerners have something called ‘freedom of the press’. But what exactly does that expression mean? Does it mean that those who constitute the body of publishing folk who define themselves as ‘the press’ have special status and associated freedoms which may or may […]
Here is my latest article at DIPLOMAT magazine on the ever-fascinating question of diplomatic and wider media technique in a confusing new world: Once upon a time diplomats were rarely seen or heard in public. To do their vital work of privately communicating messages between national leaders they needed to […]
Not sure if I have linked here to my LSE book review about electronic voting, so here it is. Thus: The heart of the book is the authors’ emphasis on sensible risk analysis. Above all, they punch on the nose the odious “precautionary principle” – the superficially appealing but in fact […]
