…is nothing new. Think Al Gore for a prime example, or Sheryl Crow. Now Paul McCartney is being accused of hypocrisy:

“The former Beatle has long been an outspoken advocate of environmental causes and animal rights. He is a vegetarian who won’t even wear leather shoes. But now he’s being criticized for having a [Lexus hybrid] car flown to him in Britain rather than having it sent by ship.”

The jet engines used to fly the car to him dumped more carbon into the atmosphere than McCartney would save if he drove only this oh-so-environmentally-friendly car for the next 45.7 billion years. (Okay, I’m not certain about that figure.) But isn’t there a bigger point to be made here?

The most pertinent fact that nobody seems to be pointing out is that the reason McCartney was the recipient of this car in the first place is because Lexus was the sponsor of his 2005 tour of the United States. A tour.

So this “outspoken advocate of environmental causes” along with his entourage, stage, crew, and equipment traveled from Miami to Tampa to Atlanta to Philadelphia to Boston to New York to Washington DC to Toronto to Detroit to Chicago to Columbus to Milwaukee to St. Paul to Des Moines to Omaha to Denver to Seattle to Portland to San Jose to Anaheim to Sacramento to Houston to Dallas to Phoenix to Las Vegas to Los Angeles, and nobody expects us to call him a hypocrite?

Frankly, the sheer weight of the monstrous torrent of carbon emitted by McCartney’s 2005 tour makes concerns over this single plane trip look like a chokingly disastrous attempt at humour.

Michael Stone. If you’re from outside Northern Ireland that name will probably mean very little to you. But to those versed in Northern Ireland’s rather murky past that name will conjure up images of one of the most notorious terrorist episodes of “the troubles.”

In 1988 a man few had heard of before attended the funeral of 3 IRA members killed by the British Army in Gibraltar. He threw grenades and opened fire on mourners: killing 3 and injuring 60. From this day on everyone knew exactly who Michael Stone was.

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Penn Jillette has given an excellent response to a viewer on the issues of drugs and suicide, speaking as a ’sensitive libertarian’ on the matter (watch it for yourself here; it’s worth a few minutes of your time). Penn’s opinion - identical to our own - is that, while he would go to great lengths to stop his loved ones taking drugs or committing suicide, he doesn’t wish the government to stop them from doing it. This is an important point of libertarianism; that there are many things we wish to be free to do that we will never, ever wish to do and in many cases feel strongly against.

Like eating chili, for example. (This is where this post gets silly.) I believe the listener who wrote this email to me today should be free to eat chili, but I would discourage it strongly:

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Rob Lyons has an excellent response to the comments of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay today in Spiked. We like Ramsay and he’s found favour on this blog before, but these latest comments - in which he says it should be illegal for restaurants to offer food shipped from other parts of the world - are simply loony. His TV colleague Janet Street-Porter (whom Lyons calls a “rent-a-gob”!) came to his defense:

“Eating out should mean we have a chance to enjoy great food created with local produce, rather than fish, meat and exotic veg flown in from the other side of the planet.”

Who the hell is she to tell me what “eating out should mean”? It means whatever I say it means! If I want to eat turducken from the Indochina Peninsula or cockscomb gravy from Guyana, and a restaurant is flying it in to serve it to me, then I’ll damned-well do it! This is yet another prime example of someone advocating that their preferences be dictated to everyone by government force; like the BBC Licence Fee (”I think it’s value for money so it should remain in force for everyone”), like laws against prostitution (”I don’t think it’s right so it should be banned”) and so much else. Ramsay should stick to what he’s good at: cooking food, making entertaining television and pissing off vegans.

In other punditry, Radley Balko reports that a website called RateMyCop.com is pissing off police departments around America by offering citizens the chance to review how the police officers handled their particular situation (be it a traffic stop, a call or other encounter):

“Site founder Gino Sesto wrote to police departments across the country and obtained lists of the names and badge numbers of their officers. He then posted the names online in a format broken down by state and city, encouraging users to rate their experiences with individual officers.”

I think the idea is brilliant. It creates accountability to the public, and I can’t ever see that as a bad thing.

And before I finish I’ll point you to a couple of interesting discussions between myself and other punters over at W&T: the first between myself and Peter Morrow on allowing people to buy and sell human organs HERE, and the second between myself and Peter Henderson on the BBC licence fee HERE.

Have a great Tuesday, friends; more ahead.

Only a few weeks ago no-one knew who Josef Fritzl was, except, obviously, his friends, family and neighbours. But now we all know Josef Fritzl, or least we all know he is an Austrian who locked his daughter up for years and fathered 6 or 7 kids by her without even his own wife getting suspicious about all those secret trips to a locked basement or his returning with a sick smile on his face.

The trouble is most commentators I’ve read think they know Josef Fritzl better than they actually do. I even managed to read an article which irritatingly referred to him as ‘Joe’ Fritzl, as if the author was on familiar terms with him, maybe having enjoyed some strong belly-busting Austrian beer with “Joe” on his regular trips to Austria. (Or perhaps the author was just plain thick and somehow managed to get the name of the most notorious Austrian since Adolf Hitler wrong). But there is no end to the psychoanalysis of Fritzl: the chattering classes have all turned into wannabe Freuds in their rush to give us their pet theories and explanations as to why Fritzl acted as he did.

But it isn’t this aspect of the world of commentary that makes me want to poke my own eyes out with a Sharpie.

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Another week!

Minette Marrin is back on my radar this week with an article about waste, echoing my own thoughts On Waste but in a, er, superior way. While she starts practically speaking, “Flexible catering cannot be entirely frugal, nor can serious cooking,” she doesn’t disappoint: “The real truth is that I like waste. Bring it on.” Love it.

Richard Aregood articulates what many of us think living in America with a contempt of racism but a failure to understand the acrimony we see in black leaders like Rev. Jeremiah Wright: “Sunday morning in America is the most segregated part of the week.” That’s a very useful observation which helps stamp out part of the ignorant typecast.

Ian Williams says, “If the next US president really wants to apologise to the world for Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo and the rest, he should rejoin the ICC.” To the world? What happened at Abu Ghraib was disgusting for sure, but nobody speaking on behalf of the US owes any apology “to the world.” The language is revealing of the ideology of the speaker, nothing more.

And an LA Times editorial argues against allowing firearms to be carried by permit holders into the boundaries of National Parks. It argues this on the basis that no problem can be fixed by that change in the law. The editors appear to believe that lawmaking should be guided by the existence of possible problems which need fixed, rather than the existence of possible rights which need observed! Watch this space for a full response to the editorial later this week.

I almost forgot to mention: Iron Man is brilliant, and throws away the rulebook on how to make ’superhero’ movies. Don’t miss it.

Have a great day!

A combination of re-decorating, tidying, and assembling flat-pack furniture has prevented me from writing my usual articles this week. It’ll be business as usual next week, but for now I thought I go for some light relief for you all to enjoy at the end of a hard week’s work. Some of these were given to me, others I made up. I didn’t quite make it to 50, so if any of you can help feel free to add a few suggestions.

STEPHEN’S TOTALLY SHIT GUIDE TO WORLDVIEWS

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I’ve heard from a lot of people about ‘Super-Size Me!’ and, although the film is now a few years old, a lot can be learned about a person by observing how they respond to it. The film by Morgan Spurlock deals with issues of responsibility, of personal liberty, health, capitalism and more. I thought it was bullshit, and said so in this post back in February. I wanted to reproduce a response made today by reader ‘Julia‘ who said this:

“I’d say your post talks this socialist, anti-prosperity romp of a documentary right under the table. I saw the movie with my friends, and I found it so inane, insulting, scientifically flawed, and motivated by political bias that I didn’t even know where to begin to burst my friends’ bubble-headed “amens.” I must have sounded like a total idiot to them, and I am very glad to find my opinion very well articulated in your post. Perhaps I should pass it on to them. …

– Julia, a “heavy user” weighing 120 lbs at 5′5″. $100 says my BMI is lower than that of our own Sensible Spurlock. Wanna know how I stay thin? I simply don’t stress about my weight! I do what my body says, and refuse to give “experts” any power over my life!”

Beautifully said. And Julia; you could increase that bet tenfold, no sweat: Spurlock’s not going to beat your BMI. (By the way, doesn’t the food in that pic look good?)

A great article today from Rob Johnston on cannabis:

“The argument about cannabis and schizophrenia reflects the modern view of children. In the memories of the 1968 generation, the ‘mild and gentle weed’ they smoked and made them mellow has been replaced by ‘skunk’ which turns today’s children into aggressive and anti-social monsters. So these anti-social, destructive, feral youth can be pathologised and medicalised out of the way.

All these myths play into the hands of the government, ever-wary of upsetting its cosy relationship with the most reactionary elements in the press.”

Click here for the rest.

Well, I started to write this yesterday, but got sidetracked by a virtually impromptu wedding - my sister-in-law got married quietly and casually last night after much drama. I had a horrible headache all day yesterday, my Jeep’s been in repairs for 4 weeks (when I get it back, it’ll be coming with a $2,400 bill; does it come with a whole new Jeep?), and I was pissed off when I heard about Ryan Reynolds’ engagement to the Sexiest Woman on Earth, Scarlett Johansson. But that was on Monday.

This is Tuesday:

Dean Baker is arguing that the real issues facing American healthcare involve the actual costs of healthcare rather than an aging population or anything else. I’m open to persuasion.

Minette Marrin has written a fantastic critique of the BBC; read it if you’re British and hate being forced to pay the licence fee, or even if you simply value freedom to choose what you pay for. It’s not without mistake, though, and later this week I’d like to respond to Marrin on the issue (for our own articles on the BBC and ‘public service broadcasting’, click here).

Roger Vincent reports that some people are worried about the commercial building boom in Hollywood, involving tons of shopping space, new malls, restaurants and nightspots. The last time I was in Hollywood a bum tried to piss on me, so I’d say the boom is to be welcomed. (I won’t be there again until July, when I’ll be at the Kodak Theater for an HBO taping with Ricky Gervais. I’ll give a full review.)

Gary Marcus mentions an old study conducted at Stanford University in which psychologist Walter Mischel “…offered preschoolers a choice: a marshmallow now, or two marshmallows if they could wait until he returned. And then, cruelly, he left them alone with nothing more than themselves, the single marshmallow, a hidden camera and no indication of when he would return.” Some gobbled, some waited, proving that at least half of us do things that run contrary to our own best interest without good reason. This reminds me of what it’s been like for the past year and a half waiting for the 2nd generation iPhone that looks likely to be released next month, all the while being tempted by the single-marshmallow version currently on sale. (I’m all geek at the core.)

Sam Jones & Paul Lewis report on some investigative journalism about the question of whether or not the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest was rigged by Franco, denying Cliff Richard the win he deserved. Hilarious!

William Crawley is asking if people should be allowed to buy and sell organs. Both Stephen and myself have written about this issue, our answer being a clear ‘Yes’ (of course). See the discussion here.

We have more elections today too, this time in the states of Indiana and North Carolina. Without a victory, it looks like Hillary will be hurting, possibly enough to withdraw her candidacy. It looks more and more like America may get its first black president.

Happy Tuesday!

Dear Douchebags,

Last year you pursued (and last week convicted) Deborah Jeane Palfrey (pictured), a Washington DC escort service operator for several crimes including running a prostitution service. An hour ago, police announced that she hung herself in a shed near her mom’s house.

Those of you who made, uphold or support the laws against prostitution, of which Palfrey fell short, should feel utter disgrace upon hearing the news.

First, the rampant hypocrisy among you who legislate against normal human instincts and the rightful privacy of your constituents’ sex lives, under the public facade of being men of ‘faith’ and ‘family values’ and ‘integrity’, all the while permitting yourselves the very human liberty of sexual companionship of the variety you deny to those who elected you, is disgusting. And now, the woman who you contacted to provide you those services, and who you left in the lurch when the shit hit the fan, is dead. If life were fair, it would be you instead.

I can think of little more contemptible than to inherit a bastardised theology-turned-politic which robs human beings of the value of their own sexuality by daring to suggest that only one form of sexual relationship should be tolerated in society, and then to implement and uphold such regressive ideology in the legislatures and courtrooms of a ‘free’ nation against the spirit of a bill of rights like the fucking US Constitution, which strove to ensure that the government would protect natural human rights rather than stamp on them.

God forbids prostitution, you say. Well, I’m glad that you’ve been able to make that conclusion. Now can we be trusted to make it too, for ourselves? God forbid that two individuals should exchange money and sexual intimacy; God forbid that a man be in charge of where he spends his money and that a woman be in charge of who she sleeps with; God forbid that others don’t get to decide how individuals spend their money or time; God forbid pleasure. God forbid even only that the government abstain from dictating the terms of morality to the citizens who elect it.

Shame on you.

John Wright

Meet Broderick Lloyd Laswell. Broderick has been an inmate in an Arkansas prison for eight months. Like most prisoners he is isn’t entirely content.

Now, we might imagine all manner of complaints that an inmate might have about their prison: like being there at all when they are “innocent” (nudge-nudge-wink-wink) and merely suffered at the hands of a bad lawyer, idiotic jury and a senile old judge. Or perhaps they’re not happy because their cell gets a bit cold during those winter nights. Maybe the guards are a bunch of ball-busters. Or alternatively Big Gay Lenny keeps throwing all the bars of soap onto the floor in the showers.

Alas, none of this seems to bother Broderick. His problem is simple: the fat fucker thinks he isn’t getting enough food.

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United Press International reports on the case of a Tunisian family who alleges their daughter was raped by a man… on a phonecall. No, I mean, they allege it took place over a phone line.

“The 30-year-old man said he never touched the young woman. But he acknowledged he heard her scream while they were “totally into” an erotic telephone conversation — and that she reported bleeding, Al Arabiya reported. A lawyer representing the family told the Kuwaiti newspaper … a medical examination had determined that the woman, 20, was no longer a virgin.”

WTF?

Life is like a game of Tetris: it throws down difficult conditions sometimes, it gets faster and faster until you feel you’re going to throw up from stress, and it never ends happily. …. Okay, I don’t really mean that. I was playing Tetris on my phone a few minutes ago and just can’t get those colourful little pieces out of my head.

But game analogies could actually be useful here.

US President Bush today triggered a ‘blame game’ with Congress over high gas prices, saying that he’s submitted many proposals to utilise America’s own oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), thus increasing vastly the supply in relation to the demand for oil, greatly lowering gas prices, and blaming Congress on failing to enact those proposals (leaving us in the current situation).

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There are issues over which libertarians disagree: abortion, capital punishment, roads, and children being amongst the things that can set brother against brother in a fight of biblical proportions. And sometimes it might look like libertarian ideals clash.

Libertarians believe in religious freedom. This is simply an extension of the right to freedom of thought and of speech: people are free to think, believe and say whatever nonsense they so desire. If you want to believe that the earth is flat then that’s really up to you, but you must accept also my right to freedom of thought when I think you’ve got the intellectual power of a dung beetle for believing such a thing. If you want to tell me that Allah will send me to a fiery Hell to drink boiling pus for a gazillion years and more then I reserve the right to think you’re as mad as a bag of eels.

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“Pain at the pump” has become the most overused headline of the past year as the cost of gasoline has skyrocketed to Friday’s US average of $3.59 per gallon. Our British readers may feel that this is cheap, since Friday’s average price in Britain was $8.20 per gallon, making UK gas $4.61 more expensive per gallon than US gas, over twice the price. But the price is actually high for Americans who are used to cheaper gas and whose lifestyles rely on the low price.

While I will never understand the reasons behind America’s choice to buy expensive oil from the Middle East rather than drill for the huge quantities of the stuff that it already owns in ANWR and elsewhere, it’s a relief to know that the capitalist free market has been quietly working away on the problem and making inroads on new technology using alternative fuels.

Back in October last year, I claimed that “Cellulosic ethanol is the future.” Today, there are a bunch of cellulosic ethanol companies claiming that very thing, and adding that it’ll bring the cost of filling your car down to about $1 per gallon or less. It’s an incredibly exciting technology, the Promised Land of sustainable and cheap energy. On Friday, one company, Coskata, announced its plan to build the first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Pennsylvania.

In short, this stuff would allow me to fill the tank in my SUV for around $20 instead of the $65 it costs me currently. Ready to drive for a buck a gallon? I sure as hell am.

(See also this article for some details about the process.)

For libertarians freedom is central: to act in whatever way we so desire as long as we do not infringe the fundamental rights - to life and property - of other people. Choosing to act one way or another requires freedom of the will: which means, contrary to determinism, that when we choose to act a certain way it is possible for us to have acted differently. I chose to sit down at my computer 2 minutes ago, but it was possible for me to have chosen and acted differently, perhaps to go and get a cup of coffee instead.

Free will is a thorny issue, with massive philosophical ramifications. I want to reflect briefly on its application to the Christian doctrine of heaven. One day we will die, and according to Christian thought we are destined for Heaven or Hell. The criteria for heavenly acceptance varies from one Christian tradition to another, but almost all agree that there is a heaven, that the saints of God will go there, and that it will be a blissful existence for all time and eternity. Obviously they serve icy Coke in Heaven then.

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A 31 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes is not impressive. It seems the critics didn’t like it.

But I was interested in the story of the MIT Blackjack Team as told in the movie ‘21′. Although I’ve never gambled much, I’ve been intrigued by casinos and table games and odds and risk ever since my first trip to Las Vegas 8 years ago. Everything about a busy casino floor - etiquette, dealers, betting chips, the eye-in-the-sky, high-rollers, and the exchange of hundreds of thousands of dollars for the chance of increasing it - is infectious.

Pull up to the grand front entrance and they’ll park your car for you. Flash a twenty at the check-in clerk and you might get upgraded to a suite. Ask the concierge for anything. Order any food you can think of, 24 hours a day. Throw a dice and win or lose a fortune. Even the slot machines are interesting: observe how they are arranged for the disorienting effect as you walk through the labyrinth of the casino floor, how alcohol is served to the players ‘on the house’ for the enhanced effect (extra time on the floor = extra money for the casinos), how the sounds made by the slot machines are all matched up in the same musical key to provide a more agreeable atmosphere.

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There’s nothing quite like a good put-down. For a polemicist the put-down is a vital tool of the trade, and can win hearts and minds just as well as a good argument: putting both together can amount to a powerful tool of persuasion. Some might regard put-downs as nothing other than a bit of funny or offensive ad hominen, attacking a person rather than an argument. However, when used after an argument is defeated the put-down becomes a rather marvellous debating strategy.

The Times newspaper carried a great feature today on the art of political put-downs, and I thought it was a good topic for today

One wonderful put-down I read comes from 50 odd years ago when Bessie Braddock, a rather fat politician, attacked Winston Churchill: “Mr Churchill, this is a disgrace. You are drunk.” To which Churchill wonderfully replied: “And you, madam, are ugly. As for my condition, it will pass by the morning. You, however, will still be ugly.”

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Another week, and three stories of interest to me this Monday.

First, I’m happy to report that Stern sidekick Artie Lange is back on the show today following a week of intense speculation about his future on the show. This comes after Artie’s on-air meltdown and resignation on April 10th about which I blogged here. This I’m very glad to hear, since I enjoy Artie’s contributions a lot and would have been missing something in the mornings had he not returned. As the Chicago Sun-Times reports:

“Lange said that a two-hour phone conversation with Stern helped sway him back to the show. He expressed gratitude to the shock jock. ‘Howard called me in the middle of what was probably a stressful week for him. … There wasn’t an ounce of anger or anything but concern for me. Howard’s phone call meant a lot to me. I apologized to him as many times as I could and I want to apologize to the fans,’ he said. At the time of Lange’s meltdown, Stern was so stunned he halted all scheduled replays of the April 11 broadcast. Now, with Lange’s blessing, Stern acknowledged that fans will be able to witness the infamous outburst on his Howard-TV On-Demand service.”

I once bought a T-shirt that said “420″ across the front. Being the naive Belfast guy I am, I had no idea about the numbers’ special meaning for marijuana smokers, or how every year April 20th (4/20) at 4:20pm was the date and time used for an internationally-recognised celebration of weed. Well, I’m still not a pot-smoker. But being a libertarian makes it very easy for me to support the cause, as I think use of the drug should be supported in law and it makes me angry that it isn’t. Yesterday, on 4/20, a crowd of 10,000 people gathered at the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus to celebrate their right to use marijuana and to protest the government’s censure upon them for doing so. This is a true fight for freedom in action:

“About 15 CU officers and a half-dozen deputies with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office had a presence Sunday among the mass of pot smokers, who bounced giant balls and tossed Frisbees through the haze. … CU police Cmdr. Brad Wiesley [said], ‘There’s no way our 12 to 15 officers are going to be able to deal with a crowd of 10,000. We just can’t do strong enforcement when we’re outnumbered 700 or 800 to one.’ … CU freshman Emily Benson, 19, of Kansas City, said she thinks the decriminalization of marijuana will become a hot topic in the upcoming political season and said she felt part of something bigger than just a smoke-out on Sunday.”

Finally, the story of Brooke Oberwetter, a libertarian in her twenties who wished to celebrate the message of Thomas Jefferson and did so by dancing to music on her iPod at the site of the Jefferson Memorial. Sure, it’s a little nutty, but it wasn’t breaking any law, right?

“Regardless, the police showed up and told them to leave. When Brooke rightfully asked the simple question of why they were being told to leave the public memorial, she was promptly arrested and charged with ‘interfering with an agency function’. Witnesses say that Brooke was not being hostile or provocative in any way when she was arrested. Now she’s having to defend herself from the bogus charges. Fortunately, the event was caught on tape and uploaded to YouTube. In addition, her friends have created a website to help raise the money required for her legal defense.”