Dear friends,
I write because I see that your Paragon of Reasoning, Morgan Spurlock - the man who finally leaked to the world hard evidence of the villainous evil of Ronald McDonald - Morgan Spurlock - the man who proved for once and for all that fast food is fundamentally, inherently, horribly depraved - Morgan Spurlock […]

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Ted Mayhall is a beef patty short of a hamburger. He’s one of three Mississippi state legislators responsible for proposing a bill which would make it illegal for Mississippi restaurants to “repeatedly” serve extremely obese people. Is it a ridiculous law to propose? Of course. I would write at more length […]

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In my short but colourful life I have almost died on one occasion (nearly drowned) and seriously considered killing myself on another (hadn’t chosen a particular method). I’m glad I didn’t in both cases. But there may come a time when death would be preferable to life and debate still rages as to whether or […]

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When faced with any problem the first reaction of some is to start shrieking hysterically, “the government must do something!” Unfortunately the government is singularly terrible at doing even the most basic things well: like keeping confidential data, umm, confidential and not losing the details of millions of people as happened a few weeks ago. […]

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When you live under a collectivist system you can expect a number of things to hit you during your life: increasing taxes, “national insurance,” rates, and a general increasing government infringement on the freedoms of the individual. In short: More tax. More regulation. More control. Until you find the sweet release of death. And even […]

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The premise of Michael Moore’s latest film Sicko is that the mostly private healthcare system in the United States is a failure, and that universal healthcare of the kind existing in the United Kingdom (the National Health Service or NHS) is what America needs. Anecdotes are not by themselves a coherent argument against universal […]

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Birth by Government: Part II
Happy new year folks, I hope you all had a good Christmas. Getting caught up in the general busy-ness of the festivities I lost my blog time but now back and at it I’ll make strenuous efforts this year to beat the number of people I pissed off in 2007.
In an […]

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Read this in The Times:
“Rudi Giuliani, aspiring US President, had prostate cancer. His chance of surviving in the US, he said in August, was 82 per cent; [but in the UK], “under socialised medicine”, about half as good. There was even a graph to prove that the NHS was a killer….
“Was Rudi right? Here’s a […]

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Don’t we all? Even if it’s just a painkiller for a headache once in a while, or a contraceptive pill, or a shot of coffee to wake you up, there’s nobody reading this who can honestly tell me they never use drugs of any kind. I’m not going to use this post to […]

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Birth by Government: Part I
I apologise for my hiatus during the past few days; I’ve been struggling with an ongoing gut complaint which, inevitably, has me pondering the issue of healthcare. In the UK, where I’m from, healthcare is paid for in taxes and is thereafter free at the point of use. Here […]

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He has it right, in part, and for a Guardian columnist that’s quite a feat. Neil Clark believes the smoking ban implemented in the United Kingdom is wrong, because (1) it’s having a negative effect on the economy, and (2) it’s having a negative effect on social life across the country. I agree, […]

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An AIDS charity working in Ethiopia has come up with a rather novel way of encouraging the use of condoms. DKT International received a lot of complaints about the latex smell of conventional condoms, so they found a solution: java-scented & flavoured condoms for a nation of coffee-lovers. Already 300,000 have sold in the first […]

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Andrew Tyler has a piece in today’s Guardian which suggests that veganism is the new vegetarianism. It seems that being a vegetarian in modern Western society has become so common that the moral case against eating animals must fall exclusively to the vegans.
I’m with them on this, actually. I’ve long thought that being […]

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Around the web today:
Lev Grossman lends Time Magazine’s coveted honour to the Apple iPhone as it’s branded the “Invention of the Year”. I agree: the iPhone is a smouldering jewel of capitalism, a white-hot fusion of technology, ease of use and style, in your pocket.
William Crawley reports on proposed zero-tolerance laws with regard to […]

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I’ve found myself defending Rudy Giuliani a lot lately. He’s a far cry from libertarian, but his bread is buttered on the right side: Rudy tends to be morally liberal and fiscally conservative in general. This time, he’s coming under fire for comments he made about ‘universal healthcare’, and before we go any […]

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We’ll soon be treated to another fine example of Michael Mooreon’s filmmaking when Sicko is released to theaters across America at the end of next month. The movie is about how horrible American healthcare is, and how great universal healthcare (taxpayer funded, free at point-of-use) would be in comparison. When celluloid is your […]

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The music of Sheryl Crow is fantastic. It’s in my iPod, and I listen to it fairly frequently. Crow is a great musician, singer and songwriter. But she knows shit about shit. Let me tell you what I mean.
Sheryl Crow has teamed up with the environmental activist Laurie David in an […]

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If any one justification for the abolition of the monarchy could prevail among those who love freedom, this is the best candidate. Prince Charles, in his incredible wisdom, on a tour of the United Arab Emirates, asked a nutritionist, “Have you got anywhere with McDonald’s, have you tried getting it banned? That’s the key.”
Charles, […]

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Dr. Walter E. Williams has weighed in on the New York City trans fat ban. This is a great man. On the occasions I’ve heard him on the radio, I have found him compelling, entertaining and downright wise. His response to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s claim that they’re “…just trying to make food […]

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Today sees the release of a movie called Fast Food Nation, based on the 2001 book by Eric Schlosser of the same name. If you’ve ever read this book, you’ll know what irritates me about it.
Like other leftist dross in the same vein, it’s dressed up as ‘investigative reporting’ - an ‘examination’ - of […]

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