A Christmas Card for You

The Canadian Supreme Court look a fun bunch especially if any of the gossip in the title link is true! Go there, it's a fun site.

Why God invented lawyers and other tales

Greetings!

Please accept without obligation, express or implied, these best wishes for an environmentally safe, socially responsible, low stress, non addictive, and gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday as practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice (but with respect for the religious or secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or for their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all) and further for a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated onset of the generally accepted calendar year (including, but not limited to, the Christian calendar, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures). The preceding wishes are extended without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishee(s).

Sandwiches

Two lawyers went into a cafe and ordered two drinks. Then they produced sandwiches from their briefcases and started to eat. The owner became quite concerned and marched over and told them, “You can’t eat your own sandwiches in here!” The attorneys looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders and then exchanged sandwiches.

Coca Cola

Click the title to read and watch and hear the coke joke.

Test

Test blog. My ISP had reset my ftp password so I could not publish the next few blogs on the date they were written. They automatically appeared when changed the password in blogger to connect properly to my website. Explanation over.

Ultimate Proof that Religion is Nonsense

The Moon wedding ceremony? Give me a break. If this does not prove that religion is simply a collection of absurd cults what does? People can be persuaded to believe anything. Search google.

The Cinzano Kid

This is amusing. Click on the title to view other Leonard Rossiter clips.

Rename Your Teddy Now

Some Muslims wanted to kill her. Presumably by stoning her to death or inflicting a prolonged lashing.

Our politicians go out of their way to not offend the believers in such practices.

These are people we should offend. Immediately rename your teddy bear.

I suppose 15 days in a Sudan hellhole for renaming (after a child - not the prophet -and upon the childrens' democratic direction) a teddy is considered relatively mild by their standards!

Those are not standards we should aspire to.

The Oxford Protest Against Freedom: A Damp Squib

Libby Purves said everything necessary in her article in The Times yesterday. I will not repeat it. Just click on the title to go there.

Matthew Shearman also wrote a nice letter:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article2956695.ece

The simple truth is that these students at Oxford University who have no respect for ancient freedoms or for free speech are uneducated barbarians. They spit. They squeak. They hurl abuse. They say that supporters of free speech are fascists. They
do not deserve to graduate.

Why? They have no rational arguments to advance. They are just thugs.

Ooops, how will they earn a living? Their juvenile (indeed, infantile) views do not qualify them to work in a free society.

Only kidding. Hopefully, they will grow out of their fascist tendencies.

My daughter has recently graduated from Oxford. She is not anti free speech. I do not therfore blame Oxford University. But I find it extraordinary that any University can permit attempts by any of its members (students or faculty) to attack (by violent or intimidatory methods) the sole and only purpose of its existence and not be called to account.

That purpose is to encourage informed debate and understanding based on factually accurate research and scholarship. Or, have I missed something?

The wanted posters are above. They are idiots who hold delusional beliefs. So what? Free speech is more important than they are.

The Idiots Have Taken Over The Asylum

Oh well, this was entirely predictable.

The enemies of freedom have massed at the Oxford Union and are jumping barriers.

They do so in the name of freedom.

Do they not realise that they are imbeciles?

Continued Failure to Update

No excuses. I am busy and lazy at the same time.

I will update later. The editor of the Jewish Chronicle is now on air.

The Oxford Union, Griffin, Irving and Free Speech

Juvenile posturing? Maybe. A decision I may not have made? Probably. A decision the Oxford Union was entitled to make? Certainly.

It would come as no surprise to regular readers of this blog (if there were any, which there are not - as to which see next blog) that I regard free speech as an absolute. Give it up and you have participated in the destruction of civilization or, at the very least, you have rendered the society in which you currently live one that is fit only for slaves.

The reasoning is simple. You concur in the suppression of views which you entirely justifiably despise and one day others will believe it justifiable to suppress a view that you hold dear.

The protestors (on screen as I type) are therefore foolish and are, further, providing hostages to fortune. Their views may in years to come be suppressed by similar haters of liberty.

Eliza Manningham-Buller Says the Stones are Sexy

EMB has stated on Desert Island Discs this morning that she prefers rhe Rolling Stones to the Beatles because they are sexier. The revelation of this state secret (coming from our former head of security services) will no doubt have a major impact on the McCartney-Mills divorce settlement. Run and hide, Paul!

Jewish Law

I watched the Sky Three documentary on

Jewish

Law tonight. It was accepted by rabbis that the justification for certain jewish laws had long ago disappeared but some of them argued that observance was still required because it was the word of god. Pardon!

Some of the laws are utilitarian and would benefit us all if we compied with them. For instance, the thorough spring clean required every year. But when this is combined with the requirement that you eradicate all trace of leavened or fermented items from your residence it becomes absurd. One of the participants kept a special oven for use on one single day per year. Another hid leavened bead around the house to make sure thc hildren followed the law. It was a great game for the children and revealed a lot of humanity but it was humanity in the face of an absurd law.

Service Resumed

Service is now resumed. Lethargy and lack of any comments have been the main reasons for the break but the other reason is that I have not been able to reconnect to my main website and subsidiary to that is the fact that I have not wanted to publicise the blog until the main site was working correctly. Maybe that is the reason I receive no comments!

Philip Lawrence's Killer is Still Mad

Some mad fool will kill him. His desire to stay in this country is infantile and very stupid.

Does he not realise (however reformed he may be) that there are unreformed people out there who will seek revenge?

Harrods and the Harrodian School

This is an old case, just made available on the internet, but perhaps typifies the litigious nature of Harrods under current management:

How many other stores can sell you an elephant? Buy your stocks and shares? Arrange a safari in Africa? Engage a Black Watch piper for Hogmanay? Insure your life? Paint your portrait? Find you a house? Clean your silver? Give messages to your friends? Find a school for your child? Decorate your home? Send you on honeymoon?

"Find a school for your child" not run a school to educate your child.

Thus Harrods sued the Harrodian school for trading on its reputation and causing it loss which would sound in damages (and probably close the school).

Harrods lost at first instance, but they appealed. Ridiculous is one of the adjectives that springs to mind.

Yet the really surprising thing is that they only lost the appeal on a 2-1 majority.

Lord Justice Millet got it right. Pay careful attention to the the laconic final sentence of the following paragraph from his judgment:

Over the years Harrods has offered a vast range of services. These include a bank (established in 1890) which carries on business under the name "The Harrods Bank", a travel agency, shoe repairs, jewellery repairs, the supply of school uniforms for more than 90 fee-paying schools, a golf school, livery stables, piano tuning, a wedding service, funeral undertakers, auctioneers estate agents and surveyors, a lending library,a post office, a theatre agency, a travel bureau, an insurance agency, house removals, dry cleaning, and opticians. In the days of the empire it fitted out children of parents living overseas for school in England, and could even be used to find a suitable school for a child; but these services have long been discontinued. It has from time to time introduced new products and services and discontinued others. It no longer supplies elephants.

And it does not and never has educated children. Some may be glad of that.

Unaccountably, to my mind, Sir Michael Kerr dissented. I can only refer you to his judgment in its totality but I cite the following:

The use of the adjectival form of their own name will become lost to the plaintiffs; but the false impression of a connection between the plaintiffs and unconnected businesses using the name "Harrodian" will proliferate. The plaintiffs' reputation will become involved with their fortunes or misfortunes, and become a hostage to them. In my view the plaintiffs have done nothing to deserve this detriment, nor the defendants this benefit.

It is not fair to judge this passage with the benefit of hindsight but it was absurd at the time and it remains absurd today.

The Harrodian School still exists (visit their site) and I cannot think that anyone associates it with the rather silly department store that shares part of its name.

I have not confirmed this with them but I do not believe that the Harrodian school has ever sold elephants or has any intention in the future of selling elephants. Elephants will not ever be available on this blog or my main site.

I will never ever compete with Harrods in any way or form. I promise you this, Mr Al Fayed. Please do not sue me.