Does Michael Howard really believe Iran's president is democratically elected?

This story on the BBC caused me to do a double take when I first saw it:

Quizzed on Iran in the Commons, Mr Blair said the world's security lay in spreading "freedom and democracy".

But Mr Howard later said he was talking "gibberish" given that Iran's president had been "democratically elected".

The West fears Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons after it broke seals on a research facility.

'Tough issue'

"To go on and on about democracy, has he forgotten that the president of Iran, the cause of all this trouble, was actually democratically elected?," Mr Howard told BBC Two's Daily Politics. (emphasis added)

What planet is the Tory party's former leader on?

In Iran, the Supreme Leader's authority overrides all other authorities. It is the same country that has a Guardian Council to vet candidates, whether for presidential or parliamentary elections, which barred 2,530 out of 8,157 candidates in recent parliamentary elections. In the Presidential elections, 1000 candidates entered, but only 8 were allowed to run. The Guardian Council can veto laws that are un Islamic and anti Constitutional. It is appointed by the Supreme Leader (6 members) and the head of the judiciary (6 members). The head of the judiciary is also appointed by the Supreme Leader. And Howard thinks this makes Ahmadinejad a democratically elected leader?!

A belated Happy New Year, plus the focus of this blog

I wish a belated Happy New Year to the readers of this blog!

Also, I'm sorry for the long gap in posting here. I took a bit of a break from things over Xmas and whilst I managed a few posts at the Magna Carta Plus (MCP) blog, I didn't manage anything here. During this period though, I've been thinking a bit about the focus of this blog, given that my civil liberties articles will mainly go to MCP.

Essentially the focus on this blog will shift to issues such as the end of oil and its consequences (anyone wishing to understand the middle east should look into this issue), developments in international politics and the fortunes of the British political parties in what seems to be a year of transition as David Cameron gets going as Tory leader, the Liberal Democrats hold a contest to elect a new leader, and Labour prepare for life after Tony Blair (given his promise to stand down before the next election). I also intend to cast an eye on Scottish politics, after all Scotland is my home country and I do live there, plus there's an election next year to Scotland's parliament.

Given that oil is running down just as demand surges from countries such as China and India, that the British government seems intent on further trashing the rule of law, that Iran and the international community are in conflict over the former's suspected moves to acquire nuclear weapons and that Sharon's stroke has probably thrown a spanner in the works in the Israeli/Arab conflict, we may have interesting times ahead of us...

Wikablog

As if producing 2005: Blogged whilst writing his own blog and contributing articles to other blogs wasn't enough to fill his time, Tim Worstall has banded together with some other bloggers and set up Wikablog:

Well, the point is that there are a lot of blogs out there -- a billion trillion gazillion, according to some experts -- and it's difficult to find out what they're all about without visiting every one of them and reading it. How tiresome. Here at Wikablog, you can, in just a couple of minutes, create a page about your blog or someone else's with a few words saying what it's about. Then other people can add to it. And you can add links to other similar blogs, and talk about the blog's history, and recount the tale of the great Himalayan Blog Controversy of 2002, and whatever else you like. Soon enough, any blog can have a detailed page on here, telling us all everything we could ever need to know about it short of bothering to read it.

I think I'd rewrite that paragraph to say "Wikablog is a directory of blogs maintained by its readers".

Anyway I shall soon be adding this blog to the Wikablog.

2005: Blogged by Tim Worstall

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. Things got a bit busy and blogging went on the back burner for a bit. Anyway now I'm playing catchup on some items that caught my attention.

As readers might already know, Tim Worstall has waded through thousands of British blogs and selected articles from them to produce a book called 2005: Blogged, which was published on the 18th November. Tim describes this book as follows:

So one of the things we hope to do is to get people to realise quite how much good writing there is out there available to them. We, the cognoscenti, already know. Well, we do to an extent. I’ve found, while doing the research (I skimmed through 5,000 blogs and read in much more depth a 1,000 of them to make the selections), that it isn’t true that we do in fact know all of the good ones. Certainly, I found that there were whole areas of personal and music and culture and so on blogs that I knew nothing at all about. (BTW, if you have someone you think I should know about drop me a line. Final closing date for alterations is early October.)

I’d also better point out that this isn’t just me and my muckers, isn’t all right wing or economics, it’s an attempt, however limited by space, to give an idea of the huge variety out there. Yes, of course there is Pootergeek, Norm, Samizdata, Harry’s Place, there’s also Dead Men Left, Chicken Yoghurt, Green Fairy, Angry Chimp, Twenty Major.....over 100 different bloggers from all sides of every question. There’s pieces on sex, sport, music, politics, elections, bombings, piss ups, books.....there’s even a couple of pieces of the lost John B archives.

It really is an attempt to highlight the great pieces over the year. There are angry pieces, funny ones, intensely sad and ones that should, at least they do me, engender great venom and bile against their targets.

It might also serve as an explanation to people about what you do in that darkened room for so long each day. "Umm, what is this bloogger thing then dear? " and instead of tirades about the Citizen Journalist you can just point them to this selection.

I have not read the book, but knowing a bit about the blogosphere, ISTM that there is at least the potential for some great reading here. There is such a wide variety of blogs out there on all sorts of subjects that you're bound to come across some real gems. After all blogging has allowed anyone armed with a computer and a 'net connection to spew out prose. This book might help you track down some of the gems. I think that Tim writes an interesting blog (hence my link to it) so hopefully his skills as an editor will have made the book worthwhile. It might make a good Xmas present for someone...

The Terrorism Bill 2005: A threat to blogs/websites?

Update: I got it wrong on the committee stage of the bill. The committee stage of this bill takes place over 2 days, the 2nd and 3rd of November. See this link. Sorry for the mistake.

I confess to having taken my off the ball on this one. I didn't realise the Terrorism Bill 2005 (yes another one!) was in parliament until I heard about the 2nd reading and then was slow off the mark to write about it...

Spy.org.uk have berated the British blogosphere for failing to cover/analyse the Terrorism Bill 2005, which, in addition to enabling 90 days detention of terrorist suspects without charge, they argue threatens websites, bloggers and libraries due to the:

• vaguely defined offences of "inciting or glorifying" terrorism and distributing a terrorist publication, combined with
  
• the power of a police constable, acting on his own opinion that the publication is "terrorism-related", to issue a notice to a publisher to remove or modify an article within 2 days or be deemed to have endorsed the article, thus rendering you unable to raise the defence that it was provided only in the course of providing an electronic service, you didn't know it was terrorism related AND you did not endorse it.

More detail can be found here and at the Magna Carta Plus weblog. Note that the committee stage of this bill will be over on Wednesday 2nd November. Time to make use of WriteToThem...

New "refuse" pledge setup by No2ID

Following on from the earlier 'refuse' and 'resist' pledges, No2ID have set up a new 'refuse' pledge. As with the first one, pledgers pledge to refuse to register for a card/on the database and to donate £10 to a legal defence fund. This time the aim is to get 15,000 signatures by January 8th 2006. The first one achieved its target of 10,000 signatures by the 18th of July and totalled over 11,368 signatures by the time it closed on the 9th October.

British residents who oppose the cards and have not yet signed a pledge are invited to sign either the 'resist' pledge or the second 'refuse' pledge (this one aimed at those who feel unable to run the risks associated with refusing). But please do not sign more than one pledge!

(See also here).

My views on the free market

Jon P writing at the Liberty Cadre, gives a plug to the Magna Carta Plus News blog (thanks Jon!), and he also writes:

One of its contributors is James Hammerton, whom I have come across while perusing a few Libertarian Alliance documents. He is a sort of civil libertarian leftie, opposed to the free market but wants freedom in pretty much everything else...

I suspect he's probably read my critique of libertarianism, I recall someone in the Libertarian Alliance expressed interest in it some time back. I wrote the essay about a decade or so ago. At the time, I would happily have described myself as a Green, having been in the Edinburgh University Green Society throughout my undergraduate days and then its equivalent at Birmingham University during my PhD. As I recall, I wrote the critique during the early days of my PhD, but note my PhD had nothing to do with it! It was written in my spare time.

Anyway since then my views have changed quite a lot. I wouldn't describe myself as a Green now. Re-reading the essay has reminded me by just how much my views have changed. Basically I want to see the state shrunk, and I'm generally in favour of free trade, my reading having convinced me that its generally beneficial.

However I don't believe in cutting the state back to a "nightwatchman" state the way some libertarians do. For example, I support the idea of a citizen's wage, plus I think action is needed to wean the world economy off oil and onto something both less environmentally harmful and less dependent on unstable middle eastern governments. So whilst I might be opposed to total laissez-faire, I do wish to see much freer markets and a much smaller state than we currently have.

Maybe a followup to my critique, considering it in the light of my current views, is in order....