A Trip Around The Anglosphere

Some of the most interesting links from blogs north of the border, down under and across the pond, all below the fold.

Art: The Battle of the Nile, Thomas Luny, 1834

North of the border:

The Covenant Zone revisits the inspiring story of Paul Potts, quoting the great poem "If" by Rudyard Kipling.

At the Halls of Macademia, police in small town Canada are publishing the names of those who solicit prostitution. The author waits to see the effects, noting that in small towns, public shaming is still a reality.

Blazing Cat Fur is ordering up a cup of "Rainforest Deforestation Expresso" Heh.

Ezra Levant takes stock of the battle for freedom of speech in Canada and finds it going fairly well. A very interesting post.

Five Feet of Fury blogs on one author who is using the Canadian legal system to charge Muslims hecklers and Canada’s largest book chain with racism.

Down Under

Dr. John Ray posts at A Western Heart on how freedom of speech and hate speech is viewed from the far left. Free speech for me, but not for thee.

Col. Robert Neville, possibly the most eclectic in thought of any blog on the net, posts on a wide range of topics in his post, "In the Ninth Circle of Hell with the MSM, Obama, Mohammed and the Mythical Moderate Muslims." He starts off by noting that the MSM puts their money where their biases lie.

Heh. KG tells the story of a real cat burglar.

MK posts on the conundrum facing U.S. troops in Iraq. There are just not enough bad guys around at the moment to keep it interesting.

From Aurora at the Midnight Sun, there are some utterly sick bastards in this world, and none moreso than those who abuse children or who find the abuse tolerable. The secular left really do wish to tear down all taboos. God help us if they succeed.

Across the Pond

An Englishman’s Castle blogs on the accuracy of a comparison between zealots who are fundamentally opposed to scientific experimentation and Nazi book burners.

At Biased BBC, they chronicle the hatred and disrespect of the chattering class at the Beeb for former PM Margaret Thatcher. If you step back in history a bit, you will find the same scenario played out as to Churchill.

Bishop Hill blogs on the many discontinuities in the global warming world, starting off with this nugget: "Professor Demetris Koutsoyiannis of the National Technical University of Athens published a paper in which he demonstrated that climate models have no predictive skill at regional levels, and there is no evidence that they work at larger scales either. This is a pity, as we are currently destroying our economies on the basis of the output of climate models."

Brits At Their Best takes note that "yesterday was the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile, when Admiral Nelson confronted Napoleon's fleet." They quote the beautiful poem "Casabianca" by English poet Felicia Hemans that pays homage to the bravery of the young French Admiral who fought with honor and died when his ship was destroyed.

Helen Szmanskey, blogging at the BrugesGroupBlog, comments on the failure of the DOHA trade talks, assessing that such large scale talks are doomed to failure, individual agreements are a better idea, but that the EU prevents its countries from taking that route.

As David Milliband sharpens the knife he plans to stick into the back of Gordon Brown, Burning Our Money ponders just what, if anything new, Milliband might have to offer. The conclusion – not much.

At a blog run by the Centre For Social Cohesion, Simon Cox posts on a charge by British playwright Simon Gray accusing the National Theatre of being afraid to run anything that might be deemed critical of Islam because of fears of violence.

Nick at Counting Cats in Zanzibar has his list of the worst films ever along with some stinging commentary. One of my few points of disagreement is on Hannibal.

David Thompson has a fascinating post on obfuscation and intellectualism. I love the opening quote: "The more sceptical among us might suspect that the unintelligible nature of much postmodern ‘analysis’ is a convenient contrivance, if only because it’s difficult to determine exactly how wrong an unintelligible analysis is."

With gas prices falling in the U.S., EU Referendum is wondering about the huge hike that occurred across the pond. "The US situation is now so very different from what we get from this side of the pond that it is germane to ask what on earth is going on."

The Heresy Corner looks at the polls and the intense unpopularity of Gordon Brown – and took stock that opinion polls showing that all of Labour’s alternatives fare worse than Brown with the exception of . . . Tony Blair.

Ireland’s Hibernia Girl has gotten some good reviews . . . and a prognostication that her heresy will end in a jail cell.

At Neuarbeit Macht Frei, a discussion of changes proposed to British criminal law that would insert gender criteria and overlay the foundational social relationship of marriage. This law looks nothing so much like modern social engineering by radical feminists. The House of Dumb gives his observations on it, calling it "Harriet Harperson's latest attack on the state of holy matrimony."

Mick Hartley has an interesting post on "liberalism" and Iran. As an aside, I would add that classical liberalism and our modern progressive who still call themselves "liberals" are worlds apart. Freedom of speech is an essential element of the former, and in many parts of the West, under significant attack from the latter.

At Persevere, a British commander charges that UK Muslims are fighting on the side of the Taliban against British troops.

At the Police Inspector’s Blog, discussion of how Labour is moving ever closer to that Orwellian reality.

The Pub Philosopher discusses the First Amendment right of freedom of speech from across the pond and hits on the common sense balance that his forebearers who wrote that document hit upon in their crafting. Basically, the First Amendment allows free speech "short of telling lies about individuals" – which are allowed but subject to libel suits – and "directly inciting violence" – which can be criminal. Thus, to answer his question, the rantings of Sheppard and Whittle would be constitutionally protected in the U.S. and, two, I find that much preferable to hate speech laws. Such laws are simply tools for social engineering by government.

From the Monkey Tennis Center – if you’re short on global warming alarmism, just make some up like they do at the BBC.

Posts About Our Allies:

There are some interesting posts on this side of the pond that discuss the UK and others. When one ponders the benefits of being a British colony, one should begin with a map about GDP distribution in the world today. Megan McArdle, at the Atlantic, pulls out the maps and writes: "When you see the map, it becomes radically apparent just how firmly Britain was the root of the Industrial revolution. With the lone exception of Japan, the darkest places on the map are either next to Britain, or former British colonies. And aside from Saudi Arabia and Chile, all the growth seems to spread outward from those Anglosphere points of infection. Nowhere, not even Saudi Arabia, has the income density of Western Europe and North America."

And at Bookworm Room, she has a fine post that discusses, in part, why the Industrial Revolution at the time rooted more firmly in the U.S. than in the U.K.