A gross miscarriage of justice?

The proposed release, on medical and compassionate grounds, of the supposed Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al-Megrahi, is controversial and currently leads the TV news agenda here.

It is well known that GP Jim Swire, who lost his daughter in the atrocity, attended the trial in the Netherlands and became convinced that Al-Megrahi was innocent of the charge laid against him.

It is also most interesting to read a blog set up two years ago by Robert Black QC FRSE, Professor Emeritus of Scots Law in the University of Edinburgh. His blog supports Swire's contention and discusses the way in which the legal case against Al-Megrahi was conducted. The very first post contains this paragraph:

It is my firm view that the crucial incriminating findings made by the judges were unwarranted by the evidence led in court and were in many cases entirely contrary to the weight of that evidence. I am convinced that no Scottish jury, following the instructions traditionally given by judges regarding the assessment of evidence and the meaning and application of the concept of reasonable doubt, would or could have convicted Megrahi. So how did it come about that the three distinguished and experienced judges who concurred in the verdict felt able to convict him?

Black summarises and comments critically on numerous points of evidence and the court's findings in relation to each. He posts again today and says:

The families of Pan Am 103, as victims, deserve justice; they deserve to know the truth. My own dark thought is that any decision made by Mr MacAskill will not really be based on compassion but on political expediency. There seems to be a desire to get Mr Megrahi out of the country and to have the appeal halted at all costs. Perhaps the Crown Office and governments fear what might be revealed as the appeal continues.

Black's blog stat counter shows that he has had only some 33,000 visits since October 2007. Perhaps, reader, you will look at what he has to say and encourage others to do so.

Taking a break from blogging - back soon

Liberty: a debating point

We've been arguing liberty vs addiction recently, and my own latest comment is:

Libertarian laissez-faire needs to mean more than simply standing aside and watching the rich and powerful cock it up for everyone. Paradoxically, libertarianism implies some kind of rule-setting and limitation of power.

Does that seem reasonable?

Back where we started

As concern grows for the future of the dollar, we should reinterpret stock movements to take account of currency exchange fluctuations. The above chart shows the Dow since the start of the year (red line) and adjusted for relative value of the US dollar against the Euro (green line).

If you have any suggestions as to what other currency to use instead, I'd be glad to read them. I fear that future weakening of the British pound and the US dollar may well undermine apparent future recoveries on their stock exchanges.

Why are you doing so well, dummkopf?

The Economist has its needle so stuck in liberal economics that its leader writer almost audibly busts a gut trying to find something wrong with Germany. As far as I can see, the daft Krauts are to be roundly condemned for...

1. Basing their economy on manufacturing
2. Running a trade surplus
3. Saving money instead of spending it on more imports
4. Not paying others to provide services they can perform for themselves
5. Not lending money to encourage more new businesses to start up (despite the fact that, as I learned years ago, 80% of new enterprises fail within two years)
6. Allowing women to stay at home
7. Saving jobs in order to preserve the skill base

We should all be so stupid.

A couple of days ago, I tried reading The Guardian newspaper again, and although there were one or two peanuts to pick out of the ordure, mostly it was, as I said to my wife, "Facebook for tw*ts". The writers even include their pictures in their by-lines so you can see they're still congratulating themselves on how well they used to do in the sixth form debating society.

But I think The Economist may have beaten them by a short head this week.

Addictive behaviour is the West's major challenge

"I finally decided to give up", say some. Yet I made that decision about smoking many times, before the last time (1977) that worked. I haven't seen an account of how to make a decision that sticks. Otherwise most of us would be slim, fit etc.

Gerald Durrell, in "My Family and Other Animals", tells how as a child he let his sister take care of some orphaned baby hedgehogs while he was away. He told her to be strict with the milk, not to overfeed. When he came back, he found that she'd fed on demand and they'd all died, because they couldn't stop demanding.

We live in a society that has plentiful cheap food, readily available and aggressively marketed alcohol, easily obtainable tobacco, easily found illegal drugs (and glamourised a thousand times by the media), computer games everywhere. It's surprising that anything gets done.

Some argue for decriminalisation of "harmless" drugs like cannabis, contrasting it with the undoubted dangers of alcohol. I agree with them in a way they won't like: alcohol is far too easy to get hold of.

Libertarians overestimate the amount of control we have over our behaviour, I think. Sartre argued stubbornly against the theory of the unconscious, because it undermined his philosophy of existentialism. I incline to the Buddhist analysis, that we continually form strong attachments and only the most determined can break the chains. Few manage it on their own. Some would say only 5% per year break free of alcohol, and perhaps a far smaller percentage stay off it permanently.

In our debates on liberty, should there be some discussion about restrictions that make us more free?

Forget the teepee

Green, not hippie, is Tim Smit's view (htp: Brian Gongol)

Perhaps more practical is the Transition Towns initiative, which has already recruited Totnes and Monmouth, for example.

And an even wider perspective is offered by Charles Hugh Smith's thoughtful "Of Two Minds" blog, which is founded on the principle that individual survival is necessarily a collective issue. He believes in this so firmly that he is making his book* available for download free of charge. * "Survival+: Structuring Prosperity for Yourself and the Nation"