Category Archives: Civil Liberties

What would Stalin do?

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Over at Dizzy Thinks, there is a rather fine article asking if it’s time to apply the Stalin test once more. It’s well worth reading the whole thing, but it poses this very simple question, which I’ve paraphrased as “What would Stalin do?” being more eloquent he sums it up as: “The purpose of the question is to ask ourselves what the potential future enabling power of our actions might be. In fact, we don’t have to use Stalin. We could as easily use someone closer to home, our own authoritarian and totalitarian dictator, Oliver Cromwell and his puritanical zeal. … Continue reading →

Drinkuary an update

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As the concept of Drinkuary has now been launched for a whole five days I thought I’d share a small update. Rather gratifyingly the FaceBook event has already over taken Alcohol Concerns “Dry January” by a respectable margin, despite not having months of planning, media consultants and tax payers money to call upon. At the moment Drinkuary is ahead 620 to 513 and improving, apparently people are rather fed up with being told what to do and seeing more and more costs applied to the things they enjoy. If you’ve not joined in already do join in the fun, and … Continue reading →

#alcoholaware2012 – dry January no thanks

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Just as No-Smoking day became no smoking month, so the puritans and killjoys are following up Alcohol awareness week with “Dry January”. Not only do they want people to not drink during January – which is fair enough if you don’t want to and it’s traditionally the time of year for new resolutions and the like; but they’d also like people to be sponsored to do this to raise more money for them so they can nag us better. Dick Puddlecote has the details and in some ways it’s heartening to see a fake charity having to make it’s own … Continue reading →