Je Suis Charlie‬

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He drew first I was meaning to write an article this week to join in the general condemnation of the calls for Katie Hopkins to be arrested over a tweet. For anyone who believes in free speech the idea that you should be arrested over being obnoxious is horrendous. There have been no threats of action being taken against the people that threatened or called for physical harm to be done to her, but the Scottish police assured us that they were monitoring twitter in case of anyone causing offence. Not in case of people threatening violence but in case of offence. Many of us have been saying for a long time that this is a very slippery slope and one that would should guard against. From the police investigating offensive tweets it’s sadly a fairly small step to the tragic events in Paris. Just under 5 years ago was the first Everyone draw Muhammad day, to protest against the response to a cartoon of Mohamed being published, then in 2011 the Charlie Hebdo offices were fire bombed for publishing more cartoons. Each time the defenders of free speech have been thin on the ground compared to those calling for more sensitivity, violence should never been a tolerated response to any speech no matter how much offence someone may take. Thankfully this time the demonstrations in support of the journalists at Charlie Hedbo are far more vocal, despite the like of Associated Press kowtowing to the violent thugs and quislings like Daniel Hodges saying we must surrender our freedoms to both the thugs and the state. Thankfully cartoonists are it seems made of Sterner stuff.

So today once more we have the choice of standing for free speech for everyone no matter how offensive or keeping quiet and surrendering one of our most precious freedoms that was hard won for us by earlier generations. My drawing skills haven’t improved in 5 years but…

Je Suis Charlie

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An open letter to the UK Internet

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To all my friends and the rest of the Internet in the UK,

 It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that in a few months time we’re going to be having one of those general election things. In theory, this gives us a chance to change who governs us, the direction the country is going in and all that sort of good stuff. Generally speaking, I don’t think we have a very good track record with this; in part, I think because we’re too afraid of the wasted vote boogeyman – however, to improve our track record it would probably be a good thing if we debated the issues that are important to us and discussed the alternatives. As you are all intelligent people who try to keep themselves informed about the important issues of the day, I’m sure you’re going to have a lot to share on the various topics that present themselves in the run up to the election.

 It is on this matter that I wish to talk to you. I’m sure that you have thought carefully about the positions you hold on the important issues facing us and are eager to share that with your friends and acquaintances. I’m sure you consider at least the majority of your friends to also be intelligent, informed, civilised people – yet despite this, some of them are going to disagree with you. They may in fact hold quite opposing views to you, which they have also reached by careful consideration and examining the evidence. This is ok. Seriously; your friends holding opposing views to you is more than ok; it’s a good thing ™. It’s only by the tension of opposing ideas and by testing our opinions against those that hold differing views, that we can check for errors and make sure that we haven’t overlooked a flaw in our thought. Some of your friends may even share things you find quite objectionable. They may hold those views or they may be sharing it for the purposes of discussion – this is also a good thing. It’s far better that ideas are shared and discussed and tested rather than suppressed (The suppression of thought and ideas has a really really bad track record).
Continue reading →

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The years news in cards against humanity

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Greenpeace is now banned in UK porn! As other people have observed this year has been the year of the offended and looking back through all the stories I’ve muttered about here or over on Facebook the amount of offense taken this year has been quite impressive. So what better way to look back at the years news and all that offense than with the Anonymong 2014 review Cards Against Humanity? See how many stories you recognise, remind yourself of who offended who and why, plus a few other things that happened. Plus of course mix up the stories in new and even more offensive fashions. It’s all really rather fun especially with a drink in hand.

Download the cards below:

2014 black cards
Black cards

Low ink black cards
Low ink black cards

2014 White cards
White cards

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