'Nother Solent

"Pass the exam and you are free to go," says the Adam Smith blog to fourteen year olds. Theoretical fourteen year olds of a theoretical future when we have stopped imprisoning people until they are eighteen.

Typical ASI proposal. I object on principle: 14 year olds should be free to go without passing any test. But politically, this might be a winner. Like council house sales or a flat tax it's the sort of thing that can weasel its way through cracks in the the statist walls.

Bizarro mondo: Year Ten classes where the un-academic pupils said to the ones who were headed to university, "Stop mucking about, willya? Can't you see I'm trying to work?" Imagine.

On a much more serious note

Photon Courier also links to an essay by Lee Harris about the 'peculiar institution' of Palestinian terrorism. Harris is a lot softer on the Stern Gang and the Algerian terrorists than I would be, but it's a valuable essay.

Southern slaverowners and Palestinian terrorists both wowed the foreign girls with their brooding, tragic, sexy, dangerous, gun-totin' ways.

Lapine Wisdom Part I.

I found A Constrained Vision via Photon Courier (and via the fact the blog title is a Thomas Sowell quote). It's full of erudite posts. But I am going to link to the really important one about making sure the first words you say every month are "rabbit rabbit."

That makes at least three people over two continents who know the secret. We used to say it at school in South London. Used to. I hadn't thought of it for decades. Now I know why I'm not rich.

However, please be warned that "tibbar tibbar" last thing in the month is rank superstition.

Laban Tall

has once more collected together several accounts of postal vote fraud. (The drawing together of stories from different newspapers to demonstrate that individual instances are part of a trend is a valuable public service that blogs are well placed to perform. Jim Miller has been doing something on the same lines in the US.)

Ironic, isn't it? Histories of the Labour movement used to proudly refer back to the Chartists and their struggle for the secret ballot. Now the Labour party are returning us to the days of the master of the house decreeing the way his household will vote. A Labour government now thinks it is too late to protect the general election from voting fraud. Too late? How can it be "too late" for a government to protect the integrity of the process to which they owe their legitimacy? If a man is convicted by a jury that is latter found to have been bribed or intimidated do we say, oh, too late now, he's already in prison?

The European Commission

, anxious to lead the field in every category of human excellence, has defined Chutzpah.

Squander Two

is having hosting problems. Normally resident here, he is temporarily to be found at http://squandertwo.blogspot.com.

Oh, and he's looking for cheap web hosts whose parents were legally married.

The law on "charity" collections - and on non charity-collections.

Stewart writes:

Many years in Local Authority "Enforcement" have led me to the conclusion that people just make assumptions about what the legislation they enforce actually says.

House to house collections have to be licensed because charity collections have to be licensed because the "law says so".

Assuming that the legislation on this web site is up to date, then as Lunetex are NOT purporting to collect for charitable purposes but for private profit they seem to fall outwith the licensing provisions of the Act. (See the preamble to the Act, Section 1 and the definition of "charitable purposes" in section 6).

South Cambridgeshire actually state: "LUNETEX are collecting in Sawston Village Tomorrow (Thursday) - This company are a commercial organisation, not a charity, and they alone profit from any monies made from the sale of goods they collect" so why do they think the collection is "illegal"?

Good question. In fact, if ever this provision should become widely known, it might become commonplace for organisations that were actually charities to pretend to be profit-making. If they could get over the anti-profit prejudice, that is.

I do not want to give the impression that I am a believer in "charity bad, profit good." I believe it is blessed to give - but that does not make it cursed to make a profit. Nor does it mean that the giver should turn off his or her brain: there are situations where a profit relationship has greater long term stability and equality of status than a charity relationship. (Few people would want to go to work every day just for love of their employers, for instance.) It's beyond my knowlege to say whether getting old clothes to the Third World for re-use is one of those situations, but then again I don't have to know. Let those who wish try both approaches.

The advantages of a charity over a commercial organisation for sheer, concentrated doing-of-good are well known. But sometimes it might go the other way. It could be that for-profit clothes re-sellers might concentrate more on what their customers want rather than what is deemed to be good for them by people far away. They also might disrupt local clothes merchants less.

Stewart makes another good point about how many who enforce the law have a cavalier attitude to what the law actually says. Often they seek to enforce a climate of opinion.

Would you dare

go back to the place where a suicide bomber killed a hundred-plus people the other day and demonstrate against terrorism? They would.

(Via Instapundit.)

Technology, the avenger.

Here is a thorough rundown on developments in the Ward Churchill affair from David Kopel.

The plagiarism and falsification of sources will get him in the end. The web has made academic crimes much less safe. And it's done so retrospectively. Many a professor who had almost forgotten the part a little manipulation of citations had played in his early career must now wake up with a slight nagging fear every morning.

It's almost as bad for them as it is for the murderers.

Profits warning.

The other day we had a flyer from an outfit called "Lunetex" through the door asking us to leave out bags of old clothes which they would then pass on to the Third World. Near the bottom of the flyer in not particularly small print it said that -

Oh, it's too awful, too shameful. I can hardly bear to say it. It said that Lunetex was a profit making company rather than a charity.

Thank heavens that there are still decent people around who hold fast to the knowledge that the only permitted relationship between Britain and the Third World is that of donor and mendicant.

People like the South Cambridgeshire District Council who advise us thus:

WARNING - FOR INFORMATION

Dear All,

Please be aware that certain companies appear to be trying to "cash-in" on the recent appeals surrounding the Earthquake and Tsunami disaster with illegal Street and House-to-House Collections.

There are presently no legal collections booked in to cover the South Cambridge District in reference to the above so please be wary when donating clothing or other articles requested - such as the current leaflet from LUNETEX, who are not licensed to collect in this District.

All licensed house-to-house collectors have official identification badges (green in colour) certificates issued by HMSO and a licence issued by the Council. If a collector can not provide you with these they are not licenced.

LUNETEX are collecting in Sawston Village Tomorrow (Thursday) - This company are a commercial organisation, not a charity, and they alone profit from any monies made from the sale of goods they collect.

If you require further information on Charity Collections please contact the licensing Section on 08450 450 063.

Here's another one, from the ever-vigilant guardians of the village of Milton who say:

A company called Lunetex has been putting leaflets through doors around the village collecting clothes etc for "the third world". If you have missed this last time SCDC have put out warnings about this sort of thing. We've seen Olonex come and go, and Merico, and Realmday. Now they seem to be born again (again) as Lunetex.

Please don't give them anything, as their own leaflet makes clear they are not a charity. If you have items you want to give away then the scouts hold regular jumble sales and reputable charities such as the Salvation Army collect in the village fairly regularly. So save it for one of them.
(Please tell your friends and neighbours about this one too.)

Actually, following the links, it seems both warnings come ultimately from the same official, Juli Stallabrass.

Now, in case you are wondering, I am not on the board of Lunetex, Olonex, Merico or Realmday. Never heard of any of 'em before I got the flyer. For all I know they are wicked, wicked people. The repeated changes of name do sound a bit dodgy. There is a hint that they were not always as upfront about their profit-making nature as they are now. However, given that the leaflet I saw was perfectly frank on that issue, I am a little at a loss to see what exactly is supposed to be so bad about what they are doing.

South Cambridgeshire District Council itself runs recycling centres. People are urged to pass their old cardboard and bottles on to the council who will, er, sell them to recycling companies. I thought for a moment that that was the distinction: getting a virtuous glow from giving stuff you don't need away to bodies who will then sell it for profit is OK so long as the body concerned is South Cambridgeshire District Council. I suppose the argument would be that it keeps down the Community Charge - only that can't be it, because the same council also advises businesses on how best to donate stuff directly to recycling companies. Really, all I'm left with as an explanation for why Lunetex should arouse such ire is that they make it slightly less likely that people will give old clothes to charities (so do eBay, car boot sales, and the small ads column of any local paper) or that they dare to make a profit out of semi-charitable recycling without the blessing of a priestly caste - i.e. without a licence from the Licensing Department.

Squishy love.