My Ten Commandments
The great Richard Wiseman is currently asking for updates to the Ten Commandments for the twenty-first century. These are my suggestions.And please note number 10: for I do wonder whether the very notion of a "commandment" - legitimate only because it is a command - is appropriate for the twenty-first century.1. Thou shall not use “thou” is it is archaic in modern speech and a bit Monty Python actually.2. You shall honour the “school night” and will then not drink any other but nice non-alcholic drinks. 3. You shall not comfo

Paul Clarke: An Anatomy of an Injustice
When the story about the prosecution and likely sentencing of Paul Clarke for the possession of a shotgun emerged at the weekend it prompted a Twitter frenzy and even became a "trending" topic (hashtag #PaulClarke). Typical Tweets were to the effect of "WTF! Man facing five years just for doing his civic duty" and "Man arrested just for handing gun in at police station".As a result of this activity, my Blogpost on this case, pointing out that there was something to be said for possession of a shotgun being unlawful, received over 11,000 hits in two days.

Against PCC Regulation of Blogs
Of course, Blogs are already regulated: Bloggers are subject to the general law. In particular, as self-publishers, Bloggers are subject to the general law of defamation and copyright. Bloggers are also subject to criminal law, for example in respect of contempt of court and, where applicable, unfair commercial practices.Most Bloggers are also subject to contractual obligations to the Blogging service providers (such as www.blogger.com in my case) or to their server. (Some Bloggers escape these further obligations by controlling their own servers.)So those who say that Blogging should not be regulated are perhaps missing the point that it already is.

In Defence of Blogging
If you care about Blogging, please go along to the Liberal Conspiracy website and, if you agree (as I hope you do), sign the excellent letter there.

Libertarianism And Gun Control
I am sure that, in any given situation when faced with a gun pointing at me, I would like to have a gun pointing back.However, this is not the basis of an ideology; it is merely a statement of self-interest and perhaps common-sense.Libertarianism purports to be an ideology; people claim to be libertarians; they promote libertarian values and principles; and they formulate and implement libertarian policies. American and some British libertarians oppose gun control and argue that you and they have a fundamental right to "bear arms".Their usual argument for doing so is that you and they should have the right to an armed defence: if one outlaws g