This sounds pretentious to me too, but its 12.54 am here and I have just got home after a working day that started at 7.20am – and yes, just meetings all day and then dinner and drinks with business contacts can indeed be work, even if it is enjoyable.
Have to set off in six hours for the North of Volta region, so really no chance to blog for some time. Serves me right for not being back in Ghana for too long.
It’s good to hear from you, Craig, and I hope you have another good day tomorrow.
Admit it Craig
Accra Is a nice place to be
Hope you are getting a Tan
Its Honest people like you we want in the African Region
May God continue to Bless your Efforts
Much Love
Everyone knows you work hard! Watch out for the ‘Al Qaeda’ North Of Volta region division won’t you. I hear they are spreading all over Africa as we speak.
Your reaction, apart from retching, to Lady Amos becoming one of the top five in the UN?
@ Stephen Jones
http://tinyurl.com/9njgfm
Headline: “Ex-minister joins private equity firm that received £15m from Whitehall agency” – with copious quotes from the book.
She is on Craig’s list of ‘People Who Don’t Really Like Me’.
Holmes whom she is replacing is going to run that hideous Ditchley Foundation, another arm of our evil
M-pyre.
Nothing ever changes.
PS Have just read on Sky News that Bliar and Mrs Blair are in Kosovo and sang We are the World with nine kids who are unfortunate enough to bear his name.
Meant to add this
Have these Muslim boys, Toniblers and Tonis, in Kosovo, liberated by the KLA and NATO, the KLA being armed by the mujahadeen courtesy of the CIA, been told that yesterday 6 civilians were killed in Afghanistan because ‘the shells fell short’? As they do of course in Gaza and in many other places.
Were they told that fellow Muslims, Afghan soldiers (not the majority Pashtun but Uzbeks and ?Khazars), were blown up by NATO forces as they laid an ambush for ‘Taliban’ ie resistance fighters?
Were they told of Mr Blair’s central part in the war on the Iraqis and Afghans and Muslims world wide?
No they were not. You can bet they are subject to massive pro-Zionist propaganda, just as we are.
http://tiny.cc/2w8qg
Finally! Perhaps Amos will be able to rectify this shocking situation.
Thousands missing out on education in Gaza
IRIN News July 8, 2010 – Thousands of Palestinian refugee children in the Gaza Strip are unable to receive adequate education, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
About 39,000 child refugees in Gaza will not attend UNRWA schools this year, since the agency is unable to build or re-build schools due to the Israeli blockade, damage sustained during the 23-day Israeli offensive (27 December 2008 – 18 January 2009) and population growth, UNRWA spokes person Chris Gunness said in Jerusalem…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=67753
Hope all goes well, and hurry back!
We’ll miss your posts.
Craig
Have you seen the long review by John Gardner – “How to be a Good Judge” – pp 15-16 in the London Review of Books for 8 July 2010?
This is a review of “The Rule of Law” by Tom Bingham (the former Lord Chief Justice; and one of the two dissenting Law Lords who supported the Chagossians’ right of return to their homeland (rejected by three of his colleagues).
The review’s key points are these:
“…Bingham favours what he calls a “thick” account of the rule of law, according to which it necessitates respect for and protection of the full range of human rights: not just those ensuring due process of law for all, but also those concerned with, for example, life, privacy, association, property and assembly. …. This is slightly reminiscent of Dicey’s brilliant but infamous treatment of the rule of law according to which, roughly, no country has the rule of law unless it also has the British constitution. Bingham is, of course, nowhere near so jingoistic. Roughly, no country has the rule of law unless it would be morally suitable to join the Council of Europe.
Why does Bingham favour this too parochial view of his subject? His two attempts at explanation are cursory and strange. The first comes early in the book. Referring to the law of torture in various jurisdictions and historical periods, he asks, as well he might: “What has this got to do with the rule of law?” His answer: “There are some practices so abhorrent as not to be tolerable” and which “even the supreme power in the state should not be allowed to do, ever”. Clearly that is the right answer, but to a different question. It explains why torture ought to be banned in every country, such that if the rule of law prevails in that country there will be no torture there. But it does nothing at all to explain why the ban itself is required by the rule of law. To bring it under that heading, Bingham seems to be making the following plainly invalid argument: conformity with the rule of law is a hallmark of civilization; the banning of torture is a hallmark of civilization; therefore the banning of torture is part of conformity with the rule of law.”
COMMENT: Expressed that way, the argument appears invalid – but it’s late and even though my degree was in Logic and Metaqphysics and Moral Philosophy, that was too long ago for me to be able just at this moment to give the fallacy its correct name.
However,the argument can be expressed other ways. Here is just one:
“Conformity with the rule of law is the hallmark of a society’s being civilized; the permission of torture provides prima facie grounds for considering that a society fails to meet the highest standards of civilization; therefore, a society that claims fully to respect the rule of law yet also permits torture may wear moral knickers, but they are rather clearly in a twist.”
That line of argument does not strike me as being easy to dismiss as fallacious. It may not be, in logical terms, self-evident (ie following inescapably from the premisses); but it stands up well to the British legal criterion of commonsense (as interpreted by judges in changing circumstances).
Similar arguments can be deployed against the use – certainly in the absence of a declared state of war between nations – of deadly drones with a high track-record of killing innocent civilians (ie unarmed people offering no threat to the attacking country).
Another update for you. The following LRB article on 8 July (pp 17-18) is “A Weekend in Osh – Madeleine Reeves writes about the origins of the violence in Kyrgistan”.
Much of that refers to your views as “another diplomat-scholar” – and offers other interpretations. I’m in no position to judge. However, some regular contributors here might find that using the language of civilized debate rather than deploying insulting adjectives will stop readers scrolling immediately down to the next contribution.
When reporting on Northen Ghana, please try to include some local phrases and proverbs (see also an email I’ve just sent you). Ghana has oratorical traditions and skills that are becoming rarer in UK schools and parliament.
Me, me, me! It’s all about me!
Parasite. You haven’t got a job!