www.paulnixon.org

Paul - Help it keeps on adding the same entry!

Alas, it does that sometimes. Hitting refresh is the most common cause. I'm not sure why it does that though.

I'm not sure who Derek Laud is; though from the photo he looks like a trustworthy chap.

However, I wouldn't like to do anything to damage Ken Clarke's chances.

put his name in google and u will v quickly change your mind

Given the proximity of the 'b' and 'g' keys, I think Big Brother.

Hello darlings. Secreted a communications device on my person. I simply must throw myself behind this Les chap with gusto. I myself am an absolute stickler for accuracy. For instance, what on earth does 'add commen' mean? Make yourself clear, dear boy. You remind me a little of my pupil, the beautiful but wayward Science.

I hope that, by posting this, you are not joining the ranks of the contemptible 'I told you so' brigade that includes George Galloway and the Socialist Worker Party?

Ha. You're a bit touchy on this subject aren't you. That was not really the intended implication of the post.

However, now you come to mention it; I think there might be a few people in the world that are a teeny bit vexed at the unjustified (what was the reason for the Iraq war again?) slaughter of 100,000 people in Iraq.

However, Sept 11th was pre-Iraq and Madrid didn't seem to have too much to do with Iraq either so who knows.

Maybe we had it coming anyway. I always wonder what it means : our 'decadence'. Allowing girls to be educated, the right to speak ones mind, believe as we choose, permitting women can show their faces and an aspiration to a fair justice system.

You're right, it's crap and should be destroyed.

Always having a go at liberals, Les.

Like a lot of people, I was opposed to the war. The reasons that were given to us were a) inconsistent, b) uncompelling and c) mostly untrue. If there is a 'hidden agenda' that you are aware of that I am not, please bring this forward into the discussion.

It's hard not to imagine that our actions have made the world security situation somewhat worse.

I don't see any hypocrisy in being against the war in the first place, and against the subsequent results.

If the target was Islamic fundamtentalism, can you explain why we decided to attack a previously secular state?

I'm not having a go at liberals. I'm having a go at faux liberals.

Call me naive but I believe that freeing the Iraqis from the grip of a psychopathic fascist dictator who regularly murdered his own people and establishing a democracy in which 65% of the population turned out to vote (more than did in this country's recent elections) is quite a 'liberal' and even socialist thing to do.

That's the great thing about democracy. You don't have to 'impose' it, because people simply take it on themselves to go out and vote. And they did, risking being murdered by Jihadists and Baathists to do so.

By contrast, keeping out of it all and letting people go on being murdered every day because it keeps things conveniently stable for the West (which was the US's previous policy) is, in my opinion, quite a right-wing, isolationist, cynical option.

I agree that Bush made a mistake with the Weapons Of Mass Destruction excuse. They should have just said it was about regime change in the first place. I support the invasion on the grounds of human rights and the right of all people on the earth to have a democratic vote.

So there! Nur nur!

Sorry, a hackneyed argument, however, you didn't address the obvious riposte.

If freeing the Iraqi people was our aim then this is, of course, most laudable, and to be commended.

A little more honesty would have not gone a miss. Why did we hide our good motives behind dubious, trumped up 'intelligence' about WMD?

However, given I accept this benevolent motivation for the war, I'm mystified as to why we've stopped at Iraq. Are there not other un-democratic oppressed nations? Saudi Arabia for example. Or Zimbabwe.

I don't know why they didn't cite regime change as the reason. Maybe they thought the other way was easier in terms of getting international consent. That was definitely their big mistake.

You could add Iran, North Korea and other nations to your list. But I would say that doing good somewhere is better than not doing it anywhere.

Admittedly some good has come of the Iraq war and I don't think that anyone believed that being rid of Saddam is not for the benefit of all.

However, there have been considerable costs too. 100,000 dead Iraqis for a start. 100,000 people: can you imagine? Democracy or nay, they won't be voting.

George Bush is famous for putting the interests of America first. Are you sure that spending $180 billion so that the people of Iraq can have a democracy was great value of money for the American taxpayer?

Obviously it's terrible that so many Iraqis have died. But don't forget that many of them have been killed by foreign Jihadists and Baathist Fascists.

And while dead is dead, it's worth pointing out that there is a difference between being killed in the crossfire between combatants and being deliberatly targeted by suicide bombers and the liket.

Obviously, dead people are not just numbers, but ask yourself how many innocents were killed by Saddam Hussein's regime in his 37 years in power, or whatever it was. Considerably more, as I'm sure his forthcoming trial will reveal.

As for the value to the American taxpayer, if Iraq's democracy, as we must hope, is ultimately a success (and to ensure this, the troops must stay) then this would be only the second free democracy in the region after Israel and may lead oppressed citizens in other countries in the Middle East to demand democracy too. The thinking is that democracy leads to stability without the price of tyrannised populations. So the payback for the American people, indeed all the people in the West, is a safer world.

We in the West have taken liberal democracy for granted, particularly our generation, and now it is threatened from within our own country, perhaps more people will start to stand up for it, and for Western values. I certainly will.

I like the stability argument very much and can see some value in having a working democracy in the Middle East.

I guess time will tell on this. The assessments that I have seen, however, have pointed in the other direction.

My understanding, possibly, incorrect, is that Al Qaida's beef with the US is it's interfering in Middle East business. I'm sure you're tired of hearing that it was the West that sold Saddam his arms in the first place, however there's no escaping the truth. When did he suddenly become the bad guy? Did Donald Rumsfeld not ask Saddam what he was going to be doing with the weapons that he sold him?

Whatever Al Qaida is, surely it can only have been strengthened by a war largely resisted by the international community.

There's no denying that previous US policy in the Middle East was highly cynical, and many in the Repulican movement would have preferred things to remain as they were, ie propping up compliant dictators. You point out that the US government has changed its tack. You see this as hypocrisy. I'd say it's an improvement in policy. For them to avoid charges of hypocrisy, they would have to continue with the old policy (as undoing the past is, of course, impossible).

From what I have read, Al Quaida's beef is with democracy, modernity, the Enlightenment, the West, educated working women, non-believers, etc. etc. For Al Qaida to be strengthened, it needs members that are niggled by the same things. And how can we appease them?

You may disagree with the war in Iraq, but you're not going to try and blow up some Londoners, and yourself, to vent your frustration.

Ha ha.

I'm not sure the charge of hypocrisy can be levelled at me just yet! Unlike you, I'm not so sure that US policy has been reformed. Maybe, I still see the policy as 'highly cynical'. Thus maintaining a consistency incompatible with hypocrisy.

How am I to judge the lack of cynicism in US policy to arrive at the same conclusion as yourself?

Agreed the crazy fundamentalists, and this goes for Christians as well as Islamists, are not content to like their own lives by some bizarre Bronze Age code, but seem to be insistent that everybody else does. This is naturally untenable to any right-thinking, post-englightenment civilised person.

Are you not concerned about Christian zealotry on the side of the Americans?

Most Muslims would say that the Jihadists do not represent Islam, and they are not really fundamentalist since fundamentalism involves believing the actual text of your book, rather than making up your own stuff.

Rather we should describe them as totalitarian fascists and the enemies of all humanity.

I'm not religious but I understand that all major religions teach peace and that murder and suicide are sins.

Naturally a lot is down to interpretation, but I'd argue that some of the Koran seems a little unforgiving...

http://www.jtf.org/info/koran.quotes.htm

Fatwah!

I win.

Another game?

Actually, I win anyway, because all of your comments are 'odd', and all of mine are 'even'. Geddit???!!!!!

Har, indeed. Didn't take long to find this little diamond

" How ridiculous to award the OBE to TV presenter Jonathan Ross. Mr Ross is well known as an enthusastic proponent of self-abuse, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if he is already planning to masturbate in the toilets of Buckingham Palace on the day of his investiture."

It's on the wishlist

This is a truly staggering study. I could have saved them a bit of time and money. Praying to a non-existant god is not going to help people recovery from illness.

This is akin to rain and sun gods. Maybe some sacrifices should be tried instead of mere prayer.

Curiously it wasn't just those of a Christian faith either. Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist prayer groups were involved in the study given that the four 'gods' are mutually exclusive.

Though it would have been interesting if those of one faith had recovered.

Prayer seems a funny business to me, as does the 'god works in mysterious ways' nonsense. As far as I can see, god, if he does exist, seems to do rather little at all. The old 'mysterious ways thing' is a bit of cover for this. The problem is that, as far as I'm aware, no-one has seen an uncaused event. And given that all events have a preceding cause, there seems to be little place in the world for a god. Unless it's a god that does nothing.

I love the 'burning bush' stuff.

Can you imagine now, if someone piped up and said god had spoken to them? Via the medium of a burning bush. Surely no-one would take them seriously.

Is it any more likely to be true, then, if it happened a few thousand years ago?

Whereas your website is merely among the worst examples of fascist-appeasing nonsense I've ever seen.

I won't go on about the appalling spelling. If you're dyslexic, fair enough.

But it's Colombia, not Columbia, unless the US has 'terrorised' South Carolina and we haven't heard.

Nixon - I'm going to break your fingers

Paul might have to take up foot-cubing...

u r soooo gay

http://www.bikereader.com/contributors/misc/dailymail.html

: )

God I'm glad I don't have to read the Daily Mail every day.

"This presumption of moral superiority is shared by cyclists themselves. Many believe that the moment they pull their brown rice-stuffed torsos into a lurid Lycra body-sausage, or put on a helmet shaped like a Mr Whippy ice cream, the normal rules of the road cease to apply."

I don't think I could bear the blend of offensive, blinkered views littered with petty, schoolground insults.