Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
03 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: free speech, Gaza Strip, Israel, media bias, Middle-East politics, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror
As readers no doubt recall, the BBC began producing partial coverage of the story of the latest flotilla publicity stunt soon after its second departure from Spain on the evening of September 1st: BBC NEWS KEEPS AUDIENCES IN THE DARK ABOUT LATEST FLOTILLA STUNT Days later the BBC promoted unproven allegations of ‘drone attacks’ made […]
BBC News delivers the goods in narrative promoting flotilla coverage
02 Oct 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economic history, International law, law and economics, property rights, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, regressive left, war against terror, West Bank
On July 30th 2025 the BBC News website published an ‘explainer’ article by Paul Adams under the headline “What does recognising a Palestinian state mean?”. Since its initial publication, that article – which currently appears on the website’s ‘Middle East’ page – has been updated several times, including a recent amendment to its introduction: Original […]
Historical omissions plague BBC ‘Palestinian state’ explainer
29 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, International law, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Israel, Middle-East politics, war against terror
Visitors to the BBC News website on the afternoon of September 24th found a report by Alys Davies headlined “Twenty injured in Yemen drone attack on Israel, rescuers and military say”. Notably, that report about a Houthi – rather than “Yemen” – UAV attack on the same day fails to note that it struck a […]
BBC News promotes CPJ claims concerning ’31 journalists’
28 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War I
26 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, International law, politics - Australia, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, regressive left, war against terror, West Bank
Steven Gaskell writes – Australia’s Labor government has made a historic move: it has formally recognised the State of Palestine. Foreign Minister Penny Wong framed the decision as a step towards peace and a two-state solution. The headlines blared “Australia recognises Palestine” but almost none of the mainstream outlets bothered to mention the fine print. […]
Australia Recognises Palestine – But With Strings Attached the Media Won’t Tell You About
26 Sep 2025 1 Comment
in applied price theory, defence economics, development economics, economic history, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: trade sanctions
The exercise of US foreign policy (along with the European Union and the United Nations) has been increasingly characterized by the use (or threat) of trade sanctions. What do we know about how such sanctions work? Gabriel Felbermayr, T. Clifton Morgan, Constantinos Syropoulos, and Yoto V. Yotov review the evidence in “Economic Sanctions: Stylized Facts…
Economics of Trade Sanctions
23 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, television, TV shows
Here are two short (ca. 7 minutes each) clips from Friday’s “Real Time” show with Bill Maher; watch ’em before they take them down. They’re both good–and larded with humor. The first is his opening monologue about the censorship and fear of American media. Maher points out that Jimmy Kimmel’s firing occurred exactly 24 years […]
Two bits from Bill Maher’s latest show
23 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: American Civil War
This has some relevance to today’s wars. Families and friends who ended up on opposite sides in the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865) experienced some of the most painful consequences of the conflict. The war was not just between North and South—it cut across states, towns, and even households. Here’s what happened in different situations: Families […]
Families and friends on opposite sides in a war
21 Sep 2025 1 Comment
in defence economics, International law, laws of war, war and peace
Just War Theory is a moral framework for evaluating the resort to war, conduct in war, and responsibilities after war. It seeks a middle path between pacifism (which rejects war) and realism (which treats war as beyond morality), arguing that war, though tragic, can sometimes be morally justified and must always be morally constrained. Classically […]
Just War Theory: Before, During, and After
18 Sep 2025 1 Comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, International law, law and economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: free speech, Gaza Strip, Israel, media bias, Middle-East politics, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror
As we wrote in a post last week, a Guardian article by their Beirut correspondent William Christou (“US imposes sanctions on Palestinians for requesting war crimes inquiry“, 5 Sept) included the following erroneous claim: In an interim judgment in January 2024, the ICJ ruled that the claim of genocide was “plausible”… As we’ve noted in communications […]
Guardian is AGAIN forced to correct false claim on ICJ ruling
15 Sep 2025 2 Comments
in defence economics, International law, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, regressive left, war against terror
The concept of proportionality – or as it is more often presented, ‘disproportionality’ – has long been a theme that is widely used in BBC reporting on armed conflicts involving Israel. However, contrary to the narrative frequently advanced by the BBC, that concept does not relate to the relative numbers of people killed on either […]
BBC Verify’s experts on proportionality include Corbyn ‘Gaza tribunal’ participants
15 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War I
13 Sep 2025 1 Comment
in defence economics, economic history, international economics, law and economics, liberalism, war and peace Tags: age of empires, economics of colonialism, economics of slavery
In August of 1833 the British passed legislation abolishing slavery within the British Empire and putting more than 800,000 enslaved Africans on the path to freedom. To make this possible, the British government paid a huge sum, £20 million or about 5% of GDP at the time, to compensate/bribe the slaveowners into accepting the deal. […]
The British War on Slavery
13 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics Tags: war against terror
What Happens When You Have an Unjust Law A Halfling writes – This article focusses on the way that terrorism legislation and the designation of entities as terrorist organisations can have a chilling effect upon other civil liberties. I should make it clear that because the article concentrates on the group Palestine Action does not […]
The Criminalization of Conscience
12 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, law and economics, war and peace Tags: British politics, free speech, Gaza Strip, Middle-East politics, political correctness, regressive left, war against terror
A report published on the BBC News website’s ‘England’ and ‘Bradford’ pages on September 6th purports to inform readers about a legal case. Titled “Pro-Palestine activists sentenced over protest”, that uncredited article tells BBC audiences that: [emphasis added] “A group of pro-Palestine activists who staged a seven-hour protest on the roof of an aerospace and […]
BBC report on ‘pro-Palestine activists’ omits link to proscribed group
Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
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