Las Islas Malvinas son una dependencia británica en el Atlántico Sur cerca de Argentina.
Apart from the poor Spanish, on which I have no competency to judge, I do not see a problem with the name of the archipelago. Some may have a problem with the meaning of the sentence, but that is not what I am addressing here. In English we would of course say: The Falkland Islands are a British dependency in the South Atlantic near Argentina.
Continue readingLittle has changed since 1524 when a young man began a work which would inflame the authorities in his homeland as he dared to defy the authorities who wished to silence him. Two years later the book that he had published, and which had been smuggled into his homeland, was being burned in the streets. He had to go into hiding, where he revised and improved his earlier work using the profits from the first then having been burnt printing. In 1530 he further enraged the chief executive who then sought his extradition. The extradition attempt failed for the lack of production of formal evidence. A price was however now on his head, and it would only be a matter of time before he would be betrayed by a ‘friend’, illegally held and then transported to a trial in which the charges were so designed that he could not be but convicted.
Continue readingDebate is valuable. Debate and disagreement are necessary in science. Debate is dangerous.
Three statements and it may surprise you, or else it may not, that these statements are not incontrovertible; indeed, they provoke as much controversy as these:
Dogmatism is valuable. Dogmatism is necessary. Dogmatism is dangerous.
Continue readingCoco was thinking about Cio-cio-san the other day and noticed a striking similarity between Madama Butterfly and the young Shulamitess in the stage play by Solomon. Madama Butterfly will be no stranger to you, and perhaps the story familiar. Some would say that Puccini spent forty years trying to write this opera and the last twenty years of his life trying to write it again, it containing the epitome of operatic drama outside Bayreuth however could not be reproduced.
Continue reading14/05/2023 12:33
It was a question this morning (James at Hebron – what was the question?) in conjunction with a question that had been asked in a court in Oxfordshire (A clerical case in which it was asked whether the defendant thought that the plaintiff was a Christian, upon which the answer thereto the judgement depended) a few years ago that made me think about it. Examination questions that require essays in reply may often be phrased in this way: What? Why?
Continue readingToday is an important day for many reasons. We have crowned a man who is king, who in that crowning made certain clear commitments. We do not have to be monarchists to recognise the benefits of those commitments, and I would suggest that of whatever form of government you want if you do not require of the governor those same commitments then you do both yourself and your fellow countrymen a great disservice. There are only two, or perhaps three, on which comment shall be made here.
Continue readingDer Spiegel: India anger over ‘racist’ German magazine cartoon on population
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If Coco had written:
Gan nad yw rhywun yn disgwyl gweld Firenze mewn erthygl am Fflorens neu 臺北市 mewn erthygl am brifddinas y weriniaeth Tsieineaidd, pam mae disgwyl i un ddarllen Snowdon mewn erthygl Gymraeg am yr Wyddfa?
12/04/2023
Ukraine war: Leak shows Western special forces on the ground
Does it really matter who leaked them? What really matters is are they true? Are NATO troops involved in the war? Some may argue that it is OK to sell arms to Ukraine, even to give them, and continue to claim that we are not involved in the fighting, but when we are on the ground? Surely that claim, if it has not already done so by the provision of arms, falls flat?
Continue reading10/04/2023
China jails prominent legal activists Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi
The BBC reported that ‘in response to past criticism about its human rights record, Beijing has said “only the 1.3 billion* Chinese people have a say on China’s human rights”.’ It could well have added: ‘and if any of them exercise their right to have their say, we shall listen to them. In due time there shall be no more criticism’.
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