At first I thought this story was just some cheap shot at the Royals. Now I realize that it’s an incredibly scary example of people trying to pass laws to allow society to just do whatever it wants, and hang the consequences.
Writing in an academic journal, Professor David Nutt said taking ecstasy was no worse than the risks of “equasy”, a term he invented to describe people’s addiction to horse-riding. It is short for “Equine Addiction Syndrome”. Nutt cited that horseback riding and many other activities such as base jumping, climbing, bungee jumping, hang-gliding, and even motorcycling are just as dangerous, but those are not criminal offenses. So why should Ecstasy be outlawed?
Said Nutt:
“This attitude raises the critical question of why society tolerates – indeed encourages – certain forms of potentially harmful behaviour but not others, such as drug use.”
Professor Nutt is the chairman of the Home Office’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
In his article for the academic journal, Prof. Nutt wrote that “equasy” had caused 10 deaths and more than 100 road traffic accidents a year.
Through hunting, it also led to “gatherings of ‘users’ … engaging in violent conduct.”
Sorry, I just don’t see it. Taking a drug that makes you hallucinate, may cause lasting neural damage, and makes you behave like a weirdo just isn’t quite the same thing as riding one’s horse.
via The Telegraph
Hello! I’m Oliver Cromwell, blah blah blah! I think I know sooo much better than the Royals, blah blah blah! I’m not a maniac, oh no! In fact, I will even style myself the same title as the people I hate most – Highnesses! That’s right, I’m “His Highness”! Start bowing!
By the end of my Cromwellian Campaign (see, alliteration there! I’m so smart!) there will be an extensive dispossession of landowners who are Catholic, and I will drive a massive amount of Irish out of their own country, because that’s what honest, hardworking non-hereditary rulers do!
I’m in a bad mood…
I discuss the controversy and chaos swirling around the Royal Family right now. Does it ever end? Find out more at the RoyaltyNow! podcast.
The Queen is to relaunch her website with the help of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web (not, incidentally, Al Gore).
via Queen to unveil new Royal website look – the Telegraph.
This entire article sounds incredibly strange. If you don’t want to be Poet Laureate, or you feel it’s too stressful, then for Heaven’s sake let someone else do it (good move on Philip Larkin’s part). Why abolish it altogether?
Thoughts?
via Wendy Cope calls for Poet Laureate post to be abolished – Telegraph.
Her Majesty The Queen wants royal secrets to be exempt from plans to put government papers to public view.
As of right now, the length of time that historic papers are kept under wraps is 30 years. There are moves being made to drop that to 15 years instead.
Halving the embargo would mean Government records of major royal events could be published, some as early as 1992. This is the period, you’ll recall, when major scandals broke out: Sarah Ferguson’s dalliances, Charles and Diana’s split, and the Windsor Castle fire.
What do you think, readers? Should royal documents be revealed as part of the Government papers under a 15 year rule, or kept at a 30 year rule? Or, should sensitive family documents be kept hidden until Her Majesty’s passing?
via This Is London – The Evening Standard
