A great many political debaters accuse their opponents of arguing ad hominem, and therefore losing the debate. Usually, these charges are wrong: the character of the person making the argument is an enormously important guide to its merits.

If I’m arguing with a smug Tory bastard, and I suggest that he’s talking out of his arse because he’s a smug Tory bastard, then this is indeed dodgy ad hominem argument. Bad me.

However, this is not the same as trying to gauge the truth of a statement by a known liar, or to judge how factually well-informed a notorious idiot is, or to work out whether a trade union regulation plan proposed by someone who hates trade unions will benefit union members.

A person’s background as a liar, idiot or scab doesn’t affect the *logical* validity of their argument. However, logical validity is only relevant if you accept the truth of an argument’s premises. Since you first need to work out whether you can trust anything they’re saying, assessing past behavior is a vital tool in the debating process.

(and yes, people who argue otherwise only do so because they’re liars and idiots.)

US readers may be interested in the Starbucks Delocator. Other readers may be interested in reading this explanation.

"…the French language gets on my nerves. I can’t help it! Speaking it requires you contort your face into a mix of derision and gormlessness. All scorn, no gorm. At least I admit my bias. The sound of French arguably caused the Iraq war. It also vies with Spanish in my head for attention; I have to put up walls to keep it out." – Ryan at Full Spectrum Democracy

It’s obviously and trivially true that Maxine Carr had no involvement in the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.

After Ian Huntley killed the girls, he told Ms Carr that he wasn’t the murderer. However, he claimed he was worried the police would find out about his previous convictions, and then try and fit him up [*]. So he persuaded her to lie to the police in order to protect him.

Her lies didn’t have any impact on the girls, who were already dead. They wasted a lot of police time. The delay also made life worse for the girls’ families, although not dramatically so (given that it was already about as bad as it could possibly be).

Wasting police time and adding to the suffering of murdered children’s relatives are not good things; it’s also vital for the integrity of the justice system that people who deliberately conceal facts from the police are punished. As a result, Ms Carr deserved, and got, a reasonable amount of jail time.

However, she’s obviously not guilty of anything murder-related: she’s guilty of lying to protect her boyfriend, because she was too dim to realise what a bad man he was. So why the fuck do weird chavvy mobs view her as a dreadful witch who should be burnt at the stake?

I don’t believe in any kind of vigilante justice – but when the vigilantes beat up actual child molesters (or even people who they believe to be child molesters but who aren’t), that at least makes some kind of twisted sense. When the vicious mob picks out someone who *they know hasn’t done very much*, that’s just incomprehensible.

[*] Indeed, there are still nutters out there who believe this is what happened.

"I pity/hate people who are locked in to corporate jobs. With all their "team leader" this and "company policy" that… I have my own business, I wear jeans, I tell my office manager to hire sexy girls. Sometimes I send the staff home and get a hooker." – anonymous grouphug.us contributor

Guardianistas David Aaronovich and Nick Cohen have – independently, I assume… – come up with two excellent parodies of wankers [*]:

"The Liberal Democrats are so soft on crime they would tear down the jails and let murderers roam the streets; Labour is sending paedophiles to rape your daughters, while it puts up your taxes, dumps gypsies in your backyard and calls you a ‘racist’ if you complain."

"There are too many immigrants. Criminality goes unpunished while law-abiding citizens are victimised. Hard-working people are penalised by high taxes that go to pay for no-hopers to study Mickey Mouse courses at former polytechnics. It’s all going to the dogs."

The Aaro article is something of a return to form: he does an excellent job of highlighting the massive improvements in nearly all aspects of Britlife since 1997, while also suggesting that Blair should probably have resigned over the Iraq fiasco. I’m with him on both counts.

More generally, I really don’t understand how people can possibly believe the talking points about high crime, societal collapse, etc. Actually, I can, having been part of the blogland reaction to the Lancet and Unicef studies: most people are simply too stupid to base their opinions on evidence, and instead just repeat the self-serving lies of evil cynical bastards (that’s most people on both sides, although the rightwing ones tend to annoy me more).

[*] ‘wankers’ is meant in this sense.

I’m pretty sure that the first word here is "wankers" (the long version would be "whiny self-pitying overprivileged wankers"). The second is a bit harder… maybe "necrophiliacs"?

"So many evolutionists are incredibly arrogant and give the impression that only fools believe in creation" – The Reverend William Gardner

Yes we are, and yes, only they do. Scary article overall, from the department of Shit, I Thought That Was Only Happening In Jesusland…

Listening to the radio this morning, I thought the BBC was on a roll of bad-taste April fool-ness.

First, it claimed that the MDC had won 25 of the 29 seats so far declared in Zimbabwe. Then it claimed that the Pope was pretty much dead.

But apparently, both of these are true: the cities where the MDC is strong always declare their results first, and it’s unlikely to win many more seats than it’s already got; and the Pope really is finally on his way out.

I hope the MDC does better than expected, and am slightly relieved that Mad Bob didn’t rig the elections even more than he has. Meanwhile, I wish the Pope a speedy and painless death – preferably one without a self-appointed clown-show attempting to drag it out for 15 years of lunacy and politicking (my hopes for Tom DeLay are subtly different).