According to Chris Lightfoot’s political survey, I’m insanely socially lefty and insanely economically righty. It’s nice to have such things confirmed…

Then they came for the artists…

Inspired by Who Should You Vote For, Jim Bliss has a long but worth-reading piece on who he should vote for.

The piece as a whole is more measured, but less fun, than this: "And now, my balanced analysis of the tories… there is none. The tory party are right wing extremists and do not deserve a balanced analysis. The do not believe in fairness, in justice, or in basic human compassion. And by imposing their cold, bitter views on the UK for 18 years they forfeited the right to be treated fairly."

From cute French girls to the truly revolting. I suspect even my female and gay readership would agree…

Dave Weeden is a bad man.

I’m well aware that it’s extremely remiss of me to have failed to encounter her before. However, Amélie Poulain joins the list of fictional characters on whom I’ve had a crush.

Interesting musings on inheritance tax from Matt Yglesias, including: "If I die with a $10 million estate and want to give $5 to 2 million different people, there doesn’t seem to me to be a good reason why the estate should be taxed. Better to tax inheritance since the actual concern is that I’ll give $10 million to my son…"

Matt is on fire today, hopefully not in a literal sense: he also coherently defends enjoying art that you know to be politically or morally indefensible (my related example would be Idiotic Bizarre’s rap on Eminem’s Amityville); and he has a new meme, of which more anon.

Despite my previous, err, harshness about Sean Thomas, he’s an irritatingly good writer. This week, he has a moving story of a Jew and his box from 19th century Cornwall, an excellent rundown of hangover cures (although he misses the most effective: start drinking again); and an attempt at winning the Bad Sex Award second time around.

Finally, the Adam Smith Institute has endorsed Robert Kilroy-Silk’s economic policy. The words ‘made for each other’ have never seemed so appropriate.

"The experience of being an expert witness on [Islamic terrorist] issues has made me feel a great deal safer on the streets of London" – terror expert Duncan Campbell (not Guardian staffer Duncan Campbell).

Ignore the media circus around the Kamel Bourgass trial. He was a bad thug who murdered a policeman, but for all his posturing he was no more of an Al-Qaeda terrorist than David Bieber or David Parfitt. He didn’t even *have* any ricin, and the only ricin-making plans he had were downloaded over the Internet – mostly from rightwing American militias, although one such document (erroneously labeled the Al-Qaeda Manual by government spin) was originally written by Afghan mujahadeen in the 1980s based on US anarchist sources.

Ignore the politicians. They are lying to make you afraid, to make you surrender your freedom to them. Nobody well-informed and with no axe to grind believes that the threat from Islamist terrorists is anything more than an IRA-style law enforcement issue.

Side terror points: Robert Hendy-Freegard appears to be a very naughty, but very amusing man; and I trust that following Eric Rudolph’s conviction, the usual suspects will admit that we’re At War with dangerous Christianofascist maniacs Who Would, If They Could, Kill Every Last One Of Us (TM), and that we urgently need to bomb the Vatican.

Update: The Register, which has been doing some fantastic reporting lately, has a similar, more detailed take.

Update 2: I’ve written a new, post-conviction piece on Robert Hendy-Freegard.