Hostage situation
I have written part Four of the "Freakonomics" review. Entitled "Freakiology", it deals with the somewhat patronising and self-contradictory relationship that Freakonomics has with sociology.
However, this post is being held for ransom. It won't appear on the blog unless a clear half-dozen of my regular readers write to their MPs in support of the political asylum for Iraqi translators campaign. I am prepared to take your word for it, but get your finger out. NB that the target of six letters is subject to upward and downward revision as I don't really know what the readership of this blog is. Yes, sending the form letter counts, but it would be better to write your own. Letters to media contacts also count, and if the same reader writes to an MP and a media outlet I will count that as two letters.
By the way, in a display of the horrific intellectual dishonesty which is my trademark, I didn't mention on CT (because it might have made the campaign less popular) something which I think the slightly more grown up D^2D audience can probably cope with. Which is to say, that if we do have a blanket amnesty, we're quite likely to be letting in at least a couple of dozen of actual terrorists - the fact that the ranks of Army interpreters contain a fair few double agents of the insurgency is well known, and then there's the families to consider. So in other words, this humanitarian gesture could end up with us importing another 7/7. On the other hand a) it just seems so fucking unseemly for us to be worrying about the possibility of a single domestic terrorist attack when there are 655,000 plus Iraqis dead in this civil war we've unleashed and b) I bet I travel on the Tube more than you do. Not to mention Rachel North agrees with the campaign, so if she can handle the risk so can we.
"NB that the target of six letters is subject to upward and downward revision as I don't really know what the readership of this blog is."
ReplyDeleteYou should also be prepared for the realisation that promising not to post the review might speed things up.
I'm going to write a letter, but 'cause Dan Hardie asked me to, so you can't count me.
'in a display of the horrific intellectual dishonesty which is my trademark...'
ReplyDeleteI withdraw all previous remarks to that effect, and apologise for the hurt they caused. Can bygones be bygones?
actually, I was being intellectually dishonest many years ago ...
ReplyDeletePerhaps we can have a vote on whether people would rather see a) the review b) more silly jokes c) the blog shut up shop entirely.
You mean I was just recycling one of the lamer remarks of....Steven Den Beste? I'm not sure I'll be able to face my reflection in the shaving mirror.
ReplyDeleteI promise that I have indeed done my duty. (But I request an accelerated post of the not-the-resource-curse piece instead.)
ReplyDeleteIs there anything else you want done other than writing to my MP? I don't live in Britain anymore, so I haven't got one.
ReplyDeleteCan I put in a vote for d) not shutting shop until the posts on resource curse/ why Gary Becker isn't a kitten drowning amateur sociologist turns up?
Good luck with the campaign, dd.
you realise that d) is basically a vote for continuing this damnable blog forever (in particular, every time I think "time to have a really good go at the Becker rehabilitation post", he writes something that makes me think "hmmm maybe this isn't the week").
ReplyDeleteI haven't got an MP.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally and irrelevantly, has the Home Office gone back to the hack-baffling bulk research release policy? (I really had to think about lining up all those qualifiers. O to be German.) I've just had an email from RDS listing seven separate pieces of research which are now available, including some which could be rather controversial:
ReplyDeleteOnline Report 12/07 - The operation and experience of Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) (23.7.07)
Online Report 18/07 - Investigating and detecting recorded offences of rape
(20.7.07)
Online Report 16/07 - Violent crime, disorder and criminal damage since the introduction of the Licensing Act 2003
Good to have, of course, but all at once, at 16:20 on a Monday?
bloody hell, it would be just like them ... I'll ask around.
ReplyDeleteOK done. Perhaps Featherstone is inundated.
ReplyDeleteDespite being an American, I'm tempted to write to six British MPs myself just to get the Freakonomics post.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Featherstone is inundated.
ReplyDeleteNo, I think most of the flooding is in the South.
Arthur and Ejh- non-resident UK citizens can actually register to vote in a UK constituency. Thatcher introduced it for the benefit of all the tax exiles. I don't know the details of how you register, but the web or the British Consulate shd be able to help. So you can work out who your MP would have been, based on your most recent residency, and write to them.
ReplyDeleteApart from that, you could email friends in the UK and ask them to write to MPs. I'm sure our generous host would accept letters written by friends of readers...
Well I can't write to no MP but I reposted your CT post on my blog so maybe you'll get a letter or two out of that.
ReplyDeleteSince you say you've already written the Freakonomics post - and since those costs are sunk - I expect you'll post it anyway. So I'll join in the clamor for the not-the-resource-curse write up and it better say something more than just that colonialism sucked.
Phil - interesting. Under Blunkett, the HO reverted to a Howardian publication bias, whereby research that justifies government policy got released, while that which showed it was bobbins was interminably edited, queried and debated, then sat on. Perhaps this bulk release signifies a return to glasnost and evidence-based policy.
ReplyDeleteDD - wrote to him yesterday.
Chris Williams
non-resident UK citizens can actually register to vote in a UK constituency. Thatcher introduced it for the benefit of all the tax exiles. I don't know the details of how you register, but the web or the British Consulate shd be able to help. So you can work out who your MP would have been, based on your most recent residency, and write to them.
ReplyDeleteThat's so, and there's what looks like an extremely complex form bookmarked on my home PC somewhere! The MP concerned is Tessa Jowell, who may or may not have an interest in people facing accusations and persecution in foreign countries...
My local MP is Celia Barlow, who is as new Labour as they come. Rebellion doesn't seem to be part of her DNA. On the other hand, she won by a few hundred seats at the last election, so maybe...
ReplyDeleteLetter written, awaiting a stamp. I'd have written it anyway, but I first heard about this here, so that counts right?
Wouldn't this be a worthy issue to raise on your Comment is Free slot, where presumably it'd get the widest coverage?
ReplyDeleteMarc Mulholland
aaronsw, if you're American you can write to your congressperson, as I gather your apology for a government is pulling much the same stunt as our apology for a government on this issue.
ReplyDeleteI expect little profit from writing to Richard Caborn (can he read?), but let it be done.
Two from me, about to go out to Evan Harris & Andrew Smith.
ReplyDelete... with copies going to a couple of peers I know, too...
ReplyDeleteThose two from CB don't count: he got an email from me. But if Matthew Turner runs a post on the subject, that ought to count as one.
ReplyDeleteI've sent mine (to Sarah Teather, the Lib Dem MP for Brent East).
ReplyDeleteYes, but you've got to post and order your readers to write letters. Goddammit, you are a big name blogger with *a place on the Crooked Timber blogroll*.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have a couple of minutes free later today so I'll put something up on CiF, and also email Aaronovitch from a proper email address. I am going to count some of Chris's letters, otherwise the target will never be reached.
ReplyDeleteI've sent mine. How many is that now?
ReplyDeleteI've sent one to David Howarth in Cambridge. Apologies if this appears twice.
ReplyDeleteYes, I have a couple of minutes free later today so I'll put something up on CiF
ReplyDeleteSpackerman's beat you to it, I see.
that's good news because those minutes somehow disappeared, though today ought to be better.
ReplyDeleteDon't know if this is a consequence.
ReplyDeleteNot only have I written to my MP, I have also crossposted to my lj, facebook, and emailed a bunch of friends, one of whom has also written to his MP. So I think I count for 2 votes, at least.
ReplyDeleteI wrote to Ashok Kumar, but pretended to be my dad, who is not a regular reader, since he doesn't know how to turn a computer on. So I think that counts as half a vote. Kumar is also depressingly NuLabour
ReplyDeleteMy local MP is Kate Hoey, who makes me proud not to be a British citizen.
ReplyDeleteI think we're pretty close to six. Can I ask people, when they have replies, to either publish them on their blogs or, if you want, to email them to me ( danhardie.projects@gmail.com ). That way, we can identify which MPs are sympathetic to the cause, and encourage more people to write the letters. I don't think this breaks any implicit confidentiality agreement- presumably if MPs didn't want their letters publishing they would mark them 'in confidence' or whatever.
ReplyDeleteYes I think the target has been reached, yay readers! I'm in Frankfurt at the moment but will post the thing on my return, prob. Friday.
ReplyDeleteDo you know if there is a similar campaign onto which US readers would sign? I would like to do whatever I can to help the Iraqi translators and, uh, I have another motive possibly to be disclosed later.
ReplyDelete