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Archive for December 15th, 2008

State-employed grinches on the loose in the UK

December 15th, 2008 | 3 Comments

Today’s news brings two more examples of British officialdom presumptuously instructing citizens to avoid causing offence to non-Christians—even though there’s no evidence that anyone other than minor bureaucrats is offended. First up: Salvation Army bands have been threatened over rattling tins used for money collections. Members have been forbidden to shake their charity tins – [...]

Award given to article challenging Iraq mortality methodology

December 15th, 2008 | Comments Off

The Journal of Peace Research has given its 2008 Article of the Year award to Neil F. Johnson, Michael Spagat, Sean Gourley, Jukka-Pekka Onnela & Gesine Reinert for “Bias in Epidemiological Studies of Conflict Mortality”. The article challenged the methodology utilised by Gilbert Burnham et al. in their study of deaths in Iraq, published in [...]

Afghan province bans female voices from radio

December 15th, 2008 | 2 Comments

Religious authorities in Ghazni province, eastern Afghanistan, have ordered state radio not to transmit female voices over the airwaves. Yesterday December 10, 2008, the national radio of Ghazni province received an official letter written by Provincial Chief of Religious Affairs that demands to ban broadcasting any female voice in news, performance and talk show etc. [...]