David Farrar links to a video from a just released documentary  on the feeble official report on our anti-smacking law. It skips past the constitutional corrosion in passing a law that criminalises much of the population then tells the Police, not the courts, will determine what it means. The Police must do that to determine who is morally guilty enough to be charged.

He reminded me that I meant to link to Sowell's recent column on bullying in schools . Our leaders do just what Sowell describes, doing nothing about bullying, claiming it is "unacceptable" while in fact accepting it.  See the empty rhetoric of our politicians on the same topic.

Thomas Sowell is a US economics professor famous for his plain writing on economic issues usually  shunned by the PC. He is currently a fellow at Stanford's  Hoover Institute.  It may be easier to understand why Sowell is newsworthy on such a topic, to know that he is black.

I prize my copy of Intellectuals and Society for its sustained polemic. His use of the term "anointed" I've adopted as a telling description of the self image of our intelligentsia.  As wikipedia summarises it,, Sowell claims that intellectuals, defined as people whose occupations deal primarily with ideas (writers, historians, academics, etc.) usually consider themselves as endowed by superior intellect or insight to guide power-brokers and the masses.