In a recent posting at Aid Watch, William Easterly makes the very good point that we could help the poor more if we were to bypass dubious charitable scheme like Product Red. William Easterly points out that if you really want to support altruistic causes, you should do it directly rather than paying the business man and tipping the poor.

The question Easterly does not answer is why don’t we send our bucks or quids straight to the Global Fund instead of spending them at Starbucks?
Guilt, the one we feel knowing …

It is confirmed. His Madness Benedict XVI will be visiting the United Kingdom at the invitation of PM Gordon Brown. This will be the first papal visit since another controversial catholic leader, John Paul II, came in 1982.

The frock does not make the man

The announcement came with a stern critic of the forthcoming Equality Bill that would remove the exemption given to the Catholic Church not to comply with anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the area of employment and adoption.
The Catholic Church is naturally entitled to have its own views and …

Lost Decade Gays

It used to be simple: there were the Gay ones and the Rest (though the Rest would have said that “there was us and the Gay guy next door”). But starting at the end of the “sleepy 50s” to climax by the end of the “Glorious 30s” (1945-1975), a sexual revolution had happened and had revealed a world of sexualities.
It was no coincidence that the “Lost Decade” (1980-1990) inaugurated by the abandon of state-led development policies in favour of Neo-liberalism was also the starting point of the tragic …

And would alternative policies deliver in the fight against HIV/AIDS?
This is what Rick Rowden, Senior Policy Analyst at ActionAid International USA, puts forward in his book “The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS”.

I have not read the book yet but went to the recent UK launch organised by the publisher Zed at the SOAS in London. I can only report on my first impressions about the thesis that IMF policies, by constraining and limiting health policies and budgets in poor …

With same-sex marriage defeats in New York and New Jersey, and gay marriage currently on trial in California it’s time to play “whose marriage is it”. All you have to do is say “gay or straight”. Now you are in the hot seat!
Another brilliant instalment from Mark Fiore.

Rating 3.00 out of 5