IN MY OPINION...

Justin B Rye [MAIL] 15-Nov-04

Feel free to start arguments with me about any or all of the following assertions.


01 Factional terrorism is no excuse for state terrorism.
02 Faith is incompatible with Occam's Razor.
03 Babylon Five was the best SF ever to hit our TV screens (but not perfect - see under Mark Two).
04 Noam Chomsky should stick to politics, Roger Penrose should stick to interior decorating, and Andrew Lloyd Webber should stick to the ceiling if hurled aloft with sufficient force.
05 Anyone who advocated celebrating the millennium on 31-Dec-99 was a party-pooper (see under Y2k).
06 Come to that, weeks don't start on Monday, or spring with the equinox.  And everyone on 0° should keep permanent GMT.
09 Heinlein's predictions for 2000 AD were laughably inaccurate (see under Heinlein).
10 No nation to which children are routinely expected to declare their allegiance can be entirely "free".  [Let alone the UK...]
11 Free-market "Libertarians" are a greater threat to civilisation than Marxists.
12 All philosophy written before the Industrial Revolution is best forgotten.
13 "Dehumanising" technology is a step in the right direction.
15 Time does not literally "move" (see under Chronophysics).
16 English spelling doesn't need a reform - it needs a bloody revolution!  (See under Spelling Reform.)
17 Society owes me a living.
18 Green chilli peppers go nicely with lapsang souchong.
20 Esperanto is rubbish - for rather technical reasons (see under Ranto).
22 You aren't necessarily entitled to your own opinion.
23 A single word is worth a thousand pixels.
24 It's perfectly possible to do without fame, wealth, domestic bliss, adventure, consumer goods, mystical enlightenment, sex, drugs and rock'n'roll... and still have an enjoyable and fulfilling lifestyle!
26 The interesting thing in the news is the gaps.  [PS: The tabloids' coverage of John's disappearance hasn't improved my faith in journalists.]
27 By 2004 I'll be able to describe the things that happened to me in 1999 so that they sound hilariously funny, at least to Dilbert fans.  [Alas for libel laws...]
28 Trade-format paperbacks are nothing but a rip-off.
29 The protestor who gave Churchill's statue a green mohawk deserved an Arts Council grant, not a prison sentence.
30 The only moral answer to "You're either with us or against us!" is "Then we're against you".  (What is this, a War Against Pacifism?)

(The missing numbers were retired as boring)

See also my F.A.Q. and Holy War pages