'Environmental volunteers' will be encouraged to spy on their neighbours (Telegraph, 02 Sep 2008)
Anti-terrorism laws used to spy on noisy children (Telegraph, 06 Sep 2008)
Children aged eight enlisted as council snoopers (Telegraph, 06 Sep 2008)
Child sleuths 'are not snoopers' (BBC News, Saturday, 6 September 2008)
Some observations:
First, the justified expressions of discontent if not outrage everywhere on the web in response to the above news may be ultimately driven by the worsening economic climate, which is mostly to blame on global factors rather than on Labour's incompetence. The surveillance state has been unfolding itself for several years now. Why are people waking up at this moment? Why were there no mass demonstrations five years ago, or as far back as eight years ago, when some of our most fundamental human rights were annulled? Remember that the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill is from 2000, and wide-ranging extensions are from 2003. But our economy wasn't doing so badly then, and any financial adversity could always be blamed on the EU.
Secondly, even if the present government is overthrown tomorrow by an angry mob, and its senior members are tarred and feathered, they might be elected again at the next occasion, after a future Tory government will inevitably fuck up too, unable to find their place to the right of Labour on the political spectrum, and unable to turn the tide on our economy. Such is the memory of the average constituent.
Lastly, given that the news comes from the Daily Telegraph, could there be an element of opportunism from the side of the Tories?
Tories condemn rise in number of civilians given police powers (Guardian, Wednesday August 27 2008)
Still remember how civil liberties existed in perfect harmony with the fight on crime and terrorism in times when the Conservatives were in power? Neither do I. See e.g.:
British Detention Law Is Ruled a Breach of Rights (The New York Times, November 30, 1988)
One more noteworthy link:
'Spying' requests exceed 500,000 (BBC News, Tuesday, 22 July 2008)
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Saturday, 6 September 2008
grammar
20 examples of grammar misuse (BBC News, Wednesday, 3 September 2008)
Having strong opinions about grammar is of all nationalities and of all ages. Having strong opinions while being wrong requires a special breed. See the annotated items.
Having strong opinions about grammar is of all nationalities and of all ages. Having strong opinions while being wrong requires a special breed. See the annotated items.
Spy software snares child abuser
Spy software snares child abuser (BBC News, Tuesday, 2 September 2008)
There is not much about this case in the press, and perhaps the offender is really pure evil and the victim is pure innocence. The only practical way to criminalise child abuse is to set an age of consent, which according to my sources happens to be 12 in Malta, 14 in Austria, 15 in France, and 18 in Turkey. The case reported here is clearly statutory rape in the UK, as the girl was not yet 16. (By how many months or how many days?)
This said, am I a vile monster myself if I feel some compassion for this guy who is being sent to jail for 4.5 years? Having sex is what has saved the human race from extinction, and urges programmed into our genes tend to take precedence over social conventions about, for example, age difference. Moreover, the reality seems to be that a third of British teens have sex below the age of consent (Third 'have sex below legal age', BBC News, 13 Aug 06), and for gay teens this may be more than half (Report Finds 58% of Gay Teens Have Sex Before Legal Age of 16, UKGayNews, 1 December 2006).
Incidentally, judging from our overcrowded prisons (e.g. Scots jail numbers at record high, BBC News, Friday, 29 August 2008), it seems that either Britons are more inclined to commit crimes than our neighbours oversees, or most people in UK jails don't deserve to be there, due to an antiquated legal system and self-righteous legislators who think that all that is undesirable will go away if only penalties are high enough, irrespective of any sense of justice.
Of course, in the present climate of child abuse hysteria, it is no longer allowed to consider such matters rationally. This holds in the UK as much as in the US, cf. the Rind et al. controversy. Further recommended reading is Predator Panic: A Closer Look by Benjamin Radford, Skeptical Inquirer 30(5). In France we saw the Outreau trial a few years ago.
Back to the original BBC News article: If an attempt was made to provide a balanced view on the trial, it wasn't successful. Could it be that the father who installed spy software on his daughter's computer was himself a bit off his rocker? This doesn't sound very sane to me:
Poor children. Will they sustain more permanent trauma from the consequences of their budding sexuality or from being continuously spied on by their parents?
This is a good occasion to reread:
Girl to get tracker implant to ease parents' fears (The Guardian, Tuesday September 3 2002)
A less gullible source is:
Cap Cyborg to chip 11 year old in wake of UK child killings (The Register, Monday 2nd September 2002)
Want to mould people into a surveillance society? Start early!
There is not much about this case in the press, and perhaps the offender is really pure evil and the victim is pure innocence. The only practical way to criminalise child abuse is to set an age of consent, which according to my sources happens to be 12 in Malta, 14 in Austria, 15 in France, and 18 in Turkey. The case reported here is clearly statutory rape in the UK, as the girl was not yet 16. (By how many months or how many days?)
This said, am I a vile monster myself if I feel some compassion for this guy who is being sent to jail for 4.5 years? Having sex is what has saved the human race from extinction, and urges programmed into our genes tend to take precedence over social conventions about, for example, age difference. Moreover, the reality seems to be that a third of British teens have sex below the age of consent (Third 'have sex below legal age', BBC News, 13 Aug 06), and for gay teens this may be more than half (Report Finds 58% of Gay Teens Have Sex Before Legal Age of 16, UKGayNews, 1 December 2006).
Incidentally, judging from our overcrowded prisons (e.g. Scots jail numbers at record high, BBC News, Friday, 29 August 2008), it seems that either Britons are more inclined to commit crimes than our neighbours oversees, or most people in UK jails don't deserve to be there, due to an antiquated legal system and self-righteous legislators who think that all that is undesirable will go away if only penalties are high enough, irrespective of any sense of justice.
Of course, in the present climate of child abuse hysteria, it is no longer allowed to consider such matters rationally. This holds in the UK as much as in the US, cf. the Rind et al. controversy. Further recommended reading is Predator Panic: A Closer Look by Benjamin Radford, Skeptical Inquirer 30(5). In France we saw the Outreau trial a few years ago.
Back to the original BBC News article: If an attempt was made to provide a balanced view on the trial, it wasn't successful. Could it be that the father who installed spy software on his daughter's computer was himself a bit off his rocker? This doesn't sound very sane to me:
I picked up the software for £60 and is the best thing I have ever bought and is now on all my children's PCs.
Poor children. Will they sustain more permanent trauma from the consequences of their budding sexuality or from being continuously spied on by their parents?
This is a good occasion to reread:
Girl to get tracker implant to ease parents' fears (The Guardian, Tuesday September 3 2002)
A less gullible source is:
Cap Cyborg to chip 11 year old in wake of UK child killings (The Register, Monday 2nd September 2002)
Want to mould people into a surveillance society? Start early!
WWII body
'It seemed to be a body from WWII' (BBC News, Thursday, 4 September 2008)
Papua 'remains' are not WWII body (BBC News, Friday, 5 September 2008)
Did you think the BBC would wait one day for confirmation before publishing a sensationalist story that turns out to be complete bollocks?
Papua 'remains' are not WWII body (BBC News, Friday, 5 September 2008)
Did you think the BBC would wait one day for confirmation before publishing a sensationalist story that turns out to be complete bollocks?
aren't we brave
Muhammad novel set for UK release (BBC News, Thursday, 4 September 2008)
American publishers were too chicken to release this novel, and also a Serbian publisher was forced to pull the title (US Book Stirs Debate in Europe on Self-Censorship and Islam, Deutsche Welle, 19-08-2008). The British were called in to restore freedom of expression. Hurrah!
Well, not so fast. It seems the only thing that scared Random House into scrapping the novel was a review from an 'expert' on Islam who had never even been to the Middle East. Recall:
Prophet Muhammad novel scrapped (BBC News, Saturday, 9 August 2008)
It takes an American reviewer to assume that what is offensive to the Western mind (a 52 year old man having sex with a 9 year old girl) must be offensive to the entire Muslim world. Statements by the author herself (e.g. "Anyone who reads the book will see that it honours the prophet and his favourite wife") do not exclude the possibility the book is meant as glorification of part of the history of Islam. Until the novel is released, we can only guess.
See also the column:
The Wages of Fear kill The Jewel of Medina (New Europe, 1 September 2008)
The Danish (three cheers for them!) are perhaps the only people in the world at the moment who wouldn't let their freedom of expression be compromised by Islamophobia:
Danish publisher hopes to publish 'inflammatory' Islam novel (Guardian, Tuesday August 26 2008)
Now from pulp literature to something that actually matters: our health. If it weren't for Quackometer, the UK-skeptics, and several other blogs, we would never have known about the latest assault by charlatans on the freedom of speech, in this case chiroquacks, who try to silence author Dr. Simon Singh by suing him for libel over his article 'Beware the spinal trap' in The Guardian on April 19th 2008, in which he exposes chiropractic for the laughable sham it is. Moreover, The Guardian has pulled the article. (But thanks to Svetlana Pertsovich, there is an internet-cached copy.)
That chirofascists go after anyone who dares criticise their fraudulent practices is nothing new. By their own admission (pp. 6-7 of News from General Chiropractic Council, issue 23, March 08), they have in the past bullied several newspapers (The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph) into either watering down their critical comments to insignificance or into removing a critical article altogether, replacing it by chiropractic propaganda. They have resorted to similar legal intimidation in Canada and New Zealand.
But what is truly shocking is that news about this censorship is in turn being (self-)censored. That a newspaper is forced to pull an article because of a legal threat should be headline news, but somehow it isn't, not in Britain. It is perhaps not surprising that the Guardian itself hasn't provided any justification for removing the article, as their legal department may have advised against making any further comments. But how many other newspapers have reported this story? The Times? No! The Independent? Nope! BBC News? Only in your dreams would these weasels stick their necks out over a controversial issue! Daily Mail, Daily Express, Mirror, Sun? You must be kidding! I've found only one mention in the 'old media', and that reads as a pro-chiropractic piece, devoid of any critical thinking:
Doctors take Simon Singh to court (Telegraph, 16 Aug 2008)
The British press sucks.
American publishers were too chicken to release this novel, and also a Serbian publisher was forced to pull the title (US Book Stirs Debate in Europe on Self-Censorship and Islam, Deutsche Welle, 19-08-2008). The British were called in to restore freedom of expression. Hurrah!
Well, not so fast. It seems the only thing that scared Random House into scrapping the novel was a review from an 'expert' on Islam who had never even been to the Middle East. Recall:
Prophet Muhammad novel scrapped (BBC News, Saturday, 9 August 2008)
It takes an American reviewer to assume that what is offensive to the Western mind (a 52 year old man having sex with a 9 year old girl) must be offensive to the entire Muslim world. Statements by the author herself (e.g. "Anyone who reads the book will see that it honours the prophet and his favourite wife") do not exclude the possibility the book is meant as glorification of part of the history of Islam. Until the novel is released, we can only guess.
See also the column:
The Wages of Fear kill The Jewel of Medina (New Europe, 1 September 2008)
The Danish (three cheers for them!) are perhaps the only people in the world at the moment who wouldn't let their freedom of expression be compromised by Islamophobia:
Danish publisher hopes to publish 'inflammatory' Islam novel (Guardian, Tuesday August 26 2008)
Now from pulp literature to something that actually matters: our health. If it weren't for Quackometer, the UK-skeptics, and several other blogs, we would never have known about the latest assault by charlatans on the freedom of speech, in this case chiroquacks, who try to silence author Dr. Simon Singh by suing him for libel over his article 'Beware the spinal trap' in The Guardian on April 19th 2008, in which he exposes chiropractic for the laughable sham it is. Moreover, The Guardian has pulled the article. (But thanks to Svetlana Pertsovich, there is an internet-cached copy.)
That chirofascists go after anyone who dares criticise their fraudulent practices is nothing new. By their own admission (pp. 6-7 of News from General Chiropractic Council, issue 23, March 08), they have in the past bullied several newspapers (The Guardian, The Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph) into either watering down their critical comments to insignificance or into removing a critical article altogether, replacing it by chiropractic propaganda. They have resorted to similar legal intimidation in Canada and New Zealand.
But what is truly shocking is that news about this censorship is in turn being (self-)censored. That a newspaper is forced to pull an article because of a legal threat should be headline news, but somehow it isn't, not in Britain. It is perhaps not surprising that the Guardian itself hasn't provided any justification for removing the article, as their legal department may have advised against making any further comments. But how many other newspapers have reported this story? The Times? No! The Independent? Nope! BBC News? Only in your dreams would these weasels stick their necks out over a controversial issue! Daily Mail, Daily Express, Mirror, Sun? You must be kidding! I've found only one mention in the 'old media', and that reads as a pro-chiropractic piece, devoid of any critical thinking:
Doctors take Simon Singh to court (Telegraph, 16 Aug 2008)
The British press sucks.
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
GM crops
Trying to catch up with the news from the past few weeks:
Charles in GM 'disaster' warning (BBC News, Wednesday, 13 August 2008)
Prince 'must prove anti-GM claim' (BBC News, Sunday, 17 August 2008)
The world is facing an increasing number of famines, and GM crops may provide some relief, potentially saving millions of lives. But concerns over the safety have been raised, and if the worries are justified, again millions of lives could be at stake.
As I'm not a biologist, I will have to rely on the judgement of experts. If reputable scientists say that GM food crops pose a considerable risk, then perhaps we should ban GM crops. If Prince Homoeoquack says that GM food crops pose a considerable risk, then perhaps we should abolish the monarchy.
Charles in GM 'disaster' warning (BBC News, Wednesday, 13 August 2008)
Prince 'must prove anti-GM claim' (BBC News, Sunday, 17 August 2008)
The world is facing an increasing number of famines, and GM crops may provide some relief, potentially saving millions of lives. But concerns over the safety have been raised, and if the worries are justified, again millions of lives could be at stake.
As I'm not a biologist, I will have to rely on the judgement of experts. If reputable scientists say that GM food crops pose a considerable risk, then perhaps we should ban GM crops. If Prince Homoeoquack says that GM food crops pose a considerable risk, then perhaps we should abolish the monarchy.
Monday, 25 August 2008
next generations
I've been to Vienna. Just what the doctor ordered. Among many other things, I enjoyed hearing three young women playing in the street as string trio. I suspect they were music students earning a little money on the side. They played e.g. Piazzolla with a skill and enthusiasm one may expect from members of the London Symphony Orchestra. If they have an exceptionally good day. Maybe.
Trying to maintain my sanity within an Anglo-Saxon monoculture, I'm now at the Edinburgh International Festival. Last night I attended the most amazing concert by the Budapest Festival Orchestra. The performance of Dvořák's 7th symphony after the interval was phenomenal, but truly unforgettable was the first half, with the Dutch National Youth Choir, consisting of girls many as young as 16. Apart from their ability to sing (by heart) in Czech and Hungarian without floundering once, they had also fully mastered the intricate musical language of songs by Dvořák and Bartók, which were inspired by folk music so far from the triviality of most of Western-European traditional music.
All in all, I witnessed a small miracle yesterday. Culture in the Netherlands has supposedly gone to the dogs as badly as in Britain, and yet a choir of two dozen Dutch girls is able to pull off such a stunt!
A last thought for today: If we are to survive cultural relativism and Islamofascism, we should look to the continent, rather than sucking up to the United Theocracy. (And don't expect President Obama will bring Enlightenment.)
Trying to maintain my sanity within an Anglo-Saxon monoculture, I'm now at the Edinburgh International Festival. Last night I attended the most amazing concert by the Budapest Festival Orchestra. The performance of Dvořák's 7th symphony after the interval was phenomenal, but truly unforgettable was the first half, with the Dutch National Youth Choir, consisting of girls many as young as 16. Apart from their ability to sing (by heart) in Czech and Hungarian without floundering once, they had also fully mastered the intricate musical language of songs by Dvořák and Bartók, which were inspired by folk music so far from the triviality of most of Western-European traditional music.
All in all, I witnessed a small miracle yesterday. Culture in the Netherlands has supposedly gone to the dogs as badly as in Britain, and yet a choir of two dozen Dutch girls is able to pull off such a stunt!
A last thought for today: If we are to survive cultural relativism and Islamofascism, we should look to the continent, rather than sucking up to the United Theocracy. (And don't expect President Obama will bring Enlightenment.)
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