Fear, fear and more fear

It seems that some members of the government are not happy that legislation to allow innocent people to be sentenced to 42 days in jail failed. From the BBC:

[Security Minister Lord West] told peers that while some measures had been taken over the past 15 months to make Britain safer “this does not, I’m afraid, mean we are safe”.

he said: “The threat is huge. The threat dipped slightly and is now rising again with the context of ‘severe’, large complex plots, because we unravelled one the damage it caused to al-Qaeda actually faded slightly.

“They are now building up again. There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this.”

Now, I am not fully sure what Lord West’s point in all this was, other than he is a supporter (albeit in strange circumstances) of the 42 day internment detention plans.

With this in mind, it seems that Lord West is trying the age old trick of making people worried about a nebulous threat with the hope it will cloud their judgement. For this to work, you need to whip people up into a panic, then explain that “doing nothing” is bad so doing anything has to be good. (Sounds familiar)

As is often the case, this is massively flawed.

For longer than I have been alive the UK has been under threat of a “huge, complex” terrorist plot. Since we became weak and frightened (and the terrorists stopped looking like “one of us”) there has been huge spending on the security services along with a massive increase in technical and legislative procedures to surveil and control the public. All of this has been done on the premise that it would reduce the threat from terrorists.

Despite this, we are constantly told by the government that the threat is as bad as ever with what appears to be a steady state 200 terrorist networks operating in the country. Often (such as now) we are told the threat is increasing. The “Terrorist Threat Level” in the UK has been at Severe for around five years now with no signs it will drop.

Nothing we have done has reduced the threat from terrorist attacks. Nothing we have done has reduced the number of terrorist networks. Even when the terrorists kill themselves (such as at Glasgow) the numbers remain the same. Nothing has changed for the better (*), in fact the more laws we enact the more we hear “DANGER, DANGER” and the more we are urged for more sweeping legislation.

When will we learn – it is not working. Doing more of it wont magically make it work.

If the huge anti-terrorist effort since 7/7 has made no perceptible dent in the terrorist threat, it really is time to find a different way.

However, as it seems the security minister (et al) are more interested in telling the House of Lords and the House of Commons the sky is about to fall on our heads, it is unlikely they have the time to think of a way to be successful. Instead, it seems they would rather pander to the readership of the Daily Mail and be seen to be “tough on terrorism.” The fact it is having no effect is, basically, irrelevant….

* I am aware the security organisations may be working in the background to prevent attacks and destroy terrorist cells – that is what they are there for after all. However, if they are being successful, why hasnt the threat level changed and why aren’t we hearing that it is (even a little bit) safer today than it was yesterday?


Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_ID is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 378

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_count is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 379

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_description is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 380

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_name is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 381

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_nicename is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 382

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_parent is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 383
Posted in Society | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Big Bang Confuses Creationists

Now I know this isn’t Earth-shattering news, and hopefully anyone literate enough to make it to this blog will already understand the basic principles of the big bang, but I was reading through FSTDT (as always) and this comment drew my attention:

whats funny is science is catching up with the BIBLE! GOD spoke all things into existence Genesis is spot on, just? check out “big bang acoustics” you can actually find an audio tape of the “early” universe. I don’t agree with the “20 billion years ago nothing exploded part” but the fact that sound has a vital role in the creation of the universe is as it is written! Amen! (source)

Interesting as this is one the few “fundie” comments that seems to accept the existence of the “Big Bang” – sadly combined with some stunning lacks of knowledge and logic, but you cant have everything.

It got me wondering why so many religious types do their best to deny the “Big Bang” as a figment of imagination.

Even the name “big bang” was coined as a derisory put down for a theory that Fred Hoyle felt had too much “God” in it. It has the potential to support all manner of primitive creation myths – although it does undermine the chronology of certain sacred tomes.

In a nutshell then, given how this could really fit in with a “creator,” why do so many creationists hate the idea of a “creation event?” Are they really so lacking in basic logic?

(obviously the answer seems to be yes, but I still have some residual hope for humanity…)


Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_ID is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 378

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_count is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 379

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_description is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 380

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_name is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 381

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_nicename is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 382

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_parent is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 383
Posted in Science | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Sarah Palin – Laugh Away

From the excellent “Why do people laugh at creationists” series on YouTube:

Why do people laugh at creationists? (part 26) Sarah Palin

It worries me that there are other people who think like this mad woman.


Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_ID is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 378

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_count is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 379

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_description is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 380

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_name is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 381

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_nicename is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 382

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_parent is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 383

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_ID is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 378

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_count is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 379

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_description is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 380

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$cat_name is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 381

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_nicename is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 382

Deprecated: Creation of dynamic property WP_Term::$category_parent is deprecated in /homepages/34/d43362328/htdocs/ydontu/blog/wp-includes/category.php on line 383
Posted in Philosophy, Technology | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,