Why Dont You Blog?

Another crazy ID scheme, this time in India.

ID cards planned for India’s 1.1 billion
Hi-tech entrepreneur will lead operation to create huge database (headings from the story in the Independent)

Here the rationale is not just “terrorism” but also a claim that ID cards will benefit the poor.

…..will help in the delivery of vital social services to the poorest in society who often lack – or are at least told they lack – sufficient identification papers. The government has long complained that most of the money set aside for the neediest is diverted as a result of corruption, and it believes the cards could help to tackle identity theft and fraud.

Hmm. An impressive sleight of hand in “ID-card justification” creation, although the Indian government is clearly following a model similar to the UK one. The “fighting poverty” argument is:
(1) Corruption prevents relief of poverty.
(2) ID cards will prevent identity theft and fraud.

Where is the logical connection between 1 and 2?

I will temporary defy logic and try my best to look at the argument from the pro-ID card side.

Even on the assumption that corruption is the only bar to stopping poverty (which is a big and unjustified leap of faith) doesn’t that make dealing with corruption the main priority?

To get from priority 1 to priority 2, you would have to assume that “identity theft” is the only way that “corruption” works.

You would also have to assume that no “corruption” could possibly be involved in handing over billion dollar contracts to major industrialists.

(This is a leap of faith that is far beyond my jumping abilities. Silly me, I would have assumed that pumping resources in to relieve poverty and to stamp out corruption would be the intuitive way to go. You live and learn, hey?)

You would have to assume that identification documents wouldn’t become another incomprehensible/insurmountable burden for the very poorest that would probably make it even harder for them to access resources. (ditto… This is a leap of faith ….)

And you also need to believe that this won’t give rise to a new set of forms of corruption – in distributing ID documents, forging them, and so on.

Which might illustrate an admirable capacity for inventiveness in the face of survival pressures. But it’s quite hard to see how creating new forms of criminal industry would otherwise bring any benefit to the Indian poor.

The Independent says that the poor ” often lack – or are at least told they lack – sufficient identification papers.”

This scheme will provide a whole new set of identification papers for the poor to be told that they lack, then. From the perspective of the poor, this is a scheme that you could best characterise as “adding insult to injury.”

Well, I had to do it, didn’t I? After finding out about the Racist Rev, the failed BNP candidate who was also self-defined as not a BNP member, I had to find out more about his “Christian Council of Britain.” (Link to wikipedia article)

Infuriatingly, it comes top in google for Christian Council while other more innocent – if more authentic – “Christian Councils,” such as Ryedale Christian Council, Telford Christian Council, trail behind.

Site report:
The good news: On the basis of its website, it’s about as real as something that’s not very real.
The bad news: It’s definitely not a spoof site.

Website look and feel:
Like a Vatican website, with a spurious seal and a dramatic Victorian angel statue emitting rays of light and holding a cross as if playing the bass. Gothic-looking Biblical font used for the title.

Content:
Most of the pages don’t work, being “under construction” since 13 June 2008, unless they created it yesterday and got the yyyy bit wrong. Most page links lead to a bit of text saying:

Welcome to the new website.
Please be patient as it is still under construction!

Which isn’t bad, considering the shite I expected it to say. Racist Christians must have the proverbial patience of Job. (I am assuming that means “a lot of patience”. My apologies, if Job turns out to have been really impatient, being so annoyed by getting a name meaning “what you do for wages”)

The most recent – indeed only – entry on its “Sunday Lunch” Blog discusses an article in the Daily Telegraph, from November 23, 2007. Like most things on the site, the post date is 13 June 2008, suggesting it was brought in with other old guff when this site was set up and that nobody’s looked at it since.

The About us is possibly wishful thinking. It claims an executive of seven PLUS a national council. It generously says you don’t have to be a Christian to be on the council, which must improve its odds of getting members, but I still doubt that there is a membership roll greater than the number of people I could fit in my bathroom.

Articles has 3 entries in one post by “Revd RMB West, Moderator, Christian Council of Britain.” The word “self-styled” is unaccountably missing. Think about getting stuck in a bus queue with a bigoted drunk who’s carrying the Daily Mail and you have the flavour.

Latest news is the only thing I can find that has much in the way of content. It’s not “latest news” in the sense of being particularly recent. But it does seems to be the “latest” news on this site, so I have to hold off on the phone call to the trade Descriptions Act.

It is a doozy (whatever that is) The piece is a response to the CofE’s General Synod’s call to Christians to oppose the BNP. You can imagine how welcomed that was by the Christian Council.

Whoever wrote it (”albert”) starts off trying to present it as if he is just someone who thinks the BNP is being misrepresented. However, he soon shifts to saying “we” rather than “the BNP.” He has already failed in the first paragraph.

The call of the Synod of the Diocese of Chelmsford is misconceived in that the British National Party is not a racist part, nor does it recommend or countenance politics of racial or national misbehaviour. ……. The British National Party is the only political party not seeking to do this; but rather to ensure a future for the indigenous peoples of these islands.

Indigenous people’s rights? Who are these noble savages? He must mean “celts”, given that we don’t know much at all about who lived here before them. How are they to be identified then? Are they hiding on the dark side of a mountain on Anglesey?

Ah. They don’t have some secret genetic science that can identify the indigenous peoples. The answer’s in genesis. Goddidit. He just forgot to avoid confusion by stopping people from all over the world coming to the UK over a few millennia.

It is the will of God that the one race of mankind be divided into nations or descent groups with each having its own homeland where its interests, identity and values can be protected, upheld and promoted (Genesis 10: 5, 32; Acts 17: 26-27) . (from the Christian Council site)

In case you remain as confused as I am over the whole concept of Britishness, as expressed by the Rev, it’s an “ethnic” concept of Britishness. Yes, this explains nothing. The term “ethnicity” is as clear as mud, and I’ve studied Anthropology – it’s a shorthand description of a few cultural traits, at best, and by its nature, it is constantly evolving:

BNP UNDERSTANDING OF BRITISHNESS
.. Hitler sought to deprive the ethnic Poles of their identity and homeland by mass immigration from the Third Reich of ethnic Germans. Surely it is the denial of ethnic identity to the native British population which is analogous to what Hitler tried to do in Poland; and it is the mass immigration lobby, therefore, who are the far right and are practising what they accuse everyone else of doing.
Revd RMB West, Christian Council of Britain

Well, no, “mass immigration” lobby? (D’uh? name one person in it?) “the far right”. Blimey! This means that the term “the far right” is a dirty word, even to the BNP. (Well, for propoganda purposes anyway.) I shudder to think of what the BNP would see as “far right”.

There is something very disturbing about fascists claiming legitimacy by stealing the story of anti-fascism. The BNP are increasingly trying this trick – confounding bigotry with patriotism. Making racism appear patriotic. As Charlie Brooker’s old school-teacher said, they are insulting the memoriy of everyone who died or suffered in fighting fascism.

Today’s BBC’s Big Question was discussing the premise that the Buggering Nutters Party had a right to be heard.

The aforementioned “big question” was effectively decided by the very format of the programme, given the fact that BNP people were central to the discussion, so they were obviously getting heard. There were some very good audience and panel responses to them, but still, it’s hard not to see this as a pretty generous BBC platform. Their representatives were able to showcase their policies throughout the whole programme.

I was briefly stunned to see a vicar, in full clerical dress.

The BNP are indeed becoming masters of manipulation. They have already annexed the Union Flag, thus leaving non-racist English people with the red on white cross, (which was previously associated only with another miniscule fascist party, called the League of St George.) Along with UKIP, they hijacked the image of Churchill in their election propoganda. (Trying to connect their fascist nature with an image that only has power because of a war against fascism…. Ironic, n’est ce pas?) As well as stealing this iconic Tory figure, they have stolen policies from old Labour – building a manufacturing base, expanding British mining, and so on – allowing them to build a base in the least politically-aware parts of the working class.

All in support of a racist project that they barely bother to conceal . Unsurprisingly, they don’t bother to hide it because it’s their basic USP.

And there they are, on the BBC, with a vicar – a failed BNP candidate – as if they are now trying to annex the Church of England. He’s wearing a dog-collar and what looks like a bishops top – except it’s green. The identifying subtitle – not available for ordinary audience members -calls him Reverend blah. (It lists his church as Baptist Beans or something.)

I momentarily suspect that Rowan Williams has really fallen asleep on the job.

Nah, Phew. It’s just a bit of subliminal political chicanery. It turns out the Racist Rev isn’t a CofE vicar. But you have to do a fair bit of searching to find that out.

From Seismic Shock:

Back in 2006, Reverend Robert West was suspended from the Tory Party for addressing a BNP meeting. He went on to set up the Christian Council of Britain, which although claiming to represent ‘Christian values,’ was little more than a front group for the racist policies of the BNP.
Since then, various Christian organisations have denounced the Christian Council of Britain, whilst the BNP’s religious tactics have been reported in the Christian press. Back in December 2008, the General Synod of the Church of England voted to ban clergy from joining the BNP.
Suffice to say, Rev West is none too happy.
This Sunday, Rev West addressed a congregation in the Baptist Chapel in Barton in the Beans, Leicestershire, deploring the General Synod’s decision. (from Seismic Shock)

He comically sought asylum from the BNP, when he got into trouble with the tories for giving aid and comfort to the BNP.

Rev’d West claimed his action was sparked by a desire to “seek “refuge from political correctness by applying for asylum with the British National Party – Britain’s finest and most decent party – in our country’s hour of need.”
Ironically Rev’d West taught political philosophy and equal opportunities law at the universities of Nottingham and East Anglia, was also a member of the Lincolnshire Council for Racial Equality. (My emphasis)
But, switching to the BNP, he claimed Cameron’s A-list, an attempt to boost numbers of women and black candidates, was “discrimination of the worst kind.”
(From antiracistnetwork)

I guess that having lost his election attempt, that makes him a “failed asylum seeker.” (Control orders – where are they when you need them?)

The Daily Mirror (“Fake vicar leads the bigots’ bid “) cast doubt on his vicar credentials, in its brief but informative list of the backgrounds of BNP candidates – which included the party leader’s own attempt to play the Christian card.

“The ex-National Front chairman said Jesus would vote BNP if alive today”

Well, maybe, if the BNP was standing for election in Palestine. Unless they mean, if Jesus was a racist UK voter.

It seems the BNP see a move into the knee-jerk Christian realm as step forward for them. According to Ekklesia:(BNP helping to establish church group based around racial ideology)

The confirmation followed speculation previously reported by Ekklesia, that members of the British National Party (BNP) were involved in setting up a ‘Christian front.’….
“The Christian Council of Britain is a group set up to represent Christian values and the Christian Heritage of the country” West told the programme. ..
Asked how many members his church had, West said; “at this stage there aren’t very many but that is always the way when you are beginning something. You have to believe what you are doing is right.”….
The presenter then asked him whether there was a link between his church and the BNP.
“There is a link in that the BNP has encouraged and facilitated the formation of the Christian Council of Britain. They are working as facilitators. They are supporting what we do” West said.
He denied however that he himself was a member of the BNP. But, he said, the church group “arose in connection with the Nick Griffin trial.”

It seems that the word “Christian” is a weapon in the would-be fascist arsenal. On the model of the US religious right, I assume. The US right have already been pretty successful in hijacking the term as a synonym for “wingnut.” It is depressing that the BBC has inadvertently been suckered into the process of redefinition.

Give me a minute to get over the shock of finding myself in agreement with Cameron Diaz. *pause*

A Guardian CIF Green post by Brendan O’Neill accuses Diaz of expressing a fashionable “Malthusianism” for saying that there are too many people in the world. He claims

We’ve got all the space in the world
Cameron Diaz is parading the latest Malthusian fashion, that the world has too many people. Ignore her, it’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
It’s official: Malthusianism, the belief that there are too many people on the planet, has become fashionable. A-list fashionable. Alongside the grumpy old men in grey suits who have traditionally made up the Malthusian lobby, Hollywood starlets now bemoan the burden of humanity on the planet.

Nah. Brendan’s argument is wrong, wrong, wrong.

I really hope you weren’t getting paid for this CIF piece, Brendan. Because that would be a non-zero portion of the planet’s limited resources getting misdirected.

Yes, we have got all the space in the world.

That’s pretty much true by definition. It just means the world has its own allotment of space.

However, it doesn’t mean the world isn’t overpopulated, nor that the earth can absorb a few more billion human life forms.

Air, water, fuel, the survival of other species, our dependence on a working ecosystem – somehow, these don’t factor into Brendan’s vision of the world. He just takes as an item of faith that the food supply can be expanded more or less indefinitely through industrial production. Through the application of the human ingenuity of billions of people.

Give me a break. Even if that were true – and if you could ignore the effects on the ecosystem and generate raw materials through magic (which I can’t believe for a minute) – what specific evidence does Brendan have that people will start coming together to apply rational solutions to the creation, use, disposal and fair distribution of materials?

A recognition that the earth can’t hold an infinite number of humans doesn’t imply that you are a follower of all the thoughts of a 19th century economist who also noticed this.

Nor does it mean that you want to kill off loads of existing people (as Brendan suggests) nor that you share any other ideas with the BNP (as Brendan suggests) nor with the Duke of Edinburgh (as Brendan suggests) nor even with David Attenborough (as Brendan suggests.)

This is the central problem with Malthusianism: it looks upon population growth as the only variable, and everything else – from food production to industrial development to human ingenuity itself – as fixed. In short, founded on a negative view of humanity as incapable of resolving its problems or improving the world, it can only see more humans as something to worry about, a harbinger of disaster. In this sense population scaremongering is a fatal distraction, focusing people’s attention on the “problem” of overpopulation rather than on what we can do collectively to make the planet a better, wealthier, more fruitful place for hundreds of billions of human beings.

It seems that nothing can shake Brendan’s utopian vision of collective human action to make the planet better. But some very basic biology lessons might shake his faith in the capacity of the any species to survive if it becomes too numerous for its environment.

Hundreds of billions, indeed. Has he got any idea of what the world population is? If there were hundreds of billions we’d have to start rationing air.

He ends with this wonderfully comic bit. Comic because it treats a 30-year-old newsbite from a musician with no expertise in the subject as if it was intrinsically more worthy than an uninformed rant from Joe Normal in the pub.
Comic, because it implies that money can somehow feed people. (Chocolate coins, maybe)
And it’s a comic piece of celeb-quoting, because, in any case, Lennon’s last sentence undercuts the whole assumption that there is enough of everything for everybody

So ignore Ms Diaz. I preferred it when celebs had a more positive outlook. Asked on a 1970s chat show about overpopulation, John Lennon said it was a “myth”: “We have enough food and money to feed everybody. There’s enough room for us, and some of them can go to the moon anyway.”

Inspired by the Rapture Index, this is an attempt to quantify the UK political news for the past week or so on an objective (:-)) scale. And to put it in a handy playable format.

• MPs shown to be largely venal (3 square snake)
• Labour Cabinet sets off self-destruct button: e.g. the previously unknown Purnell bids for political domination by saying Brown should be replaced; Flint tries to play a spurious feminist anti-Brown card (complaining he treated her as “decoration”. Comically this came after she posed in a ludicrous Observer fashion photoshoot, the subtext of which was “Look at me. I may be in the Cabinet, but I’m really HOT”; etc ) (3 square snake)
• Jacqui Smith leaves Cabinet (merits a 2 square ladder by itself.)
• Several repulsively self-promoting Blairite clowns leave the Cabinet, gamely deflecting the shame of their own discovered venality by blaming Brown for everything they can think of, from global financial meltdown to not being very nice, but mainly for being unpopular. (2 square ladder)
• Relatively decent people in new Cabinet, eg, Glenys Kinnock. (Ignore the presence of Mandelson.) WTF didn’t Brown think of having a sensible cabinet at the start of his term? (2 square ladder)
• Local elections: Labour trounced everywhere. Tories win pretty well everywhere, even taking Lib Dem councils, despite the LibDems having been relatively blameless in ExpensesGate. (10 square snake)
• Euro elections: The repellent BNP gets two Euro Mps – one representing MY AREA, ffs. Grrr. The a-bit-less-repellent-but-still-sickening UKIP gets more votes than the Labour Party. (15 square snake)
• BNP leader egged when he tries to hold press conferences. (2 square ladder. I know it’s childish and probably counterproductive to welcome it, but still… Whose heart is so dead it wouldn’t be cheered by the sight of Nick Griffin getting egged? Although a Bush-referential shoe would have been even more satisfying to the viewer, assuming it was the steel-toecapped Doc Martin, traditionally favoured by some of his supporters.)
• House of Lords yet again does the decent thing – as they did when they refused to OK 42-day detention. (In your face, Jacqui Smith.) The Lords uphold appeals against control orders (trans. house arrests) that were based on secret, ie. unchallengeable, evidence. (1 square ladder.)
• Whole new push for constitutional reform. Sadly the current suggestions generally involve measures like PR – which would probably give the demonic parties, like the BNP, even more influence – or reform of the House of Lords – which would make it into something more like a government rubber stamp rather than the current random collection of toffs, miscreants, retired judges, generous political donors and old party faithfuls, which is still independent enough to give bad bills a good kicking. (1 square snake.)

Sorry, I haven’t designed a board yet. There are too many snakes and not enough ladders. Feel free to try it yourself.

The BBC says this incident wasn’t waterboarding. Just a friendly sticking someone’s head down the toilet, perhaps making it seem like the schoolyard bullying on which we all look with nostalgic affection. *

The Guardian the Independent, and many other papers, even the Daily Mail (ffs) all used the W word.

From the Guardian:

Torture allegations against six officers in the Metropolitan police were so serious that Scotland Yard used the word “waterboarding” to describe the claimed mistreatment of five suspects arrested in a drugs raid.
Despite attempts to play down the seriousness of the allegations against six officers in north London – with sources describing it as more Life on Mars than Guantánamo Bay – it emerged today that it was the Met itself which used the word waterboarding in a document to describe the alleged actions of its officers.

There’s something a bit cheering in the fact that the reports of this horrific and nationally shame-inducing story indicate that – in the UK at least – waterboarding is recognised as torture – even as a particularly vile form of torture. (Bear with me, I’m trying to extract something positive from this story, although it’s an uphill struggle.)

However, I confess to being confused by the implication that torture, as such, doesn’t seem inherently newsworthy enough. Oh, we’re all getting so used to plain old vanilla torture, aren’t we? We can only be shocked by its appearance in a fashionable new guise. Or maybe if it involves waterboarding, so it sounds like something we can blame on the USA

The facts of this story – apart from the extent of the waterboarding element – include the following:
6 Met police officers (allegedly) tortured suspects.
The torturees were “foreign nationals” (i.e. fair game.)

That implies that 6 employees of the British state – people employed to uphold the rule of law – felt free to torture suspects, because the suspects were apparently in no position to uphold the aforementioned rule of law against the police. No one would pay the slightest attention to any complaints the victims made.

It also seems that these officers would have been quite right in assuming that they could do whatever they felt like to the suspects, as the complaint didn’t come from the victims. It seems to have been made by a “police employee.” I.E. Someone with a sense of decency strong enough for them to overcome all the pressures to keep their mouth shut. The rare heroic person whom we all believe ourselves to be, in the face of the masses of evidence that very few of us actually are.

I really admire that person. He or she is really the only cheering element in this disgusting story. However, recent misdemeanors** involving the Metropolitan police suggest that people like that are few and far between on the Met’s payroll. See the cases that were so well discussed on Apathy Sketchpad.

*That sentence needs a heavy sarcasm alert, in case it wasn’t obvious. Lowest form of wit, yeah, I know.
** understatement for effect, in case it wasn’t obvious.

British politics seems to have gone into a weird meltdown, all because of a few expenses claims. Some MPs fiddle their expenses….. why am I less than surprised?

The TV news and most of the press are filled with people expressing their horror and claiming to have lost all faith in Parliament. How odd.

The Iraq war or evidence of collusion in torture didn’t have that effect, oddly. But a few dodgy expenses claims did?

It seems that the system was constructed so that MPs were more or less expected to claim for things (such as food and rent) that the rest of us have to treat as normal household expenses. This system was apparently created – in Thatcher’s time- so that MPs wages would appear becomingly modest to us sensitive taxpayers.

Mp’s wages aren’t exactly low – from the perspective of the average non-millionaire – but they aren’t paid enough to keep up two homes – one of which is in central London – and to run an office to deal with constituents. Hence, the expenses scam was deliberately set up to let them pay for things, whilst appearing to be taking home wages lower than those of judges or hospital consultants.

Obviously, some of them took the piss. In which case, the problem is mainly the failure of the system for scrutinising their claims. The House of Commons seems to have agreed en masse to scapegoat the Speaker – who had already upset Tory MPs by letting the police apply the same rules to them that they expect the police to apply to the rest of us. However, even the Speaker’s sword-falling hasn’t stemmed the Telegraph’s desire to pick through every Tesco’s receipt and claim for dry-rot-proofing it can get its hands on.

The result is a country that seems to have decided that a few fiddled expenses mean that our entire Parliamentary system is broken. The Guardian has been soliciting random famous-ish political-ish people’s wishlists, throwing up ideas ranging from PR to time-limited Parliaments, as if any random political commentator’s ideas are somehow relevant. It even gave David Cameron a platform to spout the Tory party’s nebulous reform ideas.

Marina Hyde called for lots more Independent MPs, then had to write another column explaining that she didn’t mean celebs, in the face of an unholy collection of celebs – Esther Rantzen, ffs – began scrambling to get elected. However, if we don’t have professional politicians, it seems most likely that D-list celebs would fill the void. No one in their right mind could see that as an improvement.

This is baffling. None of the reform suggestions seem to have anything to do with expenses-fiddling at all. If Parliament is broken, and constitutional change is urgent – why was noone calling for it before? The BBC reported this morning that more people voted for Britain’s Got Talent (or an x-factor or a big brother or something, the “got talent” name is obviously a lie) than vote in elections. And there were loads of people in Stoke willing to tell the BBC that they won’t ever vote again.

There is much media fretting about the BNP and other lunatic parties getting votes. I thought this was just a fear tactic. However, I have been told by people who live in likely-BNP-recruiting-territory estates that there seem to be significant numbers (i.e greater than zero) of BNP posters proudly showing in house windows. (I assume that these would counts as a bricking invitation in any reasonable court.)

It’s hard to imagine the waves of mass stupidity that give rise to that. For a start, it seems to be going on the principle that – if your MP is dishonest enough to have got the taxpayer to have paid the cost of a John Lewis lighting unit – you would automatically choose to have someone with a criminal record for committing GBH and inciting racial hatred as a clean alternative. Britain’s Got Morons by The Bucketload might be a more suitable tv show theme.

I have been as pissed off as anyone at the effrontery of some of the expenses claims. But I admit to having been quite pleased to see Jacqui Smith hoist on her own “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” petard. I’ve also enjoyed seeing people who’ve made much of their desire to stamp out benefit fraud being revealed as engaged in benefit frauds that amount to much more than a well-paid worker’s wage.

Did many people really think MPs were all more ethical than the average person, until the Telegraph printed their expense claims? Does someone getting something for nothing really rouse the public to such fury, when any number of seriously bad decisions didn’t bother anyone?

Fine to reform our voting systems, the composition of our parliament and so on. But it’s hard to believe that meaningful constitutional decisions can be taken during the current hysteria.

OK, I have finally torn myself away from the accursed Wii long enough to surf the internet, read some articles and comments and become quite worried about the future of the human race.  Before I am accused of massive hyperbole, remember America is the worlds only superpower and, like it or not, societal changes there radiate out across the English speaking world quite quickly. (Yes, I am looking at you Creationism).

It seems that, despite being the leader of the free world, a beacon of Democracy and willing to invade other nations who abuse human rights, the USA has a very ambivalent approach towards one of the most inhumane of activities – torture. I know I have talked about this previously, but reading through the comments on the USA Today letter reminded me of conversations I have had with people in the US, and gives an insight into how the government policies seem to be built.

First off my position on the matter: Torture is never, ever, acceptable. It is a war crime and the practitioners of such acts should be treated as international war criminals. Waterboarding is torture. Calling torture “enhanced interrogation” does not change what it is any more than calling my car a boat will make it sail. I can think of no (real) circumstances in which torture is justified. Saying torture is better than execution is farcical.  The idea that torture would be carried out in my name, or to protect some nebulous concept of my safety is abhorrent.

However, I consider myself a rational person and I am willing to explore viewpoints and opinions that differ from my own. It is possible that I could be wrong in my stance about torture so I will look at some of the arguments for it. For the purposes of this rant, I will use the responses to the, frankly, insane USA Today letter. From these it appears the following “justify” torture: (Some I will post in full, others I will try to identify the more coherent parts)

in the meantime…they saw off our heads…….while weak dems say nothing about that……why do dems defend these killers of U.S citizens is alarming…..shows there huge weakness for our security. (from wave who, unsuprisingly, has no friends but 5 recommends for this nonsense)

This makes no sense. It is nothing but an appeal to fear, wrapped up in some bizarre attempt to make 2+2 equal three hundred and eleven. But it is a common one so I will try to salvage some sanity out it and see if it holds any water.

It breaks down into a few parts. First off the claim that torturing people is the only defence against “them” sawing off American heads. Now, given that people in custody are no longer in position to weild a saw this is true, but there is no requirement to torture them for this. Has the mistreatment of people in places such as Guantanamo reduced the amount of beheadings of Americans in the middle east? Erm, no. So we can strike that part. The second bit is just a sign that wave is insane. Objecting to torture is not defending the killers of US citizens any more than not torturing murder or rape suspects is. Shall we advocate tortuing people suspected of drink driving (which kills many, many more citizens each year)? If not the argument makes no sense.

The next one hints at what worries me about society.

Why is this such a difficult question for you? Given the choice between the safety and security of my loved ones *and* subjecting a terrorist to a few moments of anxiety (enhanced interrogation techniques), this is an easy choice! Glycine

Oh my Thor. Worryingly this is an attitude similar to one I encountered in people I talked to during my visit to the US. It shows the horrific effect language has had on people. 24 is not real. People do not get up at the end of the show, take a bow and give a PR conference to promote the sale of their DVD. Torture is torture. The clue is in the name. Waterboarding is not a “few moments of anxiety.”

This whole bag of madness falls down on a few levels. First off, if it is so mild how can it work on embittered, committed jihadists? If it is so mild (I can generate more than a few moments of anxiety for most people going to an interview, let alone questioning by law enforcement) why is it called “enhanced interrogation?” Dispel forever the idea that waterboarding is tame. That any form of torture can be passed of as time and almost humorous. It is not. It is there to break a persons will in the shortest possible time. This is not something people ever fully recover from.

Equally sad is the loss of any form of “innocent until proven guilty.” It now seems that if someone thinks you are a criminal you are one and will be tortured until you confess. Sounds all very 21st century to me. The people subjected to torture by agents of the US government are not always confirmed terrorists. Some will be people who are massively unlucky. Is torturing them (which will provide no extra security to your loved ones) acceptable? If so, where do we draw the line? When do we stop torturing people on the off-chance they may know something which may help increase the security of your loved ones? Crucially, what happens when someone comes to torture you to protect their loved ones? Would you be OK with that? Even if you are actually insane enough to think that torturing people based simply on their nationality and skin colour is acceptable, you have to face the fact it decreases national security. For every person who is interned and tortured, there will be families at home who rail against the injustice. Mistreatment of prisoners is the greatest recruiting tool an insurgent or terrorist organisation can hope for. For every suspected terrorist you torture, you recruit four or five more into his organisation. How does this make any sense at all?

We have the token argument from insanity:

Torture like many evils will not ‘go away’ because do-gooders wish it so.
and
Which is worse: killing the enemy outright or keeping them for the duration in a POW camp? (or Federal prison?) Incarceration, even with three meals a day, a bible, a toilet, clothing, bedding, et cetera, is none the less, torture — but who gives a damn? Ronald David (who, amazingly, has 8 friends on USA Today. Wow).

This is no argument, its just mad ranting. Torture like any crime will never quite go away but does that mean we should accept it? Do we accept rape or murder? No. If someone abducted ten people from US cities and tortured them for a few months, they would go to jail or face the death penalty. If the government does it, its OK. Does that make sense? I just love the attempt to use a derogatory “do-gooders” term against those who oppose evils such as torture. I’d rather be a do-gooder than a do-eviler. Maybe its the atheist in me.

Comparing torture with incarceration is madness. Nothing further needs to be said. Everything else this nutter has written on this letter speaks of mental illness.

(two chestnuts from Crazyfun_22 who has 11 bloody friends) In addition to Michael, the other loons posting about waterboarding are also subscribing to something in either their water or thier “Pipe”. The waterboarding the japanese did is not even close to what we did following 9/11, those people were drowned in the process. Waterboarding that ends in death can and shoud be classified as torture…so put down the remote after you turn off MSNBC and look some stuff up from multiple independent sources and get your facts straight.

Right, so torturing someone and stopping just before they die is OK then. This is insane. Torture is torture. Murder is murder. You can torture someone to death which is both torture and murder. Its like saying raping someone but not killing them is OK. All this crazy makes my head hurt.

Lastly, all you people who are commenting on waterboarding being used to get info on Iraq and make an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection….WRONG….it was used to try and determine intel on potnetial threats to Americans…period. While I am sure Saddam was part of the questioning, it was for American’s safety…and that does include you loony bins.

Here we come to the basic claim that seems to sustain the support for torture.

Torturing person X (who is hopefully not the from the same ethnic or religious background as you) is acceptable if it provides actionable intelligence that can save lives of people you care about.

This argument allows Americans to condemn other nations who torture prisoners (because the information gained is not helping people they care about) while practising it themselves. It carries a strong moral appeal because, seriously, who doesn’t want to save lives. There is even a utilitarian argument that the suffering of the few outweighs the benefits for the many. You can see why so many people agree with this concept and, as a result, support the use of torture by agents of the government .

Sadly it is all nonsense, and for so many different reasons it is hard to know where to begin.

If we take the utilitarian argument first. You have no way of knowing if the information provided from the torture will save lives until after you have tortured the person. If you know in advance enough to make this call, you know enough to not need to torture the person. Without knowing this you have to react to everything the person says – including lies and confusion. This takes up resources and manpower better spent elsewhere. A committed jihadist could even use this to distract your resources from where they would be best placed. If you are tortuing someone who genuinely doesn’t know what you are asking, when do you stop? Do you wait until they make something up? Unlike Jack Bauer you have no way of knowing the veracity of what your victim is telling you. You may get the truth in the first 10 seconds (about how long I would take to crack) but would you believe it? Would you continue to torture until you broke them and they changed their story? In reality, unlike 24, torture is a good way of making somone say what you want them to say – nothing else.

Following on from this, if you torture the person and it turns out they cant give you useful information, what then? The argument that useful information means torture is justified now means this was not-justified. Do you proceed to punish everyone involved with the now-criminal act? Anything else means the utilitarian argument suggests all torture is justifed on the basis that an unknown amount of information gained may be useful – but this applies to everything. Maybe torturing you or your parents will be useful. How do we know until we try?

It strikes me people can be quick to come up with hypothetical situations where torture would be acceptable, as long as it is someone else on the receiving end. Knowing that no system is 100% correct, innocent people will occasionally get caught up, would you be happy if you were that innocent person? If not, then torture is not acceptable. If you feel you would be happy to spend five years in “enhanced interrogation” because you knew, deep down, it was making the world safer, then I think you are insane.

(ranting over, back to the Wii…)

One of the more entertaining things of my holiday is the, frankly, bizarre attitudes I have encountered. While part of me finds the American support of the military heart warming, it seems to border upon an unhealthy obsession. However, this is something I may return to on another day because I have also read the USA Today newspaper’s letters page. (*)

Although I initially thought I was hallucinating, it seems there really is a letter titled “Waterboarding is not harsh enough to be torture” (see it online) from Barbara A. Volz which seems to begin well:

“The use of the word “torture” in referring to waterboarding is a sad dumbing down of the word’s meaning and an insult to the legions of victims of torture throughout history”

It is true that there is a lot of dumbing down over the meaning of words today – we have a war on terror for example – and it can also be argued that torture should still carry a huge amount of shock value when someone is accused of conducting it. However that is where the sanity here seems to end. Sadly, Barbara continues:

Waterboarding involves no bodily mutilation unlike torture of the past, especially in the 20th century. It is a harsh interrogation technique, but given the choice between this and techniques that are more damaging, I think many of these victims would have chosen waterboarding.

What?

Is this real? If this was on USENET or Yahoo!Answers then I would assume it was some idiotic troll. Sadly it echos letters I have read over the last few weeks in several US newspapers.

It is insane. It is purely based on the assumption that torture is only torture if the person ends up scarred. It assumed that bodily marks are more damaging than any psychological distress. It is crazier than a box of frogs thrown into a pool of butter. It is more insane than pretty much anything I can think of at the moment so I am lost for any further analogy.

Is a husband who bullies his wife mentally less abusive than one who “just” hits her? Is a school child taunted by his classmates to suicide suffering less than one who is beaten up? It genuinely defies belief that someone can think this.

Waterboarding is torture. That a civilised nation in the 21st century can even begin to debate if it should be used is shocking. The idea that it can ever be justified (especially given the farcical idea that it might produce useful intelligence) shocks and saddens me. The objective part of me can see why the people who authorised this activity (and the ones who carried it out) wont be punished, the emotional part of me is crying out for them to be tried as the war criminals they actually are.

Most worrying of all is the attitude this shows. The idea that Waterboarding is “torture lite” is horrific. It is a sign that people are, as Barbara implies early on, becoming immune to the shock value of certain phrases. When we hear that person X has been tortured we should be outraged and we should demand justice.

Why dont we?

–

* I accept that a letter in a newspaper is not an indicator of the opinions of a whole nation. However, tied loosely with the military obsession this is an attitude I have encountered many, many times during my holiday.

Here in the UK we often hear about how great US customer service is. It is used as a mantra to reinforce how, as customers, we need to complain more and get more out of the companies who take our money. There is some value to this, and to an extent people are a bit too reserved to kick up a fuss if there is bad customer service (something ISPs take great advantage of). What we can do, however, and what is probably most damaging to the company involved is take our business elsewhere.

This isn’t always true when we deal with the supposed Customer Service champions in the US. Equally, the idea that the USA is the home of customer service is pretty much an illusion (or can any of the colonials reading this convince me otherwise?).

Three recent examples spring to mind – two bad, one good – and all are based on my upcoming trip to the US.

First the good: Yesterday I sent an email to the resort I am staying at asking if we would have to change apartments each week or if we could have the same place for all three weeks. I sent the email at about 0900hrs BST (or about 0400hrs local) and got the instant autoresponse reply. Four hours and 25 minutes later, I got an email response which fully answered my question and dealt with all the issues I had raised. A major success. I will (temporarily) refrain from naming the company involved because I wont know for sure if they have lied to me until I am out there, however when I come back I will either publicly sing their praises or condemn them with the rest.

Now the bad.

First off – the big one: During the holiday we will be visiting Walt Disney World, and there were a few things I needed to clear up in advance. I checked the FAQs and the question was not addressed. I had the choice of calling a US number (expensive at around 35p per minute) or sending an email, so at the end of March I sent an email. I got an instant autoresponse telling me how important my question was and how they would be in touch straight away (using very non-standard English, which I suspect was to sound “folksy” but just annoyed me). However three weeks and six days later I have had no response.

Undaunted, I asked an additional question two weeks ago. I got the same “important” response but no human has bothered to actually get back to me. Despite their claims, I come away feeling that Disney really do find me very unimportant. Disney, the supposed champions of customer relations, don’t care enough for one of their staff to spend 30 seconds getting back to me. Disney really do not care if I go there or not.

Now intellectually I have always known this. What is the attendance of 8 people going to do to their annual figures? But it is still annoying. What makes it more annoying is how impotent I am regarding this. I am not going to fly all that way with young children and then not go to Disney (not to mention, I have bought the park tickets now) that would just be mad. If it were a restaurant or shop, then I would certainly not go and advise everyone else I know to not go. But is this realistic regarding Disney? No. Not at all and they know it. They know they could mortally offend 70% of the adults who go there, have terrible customer service and still get millions through their doors. I also know (having been before) that this is not an indicator of how the actual park experience itself goes – once inside the staff are fantastic. They more than make up for a pointless online response service. Its a shame that no matter how much Disney have annoyed me I will go this time and I will go again.

Lastly – similar but different: A crucial part of a Florida holiday is the hire car. I pre-booked this with Budget USA and everything was going fairly smoothly. Last week a situation developed where I needed to find something out not covered in any FAQs. As usual I was presented with the options of calling a US telephone number or sending an email. At the time, it wasn’t urgent enough (and given it would take about 10 – 15 mins to get through, explain etc., it didn’t justify the 35p a min costs) so I sent an email. As always I got an immediate response telling me how important I was and how one of their staff would be in touch right away.

A week later I have heard nothing. I even re-asked the question two days later but still nothing (other than autoresponses) and I made a final attempt yesterday. Now unlike the other two, this is something that is important enough I needed a proper answer before we go, so I was faced with two choices. I could either pay the 35p a minute to talk to an unresponsive, uncaring company and hopefully get a good answer or I could use my car hire voucher elsewhere. Unlike Disney there are dozens of car hire companies who all charge around the same sort of rates. This meant that in the space of about 10 minutes I was able to locate a company that could answer my question and was able to offer me the same vehicles for about the same price. So, through apathy, budget have lost out on over US$2300 worth of business. A simple cost effectiveness equation says that unless they are paying their customer service staff in the region of US$13000 an hour, they have lost out here. For the sake of a ten minute email, they have lost out on two grand and, given that I regularly travel to US for work, and need a hire car, untold future business (as well as anyone else I convince to never use them). Either Budget use a strange business model or I have finally worked out why the economy has gone downhill.

Again, I will hold off on praising the new company until I can confirm they haven’t lied to me, but when I get back I will revisit this.

Overall, Disney and Budget show two problems with the idea that the US is king of Customer Service. In Disney’s case it is probably irrelevant. While they aren’t a monopoly in the conventional sense they are when it comes to theme park holidays with small children. Budget have no excuse and at least there I am able to vent my frustration. Such is life.

Over the last few years there has been a steady flow of people warning how, in the west, we are sleepwalking into a surveillance state. Often this is accompanied with references to 1984 and how our government and national leadership seem to view this book as an instruction manual, rather than a stark warning. It seems, however, that we are growing a generation of people who are immune to this, they live under constant surveillance (even aspire to it in the form of Big Brother reality TV) and the idea of privacy may one day be alien.

There is (IMHO of course) a darker aspect to this. In our rush to accept everything the government tells us when it is linked to the Evil Terrorist, we are giving up the basic rights and concepts that make a country a “free” democracy. The press, and police, love the high profile terror raids (such as the “Easter Bomb Plot“) which generate torrents of media coverage – along with huge amounts of right wing outrage at how easy it is for these evil Islamic terrorists to get into our country. These events are used to justify insane amounts of secrecy about police activity and huge public funding, even though it has no apparent return in public safety. When the inevitable happens, and those arrested are released without charge, there is often a short note at the end of the news and no withdrawal of the right-wing outrage. The damage has well and truly been done, so the fact it was a pointless event doesn’t need saying… In this, we are far from a free press. As an example we can look at two events:

1 – Police raid addresses in Lurgan, Co Armagh, Northern Ireland, and trigger riots that last over a day – followed by a series of hoax car bombs and attacks on other police patrols. All this was to find the people involved in the fatal shooting of two soldiers and a police officer a few days earlier.

2 – Police raid a few addresses in Manchester and Liverpool, England, and peacefully arrest 12 people. No community response.

The first event generated almost no coverage from the national media outlets. Few people would have known it happened. Less would have cared. The second event was “Breaking news” 24hours a day for days – even when most of the coverage consisted of bored police officers standing outside a house in some unknown street. It resulted in heated diplomatic exchanges with foreign nations and untold amounts of right wing outrage about “furriners” coming into our country.

It is in the states interest to present the situation in Northern Ireland as a closed deal. Peace has broken out. Unless the terrorists are actually “lucky” enough to kill, it gets no news coverage. There are hundreds of actual attacks and bomb plots over there but these are carried out by white Christians who were born in the United Kingdom (or occasionally the Republic of Ireland). There is no where to deport them and no amount of border controls can prevent them. Crucially they look like us, so cant easily be profiled at ports and for stop & search powers. Overall the peace process is working but the dissident republicans present a clear and present danger to the security forces. They carry out attacks, they have wounded dozens of people (and killed several innocents). They carry out atrocious punishment beatings.  They are real terrorists.

On the other hand, we have the Islamic terrorist cells. Yes, they got “lucky” once with devastating effect, but they have managed one attack in the UK. Ever. The biggest difference is they dont look like “us.” Often they are first or second generation immigrants. They speak a “funny” language. They (sometimes) dress differently. They are easy to spot in public. That most of this is nonsense hasn’t stopped Islamic terrorism becoming a massive bugbear, while the actual violence carried out by Republican terrorists is ignored.

The cynic in me suggests that targetting the Islamic terrorist is in the states best interest. Without turning into V for Vengeance, by generating this public fear there is little argument against draconian laws, huge spending on “anti-terror,” crazy policies (no fluids on planes for example), intrusive surveillance and out of control policing. We have to accept this because if we dont the Islamic Terrorist will get us. That the press pander to this crazy idea, and are instrumental in producing it, which can only benefit the state makes me strongly question how “free” our press is.

Without a free press, can we really have a democracy? Is it possible for the public to have an informed vote if their information is controlled by the state?

This leads on to the next bit, and the thing that really got me going. The Police.

Recently the UK enacted a law (part of the Terrorism Act) which has made it illegal to take pictures of police, military or intelligence services personnel. This has been presented as being important to prevent terrorism (how?) and the government claimed it would not be used out of context nor would it be used to restrict journalism.

This is nonsense. Every law gets used out of context. Councils use anti-terrorism powers to mount surveillance on people to see if they live in the correct district for their children’s school. This will always happen – if you give someone a legal authority to do something, they will do it if it makes their job easier. The only alternative is to right better laws – something often lacking with regards to rushed terrorism legislation.

The police are no better. The terrorism act is regularly used out of context. Be it climate change protesters or tourists, the various legislation is often misused. Crucially, looking at the tourist incident, the police not only misused their legislation but they broke the law doing so: (From the guardian):

Like most visitors to London, Klaus Matzka and his teenage son Loris took several photographs of some of the city’s sights, including the famous red double-decker buses. More unusually perhaps, they also took pictures of the Vauxhall bus station, which Matzka regards as “modern sculpture”.

But the tourists have said they had to return home to Vienna without their holiday pictures after two policemen forced them to delete the photographs from their cameras in the name of preventing terrorism.

Matzka, a 69-year-old retired television cameraman with a taste for modern architecture, was told that photographing anything to do with transport was “strictly forbidden”. The policemen also recorded the pair’s details, including passport numbers and hotel addresses.

If we assume the police were right to carry out the stop under TACT legislation, and this was information useful to terrorist, why did they destroy the evidence? Either they thought these two tourists were covert Jihadists, in which case an intelligence stop should have been conducted, with the pictures retained for the DPS to look at (and the intelligence services to brief the Daily Mail as to the plans to attack the bus station) or they knew these were innocent tourists and there was no reason to destroy the pictures. This seems to be unlawful destruction of evidence pertaining to a criminal act. Will anything be done about it?

The Metropolitan police said it was investigating the allegations.

Ok, thats “no” then. In magazines like Amateur Photographer there are regular reports of how people are stopped under similar circumstances (to the point at which a photo-friendly MP has tried tabling this in Parliment) however nothing has changed. Nothing is likely to change because the police dont care.

I am loathe to scream about how our police forces are out of control, but they appear to be under less and less force to obey the will of the people. The police enforce the rule of law with public consent. They are not an occupying army seeking to repress us. They are not here to control and dominate the public. They are public servants who have chosen to do a job which means they will protect the public. They protect no one by harassing tourists. They protect no one by killing newspaper sellers as they try to get home. The tragic death of Ian Tomlinson has opened up a whole can of worms about police behaviour, but it is unlikely to change anything.

As has happened countless times in the past (anyone remember Stockwell?), following Ian Tomlinson’s death the police were quick to issue a completely erroneous statement. It took a newspaper getting (what was actually illegal) footage of police violence before they would do anything. Even then, it took days before they actually got into action and started the investigation. Worryingly there were dozens of police officers there when Ian Tomlinson was hit, yet none thought to come forward about his death. This speaks of an institutionalised idea that hitting people from behind is acceptable. It isnt.

The police are faced with dangerous situations on a daily basis. They are also taught how to react and how to identify when the danger has passed. Although it was a few years ago, and for a different place, I have had considerable amounts of riot training (in the shield wall, as snatch squads and controlling) although thankfully I rarely had to put it into practice. However there were some basic lessons. You stood there knowing you would get abused. Verbal abuse was something to be ignored. No matter what the crowd shouted to taunt you, you were supposed to stand your ground. The idea that you would get a sly hit on someone walking away was unthinkable. It happened, but people reported it because it was a breakdown in discipline, and without that we were the same as the mob. Despite this, footage has come to light of several police officers attacking non-violent members of the public.

There is a time where the use of force by the police is acceptable. Backhanding a woman who has called you a name is not it. Hitting people who are shouting at you is not it. The police are there to PROTECT the public from violence, not be the cause of it. There is a harrowing amount of footage on the Guardian website which shows police failing in their primary duty. I have no idea if this is simply due to the group on the ground having become “maverick” or if this is a sign of larger problems with the police, but it is a problem.

For example: Police on the ground removed their ID badges to make it harder for people to identify them at a later date. This is wrong, as Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC) stated. It is very wrong and borderline criminal in itself. It means the officer was intending to do something wrong and mens rea is an important part of the law. What concerns me is the comment made by the HMIC:

“I firmly hope that will be rectified with some certainty”

What? Pure weasel words. What is the point in having the HMIC? Equally disturbing is the fact that these officers were not taken to task by their seniors before deploying. Instutionalised failure. How do you rectify that if the HMIC is beating around the bush? The simple solution is to punish the Sgts and Inspectors as well as the constables (when finally identified). That would very quickly change the behaviour.

This is tied into the behavour of the police on the day. In this video, the police carry out a baton charge against the crowd (who appear to be commiting the offence of singing badly and out of tune in a public place) and attack the press in the process. They are not carrying out a controlled act to move the crowd back, they are simply trying to break heads. At 36 seconds you can see them baton a guy with a camera facing away from them. That is unjustifable. They are not using controled violence, otherwise why hit the press photographer facing away? He is no danger to them and is not part of the crowd. Force is a last resort. Not a first one. The photographer lies on the floor until the police line moves back again (what was the point in the charge if it wasnt to dominate new ground?), when some one finally helps him up.

In the next video, the police impose Section 14 of the Public Order act to make the press go away for “about half an hour.”  Two big issues with this.

First off – why? Why did the senior office want the press out of view? Was it to calm the protesters down? (unlikely) or was it to remove public oversight of the police behaviour? We may never know.

Secondly – section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 provides police the power to impose conditions on assemblies “to prevent serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community.” It is not a lawful use of the act to make the press move on. This act is often misused by the police so its almost understandable that they would try to misuse it here. However, how can they not have known better? Did the senior officer on the ground really think it was an appropriate use of Sect 14 powers? If so, why isnt he being sent away for retraining? Were the police just trying their luck to see if they could make the pesky press go away, hoping most wouldnt question the legality? Again we may never know.

In all, this has been a long rant (sorry) but it is infuriating that we accept this behaviour from the representatives of the public. How can we live in a free democracy while this goes on?

EDITED TO ADD: Sadly I posted this rant before I saw an excellent version written by Alun over on Archaeoastronomy. If you havent already read it, get over there now and read. As always, Aluns post is well written and to the point. I especially like his closing remarks: (emphasis mine)

policing cannot happen without the consent of a community. Otherwise it’s just a paramilitary occupation. The video shows plenty of witnesses in yellow jackets. If they won’t assist the law, who will?

Well said.

Wow, breaking news brought to us by the BBC reveals that Cleopatra was, wait for it, of african descent! It seems that the in-depth research of the 1963 blockbuster Cleopatra was wrong and the queen of Egypt was not actually a white caucasian but was native to Eqgypt. Amazing claims like this needs some fantastic research. Fortunately the headline news on the BBC rewards us:

Cleopatra, the last Egyptian Pharaoh, renowned for her beauty, was part African, says a BBC team which believes it has found her sister’s tomb.

Wow. Knock me down with a feather. It gets better:

But remains of the queen’s sister Princess Arsinoe, found in Ephesus, Turkey, indicate that her mother had an “African” skeleton.
Experts have described the results as “a real sensation.”

Amazing. An African skeleton… How could Liz Taylor have got it so wrong only 45 years ago. Do we need to re-cast and re-film an entire generation of epic movies? Next you will be telling me Jesus wasn’t a tall, blue eyed, blonde haired Caucasian.

Actually, I cant keep it up. This is mind numbingly insane.

First off: Who is actually surprised that Egypt is in Africa? Seriously, anyone? This is a news item that basically says “Egyptian Queen is part African.” Is it really that quiet a news day? (no). This is the Online BBC news that ignored seven hours of riots and petrol bombs in Lurgan, Northern Ireland (despite coverage being in the newspapers). This is the online BBC news that is regularly a day behind unfolding events. It is obviously wasting too much time writing copy for the department of the BLOODY OBVIOUS.

Secondly: No one is disputing Cleopatra’s lineage coming from Alexander’s generals and being predominantly Greek. However, the idea that this remained purely Greek (Macedonian?) after the first generation is simply batshit insane. Yes there was a huge amount of inbreeding, and most royal marriages were with Greek nobles, but over 250 years without allowing locals into the bloodline is unlikely. That would have been news worthy.

Thirdly: In my limited archaological knowledge, WTF does “african bones” mean? Is this 19th century casual racism where its thought that the darkies have a different genetic makeup to us “white people?”  What on Earth is there about the bones that make them “african” rather than Egyptian or Greek? Seriously, WTF!

There has been some reluctance of late for this blog to attack the blinding madness that the BBC is pushing out, mainly because it puts us in the same camp as the Daily Wail, but this is a step too far.

The BBC has seriously lost any sense of what is, or isnt, news. This is thinly veiled advertising for a BBC program of dubious merit. Shame on the BBC and I want them to refund what ever portion of my licence fee went towards this drivel.

A minor explosion of middle-class parenting angst (I reckon it’s their hormones) has followed the Myerson saga. For instance, families are now being torn apart by the skunk epidemic, according to the Observer. Yes, that was the Observer, not the Daily Mail. I checked. (Disease metaphors for society. Don’t you just love them?)

“It is the end of a taboo: articulate, middle-class parents are speaking out about the nightmare of seeing their children spiral into drug abuse and, all too often, mental illness. Many blame themselves for staying silent, assuming that modern strains of cannabis were little different from the pot that baby boomers smoked at college. The reality is very different” (from the Observer)

I’m going to skip past the embedded semiotics, because it’s boring and pretty blatant. (e.g. “at college” – the politician’s way of trying to imply a merging of excusable youthful folly and underlying respectability; “articulate middle class” as if no one else’s experience counts, and so on.) Basically, some “baby boomers” have grown old, changed their views and some have privileged access to the media. In the way of the world, they have become their parents, but – hopelessly self-indulgent – they don’t want to acknowledge this or accept that they themselves might have ever made mistakes. it was only purely innocent substances they didn’t inhale. So, it’s just the next generation who must be wrong.

A commenter (called ILoveMaxGogarty ) on Anne Perkins’ Guardian article made a sarcastic reference to the “skunk pandemic.” Great phrase.

But that particular moral panic is just one in the pandemic of pandemics that we are apparently facing. Alcohol and obesity are perennial favourites. Barely a day goes by without some hand-wringing and new initiative to deal with these. Both can apparently be addressed by taxing the poor more.

For example, there are plans for a minimum alcohol price and doctors calling for a chocolate tax.

Clearly, if you’re well off enough to pay more for alcohol and sweets, they don’t harm you. But , if you aren’t well off, they are really quite dangerous. I think we should follow this idea to its logical conclusion then. No tax on vintage champagnes or hand-made Swiss chocolates. £1000% taxes on cider and own-brand chocolate-flavour biscuits.

Ignore the complex combination of biological, psychological and social factors that shape our behaviour. Every social ill can be solved by blaming the victims, spending money on advertising and taxing the poor more.

Modern “epidemics” are so strange. These are the only epidemics where you can happily blame the victims, even express contempt for them without anyone thinking that you are morally reprehensible. It seems that we actually eat fewer calories than people did 50 years ago (according to the Office of National Statistics.)

But we can still view “obese” people as ravening gluttons, who deserve to die because of their sinfulness. And see ourselves as “good” because we didn’t take a slice of cake.

If only these medical ideas had been around in the middle ages. If only the rich had just taxed the peasants more heavily, the Black Death could have been eliminated. Ah, I understand now that the feudal landlords have been greatly misunderstood. They were really taxing the peasants on health grounds, to avoid the dangers of millet-related obesity or mead-binges. Throwing recalcitrant peasants off their land probably even qualifies as tough love, even.

There are more than enough depressing/infuriating/worrying news items to rant about here – climate change; wars; torture; erosion of civil liberties; random shootings; economic chaos; and so on ad nauseam. Which is why it’s all the more satisfying to be able to indulge in a completely irrelevant piece of spleen-venting, about someone that I’ll never meet and about a subject that is of no importance to the rest of the world.

Julie Myerson is a well-paid and successful writer who threw out her 17-year-old son, leaving him homeless and penniless. Then she wrote a novel about him and what a bad lot he was. Which got loads of publicity (to which I am foolishly contributing) as it turned out that lad, now 19, was less than pleased. It was also revealed in today’s Guardian that she was also the writer of a drivelly column (in the routinely unread Family Saturday supplement) about living with teenagers.

Her excuse for this throwing-a-child-on-the-street action – which would surely have brought normal people to the attention of Social Services – was his alleged addiction to smoking weed. (I kid you not)

Since then, she has been in all the tabloids. Her stance has been seen by some as “tough love” and plenty of other parents have been moved to tell their stories in the media. In the course of this media spectacle, the boy has even been allowed to express some of his feelings about his adolescence having being treated as book-promoting fodder.

Unfortunately, he’s not a professional writer so he hasn’t had the privileged access to the media. He’s only been able to talk about what the theft of his life has meant. He hasn’t been able to discuss how he feels about being so massively let down by the people who were supposed to care for him, for instance. Unlike his mother, he hasn’t been interviewed sympathetically on shows like BBC Breakfast. Unlike his mother, he’s the one whose prospects of getting accepted – by his peers, potential employers, and so on – as an autonomous adult have been shattered.

Now, this letter in today’s Guardian expressed, much better than I can, exactly what you would assume any sane person would feel about this, so I’m repeating it in full:

I worked for many years as a child psychologist and never came across any examples of severe behavioural problems in adolescents caused by cannabis use. What I did come across constantly were adults with appalling parenting skills who wished to attribute their children’s behavioural difficulties to food additives, ADHD, peer-group pressures or anything else which might distract from their own responsibility for the situation. Some teenagers do indeed become hard to handle as they get older. Some lose interest in satisfying their parents’ aspirations. Some listen to loud music. In general trying to get along with them as best one can and making sure they get plenty to eat is the best policy. Splattering complaints all over the media, inventing addictions and throwing the young person onto the streets is generally less successful. I would not recommend any parent to take the Myerson’s advice on bringing up children.
(from Greg McMillanrey Edinburgh)(I added the bold)

But this seems to be something of a minority view. For instance, A Smith says

I would like to thank Julie Myerson for having the courage to talk about an ordeal that is shared by probably thousands of loving families in this country.

Well, Julie, here’s some “tough love” from me – OK, this might just seem like unsought destructive verbal abuse, but I may have to refer to “pots” and “kettles.” (”You can dish it out but you can’t take it” and so on.)

When I saw you on today’s BBC Breakfast, I instantly thought how much I would hate to be trapped in a lift with you. You seemed completely self-obsessed, not to mention on the verge of a breakdown. You seemed so manically self-justifying, that I would have been sympathetic, were it not for the fact that you still don’t understand that you have done anything wrong to your son. You were just having a “me, me, poor me” fest. It was disturbing and baffling that people were emailing and ringing to support you, as if lots of shit parents were trying to block their innate awareness of their responsibilities by all joining in to make the blatant shittiness seem normal.

I can’t believe that you ever took your son’s real feelings into account at any stage in his life. I think you and your husband can’t relate to anything that doesn’t fit into your “perfect family” fantasy world. (Oh, we’re such a wacky family! Aren’t we lovably chaotic? So child-centred. We’re always pushed for time. And our teenagers swear! Tee Hee! And it all revolves around ME. )

As soon as your son started becoming an adolescent, it threatened your control of this imaginary world. So you scapegoated him for pretty average adolescent behaviour, then you decided that there was no blame to be attached anywhere except for the fact that he smoked weed.

Picking on one family member and making them bear the responsibility for any conflict in the home is using a scapegoat to dump all your own problems. This is pretty disgusting bullying in any circumstance. It’s indefensible if you do it to your own kids. Why did you give birth, ffs, if you weren’t going to respect your offspring?

Emotional abuse is emotional abuse, no matter how middle-class and well-paid you are and no matter how skillful you are at using the media to carry out your abuse and to collude in it, it’s still abuse.

These are all real headlines from today’s BBC website. (These are pretty horrific news items, which makes the headlines seem even more crass. And my mockery even more so, I guess.)

Ape academic shot dead in Ecuador
(In your face, creationists. This proves that apes are so close to us that they even have their own universities.)
Turkey plane crashes in Holland
(Flightless birds forced to develop aviation skills, to escape from Bernard Matthews clutches before next Christmas.)
Tiger attacks trigger expert plea
(In court today, a ballistics technician’s claim to be “Not guilty” was destroyed by a forceful wildcat prosecutor)
*******
Late amendment, the BBC heading now says “Turkish plane crash in Amsterdam ” thus making an apparent liar of me. But, I will choose to take the credit instead.