Whit walking

Posted on Sun, 11 May, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

This is Whit Sunday. Saturday’s Face to Faith, in the Guardian, confusingly said that Easter lasts seven weeks and includes Whit/Pentecost. (I see I’m too much of a heathen to have realised that it’s still Easter. )

Whitsun is such an impressive name for a festival. It’s like “Walpurgisnacht.” I am impelled to Google it.

Pentecost is also known as “Whitsun” (or “Whit Sunday”) in the United Kingdom. The week beginning on Whit Sunday is called “Whitsuntide” (formerly also spelled “Whitsontide”) or “Whitsun Week”. The term is derived from Middle English whitsonday, from Old English hw?ta sunnandæg, “White Sunday”, in reference to the white ceremonial robes formally worn on this day. An alternative derivation is from “Wit” or “Wisdom” Sunday, the day when the Apostles were filled with wisdom by the Holy Spirit (Wikipedia)

Bugger the “alternative derivation.” A festival that still bears an Anglo-Saxon name impresses the hell out of me.

The only two other Germanic languages to name this holiday ‘Whitsunday’ are Faroese and Icelandic, where it is called Hvítusunnudagur and Hvítasunnudagur (White-Sunday), respectively. (Wikipedia again)

So Whit seems to be a very Far-Northern-European holiday. Indeed, even within England, it’s very much a Northern thing. Whit Walks are still held in Lancashire on Whit Friday, a Day I had certainly never heard of before. ( It’s the Friday after Whitsunday. ) They involve parades, with brass bands and women wearing white dresses.

As far as I can make out, Whit Walks are a folk custom from the years of early industrialisation. (Spinning the Web. ) They have been held in the mill areas around Manchester (and in Yorkshire) since about 1800. Showing off new spring clothes seems to be a crucial part of the ritual.

Oldham and Saddleworth Whit Friday website has a 1961 photo that looks as if it was taken in Fairyland,.

Ethereal Gothic novel style heroine; slightly spooky children and Les Dawson style matriarchs, wearing hats and gloves. Wow. I admit to being less enamoured of the Brass Band Competition stuff. I love the whole idea of it. I just don’t enjoy the sound of brass instruments, especially in a mass format.

Where do these traditions come from? Internet sources tend to stress the “clothes” wearing thing, either as an opportunity for mill-owners to show off their products or as part of the survival strategies of the poor.

One of the traditions of the Whit Walks is for those taking part to wear new clothes for the occasion. In harder times this was something to look forward to as children would rarely get new clothes, more often receiving handed-down clothes from older siblings or relations. …..
Another custom, still in practice, is for people watching the walk from the pavement to look out for people they know taking part in the walk and to run forward and give them money (From Ashton-under- Lyne.com)

I must say, I’m not convinced by the “advertising” explanation. The Lancashire mills produced cotton for much of the world, rather than for a few Lancashire villagers. Industrialisation was invented there, ffs. I can’t imagine any branding benefit that cotton-mill owners would gain from passing out free clothing to people who couldn’t afford to buy more and who would only be parading their wares in front of equally poor people.

In any case, I am still baffled about the origin of the Whit walks. Were they rural customs brought to the city by the peasants who had turned machine-minders? Nowhere else in England seems to have such a tradition. The medieval Whitsun tradition that is most often mentioned on the Internet involves ale. (Like most medieval traditions, basically. Oh, and that would be most modern festivals, too. )

A site called homely divinity does mention walking in the context of Whitsun tradition.

“… the custom of walking barefoot through the dewy grass on Whitsunday morning.”.

(That magic May dew strikes again.)

The site talks about other notable medieval aspects of Whitsun – decorating churches with greenery and using purpose-built deus ex machina devices to release doves in church. Morris dancing. Wow. Morris dancing. Keep your brass bands, give me Morris dancing.

And the “Green Man”:

Carvings of the Green Man appear in British churches beginning in the 12th century. His prototype, of course, is much older. His origins are to be found in the ancient god of the woodlands who was known as Sylvanus by the Romans and Cernunnos by the Celts and was related to Dionysos, the Greek god of the vine and its fruit. ……

So, granting this site an unearned unspuriousness (because it suits me at the moment…) Whit is just another old non-Christian festival with a Christian overlay. (Well, duh. ) It’s a bit sad that all that exuberant May celebration stuff, like Maypoles and Morris dancing dwindled to a sedate walk in a white dress, but still, it’s something. Respect, Oldham & Saddleworth, Bolton, Manchester, Ashton-under-Lyne, et al.

Cultic transformations.

Posted on Sat, 10 May, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

Disturbing news story that qualifies for today’s new “You couldn’t make this stuff up and I don’t mean that in a good way” award. No prizes.

This week there have been more than enough horrors, such as the Burmese cyclone, that numb your responses with the numbers of dead and injured. As well as the more chilling and incomprehensible stories like the Austrian who kept his daughter locked in cellar for a quarter century and a German couple whose grown children found they had three dead babies in their freezer.

This latest mad “heart of darkness” tale brings in religion as well.

The BBC report says:

A Czech woman charged with deceiving a children’s home into thinking she was a 13-year-old girl has been found not guilty by a court in the city of Brno.
The court said Barbora Skrlova, who along with five others is believed to belong to a secretive cult, meant no ill-will towards the children’s home.
But Ms Skrlova, aged 33, was immediately re-arrested to face more serious charges of child abuse.
Ms Skrlova went on the run after the child abuse case erupted.
She re-appeared months later in Norway, where she posed as a 13-year-old boy.

Blimey. Hypnotised like a hen on a chalk line, I must find out more.

Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, I’ve looked at the development of this story in Czech.
25/05/07 A boy was taken into care after mind-numbingly horrific levels of abuse. So was his 13-year-old “sister” who the mother was trying to adopt. But she turned out to be a 34-year-old woman. (Well, the Czech paper says 34. Ages seem very fluid in this story. )

14/01/07 Woman posing as child may have fallen victim to strange sect

The mysterious case of the Czech woman charged with identity fraud after posing as a 12-year old girl in the Czech Republic and a 13-year old boy in Norway has shocked and baffled the nation. Czech investigators are slowly piecing together the picture of her life and there are serious indications that she was a victim of a sect whose members made a profit from child-abuse films.
Barbora Škrlová as a 13-year old boy,
The strange case first surfaced when Barbora Škrlová was found living with a woman who tortured her two young boys. Škrlová, then living in the family under the guise of their 12-year-old sister Ani?ka, was put in a children’s home where she duped social workers into believing they were dealing with a stricken, abused child. Ani?ka fled the home and disappeared for many months surfacing unexpectedly in Norway last week where she had been living and attending school under the guise of a 13-year-old boy.
Is this strange figure – at the centre of a frightening child-abuse case – a criminal or a victim? Teachers and social workers who knew her in the Czech Republic and Norway say she appeared withdrawn, unbalanced and may herself have a history of abuse. Marie Vodi?ková head of the Czech Fund for Children in Need says it seems that she was most likely abused as a child and then turned into an obedient puppet by a sect which may have made a profit from making and selling child-abuse films. There is at least one direct piece of evidence to support this theory – the torture of one of her alleged brothers was documented day and night by a professional camera system. Both boys showed signs of abuse – cigarette burns in their genital regions and numerous welts and bruises. The children said they had been tortured by several members and “friends” of the family.

She appeared “unbalanced”? Oh the beauty of understatement.

Škrlová’s teacher in Norway says she decided to contact the Norwegian police after the alleged 13-year-old boy painted a picture showing seven children all bruised and bleeding and each with a number.

Her biological father

“who is believed to be the head of this strange sect once led a religious group called The Ants which splintered off from the Holy Grail Movement centred in Europe. Czech experts on religious sects say that whatever is going on in this terrifying community, it is unchartered territory because there is no known sect in Europe involved in child identity fraud. What is particularly worrisome is that this strange case came to light by pure accident when a neighbour of one of the abused boys got a glimpse of him bound and naked in a closet – on his own baby monitoring device.

(I have to drop any pretence of having read this in the original language. It’s all from the English version)

According to the July 2007 Independent

The Grail Movement follows the teachings of Oskar Ernst Bernhardt, a German also known as Abd-ru-shin, who from 1923-38 wrote the Grail Message, which depicts man as a being whose spirit can return to its source in heaven by performing good deeds on Earth. It claims to have at least 10,000 followers worldwide, including several hundred in Britain.
“We broke with the people involved in this 11 years ago, after they added to the Grail Message with their own imaginings and fantasies,” said Artur Zaplukal, spokesman of the Grail Movement in the Czech Republic, where it has about 1,500 followers. “I sent them a letter telling them they were no longer part of the Grail Movement.”

So these weird people are a a break-away movement considered too eccentric even by an apparently off-the-wall cult.

Just when you think you can understand a bit of this, the Independent threw in a few more odd facts, such as the fact that Barbora – of indeterminate age and gender and apparently parentage – is the second cult member to have masqueraded as “Anna” the “girl” that the woman who tortured her own sons wanted to adopt.

Arrgh. My head hurts…… How many dangerously more insane cults are there?

My own blacklist

Posted on Thu, 8 May, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

It’s going beyond boring to keep plugging this “1984 in the 21st century” stuff, so I’ve been willfully blanking lots of it, but this story is too chilling to ignore.

Just think of every shitty boss you’ve ever worked for. Every dishonest co-worker. Every work dispute you’ve ever had. Every manager who’s made you take the rap for their own corruption or stupidity.

Now, just imagine that the aforementioned shitty bosses could get a lifelong revenge on you at no inconvenience or risk to themselves.

The BBC story says:

Workers accused of theft or damage could soon find themselves blacklisted on a register to be shared among employers. It will be good for profits but campaigners say innocent people could find it impossible to get another job.To critics it sounds like a scenario from some Orwellian nightmare.
An online database of workers accused of theft and dishonesty, regardless of whether they have been convicted of any crime, which bosses can access when vetting potential employees.
But this is no dystopian fantasy. Later this month, the National Staff Dismissal Register (NSDR) is expected to go live.

Note that you don’t get on this database by being convicted of a crime. That would see you on the Criminal Records Bureau computer, which – for all its shortcomings – requires there to have been a prosecution before you find yourself unable to work ever again.

You can get on this database just because someone suspects you of doing something untoward in their employment. Or, obviously, just hates you for any number of reasons.

The Trades Union Congress spokesperson said:

Individuals would be treated as criminals, even though the police have never been contacted

Precisely, thus overturning centuries of law based on the “innocent till proven guilty” premise.

For once, the comments on this story on the BBC website aren’t dominated by the “If you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear” battalion. Most commenters were understandably horrified and made some cogent arguments against it.

I’m still going to hammer a few of the arguments home.

A dispute with an employer can now permanently ruin your entire working life, even if you are completely in the right.
In many industries – bar and shop work – unjustified accusations of theft are pretty commonplace. Things get stolen or takings are down and a paranoid boss tends to blame anyone handy.
People who are stealing at work can be very good at casting the burden of doubt on other workers, especially if they are new or temporary. (A fortnight’s temporary work as a naive student could leave you so unemployable that you might as well not finish that course.)
If you are guilty, you might as well not bother going straight in future jobs because you won’t get any.
The private information to be held on these databases must contravene the Data UnProtection Act as it’s obviously not being used for the purposes it is collected for. (For instance, your NI number is supposed to exist to allow your contributions to be credited to you. )
The BBC article refers to some remedies under the law. They are too feeble to even merit a mention. And in case, they are purely personal. You yourself have to find out if you’re on the database. You have to ask for your record. You then have to require that errors of fact be corrected.
If you have anything against you – legitimate or not – as a UK citizen, you are at a big disadvantage in working in the UK, compared to other EC nationals. You need checkable references, legitimate qualifications and, increasingly, CRB checks. I suggest that you move to another EC country forthwith, so you can make up a few past jobs and some impressive trade qualifications, which no one will be able to question. Imagine you are a builder who has got caught taking home some bathroom fittings (pretty much seen as one of the perks of the job until recently.) That’s it. You’re sacked. You’re also finished up as a worker in the UK. Your job will go to someone with a completely spotless UK record – which probably means someone fresh from Eastern Europe. I can’t believe that free movement of labour in the EU was meant to allow countries – like the present-day UK – to willfully marginalise their own populations.

On a social – but also very selfish level – who wants to live in a world where one mistake – or one falsely attributed mistake – dooms people to a life in which legitimate earnings are just a pipe-dream? That is the way to turn the country into a crime-ridden wasteland. As the UK goes under ever more extreme lock down, life gets ever more desperate for the people outside of Daily-Mail world.

Boycotts are generally feeble tools for achieving anything. All the same, as far as I can see, the only possible recourse against this sort of thing – in the absence of any organised public concern – is to just refuse to buy any goods or services from the offending companies.

So I’m starting my own blacklist.

The BBC mentions Harrods, Selfridges and Reed Managed Services. They’ll do for a start, although that’s too easy. Never having used the services of any of these companies, it won’t make much of a dint in their balance sheets if I decide to boycott them. All the same great oaks, small acorns etc.

When I find out the names of more participants, I’ll post them here.

Ebay and pay more

Posted on Thu, 8 May, 2008 by ATGW

Now, given that this blog has an amazingly technical readership (who often put Heather and me to shame) it will probably come as no surprise to most of you that Ebay is actually a more expensive way of buying things. However, it was a bit of a shock to me.

Today, I was looking around for books on the CISSP course and out of idle curiosity I did a search for CISSP for dummies (yeah, yeah). On ebay today, the cheapest I could find was £13.99 plus £2.75 postage (visit auction page – auction ends 12 May 08 so the link might die).

Compare against Amazon.co.uk where the same book costs £13.49 plus £2.75 postage (here).

Now this is a trivial example, and most people wouldn’t bat an eyelid over saving 50p (I would but that is because no one ever makes donations here and I am poor). However, if we look at it a bit further…

Ebay has the CISSP Exam Cram 2 book available as a Buy It Now for the discounted price of £21.37 plus £2.75 postage. Can Amazon beat that?

Well, yes. On Amazon, the CISSP Exam Cram 2 is £14.99 (postage seems to be a grey area here but I think it will be £2.75). That is no mere £0.50 saving, that is a whopping £6.38.

There is a change in the balance of power over the CISSP all in one exam guide (Ebay, Amazon) where Ebay is actually about £3 cheaper, but by and large you actually pay for the privilege of using Ebay. It strikes me, from talking to all the ebayers I know, that people have a strange attitude towards Ebay. When people go to shop there, the idea of checking prices becomes alien.

For some reason, people seem to get caught in some weird mindset when they are faced with an auction and apparently regularly pay prices close to, or in excess of, the market rate for an item. I have experienced this a bit in the past when I’ve been bidding on cameras or camera parts – I have never won a single auction because almost every one of them has gone over the price you could buy it from a camera shop.

Why on Earth does Ebay have this effect on people? Great for sellers but, methinks, not so good for the buyer…

Faith Blinds

Posted on Wed, 7 May, 2008 by ATGW

(Old news from the department of simple answers)

My time away has meant that some of the weird and wonderful nonsense over the last few weeks has escaped the harsh light of reality. Take this little blinder posted by Joanna Sugden to the Times Online on 2 May 08.

The article is titled: “Is the Bible science fiction?”

Simple answer: “Yes” (Or slight variation: “No, it is fantasy fiction”)

Why is there any need for more debate? Strangely, debate there is… As you can imagine, the article talks about “debate” as to the veracity of Noah’s Ark. It seems that some people over the age of six actually think that two of every species on Earth was crammed into the Ark to survive a world flood. Wonderfully, IMDB list a film about this under “Science Fiction Literature” which I think is a GoodThing™.
Equally great is the predictable response of the loonies.

The first to kick it off is Rick Beekman who is certainly a “person of faith” (and, I suspect with no real evidence, an American):

I believe the story of Noah’s Ark. I also believe all the stories in The Bible.
The ones who don’t believe it are the usual group of scoffers..Atheists..Secular Humanists.Those Who generally think everything has an Explanation based on their worldly but non-spiritual understanding of Events in the Bible they deem “Impossible”.

Word salad. This is nothing but an assertion of his belief with an appeal to ridicule against anyone who disagrees. The unusual capitalisation is always a good sign of a nutjob – I hope he doesn’t have access to firearms. After this start, he continues:

The reason for these stories is to teach we lowly humans what God has done..And what he can and will do.

Scary. I find myself agreeing with the insane. Dear Toutatis save me. Actually, the bit I agree with is the reason of the story. They are not supposed to be factual representations of the past. They are there to “teach” (for want of a better word) people about their belief system. This subtle fact is lost on Rick – despite the fact he worded it in quite a good way, I suppose that was just chance. (Monkeys, typewriters…) Anyway, after a bit more drivel he finishes off:

In Genesis 8 v 4 we read where the Ark rested upon Mt. Ararat as the waters receded.
Sattelite Photos confirm taken in 1972 that something very large is encased in Ice on top of that Mountain.
How could any large Ship get up there unless Water rested it there as The Bible says?

WTF? Seriously, what sort of insane leap of faith is this? How did “something” become a “large ship” in the space of a full stop? Quantum physics be damned! (Why is water capitalised?) Critically, why have none of the ultra rich evangelical groups over the world got a more recent ultra high res photograph to confirm – or just gone there on an expedition? Madness like this gives me a headache.

My faith in human nature is restored by a run of sensible comments, but then Rick returns:

John;
God our Creator can do whatever he pleases. He usually does things to suit his purposes not necessarily for what we think. He knows The end from the beginning. God could have chosen to just let everyone drop dead except the chosen animals etc and of course Noah and his family. There is no human now or past or in the future who is any match for the Wisdom and creator.

Ah the way of the madness runs true in this one. This at least shows there is no science in the bible or in creationism. Basically this is Rick saying he doesn’t care what feeble evidence there is, he knows his Invisible Friend can do things other people can’t. Well done Rick. There are seven year olds kicking themselves in shame at this…

More sensible refutations are made – thank Heimdall for the human race – then someone called CESEELEY chimes up with their own brand of wisdom:

One of the main points of stories like Noah’s Ark is to help one from the Old Testament into the New Testament so that one will learn to walk in the Spirit after being Born Again, Baptized and given the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Ah, here come the erratic capital letters. Wonderful. Still it is all gibberish.

Our bodies were designed by God to be guided by the Holy Spirit. That is what those scripture about the Holy Temple imply.

Eh? Is this going anywhere? This is more drivel – why use 1 word to say something when eight hundred and ninety four will do… Comments on Times Online are moderated so a human actually decided this was relevant enough to the thread to let through (and about 50% of mine get knocked back… hmmm).

If you want to experience the more Abundant Life that Christ promised and have become Born Again and Baptized by immersion, then start taking Roman 12:1-2 seriously in your life so that you can prove what is God’s perfect will for your life as compared to His permissive will.

Ok, I’ll stop here. It doesn’t get any better. It is just a string of meaningless drivel with little relevance to the topic other than it seems to want every one to become a Born Again lunatic. I am a touch confused about his “perfect will” being different from his “permissive will” though…

Not to be out lunatic’d, Rick returns:

To All;
Seems I am the only one on this thread who believes the Story of Noah And His Ark.

God, I hope so…

I guess God Really did’nt ask Adam to name all the animals Either..(Genesis 2 verses 19 & 20).

Well done for taking a step in the right direction. Why did God let Adam name the echnida such a bloody awkward name? Oh right, he didn’t because Adam would never have seen one..

According to the “Experts” on this thread there is no possible way God could have brought all the animals to Adam from all over so Adam could name them.

Erm, yep. See, after a while everyone starts to agree with the lunatics.

Another one has stated the story of the flood is a Babylonian myth.

Yes, some one did state that. I thought they were being charitable instead of just calling Rick insane. Obviously Rick just likes using words, because he doesn’t even try to refute the claims any more – he just repeats them. He does, however, save the best till last:

I Just Wanted All Of You To Know All Of You Are Dead Wrong…But the Good News Is I’m Not Upset And Love All Of You!!

Wonderful. Don’t you just love the shift key… How would we spot lunatics without it.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

Posted on Wed, 7 May, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

Francis of Assisi. Hmm, what does Wikipedia say about him? “…Francis was inspired to devote himself to a life of poverty…..” He founded the Franciscan order which is pretty well synonymous with the concept of monastic poverty, in the face of the incredible wealth amassed by the other medieval monastic orders.

So, it’s a mite odd to find that, according to the Times

Armed guards brought in to protect Assisi church from beggars

Armed security guards have been brought in for the first time to protect visitors to the Franciscan church of Santa Maria degli Angeli at Assisi from “beggars, tramps and gypsies” who “disturb the peace of a place of prayer”…..
Claudio Ricci, mayor of Assisi and a member of Forza Italia, the party led by Silvio Berlusconi, said the friars’ decision to employ guards was in line with a new local ordinance cracking down on illegal immigrants, many of them Roma gypsies….

After all, those irritating poor people might be benefitting from the charitable impulses of the faithful, before they’ve unburdened themselves of worldly wealth in the church’s collection boxes. Leaving that much less to give to the Church. Even when the church in question is supposedly founded on concern for the poor.

(Some of which donated wealth is clearly going to be spent on paying armed security guards to drive away the irritatingly poor….. It’s almost pleasingly circular)

New Franciscan rule: Give to the wealthy.

And here’s a further story, which may seem slightly reminiscent of the above news item to anyone familiar with the history of the British Labour Party.

The Times Rich List shows that:

The richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth quadruple under Labour, according to The Sunday Times Rich List published today. Even under Gordon Brown’s brief premiership their fortunes have soared by 15%, just as the financial squeeze and faltering house prices have hit ordinary people.

Or, perhaps more pertinently for “ordinary people,” rising costs for food, utilities and local taxes. At the same time, the tax system has been changed to take more income tax from the lowest-paid, while everyone else pays less. (The government has promised rebellious Labour MPs that it will put this tax thing right but not yet explained how it’s going to work)

A new candidate for the Beatitudes: Blessed are the rich for they shall always get more.

If it doesnt work, keep trying

Posted on Wed, 7 May, 2008 by ATGW

(From the department of tastelessly picking on the distraught and clueless)

The ever comical Sunday Times has picked up on Kate McCann showing that, despite all the evidence of human history and the immediate evidence of the last year of her life, she still has faith…

In an article titled “‘Pray like mad,’ begs tearful Kate McCann” she apparently broke down in tears at a church and urged the congregation to pray for her daughter’s return. Now, I haven’t lived on another planet this last year, so I am aware that barely has a week gone by without something from the McCann PR Machine alternately proclaiming their innocence while begging everyone pray for the return of Maddie. It is a regular occurrence.

Despite all this, despite the prayers of almost every Christian (and lots of other faiths), despite the intercession of the Pope himself, Maddie McCann is not back.

What does this tell us? For the rational it is obvious. Prayer does not work. I am sure most sane people did not need the McCann tragedy to realise that, the evidence of cripples is a good start. The same is not true of the “faithful.” These seems to be a batch of people who will deliberately fight against the evidence of their senses. For them, a years worth of praying hasn’t worked just means “pray more” and “pray harder.” Is God deaf? Has old age made him hard of hearing? Does he have a Prayer-ometer and he only acts when it gets to a certain level?

On a more general note, maybe the McCanns just have it wrong. Millions of children die or go missing the world over. Why should God listen to their selfish whining for more prayers over the prayers of (insert random other child here)?

Still, it isn’t just their belief in magic that seems weird to the sane. Look at this:

In an interview before the anniversary the couple revealed they had been given
new hope in the search by the “massive” response to their appeal for fresh
information last week.

Their team of private investigators are combing hundreds of recorded calls and
e-mails for further leads.

Gerry said: “The lines have been overwhelmed; we’ve had to call additional
operators in.

What? Despite this massive response and huge amount of expenditure (they are approaching the financial turn over of a reasonable company now), they are no closer to catching the killer than they were a year ago. They spend more money on private eyes (and mediums but that is another story) than a normal police force. Yet they are still no closer.

Kate recently viewed footage from last year and said she could not recognise
herself.

Yeah, interesting. I wonder if coaching has anything to do with it.

The ultimate irony of this latest round of the McCann media train returns once more to poor old Robert Murat. Before you read on, remember the McCanns have a huge legal defence fund and are willing to sue at the slightest hint that they may have been involved…

Brian Kennedy, the home improvements tycoon backing the McCanns, admitted
yesterday that he flew to Portugal last November and spent an evening with
Robert Murat, apart from the McCanns the only other official suspect. A
source close to Kennedy said he was “gathering information”.

Kennedy’s lawyer, Ed Smethurst, approached Murat through a mutual friend and
said that Kennedy wanted to offer him a job.

But the job offer never transpired. Kennedy spent the evening with Murat and
his lawyers at his aunt’s house in Praia da Luz, discussing Madeleine’s
disappearance.

He left with a “flea in his ear” after being confronted over reports that
Metodo 3, the McCanns’ private investigators, had suspicions about Murat.

By Thor’s ear! The Portuguese police suspicions of the McCanns aren’t enough to avoid a court case, but a PI having “suspicions” is enough to get a rich financier to stage a fake interview so he can put a “flea in the ear” of someone who has less evidence against him than the McCanns.

Wrong. This is just plain wrong. Who said money can’t buy you justice.

Traffic safety or surveillance?

Posted on Mon, 5 May, 2008 by ATGW

Any road user in the UK will know about the hordes of traffic cameras all over the country. These wonderful things are supposed to be there to prevent people from speeding – basically they are set up to trigger if you go past at a speed that is above the limit for that stretch of road. If you speed past one, it takes your photo and you get fine & penalty points through the post.

I am not going to use this post to complain about how they don’t actually prevent speeding and are little more than income generation for the local council. That is a rant for another day.

This rant is about the nature of the cameras themselves.

The idea as sold to the population is that this is not “surveillance” of the public (Thor knows we have enough CCTV for that) and photographs of vehicles would only be taken if they exceeded a certain speed (generally the speed limit +10%). However, a comical item on the BBC seems to show a difference.

Leaving aside the whining, simpsonesque “wont anybody think of the children” rant, the concern I have is why on Earth did this camera take a picture of a vehicle that wasn’t speeding? Why was a speed camera recording images of a non-speeding vehicle so the police could dream up other charges?

Welcome to 1984… (again)

Hitler was no Atheist

Posted on Mon, 5 May, 2008 by ATGW

(Hat tip Pharyngula)

For all those sensible people infuriated by the claims that Hitler was an atheist…

The text reads:

“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life” (‘My New Order‘, Adolf Hitler, Proclamation of the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933)

The Nazis burned books trying to teach evolution.

Does all this sound familiar?

Protect and serve

Posted on Sun, 4 May, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

From our “Words Fail in the 21st Century” Department:

The Malaysian Foreign Ministry has proposed that women travelling abroad will have to have letters from their fathers, husbands or employers permitting them to leave the country.

This story is headed:Proposal to protect ‘fly alone’ women: Have letter will travel
How strange that fly-alone is in quotes but protect isn’t.

What exactly are flying-alone Malaysian women to be protected from?

In a move to stop Malaysian women being duped into carrying drugs for international syndicates, the Foreign Ministry has proposed that all women travelling out of the country alone be required to have a letter from parents or employers.

See, uppity women who dare to get on planes by yourselves. It’s to protect your feeble little minds from being fooled…

“I have submitted this proposal to the Cabinet and both the Foreign and Home Ministries feel this is necessary. Many of these women (who travel alone) leave the country on the pretext of work or attending courses and seminars.
“With this declaration, we will know for sure where and for what she is travelling overseas,” said Rais.
The New Sunday Times has learnt that 119 Malaysians, 90 per cent of whom are women, have been imprisoned in various parts of the world for drug-related offences

Wait a minute – so Malaysian women are pretending to travel to work or courses. I am actually pleased that despite the way the issue is phrased, it seems to be Malaysian women themselves who are actually doing the duping. And the Malaysian government that feels itself duped?

119 Malaysians imprisoned around the world, a hundred-odd of them women. Does that number seem huge enough to justify taking away the rights of all Malaysian women?

Surely, this means there have also been about a dozen Malaysian men imprisoned in other countries. In the interests of justice, I think they deserve the same protection. I think a note from their mothers, wives or bosses would go some small way to keep these fragile easily-fooled creatures from international harm, don’t you?

Lunatics take over asylum

Posted on Fri, 2 May, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

In a triumph for the cult of celeb worship, the ludicrous Boris Johnson seems about to be declared Mayor of London. Words fail.

Ironically, Boris is mainly well-known and well recognised because BBC’s Have I Got News For You adopted him as a panel member. He was basically just there to be mocked as an old-school ex-Etonian Conservative buffoon. He could always be relied upon to say something shockingly preposterous. He was even quite prepared to send himself up, by over-playing his part for the entertainment of the relatively sophisticated audience that Have I Got News For You is aimed at.

Well, that’s certainly backfired. The end-result is that Boris has become an instantly recognisable figure -> a celeb, so, well worthy of the vote that we commoners spent centuries agitating to get…..

That idea that the British understand irony had better be revised pretty fast.

The joke would appear to be on the population of London now.

Happy Birthday, World Wide Web

Posted on Wed, 30 April, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

It’s the 15th birthday of the release of the source code for the World Wide Web, according to the BBC.

Just 15 years. And it’s already almost impossible to remember how we lived before tinterweb.

The first ever web site was http://info.cern.ch. It’s still there (the site not the same web page…) It is pretty rubbish, which is oddly comforting. (No reasonable menu, you can only find the other pages by going to the sitemap, elements don’t fit exactly, in IE6, and they use style attributes in tags instead of the class definition 🙂 ) There’s some screenshots of Tim Berners-Lee’s first browsers, which could give present-day browsers some serious competition.

It links to CERN’s proper site which is brilliant, although most of it is so far over my head that i might as well be reading an umbrella.

The web itself has become indispensable. Especially for finding out anything you want to know – instantly. It’s true that much of what you get is spurious, but the more of us that develop a built-in bullshit detector the better.

And mostly, it’s great that the web has grown so fast precisely because it was designed to be free and open and collaborative The BBC reported Robert Cailliau:

“We had toyed with the idea of asking for some sort of royalty. But Tim wasn’t very much in favour of that.” ………
“If we had put a price on it like the University of Minnesota had done with Gopher then it would not have expanded into what it is now.

(Maybe someone should tell the DRM fanatics.)

Make the trains run on time?

Posted on Sun, 27 April, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

It was a scenario that would have seemed like overkill in an Eastern European border post at the height of the Cold War. At least a dozen uniformed British Transport Police with dogs and backup vehicles in the average-sized mainline trainstation of an insignificant UK provincial city, at tea-time on a Sunday evening.

Doing stop and searches, apparently based on the hunches of the afore-mentioned sniffer dogs. Which apparently were experts in the fine old canine arts of sniffing out “drugs” or people who “look a bit ~~Brazilian~~ Muslim.”

I listened to one father challenging a Transport policewoman about the fact that his teenage son’s details – name, address, date of birth, etc – had been collected to go in a database. …. Despite a search of all the lad’s pockets, socks and so on, not having turned up an aspirin, a knife, a gun or a handy pocket-sized stick of semtex.

The father pointed out that any other time the lad is stopped, the information that pops up will record him as the subject of a drugs/weapons/terror search. Thus setting him off on a path that leads to an identification as somehow having warranted this suspicion.

The policewoman said words to the effect that it was just tough. That’s just the way things are. And no, there was nothing he could do about it. The database entry stands. All the details collected from such stops go into the database of information on – well – close to everybody that they can get information from .

Blimey, I didn’t even realise that British Transport Police had rights of random stop and search. Let alone rights to gather information on people’s names addresses and travel plans. Oh, yes, RIPA. D’oh. It’s probably only an oversight that they didn’t demand DNA.

I am so innocent. Who would have thought that a teenager buying a train ticket, with his parents, could probably be an international drug dealer or a suicide bomber? Well, better to be safe than sorry. Silly me.

A huge policeman came to physically back up the policewoman, in case the father might actually raise his voice, cuss or commit some other subversive act.

At this point, I could see a potential for nothing good to come of it for anyone who wasn’t in uniform, so I sidled off in a cowardly manner…….

A wise rabbi

Posted on Sat, 26 April, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

Rabbi Jonathon Romain wrote a piece in the Guardian against faith schools. This is an unusual view for a minister of a major religion to present. So, a big cheer from this blog.

His argument refers to the danger of isolating children from others of different backgrounds, which he sees as socially divisive:

There is a real danger that the growth in faith schools today will be blamed in 30 years’ time for the social disharmony then. It is not too late to reverse that trend, if we want a society that has diversity within unity, not at the expense of it.”

Preach the Controversy…

Posted on Fri, 25 April, 2008 by ATGW

The nonsense, and false controversy, created by Expelled just seems to never want to go away. In this respect the Discovery Institute really hit on to a winner with what could best be described as a poor first attempt by an art student film. Atheist and science blogs have been discussing the nonsense for what seems like eternity. I cant imagine how anyone could even begin to pay for this amount of publicity but there you go. Sadly, I actually feel that all this furore around the crap film is actually required.

Once upon a time I was optimistic about the human race. In this mindset I would have thought to myself “everyone seeing this film will realise it is total bullshit and ignore it.” I have, sadly, learned to think differently. When nonsense is placed into the public domain it can be either challenged or ignored. By challenging it the nonsense rises to the status of “controversy” and there is (in the public mind at least) the concept of a debate taking place. By ignoring it, the unthinking public begin to think it has merit and it slowly becomes an accepted “truth.” It really is a lose:lose situation for rational science. I can not think of a way to avoid the nonsense taking over the Earth, but at least, where I can, I will try to challenge it.

With this in mind, I came across a gorgeous picture of an American church on flickr. This is a very attractive picture so please, take a moment to visit and have a look – if you have a flickr account, please let the photographer know what you think of the picture (and he has a pretty good photostream).

It all went downhill, however, when I read the description of the picture.

Freedom of thought and expression are two of the most basic tenants of any free society.
Without those two things, you do not have a free society.

Well, I pretty much agree. They may well not be the most basic tenets of society but freedom of expression is very important. On a pedantic note, I cant see how (realistically) you can take away someone’s freedom of thought until mind-reading becomes commonplace.

We went to a must see movie this weekend. In Ben Stein’s (“Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”) new documentary movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed Ben shows how little academic freedom exists in our universities if you want to discuss unpopular topics like the origins of life. (links removed here but intact on the original)

Ouch. And he had got off to such a good start. Notice how this brings in the Creationist stand-by of creating the false associations with “academic freedom” and “unpopular topics”? Creationism / ID relies on trickery to convince the unthinking that it is a legitimate “alternative” and some secret cabal are trying to repress it. The “freedom” word is thrown around whenever someone tries to point out is not science to the extent that the average non-scientist actually thinks it is an oppressed viewpoint. Amazing really.

Much of the academic world thinks that the conversation should be closed because Darwinian Evolution has answered all of those questions… But, is that true????

Another creationist gem. This is a great question because it is massively false. No scientist, especially evolutionary biologists, think the conversation should be closed. That is the claim made by the creationists. However, this 180 degree spin goes a long way to masking that.

If you do not think that is true as a professor, get ready to loose you job. Yes, that politically incorrect thought has been banned in the university… I thought the university was a place of open discussion and thought???? Think again…

And here is the first falsehood. No professor who thinks the question about origins of species is not closed would lose their job. A professor who is so confused about their subject area as to think Creationism is an “alternative” to evolution should lose their job in the same manner that a physics professor who thinks the luminiferous ether exists, and propagates light, should lose their job. Imagine a woodwork teacher who thought you could cut would with butter, should he remain teaching? No. But not because “politically incorrect thought has been banned.”

Further on, as part of a short debate, the photographer comments:

You are exactly what the movie was talking about… you just to creationism the moment that intelligent design is brought up…
and you assume that all tenants of darwinian evolution are true..
and you think they are well defined….
Darwinian evolition is a mess… It is not science in the least…

More weirdness. Creationism is ID. No one assumes all the tenets of “Darwinian Evolution” are true, no one even assumes all the “tenets” of Evolution are true. That is not what science is about. The odd bit is the claim that Evolution is not science… I really struggle to get my head round the idea that people can honestly think Creationism Intelligent Design is “good science” compared to evolution. Where is the falsifiability? Where are the predictions?

After a while others join in the debate with things like this (from an otherwise reasonable person):

All that said, Wayne I completely agree that the way the discussion is silenced in academia is shameful. When scientist trot out the “earth is flat” idea they forget that at one time “scientiist” accepted that idea too. In other words, the commonly accepted “facts” might be wrong.

Argh. Do people honestly think that the academic world should engage in constant debate over all possible alternatives to a scientific theory? When did scientists EVER think the world was flat?

The last point I want to make before I remind everyone to go and look at the picture themselves is based on this:

We know from the second law of thermodynamics (entropy) www.entropylaw.com/ stuff always breaks down and degrades…. macro evoution requires more information to be added to produce more complex things…. second law of thermodynamics directly contratics that…. btw.. this is a law… meaning it always happen… not a theory like evolution…

Ouch. That good old standby the 2nd law. Obviously the Earth lives in isolation from the rest of the universe and no information (energy) can be added. Damn that Sun…

The best bit is the Law / Theory nonsense. Do people really not understand how the words work? Obviously not, because when challenged on the matter, our creationist photographer responded:

With all due respect, you are wrong about scientific law and theory.
You can read here science.kennesaw.edu/~rmatson/3380theory.html and a million other places…

Argh. Such madness, especially as the link doesn’t really support his claim but I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to try an educate him.

Please, take a moment to visit the Flickr photo page. It is a nice picture and the more sensible, reasonable and educational comments he get, the greater the chance he (or others) will learn something. If the nonsense is ignored, then the nonsense prospers.

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Why Dont You Blog?

Challenging the Zeitgeist

Category Archives: Society

Whit walking

Cultic transformations.

My own blacklist

Ebay and pay more

Faith Blinds

Brother Sun, Sister Moon

If it doesnt work, keep trying

Traffic safety or surveillance?

Hitler was no Atheist

Protect and serve

Lunatics take over asylum

Happy Birthday, World Wide Web

Make the trains run on time?

A wise rabbi

Preach the Controversy…

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