Serious nonsense

Rapture-enthusiasts are using Google Ads. (I will, of course, be too polite to mention the irony that people who think everything true was written down a couple of thousand years ago will happily use the fruits of godless Science to spread their ideas.)

I found this ad link idly googling rapture. As you do. Well, you may do if you want a cheap laugh, anyway.

2008 is the big year now. Wow. It’s March already. There’s barely 9 months left. Don’t say you haven’t been warned. First, the “demise” of the United States is going to take place, according to Ronald Weinland, who “has been sent by God as His end-time prophet.” (It says so right there on the page.)

So, how does a country die? I am briefly distracted by this idea from the rapture talk. The US is huge. Maybe the US will just break up into 50 separate states. Or decide to join Canada or Mexico. It would take some serious Godly smiting to even do noticeable physical damage. A monster collection of tsunamis and few major earthquakes couldn’t do much more than dent the US landmass. An asteroid strike, maybe? Well that could do it, but I fear I’m putting ideas into Ronald Weinland’s mouth here.

I admit that despite the site’s offering a free download of this insightful work, I am completely unwilling to download and actually read it. So I can only go on the spoiler bit. This shows the book isn’t meant for me anyway.

This book is primarily directed to the people of the three major religions of the world (Islam, Judaism and Christianity), whose roots are in the God of Abraham. Ronald Weinland has been sent to all three.

The message is – US destroyed, last world war, over religion.

Billions will die! This time will far exceed even the very worst times in all human history.

Is there a hint of unseemly relish in that exclamation mark?

Well, I’m actually going to give this man the benefit of the doubt to some extent. There will certainly be wars over the next years. Religion will certainly feature in them. So far, so Dawkins.

How prophetic is the book of Revelations if it can be used to predict wars happening? Answers to that question are both “100% accurate” and “not very predictive.” I can’t believe there’s been more than a couple of years since the rise of the Abrahamic religions, in which there hasn’t been a war somewhere in which religion was involved. Other Horsemen of the Apocalypse? Famine, Plague, Death? They have been ever-present in human history too.

I follow the links to the Church of God PKG . That’s Preparing for the Kingdom of God, by the way, in case you thought it was short for Peking airport. (It’s Beijing now, anyway. I know.) The Ronald Weinman chap is its divinely appointed leader, of course.

Ronald Weinland, who is the pastor of God’s Church on earth, has also been appointed by the God of Abraham to be His end-time prophet to the world, preceding the return of Jesus Christ.

(I am distracted again, by the guy’s name. Even my rusty knowledge of German makes that definitely “Wine Country”. He’s pissed, isn’t he?)

Appointed by the God of Abraham? Did Yahweh advertise in the Times, pore over a pile of resumes, run some pseudo-psychological tests and hold a few gruelling interviews, then come up with this dude? Well, what’s the salary? So far, every book I can see for sale on this site is free. So, the income doesn’t come from book sales.

But, I read Ronald’s personal blog and he seems to be doing very nicely out of the enterprise, in terms of travel, at least.

Laura and I are about to return from a very successful trip to Europe. Last Sabbath we were in the Netherlands, and at that time I had to cut my sermon a little short as I was pretty worn out from the pace of activities I have been keeping ever since we returned from the New Zealand/Australia trip. As a result of pushing my voice in the Netherlands on Sabbath, I developed laryngitis and completely lost my voice for a couple of days. By Sabbath yesterday here in the United Kingdom, I was doing much better, but not well enough to give a sermon, so Wayne Matthews in Australia was able to fill in for me at the last minute.

Blimey, most Americans don’t even have passports. The Upcoming Trips aren’t as exotic but still barely a week goes by when he’s not off somewhere. You could probably cut half of the carbon emissions from flights just by keeping this man in one place.

Most of the areas my wife and I will be visiting will be in the U.S., but some will be in Canada and Europe as well. New areas will be posted when the scheduling has been fully set.

(Look, Ronald, I want your job. I can spout all the millenarian rubbish you want. Just give me the plane tickets and hotel reservations.)

He’s got to do this frenetic world-travelling, though, because:

“…. the 1335 days before the actual day Jesus Christ returns began on February 2, 2008.”

What a baffling way to express a period of time. Who measures time in 1335 day segments? Maybe that’s how Yahweh’s calendar works. It’s hard to translate into human. However, by the grace of Microsoft Excel, I can reveal to you that that makes the ACTUAL date of Jesus’s return …… 29/09/2011.

I am tempted to see if Weinamn has any US dates scheduled for 2009 -which would be a bit of problem as the US wlll apparently no longer exist then – but the schedule only goes ahead a few months.

I am now getting seriously interested in how much money they take. All this travelling must need some seriously big financial resources. I trawl the sites looking for instructions to send cash but it’s all about things like how to get your high-tech sermons on the Sabbath, if you are unlucky enough to live in Europe or far away from a church group.

All the same, there must be big money in there somewhere, but, worry not, Ronald is making sure it’s not misused… Look at his track record.:

Candidly, the largest scattered group, which is the United Church of God, is one that Ronald Weinland joined from its beginning and continued for nearly two years. But after exposing the misappropriation of $4.5 million by its leadership, the political practices of much of the leadership, and doctrinal laxity, he chose to resign.

Agreeing with Peter Hitchens! Oh Noes!

By Zeus, it must be time for me to kill myself. I have obviously suffered some kind of brain injury and am clinging on to reality by the thinnest of threads. Today, not only did I actually buy the Mail on Sunday (*), but I found myself agreeing with the obnoxious Peter Hitchens’ commentary. I will report to the euthanasia centre forthwith.

In a piece titled “Nothing to hide, but plenty to fear from Ms ID Card“, Annoying Hitchens makes some actually good, valid points:

She says we “need” to “prove who we are”. But mainly we need to do this because the Government has spun a spider’s web of silly rules, which snags the law-abiding and spares real troublemakers.

I agree. Hitchens continues by identifying some of the future strictures ID cards will place upon us then the bit I agree with most:

These precautions are useless against real money-launderers, paedophiles, gangsters and terrorists, who laugh at them. But they make people like Ms Smith look and feel as if they are doing something.

This is the whole problem with the idea. The implementation of ID cards is useless for its stated aims — criminals will not be inconvenienced by them in anyway. It is a shame I agree with Hitchens on something, but for now I have just put it down to his rabid hatred of the Labour government — if ID cards had been a Conservative party idea, he would be behind them all the way.

Back on the subject of ID cards, proper though — another point I neglected last time I ranted is the madness that ID cards can work if less than every member of society carries one. As long as they are optional, they are pointless for pretty much any of the ideas Ms Smith suggests they could be used for. If an immigrant is challenged and they say “I am not an immigrant” what could the government do about it? As they claim to not be a non-EU migrant, they wouldn’t be expected to carry an ID card therefore you can’t demand to see their ID card…

What passes for Logic in Ms Smiths world amazes me.

(*) In my defence it did have a good “free” music CD, which is the real reason I bought it. Odin only knows why I actually opened the “newspaper” (in the loosest sense of the word) and read anything.

Spin the News

Some more ranting time, sorry. Today must be a slow news day in the UK and obviously we are no longer interested in international news. As a result, one of the prominent news items has been a “Row over military uniforms in public [also on BBC News].” Shocking really. Not the “row” but the fact it has made headline news.

Basically, the Station Commander at RAF Wittering has banned personnel working at the base from wearing uniform in public because they have had some abuse from locals (while in uniform) in Peterborough. This has caused a bit of a row because recently the government were very keen to push forward plans to encourage service personnel to wear uniform in public (and get some free advertising for the military, I presume). That is it. That is the sum total of the news. It is borderline news for a local weekly rag, let alone pretty much every national news outlet. How in Zeus’ creation this has happened is beyond me.

Well, I have a few ideas but I will leave that for the conspiracy theorists….

Now, before I settle into a rant about how apparently stupid people are there are some salient points you might want to be aware of. First off, the military have been banned from wearing uniform in public for almost longer than I have been alive. For most of my life they were viewed as legitimate targets for Catholic Terrorists and to a great extent treated with disdain by the general public. Dislike of the military is not new. This is what the times has to say about the current situation:

The Prime Minister is to be presented this month with a report that will call for the widespread wearing of military uniforms to engender respect and appreciation for the Armed Forces. In the US service personnel wear their uniforms off-duty. This was banned in Britain in recent years because of the IRA terrorist threat.

“recent years” here means since about 1974.

Secondly, the station commander of RAF Wittering, Group Captain R L A Atherton , is female. You may see why this is important later.

Last but not least, remember what quality media outlets we have:

This is the BBC news explaining what triggered the “ban”:

The guidance was issued in January 2007 advising personnel to wear civilian clothes in certain areas for fears of abuse. It followed a verbal incident in December 2006.

No, seriously. The guidance was issued over a YEAR ago. Really. This is what passes as “news” today… To support this, this is how the Times (normally one of the few quality papers left) reported it:

Group Captain Ro Atherton, the RAF Wittering station commander, took advice from RAF Police before ordering his personnel to keep a low profile.

Hmm. I wonder is this an example of poor research, intrinsic sexist assumptions or lazy journalists – or all three? This mistake is repeated throughout the reporting on lots of different media sources, which largely goes to show that they are all lazy and copy of each other. No one cares about such trivia as “facts” any more. In fact (all puns intended), if they can’t be arsed checking something as blatant as this out (a quick visit to the RAF Wittering web page told me she was female in about 10 second), can we trust the veracity of anything else they report?

The Times Online piece has zillions of comments. Largely from the idiotic, ranting, racist fools who always seem to comment on this sort of thing. I wont make you endure each one, have a look and see what I mean. The general theme of the comments is that this “abuse” has come from immigrants and “ethnic minorities.” This is strange given that the normally racist Daily Mail had this to say:

However sources close to the police and RAF said the biggest offenders had been thugs from the local white community.

So, like every other city there are thugs who hurl abuse at people. Is this new? Did this happen 10 years ago, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago? Yes. The idiots don’t care about this though, they see this as a great chance to spout their racist BNP ideology – for example:

Those who have encouraged this cancer within our midst must be made accountable for their crimes . This might encourage future generations of those who govern to be more circumspect in the care for the ancient inheritance to which they are entrusted . For one thousand years the peoples of these islands have sacrificed life to deny those from outside who sought to subjugate them . No government or people has the right in any circumstance to forego this heritage . paul, london, uk

Sounds familiar. It is nonsense, but it carries the weight of history that the BNP love to throw around. White thugs throw abuse at the military so it must be immigrants who are to blame. What amazing logic. Sadly there is more:

The problem is that Peterborough is over-run with immigrants. They speak for their immigrant communities not Britain. When the election comes the B N P is going to be laughing. Decent people don’t want to vote B N P because of their past associations with racism and violence but there seems little choice left as the major parties are too scared of losing votes to tackle this issue head on. White middle class people are leaving the U K in droves. We are not allowed to push back to reclaim our Country from these foreigners who have ousted out the indigenous population. When are people going to take to the streets and say ‘Enough’? There are lots of Ex-pats like me who want to go home but just don’t recognise the U K anymore and don’t want to live in a country that is even more foreign to us than the countries we moved to. But – If it ever came to violence in the streets I’d go back and fight – and I bet I’m not the only one. Riley, Kiev, Ukraine

Oh Dionysus, the Irony. Still, it is nice to think that such die hard BNPers are out of the country now. God bless ’em all…

[snip] If you don’t support our government, troops or way of life, it’s time you found yourself another country to live in. [snip] Tam o shanter, Glasgow , Scotland

Oh dear, I didn’t think the Times’ comments would manage to avoid a nugget like this. Damn democracy, if you don’t do what you are told leave the country. And I thought it was only the US that came up with this line of nonsense. Again, this poster misses the irony that he is disagreeing with a lot of the governments policy and our normal way of life…

I will stop here because it becomes depressingly similar. Almost every comment is from an idiot who says something along the lines of they are being forced to leave because there are so many migrants coming in, or how dare people have the cheek to not bow and scrape whenever a military person is in their vicinity. There are a few redeeming comments, but not enough and double sadness comes from the fact lots of the “other side” comments are equally idiots who just want to slag of the government at every chance.

For some reason, I was under the impression that people in the UK were, on the whole, sane and balanced. It seems I am massively wrong. Every day, I have listened to the radio interview a collection of retards from different cities who have no idea what they are talking about, but still feel the need to rant about immigrants, law, values etc. Today, the interviews about the RAF were so depressing I nearly crashed my car to put myself out of any misery the future must hold for our once-great nation.

Maybe it is time for me to migrate – does anyone know a nation where sanity remains? Can anyone afford to pay for my family to get there? (All donations welcome…)

ID Cards for your own good…

Well, Orwell is still spinning in his grave. Despite some apparently premature optimism, it seems that ID cards are very much on the government’s agenda. Today’s news headlines have been very much about the “ID Card Rethink [bbc as example]” and how we are all going to end up with one.

This is all despite the House of Lords “setback” and the massive online YouGov poll that showed a significant percentage of the population were against the idea. To me, in addition to the hateful ideas of forced identity documents, the fact the government is able and willing to completely ignore over a million of the electorate’s opinions speaks volumes for how modern democracy works…

In a token gesture to people’s opinions, the government is planning to bring ID card by stealth in a phased manner. I assume the thinking is target the least popular / most vulnerable parts of society then, in a few years everyone will have come round to the idea and we will all carry one. Distasteful is an understatement.

In her speech announcing the new Identity Card plans, the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith made the following statements:

I start from the premise that the National Identity Scheme is a public good.

Starting from a false premise is never going to lead to anything of value… This is largely, Smith saying the assumption was always we were going to have Identity Cards, like it or not.

As citizens, it will offer us a new, secure and convenient way to protect and prove our identity.

What is new about it? How is it more secure than, say, a passport or driving licence? Equally, how the **** does the existence of an ID card protect your identity?

And it will provide us with the reassurance we need that others who occupy positions of trust in our society are who they say they are as well.

This is odd, and the radio news made a big deal about this. What people who occupy positions of trust don’t already carry a form of ID? Lots of news sources go on about how Airport staff will be early ones to get them – oddly, you already need to have an ID card to get airside at an airport. What will have actually changed? Are the current procedures flawed?

Now, at this point I was going to do a line by line rebuttal of her claims but as they are all insane it will take much too long. Nearly every sentence she utters in her speech contains falsehoods and spin to trick people into thinking ID Cards will solve the worlds problems. They wont.

In an effort to be brief, I will try to address her main points.

Surveillance is everywhereFirstly, ID cards are supposed to be brought in to prevent crime and terrorism. Wow. If having to carry an ID card would prevent someone from being a terrorist, why are there still terrorists in the world? Same with crime. Neither activity will be deterred simply by the existence of a voluntary ID scheme. The best that could possibly be hoped for would be for a compulsory ID card, with fingerprint data, that may enable the police to catch people after a crime(*). In years gone by crazy ideas were often supported with a “wont anyone think of the children” (as parodied by the Simpsons), now we have Prevent Terrorism as the buzzword. If the government want to pass laws people will hate it is always linked to prevention of terrorism. Didn’t anyone watch “In the Name of the Father?”

Secondly they are supposed to prevent Identity Fraud. How this happens is never, ever, mentioned and, frankly, defies even the most cursory examination. Again reading through Ms Smith’s speech is an exercise in logical fallacies, there are more appeals to fear than I care to count. The phrases basically go along the lines of criminals steal identities so get an ID card. This sounds good and there is a half-hearted example of one person who defrauded the state out of £2.5m over five years. Compare this to Northern Rock who have taken over £100billion from the state in as many months. Who is the worse criminal? On a more personal level, ID theft is a terrible thing and I genuinely feel for anyone it happens to. Would the national ID card prevent it? Ninety nine times out of a hundred the answer is no, and in the other one is it a maybe.

CCTV Cameras Cover the CountryFor example, if some one hacks your Ebay account and runs up charges would an ID card have protected you? Same with anything online (where most ID theft apparently takes place) and in the offline world it only works when it interacts with the government. Someone can steal your ID and apply for credit cards, loans etc., and unless the issuing authority has access to the central database there is no way to find out.

This leads to the other problem. The database itself becomes a single point of failure. All a person needs to do is attack that to gain a legitimate, but false, identity. As recent months (and years) have shown, the Government is a largely inept organisation when it comes to protecting the data it holds. The news has covered dozens of “accidents” where huge amounts of personal data have been lost into the public domain. Do you feel safe thinking that a group with this track record will hold the gold standard of data about your identity?

Ms Smith has considered this and some reassurance is given:

Private firms will be encouraged to set-up “biometric enrolment centres” where passport and ID card applicants will be fingerprinted. [BBC news]

WTF! To make matters worse, this personal and private data will be collected by non-accountable organisations who have, by definition, their primary goal of making profit. By Toutatis this is madness. Here we will have the situation where staff on a minimum wage will be responsible for inputting your ID details and making sure no one else can get access to them. People who can be bribed with the price of a pint down the pub. Terrifying.

When Ms Smith talks about how they will protect the data the ID system will store, she manages to confuse me as to how it will work:

 The way in which we are designing the National Identity Register, with separate databases holding personal biographic details physically and technologically separately from biometric fingerprints and photographs, will greatly reduce the risk of unauthorised disclosures of information being used to damaging effect. …(followed by)…  I should make it clear that none of the databases will be online, so it won’t be possible to hack into them. [BBC transcript]

Now call me an old fashioned security professional, but there is a bit here that makes sense. By preventing people from getting access to the data you really do reduce the risk of unauthorised disclosure. However, and this shows more madness, if huge segments of society can’t access the data it is useless. The idea as I see it is that you go into the bank to open an account and show them your ID card. They scan it and compare it to the record of you. If it matches you get account. Seems easy, except now it looks like the bank wont have access and even if they did there is an air gap between the two technologies.

How is it supposed to work?

Lastly (phew, I hear you cry), the introduction by stealth. This shows the government KNOW this is an unpopular idea and it would never get off the ground if they tried to roll it out now. Instead they are going to play on the “white working class fear” of the Evil Immigrants by making them carry ID cards (why not force them to carry a sign round…(**)). What effect this will have is beyond me because if I was an immigrant and challenged by “authority” I would simply say I wasn’t an immigrant. Prove me wrong. Next come the “UK citizens and EU nationals who work in ‘sensitive’ airport jobs” who already carry ID cards and aren’t likely to complain, but again the question is “why?” Finally in 2011 it will be an opt-out option on passport renewals. Passports already have biometric data and are acceptable as proof of ID the world over. Why do we need another form of ID?

That is it in a nutshell, though. Why on Earth do we need another form of ID?

(*) remembering to account for the error bars of partial fingerprint matches when you have a database of 60+ million entries, and hoping the criminals are too stupid to wear gloves…

(**) Hmm. This seems familiar. I wonder why…

Forced Faith

Is it right to force people to go through the motions of belief even if they do not hold that belief?

On last Friday’s Faith Central it seems Libby Purves is of the opinion that forcing people to pretend to believe, even if they don’t is better than nothing. Writing about a group of Oxford scholars who have refused to say grace (even though they have accepted a scholarship to a largely religious college) she notes:

But now – reports Cherwell – a prim contingent say they won’t, because they aren’t believers. The Chaplain replies sharply “The personal beliefs of the individual are incidental…There seems to be some confusion about the difference between personal and public prayer, the individual and the role. The scholar/exhibitioner is asked to recite the grace, it is a personal matter whether they also pray it.”

Blimey.  Now call me old fashioned but this seems like “forced” observance and somewhat flies in the face of the idea of the whole thing. If it is simply a matter of words, why does any one care? Is the ritual of observance actually more important than the persons beliefs or is this a sneaky way of trying to convert people? Who knows.

Libby seems incensed by this and comes to an amazing simile:

Frankly, if Professor Richard Dawkins can admit to singing Christmas carols with gusto (“O come let us adore Him”),   it is hard to see why these  clever young things make such a meal of a few words of general gratitude.

By Toutatis! Is singing a Christmas carol with “gusto” really the same as being forced to say grace? We seem to have an issue (as one of the commenters points out) where Libby fails to understand the difference between choice and compulsion. This neatly sidesteps the madness which places the two acts in the same category in the first place!

The piece concludes with this:

Nobody forced them to apply to a 453-year-old institution (there are other Oxford colleges) nor to accept the scholarship when it was offered. It would be brave and principled to refuse the honour and the money on grounds of atheism.  This is neither.

Well, while I sort of agree – they chose which college they went to – I dont really agree. The award of the scholarship is not based on a persons religious choice, so why does it force an act of observance? I am reasonably sure that the “pious” people who provided the donations which make the scholarship possible would be more upset that non-believers are there than people aren’t going through the motions of grace. I am really surprised that so many “devout” people would rather have lip service paid than faith exist.

Another one of the comments on the times blog poses an interesting question. If the scholars were forced to say “I renounce the Holy Spirit” would the church be happy with that? They wouldn’t have to believe it, just say the words…

Kaos ministries: proof of parallel universes

Hell’s handmaidenhad an excellent post showing the Kjos Ministries’ take on a (possibly imaginary) UN peace-keeping initiative (which had me wondering “And this is supposed to be bad thing?”)

It seemed worth finding out exactly what the The New World Order was supposed to represent. Obviously, my first thoughts are “Wasn’t that what Joy Division became? No, fool. The word “World” didn’t fit in the Manchester band’s name.

It’s a bit of a shock to discover that there are people so far to the right of George W Bush (Bush I) that they can present him as part of a global conspiracy to undermine America. (I can appreciate that point of view. Engagement in stupid wars that created whole new categories of enemy may indeed have undermined the US. I don’t think they mean that though.)

It’s hard to make sense of what I will henceforth, ironically, refer to as “arguments”. The difficulty comes partly because words that you thought you understood are used in new and surprising contexts. It’s as if you thought you knew what a table was, then found yourself talking to people who use the word to describe what you call a toothbrush. Globalisation for instance. I followed a dozen links and I still can’t see what they are referring to.

In fact, at the end of the New World order page, I still don’t understand their argument. They have managed to distort the views of people as diverse as John Dewey and Pastor Rick Warren. These people treat the European Union as a successfully achieved Nazi project. So, no prizes to them for succeeding in characterising even UNESCO as vaguely sinister. Well, what could be more sinisterly anti-American than international co-operation to stop kids dying?

Keep in mind, this mind-changing system has no tolerance for God’s divisive Truth. Unless Christianity blends with other religions through diversity, dialogue and deconstruction (compromising or tearing down old beliefs) our globalist leaders will continue to face resistance. That’s why Federico Mayor, former head of UNESCO used yet another crisis to fuel revolutionary fervor:
“The mission of UNESCO… is that of advancing… international peace and the common welfare…. We have witnessed… the resurgence of nationalism, the growth of fundamentalism and of religious and ethnic intolerance. The roots of exclusion and hatred have shown themselves even deeper and more tenacious than we had feared…

You might naturally assume that Mayor’s words represent a wise and concise analysis of the current (“old?”/”new?”) world order.

However, they were cited by the (unpronouncable) Berit Kjos because she assumed readers would find them self-evdently threatening, as if any Christian who read them would see the inherent danger of creeping new-world-order-ism

No, I do get it. There is a parallel universe. In this universe, the Bush dynasty is a socialist plot. Franklin D Roosevelt was a socialist visionary. The EU sucked the US dry for the funds to set it up and is now laughing behind America’s back as it builds up regional power blocs to challenge the US. UNESCO threatens the right to practise religion. The silly Oprah-publicised The Secret actually provides secret esoteric wisdom and is a cunning wile of the devil . Role-playing games lead you sites where you can meet real occultists. And so on.

This is not obviously the same universe that I live in. Or at least, it wasn’t the universe that I lived in until the wall between worlds started to give way. Now, Kaos is leaking into our universe, probably though the mini-black-holes they are creating in CERN. Where is Chakotay when you need him?

*******
Aside
*******
There are pages and pages railing against immigration. It’s all the work of the new world order, of course. (I assume that’s why the US was populated entirely by Native Americans until recently) E.g. Berit Kjos:

Why won’t our leaders enforce a simple, straight-forward immigration policy?

But Berit Kjos:

Both Andy and Berit were raised Lutheran — Andy in North Dakota, I in Norway.

Baseless Creationist Arguments Find a New Home

Blimey, yesterday, Heather wrote about some empty nonsense being spouted by a blog on the atheist blogroll. In a nutshell, Tom Stelene, writing on the Al-Kafir Akbar blog, has spent a few days recently, ranting about how environmentalism is a “secular religion,” how global warming is a scam, how people who care about about the environment are dirt worshippers and so on. Over the last few days, Heather, Blacksun Journal and Salient have drawn attention to the nonsense he spouts.

Sunrise in AutumnTom Stelene has tried a comeback blast with a post titled “Deniers” (Blog Action Day Continues), and it is well worth reading if only to see the logical holes presented as “argument” and the good rebuttals from BlackSun and Salient. They have both done an excellent job of taking his nonsense to task.

Not being grown up enough to be bothered engaging in reasoned debate, I am simply going to point out some of the more obvious bits of nonsense Tom has turned into bits on the internet. Fisking is fun. If we start with the opening paragraph:

Amidst the latest politically-correct trend of environmentalists to throw out the smear, “global warming deniers,” I sense that by and large they probably have little familiarity with the science and reasoning as to why some deny “global warming” – as most narrow-minded religionists are unfamiliar with the reasons and arguments of atheists – or, better still: “God-deniers.”

Sunrise in Autumn 2By Toutatis, that is a difficult sentence to read. It is completely meaningless but it is still difficult to read. It makes a single attempt at a real claim and, personally, I doubt that this (basic) claim is true. If he is saying, as it seems to read, that his detractors have little understanding as to the science about why the detractors deny global warming. After the headache (caused by trying to resolve this tortured line of attribution) cleared, I decided he must be talking about the psychological reasoning as to why some people will pathologically deny the evidence which is presented to them and disproportionately give value to the minority evidence which can be interpreted as arguing against the mainstream. I am sure that there is a term for people who evince this weird behavioural trait, but I am not a psychologist so I have no idea. Generally, most of the people who do this seem to be arguing for the creationist brand of woo.

After I realised where I had seen this idiotic type of “argument” before, it suddenly became clear that pretty much all of Tom’s “arguments” against AGW fall from the Intelligent Design is Science school of idiocy. Blimey. Loki must have been having a field day letting this one out into humanity.

Tom claims his area of expertise is philosophy, so we can look at the first type of argument he uses and critique it with a philosophical point of view attached.

Swan in flight - Vignette addedOne of his oft-repeated claims is that those who advocate action to combat human-influenced climate change are following a “secular religion” – he uses such entertaining terms as “dirt worshippers” and so on. All very clever. This is the same as the ID / Creationist claims that “Darwinism” is a religion. The reality however is different.

Religion, in its normal use of the term, tends to mean people are holding to a belief either without any evidence or will hold to the belief in the face of evidence to the contrary. In keeping with the creationists, Tom holds to his beliefs without any evidence and retains the belief in the face of contrary evidence. Yet he still claims it is his detractors who are holding to a religion. Yeah, seems odd to me as well.

The next issue I have with his claims is, still in keeping with the creationist ideal, the idea that the isolated – often badly interpreted – data which may be interpreted as contradicting Anthropogenic Global Warming is so significant and Earth shattering it means more than the mountains of data which support AGW. Here Tom shows he doesn’t understand science – something he freely admits – and really should try to learn some more before demonstrating his ignorance. The fact of the matter is there is nearly always some data published which can be interpreted as contradicting a scientific theory.

Little Burrowing MammalMost of the time this data is the result of experimental issues – poorly designed experiments, mistaken conclusions, equipment issues and so on – but some times the data is valid and does pose a contradiction. What happens next is part of the broader scientific method – something Tom seems to neglect – the data is double checked, additional experiments are conducted and, if it is verified and repeated, the theory is adjusted to account for the new information. Despite the greatest wishes (and prayers) of the creationists, isolated findings do not count as evidential falsification. Likewise, Tom has fallen into the layperson’s trap of finding isolated contrary reports and attributing to these much greater weight than they deserve.

Here is a quick quiz question: If 99 reports conclude humans are responsible for climate change and one doesn’t, which should you go with?

The most blatant example of Creationist-Inspired woo-nonsense comes in this little gem:

Precisely because science is not my area (that being philosophy) I have to carefully consider both sides, and for some twenty years as a curious observer (if man causes global environmental problems I obviously want to know) I have read and listened to environmentalist claims – which get plenty of publicity – yet the science that challenges them gets ignored.

Chimpanzee on a TreeThis is seriously worthy of some further examination. It reeks of the same lack of understanding which tries to push ID into the classroom. There are not “two sides” to the argument (if anything there are dozens), so considering “both sides” is meaningless. In the past, I have commented on the debate problem which creates the illusion there are “both sides” regarding evolutionary theory. It seems the same fallacy applies with regards to AGW.

The idea that some one completely ignorant of the methodology and theories of climate science can accurately assess the validity of any competing theories (and there are dozens) is interesting – strictly speaking the layperson can go through the published data and draw their own conclusions, but the chances of that conclusion being a valid expression of the reality are not great. It would be better for Tom to say that, because science is not his area he would be better off listening to the scientific consensus.

For my, cynical, mindset, the reason why he has not gone down this route is borne out by the last part of that sentence. It reeks of the conspiracy-theories pushed by all kinds of deviant scientists.

“…yet the science that challenges them gets ignored.”

Utter nonsense. The “science” that challenges the various AGW theories is not “ignored” by any stretch of the imagination. Where science does challenge the theory it is investigated – sadly most of the claims of “science” which challenges turn out to be bad science at best. This, as with most of Tom’s arguments, is straight from the ID School of non-science. When people from wildly unrelated scientific disciplines (at best, often it is complete non-scientists) write a pile of nonsense about Evolution / AGW, it is quite rightly ignored. The pro-ID / Anti-AGW crowd then pick on this nonsense and scream about some hidden cabal who are suppressing the “alternative theories.” Total nonsense.

If some one can prove AGW is false they will be in line for the Nobel, along with all the people who can invent perpetual motion machines, prove ID, falsify GR, falsify SR etc., etc.,

Until then, science is science. You can rail against the findings all you want, but remember it is akin to shouting at the sun that your “research” shows it should be dark…

In praise of the BBC

This blog does its fair share of whining about daft things on the BBC, especially its website (“constructive criticism.”) There are disturbing current plans to cut back on everything good about the BBC, with a loss of 2,500 jobs. According to last week’s Guardian, the BBC’s high-profile serious journalists, such as Paxman, have been told not to express their criticisms of this sort of stuff on air.

The director-general has been quoted voicing the sort of Dilbert-speak that bodes ill for any organisation, from the perspective of both staff and customers. For example:

….his plan would deliver “a smaller, but fitter, BBC” in the digital age.
The six-year scheme, called Delivering Creative Future…..

Over the past few years, the BBC has expanded from being a public-service broadcaster – worthy enough in itself, to providing an almost unequalled Internet news resource. In the face of a general dumbing-down of television to a level that the average pet tortoise would find intelligible, the BBC still provides some tv and radio of amazing quality .

Well, it seems this all has to stop. The new plan is for more repeats, cuts to the television news, fewer current affairs programmes, fewer non-commercial kids’ programmes, ads on international stuff..

The editors’ blogs sound like it’s all an exciting new opportunity. Well, wouldn’t you, if you might be facing redundancy and criticism wouldn’t keep you out of that media dole queue?

…standing still is not an option because our audiences are changing and we must change with them….

Changing? More than normal changes then? In what ways? Granted most people have cable or satellite. I admit to watching minimal terrestrial tv, but that’s not because it’s over my head. It’s because most of it is hopelessly poor:

  • Soaps that should be poured down the plughole.
  • Reality shows that would make you want to Columbine the whole human race, if they actually bore any relationship to “reality”
  • Home / clothes / lifestyle makeovers, all aimed at a general transformation of the UK into a giant open-plan Stepford.
  • Programmes about raising children that make B.F. Skinner look laissez-faire
  • Plastic surgery programmes that actually promote it
  • Programmes about celebs and their weight problems
  • 100 greatest/worst adverts for car wax, or similar. With slightly recognisable talking heads discussing the choices
  • “Programmes” with a chirpy talking head and a screen puzzle designed to keep the drunk or mentally ill phoning in to “answer” trick questions at £300 a nanosecond

Basically, tv that would make the choice between watching it and gnawing off your own arm quite a difficult decision.

Is it the changing audience that’s driving this? If the audience is changing to be made up of the bedbound with broken remote controls, then maybe.

The BBC, although not blameless, is the least offender in this crap. It still represents so much of what is worthwhile in British culture. Cuts in its budget, cuts in its real staff….

Argh. That was the crunch of tooth on right arm flesh.

Phat city?

In an enthusiastic, if last-minute bid for a Nobel-prize, the UK Health secretary claims that fatness is as great a threat as climate change.

Must try harder, Alan Johnson.

Unless of course, Mr Johnson is implying that all the fat people in the UK will do something along the lines of knocking the Earth out of its normal orbital path, plunging it into months of unbearable heat, followed by months of intolerable cold.

To be honest, I doubt this is likely. I think that Alan Johnson is just trying to get some media attention by slinging empty soundbites around, if he gets to re-direct some public funds then it is just a bonus for him… Am I too cynical?

David Schwarzenegger

David Cameron (Leader of the British Conservative Party) has been recently pictured with Arnie and is reported in today’s Guardian as saying “Look at me and think of Schwarzenegger.”

Well how could I resist? Cliche response or not, here it is:

Cameron as Arnie

(Sadly, Putin seems to have set a fashion for British politicians physically less well-suited to the he-man role.)

The Rise of Creationism

Oddly, until a few years ago I had never even heard of Intelligent Design or Creationism. I put this down to having gone to a good, high quality, school and having as my main circle of friends intelligent and educated people.

I can honestly say that prior to discovering the American madness, I was blissfully unaware that anyone really thought there was any grounds for this to be thought of as sensible, let alone a legitimate scientific topic. I think my first encounters with the madness idea called ID came around the turn of the millennium. How things have changed in the last seven years.

The idea that, in 1999, there was a mainstream awareness of ID / Creationism in the UK is laughable. It was certainly never even alluded to while I was at school – it might have been hinted at in Religious Education classes, but even then it was done with an understanding it wasn’t “real.”I have friends who have gone on to be teachers and university types – who all studied around the end of the 1990s, and they support my recollections that ID/Creationism was virtually unheard of in the UK at that time.

Now, however, things are different.

Reading the BBC Education news draws a frightening picture, with an article titled “Teachers Fear Evolution Lessons.” The BBC piece is well worth reading, and begins:

The teaching of evolution is becoming increasingly difficult in UK schools because of the rise of creationism, a leading scientist is warning.

Head of science at London’s Institute of Education Professor Michael Reiss says some teachers, fearful of entering the debate, avoid the subject totally.

This generates two reactions in me. Sadly for teachers (and my closest friend is a biology teacher), neither cast teachers in a good light.

First off, since when have teachers been “fearful” of entering a debate with their students? What crazy world is this we live in. If a teacher is incapable, or unwilling, to debate with a student who disagrees with what they are saying then they are not teachers. Do teachers want to simply teach robotic children who soak up every single thing they are taught without question or challenge? I honestly hope not.

Secondly, why are teachers allowing these ideas to spread in the first place? It seems teacher-spokespersons (often self appointed I presume) will regularly come up with some news worthy diatribe about how teachers are being prevented from teaching because parents are allowing their kids to be unruly, eat the wrong food, watch too much TV etc. Surely this is really not something the teachers can blame others for. If teachers were doing their job properly, then people would understand how creationism is nonsense and could get on with the task of learning science.

Anyway, going back to my original point, when did creationism become such a big thing in the UK. We were once (as social “scientist” Heather will keep reminding me) a more secular nation than Communist Russia where religion was outlawed. This is now, obviously, consigned to the dust bin of history, but I am curious as to when / why this change took place. Did the internet and Americanisation of our culture cause it? Does the vast amount of Polish immigrants cause it? Does any one know? Read the article and let me know what you think.

[tags]Education, Teachers, Biology, Evolution, Creationism, Intelligent Design, ID, Darwin, Dawkins, Science, Religion, Belief, Madness, Society, Culture, Secular, Christian, UK, Michael Reiss, London’s Institute of Education, Teaching, Educational Standards, Nutcases[/tags]

Real men don’t eat quiche

According to worldnet daily human sexual orientation results from consuming the wrong legumes.

You think i’m making this up. I can tell. (Granted it’s not news, it’s a post nearly a year old. I spotted it while looking at other tosh on worldnet dialy. It was such a bizarre headline that I had to read the piece.)

How about

Soy is making kids ‘gay’

I know there are some reasonably strong arguments that soya-based foods that haven’t been fermented in the traditional ways, are dubious and not just as a source of estrogen-like compounds. (Quite apart from the facts that they almost inevitably taste crap and that farming them attracts massive agro-industrial subsidies and can involve clearing forest.)

However, it’s a whole other world to assume that this proves to the general effects that Jim Rutz claims – some of which would surely get any medicine banned instantly, let alone a food product. But the “soya makes kids gay” argument is in a class of its own…..

I assume the gayness applies only to males and is the supposed outcome of taking in phyto-estrogens. Cast aside any other thoughts you might have about this bullshit.

Doesn’t it suggest that these wingnuts have to stop ranting against gay men if there is any internal consistency in their arguments? It treats gay men as unwitting victims of hormone imbalance. So demanding that they stop being gay would be like demanding that the congenitally blind make the bloody effort to see.

A quote from Mr Rutz’s page 3:

My larger concern is that the increasing number of less robust 15-year-olds who are already “struggling with their sexual identity” will be shoved over that thin line into homosexuality. No, they won’t wake up some morning with floppy wrists and a nasal lisp, but they may begin to gravitate toward social circles where they feel more comfortable — and less expected to be rowdy or brag about a string of sexual conquests. And once a teen is ensconced in a homosexual milieu, breaking free from it could mean abandoning his best friends.

What a disturbing picture of “gay” and “straight” teenage boys here. Non-estrogenised straight boys are expected to be “rowdy or brag about a string of sexual conquests.” Oddly, this stereotype almost defines for me the very picture of a lad “struggling with his sexual identity.” But maybe that’s what counts as normal for wingnuts.

Wow, Christians really are weird…

As a result of growing up with an entirely secular background, in (at the time anyway) the very secular United Kingdom, there is a large part of me which refuses to accept that people like the posters on Teens4Christ really exist. This part of me is convinced they are just trolls, or kids who are living out a fantasy life which is a sanitised version of Dungeons and Dragons or the like.

By chance, following a link on FSTDT, I came across a thread which purports to be a poll asking atheists what they would do if they were possessed by demons. Seriously. The choices given were basically exorcism & convert to Christianity, exorcism but don’t convert, no exorcism and become friends with the demon/devil and no exorcism but don’t become friends. The choices, if honestly presented, give a scary insight into the mind of the “teen” who made this post. Bring back D&D, that’s all I can say…

To highlight my point about the sheer off-the-wall nutjobbery, this is what the conversation degenerated to: First a post by Esther:

oh my goodness I just heard on the news that a man was caught choking a three year-old girl and I guess they were doing an exerocism on her. thats so awful! I know demons are real but whenever someone says they see an angel or demon I always think there crazy. angels appeared to people all the time in the olden days in the bible so I shouldnt think that but would you guys believe if you heard someone on the news who said an angel talked to them?

And then Follower (who initiated the thread) replies with:

That’s what’s tough about Demon possessions. You have to make sure the person doesn’t have a mental condition first. Otherwise, Holy water and chanting won’t help.

Mentalists. I can only assume this is a debate between pre-teens in the manner of how secular kids will discuss if Ninjas can fight Batman. (Reassuringly, later on Follower states he is not yet of college age, hopefully some education will eventually rub off on him.)

Sadly, there is one poster, rch10007 apparently adult and mature enough to be an admin there, who seems to demonstrate that there is little chance this “younglings” will change with age. [tags]Logical Fallacy, Logic, Philosophy, Society, Culture, Atheism, Christianity, Belief, God, Anti-Atheist, Exorcism, Demons, D&D, Role Playing Games, Dungeons and Dragons, Fantasy, Ninjas, Madness, Woo, Nonsense, Weird, Possession, Catholic, Hatstand[/tags]

Tricked by their own statistics

Sorry for all the “crime” related posts but it is an annoying topic.

The BBC has more articles on the recently released Crime Statistics and it highlights an interesting logical conundrum. For example, the BBC article begins with:

Police recorded the first fall in overall violence in eight years, but drug offences and robbery went up.

Seems like a pretty key point to make. The rest of the news item is about how the public don’t trust the statistics and how Government needs to increase understanding of how they are collected and how accurate they are.

Comically, the article ends with this comment:

Meanwhile, police chiefs have been criticised by a committee of MPs who concluded giving police forces extra cash had not helped reduce crime.

Now, this begs the question that if the reports are crime has gone down, how do the MPs conclude that the extra cash did not help? Or, as I suspect, do the MPs feel that crime has not gone down and therefore need the government to give them advice on understanding the BCS results?

Madness cubed. [tags]Crime,Government, Statistics, Survey, Madness, Idiots, Society, Logic[/tags]

Self Defence or Self Delusion? (long)

Today’s Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2 was almost made to infuriate me. It was almost as if the researchers read my mind and found some topics that would be guaranteed to get on my wick, and better still would be certain to get the amazing collection of people who ring in, to ring in and add to the nonsense being debated. Well, it worked like a treat. It really did. If it wasn’t frowned upon to use work telephones to phone radio shows and call every one idiots, I would have done so today. Really. And I do hate myself for it, because it means I am another one of the brain addled fools who rings in to rant.

Anyway, admissions over with, on to the rant. Today’s “show” began with a call in about the expulsion of four Russian diplomats following the Russian refusal to extradite the man suspected of killing Litvinenko (news). This was reasonably tepid – at the end of the day it is the sort of thing which is done in international politics. It strikes me as reasonable for the UK government to demand his extradition. It is almost reasonable for Russia to resist, and if the UK had a punishment regime which was worse than in Russia (death sentence etc), then I would certainly back their refusal. As it stands, we don’t.

I was only half listening to this, the callers were generally only calling so they could go on air and criticise the UK government over something, logical consistency was nicely ignored. A few messages read out were along the lines of people accusing the UK of “punching above its weight” etc and saying we should just keep quiet and not hassle the Russians over this. Odd standards, but there you go. It didn’t rile me that much.

Next came the best bit. The middle debate was about some “research” which apparently shows 1 in 3 British people sleep with a weapon by their bed. Mostly these are things like baseball bats and hammers. Now, as I don’t know anyone who does this there is implication that entire cities are full of people who go to bed armed to the teeth.

The basic premise was debated initially by the guy who is an ex-burglar and now a BBC1 TV “personality” showing people how to prevent break-ins (cant remember his name), and “Daily Mail Columnist” Peter Hitchens. Instantly you can see this is going to make the blood boil. The Mail describe him as having an “uncompromising blog” when in reality he spouts out pure nonsense. Often it is ill informed nonsense, sometimes it is offensive nonsense, but it is always nonsense.

Anyway, the ex-Burglar chappie made some reasonable comments along the lines of hiding a weapon by your bed will not deter thieves and if you batter the burglar you are likely to face prosecution. He went on to suggest better ways of preventing burglary. FoolHitchens replied to this by saying it was a policy of fear and assumed burglary was always going to happen. He then went on to spout out some fanciful claims about how it was “better 30 – 40 years ago” and that it was all societies fault that people were too frightened to sleep without a hammer next to their bed.

Showing either his mastery of irony, or more likely his lack of any idea of logical conclusion, Hitchens continued to create an argument from despair about declining moral standards and how the law was at fault. Etc. It was pure sound bite designed to cater to his selection of Mail readers, he even went as far as to lament how it is always the middle class (of which he seems proud to include himself 1) who have to suffer, how they are the only law abiding people and so on. If you can get the listen again bit to play (I cant tonight for some reason) it kicks in at about 35 – 45 min point and you can hear him head down the road of quoting imaginary statistics. He really is an annoying *****.

Despite his claims to know about criminology, it seems on this subject as so many others, Hitchen is a poor student. For a start, despite his ideas that there was a golden age x years ago (it changes depending on what he is writing for etc), this really is not the case. Burglary is a poor one for him to try and pin on the social decline because it is one of the few crimes which is easy to track over the years. Looking at both the British Crime Survey and the reports from the ACPO, burglary is on the decline and has been since 1999. Going back more than two decades and it was much higher during the halcyon years he lusts after – in the late seventies and eighties it was significantly greater than today.

Add to this the reality that most people subjected to burglary are poor people who live in poor neighbourhoods and you can see he has built an argument on foundations of quicksand. The incidents of burglars (normally poor people themselves) travelling to “middle class” neighbourhoods to do a spot of pilfering is low to say the least. Despite the Daily Mail’s scare stories, “middle class” areas have a greater police presence, higher incidence of home alarms etc. All of these go towards protecting the property. If you doubt this, try to find some insurance quotes. Try for a poor, run down, inner city area and compare that with the same – or larger – property in a “nice” postcode area. As someone who has lived in both areas, I can tell you the difference is staggering.

Fundamentally, this talk show and especially Hitchens pure nonsense, speaks more of a segment of society which has (for whatever reason) allowed itself to become frightened of ghosts. This middle class who read the mail and listen to idiotHitchens are being tricked into thinking there is much more of a risk than there actually is. Note: I am not downplaying the risk or saying burglary is not a terrible thing to be subjected to. It strikes me this current furore over the subject is a result of Kerry Katona getting held up at knife point in her own home (news). Now her circumstances were terrible. You wouldn’t wish it upon your worst enemy but they certainly are not indicative of the experiences of “normal” people. Three men sledgehammered their way into her house and held a knife to her neck. They did this because she was very rich (not middle class). It is not a typical event. It is so atypical it made the news headlines.

As this was a “phone in” show, you can imagine the comedy value from the callers. Worryingly, every one I heard said they did, indeed, sleep with a weapon next to their bed. Now, this may be an artefact caused by the researchers selection process but it is still disturbing.

The callers were all saying how they kept baseball bats, hammers (even one had a crossbow, a pilum and a sword to hand …) in case their home was invaded and they needed to fight to defend their property. Blimey. A nation of ninjas. In the past I have ranted about firearms and it may be easy to guess that I am not a big fan of people taking this route towards home defence. There are many issues, but the main one I have problem with, is it is ludicrous to say the least.

Among the callers were a few women and what sounded like an older than middle aged man. Now, without going into too much detail I am fairly confident I have at least an average understanding of what is involved in a claws out fight with weapons to hand(2). I am also 100% confident that if some one attacked me with a hammer, without knowing the best way to wield this particular weapon, I could take it off them and inflict major damage on them. This is the basic thing for people who try to defend themselves like this to realise. As soon as they confront the burglar with the weapon the stakes are raised. Lots of callers were saying that they challenged a burglar with a butter knife (or whatever) and he ran off. What would happen if he hadn’t run off though?

Sticking with the hammer as an example (although the same applies to most “household” weapons), most people attacking a burglar will do the adrenalin inspired thing and swing it at the burglars head. Great if he isn’t looking and doesn’t know you are there – you may hit him. If he is aware of your presence, it really is unlikely you will get a solid blow anywhere it counts. Now, the important bit is if you miss. This can be trouble. Most swinging weapons tend to encourage people to swing them full force – this is especially the case if “frail” people are using them as they seem to want to get their bodyweight behind it. When the weapon fails to connect, the person swinging will often be forced to carry on with the swing until they can either bring it under control, or it hits something (often the floor or wall). While this is going on, most people are largely unable to do anything – other than get beaten or killed by the intruder who now (rightly) fears for his or her own life.

Baseball bats, for example, are often more effective used as a poking weapon rather than swinging, but I doubt any of the people who called in, proud they have one, would use it like this if an intruder was in their house. If that first swing fails to totally disable the attacker, it is unlikely the home-defender will come away from the situation in a “nice way.”

More worryingly, there was the idea that this (weapons by the bed) was a good idea for the elderly and women alone with small children. Blimey. The worst categories. Sadly, illusions aside, most of the middle class homeowners are unlikely to be well versed in the raw aggression and violence a fight like this can produce. If the burglar is the stereotypical 40 – 50 year old “career burglar” then fine, they may well run off. If the intruder is young, a hardened criminal (fighting in prison is a good way to learn close in skills) or a desperate drug addict, the chances are the office-working home owner will be given a sadly firm lesson in self defence.

There really is only one sensible course of action if you are in your house when a burglar breaks in. Lock yourself in a room and call the police. If you try to challenge the intruder you are risking everything. If there is more than one of them, or they don’t flee immediately things are going to get a LOT worse for you. Remember you can replace property. Your nose, bones or even your life are more important.

A weapon by the bed does not make you any safer than a lock on your bedroom door. The weapon, no matter how much it may “reassure” you is actually more likely to ensure you are hurt rather than robbed. It will not act as a deterrent to the thief, as he has to be in your house before he knows it is there.

One last point – if a burglar breaks in while you are home, it is less likely that he is the “career burglar” mentioned above, so really think twice before trying to be the hero. Despite this, the chances of being burgled are low, and the chances of it happening while you are at home is even lower. If you really are that worried, check your insurance policy – it is the best defence to losing things you have.

Sadly, I have spent so long ranting about this nonsense I no longer have the energy to pick up on the last piece of the show which was about Imaginary Friends. What a gift that would have been 🙂 .

[tags]Crime, Society, Peter Hitchens, Philosophy, Self Defence, Middle Class, Burglary, Nonsense, Madness, Woo, Culture, Fear, Imaginary Friend, Belief, Ideas, Media, Daily Mail, BBC, BBC2, Radio, Knives, Weapons[/tags]

1 – It should be noted that the wiki page for his brother has this to say:

Hitchens was educated at The Leys School, Cambridge (his mother arguing that ‘If there is going to be an upper class in this country, then Christopher is going to be in it.’) [13], and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. During his years as a student at Oxford, he was tutored by Steven Lukes.

Unless the family were particularly spoiling Christopher rather than Peter, I can only assume both went to Oxford. Not the normal “Middle Class” behaviour.

2 – For my sins, I have spent a period of my life teaching people how to fight like this and also teaching people how to secure their property.