Apathy Sketchpad

The US has roughly 270 prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay. None of these have had a trial and most have been there for months or years. While there, they are tortured, apparently as a matter of routine. Clearly this is immoral and illegal, and so there is obviously pressure to close the place down and either release the inmates or actually charge them with something. The question then arises of what to do with the inmates. Many of them would not be accepted by their home countries for various reasons, and the US says they are too dangerous to release in America. Defense Secretary Robert Gates estimated there were 50-70 such prisoners. The options appear to be either releasing them in the US or finding another country who will take them. Since these are people against whom no criminal case can be constructed, either of those should be pretty easy, right?

So, either to help out an ally, or to get in with Obama early on, or just to try to do something good for the world and hasten the release of illegally held torture subjects beyond those we’re legally obliged to accept, the Foreign Office has indicated that Britain might be willing to accept some of these people. This article has a comments box. That was never going to end well.

Quite simply the message from the Conservatives should be clear and unequivocal :

Britain must not accept any of these people.

The fact that some people who were originally held in Guantanamo and released went on to be come suicide bombers.

The risks are too high and Britian must now put its citizens first and not indulge itself in vague concepts of Human trights about non British citizens

POSTED BY: STRAIGHT TALK, SOUTH YORKSHIRE, BRITAIN | 1 JAN 2009 13:42:33

Someone on the site pointed out that in this context “some” was actually some figure between “not many” and “one”, but even without that, this guy’s argument could equally be used to execute all schoolteachers, since at least one of those has also committed a terror attack in this country.

We must not accept these people with the extended families they will bring with them remember if they come here we the taxpayers will have to pay for them also our soldiers which they tried to kill will have to pay for them this country is in a form of MADNESS it must stop

POSTED BY: DEE | 1 JAN 2009 14:40:27

It’s not even worth picking that run-on nonsense apart.

 this is george bush’s mess and he has to take responsibility for it. if brown accepts any people from it there will be a huge backlash. we haven’t forgot the london bombings.

POSTED BY: TONE | 1 JAN 2009 15:19:08
 

And if he can’t fix it in the next couple of weeks, then what? Sweep it under the rug?

 Why cant the US simply dump these folks back where they were originaly picked up? I’m sure they will find a ready welcome in Afghanistan, Iraq etc.

POSTED BY: DAVID | 1 JAN 2009 15:50:15
 

Because they’ll be killed and it’s illegal to deport people under those conditions.

 So hold on a minute….
The UK is not allowed to expel Islamic terrorists but we have to allow them in?
We have around 4+ million(not 1.8million as the government predicts) Muslims in the UK. At least 60% of them want Islamisation of the UK and are sympathetic to the Islamist cause.

I vaguely wonder where he’s pulling these numbers from.

Our government is allowing 5k Pakistani Halal butchers into the UK with their families even though we are supposed to have changed to a points based entry scheme that they do not pass.
We are importing Saudi Arabian Wahabism and the government does nothing. And now we are going to allow terrorists into the UK from Guantanamo Bay?

The point, you see, is that if they were terrorists, they would by now have been charged with something.

Who really British wants to live here anymore? I certainly don’t. Is this all part of the government’s plan to remove British people from the UK and build a new multicultural paradise doomed to all out future war as cultures start fighting one another for supremacy(No doubt Islam will be winner there).

I see.

This is madness. 
Then again our society deserves the government they vote in. If the UK is to fall unto a quagmire of Islamic terrorism and chaos, then you have yourselves to blame and not the government. Why? You voted them in to reap this destruction of your culture. Do something about it and vote them out. And I suggest also not voting for the Conservatives or the Liberals. They are no different to NuLabour and will continue the destruction of the UK. There will be only one benefit and that will be to the newly elected government members whose wages and perks will go up drastically.

POSTED BY: WINSTON SMITH | 1 JAN 2009 16:08:14

Well clearly he has thought this through.

You can be absolutely sure that they will be better treated by the British Government than our own servicemen.Thats Labour.

POSTED BY: ERICA | 1 JAN 2009 17:57:50

That sounds both true and relevant.

there should be the biggest mass demonstration on the streets of this country against allowing these people into this country thats ever been before, This should happen sooner rather then later before they become a burden to the british taxpayer.

POSTED BY: PAUL NOSWORTHY | 1 JAN 2009 19:29:53

I notice you have no security concerns: you’re just worried about immigration.

never ever thought I would say it ,but I cant wait until we have a BNP government.
just to end this lunancy.

POSTED BY: CARLYLE | 1 JAN 2009 20:10:13

The solution is clear: different lunacy.

No uk or non uk nationals caught fighting UK forces should be returned here. To accept such individuals constitutes a threat to our security and is a gross and blatant infringement of my human rights

POSTED BY: DAVE | 1 JAN 2009 20:42:37

Yes, but do you have an opinion about this story?

Carlyle,

I think you are not alone in your views. I think the UK is about to get a shock come next election. I also do not think that Conservatives will get the votes they are hoping for from disgruntled inhabitants of the UK. Many are realising that it will be the same old, same old with the tories, who incidentally set the ball rolling in the destruction of the UK.

POSTED BY: WINSTON SMITH | 1 JAN 2009 20:59:31

Presumably, then, you’re predicting a Lib Dem win, yes? That being the only possible outcome other than Labour, Conservative and a tie.

They should be allowed in to become investment advisors to the Church of England. They look like enviromentalists and the Archbisop needs advice.

POSTED BY: ROBERTO | 1 JAN 2009 21:35:03

What?

Has this loathsome Government any regard whatsoever for us?

POSTED BY: STEVEN | 1 JAN 2009 21:43:48

Let’s remind ourselves that they are the ones trying to stop illegal torture and you are the one arguing with them.

Suggest we house em on HMP Rockall

POSTED BY: DAVE | 2 JAN 2009 17:58:43

Suggest we don’t let you talk any more.

An immigrant, even an illegal immigrant can claim a jobseekers allowance and family allowance and housing benefit far in excess of my 80% war disability pension. Where is the logic in that?

POSTED BY: M WILSON | 4 JAN 2009 02:46:28

I imagine it’s the same logic that links this factoid to a discussion about Guantanamo.

This is what happens if you point out that they’re talking nonsense:

mattbramall - Are you living on cloud cuckoo land like Labour, have you forgotten about the innocent people who lost their lives in the suicide bombings in London.

I imagine he remembers them but correctly considers them irrelevant.

Do you really think these inmates are not Islamic extremists.

Yes?

UK security is a priority then suspected terrorists.

The Netherlands has made a stance, ruling out accepting any Guantanamo inmates. Also Dutch Immigration Service has expelled 1,475 people in 2008, the authorities expel foreign residents who have been sentenced to 1 month in prison or community work. The Dutch put their country & citizens first and if the Conservatives want my vote then they should be clear on putting British citizens first for security and welfare and tightening the Human Rights act to make it easier to expel suspected terrorists and foreigners declared persona non-grata. 

POSTED BY: QUIN WILLIAMS | 4 JAN 2009 10:03:24

I notice you keep using the word ’suspected’. If you replaced it with ‘convicted’ you would have a point, but then that point would be irrelevant. The point about suspected terrorists is that they might not have done it. Innocent until proven guilty and so on. I wonder with how much grace Quin Williams would accept his own deportation, detention and torture if there was suspicion that he might be a terrorist.

Fairly recently I read this article on the Daily Kos, about a Powerpoint presentation being shown to the US Air Force. It’s pushing religion, obviously — it’s written by the chaplain. I still really have no idea what chaplains are for. I think our university has one and I have no idea what, if anything, he does. But the fact that a chaplain wrote a presentation pushing religion is not remarkable or necessarily bad. What is wrong with this one is that it’s pushing religion — in fact, it’s pushing creationism — as a way of fighting suicide. (Because, you know, nobody religious has ever killed themselves and if you think they have then you must have been watching the lying News or something.)

That’s just not on. Apart from the fact that creationism is anti-science enough without trying to trump psychology as well as biology, geology and astrophysics, this kind of thing is displacing real therapy that can actually prevent these deaths. But the hell with that — why bother preventing deaths if they can be used to promote an ideology?

An obvious question that may have entered your brain by now is “what on Earth does creationism have to do with suicide prevention?” and the answer is of course “nothing”, so a better question is “what does Chaplain Biscotti think creationism has to do with suicide prevention?”. Well. Apparently he has identified a Problem:

• In the last two years, completed suicides have escalated throughout the Air Force
• …
• The Air Force did not use spirituality as part of their suicide prevention briefing until 2005

It seems that he read that and thought that the solution was to add more spirituality. I cannot fathom how even the most religiously retarded mind could reach that conclusion from that evidence. So what’s his solution?

Dr. Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life,  provides a powerful model for Suicide Prevention, developing leaders, and making troops combat ready and effective.

No, it provides a pack of bullshit. (I haven’t read it, but I can easily surmise it’s a load of rubbish from the fact that Rick Warren wrote it.) After that are a series of laughably inept slides that are reproduced in the Kos article so I won’t bother here. Suffice to say that atheism (specifically, humanism) is equated with selfishness and then The Dreaded Communism, to the point where Darwin is inexplicably listed as one of the leaders of the USSR. It also uses the story of Pat Tillman, an atheist (as far as we know) who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan, to push the idea of faith in general, including faith in oneself. That’s probably basically good advice, were it not displacing real therapy and attached to the rest of this pro-Christianity propaganda.

Chaplain Biscotti is not the Crackpot of the Month. That honour falls to those in secular roles above him, who allow and promote this, who push religion both as a way of reducing suicide and in general. I’m starting with Rod Bishop who seems to have compiled the presentation that contained Biscotti’s slides. Beyond that it seems to be so systemic as to make naming names as pointless as it is impossible.

Luckily the Military Religious Freedom Foundation is suing the US Military over this. How that lawsuit will go is unclear. I have no idea what the rules are on such things, not that that has anything to do with the result of any lawsuit with religion anywhere near it.

[BPSDB]

From time to time I submit stuff to Newsbiscuit. More occasionally they use it. Their submission board is pretty awkward to work, though, so I thought I’d post my favourites on this blog also, where I can keep an eye on them. First, the ones they used:

• Large Hadron Collider ‘may destroy universe’, say stupid people (original submission)
• Department for Children, Schools and Families to ‘give up on schools’ (original submission)
• Labour to use ‘guest leaders’ (original submission)
• Halloween update; local youths ‘less frightening than usual’ (original submission)
• Book of phone numbers ‘left on doorstep’ (original submission)

(I do like my headlines-with-quotes-in.)

Next, some of the ones they didn’t. I’ll put most of them after the fold, since there are a lot of them. Also, some might be offensive if you’re easily offended. First, though, my favourite, from early to mid October:

Gordon Brown has new kitchen sink installed under anti-terrorism laws

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has had his kitchen refitted under laws brought in in the wake of the September 11th and July 7th terrorist attacks.

The refit was proposed in August, as part of a larger reorganisation of Number 10. Brown’s wife Sarah raised objections to the plans at an early stage, saying that the new system would make cooking difficult and that she didn’t like the colour. It seemed that the deadlock was unresolvable until September 17th, when the Prime Minister realised he could use existing anti-terror laws to push the installation through without first gaining his wife’s approval.

Critics have claimed that this is “a clear abuse” of the power handed to the PM’s office by these new rules. One backbench MP said that while he understood the need to have special new measures to deal with the new kind of threat faced today, the government had taken advantage of the fear to pass laws granting themselves more power than they had ever been elected to. Other recent applications of the anti-terror laws include freezing the assets of Iceland UK, resolving the double-booking of a conference room in Parliament, and the emergency resolution on Tuesday which mandated it was James’ turn to do the washing up.

Brown has insisted that neither he nor the government has abused the trust placed in them by Parliament, saying that there are “other kinds of terrorism” besides violent attacks on civilians, and that these might be said to include refusal to wash dishes or bad taste in kitchen units.

The House of Lords is expected to overturn the decision, but James Brown has said that as he’s already done the washing up, it’s too late to reverse the damage and a system must be put in place to prevent these situations from arising in the first place.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is what happens when you treat all ideas equally rather that arbitrarily calling some of them ‘religion’ and pretending that makes them better:

Lillian Ladele ruling is overturned on appeal

Threatening to fire a homophobic registrar who asked to be exempt from registering homosexual civil partnerships was not an act of discrimination by Islington Council, a court has decided. The ruling, published today by the Employment Appeal Tribunal, overturns a previous decision that found in favour of Miss Lillian Ladele. Miss Ladele intends to appeal today’s ruling to the Court of Appeal.

Lawyers acting for Miss Ladele say she was shunned by colleagues who mounted a witch hunt against her because of her homophobic beliefs on marriage. The original tribunal accepted the claims, but today that decision has been reversed by the EAT, chaired by its President, Mr Justice Elias. The EAT did accept that Islington had acted in an improper, unreasonable and extraordinary manner (paragraphs 62 and 77 of the judgment) but ruled it did not amount to discrimination.

The ruling

The ruling states: “The council were not taking disciplinary action against Ms Ladele for holding her prejudices; they did so because she was refusing to carry out civil partnership ceremonies and this involved discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. The council were entitled to take the view that they were not willing to connive in that practice by relieving Ms Ladele of these duties, notwithstanding that her refusal was the result of her strong and genuinely held homophobic prejudice. The council were entitled to take the view that this would be inconsistent with their strong commitment to the principles of non-discrimination and would send the wrong message to staff and service users. There were clearly some unsatisfactory features about the way the council handled this matter. The claimant’s prejudice was strong and genuine and not all of management treated it with the sensitivity which they might have done.”

Squeezing Christians

The case was backed financially by The Bigotry Institute. Colin Hart, its Director, said: “Gay rights are not the only rights. If this decision is allowed to stand it will help squeeze out homophobes from the public sphere because of their prejudices.”

Councillor John Gilbert, Executive Member for Human Resources at Islington Council, said: “The council is extremely pleased with this decision which it believes to be the right one.”

Here is a puzzle I have invented. Solve it.

Clues

1. Something odd — dessert begins before a drink. (4)
2. Charged particles — Si? (4)
3. Hitchhiker confused after 4 suggested (6)
4. Heard jolly greeting (2)
5. Heard a relative bet (4)
6. Swindled by headless chad (3)
7. Loathe jumbled articles (4)
8. One bit, say, where a drill might be kept (2,1,4)
9. Cotton’s starting deteriorating on the spindle (4)
10. Endless money for me! (3)
11. After end of bombs, Mandy’s innards found in bunker (4)
12. Warm, with expanded belly. Good times. (4)
13. Walking trees in advent setting (4)
14. Part of the mind has nothing in it (5)
15. Infidel to heartlessly attempt robbery (7)
16. Fuss after a party (3)
17. Polish singer in function (5)
18. Constant singer (1)
19. Mixed side on a plate (7)

Answers to ‘Why Did You Vote For Bush?’:

You may not like our president but you’d better thank God he’s in office. My world - your world -is much safer because President Bush understands the need to seek out and punish those who have and would continue to harm us. … Just remember that you sleep in safety tonight because Americans, led by our president, are willing to die for your safety.
Gary Williams, Granbury, Texas

Only because the UK doesn’t have any oil.

Bush has turned the recession into a growing economy… That’s worth my vote any day.
Joe Brassard, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

How’s that working out for you?

I voted for Bush because he is an honourable man who makes decisions based on principles, not polls and a man who can be taken at his word. Unfortunately, this seems to be a rarity among politicians.
Cathy Jones, Bayonet Point, Florida

He panders to his conservative base rather than doing what the public want.

President Bush may be polarizing in his international policies, but at least I can be certain that he will not allow terrorist actions to go unpunished…
Hayley, Dallas, Texas, USA

…whether they did it or not.

I voted for Bush to usher in the complete and utter destruction of the United States. Sometimes, you just have to tear it all down and start over again. No one will destroy America faster than Bush. Go Bush!
Tim, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Fair enough.

Your average European needs to watch the movie “Open Range” to better understand their American cousins. We all must defend Western Civilization before it is subsumed by the barbarians. The Europeans are going to (not) breed themselves out of existence and only the US will be left to carry on the civilization that has come to us all from the Greeks, through the Romans and brought into the modern age by the Europeans.
Mark Salas, Boswell, OK

You voted for Bush because you’re a crazy person. Okay.

He makes me feel safe.
Danielle, Illinois, USA

Well, he would. ‘Danielle’ is not a very Islamic-sounding name.

Bush is against abortion and that is all that matters to me. That is the only issue I consider and there are a lot of Americans who feel the same way. Some people say it is ignorant to disregard the other issues, and maybe it is, but that is how I feel.
Bertha, Upstate NY

As long as we’re clear.

If he had been president in the 90’s UBL [Usama bin Laden?] would not have gotten away with everything he has done. He will be caught by President Bush, that most American believe, even if the liberal media doesn’t want to report what Americans really feel. President Bush is Great!
Rebecca Saunders, Houston Texas

Certainly bin Laden never managed any major terrorist attacks durng Bush’s presidency. Unless us Democrats are forgetting something, as Hayley seems to think.

I voted for Bush because I am a Bible-thumping right-wing gun lunatic who hates gays, isn’t that right? That’s not actually true, but it doesn’t matter what the reality is, because that’s how the European media will depict it. According to them, if I don’t agree with pacifism and appeasement, I must be an inbred redneck idiot. So I suppose that’s why I voted for Bush: I am an idiot.
Gonzalo Rodriguez, London, UK

As long as we’re clear.

I voted for George Bush (to the disapproving consternation of my European cousins) because an election is a choice, and the two candidates offered two different approaches to leadership.

I think they wanted more than “because there was an election”.

Ever since an attempt was made in the 1770s to tax our favourite breakfast beverage, Americans have never liked being told what we should do, or how we should do it.

From what I have read, I expect the majority of the European populace, most of whom I assume were born post-war, not to approve of the American people’s decision. For insight, however, I suggest that holidays or other visits to the US not be limited to Boston, New York and Los Angeles.
Arthur Xanthos, New York City, USA

Anyone?

Because he doesn’t believe that our foreign policy needs a global test. Europe needs to get on board with us or get left behind!
Ben Rice, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania

Do you know what foreign policy is?

Staunch supporter of economic freedom for all Americans and freedom for all nations 
Miek Kondracki, American in Poland

Except Iraq. And Afghanistan. And parts of Cuba.

And America.

I voted for George because: 
1. He is intelligent. He graduated from Harvard Business School. They don’t give out free passes there. 

Yeah…

2. He has character. I grew up in backwoods Texas where bank loans were granted upon a handshake. Your word was your bond.
Warren, Salisbury, NC, USA

How’s that working out for you?

I voted for Bush because I will not have Bruce Springsteen, Gerhard Schroeder, Osama Bin Laden and Michael Moore telling me who to vote for.
Peter Sosniak, New York

Except for bin Laden.

The US was founded on Judeo-Christian values and a majority of Americans still hold close to these. Some may want to deny this, some may be deceived by what they see on the television, and some actually may not know this. This is hard to comprehend for a lot Europeans who have discarded these values and embraced secularism.
Michael, Texas

You voted Bush because you don’t understand the way your country works. Makes sense.

Jesus Christ, the American flag, the Ten Commandments, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are as sacred as the Bill of Rights.

So, not sacred, then.

Only President Bush and the Republicans have consistently stood up for these ideals.
David Belland, USA

Liberty? Really?

And Bush has shown the heart to bring democracy to two of the worst places on earth - Afghanistan and Iraq.
John, Boston, Mass, USA

Heart, maybe. Competence would have been a useful ally.

Bush is our president, we elected him, we care about religion, and Europe better get used to it because we’re not about to let you vote!
John, Stockholm, Sweden

Hang on, didn’t John from Boston just say… oh, forget it.

I voted for Mr Bush because he stands for the values as defined by the word of God.
Mike McF, Frisco, Texas, USA

Such as slavery.

I hope his second term will bring peace and democracy to the troubled regions of the world and domestically bring greater prosperity not only to America but also to the Third world.
Ben, New York

That would have been nice.

To the rest of the world, whose comments have been nothing but disparaging: You simply do not understand Americans! You never have, and I doubt that you will ever fully understand our thought process…
Leah, Richmond, VA

I expect so.

I voted for President Bush, because what others saw as stubbornness and arrogance… I saw as strength and perseverance.
Laura, USA

As long as we’re clear.

I voted for Bush because I could not stand the elitist media and the pundits telling me that he was a fool. I was tired of people like Michael Moore trying to influence my decision by making movies that had only one purpose - tear down the president. I disagree with many of his policies and would not have voted for him except for the fact that I am sick and tired of these people telling me that I am not smart enough to figure out for myself what is right and what is wrong. The Republicans should thank Moore and give him a prominent table at the inauguration!
Michael C, NY, USA

It just got on my nerves so much that people who only get a sliver of heavily bias coverage about America could hold such closed-minded opinions about our elections. Maybe four more years will give you a chance to open your minds to new ideas and consider that there are Americans who have a right to believe differently than you.
Andrew, Washington, DC

So you won’t be voting for a black liberal in four years, then?

I voted for Bush, so that he can clean up all his mess during his second term. No-one else should be made responsible for all his folly and self-disillusioned war on terror. The only war that the world needs to fight is to eradicate poverty, diseases, genocide, atrocity and many unjust situations in many parts of the world. These are the real terrors that breeds human terrorists. Go to the roots of the cause. Don’t try to be a fool to treat symptoms of these terrors.
Jaime Stuart

He’s not an unruly child, you twat, he’s the President! While you’re teaching him a lesson which he won’t get, other people are being tortured horribly to death. You twat.

He needs to win the heart of the world by fighting this war more broadly and involving every one with a freedom flag. We hail Bush. 
Saurabh K, Santa Cruz, CA

And, by Godwin’s Law, that is the end.

Since I’ve been working on But Sir…, I’ve seen a lot of petitions asking for a total ban on swearing on TV. To those people I say ‘fuck off’.

The problem I have with it is that there’s no difference between a word that is swearing and a word that is not other than how people react to it. I’ve been over this before. The actual meaning of the word is irrelevant, as demonstrated by the relative offensiveness of ‘poo’, ‘crap’ and ’shit’. So if the words aren’t offensive because of what they mean then why is it? It’s arbitrary. It’s made up. Someone decided ‘fuck’ was offensive, so you started taking offence at it. So now it’s offensive because you take offence rather than the other way around. That’s self-reinforcing nonsense. It’s basically a religion. So if you want to legislate based on some arbitrary list of words you’ve decided you don’t want to hear, I see no reason to listen to you.

Here’s one:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make urgent representation to the Broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, the broadcasting institutions operating in the UK and film regulators, asking them to stop the use of unnecessary swearing and bad language in their productions (including those available for downloading from websites) and to urge providers of user-generated content to take similar action.

…

 

In May 2008 the Radio Times conducted an opinion poll, which found that 69% of people believed there is too much swearing on TV. In November 2008 the Sunday Express launched a Clean Up TV Crusade focusing on the excessive use of swearing and the Sunday Telegraph conducted a poll which found that 56% of people thought the f*** word should never be used on TV. The Office of Communications (Ofcom) in its Communications Market reports for 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 found that the majority of people believe there is too much swearing on TV.

…

John Beyer of mediawatch-uk

 

Haha, ‘the f*** word’. You won’t even use the word in its correct context. Even when there’s ambiguity. You might mean ‘fart’. Or ‘feet’. And let’s leave out the question of what percentage of Radio Times readers are grannies. Of course they’ll say there’s too much swearing.

But that’s a sensible one — reduce swearing. Fair enough. This one is madder:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Ban swearing on TV and Radio.

Too many ‘F’ words. Why? Whats the point? Get back to good pubic standards of decency. Stop the Ross-dross and promote proper use of the English language. Stop swearing on the Radio and TV!

Chris K

It’s saddening that people genuinely think that this is appropriate language in which to petition the Prime Minister. It’s also a bit of a worry that they equate ‘talking like I do’ with ‘proper use of the English language’.

And this one is even madder:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Ban all Swearing in public places .

Ban all swearing in public places and especially on the British Broadcasting Corporation, to bring back a standard of decency and set an example to the younger generation.

Mrs Margaret Elward of housewife

This has six signatories, including a ‘Mister Why on earh is the PM being petitioned for this?’ and someone claiming to be called ‘because we care about standards in our Country, you obviously don’t’. Well, they have a definition of ’standards’ which means arbitrarily excluding certain words from our vocabularies (but not ‘knowing how petitons work’), and I’m sorry but I have bigger things to worry about than that, and that’s before we get onto the bigger issues with allowing the government to ban words they disapprove of.

Really, who are these people? “Set an example to the younger generation”? Do you really think that the biggest problem with young people is that they (we?) swear too much? It just doesn’t make any sense. Even if someone stops us swearing, we’ll just make up some other words and shout those in exactly the same context, and then presumably half of them will try to get the new words added to the list and the other half will say ‘well, that’s not the f-star-star-star word, so that’s okay by me,’ and go back to watching Father Ted.

It’s ridiculous. Why do people insist on acting stupid?

Oh, wait. I think I know the answer to that one.

A couple of hours ago, the anonymous quack who calls herself homeopathy4health posted an article entitled “James Randi avoids homeopathic challenge for $1 million prize” and, in true cowardly fashion, immediately disabled user comments. She links to, and characteristically copy-pastes most of, a page called “the facts about an ingenious homeopathic experiment that was not completed due to the “tricks” of Mr. James Randi” apparently written by someone called George Vithoulkas, who had taken up Randi’s $1m challenge. (Randi offers a million dollar prize to anyone who can prove something supernatural, a category in which he includes many alternative ‘therapies’ such as homeopathy.)

Neither is fun to read. Quacks do love to go on, possibly because simply saying a lot of things is an effective way to stop sceptics from being able to counter them all — it takes a second to say ‘miasmas exist’ without a reference but it takes a good five minutes to properly explain why they don’t. Throw in a stock ‘reference’ and a response might take an hour to craft. Of course, you can just say ‘prove it’ but that won’t convince anyone who doesn’t already have a healthy respect for science. It also doesn’t help that the English is somewhat broken. Possibly it is a second language. (In the quote below I have refrained from adding ‘[sic]‘ after errors, as it would be appended to every other sentence and just look like Vithoulkas had been at the sherry.)

Apparently, Randi fell ill and the challenge had to be postponed, by which time a change of management meant the centre would not be willing to participate. I can sympathise with this — the research unit I work for has this kind of problem all the time. Almost exactly this has happened at least once. That’s one of the problems, unfortunately, with doing proper science: everything has to be planned so meticulously that the slightest detail can throw it out and cause long delays. Vithoulkas claims that this was a trick to avoid ever having the experiment:

In 7.4.2006 Mr. Gindis wrote to Mr. Randi in order to signal to him that the homeopathic team was ready to start… But instead Randi suspended all activities of the experiment attributing it to his supposedly state of health!

Mr. Randi knew very well that this period was crucial for us to start the experiment and we had made this urgency explicit by sending several e-mails urging them that it was necessary to go ahead immediately. But Mr. Randi needed …six months “to recover” denying to assign a collaborator.

James Randi is 80 years old. Is it really that hard to believe he might be ill?

Vithoulkas and his team refused to accept this change to the schedule and have decided to do the experiment without Randi, which Randi.org quite accurately described as a withdrawal from the challenge. Randi points out that as his foundation is the one offering a million dollar prize, he gets to set the terms. Vithoulkas has decided that this is unfair and then, brilliantly, written Randi a retraction for him to post. He hasn’t. It seems to me that as a homeopath Vithoulkas is unfamiliar with the problems faced by real scientists doing actual clinical trials and is presumably used to ploughing on in an ad-hoc fashion and knocking the whole ’study’ out in a week.  I can see how in that case Doing It Right might look like stalling.

Still, whoever is right, I presume that since homeopathy4health is now in the business of chastising sceptics who she feels are shirking from a challenge, she will be immediately getting six bottled remedies and negotiating with Andy Lewis to find a trusted third party so she can participate in his far easier, lower-stakes challenge.

Otherwise frankly she’s fooling nobody but herself (and that’s only because herself is so very credulous).

Look who it is! Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor is back, with another little rant. This time, the Independent has inexplicably given him a column to explain his opinions of the invented problems facing the strange and alien version of Britain that exists inside his imagination:

The progressive secularisation of the cultural environment and the accompanying decline in religious practice means that religious belief of any kind tends now to be treated more as a private eccentricity than as the central and formative element in British society that it is.

No, it isn’t. It’s Winter Solstice season, when almost every religion ever invented has a major festival, and still almost nobody I know cares at all about religion (except for those who are against it). That would probably be because it’s a kind of private eccentricity. On account of the progressive secularisation of the cultural environment and the accompanying decline in religious practice. Religion is so important in public life that more people will shop online than attend church on Christmas Day and the Bible Society reckon that one generation from now there will be less than 90,000 people in church on Christmas. That’s less people than consult life coaches (it says here). You can’t simultaneously claim that people have stopped practicing religion and that religion is a “central element” in society.

‘Private eccentricity’ is a phrase I’ve never heard anyone use about religion until I read this, but I like it and might have to start.

Over the past 40 years, social prejudice against Catholics has largely disappeared, and Catholics have been fully assimilated into the mainstream of British life.

Good for them. Well done. But don’t worry, keep ranting and you can still be a social pariah if you like. And you can live in a make-believe world where God loves you and religion is a central and formative element in British society, and where phrases like ‘central and formative element in British society’ mean something. Won’t that be nice?

Intellectual and cultural acceptance is another matter; and there is a widely perceived conflict between religious belief (and the Catholic Church in particular) on the one hand and the prevailing notion of what it means to be a “liberal” and tolerant society on the other.

Hang on there, Cardinal Fear-Quotes. You’re saying that people saying “infidels will burn in hell” is at odds with liberalism and tolerance? Of course it is. You don’t promote tolerance by dividing people into arbitrary groups, giving them all different rules about how to live, and telling all of them that the only way to save everyone else from eternal torture is to make them follow your rules. That’s how you start a war. Having lots of people with deeply-held convictions all at odds with each other is probably not a good way to make peace, is it?

Leaving aside the polemical views of Professor Richard Dawkins and his fellow atheists on the essential irrationality of all religious belief, …

That’s a bit like saying ‘leaving aside the crazy rantings of Harold Shipman on the idea that two fours are eight’. You can’t just pick the most controversial person you can think of who holds an opinion and pretend that the opinion is as controversial as him. Religious belief is irrational. (I realise my word isn’t helping here as I’d probably be as controversial as Dawkins if I had his publicity.) You believe in an invisible magic man who made the universe, handed out a bunch of cryptic rules, and now spends his time appearing to uneducated people in shrines and not saying anything. You want to tell me that’s rational?

…there is a current dislike of absolutes in any area of human activity, including morality (though this does not apparently preclude an absolute ban on anything that can be interpreted as racial, sexual or gender discrimination).

So, there’s only a dislike of absolutes that you made up or read into a laughably out-of-date book, then. As long as we’re clear. I shall steer clear of stoning people to death for opening their eggs at the wrong end, then.

In part, this dislike stems from an entirely understandable revulsion for totalitarianism; and there is no denying that too absolutist an approach to ethical problems leads to intolerance. But as the ongoing debate about faith schools has demonstrated, the intolerance of liberal sceptics can be as repressive as the intolerance of religious believers.

Yeah, we’re so intolerant of ignorant people forcing unsupported ideas and dangerous ideology on vulnerable children (and you can read the bottom of this post to see what Murphy-O’Connor thinks we should do with vulnerable children) and calling it ‘educating’ them. We’re also intolerant of someone killing their daughter for her choice of boyfriend. Where do you want to draw the line? Let’s hear it: at what point do you think an injustice becomes great enough that we shouldn’t ignore it as ‘their culture’? Is there a line in your head?

Partly I’m just baffled that someone can type “the intolerance of liberal sceptics” without straining their irony glands and having to have a little lie down.

What should be the limits of tolerance in a liberal society is a key question in the wider debate about “multiculturalism”. Because of the Catholic experience of what it means to be a credal minority, British Catholics are likely to sympathise with those ethnic and religious groups who want to retain their cultural and religious distinctiveness in a British environment.

The issue of integration is made more pressing as a result of the migrations from eastern Europe, Africa and South America over the past few years. This has been most vividly demonstrated by the arrival in Britain of more that 500,000 Catholics from Poland, and they alone will change the face of British Catholicism.

Well, there’s them, and the millions of Muslims who’ve turned up and dressed differently than most British people and built mosques everywhere. Although yes, certainly most of the public debate has centred around Polish Catholics. Apparently they’re taking our plumbing jobs.

The growth of ethnic chaplaincies, especially in London, offers a support that is familiar, but, as with previous migrations, integration into existing communities is already taking place through school and work.

…and must be stopped at once! How can you say that and still support faith schools? It’s totally self-cont– oh, forget it, it’s like trying to teach a Lotto machine to count.

For Catholics, the conflict with liberal opinion focuses at the present time on two issues on which the Catholic position is characterised as intolerant and (even worse) “reactionary”: the absolute value of every human life; and the central importance of the family and the institution of marriage as fundamental pillars of a rightly ordered society.

You mean, your arbitrary and unscientific assertion that a cluster of cells none of which are brain counts as a ‘person’, and your even more baseless and frankly rather offensive claims that homosexual sex is wrong? Yeah, those are sticking points.

Many other Christians, as well as Jews and Muslims, broadly share the Catholic Church’s position on these issues, but I think it is fair to say that the Catholic Church bears the brunt of “liberal” hostility on both fronts.

Maybe that’s because you write about it in the Independent. Also, you have a Pope. If Pope Ratzinger (I’ll call him Pope Benedict XVI if he’ll call me Captain Marvellous) just once acted Infallible and said being gay and having abortions were basically okay then the problem would halve overnight. Can’t really do that for Islam. Islam’s an idea with a life of its own and that can’t be reasoned with. Catholicism has a leader and a structure full of people we can pester about it. Just a shame they’re all stubborn, bigoted fools.

One area of specific concern for the Catholic Church is marriage and family life.

You mean, hating the gays. Come on: it’s a spade, say the word ’spade’.

The British enthusiasm for debate and tolerance of alternative views has led to an acceptance of diversity and pluralism. This is welcome, but if an acceptance of diversity and pluralism becomes an end in itself there is a grave risk that long-accepted cultural norms, such as marriage and family, are undermined to the detriment of society as a whole.

“People like to be accepting, and that’s good, as long as they’re not accepting of any of the things on my List Of People I Hate For No Reason.”

The vocal minority who argue that religion has no role in modern British society portray Catholic teaching on the family as prejudiced and intolerant to those pursuing alternatives.

Because you hate the gays?

Catholic teaching is clear that all unjust discrimination is wrong, but this teaching cannot accept the relativistic acceptance that all approaches are equivalent.

So presumably you’ll be immediately stopping believing a load of made up rubbish and from now on waiting for evidence, yes?

British society champions tolerance and freedom, but that freedom is dependent on responsibility.

You have freedom to do whatever you want, on the condition that you don’t use it to have homosexual sex? I wonder if Murphy-O’Connor has read Catch-22.

With the exception of the US Evangelical movement, I can’t think of even one mainstream religious leader who I have a lower opinion of than Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. He shouldn’t be given a platform to air his views; he should be sidelined for them. In fact, no, he should be in prison for being complicit in the sexual abuse of children. That this man has the nerve to criticise consensual sex between adults of the same gender as ‘immoral’ suggests to me that he is dangerously insane.

Remember, Catholics: the only difference between you and orthodox or Reformist Christians is that you endorse these lunatics. I know Christianity is important to many of you, but it doesn’t have to come packaged with bigotry or child abuse or banning condoms in places with AIDS epidemics or a boycott on Amnesty International. You can be a nice Christian instead.

I think by now more people than have ever met me know what I think of news items that exist because PR companies generate ‘data’ to manipulate journalists into advertising their clients, and here is another one. This one is a survey, which is perhaps not as bad as the formula ones, since they did at least have to do something to generate this data and it does at least tell us something (albeit not something of any use).

It’s not very objective or rigorous, obviously, but I can’t help but like it anyway. How could you not when it leads to such brilliant headlines as “Children say happiness is important”? This from the Metro, which runs a snide little column called “No S**t, Sherlock” (their asterisks), where they poke fun at scientific studies that produce results that they consider obvious. Hm.

Mostly though, it’s an excuse to have a few gentle laughs at the naïvité of children. I can’t find the full breakdown for this year’s survey, but from the summaries in newspapers and the results from 2005-2007, it’s safe to say an equally valid headline would be “Children stupid, survey finds”.

The best bit is question 3: “if you were king or queen of the world, what rules would you make?”. It turns out that children in Luton are far-right-wing lunatics. And they say that you get more conservative with age. My favourite one was the seventh most popular answer in 2005, which was “everlasting pets”. I’d like to think that once people grow up they stop thinking that the government can just ban cancer or something, but clearly they don’t.