Guilty Because He Looks A Bit Weird

I have no idea if Chris Jeffries killed poor Johanna Yeates, and I am sure no one else knows exactly who did kill her (except for the killer) at the moment either. But isn't the amount of insinuation about the man from both the press and from general conversation (I overheard one woman say he must be guilty as he has a "paedophiles face". Really) really quite unsettling, way beyond what should be appropriate for the current stage of the enquiry. Apart from the controversy about him (or not) reporting Johanna leaving her flat the day she vanished, the accusations that he might have done it include:

*He is a "Peeping Tom" (well that was some blokes wifes opinion anyway. Not that the Mirror didn't let it stop them printing a "Jo suspect is "Peeping Tom" headline.)

*He has a daft hairdo

*He made former tenants wife "uncomfortable."

*He entered said flat (of which he was landlord) without asking

*He had mucky fingernails.

*He likes poems (he's an English teacher.) and got wrapped up in reading them aloud.

*He looks funny.

*He had a strange coat.

*Some of his former pupils called him "Strange Mr. Jeffries."

*Some other pupils thought he was gay on the single basis of him not being married.

*He read poems by writers who were obsessed with things like death (Also known as nearly everyone who writes poems.)

*He let out a flat (Johanna's flat) to a fellow teacher 12 years ago who was done for sexual assault of a minor years later.

*He was a bit eccentric, and people who commit murder on telly are always eccentric.

Stuff like this is not very helpful. It is way too early in the enquiry to start muck raking about a bloke who let us make this clear: - MAY NOT HAVE ACTUALLY DONE ANYTHING BY THE WAY! A slightly eccentric English master at a posh school is certainly nothing new, and being "a bit strange" doesn't immediately mean you have a propensity to strangle young women to death, and all the "psycho poses" like the one above don't really change that.

Petitions to be Debated in Parliament. A Gateway to Mob Rule, or A More Open Democracy?

This plan to allow the most popular online petitions to be debated in parliament - a Tory election manifesto pledge - has been given the go ahead by the coalition. Naturally this has unsettled some who see it as a potential road to mob rule, however the government and the reasoning behind the plan claim it is a way to reconnect with voters who feel increasingly shut out and alienated since the expenses crisis broke last year. A chance to kick start democracy and parliamentary enthusiasm to a jaded and indifferent electorate. Critics say it will end up meaning that parliament will be honour bound have to debate supporting / opposing wacky petitions such as making Jeremy Clarkson prime minister (50'000 signed that e-petition, the minimum limit proposed is double that.), or making the Jedi a recognised religion, and so forth. Or that these petitions are often rather based on the ephemeral fickle desires of the electorate. These are legitimate concerns, so we must ask; will this idea be a good or bad one?

My own personal answer to this question is yes. It will be both a good and bad thing. Mass participant democracy is so multifaceted and fickle and nebulous it can't be much else. The positives are that the plan is certainly democratic to a degree. It also has the benefit of being able to bring transparancy to the arguments of the proponents and opponents of controversial popular issues such as membership of the E.U, capital punishment and immigration (I guarantee at least one of these will be at the head of the list of stuff to be debated.) in parliament being forced to up their game and fight their corner in the public debate on these issues, raising public awareness of the pros and cons of each. Sometimes lots of people may have strong views on this kind of stuff, but little working knowledge of how these would be put in practice. Hopefully this kind of debate could give laypeople insight into how the mechanics governing a country actually works. It could also reassure an electorate that issues that may be popular talking points in the public sphere, but are seen to be "ducked" in the Commons are now being debated (though we must emphasise that they are "only" being debated and are not full blown referenda.)

Now for the downsides of the idea. Surprisingly the issue of stuff like the "Clarkson for PM" petition having to be debated is pretty minor. For one thing the criteria around the new petitions is more robust, and it would take about 5 seconds to reject it if it was put through for debate (Clarkson says he doesn't want to be PM for a start. Debate over.) There is the risk that parochialism, short term gain at the expense of long term goals and appeals to popular prejudices and xenophobia may become more prevalent. (though that may be seen as acting in the course of popular democracy) That there will be more soundbites and appealing to raw populism. Almost certainly we may see "astroturf" campaigning where petitions ostensibly started by "the grassroot public" will have bigger interest groups behind them, who can use these things to their own effects (and can call it the "will of the people"). Ditto for those right wing libertarian groups who mask their dislike of a certain form of regulation as "climate change scepticism". They will likely slow decision making and the parliamentary process, as the various debates of the pros and cons eats in to Westminster's time. I can see various back bench MP's stirring up these petitions of their own making to pursue their own eccentric obsessions (Don't be too surprised if Philip Davies tries getting a "Ban Political Correctness"* petition started. I could see Nadine Dorres doing this kind of thing as well.) And lastly they could actually make people more dejected at the state of our democracy. People may end up being a bit pissed off when their large petition that they signed; say on leaving the EU, doesn't get them the referendum (and cross channel divorce into the bargain one would presume) they were so keen on, as the Eurosceptic John Redwood explains in this blog post here . As we see the practical issues are not as clear cut we may think. Time will tell I suppose.

*Banning Political Correctness may be both fairly popular and could seem to be an easy thing to achieve. But then we remember that PC is just a vague adjective for a bunch of stuff / people / regulations some other vague group of people don't approve of. Even debating what passes as "PC" and "Non PC" could be wrangled over for ages. I'd hate to think how this would then be translated into workable laws, which could be wrangled over for even more ageser. Ditto for the inevitable calls for bans on "Elf - N -Safety", "Non Jobs" and "Worthless Degrees" How do you translate abstract terms to solid laws? Answer not very easily.

Christmassy Thing

I should have posted more over the past few days but I have been sick as dog with some cold virus seemingly everyone in the North of England went down with as well. It also didn't help just spending about 36 hours of this weekend sitting there doing little more than eating Celebrations and drinking cans either. But even I managed to be shaken into some form of stunned lucidity on Christmas Day by seeing Matt Lucas blacking up on my TV screen, running around in Stanstead Airport pretending to be a female Afro Caribbean coffee shop assistant for a mockumentary on a fly on the wall look at an airport (Come Fly With Me BBC 1.). He even did the wacky Jar Jar Binks accent too. I mean actually fucking hell! Naturally this all went down like seven pounds of dog shit in a jacuzzi with critics and viewers.

Great call guys!!!

Ding Dong Merrily on High and Dry.(See what I did there?)

A few years ago I worked at a major UK supermarket, we'll codename it ASDA as that was what it was called. ASDA used to be closed only four days a year, Christmas Day; Boxing Day*; New Years Day, and Easter Sunday. Well now it seems all the major supermarkets (except our local Morrisons) are now opening on Boxing Day, so the workers have one less holiday day at Christmas, and that it sad.

Christmas serves an important function in our society. Now I am big time atheist, Jesus was no more the son of God, as Arthur Askey was. The Nativity may be as factually valid as an episode of Buck Rogers, but that doesn't mean we should just do away with it. Now I'm a cynical misanthrope who lives in a dirty bin lid and swears incoherently at passers by, and even I manage to capture some of the Christmas spirit, you'd have to either be very miserable or currently Tyrone of Coronation Street not to even let a little of the festive spirit rub off. A good natured affirmative group celebration like Christmas is good for us all, a time to realise life isn't all work and practical stuff, that human existence should be life affirming. And getting presents is a bonus too! In short Christmas is everything the ultra free market isn't.

A young woman on Facebook has fallen foul of this extra opening day. And she was understandably put out. It just seems wrong opening the supermarkets on Boxing day, and you got that sense from her comments. I mean come on! Will these mega companies really go bust if they allow their staff (who often have young families, who are now deprived of the company a loved one at Christmas) two days off at Christmas. This is precisely what bugs me about ultra free market advocates (who incidentally often seem pretty protected from the arse end of this kind of society.) reasoning. It may generate wealth**, but it doesn't generate human wealth so to speak. These aren't inanimate units of production, but human workers with desires and lives and families, and a desire for emotional comforts and the comforts of home and hearth and whatever.*** That is perhaps why I have a soft spot for Christmas. It stands as a long standing bulwark against the free market fundamentalism that may have made us richer but not happier. But will the day itself come under threat? I have heard (but have no verification) that some US superstores do open for a few hours on the 25th now. Bugger.

*Pretty much every year I was there there were rumours that this was the year they'd take the plunge and open Boxing Day.

**No I'm not a communist by the way. The free market has its uses, but should not be a societal end in itself. To quote David Starkey "It remains true as always, people are motivated by more than just market forces."

** It has been argued that some people are so lonely at Christmas that they would welcome them all being open on the day as they would at least have a shop assistant to speak to that day. This always breaks my bloody heart when I hear it. Perhaps we should try to change the factors that allow people to become this cut off as an all year round project, rather than making it a reason to open stores on Christmas Day.

Information for the New Year, and Transporting Stuff that Was Supposed to be on this Blog to a New One.

I did say a few weeks ago that I would be doing some reviews of several episodes of Sci Fi shows on this blog. However I just don't feel that they "fit" in here somehow. They seem out of place on a broad brush blog that devotes most of the time to currant affairs, popular pseudoscience and taking the piss out of the Daily Mail (all indeed enjoyable pastimes I might add.) I don't know where they fit in on here overall. Now I did say when I started that stuff like that would be put up, but it hasn't really happened. But then again I was just making this whole thing up on the fly, and most of the stuff I still put up is largely spur of the moment stuff that happens to tickle my fancy at a given moment. However the desire to review the episodes of a few sci fi shows close to my heart has never left me, and indeed in 2007 I had some bare bones reviews of the Star Trek spin off Deep Space 9 put to paper, as it was being shown on syndication on Virgin 1 (Channel 1 as it is now known) at the time. Indeed taking a leaf out of the expansion of Chuck Sonnenburgs superb SFDebris reviews to blip TV has spurned me on even more. There is a lot of personal enjoyment for me in mulling over shows that ran through my formative years. So I have decided to put them all together on a separate blog I intend to start up some time in the new year. It makes more sense that way, and not just on a blog seemingly established to picking holes in Peter Hitchens opinion pieces. After all there is no rule to say you can't have more than one blog on the go.

So the shows I intend to review will probably start with Star Trek Deep Space Nine (Seasons 1 to 7 concurrently in viewing order), then the Trek Movies, and Babylon 5 after that. After that, who knows? It's a lot of telly for sure. But I think something like that needs a separate, more specialist blog altogether. I'll start setting notes up at Crimbo, and put the details up on here before everyone is too pissed to be physically capable of reading anything at all as New Years Eve kicks in to gear.

Happy Days.

Peter Hitchens Accuses Mathew Parris of Misrepresenting His Veiws, And then Does Just That to Bob Ainsworth.

Peter Hitchens has got into a bit of a right old ding dong with Matthew Parris over him apparently misrepresenting his views on homosexuality on some debate they had. He has used his blog and column to continually call on Parris to apologise to him in a very public manner. It has the ring of a bit of a creepy spurned lover [on Hitchens part] being a bit weird and obsessive to their former partner. I half expect Matthew Parris to write to Peter telling him to back off and get over it. Something like:

Dear Peter

I know you got hurt and all, nut please man get some perspective. I also know that you have been breaking into my house when I am at work at the Times, I know that you are upset and all but please stop rifling through my draws and trying on all my underpants. That's crossing the line old boy. Take a holiday, Fallaraki is cracking this time of year. Eric Pickles got so pissed last year he tried to have a fight with a fruit machine and then fell asleep on the main road, pissed himself as well, it was proper funny! You'd love it you old rum cove!

Kind Regards my old mucker

Matt.

To be fair having what you said being misrepresented is not nice. I could see how he would be put out by it. So I'm sure that Britain's most supreme arbitrator of right and wrong in the entire world would never misrepresent the views of someone else, after he was peeved that it may have happened to him?

Er no:

Hitchens is cheesed off at Bob Ainsworth for calling for the legalisation of drugs. Now on its own that isn't exactly a big shock, Hitchens is very anti drugs legalisation of any kind. Now that in itself isn't a crime. Drugs is a hot political potato, as a polemic columnist he has the right to proclaim his view on how drugs should be handled, indeed he wouldn't be dong his job otherwise. It is how he attacks Bob Ainsworth that I feel is unfair:

"But they will earn him the curses of parents whose children’s lives have been – or are yet to be – ruined by drugs, and of a society which will find out too late what it is like to live in a state where pleasure and self-stupefaction have driven out self-discipline and the work ethic.
What, you may wonder, leads a middle-aged white-collar trade unionist into the wacky world of drug legalisation?

(You're a fucking journalist, find out by reading what he said then.)

I have no idea. Was it something they discussed during those meetings of the International Marxist Group that Mr Ainsworth once attended? Or is the moustache a giveaway?

Like so many of his age group, did Mr Ainsworth see the 1967 release of Sergeant Pepper – and the druggies’ anthem A Day In The Life – as a seminal moment in the cultural revolution?
Does he imagine himself sitting among the Fab Four, suspended above reality atop a sweet-smelling cloud? It would explain a lot."

In light of what is said by this article, and that saying a mans moustache means he must be an evil communist usurper is the most stupid thing ever committed to a blog in history - this seems like an unfair assessment of Ainsworths comments and why he supports legalisation. When you hear about the appalling violence in Mexico that is down to fighting the war on drugs, and the successes in Portugal which has taken a much more liberal approach to policing drugs, then he is absolutely bang on to put the case for liberalising the drugs laws (aren't politicians accused of all sounding alike anyway?). Hitchens wants to portray the pro legalisation lobby as a bunch of selfish hedonists who want to legalise drugs so they can sit on a beach spliffed up at 4 in the morning, discovering the most profound existential answers by staring for a long time at a deck chair. Might some people actually come round to thinking that prohibition is actually causing more harm than the drugs they are supposed to stop? Saying that Ainsworth wants either a stupefied population, or wants to legalise them to smoke pot and pretend to smoking a spliff with the Beatles on cloud is dare I say it;- misrepresenting what he actually said. And we all know that is bad, especially if you are demanding an apology from someone you said did just that to you.

The "Teach Both Sides" Paradox on Climate Change, Darwinism Et Al, In a Nutshell

Professor Brian Cox off D-Ream highlighted the dual paradox that faces hot scientific potatoes such as climate change or evolution, where the mainstream scientific consensus of experts points extremely heavily in favour of both, but popular layman consensus can be divided and highly contentious, often flying in the face of the experts view. The problem is twofold, firstly in the interests of "balance", media orientated directors or journalists / editors will "promote" the other side either they think that showing both sides of the story is the fair and just thing to do, or plainly out of a spirit of contrarian irreverence to piss off the "establishment". This route is not a solid way to take into account that one of the sides could plainly have got the facts wrong. The second is more controversial. If say climate change proponents point out that the "deniers" don't have a leg to stand on, and have dodgy evidence, and thus have no scientific or factual basis to claim equivalence and equal air time, well they end up looking like they do have something to hide, at least to those laypersons looking at the issues. What are they so afraid about in debating the issues? Unfortunately not seeing the vigorous academic scrutiny and peer review that became the scientific consensus that gets put out. That is why we end up with public scepticism being much higher than those of qualified climate scientists. (75 percent in the UK think AGW is happening. 97% of scientists think the same, and every scientific body of international and national stature.)


This paradox is summed up superbly (but unintentionally) in a blog article by Alex Singleton, a journo from the Telegraph, not a paper to deny airspace to a AGW denier - about an e-mail circulated at Fox News about putting out "both" sides of the AGW debate

"From: Sammon, Bill Sent: Tue Dec 08 12:49:51 2009Subject:

Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data……we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies."

Ostensibly this e-mail sounds pretty reasonable, and I can see why Alex Singleton may think that this is a good approach to take in regards to climate change. However, and this was Proffessor Cox's point. Although Bills attitude towards the role of journalism may be admirable and well intentioned in regards to something like the scientific consensus of climate change, it doesn't really fit the approach to take on scientific issues that have been researched. I have no problem with them saying that some do criticise and disagree with the consensus on AGW, but they are not saying how much criticism there is, and how is a very small minority, mostly composed of laypeople and has no real standing at all in the harsh world of scientific peer review and evidence based research. That is the point Cox said, this outlook to scientific reporting may seem fair, but it is giving pseudoscience airtime that is totally unwarranted from a research sense.

Singleton then brings up a point that highlights an important gap in the often humanities based background of journalists, and the research work of science:

"wonder if the journalists writing attacks on Fox realise that these sort of advisory emails are frequently sent around the staff of Left-wing establishments, declaring that “ethnic minorities” must henceforth be called “minority ethnics” and that no one may be labeled a “gypsy”. Anyway, do take a look at the email, and you will see the absurdity of the criticism:"

There is an important distinction between this example and the climate change e-mail. The former is about appealing to sensibilities and not hurting peoples feelings. It is a subjective thing, you can't really quantify it or measure it. It is essentially a matter of opinion. The latter is about a subject that is researchable and researched, a tangible scientific phenomena, and is subject to evidence based research, almost all confirming AGW is real. I think some journalists like Singleton are so used to the opinion piece and the polemic, they seem to think that science works like their world. That they all meet up in the "Science Establishment" once a year and create a "bible of science" in their little society. He backs my suspicion up with:

"It sounds to me as if Fox News is making a conscious effort, if I may use their catchphrase, to be fair and balanced. What a pity that the Left, like fanatical fundamentalists, regard global warming as such a sacred doctrine that they cannot permit anyone anywhere to criticise it."

See he sees it as "doctrine" and "left wing". That AGW research consists of nothing much more than a bunch of Guardian readers in the North Pole or whatever. And thus why popular reporting of science is in such a dismal state. I don't want to shut AGW deniers up, or send them to prison. But I don't think they should get away without the public being told that there is almost nothing to their claims. That not all counter claims are as valid when you research them. In practice we all do this anyway, when David Icke said he was the son of God he got laughed at. Why? Because even without the benefit of objecive analysis (though you are welcome to try) we knew that the ratio of he is Jesus, to he's nuts was 0.00001 : 99.9999. Likewise for all Singleton may talk about fairness, does the Torygraph give ample credence to the claims 9/11 was an inside job. Ditto, it's barmy.

No-one is saying AGW deniers should be silenced, but they should be judged by the veracity and accuracy of their claims, which don't stand up too well. That isn't an attack on free speech.