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A. Pedant

 
How to respond to Khartoum

Here's the slightly edited text of a letter I've just sent to my MP

Whatever the government does to express its disapproval at the disgraceful treatment of Gillian Gibbons, one measure would be easy and effective: repeal the blasphemy laws, immediately . This would send a strong message about how civilised nations behave. It would provide a level playing field for all religions and, incidentally, undermine any attempted prosecution of 'Jerry Springer - The Opera'.

Nearly ten years ago, foreseeing how the iniquity (protection of Christianity) might play with UK Mohammedans, I wrote to you with a similar suggestion. You passed my letter on to the late Robin Cook whose anodyne answer amounted to 'It's all a matter of opinion'.

No it isn't; it's a matter of logic.

The repeal of blasphemy legislation, never (I hope) likely to be used successfully in the future, would send a powerful signal that, while we value diversity, secular democracies do not rely on medieval or dark age legislation to protect religious sensibilities.

This could be done even before Gillian Gibbons is back in the UK and the launch of metaphorical cruise missiles against the appalling Khartoum administration begins.

Please deal with this as a matter of urgency!

I wonder if this will fall upon deaf ears or become buried in the sleaze pile.

Labels: Gibbons Khartoum prison sharia blasphemy teddy

posted by josh at 12:02 pm

 
I have been entertained by further reports of political payment shenanigans and it makes me refer to what I wrote here on 24 October

Individuals would be allowed paid membership of political parties, but there would be a ceiling (say £20 p.a.) on individual membership [fees]. Group membership would not be permitted. Individual donations would be permitted but only to a maximum of £10 p.a. Union members would have their individual 'political contribution' payments treated as being membership fees, but of their nominated party, and they would each be limited to the ten pound donation. Other than that, unions would not be permitted any political contribution.

One thing I omitted to make absolutely clear in that piece is that any donation to a political party greater than £10 will be regarded as a criminal offence. Only bona fide UK citizens who are taxpayers would be permitted to make such a donation.

Kenneth Clarke, the former Conservative Chancellor, has been saying similar, although not such restrictive, things. There's a study on at the moment by Haydn Williams and I do hope that he comes to a very similar conclusion. However, capped limits in the thousands are far too high.

As a further limit, groups raising cash for a political party would have to pay that money into a central fund for distribution pro rata to all parties. What's that you say? That would stop group fundraising altogether? So what?

It brings nearer the day of state-funding. People don't like that but they don't like people buying influence, either. On balance, though, it's better to make it impossible (that means illegal) to influence politics with a donation than to keep public money out of politics. I'd rather have clean (and cash-strapped) politics at the expense of a farthing on income tax than tranches of questionable money coming from mysterious sources. However such rules are phrased, unless there's a very low cap, people will find a loophole.

Labels: financing politics cash state-funding donation limits

posted by josh at 12:07 pm

 
Judge abuses power and punters...

I have often felt that courts deal unfairly with your average punter. Take this, for example:

A US judge has been removed from the bench after jailing 46 people when a mobile phone began ringing during his court session and no one would own up.

The entire courtroom was sent to the cells during a domestic violence hearing when the judge, Robert Restaino, 48, "snapped" and - according to a review of his actions - "engaged in what can only be described as two hours of inexplicable madness"

You can read the full story here. There is, as far as I know, a statutory offence of Contempt of Court within most legal systems. It's about time 'Contempt of the Punter' was instituted, too.

Another brilliant idea for the Manifesto…
posted by josh at 1:57 pm

 
Teddy bare-faced nonsense

A story, covered in every UK news source is having quite an impact. Here's the BBC on the subject. The Guardian has a bit to say about it too:

It seemed the most innocent of school projects. To encourage her seven-year-old pupils to learn about the animal kingdom, Gillian Gibbons asked them to find a name for a teddy bear. Unfortunately, they chose Muhammad.

The Grauniad doesn't say but, apparently, the children voted, 20 of 23, for the name 'Muhammed'. Further, this was in honour of the most popular child in the class, also called 'Muhammed'.

Now the 54-year-old teacher from Liverpool is being held in a Sudanese jail facing charges of insulting Islam's prophet. She was detained at her residence at the exclusive British-styled Unity High School in the capital Khartoum on Sunday after a number of parents complained to the Ministry of Education.

The state-run Sudanese Media Centre reported that Khartoum's attorney's office would charge her under an act of Sharia Law dealing with "insult of faith". She could face a punishment of 40 lashes, six months in prison or a fine.

Words fail me: this is the sort of thing the crazies want here and we've got quite a lot of religion-protection already.

Fearing reprisals, the Unity's governors decided yesterday to close its doors until January. Robert Boulos, the school director, said he was "very worried for Miss Gibbons's safety". "This was a completely innocent mistake. She would have never wanted to insult Islam."

Well, I want to insult Islam and I want to do it as loudly as possible. In addition to uttering cries of 'God is grott' and 'God is merdeiful', at every available opportunity, I'm seeking advice on how I can be even more insulting. My dog's called Fred. I'm wondering about renaming him Muhammed. Still, perhaps it might be just as good to let him stay 'Fred' and call his arsehole 'Muhammed'. I'm just going to pop down to the Bagshot mosque to get a ruling.

What do you think, Myfanwy?

Labels: bear Islam lunacy religion sensibility Sudan

posted by josh at 10:25 am

 
The missing discs

I have followed the saga of the missing discs with increasing incredulity. Here's a paragraph from a short article on the matter

The personal records of 25 million people, including their dates of birth, addresses, bank accounts and national insurance numbers, were lost in the post on October 18, leaving half the British population at risk of large scale fraud. An official at HM Revenue and Customs' offices in Washington, Tyne and Wear, downloaded the entire national database of child benefit claimants on to two CDs, and posted them, unrecorded, to the National Audit Office in London, via the internal post system. They never showed up.

As I understand it, much data processing is outsourced by HM Revenue and Customs and that it would have been too expensive (£5000) to create the subset of data needed. I don't know very much more about this because it hasn't been made public but I do know quite a lot about the technical aspects of this sort of exercise.

Firstly, I cannot conceive how the system would not already have a utility to enable the extraction of subsets of data fields. If it really doesn't, the person(s) responsible for the design should be fired.

Secondly, if they really had to ask an outside software house to do the relevant extraction then, again, the person(s) responsible should be sacked.

Thirdly, to carry out such an extraction, if no utility exists, is such a trivial matter that £5000 is daylight robbery as a charge. A few hundred should have covered it. This appears to be an attempt to milk the client or, if it was a matter of internal accounting, then this is an example of 'fund' transfer that doesn't make – or save - anyone any real money. If there is guilt here, shooting rather than firing is appropriate.

There are many other suspicious characteristics about this whole matter. Take it from me, as a retired systems designer, that this is a mess of gigantic proportions. It is something that none of my departments, nor I personally, would have got wrong. Someone else might have lost the discs but they wouldn't have been able to blame us.

The important part of this fiasco is not that the discs could have been lost but that much more detailed information than was required was provided. I'll bet, though, that blushes will be spared and someone may even be knighted. Incompetence is a noble virtue and should always be rewarded.

Labels: discs disks Customs data Benefit security

posted by josh at 5:02 pm

 
The tragedy of Iraq, pt. 172

For several years, there have been dribbles of evidence from Basra that suggest all is not well. One has always hoped that this Shia area, formerly under 'softer' and more careful British control, might be an exception to the general disaster area that is post-war Iraq. This report chops the legs off this hope that has first run, then staggered, and finally crawled: it can be advanced no longer.

The chief of police in the southern Iraqi city of Basra has warned of a campaign of violence against women carried out by religious extremists. It has, Maj-Gen Abdul Jalil Khalaf said, included threats, intimidation and even murder

This is not simply a matter of incompetence in the management of the occupation; it is an indictment of the whole bloody enterprise.

Women interviewed by the BBC said they no longer dared venture on to Basra's streets without strict Islamic attire…
"There is a terrible repression against women in Basra," Maj-Gen Khalaf told the BBC.
Forty-two women were killed between July and September this year, although the number dropped slightly in October, he said.
In one case, he added, a woman was killed in her home along with her six-year-old son, who was rumoured to have been conceived in an adulterous relationship.
Maj-Gen Khalaf, sent to Basra this year by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to impose order in the city, said the police were often too scared to conduct proper investigations into the killings.
"The relatives are reluctant to report the crimes for fear of a scandal or because they despair of the police's ability to solve them," he added.

This is truly horrific. One of the things that define civilisation is the way that women are treated. I do not mean that they should be cosseted or otherwise regarded as delicate inferiors. I mean that they should have the freedom to do as they wish, without prescription from men - in particular those citing scripture – without fear.

The number of refugees in Iraq, the number of deaths, and the appalling sexism of post-war Iraq, can leave no doubt that Iraq is now far worse off with 'democracy' than it was under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein only turned to religion when he was under severe political and military pressure. If one looks back to before the war, Iraq was basically secular and it may well have been stumbling towards democracy. The war has unleashed and empowered the religiosi. It has to qualify as the greatest misjudgement of the last hundred years. Blair and Bush are responsible. No argument.
posted by josh at 8:39 am