Fat camp, here I come

From the Daily Telegraph we have the following UK government proposal. They want companies to be able to provide tax-free incentives to their employees to encourage them to lose weight.

I spot a business opportunity here. Suppose I run my own company (which I do) does this mean I can pay myself to get thin and claim the tax back? Tax free skiing holidays on health grounds beckon as well.

Would I have to pay the tax back when I almost inevitably put all the weight back on (as 19 out of 20 dieters do)? Or can I just make a pledge to improve things and keep paying myself tax free. Sounds like a winner to me.

Mind you it's a mystery to me why doctors invariably prescribe diet and exercise to lose weight when, long term, the vast majority of their patients will fail to lose weight that way. It's as though I went in with a headache and they gave me a pill with the advice that there's only a 1 in 20 chance that it would fix me up. I wouldn't be very satisfied with that, and I don't suppose many others would either. Yet people simply look shamefaced as their disgustingly obese BMI is read out and promise to try harder.

I think this is because being fat is regarded as a moral weakness (especially by some young people) , rather than simply being the result of us being anatomically cavemen with a metabolism tuned to make the most of scarce food resources. The only problem is that we're living in a culture in which tasty nutritious food is all around us. It's not about willpower, it's about biochemistry.

H/T to Mr Eugenides for this one.

Nonce Sense

Lots of fuss about Chris Langham, after his conviction for 'creating' kiddy porn, although he got off the charges of actually having under-age sex. As one is obliged to do these days, I must first state my position on this. As Mr Langham once apparently said, I like children, although I couldn't eat a whole one. Actually that's not true. I don't really like children. They're nasty, smelly, annoying creatures who seem to do little except demand things and put sticky wrappers into your hand when you're not expecting it. I have one of my own. I know.

In other words, I'm not a paedophile, and I don't really understand people who are. I would no more want to have sex with a child than I would want to screw my car. This may come as a shock to the powers that be who believe that all men are latent peadophile rapists, just waiting for their perverted lusts to be triggered by a picture, but that's the way it is. I'm just not interested in children.

However, I was swimming this morning at my local pool when my eye chanced on an attractively pneumatic black woman frolicking in the water. Mmm, nice, thought my lizard brain. Not that I would have done anything about it, being happily married and a geek, but any man who says he doesn't look is a liar. Then her mum got into the pool and I realised that she was about 14. I was discreetly leching at an under-age girl. That makes me a paedophile, surely?

Well, not in Spain or Japan, and possibly not in Germany, or a host of other places.

It seems to me that whatever the legal age of consent is, someone who wishes to have sex with someone else who is pre-pubescent has something wrong with their brain. From an evolutionary perpective I can't think of any way in which this would be a useful adaptation*. They're just broken.

This is completely different from someone who wishes to have sex with someone else who is post-pubescent, but below the legal age of consent in their particular locality. That's entirely normal behaviour. Healthy young women are the ideal mate, from an evolutionary perspective. They are strong, fit and fertile. Society recognises this by encouraging females to try and look younger to get a partner. Boob jobs, cosmetics, hair dye are all ways to appear younger, and appeal to a male brain evolved to look for reproductive fitness, i.e. youth.

However, in the eyes of the law, they are just the same. This seems silly to me. I appreciate that we have to infantilise our teenagers in order to educate them sufficiently to be members of our complex western society. And I've blogged about Rousseau and the noble savage before. Even so, lumping people who are normal, but have transgressed their society's taboos in with people with broken brains seems wrong. The former need a slap on the wrist, the latter need treatment.

Fixed age of consent laws will always throw up anomalous cases, but it's generally for the best that schoolgirls get on with their homework without having to fend off men trying to get into their pants, so generally I support them. However, lumping everyone into the category of sick perverted paedophiles just isn't helpful. As with everything else in life, the reality is more nuanced.

* just because I can't think of it doesn't make it true, of course, but until I read otherwise, I'm sticking to it.

** the title comes from the fantastic Brass Eye 'Paedogedden' special.

UPDATE: someone on the cif thread pointed me here, with the statistic that 25% of adult males fancy children. That seems a bit high to me, and I suspect that what happens in the lab doesn't transfer into the real world in this case.

Entering the Twilight Zone

I seem to have entered a parallel universe today, in which everything I know is wrong. UK Healthcare is among the best in the world, despite being a quasi-Stalinist organisation. And the UK government has decided not to extend the term of music copyright, despite opposition objections.

Lordy. I need a lie down.

Smoking Kills!

So, we have possibly the first casualty in the War On Smoking. A man was shot after annoying some smokers in a bar. Now I don't condone shooting people who annoy you. We're not Americans after all. But it's just another, predictable, consequential effect of legislation. If you put in annoying laws, people are going to get annoyed. And occasionally people will get hurt.

Now I see that Friends of the Earth is recommending that patio heaters be banned. This means that all those annoyed smokers won't even be able to sit in a pub garden without freezing. So more people are going to get hurt when they come back inside. It's not even as though there's a clearcut link between passive smoking and health, according to this study.

Slow handclap for the totalitarians. Again.

Fisking the Extreme Porn Bill

This really follows on from my last post, but it was getting a tad unwieldy so I thought I'd split it. Plus writing sensibly was beginning to annoy me. These are the government's supposed reasons for bringing in the new law. Let us now peel back the foreskin of ignorance, and apply the wire brush of vitriol to their proposals.

Extreme Pornographic Images

802. The Government believes that these clauses constitute an interference with Convention rights under Articles 8 and 10 but that for the reasons set out below this is justified as being in accordance with the law, and necessary in a democratic society for the prevention of crime, for the protection of morals and for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

This is bollocks. The government admits that it is a breach of human rights, but hopes to get away with it. On moral grounds. God I loathe people who believe that they have a right to impose their tired old morals on others. The grounds for banning something should be demonstrable harm. Not just because its objectionable. Which leads us to:

803. The material to be covered by this new offence is at the most extreme end of the spectrum of pornographic material which is likely to be thought abhorrent by most people.

So fucking what? All sorts of things are abhorrent to each and every one of us, but that's no grounds to make pictures of them illegal. Unless you're a moralising cunt like John Beyer.

It is not possible at law to give consent to the type of activity covered by the offence,

Oh yes it is! under the Sexual Offences act 2003 you are allowed to give oral sex to an animal, you are allowed to fist your wife, or give your lovers breasts or genitals a good thrashing. Distasteful? maybe. But not illegal. Fucking liars.

so it is therefore likely that a criminal offence is being committed where the activity which appears to be taking place is actually taking place.

This is nonsense. Given that the bill includes the idea that images that are acted or fake are prosecutable, it is entirely likely that no criminal offence is occurring in a majority of cases.

The House of Lords upheld convictions for offences of causing actual and grievous bodily harm in the case of Brown [1994] 1 AC 212 which involved a group of sado-masochists who had engaged in consensual torture. The threshold that the clauses have set is very high, so while those taking part might argue that they had consented to it, such consent is not valid at law.

This was a truly disgusting piece of legislation, in which a group of gay men were engaged in a bit of consensual BDSM, and were jailed for it. One of them died in jail. Gay clubs were raided for years, and the BDSM scene is harassed because of it to this day. For the government to regard this as a good thing shows what a bunch of moralising bastards they really are.

804. In the case of images of staged activity , the Government believes that banning possession is justified in order to meet the legitimate aim of protecting the individuals involved from participating in degrading activities. This is also the case with images of bestiality, which while involving harm to animals can also involve the non-consensual participation of humans who are harmed in the process of making the images.

Ah, here we come to the actual reason. The government regards these paraphilias as "degrading". No wait. They believe that acting in a production depicting these acts is degrading, whilst in most cases actually doing them is not. Ludicrous inconsistent fuckwits.

805. The Government considers that the new offence is a proportionate measure with the legitimate aim of breaking the demand and supply cycle of this material, which may be harmful to those who view it.

This entire paragraph is hearsay, with no scientific backing from any source. It will not break the supply and demand cycle, since the rest of the western world will go on supplying and demanding it. This material may be harmful, they say except that evidence shows exactly the opposite. Banning this material will be harmful, as it will increase the rate of sex crimes. How many women need to be raped or murdered before the government bothers to read the studies? Lazy, ignorant, stupid mendacious cunts.

Irrespective of how these images were made, banning their possession can be justified as sending a signal that such behaviour is not considered acceptable. Viewing such images voluntarily can desensitise the viewer to such degrading acts, and can reinforce the message that such behaviour is acceptable.

There is absolutely no evidence that support these statements. However, contrary to my previous statements the government is not being inconsistent. They really do hate BDSM, fisting and all the rest. I'd just like to know what fucking business it is of theirs what people get up to in their own homes. The BDSM movements motto is "Safe, Sane, Consensual". I wish it was the governments motto.

806. The Government considers that the restrictions on this material also achieve the aim of protecting others, particularly children and vulnerable adults, from inadvertently coming into possession of this material, which is widespread on the internet.

Don't be so fucking stupid. England is the only country enacting this legislation. They may not even have it in Scotland. It'll all be up there, just the same. Unless, of course you want to use this as an excuse to start censoring the internet. Just like Saudi Arabia, China and all those other models of democratic freedom. You authoritarian fuckpigs.

Even More Extreme Pornography

So, the UK government has released the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill 2007 with the promised legislation on Extreme Pornography in sections 64-67. I've blogged on this before here and here. I know it came out a while ago, but I haven't had a chance to study it in detail until now. And guess what? It's even worse than they suggested in the consultation.

As always the legislation itself is boring to read and hedged about with legalese, but the notes are rather easier to read. The nub of it is as follows:

If you have pictures that the government doesn't like, of perfectly legal acts between consenting adults, you may be sent to prison for up to 3 years, and placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life. You can be branded a nonce and locked up with all the other paedophiles, rapists and murderers, just for the sake of a few harmless pictures of legal acts.

So what sort of pictures doesn't the government like now?

Well, firstly they have to be pornographic. An image is “pornographic” if it appears to have been produced solely or principally for the purpose of sexual arousal.

Secondly they have to be “extreme”. An image is “extreme” if it depicts:

(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,
(b) an act which results in or appears to result (or be likely to result) in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals,
(c) an act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse,
(d) a person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal, where (in each case) any such act, person or animal depicted in the image is or appears to be real.

The first thing to notice, is that in all cases these images only have to "appear to be real". In other words, it doesn't matter if it's just acting, or completely fake. The second thing is that many of these acts are actually perfectly legal to perform (including giving an animal a blowjob, curiously enough).

Images the government wants to criminalise:

Rape (a)
Torture (b)
Necrophilia (c)
Bestiality (d)

In actuality, images that are likely to be criminalised include:

Breath play (a)
Fisting (b)
Anal intercourse (b)
BDSM involving the parts listed in (b)
Sleepy sex (c)

There are probably a lot more. Perhaps interested readers will suggest a few and I'll list them.

As I've said before, you personally may not be into any of the above things. But a lot of people are. Around 5% of the population are into BDSM, and about 25% of the gay population. In England that's around 2m people. Around 10% of the population like a regular bit of back-door action. That's another 4m potential criminals. Even if not many are photography enthusiasts, that's still an awful lot of people.

And there's simply no point to this. The government themselves admitted that there was no causal link between Extreme Porn images and criminal activity. No other western democracy wants to ban images of this sort, and numerous studies have shown that the free availability of porn actually reduces sex crimes.

This legislation will, by the governments own admission protect no-one, criminalise many law-abiding people, and increase the number of sex crimes in England. It will also encourage the Police to burst into peoples houses at dawn to confiscate their computers, and provoke more censorship of the Internet. Still think that it has nothing to do with you?

There are other articles worth reading on the subject here and here.

The governments offical line on this is here, and this debate is pretty representative of the lack of understanding of this issue by the powers that be. References can be found in my response to the initial consultation.

Satanic Knighthoods

Good to see that Salman Rushdie has been given a Knighthood in this years UK Honours list. Good mostly because it has annoyed the Iranian government, who are frankly even more corrupt and useless than our own, and that's saying something.

Even better is that Shami Chakrabati has been given a CBE. She's one of the very few people who have made a principled stand for human rights and personal freedoms during the term of the Labour government, so it's something of a surprise. Shame she didn't turn it down though.

The Honours list is basically just a popularity contest, with anyone who can pay enough, or get enough column inches getting a gong, so it's generally dominated by worthless politicians and sports folk. I wonder if a blogger will ever get one?

The thrill of being forced

In the great game of Dominance & Submission which makes up our human existence (and that of most other pack animals), I like to think of myself as a Dom, a Top, an Alpha. Probably this is to do with the testosterone which courses through my male veins. I like to be in charge, or more specifically, I loathe being ordered about, especially when it's 'for my own good'. This in turn fuels my right-wing libertarian political viewpoint.

However, many people do not share this view, and naturally appreciate the firm smack of authority. It makes them feel secure, wanted and part of something greater than themselves, It also helps diminish death anxiety. The converse is also true. Studies show that people become more authoritarian when they are anxious.

I was reminded of this whilst reading an article on spiked-online, which quotes Al Gore on climate change:

‘The climate crisis also offers us the chance to experience what very few generations in history have had the privilege of knowing: a generational mission; the exhilaration of a compelling moral purpose; a shared and unifying cause; the thrill of being forced by circumstances to put aside the pettiness and conflict that so often stifle the restless human need for transcendence; the opportunity to rise…. When we do rise, it will fill out spirits and bind us together. Those who are now suffocating in cynicism and despair will be able to breathe freely. Those who are now suffering from a loss of meaning in their lives will find hope.’

So Big Al enjoys 'the thrill of being forced'. Indeed it fulfils his 'need for transcendence'. It's funny how often those in positions of power often turn out to be subs.
This appeal to authority has other implications for contemporary eco-warriors. In the old days, and particularly during the Christian dark ages, people solved problems about the world through appeals to authority. If it was in the bible, then it was true. If the bible was a bit sketchy, or inconsistent, then further proof would be provided by reference to Plato, or Aristotle. No-one actually checked the information. No-one did rigorous observations of the world. so for hundreds of years people believed that the world was flat, and that geese were born from barnacles.

However, there has been another thread to western civilisation. Since Aristotle first wrote about Empericism some 2300 years ago, through the Muslim polymath Alhacen, via Dr Mirabilis in the West, to Karl Popper in our time, the scientific method has been developed. After the renaissance, scientific thinking became our dominant way of dealing with the world. This fuelled the industrial revolution, and lead us to the world of today, where at least in the West, we are living longer, healthier lives than anyone in the history of Mankind.

But Eco-Masochists like Gore want to turn the clock back. Their science is merely appeals to authority. The IPCC report has lots of scientists contributing so it must be right. George Monbiot writes in the paper, so he must be right.

This world of plenty and change frightens Eco-Masochists. They don't want unlimited horizons and the freedom to achieve our dreams. They want a 'compelling moral purpose', so that they will be able to 'breathe freely' and 'find hope'. They want to be bound by regulations and slapped promptly when they transgress. They want state interference with every aspect of their lives, so that they feel cared for, and less scared.

I think that Bertrand Russell put it best: 'If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it's still a foolish thing'

Extradition

Just a quickie, because I'm busy. Compare and contrast two government attitudes to extradition. And there's me thinking we live in the free part of the world. Next thing you'll be telling me there are people watching our every move. Oh wait.

More Extreme Pornography

So, the UK government has deigned to respond to the petition about violent pornography. And what is the result? Well, pretty much nothing. They're still going to press ahead, despite the majority of responses to their consultation being against the proposal. They say they're simply updating the Obscene Publications Act (which is a lie), and are still going to criminalise the possession of pictures of completely consensual and legal acts. Frankly I wonder why they bother with the pretence of consulting the public, just to annoy them by ignoring the results.

And while we are on the subject of thought crime, google has seen fit to delist Inquisition 21st Century. This site, amongst other things, campaigns on behalf of the victims of Operation Ore, which must be one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in recent times. PcPro wrote about it here and here. Literally thousands of people were falsely branded as paedophiles on trumped-up charges. Apparently Operation Ore Exposed is bringing a class action against the police. Now the government wants to bring pictures of consensual BDSM under the same regime. Expect many more miscarriages of justice. And remember, don't be evil, kids!

UPDATE: the Yorkshire ranter has posted this article discussing the latest developments in Operation Ore. H/T to Chicken Yoghurt

UPDATE: As the group (class) action began Google re-listed the site. Fishy, huh?

Happy New Year Saddam

So, the US and UK governments have another murder on their hands, to go along with all the others. I'm not saying that Saddam Hussein was a nice man. I wouldn't have invited him to my new-years eve party, or anything. However, I believe that you can judge a country by how it treats it's prisoners, and ex-dictators are no exception.

State sponsored execution is the worst kind of murder, because it is carried out in cold blood, on a totally helpless enemy. Anyone who approves of it should watch Krzysztof Kieslowski's film A Short Film About Killing, which puts the point better than I can.

Some people will say that it was the Iraqi's who executed him, not Bush or Blair but as Riverbend says:

"...make no mistake about it, this trial and verdict and execution are 100% American. Some of the actors were Iraqi enough, but the production, direction and montage was pure Hollywood..."

Here in the UK, we don't have the death penalty, but that hasn't stopped bloggers, christians, and the media over here metaphorically rubbing their hands with glee at the fact that once again we've managed to outsource our executions to somewhere that does. I haven't provided a link to the christian, because it was my mum.

The Tragedy of Cod Fishing

Cod fishing in the North Sea is an emerging example of the tragedy of the commons. It's been brought into sharp focus by the decision of the European Ministers to slightly decrease the fishing quotas. This is against a background of cod stocks and catches decreasing year-on-year since the 1970's. The ICES, who monitor this, have been advising a moratorium on cod fishing since 1992.

In the summer of 1975 I spent a month in Newfoundland, in the city of St Johns, which at that time was a thriving fishing port, catching its share of 300,000 tonnes of cod caught off the East coast. St Johns isn't a big place, and most people were involved in the fishing industry. They were thriving on it though.

However, even then the catch had fallen from its peak of 800,000 tonnes in 1963. 1975 was also around the time they were introducing draggers (or trawlers), and this technology kept the levels up around 250,000 through the 1980's. In 1986, scientists recommended the catch be halved, due to dwindling stocks, and the Canadian government responded with a small reduction in the quota. See any similarities here?

By 1992 it was all over. There were simply no fish. The Canadian government responded by banning cod fishing, but it was too little, too late. A 1994 survey found only 1700 tonnes of biomass. 20 years later, and there's no real change. The cod have not returned.

The story is told here, by greenpeace, and there's a discussion of it as a tragedy of the commons here. Or in video here, if you like. It's a big deal to Newfies.

Fishing is interesting, because it's the last truly hunter-gatherer occupation that we have. All our other food production industries are a variation of farming. Even with highly mechanised fishing boats it's still hunting. History shows us that hunting on land can't support a large population, maybe 1% of that supported by farming, and hunting at sea isn't much different.

Using history as a guide, I predict that the sea will be given over to commercial fish farming, with a few nature reserves where people can fish for sport, and sell their high priced catches to discerning consumers.

A recent report in Science predicts the demise of commercial sea fishing worldwide by 2050. Its a classic tragedy of the commons, and we should all tuck in to our wild fish and chips, because soon there won't be any more. We'll have to make do with the farmed stuff. It's not so bad, although less romantic.

Mind you, Jared Diamond thinks that giving up hunting was the "Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race", and I can see why.

UPDATE: Here's an amusing site which confirms my views about the viability of cod farming, done by people who obviously have too much time on their hands.

Unforeseen Consequences

Unless you've been living on Mars, or at least outside the UK, for the last couple of weeks, it will not have escaped your notice that someone has been murdering prostitutes in the the Ipswich area. With a blog titled "Sex and Death", I could hardly fail to comment on this, albeit a bit late.

Matthew Parris has written an excellent article about it here, in which he lays the blame fairly and squarely at the current laws on prostitution.

The important point to take from this is that whenever governments make a law prohibiting something, there will be unforeseen, and often undesirable, side-effects. By making brothels and advertising illegal, they force women to work on the streets, and by making drugs illegal they push up the price and force addicts to commit crimes to feed their artificially expensive habits. That's what the International Collective of Prostitutes think, and they should know.

In this case, the murdered women would not have had to hang around on street corners, making themselves easy targets for a maniac, if the law had been different. It's a pity the lawmakers aren't able to see this.

Why I don't recycle

Via Samizata I came across this, which is funny, and this, which isn't. What they both say, in a nutshell, is that recycling, with the lone exception of aluminium cans, costs more and wastes more resources than making things from scratch. In fact it costs 3 times as much. Another source for costs is Friends of the Earth, who estimate that it costs us £375m to provide a doorstep recycling scheme. In the US it's closer to 8bn. And it's all pointless.

We're not saving the planet by recycling, we're not running out of landfill space, we're not saving money.

So why are governments and people so keen on recycling? I think that these are separate questions. People like recycling because it makes them feel good. It gives them a sense of agency, which reduces anxiety, and makes them feel part of something bigger than themselves, which also reduces anxiety. Also the government lies to them and says that it works.

Governments, on the other hand, like recycling because it looks as though they are doing something, and because it provides lots of jobs for the boys (50,000 according to FoE). It's popular with voters, for the reasons mentioned above, so the government continues to propagate the myth. Additionally, any form of control over our behaviour appeals to the authoritarian nature of our government. Remember, Hitler was a green.

Venal, Stupid, Mendacious Politicians - who knew?

Dear gods, I don't want to talk about politics, but I feel like Al Pacino in the one of the later Godfather films; "just when I try to get out, they pull me back in again".

This time it's the government having a pop at bloggers, of all people. Matthew Taylor, ex-strategy advisor to Tony Blair has said that:

"The internet has immense potential but we face a real problem if the main way in which that potential expresses itself is through allowing citizens to participate in a shrill discourse of demands"

He also says that the public are like "teenagers": "demanding", but "conflicted", and are encouraged by bloggers to regard all politicians as "mendacious".

Well Damn Right! Hell Yeah!

The point about blogging is that it is an uncensored way for ordinary people who actually have lives, families and jobs, to comment about the things that they see around them, and in particular the things that annoy them. I'm not a teenager, and I resent the patronising tone in Mr Taylors speech, although it is entirely in keeping with their nannying attitudes to their subjects.

The "shrill" tone of many peoples blogs is frustration, and real anger at their stupid, illiberal, and yes, mendacious policies. And as for having a "more mature discourse" with the government, that can only happen if the government is actually listening. And if it won't listen to a million people demonstrating against their stupid war, it certainly won't be listening to bloggers.

2 Things about the Queens Speech 2006

Apparently, about any subject, there are only 2 things that you really need to know. It's an interesting exercise to try and work these out, because it forces you to distill out the essence of a subject in a haikuesque way. It has a sniff of Zen-like austerity to me. These 2 things about being a Briton made me laugh, anyway.

Wasn't the Queen's speech yesterday boring? It's hardly riveting at the best of times, but this tranche was positively leaden. Re-hashing the old themes of anti-social behaviour, climate change and terrorism. All things that they've either made worse, or can't do anything about.

I notice that the Extreme Pornography bill that was promised has been slipped in with the proposed Criminal Justice Bill. I've blogged about this before. I'm not sure whether this is just the government being underhanded or because they didn't want videos of the Queen saying 'Pornography' or possibly because they underestimated the degree of opposition from people like Backlash and are trying to quietly bury it. I doubt that it's because the government has realised that internet porn actually cuts crime, but you never know.

The Guardian sums the speech up with 2 Things:

1. Terrorism
2. Crime

Although my take on it is:

1. More Tax
2. More Surveillance

Mind you, there are only really 2 Things you need to know about life:

1. Sex
2. Death

Wicked Vicious Faith

My friend Nick has a typically considered post about the Nick Griffin trial. By contrast the Devils Kitchen is a bit ruder.

I can't, for the life of me, see why calling Islam a 'wicked vicious faith' should be considered as race hatred. There's a fundamental difference between insulting a religion, and insulting a race. The difference is that one is born into a particular race, whereas religion is voluntary.

It's easy to change religion. At various times in my life I've been a follower of the invisible pink unicorn, the flying spaghetti monster and the universal church triumphant of the apathetic agnostic (motto "we don't know, and we don't care"). At the last census I embraced the Force, putting my household down as Jedi Knights, and found myself a member of the UK's 4th largest religion, behind the Christians, Muslims and Hindu's, but ahead of the Sikh's, Jews, and Buddhists.

I was brought up in a Christian household, attended a cathedral school, my grandfather was a vicar, and my mother a missionary. I have been an atheist since I was 8 years old.

I vividly remember my damascene un-conversion. I was in bed, listening to my parents argue over something that I'd done downstairs, and thinking about theodicy. My thoughts went like this:

• I was incapable of being good (or not being naughty).
• Furthermore, I was doubly incapable of not wanting to be naughty, even if I managed not to misbehave.
• God was omniscient, so he knew all this.
• Therefore, there wasn't any point in even pretending to be good, because God would know that I was just pretending to get into His good books, and was naughty really.
• Therefore I was going to burn in hell for all eternity.

It was with a considerable sense of relief that I resolved this by concluding that it was all a load of old hogwash.

Brown to be Terror Overlord

The Sunday Times offers us the idea of Gordon Brown being the Terror Overlord. I must say, the images this conjures up for me are of a demented one-eyed daemon, glowering at the UK from his chilly Northern fortress. Peasants storming the walls with pitchforks and torches. Brown sending out his servitors to spread fear and discord in the land, all to feed his raging hunger for tax income.

Actually that's not too far from the truth. Bring on the peasants with pitchforks.

655,000 dead. Who cares?

655,00 Iraqi's have died since the start of 'Iraqi Freedom', according to a study by The Lancet. President Bush has said that this is 'not credible'. Well he would say that, wouldn't he. However, this figure is also disputed by iraqbodycount.org who reckon the figure is more like 49,760. I'm using the high estimates here. The low estimates are 426,000 vs 44,803. Athænium has nice posts about it here and here.

I don't care. 655,000 people dead, and I don't care. You probably don't either. Oh, I care in an abstract, it's a bad thing that people die, sort of a way. But not in the deep emotional sense that I would feel if a friend or family member died. Not even in the stressed and saddened way I would react if a person was killed outside my house. It's just news.

This is summed up in a truly brilliant article which explains this, one of the hard problems of human relationships, and is also very funny.

The Political Compass

I like the Political Compass, a way of seeing political and social views in 2 dimensions, not just the familiar left-right polarities, which date back to the french revolution. The Political Compass adds another dimension, Authoritarian-Libertarian which I think is particularly relevant today.

A chart of the political parties in the 2005 elections is here. It is worth noticing how close together New Labour and the Conservatives were in that election, nestled together in the right-wing/fascist quarter of the grid. There really isn't much to choose between them. Of the major parties, only the Lib-Dems were even slightly in the libertarian camp. It's also interesting that the BNP are actually a bit left-wing, although seriously authoritarian.

My chart is here. I'm over in the lonely right-wing / libertarian quarter where there are no political parties. Even the Lib Dems have got more fascistic over the past year. No wonder contemporary politics annoys me so much. Mind you, I'd be more annoyed if I was a green.