Barely three months after the death of Rosa Parks, comes the news that another great light in the US Civil Rights Movement has been extinguished. Coretta Scott King has died.
Category: News and politics
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Surely You Jest?
This has to be a joke, surely? I mean, I know that New Labour has a tenuous grip on reality at times, but please, Mr. Coates, you are pulling our legs, aren’t you? -
And The Award Goes To…
The lovely Rita Verdonk, Dutch Minister for Integration and Immigration, won an award last night: the Big Brother award for privacy violations in the Government category for 2005. Couldn’t have gone to a more deserving person, I thought. She’s obviously on a roll, following her idiotic idea concerning how far Dutch should be enforced in public speech on the streets of our fair cities. -
A Delicious Irony
The trial of Leo O’Connor, accused of breaking the Official Secrets Act, has started. The document at the centre of the trial, you may recall, is the record of a meeting between Bush and Blair in which the former is alleged to have suggested the bombing of the al-Jazeera TV station, while the latter is alleged to have suggested that this would not be a good idea.The Guardian reports today that O’Connor’s lawyer has now read the document and says that "I don’t think there was anything in it that could embarrass the British government". Brilliant. If the alleged contents of the document are true, then he is perfectly accurate. The fact that it confirms that Bush is a few marbles short is not the British government’s fault and is merely a delicious irony. -
Not Worthy Of Respect
Whatever happened to "Respect"? No, I don’t mean it in the way Tony Blair means it, I mean whatever happened to that perfectly innocent little word? How come it’s been appropriated by New Labour’s army of management consultants and spin doctors, and turned into some kind of Frankenstein’s monster?The latest example is the publication of Labour’s Respect Action Plan, an appalling piece of management-speak from beginning to end. What makes it worse is that all the ridiculous verbiage ("Everyone is part of everyone else") has successfully driven out any useful content that might actually be part of a plan of action.Justin McKeating, over at the Chicken Yoghurt blog, gives the document a fine old fossicking* and fails to come up with any nuggets of value in its 44 pages. Simon Jenkins, in the Guardian today, also blows the plan a well-deserved raspberry. His opening paragraph is a model of well-aimed derision at the mindset of the people that seem to have infiltrated New Labour.I’ve been watching The Thick of It on TV recently. It’s painfully funny and, judging by the antics of New Labour, painfully accurate.* To fossick – to search for gold in abandoned claims, or to rummage around for anything of value. -
Is The Lid Coming Off?
It would appear that the story that the UK government uses intelligence that has been acquired via torture in Uzbekistan has just been turned up a notch or two higher. Documents in the possession of the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan have been re-published on multiple sites in the blogosphere in an attempt to beat what is allegedly the UK government’s attempts to suppress the information.Justin McKeating over at The Chicken Yoghurt has a good summary of this story, including the alleged documents, and I recommend reading it.One thing that caught my eye was a supposed quote from Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary. He apparently said:"One of the things that is done with intelligence that comes from liaison partners, obviously an assessment is made about its provenance.Because it does not follow that if it is extracted under torture, it is automatically untrue. But there is a much higher probability of it being embellished."Embellished!? I am appalled that he could choose this word. It means "to add incidents or imaginary accompaniments so as to heighten a narrative". In other words Straw is assuming that the information obtained under torture is basically true. He apparently refuses ever to consider the possibility that the information could be false in every respect. I find that sickening, and morally repugnant. -
Charles Socarides
I see that Dr. Socarides died last Sunday. I can’t say I’m sorry – as the obituary says, he inflicted enough pain and suffering on gay and lesbian people in his time, and the organisation he founded (NARTH) continues to do so. -
The In Terror Bang
I’m sorry, I know it’s in appalling taste, but the headline just popped into my head when I read this news item. I hope they catch the person that did it. -
IDiocy Thrown Over The Cliffs Of Dover
I see that the judge has ruled in the Dover school board case in the US. And has said that Intelligent Design (ID) has no place in the science curriculum. Quite right too. The 139-page ruling from Judge Jones contains some rather direct language as well:To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.(hat tip to Pharyngula for highlighting the above)But I fear that the forces of irrationality are not going to retreat into the shadows as a result of this. It’s quite depressing to read some of the comments on the BBC’s Have Your Say bulletin board on this story. All the usual crap is there: "Evolution is ‘just a theory"; "Students need to taught both sides of the story"; "Prove to me that God does not exist", etc. etc. Some folks never bother using the brains that evolution has given them. -
“Any Policy Will Sometimes Lead To Errors”
So sayeth the shoe-shopping Secretary of State of the US, Condoleezza Rice. Here’s an example. Do as you would be done by, Ms. Rice. -
Warning – Kangaroo Ahead
A motorist in Friesland (part of The Netherlands) collided with a kangaroo yesterday. The kangaroo was killed, and the motorist surprised. Quite what a kangaroo was doing roaming around in Friesland has not yet been established. If there’s more than one, perhaps the authorities ought to be thinking of a Dutch version of the Australian warning sign. -
XS4ALL: 4, Scientology: 0
The Dutch Supreme Court has today dismissed all claims brought by the Church of Scientology against XS4ALL and Karin Spaink. This legal case has been going on for 10 years, but finally, justice has been done. -
Update: The Murder Victim Arrives
Following on from my "Justice is Done" entry, I now hand you over to the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam to learn the latest in this ongoing saga… If you want to see the video of the arrival then go here (in Dutch). -
Breaking News
There’s an old newspaper joke about newspaper sub-editors trying to outdo themselves with a story headline that touched all of their readers’ hot buttons. The apocryphal winner was "Black Bishop in Mercy Sex Dash to Palace".The Telegraph web site currently has a story classified under "Breaking News" that appears to be making a bid for the prize: "Vicar ‘Imprisoned Me Like a Sex Slave’ Says Cleaner". I think that’s a worthy effort. Although the sub-editor would have got extra points by inserting the word "Gay" between ‘a’ and ‘Sex’ – even better, because it’s apparently true.I haven’t seen a decent trashy headline like this since the days of Joyce McKinney and Kirk Anderson.The story itself is pretty bizarre, and full of lovely touches like "[the cleaner], who lives with his diplomat uncle in Maida Vale, west London, said he also wanted to persuade his tormentor to return his passport so that he could renew his student visa".Human nature – it’s a wonderful thing. -
Disingenuous
Lord Falconer is either being disingenous or he’s a fool, with far too much power. Either way, he is a disgrace. That seems to go for far too many of his colleagues as well. -
Justice is Done
I mentioned the case of the sparrow blasted to smithereens last month because it knocked over a domino (or two). Well, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service has spoken and fined the killer 200 euros for the heinous act.It turns out there’s even a somewhat bizarre back story to these events. The evidence of the crime (i.e. the remains of the sparrow) are currently in a freezer somewhere in the bowels of the Public Prosecution Service. There’s talk of sending them to the Nature Museum in Rotterdam. The chief conservationist, Kees Moeliker, is wondering how much actually is left for him to stuff and mount. He would like to display the little fellow in a forthcoming exhibition as "an icon of the love for sparrows". Er, Kees, it was shot… What I mean, protests Kees, is that the exhibition can become "a place of pilgrimage". Yes, thank you, Kees, and goodnight.Meanwhile, the director of the Nature Museum in Friesland (the region where the crime was committed) has mixed feelings. He would have liked the sparrow for his museum… The papers don’t report what his intentions were for the corpse. Better not to ask, I think.Update: I should have recognised the name of Kees Moeliker. He’s the author of that stirring piece of research: The first case of homosexual necrophilia in the mallard Anas platyrhynchos (Aves: Anatidae). Silly of me. But today’s entry in the Improbable Research blog has put me right. -
You Cannot Be Serious…
"Serious Organised Crime"? This is obviously a different definition of "serious" than the one I am used to. It might well have been "organised", but I for one would not view it as a "crime". Clearly, I’m not paranoid enough… -
Two Down…
…three to go? The inimitable Steve Bell puts out his take on the latest Bush rumour. Meanwhile, al-Jazeera staff have started a blog to plead Bush not to bomb them.
Geoff Coupe's Blog 
