Well done, Amelia

One of the latest, and the youngest, MEPs. Amelia Andersdotter, from the Swedish Pirate Party.

I rather have had no Lisbon ratification kept you out, though. Not personal.

The Tories and Europe

One of my favourite bloggers nearly gets the point:

Under the terms of the 1972 Act it has always been clear that it was the duty of a United Kingdom court, when delivering final judgment, to override any rule of national law found to be in conflict with any directly enforceable rule of Community law. [...]
- Lord Bridge of Harwich, R v Secretary of State for Transport ex parte Factortame Ltd [1991] 1 AC 603, 658

&

By way of postscript, I remember asking my European Law professor whether there was any way of overturning the decision, or otherwise reasserting the sovereignty of Westminster. "Oh, yes", he replied breezily. "All you have to do is repeal the 1972 European Communities Act".

Whereas what the Cameroids are proposing is, according to Mr Dale (who ought to be reasonably up to speed on these things:

If we win the next election, we will amend the European Communities Act 1972 to prohibit, by law, the transfer of power to the EU without a referendum.

s2(1) and s2(2) are the guilty barstewards. And, yes, these would have to be amended, or the Act itself could be repealed. Both would do the trick - the latter doing rather more than putting the obstacle of referenda in place of further transfers of power. But there is nothing stopping the next parliament amending the 1972 law?

The blogosphere raving about there being no further treaties (Lisbon being self-amending) is correct but irrelevant - Cameroonian is not saying "prohibit, by law, any further EU treaties without a referendum", is he? Read it. Okay, then remember he is a politician and read it very carefully and look for the loopholes, I'll grant you. "The transfer of power to the EU" - whether this comes via a new treaty, an amendment to Lisbon, or an EU Directive - any transfer of power. We are going to be sick and fed up of referenda before long (even if they lump them into biannual batches).

Oh, and M. Lellouche? UK influence in Europe will last as long as we are net contributors to the EU budget. Threaten the money sump each French farmer is personally granted? Well, we'd need to find a politician with a spine and as Dan Hannan has just resigned from his front bench position, we're going to have a problem with that (found one, but he'll never be PM either) but it would get us direct attention in the corridors (same word in French as in English) of power.

Transexual Jesus

From my not-particularly-lofty height?

If this helps one LGBTGB-whatever person with their religious turmoil, then great. I mean, we habitually present Jesus as being white ...

Jesus drank water from the Samaritan woman at the well, ate with tax-collectors, was associated (if not actually married) to a known prostitute. Ritual impurity to the Jews - just as much as eating prawn cocktail. Cast the first stone, as he may well have said himself.

I would remind people that the Zion Baptist Church are, at least, consistent in their bigotry. If not particularly Christian.

Edited to add - Jesus was an outcast. Despised, tormented and eventually martyred. Who would he be likely to side with? The comfortable in their ignorance, the modern Pharisees, even, or the marginalised and oppressed. I still wouldn't want to go and see the play. Nothing to do with the subject matter but "written and performed by (the) playwright" is rarely an attraction.

Idiots Today

Tim has already had a go at the more egregious bits of this but I want to stick my poniard in (I would have said 'stiletto' but despite today's diversity-friendly posting I still can't walk in them):

Remember, the biggest reason for our current pension crisis is that the future rewards of pensioners have been spent by the City today.

No, no, no. The biggest reason for our current pension crisis is s19 of the Finance (No.2) Act 1997. Ritchie clearly doesn't realise anything about deltas and compound interest (with pension savings of, say 40 years, you have time for significant compounding). The pension funds were in crisis before the big stock market falls. But we have time for compound ignorance:

November 2nd, 2009 at 13:50 | #8

Amazing isn’t it carol that a small tax change can apparently have brought down the whole system

And utterly wrong, of course

The reality is that the pensions of the wealthy still get far, far too much tax subsidy

Richard

Apart from failing to realise that "spent by the City today" is not the same as "far, far too much tax subsidy", hasn't he realised that it isn't actually the pensions of the wealthy that are important (there aren't enough of them - and most of their savings is likely to be tied up in mostly-CGT-free occupational shareholdings), it applies to everybody who has a personal pension (and, anyway, it's not been true since the Finance Act 2004 - unless you are in the public sector - and pretty much everybody with a defined benefits pension is, your we-don't-steal-from-this-bit-yet pension fund is limited - £3600 per year maximum tax relief, a contributions limit and a fund total limit - the latter aimed to provide a maximum pension of £75,000 per year - nice money but not 'wealthy' - tax beyond that is at 25 to 55% on the lump and then you have income tax on the disbursement).

A Dubious Link

A correspondent posted about the Ugandan "Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009" (text is not currently available at the official site) and I think, initial revulsion aside, it is worth having a look at, if only to convince ourselves that government by Gordon Brown, Alan Johnson and Lord Mandelson is not the worst of all possible worlds.

Now, after we've all (the libertarians at least, and, of any other readers, those with a world view in the latter half of the 20th Century even if still a bit progress-disadvantaged) gone "ugh", let's consider that homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda (s145 of their Penal Code Act) and work on from that point.

Without yet expressing views on the wrongness or utter wrongness of state interference in the private lives of consenting adults, let's be snarky first.

• Despite the heavy religious sponsorship, this is a clergy-unfriendly bill. Not only is the friendly man or woman in the dog collar considered to be of sufficient power over you for them to fall in to s3(1)(d) "Aggravated Homosexuality" - and therefore going to get offed rather than mere rotting in prison for the rest of their days but under s14, they can get 3 years banged up for not snitching on you to the Poof-Finder General. Sacrament of Confession, anybody?
• This is not a well written bill - consider the text of s9 - there seems to be missing a (c), as well as the punishment schedule.
• I like s13(1)(b): "funds or sponsors homosexuality or other related activities" - like interior decoration or fashion design?
• s13(2) shows that Ugandan politicians are just as bad as British ones for "little people's law"!
• s15 really worries me - the only offence here that is reserved for the High Court is one with the mandatory death penalty - even life imprisonment can be tried by Magistrates? Yuck.
• Any government requiring a "Minister of Ethics and Integrity" is clearly headed down the (Nothing to do with the)People's (Un)Democratic etc, etc

Okay, so that's the pedantry out of the way. What about the basic points?

• The hideous illiberality of condemning not just consensual sexual acts between adults but even the belief that such should not be illegal is mind-numbing. It reads like a nu-Labour Criminal Justice Bill.
• The fig leaf offered by the supporters that this bill is necessary to protect juvenile men from gay predators is just that. Implementing s3(1)(a) with an amendment to the law on rape to allow that crime to encompass acts on males, either legally incapable of consent or unconsenting, would be entirely reasonable (accepting that age of consent is, to a large extent, culturally bound and therefore the West needs to be careful demanding that our, piss-poor, example should be followed.)
• The Ugandan Constitution does have "objectives" covering human rights, and Article 21(2) would probably apply (is homosexuality a 'belief' - however the Bill also bans non-homosexuals from promoting homosexual rights which certainly is, hence the Bill is unconstitutional under Article 2(2).)
• I would just state my generic opposition to the death penalty (and judicial maiming etc), regardless of the offence, as I don't trust anybody's courts to get it right all of the time and even if you win your appeal, you don't have much come-back!

We do need to remember that the modern world isn't, really. That bigotry and its (probably illegal under this Bill) bed-fellow, religious fundamentalism - yes, with limited exceptions such as the death penalty, this Bill is supported by so-called Christians from the Church of Uganda (aka Anglican Communion), Orthodox, Pentecostal, & Seventh Day Adventist Churches, as well as the usual "why aren't we surprised" homophobic suspects from the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council - are endemic in large areas of the world.

Is "Scientific" Always Better Than "Political"?

Now, as a (non-fundamentalist) Libertarian, I believe that, in general, recreational drugs should be commercially available, with the same sorts of quality control imposed on them as on the quite-dangerous but no real fun ibuprofen and paracetamol that fills my medicine cabinet. And with, possibly, a strengthening of our existing laws on use of dangerous equipment, particularly motor vehicles, while (ab)using aforesaid. And, thus, removing much of the harm to society (largely through criminal supply and crime committed to fund the habit).

So, I should believe that Prof David Nutt was right and Alan Johnson was wrong (both in the reclassification of cannabis, although that took place under his unlamented predecessor, and in the sacking of Nutt)? Well, much as Prof Nutt's science is probably correct and a Nu-Labour Minister (any) is probably hideously and authoritarianly statist in their utter wrongness, no, not necessarily.

Cannabis is, and remains, an illegal drug. The classification of the drug within that system is driven partly by scientific concerns (seriousness of the impact of the drug and of its harm) but also by political concerns (harm to society, policing and sentencing policy). The latter clearly involves electoral political issues - it is perfectly reasonable to have one party slavishly following the drugs = evil line (inconsistencies with alcohol and tobacco policy slowly being eradicated thanks, or not, to the BMA and govt-funded 'pressure groups'), one taking a libertarian line (about the only liberal thing about the Liberal Democrats), and one completely at sea between its traditional roots and the 1960s/70s dope smoking past of its current front-benchers. And it isn't unreasonable on the "experts advise, ministers decide" principle to require that advice to ministers is private.

EXCEPT ...

The current government are both eager to publish and rely on any 'scientific' advice, however flawed (see informed commentary on the Poppy Project's 'Big Brothel' report here and here) whenever it matches their 'political' objectives but they also published the actual Advisory Committee report! That they, politically, disagreed with. So what we have here is a politician being surprised that a scientist has stood by their researched and published opinion, rather than changed their mind to the politician's whim. So yes, Nutt right, Johnson wrong. Pandering to the popular prejudice. But because of hypocrisy and "policy based evidence making"* - not some mystical right for science to over-ride politics, so it need not always be that way.

Edited to clarify - so Johnson isn't wrong to weigh the scientific advice and discard it in favour of political concerns - he is wrong for sacking an independent advisor for continuing to stick by a published-by-the-government report. Nutt isn't (necessarily - I certainly don't have the knowledge or the access to data to dispute the committee's findings) right about cannabis or ecstasy, he is right for stating the prevailing view of the committee in the report and for sticking by it when the politicians decided other considerations were more important.

* - This is an older term than you might think, given its rapid re-adoption for this subject. However it was invented to describe nu-Labour.

The Gathering Storm

Delivered Tuesday afternoon, courtesy of Amazon, and read Tuesday evening (Mrs S-E being out). Boy, is it long. 750 pages of actual story. I suspect Jordan would have chopped out some of the less significant narrative but I can understand Sanderson felt he shouldn't and couldn't. There isn't much, if any, dross in there. And I can see now why we are going to have to put up with 3 volumes instead of one to finish it.

So, without plot spoilers, where are we now? Well, we don't hear anything about Andor (either the Lion Throne or the Black Tower). We don't actually get that much further with any of the plot lines, except one - the split White Tower. None of the principles gets an overt bonk, although Min is still with Rand and Siuan and Bryne do end up grinning. We do get a partial denouement regarding the Black Ajah and a couple of significant surprises (at least to me, and I have re-read all of the books this year).

It is, largely, a book about Egwene, with a strong second line about the Seanchen (although there is nothing here that has not been foretold, shadowed or actually done - Tuon was Empress in all but name at the end of Knife of Dreams and, not startlingly, peace and harmony does not magically break out in the West of the world - remember that the Prophecies of the Dragon are different in Seanchan) and enough about the other characters (nothing about Lan, though) there to keep you interested. Travelling does seem to make things much more disjointed.

Markedly, this is very similar to the easy-to-disregard middle volume of many good trilogies - they had too much plot for 2 books but not enough action for a proper threesome. Still, I have certainly read far, far worse and anybody who has got this far, having hacked their way through 11 previous volumes and the prequel is unlikely to stop now. And I am looking forward to Audible having it available.

Black allowed by the BNP!

Humour, that is. Black shirts being de rigueur (in private at least) and black people still being banned (until next month's AGM).

Would it be black humour if I was to suggest the Kenny Everett solution to the BNP? That's the "round 'em up, put 'em in a field and bomb the bastards!" one, for those wondering?

An "Opinion" Piece is not a "Stupidity Licence"

Lesley Riddoch, in today's Scotsman (partial article & comments here) maintains:

Scotland is moving naturally toward the same general policy of neutrality observed by all modern Scandinavian nations.

So she clearly hasn't heard of the NATO membership of Norway and Denmark - and Iceland, I forgot Iceland - (all considered both considered Scandinavian and members of the Nordic Council - the point of her article) or the recent death of a Danish soldier in Afghanistan. There was a Danish battalion as part of the British-led Division in Basrah for a number of years, as well.

Just to make a political point ... Words fail me.

Unseen Academicals

I laughed until I wheezed until I got embarrassing.

The second verse of the Ankh-Morpork national anthem.

Yes, YES, YES

The rest of the book is quite good too. Although it starts a bit slowly compared to others of his oeuvre.

Update: Now on Youtube!

Gary's $700,000 Damages Bill

Once again, we have somebody over here desperately trying to beat sense in to the amorphous "over there":

The US inflated the $700,000 bill for damages it slapped on UFO hacker Gary McKinnon by stuffing it with costs incurred for patching the gaping holes the hacker had exposed in its computer security, according to a document filed with the Supreme Court.

The US had not taken reasonable steps to protect its security and now expects McKinnon to pick up the bill, said an expert witness statement made in McKinnon's ongoing appeal against a US extradition order.

Peter Sommer, professor of security at the London School of Economics, said damage assessments of computer security breaches should consider "whether the victims have taken reasonable steps to limit the damage".

Now, I've not seen the details of the US damages bill but I have seen lots of guesstimates of clean-up costs after security breaches - $700k doesn't seem too bad in comparison with the hideous over-estimates for virus damages - if you think about it in purely work-terms, it is a less than 3 man years for a medium-grade consultant. Add in opportunity costs for your normal IT geekery and you could easily get to a large figure. Remember that it is not just the 97 computers that he got in to but you also have to check the others to see whether or not he had been at or into those.

However, we then have our colonial colleagues disagreeing:

But security experts in the US said McKinnon should be liable for the full $700,000 of security checks performed in his wake.

Professor Eugene Spafford, founder of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Indiana's Purdue University, said the victim of a cybercrime should not take the blame. If someone broke a door to rob a store, he said, it was usual to charge them the cost of the door.

Anthony Reyes, a former cybercrime detective who helped develop the US Cyber Counter Terrorism Investigations Program, said, "Just because security is weak, it doesn't give you a red flag to go into a computer system and start browsing around."

Spaff, a famous and capable security academic, however seizes the wrong analogy. If somebody opens an unlocked door to rob a store, it would be unusual to charge them for fitting an additional lock.

Reyes, who I have never heard of, is entirely accurate and completely irrelevant. I don't think that anybody is arguing that McKinnon did not do anything 'wrong'. (Ed notes: There are technical arguments as to whether what he did was illegal under the precise wording of various statutes - but what he did was illegal under the UK Computer Misuse Act where it is the unauthorised access that is illegal, regardless of the method you used to gain it, although the latter may be an additional offence.) The question at point is two-fold:

• How much of the $700k claimed is for work that the DoD should have done regardless of McKinnon's intrusion? To look at Spaff's analogy - if somebody opened an unlocked door and, with the investigation, you realised that you only had a three-lever mortice on it, should they be charged for the five-lever lock?
• Secondly, how much of the costs actually incurred should be mitigated because the DoD were negligent in their basic Information Assurance? To look at the insurance example - your contents insurance will have a clause in it about the house being unoccupied for an extended period, because this increases the risk. I am not a lawyer, and certainly not an American one, so I have no idea how this actually plays in the context of a criminal breach of US law. Badly, I suspect.

BCS - Security. Epic Fail

Well, attempting to log on to the "New British Computer Society" site, this morning (Ed notes: what happened to the perfectly acceptable old BCS and how much did that new logo cost?), I was presented with this rather over-informative error:

exception 'AmaxusSecurityException' with message 'Invalid token for request' in /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/controller/Frontend/FrontendController.class.php:157
Stack trace:
#0 /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/controller/Frontend/FrontendController.class.php(131): FrontendController->checkRequestToken()
#1 /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/class/common/Controller.class.php(678): FrontendController->runAction('login')
#2 /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/class/common/ControllerDispatcher.class.php(68): Controller->handleRequest()
#3 /mnt/amaxus4/private/inc/class/common/ControllerDispatcher.class.php(56): ControllerDispatcher->handleRequest(Object(UserController))
#4 /mnt/amaxus4/site/_server.php(92): ControllerDispatcher->dispatch(Object(ClientRequest))
#5 {main}

Not very good at all for the:

Hannan actually called Obama a misogynist homophobe!

He did, look:

Like St Paul, he made a virtue of being all things to all men.

And, even being a Christian, I have to admit that St Paul is fairly well known, if not actually renowned, for having a downer on the fairer sex and a apocalyptic hatred of gayers. And Hannan clearly compares Obama to St Paul. Therefore, exercising my massive grasp of leftie logic, Hannan has accused Obama of all of Paul's flaws as well as the specific virtue he actually used. And then we have this nonsense from the media.

There have been enough comments from sensible people about the dog-whistle "you're a racist" tactics of the nu-Lab playground bullies so I point you the direction of Cranmer and go off on a rant instead.

Nooooo!

The official, government registered, "Hello Kitty" Tartan:

Bloody Slow BBC

I first saw it here, posted "9/11/2009 01:47:00 PM", if you'll forgive the Yank failure to do dates properly.

So I was quite surprised to see this, just now:

It's a wee bit late, folks, hum?

Oh Noes! The 'R' Word

So, the great Peanut farmer has spoken - opposition to Obama's heathcare reform is racist.

Now, I don't doubt that there are people who do actually oppose President Obama on the grounds that he is black, as well as people who oppose him on the grounds that he is(n't) Kenyan and, I expect, black people who oppose him on the grounds (also racist) that he is mixed race. There are definitely black people who oppose him on the grounds that he is African not "African-American" and, not being the descendant of slaves (the sort carried to the colonies by evil white folks rather than the sort enslaved back home by evil black folks - 'cause there weren't any of the latter). I am sure, also, that on the fringes (at the very minimum) of any group opposing any Obama initiative, you will have some of the people who oppose him for more visceral reasons.

However ...

The last time a Democratic president tried for health care reform (something I, like most Europeans and even Daniel Hannan think the Yanks really need to have a go at), it didn't go down very well either. Why?

Well, clearly it was racism. I mean, wasn't Clinton (completely inaccurately) described as the "first black president"? Well, possibly not. It may be because Mrs Clinton was (and still is) the sort of do-gooding shrewish harpy that really gets the hairs on the skin next to your spine standing up - even if she is saying nothing more harmful than "Good Morning"? It may be because the Republican party are firmly in the pocket of big business and HMOs are very big business indeed. It may be because the tag "socialist" can be easily attached. It may even be because these are not desperately well thought out ideas (v.g. tick, standard government practice) and are going to cost a rather large fortune (ditto).

But opposing health care reform 'racist' - I really don't think, Jimbo, you've made the point.

Beyond even a Labour Minister

From my spam bin:

Dear Friend,
GREETINGS FROM THE UK HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT

This might startle you a little as you might have seen or read about me but really don’t know me in person. Well, I am Rt. Hon Margaret Hodge MP. A British politician and Labour Party Member of Parliament for Banking. I was the first Minister for Children appointed in a newly created post with the Department for Education and Skills and presently Minister of State in the Department for culture, Media and Sport under Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom.

I got your contact info via your country’s national directory and intend introducing a project concerning charity in your country and maybe neighbouring countries around you.

A few months ago, I was compelled to make an over estimation during a budget and set aside the sum of Six Million Three Hundred Thousand Great Britain Pounds (£6, 300,000.00GBP) with the sole intention of channeling it all into charity which I am delegating you to executed on my behalf with complete supervision of my Attorney as he will also be the one in charge of securing these funds into your custody.

This transaction will result to you being paid a commission of 11% of the investment capital and the balance, distributed to charity organizations of your choice or reinvested and the net income, used for rehabilitating charity organization in and around your country through you/your agency annually for the period of five years or a little more. The last time I orchestrated this sort of Grant, the individual in Australia succeeded in successfully setting up three standard orphanage homes in less than a year. I have never been so proud of such a noble individual. I hope we would have a reoccurrence in your case. If you are willing to execute this Humanitarian Project, You must understand that I desire absolute confidentiality and professionalism on this issue.

For security reasons as regards my reputation, I will not be able to communicate regularly with you; but my Attorney will take up the processing on my behalf and get these funds processed and released to you without any delay. I don’t plan on benefiting anything from this project, but will be absolutely fulfilled, if and only if you remain sincere to me on the handling of this project with utmost sincerity and confidentiality; and eventually utilize the funds for the purpose which I have explained to you above.

Kindly respond urgently if you are interested as the fund have been tied down for too long, so I can equip you with the necessary details, alongside my Attorney’s contact information, so as to commence the transaction properly; on the other hand, if you are not, please let your intentions be known or better still, Kindly relent from replying this email.

You could get personal info on me via my official website, but do not try contacting me via any personal information you may lay your hands upon on the internet as almost all my contact info are connected to the British House of Parliament data base except the ones I personally sent to you; as I don’t want our effort and my reputation, jeopardized.

Kindly send your response to this E-mail:

margarethodgemp@yahoo.com.hk <-------
Sincerely, THE RT. HON MARGARET HODGE
DEPARTMENT FOR WORK AND PENSIONS,
RICHMOND HOUSE,
79 WHITEHALL,
HOUSE OF COMMONS,
SW1A 0AA LONDON,
SW1A 2NS UNITED KINGDOM.

:) Corrections for formatting only. All mistooks courtesy of the Lads from Lagos.

You just have to love weegies.

And here's to good old Glasgae,
The land of the bigot and the ned ...

It sort of runs out at that point but :)

Nickin' stuff off a pirate ship - that's cooler than having 3 machetes!

Ted Kennedy

Even Camelot had Mordred.

Although he wasn't Irish.

Supremacy of Parliament?

This is boggling beyond belief:

People who sell DVDs and videos illegally, including pornography to children, cannot be prosecuted because of a legislative blunder dating back 25 years, it has emerged.

Okay - I'm no great fan of the current (or 1984 :) quality of parliamentary draftsmanship but the Video Recordings Act was

ENACTED by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same,

So what is this blunder? Oh,

the then British Tory Government should have notified with the European Commission but failed to do so.

The error also went unnoticed when the laws were amended in 1993 and 1994.

The technicality means the act is unenforceable and urgent action is now under way to notify Europe and re-enact the legislation.

So, a law correctly passed by Parliament and in accordance with the British Constitution (and not over-ridden by legislation such as the HRA) is unenforceable because of a bureaucratic oversight? Has this got something to do with s8 (Cinematographic Films) of the European Communities Act? Or is there another control mechanism which requires all of our laws to be notified to the EU?

Hat tip to Caspar on the FIPR list.

This classic "reap as you sow" example of nu-Lab incompetence made me grin. H/t to Charles Crawford.