Tariq Ramadan and the Charlie Hebdo problem

What is left to be said about the Charlie Hebdo crisis that unfolded in Paris earlier this month?  Perhaps not much, but it won't stop me.

So a gang of muslim cowards hiding behind their semi-automatic weapons kills twelve innocent people in an office and runs away.  This was somehow excused by the victims' 'crime' of depicting and ridiculing someone elses's non-existent prophet.  Few people recognise that nothing was written about Muhammed until about 200 years after he is supposed to have lived.  This makes his historical existence even less convincing than that for Jesus!

What's more, in what civilised part of the world does non-violent satire excuse a violent response?  

On the day after the shootings, BBC Radio 4 interviewed the 'islamic scholar' from Oxford, Tariq Ramadan.  I have heard him speak live and been amazed (and almost impressed) at how he twists sentences to convey a message that both Muslims and infidels are meant to think is wise and more-to-the-point 'harmless'.  This time takes the biscuit.  OK, he gently condemned the violence in Paris, but within a minute or two he was claiming that we should all feel responsible for what has happened.  Our government's involvement in Iraq - in his mind at least - has something to do with the cowards killing the journalists.

Call me naive if you like, but I thought the shootings were about the magazine being satirical and about the way the 'religion of permanent offence' chooses to try to dictate what free people in free countries are allowed to say about imaginary beings.  It was about islamic intolerance of the principles behind human rights and human dignity

Ramadan went on to claim that we're "all on the same side".

Let me assure you, Professor Ramadan, that I feel no responsibility for what has been done this month, and that I am on the same side as you on absolutely nothing of any consequence at all.  You can't excuse the violence in Paris.  They were islamic thugs behaving inexcusably by any objective standard.

Tolerances and complex problems

One of my favourite quotations gets a regular airing . . .  indeed much more regular than my blog posts have been recently.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

H. L. Mencken  (1880 to 1956)

Almost everyone laughs at that.  It sounds both incisive and frivolous at the same time.  I expect most people then dismiss it from their minds and would probably be delighted if they hear it again in a year or two without getting any more wisdom from it.

For me, after enjoying it and regularly using it while reviewing technical designs in a complex engineering environment it has taken on a extra layer of meaning.  It should be the motto of all practical engineers.  What most people don't realise is that the art of engineering is to make things that might be a little bit wrong but to ensure that they are right enough to function correctly.

Engineers call this 'tolerancing'.  Proper choice of tolerances in any design is the art of balancing performance against cost.  If you get the design too right you might not be able to afford to build it, or might not have enough time.

This is well illustrated by the old story about how to tell the difference between a scientist and an engineer. 

Stand them in opposing corners of a room, with an attractive member of the opposite sex naked (and presumably rather tolerant and open-minded) in the middle.  Tell them to approach that person by successively halving the distance between themselves and the object of their desire. Then wait.

The first one to leave the room will be the scientist, who has worked out that, in this way, you will never really get there. The engineer, however, has figured out that you will get close enough - for all practical purposes.

Something Surprising is back

After a break of a couple of weeks, a regular feed of posts will restart later this evening. 

Thanks for continuing to follow.

New RDFRS newletter revealed

The Richard Dawkins Foundation(s) for Reason and Science (RDFRS) have released a newsletter, the first one being available here.  (As you might know, there are two RDFRSs.)

Being a fan of Richard Dawkins and his work (as many of you will have spotted a long time ago) I eagerly clicked the link to see what fascinating information it might contain.  Richard has such a good way of spotting interesting things and presenting them in accessible ways.  I thought there was a good chance that it would be another thing that I would subscribe to, but unlike many of the others that I almost dread having to read, this one was going to be something that I would be eager to see.

So - did it live up to my expectations?  Perhaps the existence of two separate but linked foundations, East and West of the Atlantic might make it difficult to choose the content.  There was quite a good article by Sean Faircloth who is a powerful speaker and writer, but apart from that there was a bit of advertising (which I accept as being necessary), mention of a new member of staff (yawn! who cares?) and a selection of other articles that failed to get my full attention.

All in all, I have to say that I found it surprisingly disappointing. 

Let's not give up on them too soon, as they might find their feet and decide which country they really want to talk to.  I don't really mind which one it is, as I do listen to a number of US-centric podcasts.  However, most of those give UK a greater degree of prominence than the first edition of this newsletter has done, from its American heartland.

Very little of Richard's flair and enthusiasm comes through just yet.  Please try harder.

Now if you want a really good newsletter, (which happens to be UK based), you could do worse than that of the National Secular Society, which you can find here.  I actually look forward to getting that one by e-mail every Friday.

Right Royal Shame!

In this week's news we hear once again that the Queen is going to get a 5% pay rise next year, while everyone else working for the government has their increase capped at 1%.  This is on top of the 16% that she gained this year, as I mentioned in early April.

The excuse is that the royal estates are bringing in more income than they used to and that there is an agreement that the Queen gets a proportion of the income. Don't forget that she also got a boost to cover the extra costs associated with the jubilee last year, and she has been allowed to retain this year even without a jubilee to pay for.

Isn't it time for the country to put its collective foot down?  Of course that won't happen with our current barely-elected government, even though they must realise how unpopular the news has been.

Naturally royalists tell us what good value for money we get from the royal family, but with the further news that the Duke and Duchess of York's apartment is getting a £1 million makeover, I would ask how that case can possibly be defended.

Bring on the republic!

Government-sponsored cruelty to animals

Here is another example of the spinelessness of the UK's barely elected government, and its indifference to animal rights along with human equality rights. 

The government has decided not to take the correct moral decision in this allegedly Christian country.  Instead they pander to the profits of religious minorities . . . for it is profit and commerce that counts for Cameron and his cronies . . . isn't it?  And halal and kosher butchers obviously need to make their profits.

Why is this decision stupid and wrong?  There are many reasons, but the following are obviously candidate reasons.

• Animal rights
• Surely we should avoid cruelty wherever possible
• Lies about these animals not suffering are to be doubted
• Religious rights
• Christians have to follow the law
• Secularists and atheists have to follow the law
• Muslims are exempt and can use their cruel slaughter techniques
• Jews are also exempt and can use their same-but-totally-different, cruel, slaughter techniques
• Human rights
• Why do secular abattoirs have to go to the extra expense of humane slaughter when religious abattoirs are permitted to avoid them?
• Since halal and kosher meat is over-produced and distributed on the open market, why should I have to eat it and not have a right to know what I'm eating?
• Since this meat is not labelled, what Quality Assurance is imposed?  Or are they exempt from QA too?  It wouldn't be a surprise . . . would it?
• Are religious people to be trusted in a secular world anyway?  When did you ever hear of anyone 'lying for secularism'?

I think the government is just frightened of the likely response from religious minorities if it took a fair and just stance. In doing this, it discriminates against the majority.

But then again, if this was an effective democracy they would not be in government anyway.

The bigger IF

The Archbishop of Westminster was leading a service this morning as part of the 'protests' in London called "The Big IF".  For some inexplicable reason, The Methodist Church allowed him to use Westminster Central Hall for this purpose.

Apparently he was preaching about tax avoidance and how it affects the poorest people of the world.  Suprisingly (??), the big companies that have subsidiaries in tax havens are somehow involved in the starvation of the people (whereas their own corrupt governments are not.

Now I care a lot about tax avoidance, whether it is by members of the UK Government or by big companies.  But there is one obvious organisation that avoids taxation wherever it goes, and indeed reclaims taxes at the expense of the rest of the citizens.  This organisation is (as Richard Dawkins has said) 'one of the greatest forces for evil in the world' and the Archbishop of Westminster is its representative.

Not only does that church augment its fabulous wealth at the expense of the rest of us, but it is responsible for the deaths of plenty of people too.  I need hardly mention the AIDS crisis or the failure to allow abortions to save the lives of the mothers.  Why stop there?  But I will.

The pot is calling the kettle black!

Why can't theists just leave us alone?

As atheists we are often asked why we have to criticise religions.

That would be a good question if those religions did not intrude into our daily lives quite as much.

This link from The Thinking Atheist takes you to one of the best summaries of the situation that I have seen recently.  One short extract gives you an idea of the contents . . .

"Ask yourself. When's the last time an atheist rang your doorbell with the Good News of Humanism? How often do you find Richard Dawkins books in the dresser drawers of your hotel rooms? When was the last atheist temple erected in your neighborhood? Have you ever attended an atheist revival? Has atheism demanded 10% of your household income? How many dedicated atheist television channels come through your satellite dish? How many atheist verses were you instructed to memorize as a child? When's the last time someone thanked a FARMER (or even the cook) at the dinner table instead of God?"

Good points - I think you will agree.

One rule for the rich

Today we have heard in the news that three members of the House of Lords are being investigated for alleged wrong-doings.  They might (or of course might not) have offered to accept payment for services relating to the business of government.  Of course that would have been illegal . . . (if indeed they had done it).

Two of them are just 'ordinary' Lords, presumably accustomed to being well rewarded for doing f**k all.  It might be understandable (but still unforgivable) that they had got into bad habits.

But the third surely has no excuse for failing to understand the law of the land properly, as he is a former senior policeman.  As the BBC web site says here . . .

Lord (Brian) Mackenzie, a former chief superintendent for Durham police and president of the Police Superintendents Association, said he could arrange parties for paying clients - including on the terrace of the House of Lords - after being asked if this was possible.

Lord Brian MacKenzie of Framwellgate: ''I have not broken any of the rules'' "There is a rule that you shouldn't host a reception in parliament where you have a pecuniary interest. I thought that's bloody nonsense. [Whereas to me that makes perfect sense, since I don't see why the Houses of Parliament should be confused with a Gentleman's Club]  Nonetheless... how would you get round that?

"I just say to a colleague who has nothing to do with it, 'would you host a function for me?'" he said. 

But Lord Mackenzie told the BBC he was "quite happy" that he had not broken the rules.

Yeah . . . right!  In the light of these allegations, do you suppose he might have behaved perfectly well when he was a copper?  A policeman breaking the law?  Surely not.  Perhaps we might begin to doubt the propaganda that we get about our perfect police, if we didn't already suspect that things were not perfectly in order.

Of course these three will escape any risk of a custodial sentence for their misdeeds.  Even if there is a theoretical risk, I expect they have friends - oh no, 'colleagues' - who can arrange things for them.

Meanwhile everyone else who works for the UK Government seems to be required to take training on corruption - as in avoiding it.  Do members of the House of Lords have to take this training?  Or do they do their training in their subsidised bar, advising each other about what they can get away with? 

It is beginning to seem that way isn't it?  This is the kind of thing that really raises the morale of public sector workers!

Turning in their graves

This week on BBC Radio 4 a reporter was interviewing some of the people of Woolwich where there was a high profile murder of a serving soldier - allegedly by two young Muslim men.

The news story is far from funny, but one of the interviewees said something that made me hoot with laughter.

They claimed that our grandfathers fought for this country, and if they were alive now they would be turning in their graves.

Humour gets everywhere!

Should psychics be prosecuted?

If psychics offer their services to the police in order to solve a mystery or a crime and it all goes horribly wrong, which party should be considered culpable?

From time to time we hear about cases where psychics seem to offer that vital clue that police needed in order to solve a difficult case.  Correlation does not always imply causation of course, but facts like this do not often convince a gullible public who are left thinking that 'there must be something in it'.

One recent case where a psychic's total failure has been revealed was that of the investigation of the disappearance of kidnap victim Amanda Berry about 10 years ago.  With the final escape of Amanda we now discover for certain that the psychic Sylvia Browne had (at least) made a mistake.  Her claim that Amanda was no longer in the land of the living has now been shown to be complete fabrication.  I seem to remember that there was a similar case in Bristol UK, just last year, resulting in a false accusation of an innocent man.

Now I wouldn't like to suggest that this particular failed psychic is necessarily using her fame to interfere malevolently with police investigation.  It is quite possible that she truly believes in her abilities (not that she is just using a high profile case like this as a publicity stunt to bring the punters in to see her stage performances.)  I have a friend who also believes that she has these abilities even though she is a scientist.  She realises that the evidence is not yet compelling enough to convince me. 

However, the simple belief in one's abilities is one matter, but when interfering in matters that are truly a matter of life and death, actions should surely carry a degree of responsibility.

No doubt Sylvia Browne's stage work carries the disclaimer "For entertainment purposes only" in small writing, for legal reasons.  So I wonder why her work with the police should not be treated in the same way - also for legal reasons.  Should a prosecution be initiated for supposed psychics who waste police time in this way?  I speak in general terms - not necessarily in this specific case, but surely YES.

On the other hand, are the police failing in their duty by even considering that a psychic might be able to help?  In my view, the answer is an emphatic YES.  Disciplinary action should be taken against the officers who have failed in their duty to the public by even entertaining the idea that this might be useful.  Naturally it might have been a media propaganda stunt on their behalf too, but this sort of thing is at best a smoke screen to placate the credible public.

It is time to stop tolerating interference with the due process of law.

Progress for secularism

I was just enjoying a phone call with my mother who is a practising Anglican who lives in (fairly) rural Yorkshire. 

She told me how the vicar of her church is retiring in a month or two, and how his curate is off work with 'stress' and that he would not be applying to take over as vicar.

In my opinion you can't blame either of them for that. 

Meanwhile most of the neighbouring benefices are bereft of clergy.  Those who are there are not 'real' clergy but 'lay readers' and therefore they are not able to take communion services.

A few years ago I would have agreed that this was a tragedy.  English traditions are being swiftly eroded and the church is one of those traditions.

However, these days I'm covertly rejoicing about the idea of the impending demise of England's 'established church'.  I see this as good progress towards a secularist state.  That is to say that I don't begrudge anyone their religion but I have no desire to contribute towards it as a UK tax-payer.

Libel Reform happening in UK! At last!

Today the UK's new Defamation Bill passed into law, subject to the anachronism of Royal Assent, which hopefully will happen within hours.

That's great news.  Politicians of all parties will no doubt line up to take credit for beginning the reform of our preposterous libel legislation, but in doing that they would be lying to us.

I believe that this is solely the result of concentrated people-power.

LibelReform.org has led the way and they are rightly proud of themselves for what they have achieved.  They mustered the votes of so many people that the (barely elected) Government just had to take notice of them.

You can read Libel Reform's  latest news here and their initial summary assessment here.

A big Well Done to Síle and Mike!  And a general Well Done to all of us who have signed petitions and stood up for justice and free speech!

It's a great start!

Douglas Murray - who is he?

Recently I came across a character called Douglas Murray, who seems to speak in a style similar to that of the late Christopher Hitchins.

Has anyone encountered him before?  What are your opinions of him.  His views seem controversial with his audiences, but he is certainly a powerful and rational speaker in the few videos that I've found so far.

His credentials are enhanced by this Intelligence Squared debate where he works with Ayaan Hirsi Ali to debate "Islam is a religion of peace". 

(Ayaan and Douglas won decisively by the way.)

We might have a new Hitch in the making.

I've been endorsed

A couple of years ago I joined LinkedIn and since then I have passively collected  nearly 200 contacts.  Unlike my Facebook friends, my LinkedIn contacts are (I think) exclusively made up of people who I have known and worked with.

That means that they ought to know me reasonably well and I would have expected that my range of skills (or lack thereof) would influence their views about me.

So I'm constantly surprised at the things that they endorse me for!

I could understand that I've convinced people that I know something about science and experimental physics (even though I feel far from expert).  I feel flattered to have had some endorsements for Public Speaking too, but I'm progressively baffled that others consider that I know anything useful about the rest.  I know a little basic Optics, my Computational Physics experience is limited to being reasonably capable of using Excel.  Spectroscopy and Simulations are way outside my comfort zone.  I once wrote a programme in Fortran (but I was still at school at the time), and when it comes to LaTex and IDL I can only say that I know what they are for.

But I have been generously endorsed for all of them. 

I appreciate the compliments, but it must be said that they don't add value to my profile.  And where are my endorsements for Engineering, Vacuum or Cryogenics, for Atheism, Skepticism (not Cynicism) or Islamophobia, or indeed for Lateral Thinking or Sense of Humour?  I hardly recognise my own 'reflection' that comes from the opinions of my friends and colleagues.

That's life!

I can't imagine that I'm unique in this respect.  I'd just caution everyone to take no notice of the supposed endorsements in LinkedIn.

Being fair to the Thatchers

The final demise of Margaret Thatcher has been a hot topic for discussion this week.  Opinions are divided and there is little doubt that some are taking their celebrations to a ridiculous extreme.

However, having admitted that she might have been right about a few things, I noticed some people telling me that they were appalled by the way that she is being pilloried by press and people alike.  It was gently pointed out to me that Margaret Thatcher has a family, and that people are not being respectful to them.

But didn't she once say of her son Mark "Mark could sell snow to the Eskimos and sand to the Arabs"?  Of course she neglected to mention his ability to sell arms to the Saudis (of which, naturally, he was innocent anyway) or his inability to find his way through sand while pretending to be a rally driver.  The latter resulted in a large bill for the British tax payer and the former to considerable embarrassment and frustration for the same people (even though it didn't officially happen).  And to make up for it he now has the title 'Sir Mark', thanks to the beneficence of his parents.

Even his twin sister, Carol Thatcher, publicly disapproved of Sir Mark and she aspired to make her own way in the world as a journalist - an honourable profession if ever there was one!   This is a woman who referred to the tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as a 'golliwog'.  What a nice lady.

I'm sure Mrs Thatcher has some perfectly pleasant relatives as well, but her children don't get much sympathy from me.

So while I felt a measure of disinterest for protests against a state funeral and for the rise of a song about the death of a witch in the charts this week, that one comment about her family might have made me feel more radical than I did before.

But who cares about a bill of over 10 million pounds for a funeral when living, breathing, public servants are being treated so well (!!) by their employer! 

I care!

Can the UK government afford niceties like this? If so, why can't it care for its employees properly?

Being fair to the Thatchers would include provision of a nice prison cell and the withdrawal of a title and the burial of a cardboard coffin in a privatised municipal dump!

Thatcher was right after all

You might know me as a radical anti-Tory who regrets voting for Margaret Thatcher's Tory government in my first general election.  I don't feel proud of her legacy, but I should acknowledge that she got some things right.  Not many - but I acknowledge them.

She got a lot more wrong.  She sold off the country's assets for less than half their value - gas, water, and telephone networks and social housing were worth much more than her government accepted.  I can tell you for sure that she sold 'council houses' too cheaply.  I live in one of them to this day.  I bought it for £49,500 from the former tenant who had purchased it the previous year for £19,500.  Thatcher effectively empowered the owner of this house to make a profit of £30,000 at the expense of the tax payer.  That was fair wasn't it!

Her real downfall was the 'poll tax'.  It wasn't a stupid idea.  Of course households where more adults live should pay more than households with fewer adults.  It was just implemented in the most crass and ignorant way.  A couple with children suddenly found themselves paying nearly twice as much as they had paid in 'rates' - the previous local taxation system in UK.  Single pensioners who ought to have had a financial gain found that they were still paying the same as before.  Naturally that was going to get a reaction - and indeed it got an excessive reaction.  People died because of this.

I could go on, but you will be glad to hear that I won't.

What did she get right?

• As the first ever British female prime minister I have to offer respect.
• She stood up to Northern Irish terrorists (many of whom are now in the government in that province) and resisted their violence bravely.
• I had forgotten this, but it turns out that she opposed apartheid in South Africa and yet maintained that Nelson Mandela had rightly been imprisoned as a terrorist.  I'm not prepared to change my view of this just because Thatcher agreed with me.

So I do not mourn her.  However the Tory Witch was not wrong on every subject.  I wish the same could be said for David Cameron - the current barely-elected prime minister.

Is Martin Robbins skeptical enough?

Martin Robbins, blogger for the Guardian, spoke to a packed audience at Oxford Skeptics in the Pub this week.  It was not the usual venue (which has a great meeting room but no atmosphere), but a real pub called the Port Mahon in St Clements.  The down-side of this is that the room was long and narrow, filled with an audience of 50 or more, and if you were unlucky enough to be sitting near the back it was difficult to hear or see.  In fact many were not lucky enough to be sitting at all, but the atmosphere was friendly and nobody was complaining

Still, I got more than the gist of his string of anecdotes about quack medicine in Africa, with tales of Joseph Obi in Gambia, Jim "Bleachgate" Humble, Homeopaths without Borders, the 'Real Medicine Foundation', and Jeremy Sherr.

His source of information was a period of a month or so in Africa a couple of years ago.  He had been generously supported by The Wellcome Trust. He and his team were quite successful in their attempt to find quack 1st-world medics plying their trade, but he was keen to point out that some of their associates actually do good charitable work.

Perhaps I was most surprised by his message about skepticism.  He clearly demonstrates a skeptical attitude on a lot of topics, and yet he seems to doubt the value of skeptical blogging in the Western world.  He asks why more skeptics don't get out to Africa to see for themselves what is going on there and to try to do something about it.

And yet . . . he has just been there on a well funded mission and clearly managed to do nothing that is very useful.  Yes he brings back a message about quack medics practising their trade in African countries, but then tells us that nobody here will do anything about it, and that it might even be a bad thing if they did.

To me it is obvious why more skeptics do not go on these missions.  For a start there is no source of funding, whereas quack medicine funds itself.  Secondly, anyone who thought about it would understand that Western quack medicine is probably no more harmful than the indigenous quack medicine practised by witch doctors and shaman. I for one am not a fan of interfering in developing countries. 

If we have learnt anything in recent decades it is that well funded and well-intentioned charity often manage to do more harm than good. 

Amateur skeptics are hardly likely to achieve anything better are we?

Sympathy for the queen?

In this week's news we hear that the barely elected UK Government has voted for a pay rise for our dear old queen.  Unlike the situation of virtually everyone else who works directly or indirectly for the government, her income rise is not capped at 1%, nor even at the 0% that we have had to tolerate for the last 2 years.

No no, the Queen is a special case, or so it seems.  Last year we gave her an extra million pounds to subsidise her for the Jubilee Celebrations, so this year presumably we would reduce her income accordingly.  That would only be fair wouldn't it.

But no - fairness is far from the thoughts of our government. They have generously and magnanimously given her an extra 16% on top of the extra million that she received last year.  It is not exactly clear how they settled on this amount but I doubt that many will feel sympathetic for anyone who has to get by on a mere £36.1 million for this year.

As the government says, we are all in it together! But as with everything else they say you have to invert the meaning of the sentence to get to the real truth.

Failed Tory leaders . . .

Iain Duncan Smith ('IDS') used to be leader of the Conservative Party.  He didn't last long.  He wasn't exactly inspirational.  In fact a dessicated slug would have been more inspiring.  Of course I am not a Tory supporter.  I actually have a conscience.

The current Tory leader (and Prime Minister - spit!) has aquiesced to IDS being the Work and Pensions Secretary.  Of course he knows little about work (as ordinary people experience it) or pensions, but why should that matter?  In that capacity he recently committed an interesting faux-pas where he claimed that he could live on £53 per week - just 3% of his current salary.

So anyone who shares my desire that he should honour that claim might like to sign a petition at change.org.  Let's embarrass him into proving that he could do it.  As they say:

This petition calls for Iain Duncan Smith, the current Work and Pensions Secretary, to prove his claim of being able to live on £7.57 a day, or £53 a week.

On Monday's Today Programme David Bennett, a market trader, said that after his housing benefit had been cut, he lives on £53 per week. The next interviewee was Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who was defending the changes. The interviewer then asked him if he could live on this amount. He replied: "If I had to, I would."

This petition calls on Iain Duncan Smith to live on this budget for at least one year. This would help realise the conservative party`s current mantra that "We are all in this together".

This would mean a 97% reduction in his current income, which is £1,581.02 a week or £225 a day after tax* [Source: The Telegraph]