BBC film crews

Having been somewhat involved with the workings of a BBC film crew yesterday, for a programme that will be hosted by Richard Hammond, I am left with a few observations about BBC film crews.

The staff all seemed to be polite, pleasant and reasonable people.  They even gave the impression of understanding what our technical staff were talking about - at least when they took the time to listen.  I was surprised to hear the producer asking one of his interviewees not to dumb it down so much - and this was for a science programme on the BBC.  Yes really!

I suppose this is not a proper science programme like Horizon.  Perhaps Sunday evening specials are allowed to present real science instead?

Another surprise was that they preferred to film in very low light, to the extent that most of the people who were trying to do a real job, operating a complex fusion machine, were complaining that they couldn't see what they were doing.  Most film crews from other TV stations including the independents can cope with the normal lighting conditions, but it will be interesting to see the difference when the programme comes out.  Perhaps it will be spectacularly better than average.

And yes - it is true that Hammond is not a tall man.

But the biggest surprise is that the film crew must have numbered at least a dozen people.  Like the last time I saw a BBC crew for a high profile programme in action, I wondered what most of them were supposed to be doing.  Not much, from all appearances!  Funded by the tax payer, it seems that they can afford to employ four or five times more staff than most other companies.

After all, these are times of austerity.

Thought-provoking video about Intelligent Design

What a thought provoking video about Intelligent Design, from The Thinking Atheist!

It ends up with this quote from Stephen Fry.

Stephen Fry on the subject of Intelligent Design

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.

Another UK crisis - MPs pay

The UK Government has imposed a 1% limit on the increase of salary for public sector workers for the next three years, having already frozen pay for the last two years.  (At the same time thy increased pension contributions by 1.28% this year, leading to a net decrease in take-home pay while inflation is obviously raging.)

Some people find that outrageous.  Others consider it to be an fair and inevitable way of balancing the books.  But whichever camp you might be in, I suspect that we are almost all in agreement that it would be grossly unfair if Members of Parliament (MPs) are awarded any increase in salary higher than that.  And yet, this is what they tell us we should expect.  In fact they might be awarded an increase of more than 10%, because (at the second attempt) the independent body that reviews their salaries has deemed that they are underpaid.

Neglecting the fact that many of them have second and third paid jobs, along with fairly generous expenses allowances and long periods when Parliament is not sitting, which world is this independent panel living in?

Somehow, it appears that the government is powerless to prevent this inevitable increase.  Exactly why that might be the case is completely unclear to me.  In my view, the MPs should:

• Do the job that they are paid for - full time, like the rest of us - and yes that sometimes means working late with little appreciation and for much less money than MPs already receive.
• Not have additional salaried posts.
• Definitely have their salary increases capped - as after all, they are public sector workers too.  

Its easy isn't it?  It is just like telling another public sector worker that they have achieved the highest level of achievement in their role which might give them a rise of a few percent in normal times, but that in spite of that their pay rise is capped at 1%.


Failing that, I can see the potential for one of the biggest protest marches ever seen in London.  I will be there, whatever else might be happening that day.

Will you?

Further comment:  38 Degrees is obviously lining itself up for a goo campaign on this topic.  Participate in their consultation by following this link.

Skeptical about Skeptoid - go for green instead!

The Skeptoid podcast has been one of my favourites for two or three years, and Brian Dunning's analyses of the topics that he covers generally have my trust.  One or two things might have influenced my views about Dunning recently, but setting aside accusations of fraud that have echoed around the skeptical community (if indeed it really is a singular community) in this week's episode I think he actually has a couple of things dangerously wrong.

He was talking about laser pointers.  Are they really dangerous?

Obviously the answer is that some of them are indeed a hazard, but I have to point out that his reasoning to determine which are safe is far from my own understanding of the topic, and advice from laser safety experts.

Dunning's approach was correct in pointing out that the human eye is more sensitive to green light than red, but his conclusion was the opposite of normal thinking.  The reason might be that he has incorrectly assumed that increased sensitivity (i.e. ability to perceive the smallest amounts of light) correlates with sensitivity to damage (which it does not).  The brightness of some green pointers is truly scary, but not all of them are actually dangerous.

Damage to the eye is caused by power, not by apparent brightness.  OK - you might have a coloured spot in your vision for longer if the light seems brighter, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have damaged your retina.  On the other hand, infra-red lasers can easily blind you without seeming bright.  Indeed they can do their terrible damage invisibly.  (I work with people who operate IR lasers which would only be eye-safe at a distance of 20,000km by they way.)

In fact, the science in the above claims should be interpreted in this way.  Green pointers appear brighter than red pointers for the same power.  So a red 1 mW laser pointer seems surprisingly dim compared with a green pointer of the same power.  To compensate for this, people are tempted to buy higher power red pointers.  You might need tens of milliwatts to compete with 1 mW of green.  This is where the danger lies.

Brian Dunning's conclusion that you should never use a green pointer is misleading and potentially dangerous.  You should use green wherever possible, but just ensure that its 'peak output power' is less than 1 mW, not the 1 to 5 mW that Dunning recommended.

Then you can be certain that your audience's eyes will be safe.  You should still avoid shining the light direct into anyone's eyes though.

Small note:  There is a theoretical potential failure mode for green lasers, where they go to even higher power.  If you spot your pointer getting much brighter then you should get it tested.  In my own experience they seem to get dimmer with time, but this is only a matter of statistics (and perhaps ageing eyes?).

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.

Downloading consciousness?

Have you heard of the '2045 Project'?  I started to hear a few whispers about this fascinating and seemingly impossible idea recently.

Founded by a wealth Russian entrepreneur, Dmitry Itskov, in February 2011, the project aims to develop the technology required to download a human mind into a robot avatar, essentially extending life, perhaps as far as immortality.  By that time Itskov will be about 65 years old.

Interesting!  Apart from the obvious worry about choosing exactly the right moment to kill your real self and transfer your 'soul' (for want of a better word) into a machine, there must be no end of other moral implications.  Does the 'robot you' then have human rights?  Does it have the right to reproduce, and if so, what algorithms go into the production of the offspring.  Is there a way to make the mingling of computerised brainwaves sound like a romantic encounter, and if not, in what way could this being be described as being fully human?  And if the avatar offspring went through the terrible twos while it effectively inhabited an adult body, how would the parents cope?

I can't resist asking whether it forces God out of the picture too?  After all, which part of the new synthetic 'you' did God create?  Unlike the conventional type of 'intelligent design', the success of this project might demonstrate that ID is real.

If it happens in your lifetime you can decide for yourself.

Does Creation science have any convincing arguments?

Oxford Skeptics in the Pub hosted Peter Harrison this week.  He is based at St Andrews University (of which I am a graduate) so it was fun to have a chat with him.  His talk was about creationism.  As it said on the SITP site:

It’s easy to make fun of many creationist claims, but what are their strongest arguments?

Creationism often takes a lot of flak for the kind of wild claims made by hoards of ALL-CAPS creationists on blogs and YouTube comments. But of all the claims and arguments made by creationists, which are the most impressive? Do they pose a threat to creationism-denying scientific fields? Forget the usual tired canards. Peter has spent a year collaborating with top creationist organisations and groups to collate and bring to you their most powerful arguments yet…

So, I hear you asking whether any of the arguments were convincing.  He had asked them about both their evidence for creationism and in four of the five cases for evidence that the world is young (6000 to 10,000 years old).  The fifth organisation promotes old-earth crationism so it was not relevant in their case.

The organisations that he had challenged included Answers in Genesis and The Discovery Institute.  It seems that they have now ceased to cooperate with him after he shared his conclusions with them.  They didn't even appear to have used their best lines of evidence even while they were talking, but then again who is the best judge of that?

One thing did surprise me.  In his discussions with the 'Discoveroids', he had used the term 'creationist'.  I happen to listen to their podcast, ID The Future (which I decline to link to, as I have no desire to increase their Google ranking) on a regular basis.  They usually make a point that The Discovery Institute is there to promote 'Intelligent Design', and not creationism.  They say that there is a difference, although I have some doubts about that.

All in all, it was an entertaining evening with a great speaker.  It was only the second time that he has given that talk.  I hope he will get chance to use it many more times.

The Wedge

About 20 years ago, the Discovery Institute, that ivory tower of 'intelligent design', was caught out. 

Yes really!

It was revealed that they had a document that defined the Wedge Strategy - with a 20 year target of convincing the world that there was some science in the (not even a theory of) 'intelligent design'.  Of course there isn't!  (If you provide some evidence to dispute that claim then I will be happy to consider it.)

21 years later, we are still waiting for success and Dembski et al are back-pedalling. 

Fast trains or fusion?

The surprising thing is that someone else has finally noticed that we are not spending enough money on developing fusion as the power source of the future!

Andrew Steele wrote in the Guardian:

In among a raft of new infrastructure spending announced by the UK government in the wake of last week's spending review, it was revealed that the cost estimates for the HS2 high-speed train line had been revised significantly upward. According to the new projections, HS2 will be completed in 2033 at a total cost of £42.6bn for construction and £7.5bn for trains – a total of just over £50bn.

What is immediately striking about this figure is that it's about the same as estimates of how much it will cost to develop nuclear fusion to the point at which it could supply affordable electricity to the grid.

What is also strikingly missing is that the £50 billion for HS2 is being paid by the British taxpayer, whereas the $50 billion estimated for fusion could be shared by all the countries in the world.  That makes it much more affordable.

However, in general Steele gets the point.  Good for him!

The rights of man - more Thomas Paine

Last year I wrote about Thomas Paine, the first New Atheist, having just read his book 'The Age of Reason' which was decades ahead of its time when written in the 1790s.  I hadn't followed up the subject very much until this week I heard an interview on The Pod Delusion (episode 193) with actor Ian Ruskin (starting at time stamp 14:32).  Ruskin is putting on a one-man play about the life of Thomas Paine, and if I was in London (and not working that evening) I might have made the journey to Conway Hall.

I have often wondered where the concept of human rights came from.  The very idea that humans had irrevocable rights has only gained much traction in the last hundred years or so, even though there were hints of it in the previous century.  I have even quizzed a visiting human-rights lawyer on the topic - although I didn't actually get any useful information from her.

Hearing more about Paine's work I am beginning to realise that he played a very significant part in the development of human rights thinking.  He might not had been the originator of all the concepts that he wrote about, but by distilling them into a book called 'The Rights of Man' he certainly brought them to the attention of the people.

Ruskin says that Paine deliberately chose not to protect the commercial rights to his work and that by doing so it meant that the books and pamphlets were circulated much more widely than they otherwise would have been.  Although not exactly a pauper at the time of his death, he was certainly not a wealthy man either.

He can also be remembered for a quotation that is still relevant today.

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” 

The latter part certainly applies in UK at the moment.

Lennox's non-fairy tale?

Oxford University Professor, John Lennox mumbled some incoherent nonsense (it is reported, e.g. here and here, and much better here) at the 'National Prayer Breakfast'.  Presumably Lennox is quite good at mathematics.  If not, he would not be a professor at Oxford University.  Nevertheless, if the reports of the event are to be believed then he seems to grasp very little of logic.  Isn't that surprising?

Apparently he 'preached' that atheism was a "delusion" and a "fairy tale for those afraid of the light".

Can anyone explain to me how this can be true?  Surely atheism is the lack of all these religious fairy tales, not specifically the Christian fairy-tale that Lennox happens to like.

Perhaps Prof. Lennox has been an outspoken critic of "God Delusion" author Richard Dawkins, but if that is the only thing that makes him famous then perhaps he should be called 'a-famous'. 

As for blaming atheism for the "moral drift" in society, (as is reported), I would just point him to accounts of the activities of Roman Catholic Priests over recent years and indeed Muslim men who have married child brides over many centuries (collectively, at least).  Where is the moral drift now?  Has it been led by religious men, perchance?

Dismissing the common assumption that science and religion are not compatible, he said  "There is no necessary conflict between science and God, the real conflict is between world views, atheism and theism".

If not, why is he picking this particular fight? Moving on, we hear that:

"God is not the same kind of explanation as science is. 

Now . . . on this point we can agree.  One is a delusion and one is not. But then:

God is the explanation of why there is a universe at all in which science can be done."

Lennox might tell us this.  But after all, this is just a fairy story!

Isn't it?

Dr Lennox was addressing over 600 people at the Bible Society-sponsored National Prayer Breakfast at the Houses of Parliament.
As Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Dr Lennox has frequently spoken out against modern-day atheism, calling Richard Dawkins 'wrong'.
He said that the new atheism is responsible for 'the moral drift' in today's society. And he added that science and religion are not opposed.
'There is no necessary conflict between science and God, the real conflict is between worldviews, atheism and theism,' he said.
'God is not the same kind of explanation as science is,' he added. 'God is the explanation of why there is a universe at all in which science can be done.'
He warned that, 'The playing field is not level since atheism has become so dominant ... and is often regarded as the default position in the media.'
The risk of this is, he said, that society would forget 'the contribution of Christianity to the moral foundations of our society'.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpufvvOxford University Professor John Lennox told over 600 people at the National Prayer Breakfast why he is not convinced by atheism.

The math professor told guests at the Bible Society-sponsored event that atheism was a "delusion" and a "fairy tale for those afraid of the light".

He urged Christians to have "the courage to create public space" for the discussion of "a biblical worldview", as he pointed to the example of Tyndale, who translated the Bible into English 400 years ago and would eventually be executed.

Dr Lennox, who has been an outspoken critic of "God Delusion" author Richard Dawkins, blamed new atheism for the "moral drift" in society.

He also dismissed the common assumption that science and religion are not compatible.

"There is no necessary conflict between science and God, the real conflict is between worldviews, atheism and theism," he said.

"God is not the same kind of explanation as science is. God is the explanation of why there is a universe at all in which science can be done."

Atheism is a 'delusion', a 'fairy tale for those afraid of the light'. That was the message from Prof John Lennox from Oxford University on Tuesday morning (25 June).
He also urged Christians to have 'the courage to create public space' for the discussion of 'a biblical worldview' in society - citing the example of Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English 400 years ago.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Dr Lennox was addressing over 600 people at the Bible Society-sponsored National Prayer Breakfast at the Houses of Parliament.
As Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University, Dr Lennox has frequently spoken out against modern-day atheism, calling Richard Dawkins 'wrong'.
He said that the new atheism is responsible for 'the moral drift' in today's society. And he added that science and religion are not opposed.
'There is no necessary conflict between science and God, the real conflict is between worldviews, atheism and theism,' he said.
'God is not the same kind of explanation as science is,' he added. 'God is the explanation of why there is a universe at all in which science can be done.'
He warned that, 'The playing field is not level since atheism has become so dominant ... and is often regarded as the default position in the media.'
The risk of this is, he said, that society would forget 'the contribution of Christianity to the moral foundations of our society'.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Atheism is a 'delusion', a 'fairy tale for those afraid of the light'. That was the message from Prof John Lennox from Oxford University on Tuesday morning (25 June).
He also urged Christians to have 'the courage to create public space' for the discussion of 'a biblical worldview' in society - citing the example of Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English 400 years ago.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Atheism is a 'delusion', a 'fairy tale for those afraid of the light'. That was the message from Prof John Lennox from Oxford University on Tuesday morning (25 June).
He also urged Christians to have 'the courage to create public space' for the discussion of 'a biblical worldview' in society - citing the example of Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English 400 years ago.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Atheism is a 'delusion', a 'fairy tale for those afraid of the light'. That was the message from Prof John Lennox from Oxford University on Tuesday morning (25 June).
He also urged Christians to have 'the courage to create public space' for the discussion of 'a biblical worldview' in society - citing the example of Tyndale's translation of the Bible into English 400 years ago.
- See more at: http://www.baptisttimes.co.uk/index.php/national-news/986-atheism-a-delusion-john-lennox-#sthash.x2vSZjv2.dpuf

Eating well in England

I ate very well in England, both last night and this lunch time.  However, the words of W Somerset Maugham come to mind:

"If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts."

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!

Taking rice cereusly

Yes that was a deliberate mis-spelling, and yes it was meant to sound like 'seriously'.

Why is it that we are warned not to reheat the leftovers from a Chinese takeaway on the following day?

I had always assumed that it was because of risks associated with the prawns or chicken ingredients, but I was surprised to find out recently that this is not the case.  Some rice is contaminated with a bacteria called Bacillus Cereus, and certain strains of it are harmful to humans.  The bacteria exists in the raw cereal in the form of spores which are activated by moisture during cooking.  If the cooking is not thorough enough, some survive and as the rice cools, they multiply they produce a toxin, cereulide, which gives us food poisoning.  That toxin is not broken down by further cooking.

I must admit that I'm not very keen on rice.  It tends to taste slightly bitter to me, although I do enjoy fried rice with my Chinese dishes.  Little did I know that fried rice is one of the most risky forms.  If the rice has been boiled insufficiently, then not refrigerated quickly but subsequently re-cooked then it is at its most dangerous!

I think I still trust my favourite Chinese takeaway place though.  I always enjoy the food that they cook.

See another interesting an informative article here.

Preaching to the choir

We often hear the accusation that we are preaching to the choir.

On last week's episode of The Pod Delusion (a great British podcast 'about interesting things') I heard an interview with singer Shelley Segal.  She said that she liked to think that she was singing with the choir when she spreads her rationalist messages.  I liked that, but I have a slightly different point of view.

I think that half the choir are probably atheists anyway, so they might appreciate,  from time to time, a different message in the sermons that they have to suffer!

JET - 30 years old, and still state-of-the-art!

Today is the 30th anniversary of the first day of operation of the Joint European Torus, JET, and it is still the most successful fusion device in the world.  That's both a great opportunity to celebrate and a tragedy at the same time

During two days of celebration various eminent speakers told stories of their experiences and shared anecdotes.  Paul-Henri Rebut, the father of the JET project spoke of the friendly rivalry between the JET team and their American competitors in Princeton who built the machine called TFTR.  He explained that there had been a wager relating to a specific milestone in the operation of the two machines.  It was agreed that the team that first achieved a plasma current of one million amps for one second would host the other team for a celebration meal.  The losing team would travel across the Atlantic and bring the wine.  As a Frenchman, Rebut was glad to have won the wager but regretted the consequential need to drink Californian wine!


Other speakers spoke of the fun of operating the JET facility (which is still true) and yet the responsibility for delivering results to compensate for the expenditure (which is also true).   At least twice it was claimed that JET is the oldest operating tokamak in the world, but that is assuredly untrue.  As they could easily discover at www.tokamak.info, this honour probably goes to a machine that is currently called GOLEM, in Prague, having been moved and renamed three times.  It was built in about 1963, under the name TM1 (with the M translating from Russian as "small".)

However, nobody could doubt that JET has been the most successful.

The successful life of JET is indeed worthy of celebration, and with good fortune it will run for several years to come.  However, real progress in fusion depends on many challenges in addition to the obvious technical issues.  One of them is the recruitment, training and retention of the next generation of 'fusioneers'.  Given that the 'industry joke' says that fusion is 30 years away and always has been, some might be reluctant to join the field.  (I have blogged about that topic before - with optimism, here and here).

One of the speakers reported that recruitment of brilliant young students is still not difficult but retaining their enthusiasm in a field that moves so slowly can be more challenging.  This is made worse by the lack of that friendly spirit of competition that drove progress in the 1980s.

The tragedy that I mentioned at the beginning is that 30 years ago fusion scientists had big plans to build a machine to take over from JET and push the research forwards.  They designed a bigger and better machine in a project called "NET".  This 'Next European Torus' was a machine big enough to prove the success of fusion technology.  In USA, Russia  and Japan similar large projects were being proposed at the same time, and politicians and bureaucrats managed to resist these ambitions in every case.  How sad. How tragic.

Instead of doing NET we got ITER and lost 20 years. 

Is there any hope of regaining some competition for the international project ITER?  Officially and diplomatically the answer has to be 'no'.

However, China has been training fusions scientist at the rate of 100 per year for at least a decade.  Should we worry about that or should we celebrate the likely source of competition from China?  Certainly they have the ambition to take things forward and they have built an impressive machine called EAST.  One way or another, Europe needs to take fusion much more seriously and face up to the investment.  Instead of spending the equivalent of a pint of milk per European per year, in the spirit of standardising on sensible units of measurement couldn't we at least push that to the equivalent of a litre of beer, if not cognac? After all, by comparison the photo-voltaic power industry last year alone had a turnover of around 100 billion Euros. This is big money and comes from the pockets of the taxpayers too.

Neither technology is the perfect solution but the world needs both (along with the rest of the power portfolio) if an energy crisis is to be avoided.

Action needed on FGM

Today, BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme briefly mentioned the problem of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).  It interspersed this serious issue of child abuse in the name of Islam with trivial tales of someone high-wire walking across the Grand Canyon (or as it turned out, just across a tributary canyon).

That is shameful behaviour isn't it?

70 women go to the NHS every month for help relating to the medical problems caused by FGM, and this data only comes from the 6 of 15 specialist clinics that actually provided any data.  That might mean that the real figure is closer to 200 per month.

• Is this 'religious practice' illegal in UK?  Yes of course!  It is barbarism dressed up as religion.
• Are the authorities committing to its abolishment?  I suppose so.  They passed a law about it but that's as far as they went.
• Have they prosecuted anyone in the 18 years since the law was last clarified?  Not a single one (in spite of the 70 crimes per month).
• Is this the real face of Islamophobia?  I have no empirical evidence for the case, but it seems rather likely that people are afraid of being branded with this accusation.  Since they do have the data, why are they not acting to prosecute?
• What does this say about how big brother is watching us?  He doesn't have equality foremost in his mind!

Here we begin to see the problem with labels.  Islam, the religion of perpetual offence, has a special power over us and brands us as Islamophobes very easily.  Civil and criminal law is diverted in UK.  It is not that all muslims are in agreement over these matters.  However, the extremists shelter behind the nice people and all of them are fellow muslims first and only after that do they split into their various warring sects.

I say that the law is the law and although I would be reluctant to support lawyers, they must be able to do their work within the framework of clear secular law.

Religious 'law' (whichever religion) must be outlawed!  It is only truly outlawed after legal proceedings have succeeded.



Related links (although I don't seem to find one related to Today's feature):
Female genital mutilation victim was 'aged just seven'
MPs urge more action on female genital mutilation

Stuck on a sandbank!

Well - that was an 'interesting' day.  It started very well indeed but it soon got complicated.  Cruising up the River Thames, on an unusually wide stretch which is notoriously shallow at the edges, there were two rowing 'eights' coming down the river towards me.  There were fishermen on the left bank and with the rowing boats obviously demonstrating that they were 'less than expert', the best option seemed to be to go to the right.

Now, in retrospect, I know that was the wrong decision - and indeed 'less than expert' on my own behalf.  In addition to the above, there was a very strong wind blowing from the left.  It was an inconvenience that was waiting to happen - and caused me a great deal of embarrassment, along with the possibility of a huge bill from a rescue service - e.g. £300! 

I should have held a steady course up the middle of the channel - and certainly I will next time.  Powered boats might have to give way to manually propelled boats but after causing me a massive problem there was not a word of apology from them.  I wish I had sunk them both! 

After 5 hours on the sandbank and two failed attempts at towing, another (more competently crewed) narrowboat named 'Dragonfly' persisted for long enough - at least an hour - to help me, and subsequently and consequently got stuck themselves.  I felt very guilty about that of course.  By then I was getting free, but a third boat came along and pulled the second one out before I had chance to go to their rescue. 

I should mention that there was never any risk of injury, and the boat is unharmed.  Only my pride is injured.

All I had on board to thank my rescuers was a cheap (but cold) bottle of white wine and some cans of beer, but they seemed to accept them quite willingly.  It was the least that I could do in the circumstances.

5 hours on a sandbank and wading in water up to my waist wasn't entirely on the plan for the day!

Protecting children

In UK news recently there has been a lot of fuss about a teacher running away to France with a 15 year old 'student' (or to translate to English, "15 year old student" = schoolchild).

There are several dichotomies here but I will focus on two.

1. Students are students, but 15 year olds are school children and they should be protected to a greater degree.  I think the normal agreed age for adultdhood is 18 and that the teacher behaved inappropriately.   However  . . .
2. In other cases, elderly muslim men marry 7 year old 'brides' and yet there are no prosecutions.

Is justice served well?