Tonight’s Silent Witness is doing its bit for a sensical worldview. The editors of a philosophy magazine fell out over differing religious opinions; one a Christian who writes articles about the astonishing philosophical impact of the resurrection, the other an atheist who writes articles saying that the universe is indifferent to us all. Christian guy turns up dead, and the pathologists figure it must be the atheist because in an indifferent universe why should he adhere to any kind of moral values? They’re right - we’ve seen the guy committing at least one murder. The female pathologist is having something of a religious awakening and keeps coming out with pithy comments about the interconnectedness of things etc.

It’s pretty awful. I keep expecting Judge John Deed to turn up. For an attitude that’s so utterly stupid ‘atheists have no morality’ does turn up with amazing frequency.

40mins left. Can’t decide whether the rest of the show will be about pinning the murders on the guy, or there’ll be another twist…

Update: there was a slight twist. Evil Atheist was being manipulated by Psycho Atheist, who was secretly desperate to check there wasn’t anything in the afterlife. His final explanation backed up earlier hints that he was also trying to do something completely random to confuse people obsessed with reason, since there’s really no such thing. So he was more of a Psycho Postmodernist. That makes much more sense - postmodernists really are crazy people
Update 2: A couple of reactions from the BBC website:

“I feel like not watching this series any more, after the offensive Christian propaganda masquerading (crudely) as drama that we were presented with in this episode. Frankly I am amazed that this script was approved by the BBC, with its grotesque caricatures of bloodythirsty killer atheists (including the absurd remark that they ‘believe in nothing’) and the clunking message throughout that all good guys - even scientists - are open to the message of Christianity. It even ended with a Mary Magdalene and Jesus tableau at the hospital bed, just in case we hadn’t got the message. Imagine the uproar if it had been written the other way round, with the bad guys as Christians - something tells me that would NOT have made it to production. The dialogue was laughable throughout, and the plot was full of holes and non sequiturs. It was a sorry departure from the usual high standards of this series. Don’t make this mistake again - stick to decent writers with no agenda.”
Gary King, Heathfield, East Sussex

“At last! A crime drama that didn’t portray religious people as either fanatics, psychopaths, terrorists or lily-livered weaklings who need a crutch to survive. Well done BBC for swinging the balance back where it belongs. The villians were pathological nihilists who were just the right side of cartoonish and managed to show where the logic of such an extreme belief system will lead. The dead Christians demonstrated how belief in an afterlife brings great comfort to the dying, and the glorious irony of seeing one of the nihilist killers trapped by a fingerprint on an icon of Jesus was extremely clever. This is by far the best Silent Witness yet. Any chance the BBC could break the ‘no repeats’ rule and show it again?”
Paul Downie, Hamilton, Scotland

I am sad. A few months ago I got hold of the Sports Night DVD box set and I’ve been watching a 20-minute episode every lunchtime. This has been great, but I just watched the final episode, and now I’m sad. I feel like I’ve lost a bunch of friends.

Sports Night was a 1998 sitcom from West Wing creator/writer Aaron Sorkin, and it’s very similar in style to TWW (seasons 1-4, anyway). It has the same thoughtful plots, clever dialogue and likeable characters, as well as a fair few of the actors. It didn’t get the ratings the network wanted and was cancelled after 45 episodes, all of which are in the box set. It’s a shame it ended after only two series, as there are hints and beginnings of future plots throughout. I want more, dammit!

At least there’s Aaron Sorkin’s new drama, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which is due to start in the US this autumn. Definitely looking forward to that one.

An appropriate response. Made me laugh, but then I was a kid in the 80s.

The BHA, amongst others, are calling for a statement from Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, after reports that she is ’sympathetic’ to the idea of introducing Islamic ’sharia family law’ into the UK legal system. The initial report came from the very man trying to convince her of the virtues of such a system, so is perhaps not to be trusted. Especially when you hear that he said:

‘We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens.’

I’m surprised he wasn’t kicked out of the building. I’m not Ms Kelly’s biggest fan, but I find it hard to believe she’s actually of the mindset suggested. A clear statement to this effect seems like a good idea.

‘Sharia family law’ is deeply sexist, for example: a husband may divorce his wife by saying the word ‘talaq’ three times (even if he says it in his sleep). Women may not. The husband then gets full custody of children, and the distrubition of money is heavily in his favour. That’s not to mention other elements of sharia law which seem to fall under the ‘family’ banner, such as men being allowed to marry up to four women simultaneously, physical punishment of wives being permissible, women needing to seek permission from the husband before leaving the house…It’s hard to find any element that seems like it could be part of a decent society.

Painted and photographed by my extremely talented friend Lil.

So there I was in bed, trying to go to sleep, when I had a sudden craving for toast. I got up and had some, and now I have a major craving for Sainsbury’s cookies. Tesco Finest (but not regular) are nearly as good, but not quite. I am quite prepared to get dressed and drive to the local 24hr Tesco, for there are no Sainsbury’s nearby, but I’m fairly sure it’s closed due to archaic Sunday trading laws. You’d think there’d be an enterprising late-night cookie delivery firm in the area, but noooo. So I am contenting myself with old West Wing episodes (they all look so young!) and more toast. Still want cookies tho.

The Wonga Coup was nothing to do with me, ok?

In March 2004, a group of men with a hired army of about 70 mercenary soldiers set out to topple the government of the tiny West African nation of Equatorial Guinea and install a new one. Ostensibly led by a political opposition leader but actually controlled by the white mercenary officers, this new regime would plunder the recently discovered oil wealth of Equatorial Guinea, enriching the coup’s architects by billions of dollars.

I’m having enough trouble assuming control of my computer, let alone a country.

Samuel L. Jackson on The Daily Show, promoting Snakes on a Plane. Many *many* bleeps.

For those who don’t know the story behind the clip, this time eight months ago the only information available was that there existed a film called ‘Snakes on a Plane’ that starred Samuel L. Jackson. From this it was decided on the blogosphere that, naturally, Samuel L. Jackson would say “Enough is enough, I’ve had it with these motherfu*kin snakes on this motherfu*kin plane”. For that is what Samuel L. Jackson does. In response the director went back for reshoots and added in the scene. I am so looking forward to seeing this film
I was highly entertained by the Snakes on a Plane voice messages you can send here. SLJ recorded a huge number of names and alternative phrases so you can send a reasonably personalised message.

A while ago I posted a response to an Elmdon councillor’s claim, in a letter to the local paper, that smoking isn’t bad for you. Eighteen months later Cllr Bramham turned up in the comments, denying that there was any evidence linking smoking with disease. I responded that such evidence does exist, and pointed him towards it.

This is giving it far more attention than it deserves, but his rebuttal is such a good example of classic conspiratorial thinking that I have to mention it:

I see that I have eventually stirred up some interest in this topic, which has to be a good thing if we are to exorcise some of the misinformation being bandied about by avid followers of the ASB.
Andrew; of course the US Surgeon-General blames tobacco for that exhaustive list of ailments; he has to because of who he is and because he’s expected to.

The US Surgeon-General is just a pawn in the conspiracy, it seems. This is used to reject all the scientific evidence. He also subtly changes my statement - I said that the evidence is sufficient to draw a causal link between smoking and the various ailments, not that smoking is the only cause.

It’s also a very convenient peg upon which to hang the hat of blame for all these ills, as nobody could possibly question the Surgeon-General of the United States, now could they?

They could if the evidence didn’t back him up. When US officials used to deny the existence of global warming there was uproar. Note also the implied bravery at his questioning of authority.

The only things he seems to have omitted are Global Warming and the damage to the ozone layer!

Wtf.

Neioll (sic); the fact that I question things that I find illogical does not necessarily make me a prat, nor does it give you the right to judge others who may not agree with your point of view.

This isn’t what Neil did in his comment, but note the victimisation. Also the denial of ‘rights’ that don’t make sense as rights.

Many men throughout history who had the temerity to challenge the accepted establishment view later became feted as visionaries, but that did not stop loopy luddites and dogmatic diehards from attempting to justify the status quo.

This is a meaningless statement, but it’s fair to point out that far more people have been wrong in challenging the establishment than have been correct. They laughed at Copernicus, and they laughed at Bozo the Clown.

I’m nothing special and never will be, but at least I walk around with my eyes wide open, and I don’t miss much.

Classic “I’m not a scientist, but…” technique much beloved of creationists. People warm to you if you’re humble. Never mind that he just implied he was a visionary.

For any of you who insist on believing all you read without question, I’d ask you to look at the bigger picture, and not just the one that the establishment wants you to see.

Not without evidence, I won’t. The onus is on you to explain why the current evidence is flawed, and to do so without invoking self-referential massive conspiracies with no evidence.

It’s a truism that statistics can and frequently are manipulated to portray anything that the compiler wishes, as evidenced most graphically in the runup to the Iraq war.

Similarly, words can be manipulated. Anybody who uses words can convince you of anything, so you should reject anything with words in it. If only there were some way of rationally seeking the truth, some method that involves logical and impartial examination of evidence, with methodology and rationale clearly explained and accessible to all. You could call it the scientific method, if you liked.

Lastly, I won’t be around to see it no doubt, but I would laugh my cotton socks off if and when everyone stopped smoking worldwide, and all these so-called Smoking Related Diseases continued unabated - what would they blame it on then, I wonder?

This seems unlikely to happen.

However, most entertaining is this from the comments. Simon discovered this on Cllr Bramham’s own site:

Some of these people bag [their rubbish] all up neatly and put it out for the green waste collection; however, others insist on using the 19th century method of burning their garden rubbish on bonfires, which makes it a lottery as to which direction the wind is blowing, and who will be the lucky recipient of lungfuls of thick, acrid smoke that these fires tend to generate.
Those people who do this sort of thing ought to be made aware that a staggering 40% of all residents in the Solihull Borough have some form of pulmonary disorder, and nearly 60% of those are under the age of 18.
It isn’t rocket science therefore to deduce that every time someone lights a bonfire in their back garden or allotment, someone, somewhere is going to suffer as a result, particularly in the hot weather when windows have to be left open to keep temperatures down.

What? Smoke from bonfires is bad for you? I don’t think this is true. It’s a conspiracy by, er, hedgehogs.

I don’t know about the composition of bonfire smoke compared to cigarette smoke, but I suspect they’re mighty similar. It’d be interesting to find out.

Finally, as Cllr. Bramham says in the above post:

Please show a little consideration for those who need to breathe fresh air, who don’t like their homes smelling of smoke and most importantly, don’t cause offence to anyone else.

News yesterday that 300 soldiers executed during WW1 are to be pardoned. These are people who were shot for cowardice / desertion. A relative of one of those shot said:

We were determined for my mother’ sake because she always said he was no coward, he was a very brave soldier and he fought for his country and he died fighting for his country.

Apparently you should only be pardoned if you weren’t really a coward. The government last looked into this in 1998, but made no decision on blanket pardons:

The reason given was because it said it could not “distinguish between those who deliberately let down their country and their comrades and those who were not guilty of desertion of cowardice”, he said.

Clearly if you ‘let down’ the random patch of land you happen to be born in you deserved to die, rather than just be kicked out of the army.

This time the Defence Secretary said:

I believe it is better to acknowledge that injustices were clearly done in some cases, even if we cannot say which, and to acknowledge that all these men were victims of war

In some cases? People refused to put themselves in a position where they would likely die as nothing more than cannon fodder, so they shot them! How could there possibly be any justice in that?

I hate the word ‘coward’. It’s entirely reasonable not to want to put yourself in harm’s way (not to mention not wanting to kill other people). If you do - fine, you’re either very brave or unaware of the reality of warfare. But there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to do that. I couldn’t be a policeman because the idea of dealing with violent criminals scares the hell out of me. Other people are far better suited to the task. Am I a coward? Why does it make a difference if ‘my country’ is involved?

Can’t we just agree that this was an abhorrent thing to do? Or does that suggest military leaders can be flawed? The Defence Secretary said:

I don’t want to be in a position of second guessing the commanders in the field who were making decisions

Why not? They thought it was ok to kill people who were no threat to them! You can acknowledge that it was a different time and a highly stressful situation, but it’s still reasonable to take the moral high ground.

Even today you can get prison time for refusing to follow orders. Prison time! You should likely lose your job, but prison? Maybe that’s reasonable if your actions directly put other people in danger in a combat situation, but just for refusing to go to Iraq? How can that be reasonable? Something’s messed up. Except you can’t say that, because they’re the military and get special treatment.

We’re all meant to fawn over the armed forces, and it gets in the way of reasonable discussion. For example, from the outside it looks very much like the entire culture of the armed forces is one of bullying and pathetic macho bullshit. Almost all the people from my school who went off to join the army were brainless, violent thugs who thought guns were cool. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to suggest that this kind of attitude, coupled with this kind of person, is hardly conducive to producing honourable soldiers. This could well not be the case: it’s possible the people I knew were unrepresentative, or maybe the army training process magically turns them into decent people, or maybe that’s just what’s necessary if you want soldiers willing to put themselves into the path of bullets, but when soldiers commit atrocities in foreign countries even the suggestion that the system churns out anything less than Steve McQueen-figures is met with horror, because ‘they’re incredibly brave and deserve our respect’. They can be both. But even if this is untrue, I want to be able to discuss it without being met with disapproving looks.

Yes, I’m sitting here in my comfortable flat making suggestions about people who routinely put their lives at risk, who defend the way of life I enjoy. What arrogance! How dare I! Of course I don’t deny that soldiers can be entirely decent people, and anybody willing to put themselves in harm’s way is by definition very brave, and has my admiration, but so what? There can still be problems. Being brave doesn’t make you right. As long as you stay polite and reasonable I don’t see why people like me can’t discuss this. The taboo against critical discussion of the military doesn’t help anybody, including the soldiers themselves.

Given the number of times I’ve heard it this week it seems Radio 2 are very fond of the new Scissor Sisters single: I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’. This isn’t surprising as imho it’s great. Apparently it’s Elton John on the piano.

Phew. I didn’t really fix anything, I just reinstalled Windows and it worked this time. The only difference was my firewire drive, which I left plugged in during the install in case attaching it afterwards had caused driver confusion before. I haven’t yet dared plug in any of the USB devices which were causing crashes - think I’ll leave that until tomorrow.

I recently applied for another job at the local library, after unsuccessfully interviewing for a position back in April. I spoke to the lady in charge of job applications to check there was nothing from before that would cause them to reject me immediately, and was told there wasn’t. She did mention, though, that the new position would involve dealing with the children’s groups that come into the library. I had no problem with this, but figured my chances were probably slim. I had a letter this morning to say I didn’t even make the interview shortlist, which is a shame. Never mind.

Haven’t been going on about it on the blog, but my computer has been a pain =
for the past few months. Many random crashes were eventually tracked down =
to usb devices not classified as human-interface-devices, but even =
replacing the built-in usb with a pci card didn’t help. XP can only stand =
so many freezes, though, and all sorts of things have been going wrong =
recently. After it keeled over this morning I finally relented and =
reinstalled Windows. Except that, as ever when I try that, it hasn’t worked =
properly. Everything went fine until I restarted the new installation, at =
which point it crashed to a looping restart on starting to load XP. No real =
idea what the problem could be; I hadn’t even installed any drivers yet. =
Best guess is some deteriorating hardware, but that’s a stretch. I got fed =
up eventually, I’ll take another look tomorrow. It’s odd having no internet =
access, but on the bright side the ironing’s done

Bit of a failure this evening. I’d been invited to a party, but the friend I was going with pulled out this afternoon. I’ve never been very good by myself at that kind of thing, but I knew a few people from dancing would be there so headed over. There were lots of people I didn’t know and as ever I just felt stupid - I decided that was I was wearing looked silly, that I was conspicuously out of place, etc. One of the dancing guys did talk to me for a fair while, but I felt guilty that I was keeping him away from far more interesting people, and after an hour and a half my nerves got the better of me and I left. Everybody I knew was chatting and as I left I was too nervous to interrupt them, so they probably think I’m rude, too.

Not one of my better evenings. Oh well. Maybe I’ll try to catch the Perseids meteor shower later - it’s clear atm.