King Abdullah is Darth Vader

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia is on a state visit to Britain at the moment, and as his limo arrived to meet the Queen, the band of the Coldstream Guards played the Imperial March theme from Star Wars, a tune associated specifically with arch-villain Darth Vader. Someone’s idea of a joke?

Here it is on YouTube:

(via John Trenchard)

Royal sex blackmail scandal

I’m not going to name the member of the British royal family who Ian Strachan and Sean McGuigan are charged with attempting to blackmail regarding allegations of gay sex and drug use. Frankly, there’s no point since the person’s name is all over the Internet — including on Wikipedia — and anyone curious enough to spend 5 minutes with Google can easily find it. Why the British authorities are still attempting to keep this secret is beyond me — all they are achieving is making themselves look stupid.

However I will quote this gem from Anorak:

Says Mr Davies of the alleged video featuring an apparent bout of gay oral sex: “It is a con trick that exploded in their faces.”

Hate speech in British mosques

David T at Harry’s Place writes about hate literature on sale in British mosques:

The Policy Exchange has uncovered the presence, in mosques, islamic schools, and other cultural organisations, of political material which flies in the face of the values which Inayat and I cherish.

Hate material was found at only 25% of British Mosques surveyed. However, those mosques were typically those generously funded by Saudi Arabia, and included many institutions regarded as both moderate and mainstream.

One of the examples he gives is this:

I believe that Jehad is obligatory against hostile, non-compromising, nonMuslim states if Muslims have enough power to carry it out, so that their force is broken and they do not obstruct the preaching of Islam. Aggressive Jehad is not advisable against those non hostile and compromising non Muslim states who allow preaching of Islam in their territories particularly these days when territorial subjugation is generally condemned in the world, contrary to the times when capture of land was common. The Aggressive Jehads of the major part of Islamic history all belong to the same period. However, Muslims must attain their martial superiority and keep expanding it so that non Muslim states remain subdued ‘for fear of Jehad’, to say nothing of actual Jehad.
– Islam and Modernism, Justice Muhammad Taqi Usmani who is a prominent Deobandi cleric

Now let’s modify this paragraph somewhat:

I believe that war is morally correct against hostile, non-compromising, non-Western states that are part of the Axis of Evil if the USA and its allies have enough power to carry it out, so that their force is broken and they do not obstruct the spread of freedom and democracy. Aggressive war is not advisable against those non-hostile and compromising non-Western states particularly these days when territorial subjugation is generally condemned in the world, contrary to the times when capture of land was common. However, the USA must keep its military superiority so that non-Western states remain subdued for fear of being attacked, to say nothing of actually being attacked.

This paragraph is probably very close to the beliefs of George Bush and Tony Blair. If one is hate speech and should be banned, then on what grounds is the other not hate speech? Or does David T think statements like the 2nd should be banned too?

Vince Cable boycotts Saudis

Vince Cable, the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats, is refusing to meet King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who is currently in Britain on a state visit:

Mr Cable says he will not attend any of the planned ceremonial events – as would be normal for the leader of one of the main opposition parties.

Mr Cable told the BBC’s Today programme that by any assessment of Saudi Arabia, “the human rights record is appalling”. He also cited the regime’s arms deal with the British firm BAE and the row over alleged corruption surrounding it.

Mr Cable added: “I think it’s quite wrong that as a country we should give the leader of Saudi Arabia this honour.” He said that although Britain has a “business-like” relationship with the country, Britain would not dream of extending the same invitation to other controversial leaders like Libya’s Colonel Gadaffi. He said he had also been critical of the Saudi regime’s treatment of Britons.

Cable is probably wrong about Gadaffi — if Gadaffi was buying 20 billion quid of British weapons, he’d likely get a state visit too. (And why not? Being nice to foreigners with dodgy human rights records is OK if Britain can make a profit out of doing so.)

Jonathan Calder of Liberal England and Rumbold of Pickled Politics both approve of Cable’s behaviour. I don’t. I think if Cable has problems with Saudi Arabia (and particularly its human rights record) he should attend the events, and tell the Saudis politely but firmly what he thinks. While talking to people you disagree with might not solve all the world’s problems, it’s likely to be more effective than I’m-not-talking-to-you gesture politics.

In particular, Cable should tell the Saudis that relations between the UK and the KSA would be improved if the Saudis didn’t torture or otherwise infringe the rights of UK nationals detained in their country. And that if Saudi Arabia improved rights for women, particularly the right to drive, they would not only get a much better image in the West, they would also be doing their country’s economy a favour — it’s ridiculous to ignore or suppress the talents of a large portion of their country’s people. Saudi Arabia’s oil isn’t going to last forever, and they should be preparing now for when it ends.

In the longer term, one’s thoughts should turn to the question of how does one improve human rights throughout the world, and in particular prevent foreign dictators from torturing Britons. It seems to me that part of the answer lies in creating a stronger, bigger, better armed, more unified European Union, which because of its size and power would have a large array of sticks and carrots with with to persuade foreign countries to do what we want. Then, if foreigners tortured civilized people EU citizens, we could credibly threaten to bomb or invade their country, to boycott their goods, to arm their enemies, etc.

Chris Applegate on “Grief Porn”

Chris at qwghlm.co.uk has written a piece on “Grief Porn” — the industry of writing books about someone’s unhappy or abusive childhood. As Chris’s photo demonstrates, there are whole bookshelves full of this stuff:

From the article:

This is the “Tragic Life Stories” section in the Chancery Lane branch of WH Smith (snapped on slightly blurry cameraphone). There were six shelves in total (only four are visible here), dominated by one kind of book – recounting a tragic childhood blighted by some sort of disease, endemic poverty, a bitter divorce, being orphaned, or (in the majority of cases) an abusive/alcoholic/drug addict parent. Or even a combination of all these.

This kind of activity falls under the umbrella of human behaviour referred to with terms such as “conspicuous compassion”, “recreational grieving”, “mourning sickness”, “vicarious suffering” – a public display of society desperate not just to empathise but also to be seen to be empathising, no matter what. The ongoing Madeleine McCann saga is a case in point (and it’s interesting to see how people have so viciously and hysterically turned on the McCanns once suspicion fell on them, rather than admit they might have been wrong).

Another example of recreational emoting — one right at the start of the current trend in such things — was when Princess Diana died.

Hillary Clinton’s cat, Sox

Norm Geras is reporting that some people might not vote for Hillary Clinton because when she left the White House, she gave her cat away rather than continue to look after it herself:

I love cats. But can it really be true that Hillary Clinton might fare less well with voters because of what she did to hers? We’re not talking animal torture here, or letting the poor creature starve. It’s only that when the Clintons left the White House, Sox was handed on into the care of someone else. It’s a common enough thing to do, finding another home for your pet, and if the home is a good one, surely not a damning one. However:

“In the annals of human evil, off-loading a pet is nowhere near the top of the list,” writes Caitlin Flanagan in the current issue of The Atlantic magazine. “But neither is it dead last…”

The world, you may already have noted, is a less than perfect place. If Clinton misses out on a single vote for this reason, it would be one more piece of evidence of just how messed up the world is.

It seems to me that there are three separate issues: cruelty, affection, and integrity.

Clinton clearly haven’t been cruel to the cat, assuming it has gone to a good home.

But she hasn’t shown affection for the moggy either; if she really liked it, she would have kept it rather than offloading it to an underling.

The cat was politically convenient for Clinton when she was in the White House, but when she left, she had no further use for the animal:

Flanagan’s article, headed No Girlfriend of Mine, points out that Clinton wrote a crowd-pleas-ing book Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids’ Letters to the First Pets, in which she claimed that only with the arrival of Socks and his “toy mouse” did the White House “become a home”. Being Clinton, she also lectured readers that pets are an “adoption instead of an acquisition” and warned them to look out for their safety.

So Clinton pretended to like animals in order to make herself popular, and then when the cat was no longer useful to her, she unceremoniously dumped it. I think that says a lot about Clinton’s integrity — she’s clearly someone who cares more about her image than being honest and straightforward.

Would I vote for Clinton? I wouldn’t buy a used car from her, or ask her to look after a pet. I’m not an American, but if I was I’d be inclined to favour Obama over Clinton, and Clinton over a Republican.

In the USA, it is still legal to declaw cats — a barbaric practice equivalent to cutting the first joint off each of a human’s fingers — and I don’t think Clinton can be relied upon to have the right instincts on this and other issues of animal cruelty.

The Society of Homeopaths attempts to censor the truth

Homeopathy, as everyone sensible knows, is a form of fraudulent quackery masquerading as a treatment of the sick.

Website The Quackometer wrote a piece on the Society of Homeopaths earlier this year, which the SoH objected to and did an Usmanov by issuing a takedown notice against the offending article.

Anyway, here’s the article the SoH objected to in full, from mediawatchwatch:

The Society of Homeopaths (SoH) are a shambles and a bad joke. It is now over a year since Sense about Science, Simon Singh and the BBC Newsnight programme exposed how it is common practice for high street homeopaths to tell customers that their magic pills can prevent malaria. The Society of Homeopaths have done diddly-squat to stamp out this dangerous practice apart from issue a few ambiguously weasel- worded press statements. The SoH has a code of practice, but my feeling is that this is just a smokescreen and is widely flouted and that the Society do not care about this. If this is true, then the code of practice is nothing more than a thin veneer used to give authority and credibility to its deluded members. It does nothing more than fool the public into thinking they are dealing with a regulated professional.

As a quick test, I picked a random homeopath with a web site from the SoH register to see if they flouted a couple of important rules:

48 Advertising shall not contain claims of superiority. No advertising may be used which expressly or implicitly claims to cure named diseases.

72 To avoid making claims (whether explicit or implied; orally or in writing) implying cure of any named disease.

The homeopath I picked on is called Julia Wilson and runs a practice from the Leicestershire town of Market Harborough. What I found rather shocked and angered me.

Straight away, we find that Julia M Wilson LCHE, RSHom specialises in asthma and works at a clinic that says,

Many illnesses and disease can be successfully treated using homeopathy, including arthritis, asthma, digestive disorders, emotional and behavioural difficulties, headaches, infertility, skin and sleep problems.

Well, there are a number of named diseases there to start off. She also gives a leaflet that advertises her asthma clinic. The advertising leaflet says,

Conventional medicine is at a loss when it comes to understanding the origin of allergies. … The best that medical research can do is try to keep the symptoms under control. Homeopathy is different, it seeks to address the triggers for asthma and eczema. It is a safe, drug free approach that helps alleviate the flaring of skin and tightening of lungs…

Now, despite the usual homeopathic contradiction of claiming to treat causes not symptoms and then in the next breath saying it can alleviate symptoms, the advert is clearly in breach of the above rule 47 on advertising as it implicitly claims superiority over real medicine and names a disease.

Asthma is estimatedto be responsible for 1,500 deaths and 74,000 emergency hospital admissions in the UK each year. It is not a trivial illness that sugar pills ought to be anywhere near. The Cochrane Review says the following about the evidence for asthma and homeopathy,

The review of trials found that the type of homeopathy varied between the studies, that the study designs used in the trials were varied and that no strong evidence existed that usual forms of homeopathy for asthma are effective.

This is not a surprise given that homeopathy is just a ritualised placebo. Hopefully, most parents attending this clinic will have the good sense to go to a real accident and emergency unit in the event of a severe attack and consult their GP about real management of the illness. I would hope that Julia does little harm here.

However, a little more research on her site reveals much more serious concerns. She says on her site that ’she worked in Kenya teaching homeopathy at a college in Nairobi and supporting graduates to set up their own clinics’. Now, we have seen what homeopaths do in Kenya before. It is not treating a little stress and the odd headache. Free from strong UK legislation, these missionary homeopaths make the boldest claims about the deadliest diseases.

A bit of web research shows where Julia was working (picture above). The Abha Light Foundation is a registered NGO in Kenya. It takes mobile homeopathy clinics through the slums of Nairobi and surrounding villages. Its stated aim is to,

introduce Homeopathy and natural medicines as a method of managing HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria in Kenya.

I must admit, I had to pause for breath after reading that. The clinic sells its own homeopathic remedies for ‘treating’ various lethal diseases. Its MalariaX potion,

is a homeopathic preparation for prevention of malaria and treatment of malaria. Suitable for children. For prevention. Only 1 pill each week before entering, during and after leaving malaria risk areas. For treatment. Take 1 pill every 1-3 hours during a malaria attack.

This is nothing short of being totally outrageous. It is a murderous delusion. David Colquhoun has been writing about this wicked scam recently and it is well worth following his blog on the issue.

Let’s remind ourselves what one of the most senior and respected homeopaths in the UK, Dr Peter Fisher of the London Homeopathic Hospital, has to say on this matter.

there is absolutely no reason to think that homeopathy works to prevent malaria and you won’t find that in any textbook or journal of homeopathy so people will get malaria, people may even die of malaria if they follow this advice.

Malaria is a huge killer in Kenya. It is the biggest killer of children under five. The problem is so huge that the reintroduction of DDT is considered as a proven way of reducing deaths. Magic sugar pills and water drops will do nothing. Many of the poorest in Kenya cannot afford real anti-malaria medicine, but offering them insane nonsense as a substitute will not help anyone.

Ironically, the WHO has issued a press release today on cheap ways of reducing child and adult mortality due to malaria. Their trials, conducted in Kenya, of using cheap mosquito nets soaked in insecticide have reduced child deaths by 44% over two years. It says that issuing these nets be the ‘immediate priority’ to governments with a malaria problem. No mention of homeopathy. These results were arrived at by careful trials and observation. Science. We now know that nets work. A lifesaving net costs $5. A bottle of useless homeopathic crap costs $4.50. Both are large amounts for a poor Kenyan, but is their life really worth the 50c saving?

I am sure we are going to hear the usual homeopath bleat that this is just a campaign by Big Pharma to discredit unpatentable homeopathic remedies. Are we to add to the conspiracy Big Net manufacturers too?

It amazes me that to add to all the list of ills and injustices that our rich nations impose on the poor of the world, we have to add the widespread export of our bourgeois and lethal healing fantasies. To make a strong point: if we can introduce laws that allow the arrest of sex tourists on their return to the UK, can we not charge people who travel to Africa to indulge their dangerous healing delusions?

At the very least, we could expect the Society of Homeopaths to try to stamp out this wicked practice? Could we?

Let’s all see how widely we can spread this article, shall we?

UPDATE: I was going to add a list of everyone who’s republished the article, but someone’s already done it. You might want to read the comments to that post; I liked this one especially:

I’m a bit stumped by this. Surely, shouldn’t the SoH folk, of all people, know that removing every detectable trace of the offending post from the blogosphere will just increase its effectiveness?

Website shut down for linking to illegal material

A website has been shut down for linking to unauthorised copies of copyrighted material. Note that no-one is claiming that the website in question, tv-links.co.uk, actually hosted anything illegal.

Now that the brave boys at Gloucestershire police have taken down this small-time operator, when are they going to go after Google which not only links to an enormous amount of illegal material, but hosts it on its YouTube subsidiary?

More on ContactPoint

Some time ago I covered ContactPoint, which is a database of all children in the UK. Then I said that it “won’t contain sensitive information or subjective assessments of children”, just basic identifying information. I got this information from the official website which said:

ContactPoint will not hold assessment or case information, or subjective observations about a child or their parent. It will not contain any details such as birth weight, exam results, medical records, diet or any other detailed personal information about a child or their family.

(I’ve no idea if the website still says that — when I try to access it I get an error message).

I’ve since found out that, while technically correct, the above statement is a deliberate attempt at deception: ContactPoint won’t hold the sensitive data, another database called eCAF, which will be seemlessly linked to ContactPoint, will hold it. Details here:

Hard on the heels of the ContactPoint database comes the announcement that eCAF will also be a national database.

If you don’t know what eCAF is, go and read all about it to understand just how serious this is.

Suddenly ContactPoint looks positively benign. Those 330,000 users will now have access to the full, in-depth assessments of up to 6 million children and their families, all held on an inevitably insecure national database.

I was however right about one thing in my original blog post: the children of MPs and celebrities won’t be on the database. Which tells me everything I need to know about how secure Gordon Brown thinks it will be.

On the attitude of the press

From The ARCH Blog:

In 2003, we had a spate of phone calls from journalists wanting comments on new curfew powers that had come into force. “It’s a bit late to do anything now,” we said, “but you might want to hear about the Sexual Offences Bill that will make kissing between teenagers a criminal offence?” No response.

In 2004, we had a spate of phone calls from journalists to ask if it was true that two teenagers kissing each other was now a criminal offence. “Yes,” we said, “but it’s too late to do anything now. You might want to hear about the plans to create a national database of children, though…” “We’ll ring you back,” they said.

In 2007, we had a spate of phone calls etc “Where were you a couple of months ago, when something could actually have been done?” We asked. “How come 4 years of press releases, reports and phone calls have barely raised a mention? But perhaps you would like to know about the plans to create a second national database that will contain a lot more than names and phone numbers?” It’s gone very quiet suddenly.

Indeed.