Tibet Awaits Justice

If we do not provide justice, no-one else will.

Support justice.

Muslim Humour

NOT A PROPHET

I was wrong. There is some. Here are some links I found:

Islamic Humour

The Muslim Has a Sense of Humour

Islam and the Sense of Humour

Now, stop pillorying Muslims for lack of a sense of humour.

Lawyers: A New Priesthood?

PETER KING

It is alright, Mr King, I have not prefaced the caption with anything that might in your belief system be associated with your christian name.

“This may sound ridiculous, but I do believe that I’ve been called to be a lawyer.” Peter King, a corporate partner at Shearman & Sterling in London, knew within two days of starting his law degree at Cambridge that he had found what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. “I don’t know why,” he says. “There was just some chemistry.”

It would be overly cynical to suggest that Christian faith and being a lawyer are mutually incompatible. I think of all the lost souls slaving for the Legal Services Commission. They certainly manage to combine being lawyers with holding irrational beliefs. I do not mean that they believe in a god. They may or they may not. But they subscribe to an even more improbable belief; namely, that the UK government will one day treat them fairly. The probability that this is true is much lower than the probability that a god exists. This proves only that some lawyers suffer from delusions. If I add that I have met many very able lawyers who used to or still do legal aid work then I must accept the proposition that there exist lawyers who are good at their jobs but cleave to irrational beliefs.

I have recently referred to Thomas Cromwell (Henry VIII's lawyer) in a post. He professed belief in god. But then he had to and was probably just a cynical liar and a hypocrite.

There is no compulsion on Mr King (i.e. no threat that his head will be chopped off if he does not at least pretend to believe in god) and I fully accept that his belief in god is genuine (albeit deluded). See my previous post on Dawkins.

I just find his thought processes somewhat confusing. He ascribes his "calling" to the law in terms of "chemistry" rather than "theology". What branch of chemistry is he referring to? The most likely answer would seem to be "alchemy". Mr King has certainly turned his talents (if not lead) into gold. Thus, if he does believe in alchemy, that may not count as an irrational belief at all.

The April Fool Was That The Martians Had Not Landed

EMBRYO POLITICIANS: HOW TO SPOT THEM

I am sorry that the April fool post was so obvious. The behaviour of our parliamentarians (as they grandly style themselves) is so obviously non-human that, of course, the Martians have landed. I am using "Martians" as shorthand. I do not swear that they are from Mars. They are just not from this planet. They are either extraterrestrials of some kind or they may merely be escapees from an institution near you. Care in the community is going too far in my opinion but, at least, most of the worst cases have regularly to visit a single centre that we allow them to call the Palace of Westminster. That is why the row over their expenses is misplaced. Without access to that particular trough we might lose track of them.

You may note that this post does not carry any reference to humour in the labels below.

The Martians Have Not Landed

It is being universally reported that the Martians have not landed. Certain British politicians, who are widely suspected to be Martians, are not Martians at all, but have quite other explanations for their unearthly behaviour.

Speaker Martin: Update, Update!

Further to my post on 24th February, 2008: Buffoon Dressed In A Little Brief Authority, they seem to be closing in on Gorbals Mick.

It is getting to the point that we are soon going to start feeling sorry for the wee man, despite his cynical, grotesque and hypocritical abuse of his position.

As is quite often the case, my title links to a report in The Times. For the avoidance of doubt, they do not pay me for these links. They do not even pay my expenses: a cup of coffee and, possibly, a biscuit. I fully and openly declare those expenses of preparing this post (including, on this occasion, two biscuits) but will, on pain of torture at the hands of my fellow lawyer Thomas Cromwell*, maintain until death that no-one, no-one at all, and certainly not anyone I am prepared to name for less than a five figure sum, has reimbursed me.

*All lawyers live forever (in infamy).

Pascal's Wager

For no reason I need record here, I mentioned Pascal's wager in the course of a discussion I was having with The Firm's senior partner. In short form I summarised its terms as follows:

We cannot know whether God exists. He may; in which case we are damned if we do not believe in him. He may not; in which case no consequence follows whether we believe or not. Therefore, a sane man will place his bet on God's existence and believe with all his heart. This is because this is the only choice that has any possibility of a desirable outcome i.e. salvation.

The senior partner (who does have a belief system ecompassing matters beyond the material world) reacted instinctively (as most people do) that this was an intellectually dishonest, or, at least not an honourable reason, for believing in a god.

It occurred to me afterwards to re-read the original. Of course, this is considerably more nuanced than my summary. It is readily available at 233 of Pascal's Pensees published by The Gutenberg Project.

The whole of 233 should be read before criticising it and I quote only two extracts:

"If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is. This being so, who will dare to undertake the decision of the question? Not we, who have no affinity to Him.

Who then will blame Christians for not being able to give a reason for their belief, since they profess a religion for which they cannot give a reason? They declare, in expounding it to the world, that it is a foolishness, stultitiam;[90] and then you complain that they do not prove it! If they proved it, they would not keep their word; it is in lacking proofs, that they are not lacking in sense. "Yes, but although this excuses those who offer it as such, and takes away from them the blame of putting it forward without reason, it does not excuse those who receive it." Let us then examine this point, and say, "God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions."

and:

"For it is no use to say it is uncertain if we will gain, and it is certain that we risk, and that the infinite distance between the certainty of what is staked and the uncertainty of what will be gained, equals the finite good which is certainly staked against the uncertain infinite. It is not so, as every player stakes a certainty to gain an uncertainty, and yet he stakes a finite certainty to gain a finite uncertainty, without transgressing against reason. There is not an infinite distance between the certainty staked and the uncertainty of the gain; that is untrue. In truth, there is an infinity between the certainty of gain and the certainty of loss. But the uncertainty of the gain is proportioned to the certainty of the stake according to the proportion of the chances of gain and loss. Hence it comes that, if there are as many risks on one side as on the other, the course is to play even; and then the certainty of the stake is equal to the uncertainty of the gain, so far is it from fact that there is an infinite distance between them. And so our proposition is of infinite force, when there is the finite to stake in a game where there are equal risks of gain and of loss, and the infinite to gain. This is demonstrable; and if men are capable of any truths, this is one."

Well, perhaps a third, just to illustrate that Pascal was not unaware of the arguments that may be marshalled against him:

"Do not then reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all.""

The Gutenberg Project's edition is a reproduction of the Dutton 1958 New York edition. This is a particularly good choice as the translation has an introduction by T.S.Eliot, one of whose comments is that "Pascal is one of those writers who will be and who must be studied afresh by men in every generation."

The purpose of this post is simply to encourage those who read it to do just that and to point them to an easily available translation of the pensees.

The National Health Service and Me: A Food Review

There has been a lack of posts this month despite my unending resolutions to post more often for my dwindling audience of one; me. The audience is dwindling because I just write into the ether without much bothering to read the result. Gosh, this site is turning into therapy.

However, I have a better excuse this time. I have spent two spells in hospital recently. I will not bore you with the details but they involved lots of drips into my veins and trying to enable me to eat again.

It is the getting me to eat again that troubles me.

I am a diabetic who was having serious trouble holding anything solid down. Neither hospital addressed the issue of a diet to wean me back on to real food rather than a dextrose drip.

The Royal Sussex County Hospital (Brighton) was better on anti-emetics, anti-thrush etc. (as the consultant said, she was going to throw everything at me) so I could eat quite quickly. Worthing Hospital was less good but that is not the point; Worthing could not provide me with anything edible even if I had been fully fit.

At Brighton they bring around a menu asking you to select from it for lunch and dinner. You get to choose separately what you want for pudding. This is very important; it meant that I could choose ice cream even if nothing else was suitable for my acidic stomach. It was Wall's Cornish at my guess but that is good enough in hospital.

I had one decent meal at the Royal Sussex which was a very good Shepherd's Pie. Good mince, nice real potatoes well cooked and mashed. It may have been followed by ice cream but I also got a medium to good egg custard at the Royal Sussex.

I had one meal at Worthing Hospital. Liver & Onions. I could have eaten liver & onions prepared by myself. OK, I would have used lambs or calves livers thinly sliced in a nice sauce a la Hannibal. This was a hard turd on a plate.

Worse, it was served with what purporded to be mashed potatoes. It was not. It was a ball of glutinous gell.

The pudding (compulsory) was pineapple chunks. For a diabetic with suspected ketoacidosis? It might as well have been arsenic.

When I told two of the doctors about the above meal, one of them turned her nose before I had got so far as "Liver &..." and the other said he never ate in. He did promise to do something about it but I had discharged myself and signed a waiver before he had the chance to do so (about a day later).

I knew that if I did not discharge myself and sign the waiver they would surely kill me.

Oh, by the way, they punished me for discharging myself by refusing to issue to me a prescription for the antibiotics they said I needed.

This is a little postscript on breakfast. Royal Sussex wins again.

Royal Sussex offers about 5 or six cereals. Worthing offered cornflakes, some other type of grainy cornflakes or a weetabix substitute. But you could have sugar on your rice krispies at Royal Sussex!

Another very big thing is toast:

At the Royal Sussex they bring along toast after you have eaten your cereal. You choose how many slices you get, how many pats of butter and how many (and what variety) of preserves you got.

At Worthing Hospital I got, along with my cereal, one slice of stale untoasted bread, one pat of butter and one pack of liquid raspberry flavoured something or other. The latter two items were of course entirely redundant. Nothing could have disguised the unwholesomeness of the stale bread.

I have saved the best for last. Worthing boasts about its catering. See the luxury world.

A Very Good Interview with Hugh Laurie of House

Ants' World: Nice Lemmings Type Game

They forgot the apostrophe but Ants' World is an amusing free game that will appeal to fans of Lemmings.

Matthew Parris Surprises Himself and Me and Very Possibly Speaker Martin

I am a great fan of Matthew Parris. His support for "mediocre" Speaker Martin (as he describes him) does therefore surprise me.

Part of the defence is that he is not as bad as some past Speakers. But, MP admits, he is not as good as any of the last three ("St George, St Jack and St Betty"). Thus he has to go quite far back to find a worse Speaker.

The truth is that Martin has been an appalling Speaker.

But that does not matter to MP. It is none of our business. It is a matter entirely for the private club of MPs.

That is, it is a matter to be decided solely by those who are dependent on the Speaker's grace and favour.

Shame on you Matthew.

An Amazing Film: Million Dollar Babie

The name is crap. "Million Dollar Babie" after all. It sounds like a Disney movie.

The subject matter is offputting. Female boxing...! Who, but perverts, are interested in that?

But it did have Clint Eastwood. I have watched every other Eastwood movie, some several times.

So, I eventually gave in.

I watched it today. It is a bewitching multilayered masterpiece. Eastwood not only gives the performance of his life but directs! I cried.

That is all I have to say.

DNA Testing For All: The Abandonment of Freedom?

Philip K Dick

David Aaronovitch has written a striking article in The Times today that gives me pause for thought in my otherwise absolute commitment to freedom.

The visions of Philip K Dick become increasingly our reality as each day passes. This debate brings to mind in particular The Minority Report (also a Spielberg film).

This was the story in which the police arrested you before you did the crime on the basis of your predisposition to commit it.

DNA testing (together with near universal video surveillance) has brought the UK far closer to this "ideal" of detecting pre-crime than the US; and it is nowhere close to 2054 yet (when Minority Report is set).

TOPICS FOR DEBATE:

1) David Arronovitch has strong arguments in favour of a universal DNA database.

2) Philip K Dick, however, has a better "thin end of the wedge" argument.

Buffoon Dressed In A Little Brief Authoity

Gorbals Mick

QUIZ QUESTIONS:

1. Who does the above think he is?

2. Is he qualified for his job?

3. Does he like dressing up?

4. Is he (a) corrupt, (b) thick, (c) inarticulate, (d) a hypocrite or (e) all of these things?

5. Would you give him a job as a mannequin?

To assist in answering question 5 you may wish to click on the word mannequin for dictionary.com's definitions.

Burrell the Butler is Back

Diana & Butler Burrell

“I told the truth as far as I could - but I didn't tell the whole truth. Perjury is not a nice thing to have to contemplate. I was very naughty and I made a couple of red herrings, and I couldn't help doing it.”

Is Mr Burrell saving it for his sequel?

Scott Baker LJ has catapulted that and the butler will be in contempt if he does not now comply with the order to return and explain himself. Silly man, Mr Burrell but will anyone believe his new evidence if he does reveal his "secrets"? Does he have any "secrets" to reveal? Or, is he just addicted to the fame which comes with the fact that he pretends to have "secrets" to reveal?

Again, I applaud Scott Baker LJ for sensible case management. The establishment figures who wanted the matter withdrawn from the jury ought, if they had any registerable IQs, to be joining in that applause.