count hackular: daily mail undead special

Celebrity admits obvious wrong-doing, praises police, refuses to shirk blame. From The Telegraph:

In a statement, Michael, 42, said: "I was in possession of class C drugs which is an offence and I have no complaints about the police who were professional throughout."

From The Guardian:

In a statement yesterday, the singer said: "I promise I won't make a record out of this one - even though it is tempting." He also said he was under no illusions about what to expect from the press. "I have been through enough in 24 years of dealing with the media to know what I am in for from them this week," he said."Much of it will be inaccurate or simply untrue. I can handle that - it is my own stupid fault, as usual.

From The Daily Mail:

Tags: mediahackery

arguments on reforming a ban on gay male blood donors

Here's the situation, expressed far more clearly than I've managed so far:

The SNBTS policy enforces a life ban on men donating blood who have ever had oral or anal sex with another man.

The campaign sees the ban as homophobic because heterosexual couples who have had unprotected sex are not banned from donating blood and because many gay and bisexual men live in monogamous relationships and have no greater risk of contracting any sexually transmitted infections than anyone else.

The SNBTS is currently desperate for more blood donors to come forward, as there is a national blood shortage.

The SNBTS claim that their ban on gay men donating blood is to avoid the risks of patients receiving HIV-infected blood.

In 2004, the National Blood Service admitted it could not analyse all potential donors' lifestyles in dept therefore "has to regard all gay men, whether monogamous or not, as constituting a single group of the population" and "it is this single group that is most at risk of transmitting infections such as HIV or Hepatitis B."

Courtesy of Anna Tuckett, writing in The Student, of all places. The rest of the paper is still pretty awful, though.

This ban isn't about the riskiness of infection transmission in anal sex. It's about the assumption that all gay men are equally at risk; judgments based on the possible increase in donor levels versus the risk of infected blood entering the system are based on this flawed principle. Remember, a similar precautionary bias does not exist for straight people having unprotected sex.

Tags: queer, politics, culture

decoding cameron

Cameron's statement of values tries to mix small 'c' conservative economics with compassionate progressive social values - which trying ever so slightly to conceal that either is taking place.

While the idea that economic stability should come before tax-cuts is being presented by some parts of the press as a radical departure from traditional politics, it's a fairly traditional pragmatic model of fiscal responsibility - as is the promise to 'share growth' with the public sector, translatable as 'we will spend more when we can afford to spend more'.

There's a balancing act here, to be certain, between the hard line demand for spending discipline and the socially soft-centred measure of government policy being how it helps the most disadvantaged. Part of that act is the rebranding of 'help those that help themselves', phrased as a partial attack on a centralising government. For example:

We will stand up for the victims of state failure and ensure that social justice and equal opportunity are achieved by empowering people and communities - instead of thinking that only the state can guarantee fairness.

A small rhetorical misdirection here: the only way to help people is to empower them, not to have the state intervene. However, it's the state's fault for not intervening to empower them in the proper way: it was the wrong kind of intervention, the wrong flavour of fairness because it was defined by the state. Note the absence of the market as a means of ensuring social justice.

It also manages to avoid entirely demonising the state as a distant, interfering, disciplinarian: the state can also be a warm, huggable place where people can come together:

We understand the limitations of government, but are not limited in our aspirations for government. We believe in the role of government as a force for good. [...]

We believe that government should be closer to the people, not further away. We want to see more local democracy, instead of more centralisation.

It's a good move, given how many potential voters work directly or indirectly in the public sector - but mainly because it taps into the sensation that democracy and accountability in the UK are sliding away. It ends up being not so much an indirect critique of the state, as the role of the state under the Blair government.

There's also a hint of the woe-fully managed dog-whistle tactic ("are you thinking what we're thinking?") where fairly non-committal phrases can be taken to support both socially conservative and progressive values. For example, support for traditional marriage and the family without ruling out same-sex or non-traditional families:

[Government] should support families and marriage, and those who care for others.

The problem here is that you have to want to see those hidden emphasises: it's primarily an exercise in political truisims, pragmatic to the point of blandness and liable to annoy some party activists for its lack of backbone. The key trick in this document is presenting conservative values as a principle of natural equilibrium:

We will trust professionals and share responsibility - instead of controlling professionals in state monopolies.

and

We will ensure strong defence and the effective enforcement of laws that balance liberty and safety - instead of ineffective authoritarianism which puts both freedom and security at risk.

Both of which present the image of a harmonious balance between the state and the individual - between private and public action - that is intended to contrast with the Blair government's pursuit of barcode neck tattoos. On those grounds, it's a good salespitch and one which fits in with Cameron's preference for 'consensual' rather than 'adversarial' politics.

The main problem in getting members to sign on isn't the declaration that there is such a thing as a society after all, or that purer conservatives will argue that government should butt the fuck out of our lives on all fronts - but that there's relatively little for the party faithful to rally behind. Regardless of affiliation, party activists like adversarial politics and it will take more than this to wean them off the thrill of partisan debate.

One of the new Conservative party slogans is 'change to win': whether this signals better PR or a true policy revamp is still unclear. The hint of a return to small 'c' conservative economics is going to be the most popular part of this document - and is perhaps designed to appeal to the centre right as well as traditional party members; almost everything else is about an attempt to re-occupy the centre ground on social issues.

another company falls face first into free speech canyon

This kind of talk turns me on:

The fact is, there's no effective way to censor the Internet in broad strokes. Only dumb CIOs and totalitarian governments like the UAE believe that adding censorware to your network will prevent the naughty stuff from slopping in. Having a human being review a few pages on a site every couple months is a perfectly adequate classification system, in SmartFilter's lights -- which is convenient, since a genuinely thoroughgoing review would be ruinously expensive.

Secure Computing offered us a devil's bargain: if we'd change the URLs of images with "nudity" (which, they assured us, included photos of Michaelangelo's David) to something they could detect and block, they'd let the rest of the world see us again. That guy in the UAE who was worried he'd be imprisoned for trying to read BoingBoing would be OK again.

We considered their offer, and decided not to do it. What happens when the next censorware company comes along with another editorial process they want us to engage in to help them censor the site?

More importantly: why should we let a company that helps corrupt dictatorships oppress their citizen dictate morality to us?

So instead we've decided to help put Secure Computing out of business.

I heart boing boing.

more lessons from the natural world

It says a lot about me that I first thought the following was an abstinence / anti-masturbation poster:



Turns out that the cow isn't ashamed because she's touching her udders, but because she's not wearing a bra, a shapeless sweater and a veil like a good decent, moral cow.

I admit, I might have lost the thread of this post somewhere in that metaphor. It also follows fast on the success of the cute and collectable pubic crab. What else can sexy teens learn from the righteous animal kingdom? We've experienced shame and disease: next up, debt and praying for forgiveness?

via feministe.

bishop devine: gay adoption and "mounting disquiet"

It's just as well that the Bishop of Motherwell 'accepts' he will be seen as a bigot: it will save time as I point out that claiming 'Christian values' isn't the same as a licence to make stuff up:

The British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), which is partly funded by the Scottish Executive, has supported the moves by ministers to allow same sex couples to adopt.

However, Bishop Devine believes there is a growing feeling that, because adoption panels are frightened of being accused of discrimination against gay men and lesbians, they are being given preferential treatment over heterosexual couples

Uhh.. anyone else notice the problem with this time line? Something odd about tense? He's worried about preferential treatment during decisions that don't exist. The legislation has been proposed in Scotland but has not been voted on, or passed yet.

For similar lies, see the Daily Mail's claim of proof that straight couples are 'missing out' on children which are apparently rightfully theirs - despite the law allowing gay people to adopt in England and Wales being at that time only two months old and few (if any) cases having been heard. More from the Bish:

"I am only too well aware, of course, that the conventional family unit is in decline and society is paying the price. But where the traditional family unit does exist, it should for the sake of the children be deemed a far more appropriate refuge for them than exposure to a homosexual or lesbian way of life," he told the first minister.

The conventional family unit is still, by far, the most popular way for people to raise children. Finally, the bishop completely loses it:

"What started as a tolerance and compassion for gays had developed into the suppression of the majority heterosexual lifestyle. Traditional family values are in the dock and the judge and jury are composed of politically correct extremists."

The suppression of the majority of heterosexual lifestyle? Uh... what the fuck? Is there a conspiracy to stop straight people having straight sex? Is there a conspiracy to stop them marrying, raising children or showing public affection? Are gay radicals bursting in hetero bedrooms and demanding that ne'er a penis enter 'pon a vagina? No, no and thrice nae.

I'll admit it's a neat rhetorical move: say that anyone who opposes you is a 'politically correct fascist' and then proceed to say anything that enters your head, safe in the protective embrace of victimhood. It's such a pity that those 'extremists' also seem to represent the opinions of the majority and that the Catholic Church's representatives in Scotland might sound - ever so slightly - like the extremist bigots in this picture. Still, well done for managing to avoid entering a rational discussion; it makes things a lot easier for everyone else.

I'd have more (i.e. some) respect for people pleading that we 'think of the children' if their arguments didn't depend on repeating old lies about the 'gay lifestyle' (some kind of mix of compulsory sodomy, sleeping in on Sunday mornings and Jerry Springer: The Opera) and making up fresh lies about things that havn't happened yet.

technorati tags: adoption gay rights uk

teddy girls

Take a look at this fantastic gallery of photos from Ken Russell's 1955 Photo Essay on London's Teddy Girls:



A side of post-war Britain we don't normally get to see, to put it mildly.

my eyes, my eyes

I'm reading novels for the James Tait Black literary prize. While it's a case of precious islands of quality in a sea of adequate fiction, I'm currently reading a novel which is most accurately described as a whirling vortex of dispair. It's written like¹ this² and makes me begin to fear for the future of the written word as a mode of human communication.

The moral of the story is that almost anyone can get a publishing deal.

¹ see the Collected Works of Likeness.
² as in Messrs Horsefancy and Ride's Compendium of This.

angry sister

Shorter Esther Rantzen: it's sad when women behave like men.

Amongst the problems with Rantzen's piece is that aggressive behaviour is apparently only regrettable - or even lamentable - when it's demonstrated by women. Male aggression - or assertiveness, or whatever - abounds in the traditional media and is thought almost entirely unremarkable.

While treating people like shit tends to produce poor results, it's a mistake to characterise this as female error; if anything, it's problem with media culture as a whole. While there may be a workplace taboo in criticising female agression, that blind spot is even larger when it comes to male aggression: can you imagine a male junior sub-editor being able to complain to his male boss about intimidation?

Shitty management skills are not gendered behaviour.

(The comments section on the Guardian blog below the article is worth a read for the back and forth of various anecdotes and opinions).

definitely not about the 11-plus

Plans to test children at the age of 11 to see if they should be earmarked for university should not be confused with the 11-plus. For one thing, it has a completely different name.

As round three of 'to select, or not to select' begins, it's worth recognising that this plan has some things going for it. This system could provide long-term encouragement and mentorship for children throughout their school career, offering support and advice to families who might not otherwise sending a child to university. It could also put university admissions boards in more direct contact with schools and families, so that the entrance procedure is less threatening and easier to understand. Likewise, holiday courses and summer schools could foster interest and involvement in subjects (like law, for example) that can't easily be introduced in the first years of secondary school.

However, there are also some problems: the exclusion of pupils who don't show academic potential at the age of eleven and the very good chance that this is an administrative solution that will be more accessible to middle-class people. The Times reports that schools will be 'held accountable' if these wunderkind fail to achieve three A's at A-level - a move which is likely to encourage schools to engage in indirect selection, picking pupils from families where they think the children will have the most chance of success: coincidentally, families which are already invested in the idea of higher education.

This system seems to recognise that social backgrounds have an impact on university attendance - and that support is needed to help people from families whose history does not involve higher education. However, it then presumes that a test based on the national curriculum at the age of eleven is method of detecting potential which is not also affected by those same circumstances. If social circumstances can distort the potential of students in school between 11-17, might there not also be consequences for those aged 5-11 when crucial skills of basic literacy and numeracy are acquired?

The idea that no child should be overlooked because of a poor secondary education is admirable: it might, though, be a good idea to fix secondary education rather than implement a system that allows a small proportion of able students to be 'saved' while everyone else is left - if not behind - to a fate more ordinary and less decorated with A-levels. As with the 11-plus, there's the impact on those who do not make the grade - one consequence of which is to dissuade people who develop beyond the age of eleven from thinking that they too can enter higher education - because they didn't make the first cut.

Most importantly - and once again - we have the promotion of access to universities without much discussion of what people are going to do when they get there.

edited to add:

The scheme seems more limited than I originally understood. From the BBC:

A spokesman said: "We will be writing to specialist schools to encourage them to register their most able pupils with the National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth.

"Specialist schools have a responsibility to ensure all pupils, across the ability spectrum, are given the correct support and the opportunity to succeed."

So not all state schools?

The rest of the BBC's coverage recounts the luke-warm response to the policy, often for some of the reasons suggested above.

technorati tags: education politics uk

evil bean eating child

Google has opened its free webpage service to beta-testing; it's a little congested at this afternoon and takes a few attempts to load, but it's a fantastically clean WYSIWYG interface with vast potential.

You'll need a google account to try it - I have about a hundred gmail invites if anyone has yet to get one.

democracy and accountability, 'where relevant'

Charlie Whitaker at perfect points out that democracy in the UK should be understood at least in part in terms of accountability:

A free society can choose to grant its leadership extensive power - as long as it retains the right of informed democratic oversight. The powers the prime minister describes are not his to take or to give away. They belong to the nation. [...]

Last week its Mayor was removed from office for a month by an unelected quango created by, uh, New Labour. The Lord giveth with one hand: but what is he doing with the other? We don’t see until our new ‘freedoms’ are removed with a sudden swipe.

He is, of course, talking about the looming threat of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, whose name is an exercise in keeping the content and purpose of legislation out the sight of casual public enquiry.

This particular 'reform' allows.. well.. how to put this without sounding alarmist.. it allows a sitting government to rewrite almost any Act, and enact a few more besides without Parliamentary approval. Not my words, so much as the words of six professors from Cambridge's Faculty of Law.

The restrictions on this Act seem to be of the loosest, most easily circumvented kind: that measures be 'proportionate' to policy objective, strike a fair public interest balance and do not impinge upon a freedom a person might otherwise reasonably expect to continue to exercise - which all sounds good until you realise who gets to decide what that means, and when those criteria have been fulfilled. This briefing note (pdf, link via perfect.co.uk) points out that the bill doesn't require that these criteria are met - only that Ministers consider they have been met, where relevant.

Under such a law, acountability becomes reduced to a four-yearly exercise in hope - hope that you'll be able to vote someone else into power, and hope that they'll act to reverse decisions taken outside of parliament and resist using the powers themselves. It is, quite simply, an invitation for idiots to behave like dictators.

(crossposted at DK)

- also see the queen of denial can kiss my asp at bloggerheads.

the phantom of reverse-bigotry,or, "those crazy queers!"

The Sunday Times seems to think that gay people are either stupid or selfish:

GAY clubs will risk prosecution if they deny entry to heterosexual customers under new laws intended to protect homosexuals from discrimination.

Under regulations to be published next month it will be illegal for a gay bar or nightclub to exclude anyone on the grounds of sexual orientation.

The full implications of the new law have caused alarm among gay rights activists, who are surprised at the perverse effects of a measure they believed would advance their civil rights.

They are also worried that it could erode the atmosphere of homosexual clubs and expose gays to homophobic customers.

First of all, the idea that gay clubs are about to be swamped by homophobes out for a nights' dancing and thuggery is silly; as the article eventually points out, door staff will still be able to turn away people who they believe to be disruptive or want to enter to start trouble. Venues will be able to ensure safe and queer-friendly environments and still remain within the law, much as all clubs are able to make sure idiots, drunks and thugs remain on the curb.

While some straight people will continue to prefer gay-friendly establishments, social groups tend to be fairly self-selecting: few straight women are going to want to hang out in the back room of a gay male pick-up joint, not least because few people - regardless of sexuality - want to hang out there. If there's strong opinion throughout the gay community that clubs and bars should be strictly segregated, it's never made it into the public domain.

Leaving aside the idea of a queer conspiracy, anyone trying to argue their way into a mainstream club on the grounds that they have the 'right' of entry is going to get laughed onto the street - I see no reason why the discretion of the person on the door won't continue to rule, regardless of the sexuality of the clientele.

This story - seemingly based on the comments of one opinion columnist for one magazine - seems to think that this is an entirely unexpected consequence, that achieving a greater level of protection from discrimination has back-fired on the stupid queers who want to keep their private clubs to themselves. It also presumes that gay-only clubs and bars are the only way for gay-owned businesses to make money, or for gay people to socialise, which at the very least seems to confuse visibility with significance.

While it might be fun to sneer faintly at a hypocrisy that doesn't exist yet (as some bloggers did when this story first surfaced) if some clubs are going to have to change their door policy - or educate their staff - then that's what will happen.

you first, darling

Another advert for marriage:

Marriage helps husbands to an extra 1.7 years, but it knocks 1.4 years off the average wife's lifespan, according to the study of more than 100,000 people across Europe.

The stress of leading dual roles as working women and homekeepers is thought to be one of the key elements that is killing off female spouses earlier than their single sisters.

..and another report for the 'take with a pinch of salt' pile.

who will buy my brightly coloured placebos?

You might have missed it, but we're apparently travelling backwards through time:

IT COULD be called the Cleopatra Effect. Magnetic therapy, which has held the rich and powerful in thrall from ancient Egypt to modern Downing Street, is about to be made available on the National Health Service.

NHS accountants are so impressed by the cost-effectiveness of a “magnetic leg wrap” called 4UlcerCare that from Wednesday doctors will be allowed to prescribe it to patients.

This story follows the traditional pattern - a glowing report of a new remedy, followedy by slightly embarassed reports of how it doesn't work ('magnet therapy has no proven benefits').

Then, instead of restraining from further comment, we have some wild, wild speculation:

It is not known exactly how magnets work. Adherents believe they improve circulation because they attract the iron in blood towards them and, in doing so, increase the supply of oxygen to the wound. They may also reduce painful acidity in tissue.

Some holistic therapists say magnets reduce “negative energy” in the body. They also believe magnets may encourage healthy tissue to generate its own electrical currents to stimulate wound repair.

Fans of thinking will note that there is absolutely no scientific basis for any of the above; you might as well add 'cures dropsy' onto the end of that sentence.

Fans of European history will recall that healing with magnets was last most popular in the C18th, when Dr. Franz Anton Mesmer plagiarised a Viennese Jesuit's theories and invented the idea of a subtle magnetic fluid that flows through everything, sometimes getting disturbed and needing correction. Mesmer's remedies weren't all bad: you also got to sit in a large vat while he poked you with a brightly coloured magnetic stick.

Historical providence aside, anyone actually looking for the trial that 'proves' the efficacy of the magnetic will be slightly disappointed. As a rule, the decision to make a therapy available for free on the NHS should have slightly more supporting evidence than one double-blind trial of 26 patients, the conclusions of which call for a larger randomised trial.

See here for more on magnetic healing, notably that despite an absence of evidence (and crucially, reproduceable evidence) the sales of magnets get larger and larger each year.

If the NHS is determined to spend money on magnets, it might consider spending some more on research into whether they work first - before making them publicly available. Otherwise, it's a waste of money that could be spent on cheaper, shinier placebos - or real medicines and treatment that actually work.

(I missed that the Sunday Times can report - with an apparently straight face - that magnets are being made available because of their impressive 'cost-effectiveness', rather than - you know - ability to aid the healing process. *sigh*)

(Bend Goldacre at the bad science blog weighs in.)

Technorati Tags: snakeoil

word of the day

I enjoy how the wording of supposedly modern laws can be incredibly archaic:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The Army has charged seven paratroopers from the celebrated 82nd Airborne Division with engaging in sex acts in video shown on a Web site, authorities said Friday.

Three of the soldiers face courts-martial on charges of sodomy, pandering and engaging in sex acts for money, according to a statement released Friday by the military.

At the risk of being blunt, "don't ask, don't tell" becomes a little bit pointless if you're on a website, sucking cock - not least because it bypasses the bit of that policy where just saying that you're gay is the equivalent of a sex act.

On that note, Judith Butler once asked - if you're on the parade ground and your sergeant screams at you that you're a fucking queer (all the better to motivate, of course) and you reply 'yes, sir!' like a good marine, have you broken the rule?

bad blood

The NUS in Scotland is campaigning to have the blood transfusion guidelines changed so that gay and bisexual men can give blood:

Scott Cuthbertson, NUS Scotland's LGBT officer, said: "We believe it is not sexual orientation that makes you high risk, it is your sexual practices.

"There are gay and bisexual men who don't engage in high-risk sexual practices and therefore they should be allowed to give blood."

Edinburgh University and Stirling University are also expected to campaign.

However Dr Moira Carter, national donor services manager for the SNBTS, said: "The reason we ask men who have had sex with men not to give blood is because our up-to-date data shows these people are at higher risk of carrying blood-borne viruses.

"We are trying to look after the patients who receive blood."

The problem is that the donor guidelines present a situation where safe sex between men is seen as always dangerous, and more dangerous than unprotected heterosexual sex. Even admitting to protected oral sex with a man - which carries an incredibly small risk of transmitting an infection - will get a male potential donor barred from giving blood. That blanket presumption makes me uncomfortable, less because it's potentially discriminatory but more because it sounds like shoddy science.

The logic - as I understand it - is that men who have sex with men are thought to be, en masse, a high risk group, and that the rise in donor blood to be gained from allowing those men to donate blood is not significant enough to warrant an increased risk of HIV/AID contaminated blood entering circulation.

The problem there is that it precedes from the assumption that all men who have sex with men are at the same risk of contracting HIV/AIDS - an assumption that ignores both individual sexual history and safe-sex practice. Would it be possible to change the screening process to show some regard for this? As a point of contrast, how many sexual partners does a man who has sex with women have to have before he's considered a risk? How often are the statistics which claim men who have sex with men are a high risk group assessed?

I'm glad that someone is taking an interest in this issue but there's a fairly hearty amount of public health data crunching that has to go on before any policy can be changed - the complexity of which means that the transparency or logic of the policy can be difficult to divine. This isn't an issue that's as simple as claiming blind prejudice. However, I am resistant of received wisdom: if there's a public health reason why we treat people differently, it needs to be clearly stated, well justified and - crucially - open to review.

However, I'm also not sure that there aren't more productive GLBT issues to be pursued - not least providing support for young gay people, for whom the problems of homelessness and drug abuse present a disproportionately high threat.

oversight, overshmight

Another exciting thing about ID cards is that they have already cost us £32 million. That's £32 million on a system that has only recently been voted through parliament.

While I don't deny that many major policies require some prepatory spending, the government seems to have accelerated its spending during the period of discussion and debate - almost as if they knew felt that discussion and debate would amount to fuck all:

The government has already spent £32m preparing for its ID card scheme even before it becomes law.

That means spending rose from £25,000 to £63,000 a day in the last six months of 2005, the Home Office said. [...]

Last week, MPs voted by a majority of 53 against forcing the government to carry out a report on costs before introducing cards. This overturned an amendment made by the House of Lords to the Identity Cards Bill last month.

MPs instead backed a compromise amendment demanding a report on costs every six months for the first 10 years of the scheme being in place.

What exactly is the merit of a six-monthly report? Will this amount to anything other than a bank statement showing how someone has been using our credit card behind our backs?

When the Scottish Parliament was being built, regular updates on the newest, even more grotesque level of overspend did little to alter or halt building work - because there was no political will to see the costs brought under control if it meant delaying the parliament. Similarly, the Blair government is dead-set on having ID cards - which means we're going to get them regardless of what the six-montly spending reports reveal.

fighting radiation with light entertainment

One of those enjoyably British cold-war stories appears today in The Independent:

In the event of all-out nuclear war, the BBC was to distract the nation by broadcasting a mix of music and light entertainment shows, secret papers released by the Home Office reveal. [...]

Just before the first missiles had reached Britain, the BBC was to use regional centres in Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol and Middlesbrough to broadcast a national service that the Government hoped would create "a diversion to relieve strain and stress".

Without wanting to besmirch the power of light entertainment, it might take slightly more than the lastest incarnation of Celebrities Do Something With Bruce Forsyth (or Celebrities Fall Down As Radioactive Ash, as the case may be) to distract from nuclear fall-out as gamma radiation destroys my white corpuscles, distorted zombies roam the ruins etc.

At the very least, it will need repeats of The Avengers.

home, new sweet home

Okay - everything seems to be working here at blogger. I've changed the RSS feed over so those of you using a news service shouldn't have to do anything.

Please let me know if you find something that's broken as I tweak the layout over the next few days.