negotiating with fundamentalists

The recent deference by the liberal wing of the Anglican church to demands of the traditionalists has all the appearance of someone handing over their lunch money, convinced that this means the bully won't come back next time.The notion that there's some middle ground to be found between evangelicals and modern liberals is almost entirely wishful thinking.

Think of it like this: if one group are generally positive about gay people, and the other thinks that not only are gay people unacceptable as priests but are wicked sinners who will burn in hell.. well, there's not a lot of room for debate.

Today's news that a US Bishop has defected to the Catholic Church (by night, under cover of incense) neatly illustrates that - however many concessions to issues of tradition and scriptural translation that liberal theologians make - it's still not going to be enough.

So, exactly what are the liberal faction prepared to give up in the name of "unity" when their conservative opposition won't change a thing? And why? If you're dealing with people who will only be happy when you entirely adopt their version of a faith, isn't this piecemeal negotiation a waste of time?

a temporary disinterest in good causes

What's this? Email from Downing Street?

You recently signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to "Stop the Chancellor from using lottery money to fund the olympics in 2012."

The Prime Minister's Office has responded to that petition and you can view it here:

http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page13333.asp

* Clicky*

The decision to take a further share from the Lottery was taken only after very careful consideration. The Government is determined to ensure that the temporary diversion of funding from the existing good causes to the Olympic good cause is done with the least possible disruption.

Translation: we knew it would fuck things up, and we admit as much, but we're only going to cripple charities in the smallest way possible so that's all right then.

Summary translation: la la la not listening, not listening, la la la can't hear you.

reliably crazed

Here's another bait and switch from the Mail:

Parents will be denied the right to know if their child is having under-age sex under controversial guidelines for doctors unveiled yesterday.

Routinely denied? No, only in very specific circumstances:

The General Medical Council said last night that this would apply where doctors believed an under-age patient might harm themselves or run away from home if the information were shared with their family.

So, confidentiality will only apply when there is a greater burden to protect the welfare of the child, shock horror.

I suppose the nicest thing I can say about the inevitable response is that some people are reliably crazed:

Stephen Green of Christian Voice described the guidance as "wicked". He said: "The idea of using contraception to stop the spread of disease is a dead duck. It will lead to more abortions, more sexual diseases and more infertility."

I'd like to pretend that any part of that makes sense, but it's just two assertions which have been glued together with frothing spittle to declare "using contraception will lead to more abortions." Again, to be positive, it's a unique theory, presumably rehashing the old saw that contraception doesn't work so you'd better get used to having children every time you have sex.

Someone who appears to know nothing at all about sexual health or contraception is probably not the best source for comment on, ooh well, sexual health and contraception, no?

and you shall know them by their conspiracy theories

I've gotten some flack for pointing out the lies told by certain members of the Catholic Church about the reliability of condoms before. While it was clear that such behaviour was not, thankfully, representative of the majority of priests.. well.. there's this:

Mozambique's Roman Catholic archbishop has accused European condom manufacturers of deliberately infecting their products with HIV "in order to finish quickly the African people".

The archbishop of Maputo, Francisco Chimoio, told the BBC that he had specific information about a plot to kill off Africans. "I know that there are two countries in Europe ... making condoms with the virus, on purpose," he alleged. But he refused to name the countries.

Getting safe sex advice from the entirely celibate is a bad idea: getting safe sex advice from celibate, conspiracy-theory nuts is worse.

not that exclusive

This is pretty weak for an "exclusive," let alone a front page story: political speech-writer adapts existing rhetorical devices. It's actually a working definition of what political speech-writers do most of the time anyway. I'm not really sure what the accusation is supposed to be, either - are they in trouble because they copied someone else's homework?

If originality is now the hallmark of any political speech, I look forward to The Times' discussion of the Tory conference next week which I imagine will include the words "sounds like a combination of Blair and Thatcher."

84th best

Apparently, you're reading the 184 billionth best left-of-centre blog. I can only hope that my moderate success can help sell someone some books . 

(Minor admission: I'm afraid I'm reading almost no-one on any of Iain Dale's lists. Oops. Finding the whole left-vs-right categorisation a bit forced in some places, but that's obviously the sniping of someone who doesn't have their own link-farm.. uh.. publishing deal. Oops. So rude. It's just envy, I'm sure. )

jill parkin: I want a doctor who will ignore my wishes

Apparently, Jill Parkin's idea of a good doctor is one that will ignore your wishes:

None of us likes to imagine such a terrible fate, but this much I do know: If I am ever in a coma I would like to be treated by Muslim or Catholic doctors, because if they're in charge, at least I know I will not be starved to death.

How extraordinary to think that in doing so - in the simple act of keeping me alive - they could be breaking the law.

It's a superlative Mail opening - entirely misleading and speculative, and trying to suggest that it's now routinely illegal to feed patients who are in comas. You could not be more mistaken (unless you are Jill Parkin, in which case there are rich, open vistas of being wrong to explore).

From the beginning of October, the Mental Capacity Act comes into force, making criminals out of doctors if they insist on feeding coma patients who have earlier said they'd rather die.

Ah. So the law now forces doctors to abide by their patients wishes. How dare the State interfere with our lives! Oh, hang on. It's the other thing. The thing where the law is used to stop other people interfering in our personal decisions.

The Mail's problem with fundamentalism tends to be that it's just the wrong kind of fundamentalism: as such, "pro-life," or "pro-interminable decline in a senseless coma, draining what little resources your famly has" has always had a welcome home. Come on in, Muslim and Catholic doctors! Your decision to enfore your moral and cultural code on us conveniently and partially coincides with our control-freakery!

That Parkin would never sign a living will renders her fear of being "starved to death" entirely fictitious - she's demonstrating concern and moral dudgeon about a decision that doesn't apply to her. Instead, she's decided that her personal feelings on the issue must instead apply to everyone else - which involves a certain amount of dancing on the head of a pin:

This isn't a religious 'life at all costs' argument.

I'd let babies go - those who are so disabled they will never know anything but pain. But I wouldn't do it by starving, just by letting nature take its course, with help from pain relief.

So, does turning off a ventilator count as "letting nature take its course"? Would she keep the feeding tube in a disabled baby, but refuse all other treatments in the name of "nature"? How about an adult who will never know anything but pain? In fact, wouldn't it less worrying to help an adult who'd given consent to die? Jill?

Still, out with the scare-mongering:

Yet under the Mental Capacity Act, you may well have your beloved daughter or nephew creeping up behind you and giving you a metaphorical big push - after all, there may be a lot of money in your will. [...] Where might it end?

I'm guessing it's not going to be a good place. Has this question ever been asked with the expectation that the answer is "at a picnic, with kittens and rainbows"?

Faced with a difficult medical decision, might doctors not allow a living will and the arguments of a relative, even a well-meaning relative, to have undue weight?

They would allow the wishes of their patient to have undue weight? WTF?

The dire suggestion is, of course, of a slippery slope leading to the point where an old lady going to her GP for a repeat prescription can be snuffed out on demand by inlaws envious of her double-garage. I've battered the stupidity of the slippery slope argument before - so instead, I'll point you to this story:

Legalised "physician-assisted death" has not been used to kill people who may be "a burden to society", US research suggests.

Some argue that allowing doctors to help people die could lead to the most vulnerable members of society being coerced into ending their lives. The Journal of Medical Ethics reports no such evidence in Oregon, US, and the Netherlands which allow assisted dying.

The Pro-life Alliance still warned of the danger of a "slippery slope". [...]

The authors [of the research] wrote: "We found no evidence to justify the grave and important concern often expressed about the potential for abuse."

They said that there were no facts to support the "so-called slippery slope" arguments about new assisted dying laws.

Finally, to summarise the Mail's position, adults should be able to make their own decisions in life without government busybodies interefering, unless it's one the things on this list that we're decided we don't like. Sounds awful authoritarian, no?

melanie phillips: luckily, this tragedy proves my point, whatever that turns out to be

I hate to interrupt anyone in the middle of turning a tragedy to their own purposes but:

Did you happen to assume, by any strange chance, that the purpose of the emergency services was to rescue people in an emergency from the prospect of death or injury?

Indeed. So did we all.

Well, more fool us! It turns out that their purpose is to avoid anything that puts themselves at risk - and they've got a health and safety rule book that says so.

That's right. Our emergency service workers are all cowards. Of course, any firecrews (for example) who spend their working lives entering burning buildings would seem to make Phillips look like an enormous fathead for appearing to claim otherwise.

Today's rhetorical device: stringing together disparate and rare events ("The resulting paralysis stretches from the absurdities of politically correct jewellery to tragedies such as the drowning of a ten-year-old boy while authority looks on") to claim just about anything you like.

oh noes! schisms!

You can tell a lot from a situation where this is supposed to be radical commentary:

In his address to a key -gathering of 159 American bishops in New Orleans, the Archbishop insisted: "I do not assume that homosexual inclination is a disease."

Warning that "violence against gay and lesbian people is inexcusable," he added: "Gay and lesbian people have a place in the Church as do all the baptised."

An inclusive, non-violent church? Quickly, to the schism-mobile!

peter hitchens: my loathing of sex can now be yours

Peter Hitchens, determined to prove there's no subject about he knows nothing and yet can still write a foaming thousand words of condemnation, writes:

So in a society where we get into a frenzy about paedophilia, the Government pays teachers to talk dirty to children.

And that's the executive summary: warning people about disease, and giving them a chance to control their own fertility, is "talking dirty."

Hitchens also manages to blame sex education exclusively for the rise in people having sex while simultaneously maintaining "personally, I doubt if there is anyone over the age of eight in this country who doesn't know how babies are made."

That those same people might not know how to stop babies from being made - or how to protect themselves from disease - apparently isn't a concern. But then the idea of sex without reproduction would rather undermine his insistence that "sex should take place inside marriage."

Of course, if you're not Christian (and not Hitchens, born in 1951 and presumably still chaste when married until 1983 - or just a massive fucking hyprocite) or interested in marriage or think that sex is about more than sprogging for Our Lord.. well, then you're just dirty.

at and music spread diseases

Retarded overblown scaremongering of the week, courtesy of Liz Jones in the Mail:

Can you really catch a drug addiction (or alcoholism or anorexia) from a magazine or an iPod?

Well, I am here to tell you that you can.

Quickly, someone ban all art and culture.

BAE: not corrupt, just British

There's nothing to see here, move along, absolutely nothing to see:

British ministers are refusing to cooperate with the US criminal investigation into allegations of corruption against BAE, Britain's biggest arms company, the Guardian can disclose.[...]

The SFO [Serious Fraud Office] possesses important files on BAE gained from its own major inquiry into £1bn of payments to Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia and other Swiss bank accounts linked to the Saudi royal family. But SFO investigators are not allowed to speak to US authorities until Home Office officials forward the paperwork.

The agency was forced to halt a criminal investigation earlier this year by the then prime minister Tony Blair, who said it threatened the national interest and was upsetting the Saudi regime.

The Home Office's refusal to cooperate with the US followed a similar attempt earlier this year to conceal the payments to Prince Bandar from the international bribery watchdog, the Paris-based OECD, which says it fears Britain is breaching a worldwide anti-bribery treaty to which it is supposedly a signatory.

For anyone who hasn't been following the story over the summer, we decided not to investigate any further because Prince Bandar was a good chap who had being doing business with our good chaps, and if there's one thing a good chap doesn't do, it's admit to a gentleman's agreement which is the price of doing business also happens to be a multi-million dollar bribe.

Unfortunately, this social subtlety seems to have been lost on the Americans.

the answer is: yes, I'd imagine it has quite a lot to do with it

I wonder if the Archbishop of Canterbury's decision to hold a communion service for gay clergy in relative secrecy - without publishing a list of those attending - has something to do with the witch-hunt like fervour with which the evangelist wing of the Anglican church hounds gay clergy.

Hmm..

fans of alzheimers unite

More fuckwittery from people unable to tell the difference between the chance to avoid a debilitating and horrible condition, and the chance to pick the colour of your children's eyes:

A couple who fear their child could inherit a rare form of Alzheimer's are to undergo embryo screening to eliminate the risk. [...] The screening, which will be carried out by a fertility clinic, will prevent early-onset Alzheimer's - a genetic condition which can take hold from age 35 - being passed onto the infant.

But the technique has sparked controversy - with opponents claiming it will eventually lead to the creation of "designer babies", where parents can choose eye and hair colour, athletic ability and intelligence.

This from the school of "it's a controversy because we say it is," led by some of our self-appointed moral guardians:

But an opponent of the technique, Dr David King, director of Human Genetics Alert, said: "We can confidently expect science to find a cure for Alzheimer's in the next 40 years."

What's a generation of avoidable early-onset mental degeneration between friends?

"I don't believe that it is better never to have been born than to live a healthy life for 45 years and die from Alzheimer's.

How delightful that you choose to make this decision for yourself and then attempt to enforce it on everyone else.

"If we don't want to slide down this slippery slope, we must restrict PGD to conditions that are fatal in early life."

While it's the favourite trope of conservative moral warriors, It's handy to remember that there is no slippery slope . This is an exceptionally rare condition, with a procedure only approved for specific families who happen to suffer from it - and as such, it sets zero precedent for picking your newborn's sporting aptitude.

dispatches from never-never land

Melanie Phillips, in The Daily Mail, 17/9/07:

Why we're all to blame for the Northern Rock crisis

Britain has been travelling down a similar road. With people increasingly feeling the financial pinch, Northern Rock allowed some customers to borrow 125 per cent of their house's value.

With so many people living on increasingly vertiginous levels of credit and borrowing hugely beyond their means, our institutions are far more vulnerable to sudden financial shocks, such as the US housing crisis. [...]

At the heart of the whole mess lies a collapse of the moral principles of thrift, foresight and responsibility that once regulated our behaviour and underpinned the integrity of personal and national finances.

From the individual consumer living on easy credit to a government presiding over record levels of national debt, we have been kidding ourselves that we can live indefinitely in never-never land.

The patron saint of never-never land, Tom Utley, in The Daily Mail, 20/9/07:

We'd struggled for ten years to find the fees for the oldest two at Dulwich, increasing our mortgage five times (I must have contributed more than most to the current liquidity crisis in the City; sorry about that.) [...]

For one thing, school fees keep shooting up much faster than inflation - by almost 40 per cent over the past five years alone, according to a survey published this week.

To dispatch our fourth son to Dulwich would be financially crippling - even more so than it had been to send either of our first two - particularly since I'd already drawn so heavily on the equity in my house, and time was ticking away to my retirement.

Psst, Tom, I think she's talking about you.

blog on hiatus

Still alive, but on hiatus due to new job. Will hopefully have
something more to say soon.