death of the father, part 1002

Students of tabloid media will find it unsurprising that experimental research - decades away from results - should be depicted as the "death of the father," despite that any likely use of such science being highly expensive and thus highly limited.

It's not the first time that science which threatens the sacrilegious sperm has received the Daily Mail treatment ("Test-tube mating could deliver a terminal blow to the pulverised nuclear family," howled Melanie Phillips) ignoring that the vast majority of the population will continue to have working, fertile and - let's face it - fun genitalia for old skool recreation.

For all its editorial emphasis on the traditional family unit, it's curious that the Mail should choose to entirely reduce the role of fatherhood to a one-off contribution of genetic material; rather beautifully, it's a mirror image of the "men treated as sperm banks" accusation poured onto lesbian couples who use male donors to get pregnant.

As I'm sure you can now repeat along with me, just because something is technically or theoretically possible, it doesn't mean that it's likely - or going to become so common as to totally obliterate our prior way of life.

sex education in the UK: a policy of deliberate ignorance

More of that institutionalised timidity we've come to expect over sex education in the UK:

Ministers have given their firmest hint yet that compulsory sex education lessons could soon be introduced in schools in an attempt to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies.

Beverley Hughes, the minister for children, admitted that she was under growing pressure to force schools to do more, and would have to consider making sex lessons a legal requirement.

A firm hint? Would have to consider? Here's Hughes, going out on a non-existent limb:

Asked by Chris Bryant, a Labour MP, if she would make courses on sex and relationships compulsory in schools, Miss Hughes said: "I am sure we will get requests to consider that and we will have to consider what people say."

You can almost taste the political bravery.

This is - to most levels of scrutiny - exactly the same position that we've been in for the last ten years. Hughes' observation that there's no "magic bullet" for the issue of teen pregnancy glosses over the fact that there is till some very effective ammunition to hand, starting with the blindingly obvious commitment to compulsory teaching about safe sex.

To pretend that there aren't readily available solutions to hand - which have been proven to work through comprehensive education programmes in both Europe and the US - is silly: the real issue here (as The Telegraph signals with threatening references to accusations of nanny statism and encouraging underage sex) is of political courage.

Who writes education policy in the UK when it comes to sex? MPs, Ministers and the government with advice from informed professionals, or the editorial pages of the Telegraph and the Daily Mail?

the obvious consequence

Some good news, based on the simple application of the knowledge that homeopathy doesn't work:

Figures reveal that only 37 per cent of 132 primary care trusts in England still have contracts for homoeopathic services. More than a quarter of trusts have stopped or reduced funding for the therapies over the past two years, while surviving homoeopathic clinics are in crisis, researchers say.

That said, 37% is still an appallingly high number of trusts to have investing public money in placebos - though it would be interesting to find out how much those contracts are actually worth.

Back to work.

nadine dorries: if you ignore everyone else, my argument makes perfect sense

Nadine Dorries has returned to pretending she thinks that the science surrounding abortion should speak for itself, meaning that she has problems with her short term memory or is some kind of vapid hypocrite.

Dorries began several months ago by complaining that there weren't enough pro-lifers amongst the witnesses for the Science and Technology Select Committee, and congratulated herself on having inserted a few who would support her position.

Then, after the news that some of those experts had been testifying beyond their expertise (and had links to conservative religious groups who would prefer a total ban on abortion) Dorries attacked the MP who had pointed this out and claimed that it didn't matter whether a witness was pro-choice or not.

That lasted about 48 hours, until Dorries decided that the only reason that the committee had come to conclusions that she personally disagreed with was.. that the witnesses were all ringers for the pro-choice movement. She produced her own report based on carefully cherry-picked (and largely irrelevant) research. (The chronology for most of the above, with links, is over here.)

As of today, further trailing a tightly controlled invitation-only event with a carefully chosen panel who all support her position, Dorries is back to claiming that it's all about the science - and accusing her opponents of only listening to facts which suit their agenda. The irony has now reached near toxic levels.

It probably doesn't need to be pointed out that you can prove almost anything if you decide which evidence you will listen to, and which you will ignore. It's particularly easy when you can do it behind closed doors at an invitation only event - or, in Dorries' world, a "fascinating meeting."

Finally, it's clearly proof of a conspiracy amongst MPs that while Evan Harris - the Liberal MP who demanded the witnesses reveal their affiliations - was nominated as Campaigning Politican of the year by his peers, Dorries was cruelly overlooked. It seems a shame that there's no fucking awful statuette to commemorate what she does.

note to politicians: "family life" doesn't rule out contraception

The political dicussion of sex education seems to be hallmarked with ignorance and cowardice. At the absolute minimum, the reason that sex education in the UK doesn't really work is that there's no obligation to talk about contraception - only the mechanics of reproduction.

Tentative suggestions that compulsory education on contraception might be necessary have led nowhere - either through a lack of political will, or simple fear of a tabloid backlash.

The truth, incidentally, is that the Mail and the Mirror will continue to tell lies about sex education whether anything is reformed or not: if you're going to take the flack, you might as well do something useful with the time.

Then you get statements like this:

However, Jim Dobbin, a Labour MP and chairman of the all-party parliamentary pro-life group, voiced concern.

"The danger with sex education is that it promotes sex among young people," he said. "The Government's policy has failed. Rather than teaching children more about sex there needs to be more emphasis on the benefits of family life."

The false dichotomy between "family life" and pre-marital sex helps no-one. Beyond the fact that the vast majority of people have sex before marriage, it's kind of crucial to recognise that family life might also include sex and - more importantly - wanting to control your reproductive abilities even after you've entered a long-term relationship.

To put it another way, young people don't need lessons from school to work out how to have sex - but staying disease and pregnancy free actually requires an effort of education. But somehow, that's the one thing we seem to be failing to do.

melanie phillips: brain dead, but getting better

Melanie Phillips is determined to dig a little deeper, and continue proving she doesn't actually understand the words she's using:

I also think that the definition of ‘brain death’ that enables organs to be removed from a body while the heart is still beating unassisted (the ventilator does not cause the heart to beat artificially, merely feeds it with oxygenated blood through the artificially sustained activity of the lungs — a crucial but often overlooked distinction which means that while some of the body’s tissues are functioning normally the patient cannot be dead) was devised to allow organs to be removed from a body that is sustaining them with the life that is essential if they are to be successfully transplanted.
That means donors are dying but not dead; and that means the removal of the organs kills them. And call me old-fashioned, but I happen to believe that killing sick patients is wrong.

Phillips is really clinging to this conspiracy theory: the entire medical profession, for some generations, has fabricated the category of brain death in order to steal organs from the merely sick.

That brain death might actually refer to situations where the brain is, you know, dead (technically, the irreversible end of all brain activity) is thrown over for the belief that we are in the pages of an airport horror novel. Careful clinical testing to reach that conclusion is something that happens to other people.

Having spent a few years reading her columns, it's perhaps no small surprise that Phillips can happily refer to the state of being brain-dead as being mainly alive, and merely "sick." If you're paying close attention, you'll note that she assumes that the very rare circumstances of a person recovering after serious brain injury are, in fact, increrdibly common: she's also dishonest (or ignorant) enough to confuse between brain death and the entirely different diagnosis of a persistent vegetative state.

Perhaps a little light research is in order: if only there was some kind of easy to use and powerful search engine to hand. Finally, it's nice to have an airing of the slippery slope fallacy, the backbone of much of Phillips writing and last seen in full at the hands of fellow Mail columnist, Ruth Dudley-Edwards. It helps to remember that simply declaring that something is more likely to happen is not the same as a thing actually being more likely to happen, no?

reporting on "hybrid" embryos: the daily mail, the catholic chuch and other liars

Some gloriously and deliberately inadequate "he said, she said" reporting from the Daily Mail:

Scientists have accused Roman Catholic priests of spreading lies from the pulpit in an attempt to stoke up opposition to animal-human hybrid experiments. A statement attacking the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill was read out to parishioners across the country last week.

The briefing, prepared by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, warned that the Bill would allow the creation of "half human, half animals" by combining eggs of women with the sperm of animals.

[...] Dr Lyle Armstrong, of Newcastle University, said the church's statement was "a gross and irresponsible misrepresentation of our position and our intentions". Hybrid embryos were designed to provide stem cells to treat human diseases - not to create half-human, half-animals, he said.

He added: "We find their example of combining the egg of a woman with animal sperm even more distasteful and we wish to make it absolutely clear that our work does not involve this.

Yet rather than straightforwardly reporting that the Catholic Church is lying - as is readily obvious - the Mail chooses to report the story as an accusation, as if there was some possibility that the Church's version of the research wasn't wholly misleading. There isn't.

That standard of journalism is presumably linked to the Mail's editorial position, which is to provide cover for those lies:

Hybrid experiments involve implanting human DNA into an animal egg, then growing an embryo from it - a procedure likened by Catholic bishops to the creation of "half-human, half-animals".

This may be an unscientific interpretation, but the Church is fully entitled to express its opposition to what it sees as interfering with God's creations.

It's not "unscientific" - it's plain wrong. The right to express opinions doesn't come into it - this is about the non-existent right to have your lies taken seriously.

Turning full circle, the Mail's editorial chooses to attack the scientists involved for "demonising" the church for spreading manifest lies about their research - yes, it's the people who claim that amoral scientists are trying to create part-human chimera who have apparently been demonised, not the other way around. Wonderful, isn't it?

nadine dorries: a fair debate means behind closed doors where I control who speaks

Shamelessly repeating the baseless smear that pro-abortion MPs have been bought by vested interests ("You look to see where the money is, follow it") Nadine Dorries announces that she has created her own form of "fair" debate:

It is no secret that I was extremely unhappy with the Science and Technology Committee report into reducing the upper time limit at which abortion can take place.

Not least because the overwhelming majority of people called to give evidence were from the pro-abortion lobby, and, pro-abortion MPs on the Committee heavily influenced the outcome of the report. [...]

In an attempt to highlight the other side of the story, I will be chairing a discussion on Monday night (28 January ) in the House of Commons.

On the panel will be Professor Sunny Anand, the world’s leading authority on foetal pain; Professor Stewart Campbell, the pioneer of 4D screening which now shows us exactly how a foetus behaves in the womb; and another speaker to be confirmed.

The meeting will take place on Monday night in Westminster Hall between 6-8pm.The Hall will take a maximum of 100 people and entry is strictly controlled by invitation only.

When Dorries says she has been elected to serve "the will of the people," that means the will of the people she has invited to hear her guests speak. Bravo.

You will, of course, remember that Dorries changed her mind several times over whether it mattered if witnesses declared themselves to be pro or anti abortion: a brief moment where she argued that the science should be able to stand for itself has been fully eclipsed by the decision to cherry-pick only those who support her position. Her disinterest in personal opinions apparently lasted right up until the moment that certain witnesses were challenged as to their links to conservative religious groups and willingness to testify on issues outside of their expertise.

The title of her blog post announcing this event is "A Fair Debate." For the second time this week, a deeply unpleasant person.

edward leigh: in case you haven't already worked it out, try not to take me seriously

Wow. Edward Leigh may just have jumped the shark, producing a long list of things he doesn't like and declaring that this makes Britain the equivalent of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. In case you missed it, the family, culture, art, literature, religion and philosophy have all been destroyed.

In fact, Leigh may just have become the Tory party's Melanie Phillips, demonstrating an ability to repackage misinformation as fact and jump to hysterical conclusions. A small sample:

And what of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, now passing through the Lords, and due to hit the House of Commons some time next month? This proposes, among other alarming provisions:

- The manufacture of children - so-called ‘saviour siblings’, simply to be used for the production of ‘spare parts’ - i.e. parts of organs.
- The statement on a birth certificate that one half of a lesbian couple is the ‘father’ of a child borne by the other half from donated sperm - the ultimate goal of extreme feminists.

Apart from the reprehensible and alarmist misrepresentation of "saviour siblings" - see past discussion of the bare-faced lies involved the rhetoric of "spare part babies" - there's the fantasy that government policy is being designed to serve a eugenics programme led by radical feminists.

He also quotes Norman "I prefer cancer to women" Wells approvingly, seemingly unaware of Wells' total lack of credibility on the subject of sex education, or indeed anything at all. Perhaps it was Wells who told him about the feminist master-plan.

In short, Leigh is about three blog posts away from outlining a conspiracy masterminded by feminazi cyborg Guardian readers in league with Lenin FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE. It's going to make entertaining reading.

stephen glover: it's outrageous that muslims should actually take our commitment to religious freedom at face value

Though Stephen Glover spends a few hundred words dedicated to making the hatemongering surrounding the Oxford mosque sound reasonable, there's no disguising this:

Yet the Oxford Mosque, even before it is finished, is in danger of abusing the freedom it enjoys. If the call to prayer serves no obvious practical purpose, then it could be reasonably interpreted as a form of assertion, a way reminding the non-Muslim inhabitants of Oxford that there is a mosque in their midst.

Only a Mail columnist could describe the use of a legal procedure - a request for planning permission, open to everyone without discrimination - as an "abuse." Once more, the mere act of asking for permission from the relevant authorities - the very definition of what they are expected and required to do - is framed as outrageous, as an "abuse" of freedom. It's apparently the kind of freedom that has to be enjoyed without anyone actually going to far as to use it.

Remember, the outrage being poured on this particular mosque refers to a decision that hasn't even been made yet - to a formal and moderate request that hasn't even been lodged. The outrage is being poured on the idea of even tentatively raising the suggestion in the first place, and entirely ignores the role in which Oxford council and the local people get to play in considering the proposal. Somehow, due process isn't something that applies to the Muslim community.

The tawdry smears continue:

A Channel 4 programme-last year - attacked by the police but recently vindicated by the official regulator - showed a preacher in the mosque declaring that Christians and Jews are the enemies of Muslims, that gays should be thrown off mountains, and that woman are created "deficient" by Allah.

This would seem to have been exceptional, and there is no reason whatsoever to suppose that the Oxford Mosque falls into the same category. But I would be reassured if it demonstrated its breadth of mind by withdrawing a proposal which is at odds with mainstream Muslim practice throughout most of this country.

So, even though the two cases have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with each other, it's still worth yoking them together - and it's the mosque that has to demonstrate "breadth of mind" by assuaging the fears of Glover. I'm not sure Glover's mind could be broadened without heavy industrial equipment.

edward leigh: we should have blasphemy laws, even if I don't know why

Edward Leigh's latest defence of blasphemy law is that Christians need special protection because artists are afraid of making jokes about Muslims. Granted, it doesn't make much sense but it's the only argument I've been able to detect so far.

Leigh's emphasis on fear of violent response ignores the primary reason jokes about Christianity saturate our culture: as he and many others insist on pointing out, we have a shared Christian heritage, even if fewer and fewer of us choose to go to church. Father Ted, Life of Brian and The Vicar of Dibley were successful because we understood the culture that was being teased; the same is not (yet) true of other faiths.

Leigh's misrepresentations take an unpleasant turn when he frames the issue of the Oxford mosque:

One symptom of what he called ‘attempts…to impose an Islamic character on certain areas’ is the move to broadcast the call to prayer through loudspeakers - in spite of encouraging attempts by some ‘Muslim-majority communities…to reduce noise levels’. There has been a row about this in Oxford recently.

Anyone with rudimentary research and reading skills can quickly discover that the mosque is planning to ask for planning permission when the building is completed in some nine months time: 'imposition' of Islamic character doesn't come into it. They plan to do what any other group in our society is required to do, and will be subject to the same public opportunities for objection.

The search for a rational argument in favour of blasphemy law from Leigh continues.

misinformation packaged to look like fact

Stephen Pollard on the Spectator blog writes:

This looks like an unmissable book:

George Bush planned the September 11 attacks. The MMR injection triggers autism in children. The ancient Greeks stole their ideas from Africa. "Creation science" disproves evolution. Homeopathy can defeat the Aids virus.

Do any of these theories sound familiar? Has someone bored you rigid at a dinner party by unveiling one of these "secrets"? If so, it is hardly surprising. In recent years, thousands of bizarre conjectures have been endorsed by leading publishers, taught in universities, plugged in newspapers, quoted by politicians and circulated in cyberspace.

This is counterknowledge: misinformation packaged to look like fact. We are facing a pandemic of credulous thinking.

Of course - only the ignorant think there's a proven link between autism and MMR, or that creationism has delivered a killer blow to the theory of evolution. People like Melanie Phillips - who also blogs for The Spectator - who wrote a whole series of scaremongering articles on MMR, and recently argued:

Moreover, since science essentially takes us wherever the evidence leads, the findings of more than 50 years of DNA research - which have revealed the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce life - have thrown into doubt the theory that life emerged spontaneously in a random universe.

These findings have given rise to a school of scientists promoting the theory of Intelligent Design, which suggests that some force embodying purpose and foresight lay behind the origin of the universe.

It's hard to think of a better example misinformation packaged to look like fact - as Phillips entirely misrepresented the available evidence to claim credence for one of the most intellectually bankrupt theories of the C20th.

WIll Pollard let her know, or should I?

melanie phillips: the doctors want to steal my organs

When I expressed surprise that no-one from a right-to-life group had framed organ-donation by default as body-snatching, I'd forgotten to check Melanie Phillips who speedily re-writes the entire decision as a.. wait for it.. conspiracy theory:

In addition, what will happen - as inevitably as night follows day —is that people will be put under great pressure not to opt out.

Patients who have done so may well be discriminated against. Chillingly, hospitals are to be rated according to the number of dead patients they ‘convert’ into donors. It is hard to imagine a more sinister incentive for the wholesale abuse of vulnerable patients.

One minute they're hard-working doctors and nurses, the next they're abandoning all principle and stealing your liver. That such people might have morals which stop them from stealing your sweat-breads and blackmailing you out of medical care seems to have escaped Phillips' attention - for her, it is far, far, far more likely that widespread malpractice is inescapable.

This is, by the by, Phillips' second most favourite rhetorical device - describing something that it is possible, and then concluding (without any other logic inbetween) that this also means inevitable, widespread and where possible cataclysmic.

Incidentally, you can also add anesthesiology, anatomy and general surgical practice to the list of things in which Phillips is a world-authority:

Brain stem death is in fact merely a convenient definition that allows surgeons to remove organs from a living body while they are still being nourished by its blood supply.

Such observations provoke outrage in transplant doctors who claim there is no basis for such ‘scaremongering’, which will cause more people to die because potential organ donors will be unreasonably frightened off. But among such doctors, their own behaviour gives the game away.

Some give ‘brain stem dead’ patients a general anaesthetic before removing their organs. But whoever heard of anaesthetising a corpse?

The reason they do it is because of a sharp rise in blood pressure during the organ removal. Some doctors claim they administer the anaesthetic simply because it stops the excessive bleeding caused by this blood pressure rise. But a rise in blood pressure during any surgical procedure is an indication that the body is experiencing physical distress.

Phillips seems blissfully unaware of the vast and unwieldy number of bodily reactions which are entirely involuntary or autonomic - that can take place while you are brain-stem dead. She doesn't understand the rationales involved, therefore it must be proof of conspiracy. It is, as ever, galling to be told that people should be given the "truth" by a woman whose acquiantance with fact is at best arbitrary.

edward leigh: gentle agnosticism is the new communist authoritarianism

Edward Leigh appears to have become the religion correspondent for the Cornerstone Group blog, a cruel blow for a deity already down on his luck:

I heard an Anglican priest say on television recently that what he wanted for 2008 was less religion and more God. It sounded good. Religion is stereotyped by liberals as being unreasonable and standing in the way of a true appreciation of the sublime.

Isn't it fun to have a sentence which is misleading in several different ways at once? First, there's the assumption that all liberals are atheist or agnostic: religious belief only belongs to those on the right, apparently.

Then there's the straw-man argument of the pursuit of the sublime, rolled together with the primary reason that people reject religion: it is arbitrary, based in faith rather than logic - it is, quite literally, unreasonable.

Apparently determined to demonstrate that absence of reason, Leigh continues:

Most people need religion and, above all, religious practice, to bolster their faith. It is the old analogy of the burning coal being taken out of the fire and soon losing its brightness. Left with others, it burns brightly. And the established Christian churches in this country are in decline because they are not prepared to cry out this truth from the rooftops.

I'm relevant, screamed the man in a pointy hat.

Reasoning by analogy should be a early warning for anyone reading punditry, being that logic by analogy is rarely logic at all. Still, having argued that we need religion to sustain faith (without actually making any argument for faith) Leigh decides that:

All this has profound implications, for surely as a whole we in the UK are one of the most secular societies anywhere in history, outside of communist tyrannies.

And this is not an instant atheism imposed on people; it is a gentle agnosticism that has just crept up over the decades, seeping, with the dogged assistance of the liberal establishment, into almost all our institutions except, perhaps, the monarchy and the armed forces.

Leigh drops the phantom of secular dictatorship into his argument, not quite realising that - once more - the blame for the decline in religious observance rests with ordinary people. It's an attempt to ignore the fact that the gentle agnosticism he dislikes is mainly due to people deciding that that they can get along quite nicely without religion - and liberal institutions having no interest in forcing them back to church.

Offering secular alternatives to marriage, for example, is pretty much the opposite of tyrannical behaviour. It's a weird argument - Leigh tries to suggest that letting people live as they see fit somehow resembles communist dictatorship.

To conclude, Leigh decides that a decline in religious observance has led to "increasing consumerism, materialism and unhappiness." He doesn't manage to explain how - presumably it's one of those assertions which is a statement of faith. In fact, it all sounds suspiciously circular - without religion we won't have faith, and without faith we'll have no need for religion. Whoops.

peter hitchens: it is time to remind you, once more, that I am not that bright

A small light has come on in Peter Hitchen's office, reminding him that it's been several weeks since he said something quite stupid. And, so:

[Michael] Portillo is one of those clever-clever sorts who says he's in favour of executing criminals but only if there can be an absolute guarantee that nobody innocent will ever be killed. What an odd view for a former Defence Secretary to take. No army could ever operate under such a rule. No other policy, apart from capital punishment, is subject to this stringent test.

Except, of course, that no-one is asking any army to operate under that rule, not least because entirely different bodies of law apply, one being primarily domestic and the other primarily international. As a passing awareness of recent history shows, rather complicated and specific rules apply to warfare.

Oh, and no policy other than capital punishment demands the strongest, irrefutable evidence of guilt because no other policy is involved in the deliberate, judicial killing of individuals.

So, congrats on the apples-to-oranges style analysis, Hitch. I think the little light can be turned off now.

nadine dorries: I'm really quite unpleasant when you get to know me

Nadine Dorries seems determined to remind everyone that she's a deeply unpleasant person - taking the time to crow over her attack on a female Labour MP back in December.

Dorries had accused the MP (along with 11 others) of corruption - of having been bought by the "abortion industry" - an obviously ludicrous charge which was dismissed out of hand by the parliamentary standards commissioner.

Understandably pissed, the MP confronted Dorries and asked for an apology. Here's Dorries' version of the event:

Minding my own business, I was helping myself to a bowl of haddock soup, when the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, Caroline Flint MP descended upon me.

“Well”, she squealed, in the ‘hand on hip just look at how important I am’ way she has, “are you going to apologise, well, are you?” The squeal became a bark.

“Apologise” said I, genuinely non-plussed, “what for?”

“You were wrong weren’t you, you reported me to the Standards Commissioner and you were wrong, so go on apologise – are you going to apologise?”

I was even more non-plussed, nay, gob smacked, that a Minister who had just walked out of a Committee should behave in such a way.

Her fishwife behaviour was very undignified. She displayed in 10 seconds how un-worthy she was of a Minister’s position; but more than that, she epitomised the very fact that this government hate to be challenged in any way whatsoever…

So, even though Dorries was completely wrong, and smeared Caroline Flint with manifestly false allegations, it's apparently unthinkable that she should apologise. Instead, it's asking for an apology when you've been lied about which somehow makes a person unsuitable for office. Presumably we're now free to say whatever we like about Dorries, regardless of the facts.

And so, a month later, Dorries is still celebrating the fact that she a) pushed lies about a group of MPs in an attempt to smear and b) refused to apologise when her claims were dismissed as false.

What an unpleasant person.

seduction via stilts (updated)

Your excessively stupid story for the day:

When it comes to snaring the perfect man, the solution could be as simple as slipping on a pair of high heels.

"Could be" - as in, this "could be" another article based on some misunderstood research to draw overinflated conclusions which are a) misleading and b) total bollocks.

I'm particularly enjoying how this story isn't being used to argue that men should also wear high heels to attract a mate: presumably seduction via mild-transvestism wasn't the pitch the Mail thought would go down as well with its readers.

UPDATE:

The Telegraph adds to this important body of research to opine that "Kylie Minogue could have the perfect legs." I'm looking forward to the ten-page science pull-out on the issue at the weekend.

such plentiful organs

It's a comfort to see that we have all the bases for hysteria covered, as Iain Dale declares that organ-donation by default is the equivalent of "nationalising" our bodies. He sadly doesn't extend the metaphor to argue that next-of-kin should instead be able to sell the organs of their recently deceased loved-ones on the open market to the highest bidder. Surely, that would honour the rights of everyone involved while protecting the principals of the free market: win, win.

Dale's claim that this proposal abrogates the right to make informed decisions is also misleading: it's rather that the nature of the choice has been changed - that you have to opt out - rather than the right to choose has been taken away from you.

And, to echo Obsolete amongst many others, I really don't think it'll be a pressing issue when I'm dead, as that's the point at which I'll be surrendering all interest or claim to my rights as an individual. If it's an issue that's important to me, I'll make it clear how I feel before that event.

On the basis of existing knowledge and speculation, I'll either be:

a) a corpse, with no detectable pressing concerns or moral values regarding the supposed sanctity of the body.

b) burning in hell for all eternity and therefore slightly too occupied to worry over the final destination of my kidneys, corneas and heart.

Whle the theological equivalent of "it's what's inside that counts" doesn't seem to have registered too heavily in some minds (If you believe in the eternal soul and ascension into heaven, surely it doesn't matter what happens to your body?) the other echoing silence emanates from usually vocal pro-life groups. Maybe it's the complete lack of emotive pictures of foetuses, but I'd have thought this was an issue where pro-life activists would have been on speed-dial.

At the very least, I'd expect a press-release accusing the government of wanting to switch off life-support machines in order to harvest the organs of the helpless, bwa ha ha. (This, incidentally, was the plot of a popular 80's novel by Robin Cook called "Brain." And no, it wasn't that Robin Cook. Ho hum.)

Actually, it's rather more likely that I just haven't found it yet.

extended break?

It's now over a month since Policy Exchange accused the BBC's Newsnight of making "libellous and perverse" allegations which they threatened to pursue "relentlessly, to trial or capitulation." Can all of their lawyers really still be on holiday?

magnus linklater: I disagree with this opinion I've misunderstood

There's a strangeness to the belief that you have to choose between traditional and electronic resources: a professor expresses the concern that a cursory google isn't a replacement for engaged research, and a columnist pops up to condemn her for being old-fashioned. Magnus Linklater goes as far as to suggest Tara Brabazon favours withholding education from the lower classes: it's exactly that puerile.

As you may have suspected, it's time for your traditional helping of irony: Tara Brabazon isn't opposed to wikipedia or google in principal, but concerned that the ease with which information is made available has not been matched with a critical appreciation of different sources. The relevation that what you read online in or in a newspaper can't be taken at face-value (or that a columnist might completely misrepresent someone's views) is probably not news around here. Here's Brabazon, making herself as clear as possible:

With libraries in decline, diminishing stocks of books and fewer librarians, media platforms such as Google made perfect sense. The trick was to learn how to use them properly.

"We need to teach our students the interpretative skills first before we teach them the technological skills. Students must be trained to be dynamic and critical thinkers rather than drifting to the first site returned through Google," she said.

Linklater, sadly, entirely misses this point - about the necessary critical assesment of different kinds of material - and sings the praises of the internet as an unexpurgated "gateway to knowledge unprecedented in the history of man." Prvoding you have power, a computer and an internet connection, of course.

While wikipedia is a wonderful example of self-correcting collective content but - and this is really quite important when you're trying to instil academic values into people - it's not a wholly reliable source. The detail and accuracy of separate entries varies enormously, often on the basis of whether a particular section has attracted regular, informed contributors - and it's not "snobbery" to recognise that.

It is, of course, possible to recognise the problem with the reliability of information (which is far from restricted to the internet) and still think that the internet is a very good thing for education - making the accusation of elitism levelled against Brabazon entirely ridiculous.

"he may be the worst hyperbolist in the history of the world"

Ministers gushing on the subject of the Olympics has become the oversized fish in the tiny barrel of political satire, but Anne Treneman in The Times still shows how it's done:

Mr Purnell is not an obvious athlete: indeed, his girth appears to be expanding as rapidly as his Olympic budget. But no one can say that he is not truly expert in using children as human shields.

"It is one of those events where hyperbole is justified," he said with the excitement of a man reading a phone book. "It will be a once in a lifetime experience. It will bring the country together. It will transform Britain's reputation overseas."

I am sorry to report that there were guffaws at this point. Mr Purnell is simply terrible at hyperbole. Indeed, he may be the worst hyperbolist in the history of the world. Certainly in the history of the Olympics. He must never, ever try it again. He must stick to using children as human shields.

I'm personally holding out for the combined chorus of "it's not the winning but the taking part that counts" when the results (and the final costs) roll in.

the first home of hackery

Not quite coated in excrement, the Mail rolls around in the sewer to print excerpts from the latest fetid book implying that the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered. A sample of the "truth" being offered:

The contents of Foster's note were tantalising. At one point, the man who knew so many of the First Couple's secrets had written: "The public will never believe the innocence of the Clintons and their loyal staff."

It was a comment that can be interpreted to mean that he believed the Clintons were blameless - or that he was worried about some unspecified information that could destroy Bill and Hillary's reputation.

In other words, it's possible that he meant what he wrote - but maybe he actually meant something that I've just made up for which I have no evidence.

these foreigners make me sick: coming over here, respecting our laws and asking for permission

In a genre of a journalism that is best described as "the sand people are coming" for its near-naked hostility to other cultures, here's more on those dirty foreigners coming over here to ask for legal permission to do something:

Sadar Rana, 68, said: "Building work [on the mosque] will take another nine months to a year, it is then that we plan to make an application to the council.

"We want to fix a loudspeak to our minaret to broadcast our call to prayer. We would like to have it three times a day but if that is not accepted, then we would like to have it at least on Fridays.

"We do not need the volume to be loud but we want to have the call in some form because it's our tradition."

Why, these disgusting outsiders and their moderate appeal to local authorities for permission - it makes you sick, etc. etc.

The Mail also quotes an anonymous (and likely non-existent) "resident" who says that these plans will lead to the creation of a "Muslim ghetto," though quite how that would happen in the staggeringly white, Christian Oxford is unclear.

So, that's today's quota of racist hatemongering sorted.

more ZOMG news: mosque in oxford may apply for legal permission to do something legally

The news that a mosque may apply - legally, and with due public notice - for legal permission to do something legally is apparently the sign of the end of the world as we know it. The current position adopted by the Telegraph, Mail and Express seems to be to express disgust at the mere thought of the idea, and wave their figurative hands about.

The news that local residents may rally to protest a local planning decision (as is common practice in our liberal democracy) is not normally national news, mainly because it happens on a daily basis in towns and cities across the country. It seems that the only reason to give this particular story special attention is because "oh noes teh mooslims are comming!!!!"

I'd like to pretend there was a more sophisticated reason for the media excitement, but I can't think of one.

as stupid as the week before

Out on a Monday morning fishing expedition for outrage, the Mail reports that you're not allowed to ask prospective employees about their sexuality , their voting preferences religious beliefs or their trade union membership. It's one of those glorious loop-holes in Mail logic: busy-bodies should keep out of our lives unless they happen to be small right-wing business owners.

Elsewhere in OMG news:

The fashion for long fringes among women is putting lives at risk on the road. Eye - skimming celebrity styles mean some female drivers are just a "hair's breadth" from disaster, a survey found.

I think I speak for everyone when I say "oh noes!!??!!"

This is, as you may have guessed, the latest in the never-ending parade of surveys commissioned by companies that are eagerly reported by the tabloid press as "news." Free advertising, anyone?

edward leigh: I wish jokes about jesus weren't quite so funny

Can someone please tell me what point Edward Leigh is trying to make here?

Yesterday in the House of Commons the Government seemed convinced that the blasphemy laws were unenforced and unenforceable. This may be true; but this very fact encapsulates an 'inconvenient truth'.

So the law's a joke, therefore it shouldn't be revoked? "This may be true but.."? There's no "but" about it. It's a useless law and there's no reason to retain it.

Leigh then tells a rather obvious falsehood, and moves on quickly hoping you won't notice.

For over two hundred years people in this country have freely criticised Christianity. In recent years people have with impunity abused and ridiculed it, even poking fun at Christ.

No. This is just plainly, factually and historically wrong. A Googlish (even Wikipedic) approach to research would reveal the use of blasphemy law to silence critics of Christianity within the last two centuries, without even considering the chilling effect of such law. Here's the charming story of the last person to be jailed for blasphemy in 1921:

The last person in Britain to be sent to prison for blasphemy was John William Gott on 9 December 1921. He had three previous convictions for blasphemy when he was prosecuted for publishing two pamphlets entitled Rib Ticklers, or Questions for Parsons and God and Gott.

In these pamphlets Gott satirised the biblical story of Jesus entering Jerusalem ( Matthew 21:2-7) comparing Jesus to a circus clown. He was sentenced to nine months' hard labour despite suffering from an incurable illness, and died shortly after he was released.

It's also hard not to recall the outcry that met the release Monty Python's Life of Brian, for example, a film banned by several local councils on the basis of complaints from Christian protest groups (and in Harrogate without even seeing the film).

It's only within the last thirty years that the blasphemy law has dropped into almost total disuse, wielded only by self-appointed moral guardians. Prior to that period, people may have been "free" to criticise Christianity but not without facing (sometimes significant) social, economic, legal or political consequences. To a lesser extent, those consequences persist to today - but they don't need a legal bolster.

He continues:

Yet since the Salman Rushdie and Danish cartoons affairs, none in the media dares criticise Islam. Certainly no one insults or pokes fun at the Prophet. I agree that shouldn't be done. It is loutish bad manners. But some commentators think it cool to mock Christianity, and no one bats an eyelid.

Leigh thinks we shouldn't make jokes about gods, but what really annoys him is that people make particularly funny jokes about his god. This, somehow, is an "inconvenient truth," though for whom it's inconvenient is unclear. It's the traditional complaint that Christianity is being singled out that - as is also traditional - fails to articulate what should be done about this perceived unfairness.

Would the complaint evaporate if our culture made an empirically identical number of jokes about Islam? Or is this is an argument that blasphemy law should be extended to cover other faiths? Or is it just petulant whining?

The reason for this self-censorship of commentary on Islam is not always genuine respect and good behaviour, but often fear of being targeted. There is therefore a mismatch in debate about 'faith' on this.

Before the Government abolish the last symbolic - and it is purely symbolic - protection of the Established Christian Church (because the blasphemy laws only protect the Anglican Church), they need to address this problem.

Leigh's "problem" is tremendously unclear. Does Leigh want people to have more respect for Islam, or is he looking for Islamists to be more relaxed about criticism? Either way, it's unclear why that problem has anything to do with the repeal of the blasphemy law. If anything, the special protection offered to one religion over others would act to increase the sense of injustice amongst the slighted faithful.

Above all, Leigh fails to argue why his personal belief that it's "loutish bad manners" to criticise religion should be reflected in government action, or in law. In short, Leigh seems to be supporting the repeal of the blasphemy law providing we don't do anything that would require prosecution under it.

professionally venal bastards

Any MP voting to give him or herself an above inflation pay-rise (from a salary already standing at £60,675, before expenses) will probably want to explain why their self-determined interests come ahead of the police-force, or indeed anyone else working in the public sector.

Of course, one alternative to behaving like venal bastards would be to open up the privilege to set levels of pay to everyone who works in the public sector: I'm sure that act of fairness would work out just splendidly, and not like a six-lane pile-up on bank holiday Monday.

angela epstein: hold me, daddy

Angela Epstein offers a spectacularly weak argument for her own attitudes towards women, presumably in the hope that she'll be seen as some kind of counter-feminist radical. Sadly for Epstein, it's a limp apology for stereotypes. Here's the condensed version of her argument:

As the plane reached cruising speed, the captain's voice crackled across the Tannoy to welcome us aboard and give us details about the flight ahead.  Almost immediately I began to shift nervously in my seat. [...]  What unsettled me was the voice coming over the loud speaker. Our captain was a woman. [...]

I, on the other hand, felt uncomfortable and found it hard to relax for the rest of the flight. All I could think about was this young woman - well, she sounded young - cradling 200 lives in the palm of her hand. [...] Though I applaud female ambition and advancement, when it comes to real power, I feel so much happier if a man holds the reins.

So, is there any particular, rational reason why she feels this way? No, not really. After a few paragraphs interrogating Clinton for being "mannish" and suggesting that only a lesbian would want a woman in a trouser-suit runing the country ("what heterosexual woman wants fake machismo in power?"), Epstein repeats her own opinion as though it were some kind of revelation to gender politics:

And though female midwives help you through labour, when your blood pressure goes into overdrive how wonderful it feels when the male doctor dashes in to sort things out. I wanted the key decisions about my unborn children to be in male hands.

Do I think female doctors are less able? No, but I know who I'd rather have looking after me. [...] Yet when power is absolute - say, keeping 200 passengers suspended in mid-air at 500 miles an hour or carrying out life-changing surgery - I want a man to be in charge.

The closest thing Epstein gets to an actual argument - rather than the extended repetition of her own personal opinion - is this:

My chauvinistic feelings may be sourced in the fact that every girl inherits the princess gene which dictates her desire for a strong male role model to cosset and comfort her.

Ah, the "fact" of the princess gene. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to inherit the gene that lets me detect hackneyed bullshit.

Epstein, obviously, is entitled to her stupid, shallow opinions. It's just unfortunate for her that she ends up making the chauvinism she's defending sound so entirely ridiculous.

odd couple

It's delightful to see that Nadine Dorries has decided to throw her support behind Rudy Giuliani, the three times married pro-abortion and pro-gay rights Catholic who announced his separation from his second wife at a press conference (the press conference was how his wife found out). It's an almost perfect match.

the OMG!!??!! school of election journalism (updated)

As the Times and Telegraph lead with news of Hilary Clinton's "remarkable," "astonishing" come-back in the polls in New Hampshire, it helps to remember that Clinton has an incredibly well-funded and well-organised campaign machine, and large-scale, multi-million dollar campaigns don't fold after a single disappointing primary. That's far from incisive political insight, but it still seems to have escape quite a few political journalists this morning.

The speed with which Clinton's fortunes were dismissed seems to be a product of the rush to create narrative, even though that narrative has little basis in reality. As the US correspondent for The Times, Gerard Baker, points out, the New Hampshire result has differed from Iowa on multiple occasions: 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992 and 2000. In fact, that history might even have prepared you to expect an Obama defeat - or at the very least that people in different state parties sometimes vote differently.

So, it's horse-race journalism that seems to view each poll with slack-jawed revelatory amazement. On the Republican side, McCain was down and out only a few months ago but is now once more the favourite (possibly primarily due to the vast and unwieldy awfulness of the alternatives) with the Iowa winner, Huckabee, dropping into third place with little or none of the open-mouthed amazement reserved for Clinton and Obama's changing fortunes.

In other words, welcom to the short-term memory of the election season, as narratives are discarded as quickly as they are invented: we can look forward to an entire year of journalism which expresses shock and amazement at opinions formed five minutes earlier. What joy.

UPDATE

Forgot to quote this moment of depressing honesty from Baker's column:

Everybody - pundits, strategists, journalists and campaigns - got this race completely wrong. I can't speak for pollsters and consultants but I can say a bit about the problem with journalists. We (me included) acted like a herd of stampeding ignoramuses, buying into the prevailing (lack of) wisdom. We should all exercise a good deal of humility about that. But of course we won't. We shall boldly segue neatly from one set of post-hoc certainties to another.

*sigh*

scientists trigger destruction of society, part one billion

Tom Utley, king of rambling speculation:

I love my sat nav but a machine that lets the mother-in-law read my mind? That IS terrifying

The story that changed me from an awestruck technophile into a gibbering technophobe was the report in yesterday's paper about the latest advance in the study of the human brain.

Apparently, American researchers have developed a sophisticated form of MRI scanner which can actually read people's thoughts.

No, they can't.

 All right, they haven't got very far yet. But they hadn't got very far with sat nav before the mid-1970s - and look where we are today.

As I understand it, the Pittsburgh scientists asked their human guinea pigs to look at ten drawings of tools and buildings, telling them to think very hard about one of them. Then, using their scanner and a computer, they worked out, with 97 per cent accuracy, exactly which picture their subject had in mind.

The important thing is they've established the principle that thoughts produce physiological changes in the brain (or is it the other way round?) which can be registered and accurately interpreted by a machine. As Dr Svetlana Shinkareva said: "We hope to progress to identifying the thoughts associated not just with pictures, but also with words and eventually sentences."

Now, a great many scientific advances over the past few decades have struck me as slightly disturbing. I'm thinking particularly of IVF and cloning, which have thrown up moral issues that make my own poor, befuddled brain hurt.

But this latest development in Pittsburgh is downright frightening. How long now before scientists develop and mass-produce a scanner, no bigger than a cigarette packet, which will be able to read out the thoughts of every one of us, in the voice and accent of its owner's choosing?

And how long before Tom Utley is a cyborg dragon with lizards for eyes, shooting venom flames at gypsies and biting clean through his pipe? When will these scientists learn??!!??

Not only would that mean the end of all hope of the privacy upon which human freedom depends. It would also bring about the total destruction of our society.

Et voila. Methinks Tom Utley may be giving Melanie Phillips a run for her money is his ability to a) mispresent or totally misundertand some science and then b) conclude that the only natural extension of that development is teh apocalypses oh noes.

fun with statues (or, "the risen lord")

Let's ease back after the xmas break with some erotic religious statuary in the pages of the Daily Mail :

A gallery has offended the church by exhibiting a statue of Jesus with an erection.

Well, he was supposed to be god made flesh - and there's no reason to believe he was missing bits. The standard arguments apply:

Dad-of-two John Monaghan, 33, of Heaton, Newcastle, said: "I feel this sculpture is overstepping the mark with regards to respect.

"If other religious characters were portrayed in this way, Mohammed for example, there would be riots. It should be withdrawn immediately."

It's hard to know where to go with this one. It's not an argument about offence - but rather about being singled out, a specific intolerance of Christian faith? Or maybe the statue is specifically offensive because it's not partnered by one depicting Mohammad with an erection? Or maybe even that the statue wouldn't be offensive at all if it was presented in an all deities of all nations display of priapism. Picture it, you know you can't stop yourself.

The rejoinder is that thinly veiled dismay that Christians haven't surrounded the gallery and burnt the offending work to a crisp - as if the tolerance shown in this country to controversial works of art is somehow regrettable. Yes, it's the zen ability to both criticise other countries for outrageous religious extremism and wish we had a little more of that kind of zealous censorship in our own. From the comments section on the story:

Disgraceful, shocking, and very offensive. Will any Christians write in to say they don't find this statue offensive? I think not. How can this be allowed to be displayed?

Its obviously now time for Christians to stand against those who denigrate the images of their religion. This exhibit should be withdrawn and destroyed at once.

It is time to impose some standards of decency. This is an outrage and blasphemous. This artist would remain anonymous had it not been for this pathetic piece of publicity seeking.

Is it not illegal to cause offence like this?

The understanding that this is allowed because we live in a liberal democracy seems to have scraped past the Mail's commenters. The fun thing here is that the supposed crime of "offence" is supposed to be lefty-liberal product of political correctness - except, it seems, when certain people who read the Mail decide they want to destroy some art. This is my favourite quality of the Daily Mail mentality - abhorring jobsworths who interfere in our lives while simultaneously demanding that someone must do something about this thing they don't like.

Finally, given that the artist has a reputation for working with pornographic imagery (and this statue isn't even a new work) the only reason to print the story is to get the good, obedient readership of the Mail knee-jerking and foaming at the mouth in a kind of right-wing pilates manouevre. It's really very naughty of the Mail to behave that way: it's almost as though they profit by repeatedly triggering that kind of Pavlovian reaction. Hmm..