It's My Baby (& I'll Smoke If I Want To)

I love abusing song lyrics... That one was originally "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" and popularised in 1981 by Dave Stuart and Barbara Gaskin's number 1 cover.

Anyhoo...

Anyone who reads this blog regularly (or knows me personally) will tell you that I'm very, very, pro-choice (pro-abortion if you want to be inflammatory). It's not that I think we should use abortion as a primary means of contraception, but I strongly believe in a woman's right to make informed choices without legislation saying otherwise.

So what I'm about to say may now surprise you: foetuses deserve better than smoking mothers.

In the west, smoking is a personal choice as is pregnancy for the most part. We hear of "accidents" all the time but in reality you can, for the most part, replace accident with hubris, carelessness or downright bloody-mindedness.

A new survey reported at the BBC suggests that one quarter of pregnant smokers fear telling their GP, health visitor or midwife about their habit because of (I love this) "worries about being criticised."

Naw! You don't say! (Apparently, over 50% of those questioned in a separate poll were of the same view.)

Dr. Miriam Stoppard (please tell me this was quoted out of context) says on the site:

"Pregnant women who smoke do not automatically find it easy to stop smoking as soon as they become pregnant."

No shit Sherlock! My question is what the fuck are they doing trying to conceive while the are still addicted to weed?

I've always felt something ambivalent over the smoking ban. On the one hand if people chose to slowly kill themselves, that's fine by me; on the other, I do like to go into a pub and not be assaulted by the odoriferous wafting of stale tobacco smoke.

An unborn child has no such choice.

Every single atom of oxygen it uses while attached to its mother's placenta has to come via the mother's lungs. It's blood is fed oxygen and nutrients from it's mother's bloodstream and (because we didn't evolve to smoke) many toxic chemicals can cross the placental barrier: CO and nicotine being just two of them.

As as pure drug, nicotine is thought to be more addictive than Heroin (tell that to your local crack-whore) and CO - that's the stuff in car exhausts that people use to commit suicide. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how much this effects the development of a tiny embyo.

Child abuse is a very emotive issue - yet every day, mums-to-be the world over are abusing their unborn children with a vast array of poisons entirely legally; just for the sake of a cigarette.

And then they have the bare-faced cheek to worry what we think about them!

By Golly! More PC BS @ BBC

Does anyone mind if I call myself a "cracker bastard?" Would I mind if Chris Rock, that excruciatingly awful comedian and sometime ham actor called me one?

Answer to both questions is no (at least it should be).

Rock isn't to everyone's taste - that's the nature of comedy - yet when he refers to white folk in his performances as "crackers" (a clear racist pejorative) no one seems to bat an eyelid.

That's OK even though it's a double-standard because in reality it's not the word that should be censored but the malice hiding behind it; a word is just a word whereas underlying sentiment is something else entirely.

Thanks to a culture of PC ignorance that seems intent on examining the minutiae of everything we say, think and do, the BBC has in a high-profile move, removed Carol Thatcher from a prime-time show for an apparently off-the-cuff reference made off-air in a private conversation.

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

It's entirely proper that Johnathon Ross was suspended over the Andrew Sachs affair [Sachsgate] (which was also blown completely out of proportion) but to effectively sack a contributor for a private comment smells worse than one of Stinky's* farts after a particularly juicy plate of over boiled sprouts.

The story goes [and there's been no official announcement as such] that Ms. Thatcher (daughter of the erstwhile British PM, Margaret, referred to an Australian tennis player as a "Golliwog" in jest.

She has (rightly in my view) refused to apologise.

I'm actually old enough to have not only owned a "golly" but to fondly remember the mascot adorning jars of marmalade in my mother's pantry (example above). As children we used to cut out and collect them - it was an early loyalty scheme!

Adrian Chiles, presenter of The One Show is reported to be one of those offended by the remark but he's not actually a lot younger than me. Perhaps his mother didn't buy Robertsons' jams?

Although Robertsons has long since caved into PC pressure to drop Golly, the fond memories we baby boomers have remain and I for one never confused the cheerful characture with anyone real.

It's almost as if some people take it upon themselves to be offended by proxy.

Taking offence? Here, have the fucking railings and gate too while you're at it.

UPDATE:

BBC News now reports a counterstrike from Thatcher's camp - Ms. Thatcher's agent, Ali Gunn said on TalkSport that it "was absolutely outrageous" that her client's conversation had been leaked to the public and that, "They should be issuing us with an apology."

Too fucking right.

*Stinky is what my kids call "Atlas" my Great Dane - the poor old chap is getting rather late in life and has terrible flatulence which the vet tells me is entirely normal for one of his advancing years and harmless. Presumably, he also lacks a sense of smell.

This Is My Body....

Bleat and howl all you want, but overturning Roe v. Wade comes at a high price.


What's your choice?

PI and The Baby Cudgel

CAUTION:

THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING IMAGES OF A DECEASED INFANT WITH PATAU'S SYNDROME.

Gary Graham, best known for his portrayal of a Vulcan in TV's Star Trek, is a man with a pricked conscience. Like an ex-smoker or someone who's suddenly got God, Mr Graham has suddenly decided that the most cathartic recovery from his past is to tell anyone who'll listen - loudly. Writing in a blog, he opines:

"No. I’m going to say it. I’m going to say what millions know in the front of their brains, and many, many more millions know in the depths of their hearts…but won’t allow themselves to think it, much less feel it. And believe me, I know I’ll be hated for saying it, I’ll be hated by people who don’t know me, have never worked with me, have never golfed with me, had a drink with me, shot the shit with me. They’ve never met me, don’t want to meet me…but they will hate me. I’m going to say it anyway: Abortion is murder."

I don't hate you Gary, I just think you're nerve-jarringly stupid and more than a little guilty of youthful hubris having paid for THREE abortions. Gary goes on:

"I have been on all sides of this issue for most of my life, and I can simply not escape the logic. That fetus a pregnant woman is carrying inside of her, regardless of the gestation stage, is a living, breathing human being. Yes, breathing – the amniotic sac forms 12 days after conception, and in the second trimester the baby is actually breathing the amniotic fluid. It’s not an ‘unviable tissue mass.’ Not a wart, a mole, a skin outcropping, a boil, or a bundle of uncoordinated cells. It’s not just a ‘fetus’."

Yes Gary, a foetus: not a baby. At 12 weeks (the end of the first trimester) the baby is no more capable of living outside the mother's uterus than (with apologies to Douglas Adams) a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster can survive being being bludgeoned by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick. It's not viable and therefore, not a fucking baby so stop using the word like a cudgel - it's a red herring. Get over it.

What you call a baby, more correctly a zygote, embryo or foetus depending on the stage of development does not once breath until it leaves the amniotic fluid. Certainly, it inhales - and even swallows - large amounts of the stuff, but its lungs do not exchange oxygen and CO2: that's breathing.

If abortion is murder (as you say) then you are also admitting to being accessory to that - on three occasions by your own admission. You may now go to jail, do not pass go and do not collect $200.

The truth sometimes hurts. You used your good looks to bed at least three girls, failed to take even basic precautions and then left them to suffer. I could almost understand one mistake - but three! Fuck me - don't ask for my forgiveness or understanding because you won't get it.

By like the argument over evolution, a personal favourite of mine, it's not really that simple.

Pro-choice advocates want every pregnancy to reach a natural conclusion - and if every pregnancy was healthy then maybe they have a point, but this isn't that simple.

Let's put aside the proactive birth control that you paid for (I guess rubbers were really expensive in your day) and consider just a couple of examples.

What about an ectopic pregnancy? Should we let that mature until the foetus gets so large that the mother's fallopian tube ruptures and she bleeds internally to death in agony?

What about Patau syndrome? Look at this!
Should we allow this pregnancy to continue until what you call a baby spontaneously aborts - or lives for a few hours and days in agony? That's a baby Gary! "A" is his "face" and "B" is a closeup on his eyes - if they can be called that.

A 37 2/7 week gestational age male infant with Patau syndrome demonstrating alobar holoprosencephaly with cyclopia. A) Facial features included sloping forehead with a proboscis superior to a single central palpebral fissure. B) Close-up of the fused eyelids and proboscis showing a single nostril. C) Polydactyly showing six digits. D) Posterior view of the brain showing indistinct gyri, fusion of the hemispheres, and occipital encephalocele.E) Transposition of the aorta (A), and hypoplastic pulmonary trunk (P). F) Trisomy 13 [47, XY, +13] (karyotype by Giemsa-banding).

Chan et al. Diagnostic Pathology 2007 2:48 doi:10.1186/1746-1596-2-48

That's the choice - because like PI, it's not that simple.

UPDATE:

Therese in the comments has chided me (as is her absolute right) for pulling a particularly nasty example of Patau's and I agree with her that no woman should be forced to terminate any pregnancy. (Google for some more images if you can stomach them.)

Her own child is one of the rare survivors - and that's great. But Trisomy 13 is not just identifiable by blood-screening it can be visualised better than ever before on advanced ultrasound.

Yet I this isn't about Trisomy 13 - it's about choice; informed choice.

I am sick of being battered about the head by these lame "abortion is murder" arguments which rely on deeply held emotion and are invariably driven by religious belief. This unfortunate is the other side of that coin - if this poor creature had been terminated, would that have been better for mother and child alike?

Could you decide? Should you?

We should never, ever legislate the choice away: no matter how hard a choice it is, it's not ours to make.

Down On Your Knees!

Am I described as an atheist marketing consultant? No - so why is it the BBC has taken to describing a biscuit-munching nurse as a Christian in the story leader, here.

The 45 year old - who got God early on - has been suspended without pay since mid-December pending an investigations since she offered to pray for a elderly coffin-dodger.

She told the BBC, "I saw my patients suffering and as I believe in the power of prayer, I began asking them if they wanted me to pray for them. They are absolutely delighted."

Or perhaps they're just polite, dear.

The problem with prayer is it doesn't work when subjected to scientific investigation, but Mrs Petrie is entitled to her belief no matter what.

Worse still she's gone to that den of religious rabble-rousing, the Christian Legal Centre (CLC) which is probably why this has made it onto the BBC and even the bastion of inaccuracy, The Daily Mail.

Why do we need a Christian Legal Centre? Don't Christians have the same rights as everyone else?

Not surprisingly, despite the naval-gazing and hand-wringing from interested parties - yes they do - and (remember, I am a seriously angry atheist) even I can't understand the trust's decision to suspend this woman for offering a prayer. Provided that's all she did and then let it drop, then there's really no substance here.

UPDATE:

The Mail, which carries this story on the front page of its print edition has a little more depth adding that Mrs Petrie was already under caution for this behaviour.

Alison Withers, Mrs Petrie's boss at the time, wrote to her at the end of November saying: 'As a nurse you are required to uphold the reputation of your profession. Your NMC (Nursing Midwifery Council) code states that "you must demonstrate a personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity" and "you must not use your professional status to promote causes that are not related to health".

Now that does tend to shed a rather different light on it and I'm actually surprised at the Mail for balancing this up - albeit almost as an aside in a fairly long lead article. The Mail also notes:

Paul Diamond, a leading religious rights barrister, has been instructed to handle the case. Mr Diamond represented Miss Eweida and last year appeared for Relate counsellor Gary McFarlane, of Bristol, who was sacked for refusing to give sex counselling to homosexuals.

Yes, the awful Miss Ewedia who refused to follow the rules clearly set out by her employer but got her own way by petulantly claiming discrimination. The CLC got shafted back in December as my friend at Mediawatchwatch gleefully describes here in brilliant detail.

Melanie Phillips also writing in the Mail has this to say:

"I am a Jew; but when my mother was in the last stages of her terminal illness she was cared for by deeply devout Christian nurses who regularly prayed for her. Far from being offended by this, I was touched and comforted by this signal that they cared so much about her."

Which I found rather interesting - Ms. Philips doesn't note that Christians and Jews share the same god: where they differ around the "birth" Jesus who they don't recognise as a saviour or living God. I think they're all fucked in the head, personally, but that doesn't matter.

It's the interpretation that counts: I would have been surprised if Ms. Phillips had not taken some comfort that the people caring for her mother shared her belief in sky fairies. When my mother passed away recently after a long illness, the local bible-toting god botherers were at my father's door within hours. Luckily for them I wasn't there at the time.

Yes, prayer is harmless: in fact it does more for the person doing the praying than the person being prayed for. Mrs Petrie crossed the line when she raised the subject - because that's when she started marketing her idea. OK, it's the mildest form of prostelysing but it's prostelysing nevertheless.

Should she be sacked though?

No.

But not because what she did was right - because it's already way out of hand and a PR nightmare that interested parties such as the CLC can't lose and the poor NHS can't win. Call me a cynic by all means, but why do you think this made it to the papers so late the day?

Anyway, Mrs Petrie's a Baptist so perhaps this will all come out in the wash: take a deep breath now dear.

Give A Dog A Bad Name

There's a (slightly tongue-in-cheek) theory called nominative determinacy that suggests at least some people's names are connected with their jobs: so Mr Baker may own a cake shop, Mr Pope studies biblical writings, Mr Payne is a dentist and so on. Historically, things were the other way around because until comparatively recent times, people didn't have surnames at all: largely because we just didn't need them in the tiny, disparate settlements that we inhabited. Even if two people in the same village shared the same Christian name, say, "Joe" they could be easily identified by their occupation (even the village idiot).

Many of these survive today - a Cooper for example, made barrels; a Smith would have worked in a forge; a Baker would be the village's, er, baker, etc.

But what of Christian names? It's a popular myth that native Americans name their children after the first thing the mother saw after giving birth - flying bird, hunting bear, two dogs shagging... but a more cogent explanation is that the tribal elder is actually the one to determine name. He will see a name in a vision or dream or perhaps from some specific feature special to the person or family.

So can your Christian name influence how you're likely to behave in future?

Researchers David E. Kalist and Daniel Y. Lee of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania think they have found a link, reported here. According to the limited report, boys with unpopular names such as Ernest and Ivan are more likely to engage in crime than are children with David or Michael.

On the surface this appears to be statistical confusion where the correlation (the match) is confused with the causation (the cause of the observed effect). Such confusion crops up all the time in statistics and it's often difficult to assess. This sort of statistical cluster is often cited to "prove" that power lines and mobile phone masts cause cancer; particularly in tabloid newspapers.

A deeper look at the results suggests that there may well be some causative link although it's as much to do with social class as it is with the name per se. Nontheless the authors also suggest that children with unusual names find it difficult to become accepted among their peers.

The knee-jerk reaction to this study is predictable: early comments on the story call it BS and demand to know what the statistical relevance and margins of error are. Yet in reality, we can see that there's a definite connection - analysing the figures just confirms what we already suspect.

Many names are common to social and ethnic groups. You won't meet many white boys called Leroy or Mohammed for instance; and girls with names such as Eugene or Beatrice are not likely to be standing on street corners plying their trade.

Crime - particularly juvenile delinquency - tends to run in certain social groups; and while it's not exclusive to them, it's certainly more prevalent there. Certain groups of Christian names are also common in specific societal groups - this is natural because, on the whole parents, even poor ones, want their children to fit in.

Therefore we have a direct link - the correlation. It's not the name - but the social group that uses that name.

Henceforth, I'm going to call myself Charles Nigel Draco in the hope that I can enter a better social class. Or not.

Life For Reilly

This is a bit of a non-story really, but I rather thought the headline was amusing so I ran with it - it's a play on the expression "the life of Riley" meaning having it easy - bit like a modern-day politician or Life Peer, perhaps...

Anyhoo.

Nicky Reilly is a 22-year old Islamic convert who tried to blow up Exeter's Giraffe Restaurant in May 2008. Calling himself "Mohammad Rashid Saeed Alim", Reilly failed in his attempt to hurt anyone when he accidentally detonated the explosive device he was preparing in the toilets. He was swiftly arrested as he staggered, injured and bloodied outside.

In sentencing Reilly to life (with a minimum tariff of 18 years) Justice David Calvert-Smith said that "The offense of attempted murder is aggravated by the fact that it was long-planned, that it had multiple intended victims and was intended to terrorise the population of this country."

Reilly's lawyer described him as, "the least cunning person ever to have come before this court for this type of offense," and while Justice Calvert-Smith accepted this, he observed that, "Unfortunately those who attempt to commit suicide and in doing so murder other people are almost invariably unsophisticated in many aspects."

What is most interesting about this case is the way that the media are alluding to Reilly's apparent affliction with Asperger's syndrome - a low-level form of autism suffered by many. Although Asperger's sufferer's are socially awkward they are no more likely (and perhaps even less so) to harm another human being than any "normal" person.

Life is like a box of chocolates and Reilly has a long time to ponder on his actions although I have to wonder if a secure psychiatric unit would be a better place for this poor misfit - like Tony Blair before him, he was a puppet controlled by an outside force determined to fuck things up their personal gain.

BBC Editor: It's My Way or The Highway

Rather like a few politicians I could mention, Radio 4 controller, Mark Damazer obviously forgets who pays his wages.

Towards the back end of 2008 Gavin Orland set up a pledge on Pledgebank to have Thought For The Day either removed or revised to include non-religious speakers such as A.C. Grayling (who correctly describes TFTD as a homily). Those who contacted the BBC (over 1,500 if PB is to be believed) received a nonchalant and thoughtless automated "fuck you" from Damazer, which goes like this:

Thank you for your email.

I regard this as a genuinely difficult question. There may be a case for widening the pool of contributors on Thought for The Day by having someone with an avowedly non-religious perspective. However on balance the BBC's position is that it is reasonable to sustain the slot with believers. Let me now set out the reasoning.

Thought for the Day is a unique slot in which speakers from a wide range of religious faiths reflect on an issue of the day from their faith perspective. In the midst of the three hour Today programme devoted to overwhelmingly secular concerns - national and international news and features, searching interviews etc - the slot offers a brief, uninterrupted interlude of spiritual reflection. We believe that broadening the brief would detract from the distinctiveness of the slot.

Within Thought for the Day a careful balance is maintained of voices from different Christian denominations and other religions with significant membership in the UK. We are broadcasting to the general Radio 4 audience which regularly engages with the comments and ideas expressed by our contributors from the world's major faiths - whether they are believers or not.

Outside Thought for the Day the BBC's religious output contains both religious and non-religious voices in programmes such as Sunday, Beyond Belief, Moral Maze. In these programmes atheists, humanists and secularists are regularly heard, the religious world is scrutinised, its leaders and proponents are questioned, and the harm done in the name of religion is explored.

Non-religious voices are also heard extensively across the general output in news, current affairs, documentaries, talks, science, history. These programmes approach the world from perspectives which are not religious. As, of course, do the other 2 hours 57 minutes of Today.

Yours sincerely

Mark Damazer
Controller, Radio 4

OK. So this clearly isn't good enough for those of us (probably a majority) think that TFTD is exclusive and pointless - especially when it's broadcast at peak time in the station's flagship news programme! Many of those people offended by this response wrote back in stronger words:

Sir,

why is it I just feel as if I've been gently patted on the head and told to return to my seat?

I AM NOT A SMALL CHILD.

Besides being a published author, I am also researching a book into this sort of platitudinous stock response from broadcasters.

My original email already addresses the note attached and I now require this complaint is escalated to the next person in charge - beyond Mr Damazer since he is obviously incapable of making a cogent argument without resorting to the supernatural.

I will, in time, escalate this to the BBC Trust and my MP if necessary - as a fee-paying licence holder I expect to be treat with more respect than this.
Predictably perhaps, the response came back within a couple of days:
Dear Marc Draco,

Thank you for your further email reply.

As I intimated this is a genuinely difficult issue, but I don't think I can add anything of real substance to my original email. If you would like to pursue this further, it is open to you to write to the BBC Trust at 35 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4AA. Full details of the complaints and appeals process are on the BBC Trust website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/appeals/index.html

Yours sincerely,

Mark Damazer
Controller, Radio 4 

So, stock answer #2 - not as obvious this time (the other one appeared on the Radio 4 iPM website) but fairly obvious as it includes my full name and a gentle push to fuck off and complain to the trust. Damazer knows full-well the trust has no power to press for changes in editorial policy so this is a dead end.

Or is it?

Gavin Orland has had enough, writing to the signatories of the original pledge, he says:

"Ultimately, we were “stonewalled” by Mr Damazer and the religious department. He did not engage with any of the arguments put to him. It is obvious the religious dept. wield disproportionate influence in this – but it remains a mystery to me as to why.

"Some have said the trouble here is this is just not public enough. The BBC are in trouble over all sorts of other issues, but this one seems so far to have slipped under the radar, despite all our action.

"I personally am not listening to The Today Programme any more. I find the BBC generally too religious and too politically correct and am so fed up of TFTD specifically, and by the way we have been ignored, that I just don’t feel like it any more. I also, of course, have my own life and work to get on with."

More news when I hear back from the BBC Trust because I won't let this arrogance drop without a fight.

The Water's Deep. Row or Wade? It's All About Choice!

Row versus Wade? Geddit? No... Don't worry, you will.

Roe v Wade is a landmark US supreme court ruling which effectively afforded women the right to choose what goes on in their own bodies. The idea essentially is that a foetus has a right to life only after such time that it becomes viable - that is, when it can live outside of the mother's body: even if that means using artificial means.

Roe v Wade effectively gave US women the right to a medical termination across the entire country. This was particularly offensive and shocking in a country which puts such a religious right on life.

President Obama has already quashed Dubya's idiotic sanctions against supporting organisations outside the US but in response a group of right-wing senators have re-introduced the Life at Conception Act which will, if passed, overturn Roe v Wade and outlaw abortion by giving even a zygote equal rights as a person under the 14th amendment.

This is obviously idiotic but it's driven by religious conviction - not careful measured thought. The 14th amendment, ratified in 1868, was originally written to protect former slaves and effectively empower them with the same rights and responsibilities as the "white folk".

Laws are funny things and if their authors are not extraordinarily careful they can be widely abused, as example, consider this quote from Republican Senator, David Vitter

“As science continues to advance, the evidence that life begin at conception is becoming more and more irrefutable. This bill is critical to the fight to protect the culture of life, especially as we face an administration and new Congress that seems determined to advance the agenda of a practice that a great number of Americans find abhorrent.”

Even in the first sentence, the mind-buggering veil of ignorance & simplicity that these people operate under becomes horribly clear. Life (by this definition) has always begun at conception and we've known that for a hell of a long time.

However, how are we to define life?

The turning point in Roe v Wade was when the court accepted that life (as most of us understand it) begins when the foetus becomes capable of supporting its own life (even with medical intervention): and this in itself may prove critical.

That aside, the second part of Senator Vitter's statement demonstrates that he fails to understand the right to choose! Choice (not necessarily over pregnancy) isn't specifically written in to the US Constitution, but it is implied in the right of freedom (also implied in the 9th amendment).

No. This is about the religious right's wish to lord it over everyone else.

Choice - as we have it now and as Americans have had since Roe v Wade allows each person to chose based on their circumstance and personal belief. If it were overturned, the religious right would have removed the ability of clear thinking people to decide what goes on inside their own bodies; a dangerous precedent indeed.

As an extreme example, if a child with precocious puberty becomes pregnant the Republican idea would require she carried it to term and gave birth; by any means. Yet for a child of 5 or 6 years that is neither possible or practical. While rare, it happens. Similarly, who are they to decide - for others of conscience - that a woman should sacrifice her life for the sake of a foetus that has no hope of survival?

One law does not fit everyone and here's what a supporter of this bill has to say in a comment appearing PanHandleParade.com pasted as it appears replete with all the errors - judge for yourself:

"i totally agree. if anyone becomes pregnant, there is a reason. that is a life in there. if it is there, then God thought of that being. MADE THEM UP! why would He make a person without any intent for their life? He wouldnt.Everything has a purpose in Him, and just because you arent ready to have this child, God wants it here. So deal with it. =]"

We lay it all at your door, of course!

Myself, I'm going to "Roe, roe, roe me boat, gently down the stream."

You Paid HOW Much?

£37,071 is the going rate for a missing child website these days, according to accounts published in the Daily Mail.

The Mail isn't a paper you can usually rely on for unbiased facts, but since this amount has been carefully extracted from the Find Madeline fund's published accounts we can probably take it at face value.

£37,000 for a goddamn poster site! What are these people coding on, Crays? No wait, they're PAYING the Krays - because that's fucking daylight robbery.

It also pissed away spent a staggering £111,522 on legal expenses not connected with the McCann's defence; £36,000 on professional fees;
over £13,000 distributing merchandise and nearly £27,000 producing it; it goes on.

The largest single expense was the £250,000 wasted on the portugese detective agency which claimed it would find the missing child (yeah, let's not forget this is about a missing child) in three months.

£250,000 spent - result: fuck all! I hope these arseholes are proud of themselves - if I buy a toaster and it doesn't work, the shop gives me my money back, but it seems if I make an outrageous claim that I can do what the police have failed to - I get to keep the money when I fail to produce a result.

What a farce. This is why, like all good parents, I keep my children close to me or have a responsible person in charge of them when I cannot.

Madeline and her siblings deserve non of this, her parents however brought it on themselves.

Ah! The Sweet Sound of Spin!

Dakota Voice is running this story today, basically an updated version of an older anti-abortion argument. There's a beautiful irony here considering I found this on a Republican pro-life lobby and as ever it's loaded in favour of the pro-life argument.

When you think about abortion, think of something. Imagine a child…

This child’s future is a broken home…

He will be abandoned by his father…

His single mother will struggle to raise him…

Despite the hardships, he will endure…

This child will become the first African American president.

Life: Imagine the potential.

That's the thing about choice, President Barack Obama's mother didn't choose to terminate that pregnancy and if she had, history would be different.

What pro-lifers never get is that this is about choice - one option cannot fit everyone. For some women, abortion will be the wrong choice, for others, it will be the right one. We cannot judge what any foetus will become because we don't know how life will influence them; for every black president or musical prodigy, there will be many others which life leaves by the wayside.

We can know with a reasonable degree of certainty the outcome of many genetic diseases, however. We know the pain and suffering that some children will have to endure as they lose a desperate battle for life in the hours and days after they are born - sure to die.

Many others will have deprived lives, may die of starvation or suffer from malnutrition or disease. Still more will become petty criminals, living life on the fringes of society and spending much of their lives in an out of prison.

UPDATE:

Rowan Pelling's moving account (in the generally awful Daily Mail and right-wing) is an inspiration to those faced with the dilemma of termination. Of her first pregnancy, a child suffering with Patau syndrome, Pelling writes:

"I recognise that it can seem near impossible that anyone could terminate a foetus at this late stage, when its claims to existence appear so tangible. But I am certain that if my first baby had not been diagnosed with Patau syndrome until the 20-week scan I would have still made the decision to terminate the pregnancy.

"This knowledge, which will be abhorrent to some, has brought home to me the fact that other people’s agonies, situations and choices are often impossible to imagine from any distance. Can I really understand, say, the dilemma faced by a pregnant woman who endures brutish social deprivation and domestic violence?"

This is the choice (and a future we can't predict) that pro-lifers want to take away.

Look at this picture and tell me your loving God made this I dare you.

Stephen Green Can't Have His Own Way.

Bwaahhhhhaaaahhaahhhha!

Stephen Green is pissed off - as this release from a couple of days back demonstrates. More on this later, in the meantime here is the complete and unexpurgated release!

The Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that the humanists behind the newly-launched bus advertisement which claims there is 'probably no God' can't substantiate their claims.

The ad, the brainchild of comedy writer Ariane Sherine, says: 'There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life'.

But Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, and 325 others, complained to the Advertising Standards Authority. Many complaints said the ads were offensive. Stephen Green and others said the advertisements broke the ASA's codes on substantiation and truthfulness.

The ASA website says: 'Advertisements are not allowed to mislead consumers. This means that advertisers must hold evidence to prove the claims they make about their products or services before an ad appears.'

But in a ruling today, the ASA says the claim that there is probably no God is 'not capable of objective substantiation'. It says further that the complaints were not 'serious' or 'widespread' enough.

Stephen Green said today:

'If the ASA had thought the humanists could provide evidence for their claim, they would have asked them for it. As they know there is no evidence for the proposition that 'there is probably no God', they have let their secularist friends off the hook. 'I debated this issue secularists five times in recent days, and despite repeated challenges, they could not once come up with anything to back up their claim that there is 'probably no God'.

'The ASA have finessed Code 7.1, which says a ad should not mislead or be likely to mislead, ruling it would not be likely to mislead, so avoiding the thornier question of whether it actually does mislead. Which it does.

'On 'taste and decency', the ASA have simply taken a subjective decision to dismiss the complaints of offensiveness. On planet ASA, complaints from people of faith are not given the same weight as those from secularists. But what do you expect when the ASA Council is appointed and run by a campaigning homosexual, Chris, Lord, Smith of Finsbury?'

Last year the ASA ruled against Sandown Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster when the church published an advertisement 'The Word of God against Sodomy' against Belfast Gay Pride. That ad, decided the ASA, breached its code on decency (offensiveness) after receiving just 4 complaints. But they allowed that the ad was a legitimate expression of opinion when dismissing another part of the complaint.

Last week, it ruled against an advertorial Christian Voice placed in the New Statesman, after just one solitary complaint that a prediction that every Government initiative on teenage sexuality would increase teenage infertility could not be substantiated.

Stephen Green commented: 'The ASA upholds or breaks its rules as it goes along. It all depends on who is being complained about. They get 326 complaints and decide the bus ads were not causing serious or widespread offence. They get a mere 4, and say Sandown's ad was. They allow Sandown to express an opinion, but not Christian Voice. They excuse the secularists from the need to provide evidence for a categorical statement, claiming it is impossible to do, but they say Christian Voice needs hard evidence for a future prediction, which really is impossible.

'We always knew the ASA was just another tool of the politically-correct secularist establishment, but here's the proof. Their ruling is a good example of how the deck is stacked against Christians today, and the Church needs to wake up to the anti-Christian agenda right now. The good news is we now know that when the secularists decided to say: "There is probably no God", they had no reason for making that absurd claim, and time has not helped them come up with one. The bad news is that if Christians don't start standing up for their Faith and their Saviour soon, we shall see religious liberties trampled on, and the secularists will take us further down the road to their hell on earth.'

NOTES for Editors:

The CAP Code, which the ASA administers, says:

'SUBSTANTIATION

'3.1 Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove all claims, whether direct or implied, that are capable of objective substantiation.

'Relevant evidence should be sent without delay if requested by the ASA or CAP. The adequacy of evidence will be judged on whether it supports both the detailed claims and the overall impression created by the marketing communication.'

DECENCY

'5.1 Marketing communications should contain nothing that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence. ...'

'TRUTHFULNESS

'7.1 No marketing communication should mislead, or be likely to mislead, by inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, omission or otherwise.'

Stop That! You'll Go Blind!

And so goes the old wive's tale of admonishment dealt out to many a happy schoolboy caught "spanking the monkey" or "bashing the bishop" when he should have been studying.

Ah, those were the days...

Now it seems there was an element of truth in that old saying - but only if prostate cancer can metastasize to the optic nerves or other visual areas; and if it should, well frankly that would be the least of your worries.

The BBC reports from a Notingham University study, published in BJU, which has found a tentative link between the amount of sex a man has in his early years (20-30s) with the occurrence of prostate cancer in later life. Wacking off seems to present just as great a risk as engaging in sex with a partner, suggesting that hormones play a roll and reducing the implication that a virus or other factors may be involved.

As prostate cancer is often treated with hormone-reduction therapy, the team suggest that the increased presence of male hormones may be causative link although other studies have suggested that ejaculation causes the gland to release toxins.

While cancer charities have welcomed the finding, they were quick (and correct) to point out that this research is based entirely upon the recollections - and honesty - of each man tested. Memories that in some cases were 30+ years old! Not exactly the most reliable evidence...

So, it is with that skeptical view in mind and the fact that I won't live forever that I'm now going to flush me "custard bag".

Now where did I put those biology texts I used to study behind the bike sheds?

Pot Calls Obama Black

The pot is (perhaps not that obviously) the Roman Catholic fuckwit Archbishop Rino Fisichella. Mr Fisichella has got himself all in a stew because the world's most powerful man has signed an accord which will allow US funding of overseas organisations which support abortion.

Of course, this is none of his business, but as Fishhead is president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, he thinks it is. Fisichella is quoted as saying:

"What is important is to know how to listen... without locking oneself into ideological visions with the arrogance of a person who, having the power, thinks they can decide on life and death"

When of course, this is precisely what Obama can do if he so chooses: he could (for example) commute the death sentence for prisoners on death row by little more than a wave of his pen; thus granting life back to those who took it.

But this isn't about abortion, it's about choice and in some cases it's about saving lives too, as AFP reports:

More than 250 health and human rights organisations from around the world sent Obama a letter, thanking him for ending a policy "which has contributed to the deaths and injuries of countless women and girls."

Which surely makes a very serious case (from those on the front line) that choice is precisely what is needed. As the ludicrous Fisichella enjoys his ivory tower and wears his knees out praying to his invisible friend, very real women are suffering because of his policies on birth control.

Surely, this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Not FITna for Broadcast

Right-wing dutch politician, Geert Wilders anti-Islam Film was scheduled to be show to the House of Lords on the 29th January, 2009 but has now been cancelled after a group of Muslims led by Lord Ahmed put a case to the Government Chief Whip of the House of Lords and Leader of the House of Lords.

This is, quite frankly, fucking dumb.

One wonders what Lord Ahmed has to worry about! I've seen Fitna and it's pretty unpleasant but the really nasty stuff seems to come directly from the mouths of Muslims themselves. We have to temper that and remember that not all Muslims are that crazy, but ignoring it is like ignoring that some (very small number of people) abuse children.

Christian Democrat and Dutch Prime Minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, supported Wilders and led those supporting his right of free speech and the fact that the film provokes honest debate about radical Islam.

Times newspaper, leader writer Oliver Kamm, writes:

"Insisting on the right to offend religious believers may seem an unfeeling and uncaring doctrine. (The non sequitur that many Muslims in western societies are poor is often brought into the discussion at this point.) But the case for liberty has never been that it protects sensibilities. It is rather that by allowing people’s beliefs to be scrutinised, criticised and — yes — insulted, bad ideas are more likely to be superseded by better ones. Allowing ideas to die in place of their adherents is a mark of a civilised society. It is not hyperbole to say that in the defence of the unlikely figure of Geert Wilders lies also the defence of western civilisation."

So I'll ask again - perhaps rhetorically - what is Lord Ahemd so frightened of?

Hat tip to mediawatchwatch.org which also has obtained footage that you can watch and decide for yourself.

There's Definitely (Probably) No God

Hat Tip to Mediawatchwatch which has broken this story:

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has concluded that the “There’s probably no God” bus ad campaign by the British Humanist Association is not in breach of the advertising code. The ASA will therefore not launch an investigation and the case is now closed.

The ASA carefully assessed the 326 complaints it received. Some complained that the ad was offensive and denigratory to people of faith. Others challenged whether the ad was misleading because the advertiser would not be able to substantiate its claim that God “probably” does not exist.

The ASA Council concluded that the ad was an expression of the advertiser’s opinion and that the claims in it were not capable of objective substantiation. Although the ASA acknowledges that the content of the ad would be at odds with the beliefs of many, it concluded that it was unlikely to mislead or to cause serious or widespread offence.

So that's the end of that - there's probably no god and it's OK to say it.

But believers are already extrapolating the ASA's requirement for "demonstrable facts" interpreting this in a manner to suit. Following is an extract from an email I received today from an Australian author:

"First, this issue is not one of 'faith vs science'. It's 'faith' vs 'faith' and 'science vs science'. Atheists have faith too. In fact, that is why Dawkins and the other atheists in the UK worded the sign on the London busses the way they did. They did not say 'There is no God' but they said 'There PROBABLY is no God.' In other words, they are not sure. So they have chosen to have faith in spite of the overwhelming evidence for the existence of God."

The writer has already received a reply which I'll not post here, but essentially this is the sort of thing we can expect. Despite Stephen Green and other idiots like him taking offence, others refusing to their jobs or just missing the point (see here) the ASA was happy to pass the advert.

Critical to this writer is his opinion that we have faith when in reality we're just complying with rigorous and completely fair advertising regulation that requires honesty; ironically precisely the same rules that Stephen Green has fallen foul of himself.

The interesting thing with people of faith is that so much of what they take for granted it based on highly suspect evidence or complete red-herrings - like this one. If you managed to grow a mighty oak in a sandy soil, it would still fall down with the slightest push.

Tiiiiiiiimmmmmbaaaaaaaaaaaa!

A New Hope

I can't find the words to express what relief this is, but my brother-in-blogs Luke O'Dell can though - here!

Wait! You know that feeling you get when you're constipated so badly that your brain has started to fog up, you feel like you ass is going to prolapse and your haemorrhoids are going to explode?

No, not that feeling.... this one.

The feeling of blessed relief in taking that almighty dump secure in the knowledge that the almighty piece of shit that's been clogging up the world has finally been discharged into the toilet of history.

Yes, Obama, America can - and you'd bloody well better make sure you do.

Alternative Therapy II: The Crackdown!

You have to love the English language - take words like compliment and complement, for example sound alike but have entirely different meanings.

To complement, from the Latin, complementum means to add to something. Whereas to compliment, also from complementum but via the Italian complimento means 'the fulfilment of the requirements of courtesy'.

If a man appreciates a woman's attire he may be paying her a compliment, but not a complement (and these days, thanks to fucking PC, he may even be accused of sexual harassment).

It is to this end that I may me introduce you to the "Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council" - which is one of those QUANGOs that has self-assumed the roll of overseeing the behaviour of alternative practitioners - quacks, in layman's speak. The website proudly (and predictably announces that):

"The CNHC has been developed with the help of complementary healthcare practitioners and with support from the Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health. The Department of Health has consistently supported the CNHC throughout its start-up period and is committed to establishing the CNHC as the national voluntary regulator in the complementary healthcare field."

That would be this guy, HRH Prince Charles Windsor - the future monarch of England who desperately needs a proper job and whose no-expense spared education has failed to provide him with a modicum of cynicism or the power of critical thinking. Charles is dangerous - not like a terrorist is dangerous, but like an idiot with unlimited money, power and a cause is dangerous. Dubya was dangerous.

Charles lives in a protected environment where everything is done for him and he has access to the best medicines that science can produce and money can buy. Yet still he staunchly believes in and promotes some of the worst quackery imaginable.

So here we have an organisation (CNHC) funded and encouraged by a specialist in weird medicine which is going to regulate weirder "complementary" medicine.

Quack Complementary medicine should, by definition add something to a conventional treatment yet more often that not, practitioners give the impression or worse, advice, that theirs is an alternative of equal or better efficacy.

Many of these "remedies" have been around for thousands of years and have their bands of enthusiastic followers, yet they comprehensively fail to stand up to scientific scrutiny. Homoeopathy, reflexology, acupuncture, herbalism - the list is long but every single one has been examined at some point and found lacking.

There's some evidence that some traditional remedies have had active ingredients that might have treated disease (gout, for instance) and plants such as Deadly Nightshade (atropa belladonna) gives us atropine which is one of the most basic medicines (of its type) we posses. Evidence is the key here: and there's no evidence whatsoever that any of the quack treatments are any more effective than a good doctor and a large dose of a powerful placebo.

CNHC co-chairman Maggie Dunn doesn't understand irony of this statement appearing on the BBC:

"If that means that people who are not up to scratch are driven out of business, I will not cry for them "

Up to scratch? By whose measure? Are the CNHC going to introduce some system of exams to make sure these people can cure the ailments they claim to?

Well, errrr, No. This rather toothless organisation, says BBC Health Reporter, Nick Triggle, will:

"...not judge clinics on whether therapies are effective, but rather on whether they operate a professional and safe business."

So this government-sanctioned, voluntary register (it's £45 per annum to join) is going to ensure that quacks behave in a professional manner and somehow that's acceptable.

If anything, this lends some credence to these fuckwits and failed wannabe doctors - ensuring they carry insurance and pay membership to a toothless QUANGO? What fucking genius!

Health Minster, Ben Bradshaw MP, spoke warmly of the idea saying that member practitioners will offer the public:

"...the reassurance of knowing that they have had to meet minimum standards of qualification and that they have signed up to a rigorous code of conduct."

Of course, a doctorate in quackery is still in quackery! Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter's, Peninsula Medical School had reservations, telling the BBC:

"I have concerns that the regulator does not have mandatory powers and is not looking at the efficacy of these therapies."

As do I. As will proper medically trained doctors. My dictionary defines medicine thus:

"the science or practice of the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease"

If complementary "treatments" do not diagnose or can be shown scientifically to treat or prevent disease, then they are not fucking medicines and do not deserve that title!

Quack! Over and out.

Theos' Director Can't Read

In all the furore surrounding the atheist bus ads, you could be forgiven for missing the plight of one Ron Heather.

Mr Heather is bus driver for First Bus and when he turned up for work and saw the infamous Atheist adverts plastered on his company's bus, the one he is required to drive as per his conditions of employment, he complained. Speaking to Radio Solent, he said:

“I felt that I could not drive that bus, I told my managers and they said they haven’t got another one and I thought I better go home, so I did,” he said. “I think it was the starkness of this advert which implied there was no God.”

Oddly enough, there must be plenty of atheist (or non-Christian) bus drivers around yet did anyone hear a peep out of them when the laughable Alpha Course was advertising, “Is this it?” and “If God did exist, what would you ask him?”

[Insert sound of crickets]

They just did their jobs - but when this idiot has his own faith called into question, he quakes in his boots. There's no implication in the advert - it's pretty open with its message.

But on with the show,

Theos Director, Paul Woolley [there's nominative determinacy cropping up again], said the ads were “hardly going to be a great comfort for those who are concerned about losing their jobs or homes in the recession.”

Though he didn't elaborate precisesly how God was going to dig us out of this hole either. Perhaps the Vatican would consider giving up some of its staggering wealth? Maybe the Church of England could stump up a few grand?

Only when airborne pigs are sighted over Conisholme. Woolly-brained Mr Woolley went on to say:

“And what does it tell us to do when we stop worrying?” he continued. “Volunteer overseas? Give money to charity? Campaign for the environment? No. It tells us to enjoy ourselves. It would be hard to come up with a more self-centered message than this.”

Wiat! Does it actually say "enjoy yourselves"?

NO! NO! And again NO!

It says, "enjoy your life." Which is an entirely different message.

This is a neat piece of spin and isn't corrected or questioned by Christian Post writer, Jenna Lyle who is clearly either too dim and uninterested to check the facts -or- more interested in pushing her own bias.

Now, does God of the Bile tell us to volunteer overseas (NO); does he tell us to give money to charity (NO); what about campaign for the environment? No again.

All of these things are human choices which any right-minded person should be able to figure our for themselves. You don't need to be a god-botherer to campaign for the environment - and ironically, it's the neocons in Bush's outgoing administration who partly fucked up the environment in the first place by greed for oil.

Do atheists volunteer to go overseas? You bet they do - the difference is they don't go and preach their bullshit ideas to poor people who don't know any better. They go there to help without a hidden agenda. And as for charity, only today I gave some money to save the Chinese bears - so there you have it, Theos Director Mr Woolley caught and gutted like a fish.

As for Mr Heather, he should be thankful that I'm not his boss.

Devonian Physics Lecturer Doesn't Do Evolution

I'm a firm believer in freedom of speech, but there's a fine line between arguing a point and actually deceiving people. The North Devon Gazette reports that Tim Street, a retired physics lecturer, is among the speakers appearing in an "antidote to Darwin Day".

The trouble with physics lecturers is that they don't know biology but because they are men of science people take them at their word. Woe betide any churchman who tried that around where I live, because if they do, they're in for a nasty shock.

Mr Street told the Gazette:

"How could all the amazingly complex plants and animals have come about by chance?"

Chance? Chance! Life may have originated by chance, but the diverse forms we see around us are the product of millions of years of evolutionary change. I could go, on but Mr Street is quite capable of demonstrating his ignorance of life science, going on to say:

"As for the origin of life, the idea that life spontaneously comes from non living matter was clearly disproved 150 years ago by Louis Pasteur. He showed that once all living bacteria or organisms are killed off, life would never start on its own."

This is abiogenesis - not evolution you dolt. Darwin never, ever argued the origin of life - the book is called the Origin of Species and for an intellectual to make such a basic mistake is inexcusable. Professor Stanley Miller (who died recently) and his professor demonstrated how it might have appeared but the jury is still out on that.

I get so angry when people pose these straw man arguments and then claim to have a better solution - which is always (predictably) goddidit. These Intelligent Design arguments invariably spill over from US-based "think" tanks such as the Discovery Institute who have only ever discovered one thing - how to make retrograde-monkeys out of highly evolved apes.

Next he'll be telling us that we're not actually apes at all but some special creatures created in God's own image - which is a weak argument in itself - would a creature capable of creating the universe really have such a ridiculous design?

What really bugs me is the Gazette's words which say that this is an "alternative" view to the accepted Darwinian evolution (which has been superseded by neo-Darwinism since 1950ish) as if this is a valid view.

It isn't and it never was. It's dumb, theological boilerplate of the highest order. A way of spreading ignorance of the worst kind.

Welsh Kids Can Opt Out of Zombie Worship

Education Minister, Jane Hutt has decided that Welsh sixth-formers are to be given the right (like their English counterparts since 2007) to opt out of religious assembly.

Amazingly, this is due to the Education Act which dates back to 1944 which insists that children are exposed to a daily act of worship. The act says all schools:

"...must provide a daily act of collective worship which is broadly Christian."

This has less to do with the broadly secular UK and more to do with the stranglehold Churches had and still have on our nation's schools and, of course, the patently ridiculous notion that Bishops have the right to shit on, sorry sit in our upper house. This was gleefully seized on by Sir Peter Vardy's band of snake-oil salesmen who force children into what they call "tutor prayers" with the government's blessing.

1944 was an odd time for blighty. The 2nd World War was still raging, DNA had not been discovered and even television was in its infancy: yet it's not even a lifetime ago. It's not surprising that such an invidious piece of legislation should have slipped onto the statute books but it surprising that it's still there: but for the Bishops in the Upper House it most probably wouldn't be.

64 (!) years on and we've travelled to the moon, have hundreds of TV channels in glorious colour and high-definition, the Internet, personal computers, unlocked the mystery of DNA. The bishops are still in the House of Lords and (some) politicians don't think that young adults can think for themselves.

This is the problem: some of the Zombie Worshippers want to force their outmoded belief systems down children's throats even though it doesn't serve any useful purpose.

Ignoring the ubiquitous Rent-a-Quote, Stephen Green, the BBC quotes the Union of Welsh Independent Chapels, which said the assembly was,

"throwing away 1,500 years of Welsh Christianity to the wind - at the very time when young people need a sound moral and spiritual dimension in their lives more than ever."

This sort of comment really, really gets on my man-boobs. Who gives them the right to suggest that secular education does not or cannot give people a moral foundation? As for spiritual - that's a faith thing and it's for individuals to decide IF and WHAT they believe.

The UWIC is frightened that if this sort of outmoded practice is removed (and it will eventually be dropped from other schools too) then children won't follow their idiotic notions and may actually have to think for themselves.

Dr. Geraint Tudur whined to the BBC,

"Over the centuries, Christianity has been the bedrock of Welsh identity and morality."

Oh do move on dude! Christianity may have been the foundation of morals but we've moved on from there. Society is evolving (has evolved) to a point where most people - children included don't see the need to look up to a God. And, should it exist, it certainly doesn't need protecting.

As I see it, they're more likely to be frightened for their "jobs" - welcome to the real world, fucker!

A catholic spokesman was more relevant Father John Owen, a chaplain of Cardiff University, told the BBC:

"I have always thought that any form of compulsory worship was counter productive.

"I think it's a personal decision and personally I have no problem with this."

Amen to that brother. Errr....