Firing Jeremy Clarkson?

 General, Media  No Responses »
Mar 102015
 

Today we learned that next Sunday's episode of Top Gear is not to be shown, and Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended pending an investigation. Apparently because of a "fracas" with a producer.

Which is all a bit mysterious, but it is interesting to see people assuming that Clarkson is in trouble because of his mouth. It would be hardly be a big surprise if his mouth has gotten him into trouble again; his public persona is a bit of a loud-mouthed idiot so it is hardly surprising if he says something dumb, obnoxious, or even offensive at times.

When he goes too far, he usually apologises (here, here, here, and I dare say you can find plenty more).

But if this latest fracas has anything to do with the something stupid he has said, the BBC are being a bit two-faced about suspending him. The Top Gear show was a bit of a dreary bore before Clarkson's brand of idiocy spiced it up into something even car-haters can enjoy on occasion. If you employ an obnoxious idiot because he's an obnoxious idiot, it's wrong to suspend him for being an obnoxious idiot.

Of course we're all making assumptions about what went on today. And frankly a "fracas" sounds a bit more serious than just a few badly chosen phrases, so I think we should all wait and see how this develops.

 

 

Not Everything On The Internet Is True

 General  No Responses »
Feb 152015
 

Wandering through Youtube as you do, I happened to come across :-

.. and was immediately struck by how dumb the selection of "facts" were :-

  1. Antibiotics attack bacteria not viruses. In fact the belief that they attack anything nasty smaller than the eye can see is contributing to the issue mentioned as the fact – that antibiotics are becoming less and less effective as antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria evolve. So whilst the video is right in the broadest possible terms, the explanation is full of shit.
  2. Shellac has nothing whatsoever to do with bug shit. It's produced by collecting a different bodily fluid, but obviously the narrator was confused between the two words secrete and excrete.
  3. The fact about Caesar was nearly right except that old Julius asked for his ransom to be raised from 20 silver talents to 50 silver talents (an increase of 2.5 times not double which is quite a big difference), and whilst Julius did crucify the pirates, he also had their throats cut first.
  4. The sixth exictintion (us humans causing an extinction event) is treated as a fact whereas it is currently a plausible hypothesis, but by no means a fact. Not that we shouldn't improve our behaviour to our fellow planet dwellers!
  5. We all eat 12 pubic hairs a year, The narrator even admits nobody knows of a source for this "fact". Well guess what? If you don't have a source, all you have is an entertaining story. 
  6. I couldn't be bothered to check, but I suspect the "fact" of big agriculture breeding huge workforces of children to work farms because there are US labour law loopholes is a bit far off base.

Out of a list of 15 so-called "facts" at least 50% were horse-shit and in the case of the remainder, there's a fair few I've not bothered checking. Best bet is when you look at a video claimimg to have a top 10 list of something is to take the whole thing with a pinch of salt. 

Animal Cruelty, Slaughterhouses, Halal, and Kosher

 General, Religion  No Responses »
Feb 092015
 

After a public release of a certain video of animal cruelty found within a halal slaughterhouse, there has been a certain amount of "noise" regarding animal cruelty :-

For the benefit of those too sensible to hit "play", some of the most striking things about the video :-

  1. The workers have no compunction about treating the animals with a great deal of cruelty including taunting them.
  2. Supervision seems to be non-existent. 
  3. The "quick cut with a sharp knife" seems to be a slow sawing with a blunt penknife.

I should say from the beginning that I'm a vegetarian so I'm unlikely to be sympathetic to the problems encountered by slaughterhouses (shut 'em all!). I'm also an atheist so I'm unlikely to have sympathy for religious beliefs insisting on medieval slaughterhouse techniques (if you can find a sheep that requests Halal or Kosher execution, then by all means go ahead).

But the reaction to the videos has seemed to concentrate on point 3 above, Or more specifically the need to kill by a quick cut of a knife.

Whilst I'm not keen in the quick cut method, it does seem to me that the cruelty of that method is outweighed by far, by the attitude of the slaughterhouse staff and the design of the slaughterhouse. In other words, I can easily imagine seeing a video portraying pretty much the same level of cruelty when the slaughterhouse staff are wielding a stunbolt gun. 

It seems to me that to reduce the level of cruelty, we need to have robust supervision by people who are not going to put up with any kind of abuse. People with the power to hit the big red button, and send everyone home for the day. 

Yes, there's an argument about whether the requirements for Halal and Kosher count as animal cruelty, but this video shows far more generalised animal cruelty that can be found at any badly run slaughterhouse. The question is: Just how many slaughterhouses are badly run?

Not Victim Blaming. Risk Reduction.

 General, Security  No Responses »
Jan 302015
 

There's a game called "victim blaming" which is where people decide the victim of a crime is somehow partially or wholely respomsible – the old "if she hadn't worn such a short skirt …".

Which is rubbish of course. The perpetrator of a crime is the one responsible for carrying it out whatever the circumstances.

But the shouting down of the "victim blamers" can perhaps drown out messages that allow risk reduction, and allow certain myths to be perpetuated. For example, many women believe that they are more at risk from strangers whereas most rapists are known to the victim.

Take a slightly less contentious crime – a phishing spam that criminals use to empty the bank accounts of the victim. Whilst the criminal here is obvious – the person who used stolen credentials to empty the bank account, the criminal needed the victim to make certain risky decisions.

2015-01-29_1517As you cannot look at the link contained within that, it's worth pointing out that if you paste the URL into a notebook, you will get a brazilian site … and I strongly suspect that Lloyds Bank is not very likely to use a Brazilian site (.br) for hosting their online account service.

And we call such victims "gullible". In the case of phishing, there are some simple procedures to follow :-

  1. Email doesn't necessarily come from whom it claims to be from. I can send you an email that will look as if it comes from Goodluck Johnathon without having anything to do with his email account.
  2. Don't click on links in emails.
  3. If your bank sends an email asking you to do something, shut down the email and open a web browser and use your existing way of getting to your bank's web site. Same applies to shopping sites, your workplace's IT department, etc.
  4. If you are determined to use a link from an email, copy the link into a notebook and read it. Does it make sense? Does the first part mention an organisation that has nothing to do with the organisation it is supposedly from? Don't trust it.

Plus a whole bunch more.

Detailing and quantifying risks isn't victim blaming; it's empowering someone to make educated decisions about their behaviour

1,000 Lashes To Those Who Lowered The Flag

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Jan 282015
 

Why? Why is our flag lowered to mark the passing of a Saudi despot?

Of course, punishing those responsible with a thousand lashes would be over the top – in the same way as punishing a blogger who says something you don't like with a thousand lashes.

Unlike others I don't think it is wrong for politicians to attend the funeral of the old Saudi king – in addition to attending the funeral they are also there to keep a dialogue going with the Saudi state. And the only thing that isolation causes is a strengthening of those attributes that caused the isolation in the first place. Or in other words, if you want a despotic government to change, you have to keep talking to them and keep telling them what they are doing that is wrong.

And that is one of the jobs that polticians are overpaid to do. It's a nasty little job, but as most politicians are nasty little people it's a job they are ideally suited to.

But lowering the flag is a sign of respect from the nation, and the Saudi despot did not desrve that respect.

It's a bit late, but I've been having WordPress issues!

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