You can tell.

Genuine conversation from the depths of East Anglia, reported to me first-hand:

"CID are here."

"How can you tell? Aren't they plain-clothes?"

"Well, yes, but they've turned up in polished cars with clean shoes and short hair."

On preparedness.

Mac-sys are the only Apple-authorised Apple repair people in Northern Ireland, apparently. They're probably really good, but, well...

iPhone is coming

Mac-Sys Ltd are the only Apple ASP in the province and we are well-prepared for the imminent introduction of the iPhone in the UK and Europe.

Right on the front-page of their site. It may say "well-prepared", but it doesn't really imply it, does it?

(I've come across thier site because my Macbook is begubbered. Fine for typing this here blog post, but can't handle audio without collapsing in a fit of coughing. How incredibly irritating.)

Branding.

Yeah, I know, I've not blogged in ages. If you want more updates, pay me.

Anyway.

The release of Apple's Snow Leopard got me thinking... All the versions of OSX (except maybe not the first release, if I recall correctly) have been named after big cats: Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard... wasn't there a Jaguar at one point? I forget. Anyway, what are they going to switch to when they finally release OS11? Dogs? Ducks? Insects? Wasp, Hornet, Mantis could work. Weevil, not so much. Reptiles? Reptiles have got to be in the running, 'cause then they get to use Komodo, which is a frankly shit-hot name for an OS. Fish? Probably not ducks.

My money — all none of it — is on birds of prey. Eagle, Kestrel, Harrier, Sparrowhawk, Mallard.

More shoddy BBC reporting.

I'm beginning to get more annoyed by the BBC's appalling slapdash sub-tabloid journalism than I am by their bias.

The latest example is their reporting on the Connectivity story. Here's the opening paragraph, which, in proper journalism, is supposed to quickly summarise the story:

A company will begin offering a directory service from next week that allows people to find the mobile phone numbers of people they don't know.

Now, that immediately set alarm-bells ringing with me, because I'd heard Shona Foster explain the service in an interview. And, indeed, here's the key detail, down in paragraph twenty-three:

In neither case is the mobile phone number given over to the person making the request.

Well, that just makes paragraph one an out-and-out lie, now, doesn't it?

Lies, damn lies, and their place in a scientific debate.

By now, you've probably come across some of the fuss regarding Simon Singh's being sued by the British Chiropractic Association.

I like Simon Singh. And though I regularly get chiropractic treatment for my spine and joints because it works whilst conventional medicine can't even be bothered, that doesn't mean that I'm not at least as suspicious of the BCA as I am of the BMA. Organisations regularly do silly things, because they're run by the sort of people who run organisations. So, when I first read about this case, I suspected that the BCA were abusing the system. And then I went and found the offending paragraph, and decided that no, they're not. They have a case here.

Here's the paragraph that's landed him in trouble:

The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organization is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

The scientific community (whatever that is) are up in arms over this. There's been much complaining that Justice Eady, who has made the preliminary decision that Singh's words could indeed mean what the BCA say they mean, has misinterpreted the word "bogus". But Eady didn't actually rest his decision on the one word "bogus" as strongly as some of his detractors claim. Here are the relevant paragraphs of his decision:

12. What the article conveys is that the BCA itself makes claims to the public as to the efficacy of chiropractic treatment for certain ailments even though there is not a jot of evidence to support those claims. That in itself would be an irresponsible way to behave and it is an allegation that is plainly defamatory of anyone identifiable as the culprit. In this case these claims are expressly attributed to the claimant. It goes further. It is said that despite its outward appearance of respectability, it is happy to promote bogus treatments. Everyone knows what bogus treatments are. They are not merely treatments which have proved less effective than they were at first thought to be, or which have been shown by the subsequent acquisition of more detailed scientific knowledge to be ineffective. Bogus treatments equate to quack remedies; that is to say they are dishonestly presented to a trusting and, in some respects perhaps, vulnerable public as having proven efficacy in the treatment of certain conditions or illnesses, when it is known that there is nothing to support such claims.

13. It is alleged that the claimant promotes the bogus treatments "happily". What that means is not that they do it naively or innocently believing in their efficacy, but rather that they are quite content and, so to speak, with their eyes open to present what are known to be bogus treatments as useful and effective. That is in my judgment the plainest allegation of dishonesty and indeed it accuses them of thoroughly disreputable conduct.

It seems clear to me that what Eady is looking at is the whole sentence. And, frankly, though I think he's wrong about the word "bogus" in general, I think he's right about that sentence. For me, what does it is following "This organization is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession" with "and yet ...". That "yet" means that what follows is in opposition to what precedes it. It really can't mean anything other than "If they were respectable people, they wouldn't be doing this." And that is what gives the rest of the sentence the context that makes Eady right about the words "bogus" and "happily".

Even Ben Goldacre concedes:

technically there is a reading of simon’s piece that suggests he thinks the BCA deliberately and knowingly peddle quackery.

In fact, I'm beginning to think that Singh simply isn't a very good writer:

I would have to offer an apology for an article that I still think is reasonable and important according to its intended and obvious meaning.

One might think that, by this point in the proceedings, Singh might have realised that his intended meaning is not as obvious as all that. It is clearly, by definition, debatable.

And there's an interesting point here from a Metafilter commenter called Mutant:

The Woolf reforms of 1999 set forth a structure of early discussion and exchange of information to determine the validity of complaints. This framework and the obligations / responsibilities of all parties is known as the "pre action protocol on defamation proceedings".

Litigation is discouraged and both settlement out of court - "an offer of amends" in response to a "letter of demand" - as well as mediation strongly suggested. Suing now without following this protocol every step of the way will negatively bias the judge and will reflect in his or her instructions to the jury (all libel / slander cases in the UK are heard by a jury).

In short, it will harm the BCA's case not to have made reasonable offers to Singh to settle this out of court. But he has repeatedly publicly stated that he refuses to apologise for the piece.

Now, a lot of people want to keep libel laws out of science, and with good reason. There certainly have been cases, well documented by Ben Goldacre, where organisations have attempted to use libel laws — especially English libel laws, which are crap — to defend their dubious scientific claims by stifling those who point out that they're wrong. But this is not one of those cases. The BCA have not sued Singh for what he said about the evidence for chiropractic; they've sued him for what he said about the personal character of the chiropractors in the BCA.

Which is probably why The Guardian's initial offer to placate them didn't work: it was based on completey the wrong premise:

Initially The Guardian newspaper tried its best to settle the matter out of court by making what seemed to be a very generous offer. There was an opportunity for the BCA to write a 500 word response to my article to be published in The Guardian, allowing the BCA to present its evidence. There was also the offer of a clarification in the "Corrections and Clarifications" column, which would have pointed out: "The British Chiropractic have told us they have substantial evidence supporting the claim they make on their website that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying. (Beware the spinal trap, page 26, April 19)."

It seems clear now that what they needed to be offering was to say in no uncertain terms that members of the BCA are not fraudsters. But it just didn't occur to them, because they were fixated on the idea that this is all about scientific evidence. It's not. Such an offer would not necessarily have been accepted, of course, but it would at least have had a better chance. The BCA have said that they didn't just leap into court over this, but tried to resolve the matter more informally first; they have been forced, they say, to resort to libel proceedings because anything less was being ignored. And, reading Singh's defence today, this is hardly surprising, as he still doesn't seem to understand how it is that he has actually pissed the BCA off.

So yes, by all means, please, someone reform British libel law: it badly needs it. The reforms should make scientific claims a no-go area for libel and should make libel suits considerably less attractive for those who are wrong and know they're wrong but wish to shut their critics up. They should also, as Singh correctly points out, cost a damn sight less money to the defense. But what reform shouldn't do is make this sort of case impossible. When someone very publicly accuses you of fraud or dishonesty, you should be able to sue them — no matter what line of work they're in. It would be a terrible idea to simply make "But I'm a scientist!" a valid defense.

And the other reason that such cases shouldn't be put out of the reach of libel law is that a bunch of concerned scientists should get together and sue Jeni Barnett's arse clean off. Because she didn't just say that MMR vaccine is unnecessary. She didn't just say that it can cause horrible side-effects. She said that it's a conspiracy. She said that it's all about profit. She suggested that information about MMR has been suppressed by the powers that be. Which rather implies that doctors and scientists know that MMR is bad for children but push it on them anyway, for the money. Barnett basically accused large numbers of people of being, essentially, monstrous — and she presented this accusation to millions of listeners. If I were a doctor who'd given the jab to a few hundred kids, I'd rather resent the implication that I'm deliberately harming them for money. If you're in the doctoring line of work, that sort of accusation could be pretty bad for your career. I firmly believe that a few dozen such doctors should pool some money, retain a lawyer, force Barnett to issue a full public apology for such a horrendous slur, and take some of her money off her.

And then move on to the next malicious idiot.

Scientists as a group are wrong about this. They think that all these debates are scientific, which is why they tend to lose — we've got a measles epidemic and some dead kids now to show just how badly scientists lost the MMR fight. Yes, keep science out of the libel courts: it's not the way to present evidence. But recognise that not every claim made about science is a scientific claim. A lot of these claims are simply personal attacks on the character of scientists, and, by letting such claims stand, scientists do plenty to encourage an environment in which such attacks are popular and acceptable.

This is not about science. It's about character. Your character is important; it's what makes the difference between good and bad people. And, if the public think you're bad people, they won't follow your advice. This is getting even more serious now: the anti-vaccine crowd's influence has moved on to swine flu: people are going to "swine-flu parties" to deliberately spread it around, making it more prevalent, making it more virulent, killing people. Letting maniacs portray scientists as evil money-grubbing sadistic experimenters-on-children with impunity has had bad consequences.

Your character is important and incredibly valuable. So defend it.

Result.

Excellent!

That bloody woman with her bloody kids, who only ever got votes because of her looks anyway, has finally been hounded out of politics by the smear campaign and the personal attacks on her children and the attempt to bankrupt her via frivolous legal complaints. Took her long enough to get the hint. Look, dear, politics isn't for jumped-up wombs like you. Stay in the kitchen. Have some more kids. Don't bother us again with your so-called "ideas". All that thinking was clearly overheating your brain.

At least, that's what all the feminists are saying.

Hiding.

A milestone, this. I'm going to disagree with Natalie The Wise, because she's made the usual Libertarian case for why the state shouldn't stop people wearing burqas:

If you want to keep your freedom to drink what you please on the public street then fight for the freedom to wear what you please on the public street.

But what about public drunkeness, then, and the fear and misery of those whose nights are blighted by drunks fighting at their windows and pissing in their gardens? And what about the cloth-entombed women, projecting an image of both slavery and Islamic aggression, who may or may not have chosen to wear the black bag?

My answer is substantially the same to both social problems: as a society we have chosen to deny ourselves the very tools of private social action (no, that is not a contradiction in terms) that could make things better.

For decades we have denied ourselves disapproval. For decades we have denied ourselves property rights. For decades we have denied ourselves the right to free association, which necessarily includes the right not to associate.

These tools are the ones we have the right to use. They are also the right tools for the job. They, unlike the tools of coercion, will not turn in our hands and cut us.

The burqa is not a matter of giving Muslim women the same clothing freedoms as the rest of us; it is a matter of making them a specific exception to various laws and regulations which already exist. There are lots of things I am not allowed to do when wearing a mask, and quite rightly, in my opinion: going through airport security, loitering in a bank, walking into a school playground. This is Northern Ireland. Imagine what would happen if I were to walk into a school wearing a balaclava. Anyone going to protect my clothing "rights"? I bloody hope not. Yet a polite request to a Muslim woman to remove her mask while on the premises would land the headteacher in court. She doesn't have equal rights; she has extra ones.

And sure, yes, as I've said before, we need more public disapproval. The word "judgmental" should not be derogatory. But, for that to work, you need to be dealing within a civilised framework. When it comes to the burqa, we are dealing with — in some cases — and, for obvious reasons, we have no way of knowing until it's too late which cases they are — people who will hurt us, even cut us dead in the street. We're not discussing a civilised debate here.

In general, I would say that strong private institutions are a bulwark against the type of creeping Islamification - or capture by other minority groups - that concern many of the commenters to this thread ... Contrast that with the position of state institutions, which includes state laws. These are a much more realistic target for capture by determined minorities. If, say 3% of the population feel really strongly about some issue and 97% are apathetic it is actually quite a realistic proposition for the 3% to get laws passed to steer things their way. Much easier than out-purchasing the other 97%, certainly.

A good point well made, but it's already happened via another method: violence. I don't think anyone really knows what proportion of Muslims in Britain are extremist Islamists willing to perpetrate sometimes lethal violence against infidels and apostates, but it doesn't need to be large: just a small handful of violent lunatics is enough to unleash enough violence to create enough news stories to change all our behaviour. If I'm running a shop and a group of people walk in all wearing burqas and I don't like it, sure, I could express my disapproval. But, of course, I'm going to be asking myself: Just how much do I disapprove? Enough to get a beating? Enough to risk an angry mob storming my shop? Enough to be killed? Enough to risk my family? And chances are I'll hold my tongue — even if the people who've entered my shop are in fact comepletely reasonable sane people who don't even want to wear bloody burqas and whose reaction, had I spoken up, would actually have just been to have a nice chat about it. Most people aren't likely to risk finding that out.

So a small group have changed the behaviour of the majority to accommodate their extremism. And this is exactly the sort of situation that we have a state with a police force for. We need a law to be passed — not necessarily a burqa ban, but some sort of law — in order to get back to the state we should be in: the state where civilised discussion is possible.

The commenter Ian B asks:

How does one define when citizens can cover their faces? Below a certain temperature? When it's snowing? It's not as if you can really define what a burka is.

Those who wear the burqa, even if they actually want to, don't just feel like wearing it on the street quite a lot. They insist on wearing it at all times, often to the extent of taking action against anyone who asks to see their face. When the rest of us cover our faces for whatever reason, the same is not true.

So don't define what a burqa is. Just apply the same rule to everyone: sure, you can hide your face because of the cold or because you're disfigured or even because of your religion, on the condition that you reveal your face when asked. And allow anyone who dislikes face-hiding to refuse entry. Banks can refuse entry to motorcyclists who refuse to remove their helmets. Let them refuse entry to anyone else, whetever their religion, who refuses to remove any kind of mask. At the moment, they can't.

That's one solution, but I'd go a bit further. There are a number of laws which are simply codifications of our society's social norms and conventions. This particular one has never been codified up till now because it hasn't been needed, but wearing a mask in public certainly has been considered for hundreds of years in Britain to be the behaviour of criminals. The big change here is not the proposal to ban the burqa: that'll just be affirming the long-established norms. The big change happened a few years ago, and was the decision to protect the "right" of certain people to wear masks at all times. There is no such right in Britain.

I am reminded of the seatbelt law. I know most libertarians will vigorously defend their "right" to drive without a seatbelt. Personally, I don't think anyone has a right to leap out in front of moving traffic, and I don't accept "But I've just been hurled through my own windscreen" as an excuse. But that's not the point. As anyone who's tried to put on a seatbelt as a passenger in a country without this law will know, the problem isn't one of freedom of choice. The problem is drivers who refuse to allow their passengers to wear seatbelts, because they consider it an insult to their driving skills or masculinity or penis size or whatever. The important effect of the seatbelt law was to allow people who had always wanted to wear seatbelts to do so when being given lifts by wankers. In a typical family car, there's one driver and three passengers, so the number of people whose freedom was increased is greater than the number whose freedom was decreased. Imperfect, sure, but that's humanity for you.

Similarly, the problem with the burqa is coercion. We all know it. Ban masks in public, and all those women being coerced are given freedom without being given the blame for asking for freedom. Great. Meanwhile, a tiny number of people are prevented from doing something that has never ever been socially accepted in this country and are denied a right that they never had. Boo hoo. More people will gain freedom than will lose it.

Ignoramuses.

This article about upcoming car technology is very interesting and well worth reading, but the writer, Tom Evans, displays a huge glaring splash of ignorance the moment he veers away from the topic of cars:

Another very clever aspect is the harnessing of the 'wisdom of the crowd' -- how the actions of large numbers of people can help others make decisions -- a way of thinking that has grown up in the internet age. Examples abound, with perhaps one of the best examples being Amazon.com's 'people who bought this book also bought that one'.

No, this way of thinking didn't grow up in the Internet age. It's been around, and very successful, for thousands of years. And that Amazon example is not a good one, really. There are far better examples from the Net, but why bother with any of them when by far the best example is also the oldest and therefore the one people will be most familiar with: pricing.

Honestly, some people.

What is race, anyway?

Well, it ain't this:

The school, in Brent, northwest London, rejected the 12-year-old child because his mother converted to Judaism at a Progressive rather than Orthodox synagogue. M’s father is Jewish, but custom dictates that the faith line passes through the mother.

The judges said that “the requirement that if a pupil is to qualify for admission his mother must be Jewish, whether by descent or by conversion, is a test of ethnicity which contravenes the Race Relations Act”.

In. Sane.

In case you missed the implications of that, what England's distinguished legal scholars have decided is that it's possible to change your ethnicity by conversion.

Force of habit.

As we all know, news broadcasters in America use helicopters. It's a perfectly good idea: you can get superb footage of car-chases and gunfights and fires and floods and things behind police cordons. But, at some point, it seems to have become more automatic than considered: they just send their helicopters to whatever the biggest story is right now.

I noticed this at the start of the Michael Jackson coverage yesterday — the very start, when no-one was sure whether he was dead or not and the crowd outside the hospital was still small.

"Michael Jackson's been rushed to hospital and reported dead? He's in the hospital now, either being treated or prepared for the morgue? We have to find out what's going on in there. Quick! Send the chopper to get some footage of the hospital's roof."

And then, having got that footage, they broadcast it. For ages.

Odd.