Node in the Noosphere

Blogger Breakdown

2011-12-04T15:06:00.000Z

The DCDC Global Strategic Trends Programme 2007 - 2036

I'm trying to post this

"@stef said, "it's about time the readership of that report was expanded a little..."

Unfortunately, the MOD have decided against this by password protecting the link given.

However, http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/articles/strat_trends_23jan07.pdf gives a link from which I've just downloaded a copy.

Just thought I'd go through the tick box exercise of seeing what's come to pass and what's still awaiting us."

comment to

'The Middle Class Proletariat' aka 'We're all potential terrorists now'

For some reason blogger is playing up with the result that the comment isn't being accepted.

For the avoidance of doubt, the following MOD link, http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/94A1F45E-A830-49DB-B319-DF68C28D561D/0/strat_trends_17mar07.pdf, which used to be freely accessible to those who paid for it, now requires a password.

Here is a working link, http://www.cuttingthroughthematrix.com/articles/strat_trends_23jan07.pdf to the report that used to be freely available to those who paid for it.

As to why I'm making efforts to post this article,

"ARTICLE 10

1 Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. this right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2 The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary."

Am Bobby Charlton

2011-11-23T14:42:00.000Z

Still reading and re-reading the Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paolo Freire, a book that I find both fascinating and difficult.

Freire criticises what he calls banking education where pupils are treated as empty vessels to be filled up with facts: in the UK this is called teaching to the test. Despite claims to the contrary, since schools are judged by test results, that is the only teaching technique that is done. There are of course many different ways of teaching to the test but at heart, teaching to the test is what happens.

Freire explains that the banking method of education should be replaced with a problem-posing method of teaching; he goes on to explain that this pedagogy cannot work unless the relationship between pupils and teacher changes. Freire says,

"The teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with students, who in their turn while being taught also teach."

This is difficult to imagine but it is possible to see examples of this pedagogy. The most easily accessible example is the Hollywood film, School of Rock: read Pedagogy of the Oppressed and see the film.

The other example comes from Kes. Only fleetingly ... but it's there,

powered by Splicd.com

Again, read the book and you'll see what I mean.

Lastly, it's curious that both of these examples of Freire's method are unwitting examples: I strongly suspect that neither authors of the films had ever heard of Freire. Yet the basis of some of the most dramatic scenes in the films - the empowerment of the individual - is at the heart of Freire's work.

The Administrations of McGuire

2011-10-10T16:32:00.002+01:00

The Guardian reported in a story titled, "Nurofen contamination: man charged"

"Christopher McGuire charged after antipyschotic and antiepileptic drugs found in five packs of painkiller."

The story goes on to say that,

"A spokesman for the Met said unemployed McGuire had been charged with one count of contamination of goods, contrary to the Public Order Act 1986, and two of administering a noxious substance, which is contrary to the Offences Against The Person Act."

The first charge is very likely to be section 38 Public Order Act 1986 the "Contamination of or interference with goods with intention of causing public alarm or anxiety, etc." This offence carries a maximum prison sentence of either ten years if convicted on indictment (s38(4)(a)), or six-months if convicted summarily (s38(4)(b)).

If that was the only charge, he could get away with six-months by indicating that he would plead guilty at his mode of trial hearing (s17A Magistrates' Court Act 1980).

But the article explained that there were other two other charges of administering obnoxious substances; the charges are likely to be ss23 and 24 Offences Against the Persons Act 1861.

"23. Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously administer to or cause to be administered to or taken by any other person any poison or other destructive or noxious thing, so as thereby to endanger the life of such person, or so as thereby to inflict upon such person any grievous bodily harm, shall be guilty of felony, and being convicted thereof shall be liable ... to be kept in penal servitude for any term not exceeding ten years ...."

and

"24. Whosoever shall unlawfully and maliciously administer to or cause to be administered to or taken by any other person any poison or other destructive or noxious thing, with intent to injure, aggrieve, or annoy such person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable ... to be kept in penal servitude ...."

Question is ... did McGuire administer the noxious substance? Did he bring the substance, directly or indirectly, into contact with the victims' body (Gillard (1988) 87 Cr App 189)?

Assuming that nobody has ingested one of these pills, it looks to me that whether or not McGuire will get up to ten-years or up to six-months, will depend upon whether or not someone took a pill out of the blister pack.

(Or more accurately whether or not the prosecutor can prove that they did).

Update 4^th December 2011.

The Mail online explains in, "Nurofen addict 'swapped tablets in shop with his own anti-psychotic medication'" that,

"A Nurofen addict was so desperate for the pills he swapped them for his own anti-psychotic medication in chemist's shops, a court heard.

Christopher McGuire, 30, opened packets of the headache tablets and replaced them with his prescription before slipping out the store, it is claimed.

Two other customers Peter Latham and Paul Connor mistakenly took tablets from the sabotaged packets, Southwark Crown Court heard."

The Pursuit Of Justice Is Not The Pursuit Of Truth

2011-10-10T11:48:00.000+01:00

I have a number of law blogs (blawgs) in my google feed, one of which is James Medhurst's Employment Law Blog. One of his posts (unfortunately) titled, Employment Law And Magic Realism, has the following quote within it,

"What [Courts] find is deemed to be the truth but this is a convenient legal fiction and it must be remembered that it is not always actually the truth. Parties will be more satisfied with the system if this is more widely acknowledged. We must not allow [Court] decisions to construct our reality."

But constructing reality from court cases is exactly what we do.

Consider that person A commits a crime and person B gets convicted for that crime. It may well be that person A and person B are the same person; in that case the right person gets convicted, but just because person B gets convicted doesn't mean that he did it, it doesn't mean that he suddenly becomes person A.

Of these two people, one is fact the other is fiction: person A is real whereas person B is a fiction. Person A can become person B, a person who commits a crime can become a person convicted of that crime; but person B cannot become person A, a person convicted of the crime, if he didn't commit the crime, cannot become the person who committed the crime because he was convicted.

But don't take my word for it, here's a quote from Lord Neuberger speaking extra judicially,

"...it was Lord Wilberforce who famously observed that the traditional function of a common law judge was not to seek the truth. As he put it,"

"In a contest purely between one litigant and another . . . the task of the court is to do, and be seen to be doing, justice between the parties . . .. There is no higher or additional duty to ascertain some independent truth. It often happens, from the imperfection of evidence, or the withholding of it, sometimes by the party in whose favour it would tell if presented, that an adjudication has to be made which is not, and is known not to be, the whole truth of the matter: yet if the decision has been in accordance with the available evidence and with the law, justice will have been fairly done."

So when you hear that a person has been convicted of crime it is not a certainty that they did it, just a mere probability. As for a value for that probability, we should be finding that out in the near future.

Al-Qaeda: The Terror Organisation That Never Was

2011-09-16T14:36:00.002+01:00

I've just read "Ricin! The Inside Story of the Terror Plot That Never Was" by former juror Lawrence Archer. The book is well worth reading; it explains, from the perspective of a member of a jury, how people were put on trial for plotting to kill people using ricin: except, there wasn't any ricin, nor any plot.

It explains, in part, how preliminary tests of apparatus seized during a police raid tested positive for protein - which could have been ricin - but two days later, an ELISA assay (for ELISA read very sensitive) showed that no ricin was present. Yet for months everyone was mislead to believe that ricin was present in apparatus seized by the police.

"Gould's evidence that no ricin had been positively identified showed that the ricin-plot hare had been set running by a false positive test result and a decision taken by a non-scientist employee at Porton Down. What's more, no one had sought to calm public fears by correcting the wrong information which had been given to police until three months later, despite the raft of alarming and inaccurate press stories the false reports of a ricin find had generated."

Other threads in the book describe what life is like for an illegal immigrant: petty thieving, poor housing, fear of authorities, exploited by employers. The illegal immigrants in this story were from Algeria, a western friendly dictatorship, that seems not to be a part of the Arab Spring. A place where the security forces are feared, where torture is conducted and who send spies to London, not to spy on the UK gov, but to spy on the illegal immigrants so that they can find reasons to attack their families back in Algeria. Against this background everyone has false documents and everyone goes under a number of different names.

The other thought that came to mind as I read the book was that, if it's possible to be so mislead by the fear of the ricin plot when none exists, couldn't the same be said of Al-Qaeda itself?

Salvador Dali was fascinated by Vermeer's painting, The Lacemaker: he copied the painting and discussed it in lectures. His fascination was for the tip of the lacemaker's needle in the painting since, the needle is visually suggested but not actually depicted. Like the Lacemaker's needle, everything suggests that Al-Qaeda is there but do we really know that it even exists?

Update 3^rd October 2011. It appears from the wikileaks 'cablegate' that I'm not the only one who has these sorts of difficulties. A cable titled, "Ergenekon: it all depends on where you sit" where ambassadorial ace, Sandra Oudkirk writes,

""Ergenekon" remains an all-encompassing term after nearly a year of indictments, investigations, arrests, and search warrants. There seem to be as many perceptions of the reality of Ergenekon as there are agendas..."

Transpose Ergenekon with Al-Qaeda and the statements make as much sense.

Homeless People Ensure High Property Prices Campaign Dealt A Blow

2011-09-06T16:49:00.005+01:00

The Telegraph newspaper reports that its campaign to maintain property prices at the expenses of homeless people has been dealt a blow. Under the headline, "Squatters could be good for us all, says judge in empty homes ruling" the newspaper explains,

"Squatters are not criminals and could be good for society, a judge has ruled in ordering a London council to make public a list of empty homes in its area."

The newspaper doesn't give us any of their analysis of Henderson J's words, instead, it goes on to report,

"With police backing, Camden Council argued that disclosing the list risked unleashing a wave of criminal damage, arson, drug-related crime and organised “stripping” of vacant properties.

But Judge Fiona Henderson emphasised that squatters were not law-breakers and said official concerns were outweighed by the “public interest in putting empty properties back into use”.

The tribunal ruling means Camden Council must now comply with a Freedom of Information Act request by Yiannis Voyias of the Advisory Service for Squatters for a list of empty council-managed and private homes in the borough."

One would hope that this ruling would go some way to stopping the Telegraphs campaign of trying to criminalize the homeless who seek the remedy of adverse possession.

Note, the newspaper article is about Voyias v IC & London Borough of Camden (Freedom of Information Act 2000) [2011] UKFTT EA_2011_0007 (GRC).

Update 27^th September 2011

Another smack in the face for boy blunder Grant Shapps' campaign to ensure that homeless people remain homeless even though empty properties abound. This time the put down comes from 160 leading legal figures explains the Guardian under the title, "Squatting law is being misrepresented to aid ministers' reforms, claim lawyers".

"Solicitors, barristers and legal professors have accused the government of misrepresenting the law and misleading the public to push through reforms on squatting.

The 160 lawyers, who represent tenants and landlords across England and Wales, say the housing minister, Grant Shapps, and justice minster, Crispin Blunt, are "obscuring" the law and accuse them of "sensationalist misrepresentation" during recent debates on squatting legislation.

The letter, published in the Guardian, says that ministers' obfuscation and media misreporting have created "fear for homeowners, confusion for the police and ill-informed debate among both the public and politicians on reforming the law. [In] failing to challenge inaccurate reporting, ministers have furthered the myths being peddled around squatting"."

The article and the letter are worth reading in full. Put simply, you're being lied to. No one from government is correcting these lies.

By no one from government, that'd be Grant Shapps,

the man who has the look of someone who'd be willing to make people homeless just to maintain the excessive house prices for his constituents.

Quoting from the letter linked to above, we have

"By making misleading statements and failing to challenge inaccurate reporting, ministers have furthered the myths being peddled around squatting.

We want it to be clear that it is already a criminal offence for a squatter to occupy someone's home, or a home that a person intends to occupy, under the Criminal Law Act 1977. A homeowner will be a displaced residential occupier, or if they are intending to move into the property, a protected intended occupier. In either case, it is a criminal offence for a squatter to remain in the property as soon as they have been told of the displaced occupier or a protected occupier. The police can arrest any trespasser who does not leave. The displaced or protected occupier can use force to enter the property and reasonable force to remove the trespassers."

If Grant Shapps didn't know the above, he's not fit for purpose and should resign.

Update 5^th October 2011. The truth doesn't seem to be setting me free, it's just bringing me despair and a feeling of imprisonment. Another squatting story has been written up, this time in the Independent (It isn't, Are You?), "Plea to ministers on squatting law". To be fair to Amy, our intrepid reporter, she does a reasonable job: it's just the commentators under the piece that are troubling. They keep peddling the lie that has been scotched by the letter in the Guardian which I reported above on the 27^th September 2011 with regard to squatting family homes. It's despairing to think that people only get their news from one source, I just hope the contributors are shills.

'S truth Bruce

2011-09-03T12:04:00.002+01:00

Currently reading Albion Dreaming by Andy Roberts. Fascinating stuff, the book is a 'popular history of LSD in Britain' and is well worth the investment of time to read it. At p162, the background of one of the Free Festival Organisers, Bill Ubi Dwyer, is being described. Dwyer used to sell LSD at a club in Sydney called the Cellar, the book explains,

The police sent undercover officers to the Cellar but this did not seem to bother Dwyer. ...he was buying LSD directly from the police, who largely controlled the Sydney LSD trade at that time.²⁰

Following Andy Roberts' reference takes us to a Parliamentary speech by R L S Jones, which gives many other examples of police corruption. I found the following particularly amusing,

"The other day a solicitor told me that some time ago one of his clients was busted at Terrey Hills for amphetamine possession. He was taken to the police station and the police officer behind the counter was the one who had sold him the amphetamines, so his case never came to court."

You'll Never See A Nipple

2011-09-02T22:10:00.002+01:00

The headlines in the Daily Express (beware perpetual pop-ups) said,

Should we applaud this crusading newspaper for drawing attention to the fact that our economy is so crap that four million families are reduced to beggary? I haven't read the article too closely, so I don't know what remedies are suggested in the article so that these people aren't reduced to living a life which consists of transferring capital from State to supermarket and from State to landlord.

Or perhaps I'm reading the headline wrong?

Anyway, as for my headline, here's John to explain,

(Remember that this is but mere weeks since the country was blighted by riots).

George and Derek Independently Muse

2011-08-31T10:17:00.001+01:00

The iniquity of the closed source publishing model raises it head again; this time in Derek Lowe's blog under the title, "Why Isn't There an ArXiv For Chemistry?", and in the msm Monbiot has a an article in the Guardian's cif titled, "Academic publishers make Murdoch look like a socialist".

If you don't know the background to closed vs open source publishing, Monbiot's subheading will give a taste,

"Academic publishers charge vast fees to access research paid for by us. Down with the knowledge monopoly racketeers"

This issue has gone unresolved for years. Back in 2004 (and millions of pounds of wealth transfered since) the Select Committee on Science and Technology tenth report told us all about the unsatisfactory state of scientific publishing.

"This Report recommends that all UK higher education institutions establish institutional repositories on which their published output can be stored and from which it can be read, free of charge, online. It also recommends that Research Councils and other Government funders mandate their funded researchers to deposit a copy of all of their articles in this way."

So far, this has been ignored.

It is a massive and ongoing, shameful failure for all involved. This includes not only the governmental funders of research but also charities. As to when and how this will change ... I don't know. I can present reasonable and logical arguments until the cows come home (eg), as no doubt, could anyone working in science who hasn't got access to the privileges of a University library (obviously, those in a similar position but who do have access to the library couldn't give a stuff) but thus far, this continually falls on deaf ears.

False Flag

2011-08-25T11:12:00.001+01:00

It appears that the BBC has produced another Jane Standley (aka an incompetent propaganda blunder) in their reporting of the Libyan Tet offensive ...

Here is the Libyan Flag,

See if you can see it on this broadcast,

Whilst here is the Indian flag,

Sefton Dalmer wouldn't have made such an egregious mistake. Pathetic isn't it?

Thanks to Aangirfan for his post.

Further thoughts ... NATO's mandate to bomb from the UN is running out; the resolution giving them the power to bomb Libya is due to be debated in September. Perhaps there's the sense that the mandate will not be continued and hence this is the reason for the Tet offensive gamble that we're seeing being played out.

Grudgeful Informers

2011-08-16T14:24:00.000+01:00

I'm thinking about the Grudge Informer cases which can be read about here,

"The 'grudge informer' problem illustrates a fundamental difference of views about the nature of law and its relationship with morality.

It is called the “grudge informer” to cover events where one person reported another for trivial crimes, which nevertheless carried the death penalty (for exampled speaking against the Fuhrer or the government), to settle feuds or to get revenge, but effectively using the state machinery to try to commit murder.

Fuller records the following case:

After the War a German woman was prosecuted for denouncing her husband to the authorities in accordance with the anti-sedition laws of 1934 & 1938. He had made derogatory remarks about Hitler, The husband was prosecuted and convicted of slandering the Fuehrer, which carried the death penalty. Although sentenced to death, the husband was not executed but was sent as a soldier to the Eastern front. He survived the war and on his return instituted proceedings against his wife.

She argued that she had not in fact committed a crime because a court had sentenced her husband in accordance with the law of the time.

She was convicted of 'illegally depriving another of his freedom' (rechtswidrige Freiheitsberaubung), a crime under the Penal Code, 1871, which had remained in force throughout the Nazi period. The Nazi laws were, the court said, "contrary to the sound conscience and sense of justice of all decent human beings," (1951).

There were other similar prosecutions."

I'm thinking about these cases with regard to the difference in treatment being meted out to looters and rioters compared to bankers/landlords/property owners. The latter all becoming rich by appropriating the property of others, using mechanisms that are set-up within the system of the law. It's trite to say that the looters/rioters broke the law whilst the other class of people listed didn't, but that doesn't give a satisfactory resolution. The grudgeful informer didn't break the law until the Nazi regime fell and she was prosecuted; if the regime had not fallen, she could have been happily living with her paramour. The same is true of the 'bankers/landlords/property owners': they're not breaking the law until the current regime of exploitation is swept away. As to whether or not this regime will be swept away and the property returned: I doubt it. I can see that we're going to be stuck in this loop for a long while, yet.

Equity For Rent

2011-08-05T14:38:00.001+01:00

I've been thinking about equity for rent.

As I once said before,

All rent paid on land will buy a beneficial interest as will any investment in the property. The renter will immediately become a beneficiary and will then have all the settled equitable rights and benefits that are already in place.

I think that this could be accomplished by repealing section 1(1)(b) of the Law of Property Act 1925 which provides,

The only estates in land which are capable of subsisting or of being conveyed or created at law are— ...
(b) A term of years absolute.

which would leave section 1(1)(a) of the same Act which states,

The only estates in land which are capable of subsisting or of being conveyed or created at law are—
(a) An estate in fee simple absolute in possession;....

If it wasn't possible to rent, what would happen?

By making the suggested change it would only be possible to have legal ownership until you decided to sell the property, if you wanted to rent the property you would only be capable of slowly selling portions of it. The money that passed to the landlord as rent would make the renter a beneficial owner, he would own a proportion of the property in direct proportion to the amount of money that he had paid as rent. In other words, his rental payments would buy equity.

When the tenant wanted to move on he could rely on trust law to ensure that his beneficial interest was secure. Overnight the country would become a property owning democracy. (Recall that the Thatcher government did something similar with council houses when they instigated their right to buy scheme. The amount that a tenant had paid in rent was taken into account when the tenant applied to buy the property).

Before dismissing the idea consider rentcharges. If you've never heard the expression rentcharge imagine that you own some property which you want to sell, perhaps to a builder. As part of the sale you negotiate that the owner of the land pays you money forever just because you once owned the land. The purchaser (builder) buys the land and pays you an annual income; if he's a builder, when he sells the property the rentcharge is passed on to whoever buys the property. Further, these rentcharges could go back hundreds of years. They aren't consider to be fair and are being phased out.

For more background on rentcharges consider, Report on Rentcharges (Report) [1975] EWLC 68 (pdf).

If we're prepared to scrap rentcharges: why not scrap rent? Aren't the reasons for scrapping rentcharges the same reasons for scrapping rent?

Farrell v South Yorkshire Police Authority 2011

2011-07-29T15:21:00.002+01:00

Find below a transcription of Farrell v South Yorkshire Police Authority 2011.

Note that the original document contained typographical, grammatical and other errors (eg, court cases wrongly named such as 'Granger' for 'Grainger' and inconsistent spellings of names) which I have tried to reproduce.

Note that I may have incorporated my own transcription errors (~~there is a sub-paragraph numbering error at the time of writing which I need to correct~~).

At some later date I intend to attach a table listing confusing typos and other errors. Also, expect to see case and statutes tables.

Case No:    2803805/2010

EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNALS

Claimant:            Mr A Farrell

Respondent:            South Yorkshire Police Authority

Heard at:            Sheffield    On:    Monday 23 May 2011

                            (In Chambers):
                            Tuesday 24 May 2011

Before:            Employment Judge Rostant

Representation

Claimant:            Mr N Siddal of counsel
Respondent:            Mr D Jones of counsel

RESERVED JUDGMENT

1. I find that the Claimant's belief does not satisfy the definition of “belief” in Regulation 2(1)(b) Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations and all claims brought under those Regulations are struck out.

2. The Claimant is to be required to pay a deposit as a condition of continuing with his claim of unfair dismissal.

3. The amount of that deposit shall be determined following further enquiry by the Tribunal.

REASONS

1. Background to the case.

By a claim presented to the Employment Tribunal on 30 November 2010, the Claimant complained that he had been unfairly dismissed and subjected to discrimination on the grounds of his religion or belief. The Claimant had been employed as a Principal Intelligent Analyst and had been dismissed by the Respondent on 2 September 2010. The Claimant had been tasked with producing an annual assessment of strategic threat risk assessment for the South Yorkshire Police Authority area. This was to be done under the following headings; Threat to Life, Community Harm, Individual Harm, Force Reputation, Economic Harm to Community, Financial Harm to the Force and Cross Border and was to be an analysis of the threats posed under those various headings of a variety of crimes, the first two being terrorism internal and other terrorism external. The Claimant produced an assessment matrix which ascribed to internal terrorism a threat level of 100% under all the various headings and, to all other risks, zero percentage save for “terrorism external” where there was a final score of 1% although it is impossible to see from the matrix where that 1% was derived from since all the scores under the various headings are 0%. The Claimant also attached to that document a Force Control strategy document for 2010/2011 in which he described citizen and community focus, serious organised crime and motor crime, protecting vulnerable people and tackling crime as irrelevant and, under the heading of terrorism and domestic extremism which he headed:

“The Truth about 7/7 (a reference to the London bombings of 7 July 2007), The Truth about 9/11 (a reference to the September 11 attack upon the World Trade Centre in New York)”

Those two headings were followed by a report which starts with the following words:

“This report arises from your Principal Analyst holding views which run contrary to the UK Government's rhetoric on the events such as 9/11 and 7/7. It considers the rapidly developing ideology referred to in this report as the New World Order. From my own self assessment the report outlines how my relatively new but radical opposing views are becoming increasingly problematic both from a personal, managerial and organisational perspective.”

The document went onto outline the Claimant's views that 9/11 and 7/7 were “false flag operations” authorised by the respective national governments in order to give material with which the respective governments could persuade their respective populations to support foreign wars. Under the heading “My Summary” (see page 85 of the bundle) the following words appear:

“For the remaining time I am employed with South Yorkshire Police I want to tirelessly and peacefully search for the truth. I don't much care in what role I do this. To me nothing else matters as without knowing it, we are spiralling towards a state of war every bit as dangerous as we were when Neville Chamberlain declared peace in our time in 1939. Unfortunately on this occasion, the threats are far less visible, equally putrid but potentially many times more dangerous. They come from within our own camp but are hidden in the power and hold that the secret societies and global elite and the giant world banking establishments have over bankrupted governments. In the UK – standing shoulder to shoulder with the USA over foreign policy in the Middle East – ours has long since been corrupted. Frankly we are in a terrible mess and the nation has become too stupid to realise it.

My honest view as a Principal Analyst is that all other threats pale into insignificance when compared to the inner corruption in high places and government. Ultimately, by fair means or foul this inner corruption has to be exposed and the Police Service and the Intelligence Services have their own value decision to make. Who is brave enough to take a contra position for the sake of our freedoms? I recognise that this stance is not likely to be embraced immediately and will probably be seen as unacceptable to senior managers. That does not make it wrong. Unfortunately, I see few others in the Police Services having the courage to stand up and attempt to expose the ignoble lies on behalf of the public we serve. Yet if we just do nothing and bury our heads in the sand we are every bit as complicit in the tyranny.”

The summary went onto say that the failure by the Police Service to arrest Mr Blair was to be complicit in the evil and the the report, save for a quote from Ephesians Chapter 6 versus 10 to 13, concludes as follows:

“The real truth behind 9/11 and 7/7 render the Government's Counter-terrorism Strategy and our Control Strategy of PREVENT and RICH picture and counter-terrorism local profiles as utter shams crafted to divert attention from their own secret scheming and evil ways of the elite. It needs dismantling and overhauling fast. All this to my mind invalidates the force controls strategy unless this stance is reflected within.”

Ultimately, that report resulted in a disciplinary hearing of 2 September 2010. It was the Respondent's case that the Claimant's expression of views were incompatible with his contract of employment as Principal Analyst and precluded him from discharging his role. The mater was dealt with by Mr Hiller who took the view that the Claimant's position of Principal Analyst was untenable and the Claimant was dismissed. The Claimant appealed and that appeal too was dismissed.

2. Background to this Hearing

The matter came before me at a Case Management Discussion on 15 February 2011 and I produced my Case Management Order on the same day. Both parties were represented by Counsel. The parties agreed that it was appropriate to hold a Pre-Hearing Review to consider the question as to whether or not the Claimant's “separate philosophical belief” expressed as being set out in paragraph 4 of the claim form was capable of constituting a belief attracting protection under Regulation 2(1) of the Religion and Belief Regulations 2003. The secondary question was whether or not the claim or any part of it should be struck out as having any reasonable prospect of success or in the alternative whether the Claimant should be required to pay a deposit as a condition of continuing with any other contentions contained in this claim.

3. The Claimant gave evidence on his own behalf. He was represented by Mr Siddall of Counsel. The Claimant's witness statement was taken as read and the appendices attached to the Claimant's witness statement were considered albeit, at Mr Siddall's invitation, not in minute detail. Both Mr Siddall and Mr Jones prepared helpful skeleton arguments which I read before hearing Mr Farrell's evidence. Both Counsel made relatively brief closing submissions to which I shall refer later.

4. The law

In this case, the parties are agreed that the discrimination complaint is brought on the basis of belief rather than religion and the definition in Reg 2(1)(b) Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003 applies. The complaint of unfair dismissal is brought under the provisions of S94 and S98 Employment Rights Act 1996. My powers to strike the claim or claims out as standing no reasonable prospect of success are to be found at Rule 18(7)(b) Schedule 1 Employment Tribunals (Constitution and Rules of Procedure) Regulations 2004 and my power to order a deposit as a condition of continuing with any contention, on the grounds that it stands little reasonable prospect of success is to be found at Rule 20 of the same Rules.

5. The Parties' Submissions and My Conclusions on the Question of Religious or Philosophical Belief

5.1. It would be helpful for me to set out paragraph 4 of the Claimant's claim form which reads in its entirety as follows:

“Further by reason of his religion and/or by reason of his separate philosophical belief the Claimant holds the following view:

i. The world faces the risk of the ascent of the “New World Order”.

ii. The establishment of the New World Order is the goal of a global elite which seeks to introduce a secret satanic ideology to enslave the masses and claim control of the world's resources;

iii. The global elite seeking the establishment of the New World Order are intrinsically linked to secrete societies such as Free Masonry and include the leaders of the United Kingdom, the United States governments and international financial institution;

iv. The attacks of 7 July 2005 and 11 September 2001 were in fact perpetrated by the governments of the UK and the USA against their own citizens for the purpose of building support for their foreign policy agenda;

v. The media is controlled by the global elite and it wrongly overstates the risk of terrorist attack on the UK to seek to build support for its foreign policy agenda;

vi. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are unjustified and morally wrong as they are for the sole purpose of furthering the New World Order.

In fact, although all parties clearly understood the matter to be a case relating to philosophical belief when discussing the matter with me in Case Management Discussion as reflected by my Order, at the hearing Mr Siddall sought to assert that, in fact, the relevant beliefs were a mixture of the philosophical and religious and, helpfully, Mr Jones did not seek to prevent the Claimant from advancing the case on that basis. Accordingly I was content to approach the matter on that basis too.

5.2 During his evidence, it became clear that the Claimant is an adherent to what may be termed “End Time” theological views. That is to say that he has become an adherent to a relatively well recognised strand of, particularly, Protestant Christian theology which, basing itself in large measure upon the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelations, concludes that the end of the world will be presaged by the rising up of something called the New World Order. Mr Farrell's own religious convictions have moved over time. He was brought up a Roman Catholic but relatively recently has become a convert to Methodism and even more recently, based upon his reading of the bible and other texts, has come to hold the End Time theological views outlined above. A full explanation of the Claimant's beliefs in this regard is set out at paragraphs 5 to 10. At paragraph 10 the Claimant says

“I accept that this is not mainstream Christian interpretation but nevertheless it is seen as a valid belief within Christian theology. Such beliefs are arguably most closely match that of a Seventh Day Adventist.”

5.3 The Claimant goes on to explain that the New World Order, made up as it is of human actors, comprising the members of secret societies such as, but not limited to, Freemasons, the members of various governments including that of the UK and the United States, world banking institutes and the global media is, nevertheless, under a satanic influence. Its hidden goal is to create a one-world, Fascist government, stripped of nationalist and racial boundaries, obedient only to its own agenda (see paragraph 15 of the Claimant's witness statement). The Claimant is particularly concerned with part of the secret agenda of the New World Order which is the obliteration of bible believing Christianity under a one world religion. At paragraph 20, the Claimant goes on to set out what he describes as the “separate philosophical components of my beliefs.”

They are as follows:

(a) Both Freemasonry and the New World Order are satanic and the ascent of the New World Order is part of the anti-Christ system and the fulfilment of end time prophecy.

(b) The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are morally wrong and a furtherance of the satanic New World Order agenda and

(c) The false flag attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 were perpetrated in furtherance of the New World Order agenda.

5.4 It seems to me that the membership of the New World Order and its satanic character and the fact that its ascent is part of the anti-Christ system seem to me to be not philosophical but beliefs derived from the Claimant's reading of scripture and are religious in nature. However, I think the Claimant has more properly ascribed his beliefs in the immorality of the wars in Afghanistan and the “false flag” nature of the attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 to the heading of philosophy. This is particularly so since the Claimant was happy to accept in questioning from me that there was nothing that flowed from his adherence to End Time theology and the existence of the New World Order that inevitably led him to conclude that 9/11 and 7/7 were false flag attacks and that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are manifestations of the New World Order's ascent. He accepted that those were beliefs which were held by people with no religious background and he accepted that there were many people believed in End time theology and, indeed believed in the existence of the New World Order, who did not necessarily accept his explanation for the “terrorist” attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 or the fact that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are manifestations of the New World Order's ascent.

Upon further questioning the Claimant clarified that he believed that points 1 to 3 in paragraph 4 were essentially religious belief and points 4 to 6 inclusive were essentially philosophical beliefs albeit that they were connected one with the other by a logical chain of thought.

5.5 Mr Farrell is clear in his own mind that there are aspects of the belief which he relies on as affording him protection from discrimination which are philosophical in nature. It seems to me to be common ground that it is the philosophical aspects of the belief that are those which have really caused Mr Farrell's particular difficulties at work. On his own evidence he was perfectly prepared to continue to develop and produce a strategic risk assessment on the terrorist threat in what might be regarded as the conventional basis despite the fact that he had developed the End Time and New World Order beliefs described above. His difficulty only arose when, in addition to those beliefs, he developed the belief that 9/11 and 7/7 were false flag operations carried out by the respective national governments as aspects of their membership of the New World Order. For this reason, and understandably, much of the hearing concentrated on that aspect of Mr Farrell's beliefs and, to a lesser extent, on the aspect of his belief that identifies the world media as being part of the New World Order. The significance of the latter point is that it appears to me that Mr Farrell readily accepts that without that component the gigantic hoax that is represented, in his belief, by the official narratives concerning 9/11 and 7/7 would simply be impossible.

5.6 In the course of submissions by both Mr Jones and Mr Siddall I was helpfully referred to a number of authorities the most recent of this is the case of Granger v Nicholson [2010] IRLR 4. That is a case which relates to a philosophical belief. At paragraph 24 Mr Justice Burton sets out a summary of what limits are to be placed upon the definition of philosophical belief for the purposes of the Regulations. Both parties addressed themselves to the issues raised in that paragraph and, indeed, Mr Farrell's witness statement is organised by reference to the matters set out in that paragraph. Before I address those particular submissions I should observe that the guidelines offered by Mr Justice Burton are not themselves entirely unproblematic. For example, although there is no particular conceptual difficulty in the question as to whether or not the Claimant genuinely holds the belief, distinguishing between belief on the one hand and opinion or viewpoint on the other presents very real difficulties. The third point, at least in this case, is relatively straightforward to deal with but the fourth is not since Mr Justice Burton does not say what level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance would be satisfied other that to say “a certain level”. In construing that part of Mr Justice Burton's decision, I have borne in mind that one of the questions before the Employment Appeal Tribunal was how far, it at all, a philosophical belief is required to be similar to a religious belief in order to qualify for a protection. That question is answered by Mr Justice Burton, at least indirectly, by concluding that the question of the definition can be approached with the assistance of ECHR jurisprudence and in particular the decision of (on the application of Williamson) v The Secretary of State for Education and Employment [2005] 2 AC 246HL and Campbell v United Kingdom [1982] 4EHRR 393ECHR. Many of the points set out a paragraph 24 derive from the judgment of Lord Nichols in Williamson and that paragraphs 23 and 24 of that judgment are set out extensively at paragraph 22 of the EAT's judgment in Granger. It seems to me that Williamson explicitly recognises that equivalent tests must be applied to both religious and philosophical belief but makes it clear that those tests may be more easily met by religious belief than philosophical belief. Of particular relevance to my decision is the following passage taken from paragraph 23 of Lord Nichols speech in Williamson:

“The belief must also be coherent in the sense of being intelligible and capable of being understood. But, again, too much should not be demanded in this regard. Typically, religion involves belief in the supernatural. It is not always susceptible to lucid exposition or, still less, rationale justification. The language used is often the language of allegory, symbol and metaphor. Depending upon the subject/matter, individuals cannot always be expected to express themselves with cogency or precision nor are an individual's beliefs fixed to static for them.”

The significance of that passage is that I take it to be the principal source for bullet point 4 in paragraph 24 that is to say that the belief must attain a certain level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and important. That is important because it is that aspect of the Granger test which I consider Mr Farrell's beliefs fail to meet.

6. Why I do not consider that Mr Farrell holds a philosophical belief

6.1 As I have already said, considerable time in the hearing was expended on the question of Mr Farrell's belief in relation to 9/11 and the involvement of the media. Mr Siddell conceded, properly, that Mr Jones was fully entitled to conduct a forensic examination by cross examination of the nature of those beliefs.   That concession could only have been on the basis that Mr Siddell acknowledged that there is a requirement that Mr Farrell's beliefs met the test that they attained a certain level of cogency and coherence. I take the view that the words cogency and coherence, whilst bound to inform each other are different in meaning but part of one test. Mr Siddell's submission was, however, that I should pay serious heed to Lord Nichols injunctions that not too much should be expected in this regard and to note the similarity of requirements for establishing a philosophical belief from a religious belief. Mr Siddell said there was particular force to that submission in this case where the philosophical belief, as it were, followed on from or derived from a religious belief. I entirely take the force of Mr Siddell's submissions but nevertheless if is clear from the authorities that some sort of objective assessment of the cogency and cohesion of the philosophical belief is expected of the Tribunal. Mr Jones's submission was, unsurprisingly, that the beliefs held by Mr Farrell completely failed to meet even a bare minimum standard of coherence and cohesion. I agree with Mr Jones.

6.2 In reaching that conclusion, I make it clear that I do not consider that is was not any part of Mr Farrell's task to persuade me of the rightness of his convictions nor was it any part of his task to show that his convictions were shared by a large number of people. In this regard, the judgment of Elias P Eweida v British Airways Plc [2009] IRLR 78 paragraph 29 and the judgment of Mr Justice Burton in Granger paragraph 26 are clear. However it seems to me on my reading of the authorities that it is my task to bring some measure of objective scrutiny to bear upon the beliefs advanced by Mr Farrell.

6.3 Although I have been concerned with all of the points set out in paragraph 25 of Granger some seem to me to be easily met. Mr Jones does not seriously challenge the genuineness of Mr Farrell's belief and indeed Mr Farrell's sincerity and honesty shine out from his witness statement and the manner of his giving evidence in Tribunal. There is little doubt that Mr Farrell's beliefs relate to weighty and substantial aspects of human life and behaviour. The relate to the political and religious governance of the entire human race. Although I took Mr Jones to be suggesting that the beliefs of Mr Farrell might not be worthy of respect in a democratic society, it seems to me that there is absolutely nothing incompatible with human dignity in Mr Farrell's beliefs, although they contain within them shocking statements about the motivation of many people who might be thought to derive legitimacy from an obligation to work in the interests of the citizens of their state. As I have already said, the area of principal difficulty for Mr Farrell lies in the requirement to attain a certain level of cogency and coherence. This seems to me to be a more difficult thing to achieve when beliefs are about matters where there is a substantial amount of evidence in the public domain, as opposed to where beliefs relate to the unknowable for example the existence of the deity. In that context the assessment of cogency and coherence must take into account the broadly accepted body of knowledge in the public domain.

6.4 Unfortunately. Mr Farrell's evidence on the false flag operations and media control was relatively scant. (See paragraphs 30 and 31 of his witness statement.) He started with a proposition that he did not claim to know exactly what had happened during the attacks of 9/11 and 7/7 but then asserted his belief that there were both false flag operations. In paragraph 31 I took him to be setting out the reason for that belief by reference to Hegelian Dialectic theory. He then described as “weighty proponents” supporting this theory as Professor David Ray Griffin and Professor David McGregor. Very little more is said about Professor McGregor but the claimant did annex an article by Professor Griffin to his statement. On the latter point it should be noted that Professor McGregor's article appears to be more in the nature of an essay and is entirely unreferenced. It says that the London bombings “may be an instance of what I have called Machiavellian state terror” and also suggests indeed that the 9/11 attack “might also be such an incidence.” Professor McGregor goes on to suggest that the four men identified by the Police as responsible for the London bombings were nothing of the sort and suggest that the Police narrative that those bombers all blew themselves up in the course of their attacks is somehow untrue. Indeed many of Professor McGregor's question marks and assertions are shared by Mr Farrell and it is obvious that Mr Farrell is deeply influence by Professor McGregor's thoughts. However the fact must remain that for every Professor McGregor there are at least ten other commentators expressing contrary views and the difficulty for Mr Farrell is that the conspiracy theory he advances remains, in the light of subsequent events and the weight of evidence, wildly improbable. There is no body of respectable academic commentary in peer reviewed journals that supports the theory, or at least none that I have had drawn to my attention. I do not regard Professor McGregor's article as satisfying that descriptions as I have already said it is unreferenced and was published for what I take to be an on-line journal entitled J7.

6.5 Once Mr Farrell was required to answer questions about his beliefs, their Incoherent nature became all too apparent. Mr Farrell's view was that the four bombers were not blown up in the July 7th attacks but were young men who had been persuaded to act the part of terrorist for a drill. In this context he explained the suicide video left one one of the “supposed” suicide bombers in the 7/7 attacks as “acting” by a man playing the part of a bomber for a drill. He and the other three men filmed on their way to the attacks were, it seems not blown up by their own bombs but killed by security forces at Canary Wharf to prevent them from subsequently revealing their role as innocent dupes. In the is regard, a Mr Philip Powell of an organisation called Vista Security was implicated. He had been interviewed on the day of the attacks saying that he had been invited to set up a training exercise for a putative terrorist threat. The exercise involved 1,000 people and was at the exact sites as where the attacks actually occurred. When it was pointed out to Mr Farrell that if Mr Powell was really part of the conspiracy it would seem unlikely that he would then make such a glaring admission on national television, Mr Farrell changed tack and suggested that perhaps Mr Powell too was not knowingly part of the conspiracy but was an innocent dupe. Mr Powell remains alive as far as is known. Mr Farrell could not explain why not one person of the 1,000 people allegedly involved in the drill had not come forward. When confronted with the obvious fact that the 7/7 bombings had been investigated exhaustively by a six month inquest presided over by Lady Justice Hallet which has in no way challenged the official narrative and which took evidence from a large number of survivors, emergency workers and lower ranked Police Officers. Mr Farrell's conclusion, arrived at for the first time during the hearing was that Lady Justice Hallet must also be involved in the conspiracy.

6.6 When questioned about the media's involvement, Mr Farrell made it clear that there were certain matters of fact which he accepted unreservedly. For example, he accepts the fact that thousands of people died on 9/11 and 52 people had died on 7/7. This is despite the fact, as he accepted, that he knew this only from the media. He could not explain why, if there was a global media conspiracy of such power that the world could be convinced of such an outrageous hoax, there was any need to perpetrate the attacks at all. Furthermore the idea of a global media conspiracy posits a uniformity of voice which is evidently absent. For example, there are national newspapers in the UK which evidently accept the official narrative of the 7/7 bombings but continue to publish opinion pieces and news reports critical of the war in Afghanistan. It is this war and the war in Iraq which Mr Farrell believes is, ultimately the purpose of the false flag attacks. Mr Farrell posited a global media conspiracy without beginning to explain the evidence for this inherently unlikely construct, save that without it the rest of his beliefs are unsustainable. That type of bootstrapping logic, so often a feature of conspiracy theories of all types, lacks anything about it to which the word cogent could be applied.

6.7 Another example of the internal contradictions inherent in Mr Farrell's position lies in his views on the truth about 9/11. He explained that he was sceptical that the Twin Towers had collapsed as a consequence of the airplane collisions although he did not challenge the fact that the collisions had taken place (he thought that they might have been arranged by remote control). This scepticism was key to his growing understanding that the whole official narrative was so flawed that the only possible explanation was that it was a gigantic and evil lie. The sheer illogic of his position on 9/11 was startling. If the purpose of those attacks was to outrage the American public into supporting the American government in foreign wars, the purpose of the aeroplane strike without the subsequent catastrophic collapse of the buildings, which the Claimant believed had been engineered by the Secret Service detonated bombs on the inside of the building. As with all conspiracy theory, the huge body of evidence against the theory is dismissed as the deliberate laying of a false trail by immensely powerful people who are themselves part of the conspiracy. How is is that, in the face of so much power and control, he had been allowed to discern the truth by, in part at least, reading published materials, Mr Farrell never explained.

6.8 The leads to another area of difficulty, which is the size of the conspiracy. The “false flag” operations were ordered it seems, by the relevant governments of the day. Those governments have been replaced, in bitterly fought elections, by governments of different political outlooks. The Blair government is implicated but so is the Brown government and the subsequent coalition government, both of which have continued the wars said to be the point and purpose of the 7/7 hoax. The same is true in the USA where, if Mr Farrell is correct, President Obama must as equally be involved as Mr Bush. Whilst, as I have said I have no doubt about the sincerity of Mr Farrell's philosophical beliefs, in my judgment they signally fails to meet any minimum standard of cogency or coherence. Indeed, applying an objective test they are absurd beliefs albeit sincerely held. They do not, for that reason alone, attract the protection of the Regulations.

6.9 I turn now to another matter which was canvassed by Mr Jones which is the questions as to whether or not this is a belief or merely an opinion. The relevant authority in this regard is the case of McClintock v Department of Constitutional Affairs [2008] IRLR a decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal presided over by Elias P. paragraph 45 of that judgment the then President of the EAT said as follows:

“As the Tribunal in our view correctly observed, to constitute a belief there must be a religious or philosophical viewpoint in which one actually believes. It is not enough to have an opinion based on some real or perceived logic or based on information or lack of information available.”

That case involved a Christian who was also a justice of the peace and who asked to be excused from presiding over adoption applications made by same sex couples. The philosophical aspect of his belief was founded on his observation that the evidence to support the view that single sex parent could ever be in the child's best interest was unconvincing, although he did not discount the possibility that research might reconcile that conflict. However, whilst the evidence remained as it was, he did not consider that children should be made guinea pigs of what he regarded as a social experiment. Mr Jones relies on that passage in suggesting the the Claimant's beliefs about 9/11 and 7/7 are no more than opinions based on information. He particularly relies on Mr Farrell's evidence that he could conceive of a possibility that he might be wrong. It was Mr Jones's submission that Mr Farrell's position was therefore simply a matter of opinion. Mr Siddell's submission, to the contrary, was that it was clear that whilst Mr Farrell was conceding of a logical possibility, it was not one that he thought was likely. He did not believe that he was wrong nor was he really open to persuasion. It was clear that he had formed a settled belief. I prefer Mr Siddell's submission on this point. I have no doubt that Mr Farrell's position is very different to that of Mr McClintock. Mr Farrelll has viewed all of the evidence and as an Analyst come to a conclusion that the evidence points in one direction and not another. Whilst as an intelligent man he is prepared to admit that he might be wrong in his analysis, he does not believe himself to be wrong. Mr McClintock on the other hand simply remained to be convinced of a particular point of view and took the view that the status quo should prevail at least for himself until he was so convinced. In the meantime, doubtless, his religious views played some part in determining what status quo should look like. I think there is a genuine distinction to be drawn between those two positions and I think that Mr Farrell falls the right side of the line in holding what seems to me to be a genuine belief albeit one which fails the test of cogency and coherence as I have set out above.

6.10 It follows from my conclusion that Mr Farrell does not hold a belief which meets the definition in the Regulations that all claims relying on that must be struck out, leaving only his complaint of unfair dismissal.

7. The decision on the complaint of unfair dismissal.

7.1 Although I cannot go so far as to say that this claim should struck out as standing no reasonable prospect of success, in my judgment it would be right for me to order a deposit as a condition of Mr Farrell pursing it. At the beginning of my judgment I quoted extensively from Mr Farrell's report, the report which ultimately led to his dismissal. It is clear to me that Mr Farrell, at least in his initial presentation to his employers, was delineating a position for himself which he recognised was in conflict with his continued employment with the Respondent. In short, he wished to occupy himself in his employment with the Respondent in the pursuit of what he regarded as the obvious truth, that is to say that what terrorist threat exists in this country emanates from the government and not, for example, from radical Islamist terror groups. The logic of that for South Yorkshire Police Force was that if they came to accept Mr Farrell's view the Police Force would be derelict in its duties to the public in not investigating that terrorist threat, a point which Mr Farrell also made explicit. Mr Siddell urged upon me the view that a complaint of unfair dismissal required the Respondent to show a potentially fair reason for dismissal and that was a matter for assessment by three members of the Tribunal. I would simply observe that Rule 18(7) permits application os this nature and permits a judge, sitting alone, to decide whether complaints of unfair dismissal (and other complaints) stand any reasonable prospect of success. That must include an objective assessment of the evidence, taken at its highest for the Claimant, set against the relevant legal principles. The Claimant was dismissed by letter of 7 December. The operative paragraph is as follows:

“He (Mr Hiller, the dismissing officer) had listened carefully to both cases. He felt that it was clear that the Chief Constable's and the Police Authority's felt that it was clear that the Chief Constable's and the Police Authority's priorities at present are to present a balanced service which meets the needs of local communities. The Control Strategy is one document which summaries the key policing priorities in order for the Police Authority to give the force the resources to serve the needs of the local communities. He felt that the supporting statements you presented indicated that your sincere beliefs and opinions around world terrorism meant that as Principal Analyst you are no longer able to produce a Control Strategy for the Director of Intelligence which was proportionate to the risks the community faced. Your priority concerned global and national perspectives which are out of balance with the priorities in South Yorkshires local communities.”

That seems to me to be the very clearest indication that the Respondent would have advance a reason relating either to capability or some other substantial reason and nit seems to me to be no part of Mr Farrell's case that he was dismissed for any other reason than the views he advanced in his report to his line manager. I think it unlikely in the extreme that a Tribunal would conclude that the Respondent in the circumstances could not show a potentially fair reason for dismissal.

7.2 I have not, however, been prepared to conclude that Mr Farrell stands no reasonable prospect of success since it may be that an argument could be made that dismissal fell outside of the reasonable range of responses. This seems to me to depend significantly on evidence to which I have not had access, as to what possibility there was of keeping Mr Farrell away from analysis in relation to terrorism and whether in any event the confidence of the Chief Constable and Police Authority in Mr Farrell as an Analyst generally was so (reasonably) shaken that dismissal was the only possible option. However, I do take the view that there is little reasonable prospect of success in Mr Farrell persuading a Tribunal that dismissal fell outside of the reasonable range of responses particularly given the passages I have quoted and Mr Farrell's own admission that he understood his position to be in fundamental conflict with the Police Force. That was conflict which could only be resolved if the Police Force came to adopt his views as to the nature of the terrorist threat.

7.3 In the circumstances, it will be my order that Mr Farrell be required to pay a deposit. However, I heard no evidence from Mr Farrell as to his means and I am required to hear such evidence before settling the size of the deposit. Accordingly, unless the parties can agree to have the matter dealt with in writing there will need to be a very brief reconvened hearing for me to consider that aspect of the matter.

Rancourt Sued In Defamation

2011-07-28T08:03:00.000+01:00

Interesting court case on the way in Canada with Prof Denis Rancourt being sued for defamation, see

Particulars of claim and statement of defence found in the given links.

Curious that there doesn't appear to be any interest in the case in the UK centric blogosphere.

The Squire

2011-07-27T08:15:00.004+01:00

Once, someone told me about a play called Squire, written by a poet called Tom Pickard. The play was on television in the 70s, I've never seen it, but I'm told the story is about an unemployed man from Newcastle upon Tyne who refuses to work. He refuses to work because he's a Squire (or, he thinks he is) and squires don't work do they?

Instead, they mince about in plus fours, play croquet and live off others.

It appears there is someone else with a similar fantasy: instead of a squire, this time he's a Lord (see, Mereworth v Ministry of Justice [2011] EWHC 1589 (Ch)). The chap has this delusional view that by accident of birth he can sit in the House of Lords and interfere with the democratic process. Having more money than the Squire, at first blush, he doesn't appear to be as screwy; but the courts managed to see through him and subsequently knocked him back. They reduced him to the same status as the Lord of Harpole but were kind enough not to point out that Harpole has a lot more talent and made a greater contribution to our society.

The chap's court case draws attention to the fallacy of democracy in the UK pre-1999 and clarifies the constitutional position for those who share his delusion. However, there is still a long way to go before we stop subordinating ourselves to the delusions of others.

Bad Practice

2011-07-21T14:19:00.000+01:00

For those working in science, does anyone out there have any examples of bad practice that they've seen or heard about over the years?

For example, I heard about someone getting sacked for mouth pipetting polio vaccine.

While another person was so confident of his glassware cleaning skills that when he had washed up after using cyanide he would take a drink of water from the glassware.
Naked flames are banned on chemical plants; electrical equipment is made safe before being taken onto a plant, operators wear anti-static shoes. But when someone went to put a process on a chemical plant in India, he was shocked to discover that before the process was run, the reactor was blessed with burning incense.
A crucial part of chemical processing is safety: with this in mind reactors are fitted with something called a bursting disc. If there is an unexpected build up of pressure in a reactor, the bursting disc bursts before the vessel alerting everybody to the fact that there is something seriously wrong with the process being run. Unfortunately bursting discs are sometimes blown due to operator error and further, they can be a pain to replace. At one company I heard about, the operators replaced some of the bursting discs with coins in order to avoid having to replace bursting discs.
Someone used to amuse themselves by seeding a plant scale crystallisation with a bolus of their phlegm.

Anyone got anymore?

Resistance Is Farrell

2011-07-20T12:27:00.001+01:00

Tony Farrell has given another interview in the alternative media, this time on Resistance Radio. I listened to the interview with a view to (i) finding out more details of his legal claim against South Yorkshire police with regard to his dismissal and, (ii) to try and understand the process of preparing a threat assessment matrix.

In the first part of the interview he comes across as a novice conspiraloon where he namechecks people who seem to have scant regard for the scholarly method, this is done with the help of the interviewer who intrudes in the interview in order, at times, to push his own agenda. Ignoring this aspect of the interview Farrell does make some interesting points.

Starting at ca 39.40 he begins to talk about how his dismissal unfolded. He explained that he had to prepare his threat assessment for the 8^th July 2010. In the run up to the big day, he had been considering the alternative hypotheses of inside jobs etc based upon various truther websites and documentaries he'd seen. Although his threat assessment was essentially complete he had a crisis of conscience with regard to what he was going to present to his superiors with regard to terrorism. This troubled him with regard to his loyalties within the hierarchy and so he dropped his superior a briefing note. He explainied that, although the terror threat assessment was only a small part of the overall matrix he was preparing, this aspect was causing him huge problems.

The next day (7^th July 2010) Farrell's boss, the director of intelligence, asked Farrell whether or not he could still deliver his presentation. Farrell explained that everything was in place such that he could deliver on the due date.

When the due date came, 8^th July 2010, Farrell said he presented a ludicrous report where he focused on the terror aspect of the matrix. He then went on to describe the process that was used to remove him from his position.

Throughout this description he explained that he was one of 43 principal intelligence analysts. The analysts used police information systems in order to prepare these assessments which he described as crude and flawed from a statistical point of view. He said that the threat assessment process was a gimmick to deflect from wider issues and a massive distraction from allowing analysts to do their jobs. (A comparison with R J Heuers' Psychology of Intelligence Analysis may be of interest, particularly for those who haven't read it.)

Beyond that, Farrell doesn't provide much more details as to what is a matrix threat assessment. However, searching the internet gave me a link to Project Sleipnir

"This paper describes an analytical technique
developed to rank order organized groups of
criminals in terms of their relative capabilities,
limitations and vulnerabilities. The rank ordered lists
of groups are components of strategic intelligence
assessments used to recommend intelligence and
enforcement priorities for the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police. Two versions exist: one for
organized crime which is publicly available, and one
for terrorism which is under development.

This technique uses rank ordered sets of
attributes for comprehensive, structured and reliable
measurement and comparison of qualitative
information about organized criminal groups. The
organized crime and terrorism versions use separate
attribute sets which reflect the similarities and
differences between the two classes of groups. Each
attribute is defined, weighted, and has a set of
defined values. The definitions minimize the degree
of subjectivity in interpreting and assessing
information for these assessments. The results are
presented as a matrix showing the attribute values for
each group. The definitions and weights for each
attribute set reflect consensus of opinions of
individuals from the RCMP and other agencies with
expertise in the topic areas. Consensus was achieved
by using the Delphi Method."

It isn't clear from this particular reference but I think that the technique stems from 2007.

As to his legal woes. He begins to discuss these details at 50.55.

He got the push on the 2^nd September 2010 since his beliefs were incompatible with his position as a senior intelligence officer and further, it wasn't possible to re-deploy him anywhere else in the service.

His legal advisors told him that there where two issues with his dismissal

reasonabless
beliefs protected under law

Reasonableness comes from Public law and is also called Wednesbury reasonableness; Farrell doesn't elaborate much on this aspect of his case.

As to his beliefs being protected he was quite clear about the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief) Regulations 2003.

Farrell went on to explain that he had an employment hearing date for three days beginning the 7^th September 2011 but he already has had a preliminary hearing (a pre-hearing review) on 24^th May 2011 which determined whether or not he had a claim with regard to his beliefs. The judgment appeared four weeks later (will try and get a copy) and found against him; Farrell explained that the judge found that his beliefs were not deemed to be protected under the 2003 Regulations due to a lack of cogency and/or coherence.

Farrell has taken legal advice which says that he has grounds to appeal since, in the opinion of his barrister, the judge misdirected himself because he applied the legal test against the validity of Farrell's belief rather than the genuineness of his belief. Farrell has until the 28^th July 2011 to lodge an appeal against this decision.

Further thoughts ... it isn't clear whether or not Farrell is being jerked around by spooks pulling strings. It's difficult to get a handle on the real Farrell especially through the process of internet interviews etc but I can see the construction of a hyperreal Farrell: perhaps in this particular interview unwittingly, in other interviews/articles not so. The hyperreal construction of Farrell is that of an embattled conspiraloon who must be suppressed.

In this regard I feel a bit sorry for Farrell. Perhaps this will change as more details become known, perhaps not.

#SmilesC Answer 10

2011-07-17T16:58:00.000+01:00

#SmilesC this cpd was designed as a weapon, what is it? OC(c1ccccc1)(c2ccccc2)C(=O)OC1CN(CC2)CCC12

The compound is called 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate

The wikipedia link will provide details of its use as a warfare agent.

All very weird.

OUseful Info

2011-07-14T11:15:00.000+01:00

One of the blogs to which I subscribe is OUseful Info which gives details about how to divine data from the internet (amongst other things). With this in mind I wrote to the blog asking the following question,

"Any ideas as to how to prod, poke, scrape and collate data from the Charity Commission?

Lots of charities give money to other charities; lots of charities receive money from the UK gov; lots of trustees are on more than one charity.

Using the Charity Commission web page is like trying to watch a football match through a pinhole in the fence around the ground.

Any ideas as to how one could see what is going on?"

A couple of years later, I haven't had an answer; therefore, can anyone else supply a method of discerning this sort of information?

Yorkshire Pudding

2011-07-12T12:19:00.006+01:00

Aangirfan carried a story under the heading, POLICE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER SAYS 9 11 AND 7 7 WERE INSIDE JOBS, within Aangirfan's story is a link to an interview with the police intelligence officer, Tony Farrell which gives details, from the horses mouth, of the story.

Essentially, an intelligence analyst (Tony Farrell) working for South Yorkshire police provided a threat assessment that did not concur with the official narrative. The analyst was forced from his position. He has taken South Yorkshire police to an employment tribunal. See here for details.

A couple of points from the story are of interest.

In the Richplanet film, Farrell tells us of his academic and employment background: BSc in stats from Sheffield poly 1984, ten years or so working at Sheffield council, job in South Yorkshire police with some higher degrees (management studies etc). Is this representative of intelligence analysts within the UK establishment? The people who are supposedly deliberating and balancing our freedoms against our security. I don't mean to be offensive to Tony but ... he doesn't strike me as being especially bright.

The second point that struck me during his interview was that he was at pains to tell us that he did research in his own time, rather than police time. I don't get where he's coming from. My understanding of intelligence analysis comes from Psychology of Intelligence Analysis by Richards J Heur Jr [pdf]. There doesn't seem to be any of this analysis being done. He seems to be pre-empting the results of his research by doing 'research at home'. That is, how would he know to do research at home, in his own time, unless he knew what the results of this research was going to be before hand?

Following on from this point, when his research was presented to his superiors, they forced him out of his position. Surely it is his methods that should be under scrutiny not his results? If this is the standard at which our overseers operate then they have very little credibility.

All in all, a strange tale where no one comes out of it very well. When this story gets more widely reported, perhaps it will give a platform from which one can obtain Freedom of Information requests in order to find out whether or not our overseers are that crap.

The non-conspiraloon aspect to this story is a lot more interesting than the conspiraloon aspect.

what are the qualifications of intelligence analysts in equivalent positions to Tony Farrell?
what are their working methodologies?
is intelligence analysis bottom up or top down?

"Why don't ya get a good lawyer? Oh Valerie?" ♫ ♫

More details are emerging about this story where another site reports,

"Tony Farrell was summoned to a hearing chaired by the Director of Finance a member of the Senior Command Team on 2nd September 2010. He was told that he held beliefs that were ‘incompatible’ with his position. There was no allegation of any misconduct. In dismissing him, the Director of Finance said this: “It is a very sad occasion as you have done some excellent work for South Yorkshire Police and I have never been involved in a situation like today. Your beliefs are very sincere and you may be right, but it is I’m afraid incompatible at the moment with where we are.”

He took the matter to the South Yorkshire Police Authority Appeal’s Committee but his case was dismissed. He has since put the case into an Employment Tribunal where final hearings are scheduled to be held in early September 2011 in Sheffield. This will be a public event, and it is likely that South Yorkshire Police will feel embarrassed by the repercussions. This case has potentially far-reaching implications."

This takes us straight into Grainger v Nicholson a case where it was found that it was against the law to sack someone on the basis of their beliefs. There were caveats: the beliefs had to be sincerely held; they had to be compatible with a democratic society. But it isn't clear why this isn't the case with Farrell. I don't know all the facts but from what we know so far he's got a good chance of winning his case; what's more the details of the tribunal hearing will be published and available for public scrutiny. Status - one to watch. Similar cases can be found here, the employment appeal tribunal.

Counting On John

2011-07-07T16:48:00.002+01:00

Last Saturday (2^nd July) John Sloboda of the Oxford Research Group gave a thirty minute presentation, Civilian Casualties: The Unacceptable Face of Modern Warfare, to the last of this year's Hexham debates.

He began by saying that the Hexham debates are most probably unique in the UK and thanked the organisers for the opportunity to present his lecture.

He went on to ask the question,

Who is dying in the wars that the UK fights?

Some stats were provided: in the Falklands campaign (1982) one thousand combatants and zero civilians were killed. Later, in Kosovo (1999) combatants 2 (NATO), 462 (Serbian forces), 1000 (KLA) were killed along with 1,500 (by NATO) and 10,000 (by ICTY) civilians were killed. The pattern - diminshing combatant, increasing civilian casualties - repeated itself through the Afghanistan (2000 - present), Iraq (2003 - present) and Libyan (2011) conflicts. Out of this state of play protecting civilians is becoming an important issue; for example, UN Security Council resolution 1973 is couched in terms of protecting civilians.

The lecture moved onto jurisprudence where Luis Moreno Occampo, the prosecutor at the Hague International Court, was quoted in a letter dated 9^th February 2006,

Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable, does not in itself constitute a war crime. International humanitarian law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives,11 even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur. A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) (Article 8(2)(b)(i)) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality) (Article 8(2)(b)(iv).

Article 8(2)(b)(iv) criminalizes:

Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;

Article 8(2)(b)(iv) draws on the principles in Article 51(5)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, but restricts the criminal prohibition to cases that are “clearly” excessive. The application of Article 8(2)(b)(iv) requires, inter alia, an assessment of:
the anticipated civilian damage or injury;
the anticipated military advantage; and
whether (a) was “clearly excessive” in relation to (b).

Here the idea of proportionality was emphasised. Sloboda went on to cite an academic paper (Hicks et al, New England Journal of Medicine, 2009) that discusses the civilian impact of different weapon types. This paper gives data which undermines the legal defence of proportionality since the victims of bombing campaigns are 46% female, 39% children with both groups assumed to be non-combatants.

In order for bodies to be placed in front of a court with regard to civilian casualties the following needs to be answered

who
when
where
how
and by who

This is being addressed by the every casualty initiative with three main reasons presented for doing so: moral, practical and legal. Counting casualties, particularly civilian casualties, is considered to be a difficult process; consequently, it was said, that States need to not only do it but show how it can be done.

The process is still a developing practice but a momentum is developing.

A practioner network has arisen through the http://www.everycasualty.org/ website.

After the Bosnian War (1991 - 94) atrocities reports were used as propaganda weapons which resulted in a difficult peace. Out of this the research documentation centre was set up which was "devoted to documenting human losses in Bosnia-Herzegovina due to conflict." This had the result of causing 'humanisation' that is, turning the issue from politics to facts. Whenever someone would cry 'atrocity' the RDC would ask where the bodies were in order to count them.

The presentation ended leaving one with the impression that this was very much a work in progress.

Questions at the end elicited the existence of the Libya Letter to the UN; the disappointment that an opportunity for recording casualties was lost when the Chilcot inquiry took a ver narrow view of its remit; the treatment of the dead from 911 was thought to be a gold standard as to how deceased civilians should be treated.

Lastly, Sloboda told us that he had an uncle who was in the Polish military. During WWII he disapeared, it was strongly suspected that he was murdered in the Katyn massacre but from the time that he went missing to the time that Gorbachev opened the Russian archive which confirmed the fate of this man, there wasn't a day that went by without members of his family wondering what had happened to him.

#SmilesC Answer 9

2011-07-07T14:07:00.000+01:00

#SmilesC some say this cpd has save more lives than any other, what is it? ClC(Cl)(Cl)C(c1ccc(Cl)cc1)c2ccc(Cl)cc2

The compound is DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) a potent insecticide. It was used to destroy mosquito larvae and hence malaria.

Rachel Brings News

2011-07-04T16:27:00.001+01:00

The Tynedale branch of the United Nations Association invited Rachel Brett of the Quaker UN Office to tell us about the work she did in Geneva. Mrs Brett was introduced to the audience of twenty-two people present, as a former law lecturer, and began her lecture titled, "How a small NGO can make a difference through the UN".

During the next thirty minutes she explained that the Quakers have offices to the UN because of their longstanding commitment to pacifism and because pacifism in and of itself was found to be insufficient. A means of dispute resolution was required and the UN was thought to be that means. In support of this argument Mrs Brett cited William Penn's, "An Essay towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe by the Establishment of a European Dyet, Parliament or Estates" which, since it was published in 1693, massively predated both the league of nations and the UN.

Brett explained that they had two offices, one in New York, the other in Geneva and they have volunteers who got to Vienna to participate in UN crime prevention issues. The New York office is concerned with peace building and is funded by the American Quaker society, while the Geneva office is concerned with those parts of the UN in Geneva: the Human Rights Council, Refugees, disarmament and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). This office is funded by the British Quakers.

The Geneva office participates in three different kinds of work,

issues, eg women in prison, children of prisoners, prisoners of conscience, refugee issues, climate change displacement, and
respond to help Quakers in particular countries, eg, the recent Australia Gov/Aborginee conflict.
Informal off the record meetings.

The story Mrs Brett told about the Australian aboriginees was of interest. The organisation was quite concerned about Australia's, Northern Territory National Emergency Response,

"(also referred to as "the intervention") was a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures, introduced by the Australian federal government under John Howard in 2007 to address claims of rampant child sexual abuse and neglect in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities. Operation Outreach, the intervention's main logistical operation conducted by a force of 600 soldiers and detachments from the ADF (including NORFORCE) concluded on 21 October 2008."

As part of a response to this Australian intervention, the Quakers in the UN were asked to look after two aboriginal elders who were to address the UN with their plight. This had some positive effects; see, Australia condemned by UN as “new apartheid” nation.Other examples of work done by the Quakers was to take an interest Europes Roma people, the largest minority in Europe. This work was done through a process of invites to informal discussions but the work was found to be very difficult with some governments ignoring these invitations. Thus far, some Roma have been put forward to be appointed by the UN to look at particular UN/Roma issues. Mrs Brett explained the workings of other mechanisms that were used to gain influence. So, as an NGO with consultative status they could make a statement to the UN. The organisation undertook preliminary research (for example, discovered that there was a general pattern of increasing numbers of women being imprisoned across the world. This was due to mandatory sentences being applied across the world's justice systems for drug mules which are typically coerced women. Following on from the preliminary work, a broader piece of research was conducted concerning the state of women prisoners throughout the world. This issue was scrutinised further by producing a commentary of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners; since this document was produced by the UN in 1955, the commentary could concentrate on shortfalls due to the document not keeping up with human rights jurisprudence and gender disparities. More recently the Thai government proposed new UN rules on the treament of women prisoners through the Vienna Crime Commission process. (Mrs Brett explained that the eldest daughter of the the Thai Crown Prince trained as a lawyer, visited prisons, and was influential in this process).

Questions As usual the questions from the floor were of interest. Why is their opposition to the Roma by some European govs? ... not opposition but denial that there is a problem. Are links to the far right causing Roma problems? ... the problem is more due to a break down of States in the East of Europe. The far right are not linked to this phenomenon but it does play on the instability of these States. The rise of the right is also linked to 'not so right govs taking a righter direction'. Whilst even within the same gov (according to Mrs Brett's experience) very different views emerge. How many NGOs are there and how do you get represented? ... There are over 2000 NGOs but not all are actively engaged, a lot of them being only one person. There is a process to get consultative status. What contribution do you make to resolving the Israel/Palestine conflict? ... Have links with consciencious objector groups in the area: Israel is an extremely militarised country the support, for example, teenage girls who don't want to join the army. What is happening about disarmament? ... UN's conference on disarmament is so dysfuntional that they are not able to agree a program of work. Other points that came up during the question and answer session; have you read, War Games: how NGOs have been taken over by governments? Do you have an opinion about security council reform?

Lastly, Mrs Brett discussed climate change and environmental issues with regard to Human rights. She set out a scenario of displacement of peoples caused by two aspects of environmental change. These changes were broken down into two parts - sudden onset, eg tsunami; or, slow onset.

The latter could cause a problem; eg, what happens if people aren't prepared to move? Should a State use force to move them 'for their own good'?

At which point the meeting was wound up. Very interesting, thanks to the organisers and to Mrs Brett.

What About Me? What About Truck?

2011-06-21T18:58:00.002+01:00

A North East politician, Guy Opperman, wrote on his blog recently about the Humshaugh Village Shop.

The blogpost explains about the shop, how it is run and encourages people to vote for it in a national lottery competition.

I wrote a comment on this post but unfortunately it has not been published so I will try and remember what I said and reproduce my comments below.

I asked whether or not the politician would encourage the people of Humshaugh to introduce a Truck system to the shop. This would mean that more people could contribute to the shop, not only those who could afford to volunteer. I gave a link to G W Hilton's book about the Truck System and pointed out that Ken Clarke was the person who repealed the Truck Acts (Wages Act 1986) which would make it possible to use a Truck system.

Since the comment wasn't published, I haven't had a response. But the question is interesting. Would the minimum wage legislation prevent people being paid in truck (see section 1 and section 44) and if not, would it be moral to pay people in vouchers rather than money? What if the vouchers were redeemable at places other than the shop, such as the pub? All very interesting questions that will not get answered; not only silence from the MP but from the people of Humshaugh; as long as they have volunteers to subsidise the endeavour, there isn't an issue.

Update 29^th November 2011.
The issue discussed above came to mind again when I read a report in the Guardian headed, MPs may be breaking law in offering work to unpaid interns. The question arises, is Humshaugh shop breaking the law if it is run by volunteers? Looking closely at the legislation, s44 National Minimum Wages Act 1998 volunteers are only allowed to volunteer if they do not take any "monetary payments of any description," or any "benefits in kind of any description". In other words, no truck.

Measure of freedom of expression

2011-06-20T15:30:00.001+01:00

According to John Allen Paulos in Once upon a number,

"...freedom of expression should not be measured by how likely the average person is to be silenced, but by how likely someone with something to say is."

Here is a link to ss132 - 138 Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 which was designed specifically to stop the chap above demonstrating.

Pathetic isn't it?

No?

Well, here's what happened when the law was applied, Haw, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor [2005] EWHC 2061.

Another example of someone being punished for articulately expressing his opinion can be found at Case C-274/99 P, Bernard Connolly v Commission of the European Communities. I know it sounds childish but I think it was the book cover that did it for him.

Protected Persons

2011-06-18T16:11:00.001+01:00

Why isn't everyone an Internationally Protected Person?

"(5)In this section—

“act” includes omission;

“a protected person” means, in relation to an alleged offence, any of the following, namely—

(a) a person who at the time of the alleged offence is a Head of State, a member of a body which performs the functions of Head of State under the constitution of the State, a Head of Government or a Minister for Foreign Affairs and is outside the territory of the State in which he holds office;

(b) a person who at the time of the alleged offence is a representative or an offical of a State or an offical or agent of an international organisation of an intergovernmental character, is entitled under international law to special protection from attack on his person, freedom or dignity and does not fall within the preceding paragraph;

(c) a person who at the time of the alleged offence is a member of the family of another person mentioned in either of the preceding paragraphs and—

(i) if the other person is mentioned in paragraph (a) above, is accompanying him,

(ii) if the other person is mentioned in paragraph (b) above, is a member of his household;

“relevant premises” means premises at which a protected person resides or is staying or which a protected person uses for the purpose of carrying out his functions as such a person; and

“vehicle” includes any means of conveyance;and if in any proceedings a question arises as to whether a person is or was a protected person, a certificate issued by or under the authority of the Secretary of State and stating any fact relating to the question shall be conclusive evidence of that fact."

ps Bearing in mind that a protected person is, "a Minister for Foreign Affairs and is outside the territory of the State in which he holds office;" recall that Moussa Koussa was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from March 2009 ...

This Land Is Your Land

2011-06-17T11:09:00.001+01:00

A point that doesn't seem to be discussed when schools change from maintained status to academy status is, what happens to the land?

Section 13 of the Academies Act 2010 bounces us to Schedule 1 of the same Act which gives us lots of legalese. The local government lawyer website explains,

"What are the implications for local authorities regarding Academy land transfer?

The Guidance sets out that where land is publically funded, the land will usually transfer to the Academy Trust by way of a 125-year lease from the local authority, as on existing Academy set ups. Whilst this will be the principal means of transfer, the DfE’s website does suggest that other means of transfer may be applicable but only in “special circumstances in individual cases”.

...."

anticipate more points later ... keep an eye on the Guardian Data blog.

Blink and you miss it

2011-06-15T17:11:00.000+01:00

The other day Ed Miliband delivered a speech, Responsibility in 21^st Century Britain, which drew attention to people who were drawing unemployment benefits whom Miliband suspected could work.

"While out campaigning during the local elections, not for the first time, I met someone who had been on incapacity benefit for a decade.

He hadn’t been able to work since he was injured doing his job.

It was a real injury, and he was obviously a good man who cared for his children.

But I was convinced that there were other jobs he could do."

But what about people who aren't unemployed who get benefits? What about the rich who get benefits? For example, we all know that farmers get benefits but how much?

Here are the Annual Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) Payements - 2010.

But following the link takes us to

"A recent judgement of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) invalidated part of the EU legislation that requires Member States to publish the data of beneficiaries of CAP funds (see judgement in full at link below).

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=CJE/10/110&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

The ECJ judgement concluded that the requirement to publish data for individual beneficiaries (natural persons) exceeded the limits imposed by the principle of proportionality. In the light of this judgement the Commission requested all Member States to suspend publication of data on individual beneficiaries (natural persons) and has now come forward with an amending regulation that implements the ECJ’s judgement, pending a longer-term review of the legislation.

The UK is now working towards the publication of details of CAP subsidy payments made to incorporated bodies, trusts and partnerships for financial years 2009 and 2010 to comply with the revised regulation.

The UK will be pressing the Commission to bring forward new legislation that will ensure the achievement of greater transparency and openness in the use of EU funds. The UK has consistently supported the provision of data relating to payments under the CAP."

The figures for previous years can be found here, 2003 - 2004 and here 2004 - 2005 but there are gaps, eg, 2005 - 2006, 2006 - 2007, 2007 - 2008, 2008 - 2009. However, it may be possible to extrapolate from these figures to fill in the gaps.

As to the statement on the webpage, why does the UK need to press 'the Commission to bring forward new legislation' surely it has sufficient Sovereignty to do this on its own? (We aren't talking about fishing rights). I will report back here if the situation changes.

I wonder what Ed Miliband makes of this situation?

Chummy Condescension

2011-06-12T17:07:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I attended the penultimate of this year's Hexham Debates, "In Defence of Politics" by Chris Mullin.

To a much busier than usual (extra seats were required for the 120 - 130 people present) hall, Mr Mullin gave a thirty minute presentation (partly read) followed by just under an hour of fielding questions. He began by explaining that after he'd thought of the title of his speech he found that someone else had already used it in 1962, In Defence of Politics (Continuum Impacts), Prof Bernard Crick.

Nevertheless he didn't ditch the title: instead, he explained to us that in the West 'we haven't had it so good'. He compared the success of democracy in this country to elsewhere in the world, where democracy enabled us to get access to the fruits of scientific progress such as electricity and running water. He argued that disillusion with politics was an excuse for laziness, both intellectual and physical; he went on to say that the sort of people who don't clear up after their dogs or put their bins out on the proper day were usually the same people who were disillusioned with politics. He explained that apathy (another excuse for disillusion) was a consequence of the short attention span of the TV/point-and-click generation. This speech was delivered with humour and was warmly received; he peppered his talk with the chummy condescension of Daily Mail readers (it used to be Sun readers once) and invited the audience to participate in the condescension.

He explained to us that what galvanised his interest in politics was the Vietnam War and thought that today's big issue that would galvanize many would be environmentalism, of which he spoke at great length. He told us of the rise of consumerism in ChIndia and bemoaned that they weren't avoiding the mistakes that we made. He gave a couple of factoids: China has 90,000 road deaths per year; they have had the largest traffic jam ever in the history of the world - sixty miles and ten days to clear.

He went on to discuss the rise of a new class of working poor: the outsourced. He discussed how two people can have the same job, working side by side with one another but have very different employment conditions. He said that this was reverting back to the 1950s and before when people would turn up at the dock gates hoping to get work, or at the mine gates for the same reason. He told us all to expect a retraction of our standard of living.

Then came an hour of questions of which there were many. 'Why hasn't there been an attack on the excesses of the City of London?' There had been.
'In his diary he was critical of Blair for bombing civilians, what was his stance on intervensionism?' He was pro intervensionism but it depended upon the particular case.
'What did he think of the education system' It had vastly improved for poorer people over the years of labour rule based on the exam grades.
'What about compulsory voting' Difficulty with the mechanics but would go along with an incentive system [what poll tax?]
'What did he think of Rowan Williams' article in the New Statesman'? He hadn't read it but from what he'd heard he thought it was a good thing.
'What do you think of single issue campaigns and campaigners'? Useful, particularly with regard to the Birmingham six but ultimately, it is the politicians who make decisions.
'Should we rely on referenda more'? No. They were a cop out for cowardly politicians and conferred more power on people who determine what we see, hear and read in order to make a decision. [Interesting answer]
'What does he think of the suggestion that there may be a summer of discontent amongst public sector workers'? Whoever had been returned to power would have needed to make drastic cuts. It is very irresponsible of people to suggest that if only Labour had been returned to power everything would be 'normal'. He also spoke about early retirement (50 - 55 years old) in the public sector (school teachers, civil servants, health professionals) being a massive drain on the economy.
'He was asked about the conflict between public opinion and personal conscience' but didn't come up with an answer worthy of either the question or reporting.
'How many marks out of ten should the country get for dealing with poverty and inequality'? He said the fortunes of the poor had improved immeasurably.

He went on to talk about failed states being a big problem which we faced which brought us to the end of the presentation. Whereupon he went to sign his book to those who wanted to buy it (the local bookshop had set up a stall at the back of the hall).

An interesting presentation - well done to the organisers of the Hexham debates - Mullin came across as one of the labour party's intellectuals (think Giles Radice etc), smug in some respects, self effacing in others (during his introduction the chairman described as a feat keeping his seat for 23 years; Mullin said during the talk that if he'd lost his seat it would have been a feat, explaining that having a safe seat gave him greater lattitude than over politicians). I've missed out some of the questions but I hope that this gives a fair reflection of what went on. It gave me some food for thought.

As an after thought, here's a link to Chris Mullin's bookssome of which were on sale after the event.

#SmilesC Answer 8

2011-06-09T14:09:00.000+01:00

#SmilesC whose degradation is used to prepare this compound? CC(=O)C1CCC2C1(C)CCC3C4(C)CCC(=O)C=C4CCC23

The compound is called progesterone with wikipedia explaining,

"Progesterone ... (pregn-4-ene-3,20-dione) is a C-21 steroid hormone involved in the female menstrual cycle, pregnancy (supports gestation) and embryogenesis of humans and other species. Progesterone belongs to a class of hormones called progestogens, and is the major naturally occurring human progestogen."

The degradation is called the Marker degradation, a method of getting into steroid chemistry from a relatively cheap starting material. It's an impressive piece of chemistry, as are the subsequent transformations to other steroids.

But the real reason for posting the questions was to bring up the name of Russel Marker. There are many stories about Russel Marker, here's the begining of one,

"Russell Marker hated wasting time. Upon qualifying for a doctoral degree in chemistry as a twenty-three-year-old student at the University of Maryland in 1925, all that stood between him and his degree were several required physical chemistry courses. But Marker didn't want to take physical chemistry, as he already had a master's degree in the subject. The university refused to modify its graduation requirements and Marker's own advisor threatened him with the dead end career of "urine analyst" if he didn't complete his coursework. Marker refused and left the university without his degree, an independent scientist in search of a job."

Follow the link to find out what happened next.

Fingerprints of Stupidity

2011-06-07T12:45:00.000+01:00

The forensic analysis of fingerprint evidence continues to be under attack from the judiciary. This time in Smith, R. v [2011] EWCA Crim 1296 with the appeal court saying,

"(7) General issues relating to fingerprint evidence
In the light of the issue in relation to [the fingerprint examiners] qualifications and the way in which the evidence was adduced at trial, we consider it important that we should identify some of the features which have become apparent to us. None have been material to the decision we have in fact reached in this case as to the safety of the conviction, but as they are important to the way in which fingerprint evidence is adduced where the print is not clear; we set them out :

i) Most forensic science services have for some time been provided by organisations wholly independent of police forces. There are also a number of private providers of forensic science services. In contradistinction, fingerprint experts are organised in Fingerprint Bureaux which fall within the organisational structure of each police force. This may be a distinction that is justified; it may be possible for independence to be assured by strict standards of control on quality and by accountability.

ii) There is no opportunity for a person outside a police Fingerprint Bureau to become fully qualified as a fingerprint expert by training in England and Wales or for having that person's competence recognised by the police forces.

iii) Police forces do not recognise the qualifications or competence of those who have obtained these overseas. It is for a judge to decide whether a person is a competent expert, not the police. Because of the course the trial took, the judge did not have to rule on whether Ms Tweedy, who obtained qualifications overseas, was a competent expert.

iv) It is essential for the proper administration of justice that there are independent persons expert in fingerprint examination; almost all who do this are retired from police Fingerprint Bureaux. The position is in marked contrast to other forensic science disciplines. There may be good reason for this distinction; for example the fingerprint bureau of other forces may be able to provide expert evidence for the defence.

v) No competent forensic scientist in other areas of forensic science these days would conduct an examination without keeping detailed notes of his examination and the reasons for his conclusions. That universal practice of other forensic scientists was not followed by the Nottinghamshire Fingerprint Bureau. There may be reasons for this, but they were not explained to us.

vi) As neither the original examiner nor those who confirmed his examination made any notes of their reasons and did not identify the points of comparison contemporaneously on a chart, it was not possible to see whether their reasoning was the same. We were told that this was not done because those who made the subsequent identification should make that identification without knowing the views of those who had previously examined the print. Although we accept that identification by two other persons who do not know the conclusions of the original examiner or the other examiner form an important safeguard, we do not understand that reasoning. There would be nothing to prevent the earlier examiners sealing their conclusions until the completion of all the examinations. We do not know whether there is any other justification for examiners not making detailed contemporaneous notes that can be the subject of transparent examination in court where the identification of the mark is in issue.

vii) The quality of the reports provided by the Nottinghamshire Fingerprint Bureau for the trial reflected standards that existed in other areas of forensic science some years ago and not the vastly improved standards expected in contemporary forensic science.

viii) The presentation of the evidence to the jury made no attempt to use modern methods of presentation. The presentation to this court was similar; a large amount of time was wasted because of this. It was incomprehensible to us why digital images were not provided to the jury; the refusal of NAFIS (to which we have referred in paragraph 43) to permit a digital image to be supplied to the court was a further example of the lack of a contemporary approach to the presentation of evidence. The presentation to the jury must be done in such a way that enables the jury to determine the disputed issues.

This is one of the very few cases where fingerprint evidence has been challenged at a trial since 1999 and, as far as we are aware, the first since then to come before this court on an appeal where this court has had to hear fresh evidence. It is not unsurprising that the points we have raised identify practices which differ so markedly in England and Wales from modern forensic science practice in other areas of forensic science.
There is plainly a need for the points that have arisen in this case to be the subject of wider examination. We have been told that an enquiry by the Rt Hon Sir Anthony Campbell into the case of HM Advocate v McKie known as the Scottish Fingerprint Enquiry has heard extensive evidence in relation to fingerprint evidence in Scotland. It is not for us to comment more than we have done at paragraph 61 in relation to the practices that have come to our attention in this appeal. In our view, however, there is a real need for the ACPO, the Forensic Science Regulator and the recently established Fingerprint Quality Standards Specialist Group to examine as expeditiously as possible the issues we have identified, to assess the position and to ensure that there are common quality standards enforced through a robust and accountable system."

Why has it got to this state? Shouldn't this have been done years and years ago?

In view of what you've just read, what is the probability that somone has committed a crime given that they've been convicted of the that crime?

Where is the 7/7 Chemistry Discussion?

2011-06-06T16:28:00.000+01:00

I posted this on twitter,

Does anyone else know why there aren't any discussions within the pages of Chemistry World, Nature Chemistry or similar regarding the chemistry surrounding the UK's 7/7 bombings? The silence is strange, surely there's some analysis from professional chemists somewhere?

Insignificance, Knowledge and Truth

2011-06-02T22:03:00.001+01:00

I remember when there was a furore about wikipedia, which now seems years and years ago, that went along the lines of ... but anyone can add to it, so it can't be an authoritative source, it can't be knowledge, can it?

This made me think of a play called Insignificance which I'd heard on the radio (rather than the link to the film). In the play, I particularly remember the following exchange:

The Actress: I only said I knew, because you said you knew.
The Professor: I lied. Knowledge isn't truth. It's just mindless agreement. You agree with me, I agree with someone else - we all have knowledge. We haven't come any closer to the truth. You can never understand anything by agreeing, by making definitions. Only by turning over the possibilities. That's called thinking. If I say I know, I stop thinking. As long as I keep thinking, I come to understand. That way, I might approach some truth.

I thought of this again when one of the conspiraloons posted a note mocking two 'Wonkers' who are promulgating a knowledge struggle. They are spending a great deal of time and trouble following a ~~servile~~service intellectual career trying to persuade all and sundry that 'conspiracy theorists' bears some pejorative meaning.

Incredible that they squander their talents and pages of national newspapers on such a pointless and pathetic pursuit of mindless agreement.

Bill is Dead

2011-06-02T14:49:00.001+01:00

The last time I saw the Fall was in May last year in Wakefield - getting withdrawal symptoms.

Please excuse the self indulgence.

#SmilesC Answer 7

2011-06-02T11:52:00.000+01:00

#SmilesC what is being prepared here? OCCSCCO>HCl.HCl>ClCCSCCCl

As can be seen from the diagram below, prepared by plugging the reaction into Daylight's Depict, the transformation is that of thiodigycol to mustard gas,

A depressing subject to choose for a #smilesC quiz. The compound was used in combat during world war I and more recently by Saddam Hussein. The latter subject is curious from the perspective of a chemist: someone called Frans Van Anraat was found guilty of supplying thiodiglycol to the Iraqi regime,

"Prosecutors accused Van Anraat of delivering more than 1,000 tonnes of thiodiglycol. It can be used to make mustard gas, which causes horrific burns to the lungs and eyes and is often fatal."

However, I always find it odd that the Iraqi regime would order thiodiglycol when it was on an International 'watch' list of chemical weapons precursors. If the Iraqis had the plant and equipment to convert thiodiglycol to mustard gas, why didn't they use this plant and equipment to prepare thiodiglycol from simpler, ie not on a watch list, precursors?

U and Non-U in UGC

2011-05-27T10:02:00.000+01:00

UGC refers to user generated content the part of a news story that is generated by the public. The BBC discuss UGC,

"The one-way, 'one to many lecture' of a few years ago has been replaced by news as conversation.

Audiences can answer back; criticise, ask questions journalists didn't think of; add their knowledge and expertise to an evolving story.

For some, it's become a two-way relationship of equals; and even more traditional news organisations recognise that their former silent audiences are now a source of news and comment.

'User generated content' (UGC) is part of this new relationship."

Which is perhaps as it should be.

The BBC respond to UGC by incorporating it into their news broadcasts. But there is a potential problem with this content: authentication. When the BBC journalist receives some UGC how does he know it is what it purports to be and how does the journalist know the sender is who he says he is?

The BBC has developed a check list that is used so that they can try and avoid falling foul of hoax UGC

"1. Email user
...
2. Cross-check photo wires
...
3. Could they have shot ALL the pics?
...
4. PowerPoint? Be wary
...
5. No text. Be wary
...
6. Check pixels
....
7. Too good to be true?
..."

It is obvious that this is part of the process called the historical method which is a part of epistemeology.

All very interesting but where's the beef?

Well, how much of this process do bloggers and tweeters perform before we post or re-tweet content that we find on the web? Bear in mind that the BBC guidelines appeared to be devised so that they can guard against hoaxes: what about something more serious such as propaganda? I don't believe that these checks will be sufficient, but at least it's something, an attempt; a realisation of the fallibility of the process.

If you do use UGC on your blog or re-tweet how do you know you're not peddling propaganda for others?

#SmilesC Answer 6

2011-05-24T15:18:00.005+01:00

#SmilesC what is so controversial about this compound? [Na+].[S-]C1=NC(=O)C(C(C)CCC)(CC)C(=O)N1

The compound is called sodium thiopental ...

... and it is so controversial because it is used to kill people.

image from, US executions delayed by shortage of death penalty drug The controversy surrounding the drug has been perpetuated by the Charity- Reprieve who ran a campaign Death Penalty: Stop Lethal Injection Project timeline -that led to the change of the law in the uk - see, The Export Control (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2011, so that the substance can no longer be lawfully exported from the UK.

However, the gap in the market has been filled by Lundbeck and so the controversy continues ...

Update 1^st June 2011. The story given by me so far would be completely one sided without refering to, Lundbeck's position regarding the misuse of pentobarbital in execution of prisoners

"Lundbeck is dedicated to saving people’s lives. Use of our products to end lives contradicts everything we’re in business to do. Lundbeck is opposed to the use of its product for the purpose of capital punishment."

"Lundbeck markets pentobarbital solely for its approved use, among other things to treat serious conditions such as a severe and life threatening emergency epilepsy. The annual frequency of status epilepticus in the United States is estimated to be between 126,000 and 195,000 events, with up to 42,000 deaths yearly, though the incidence may be higher due to underreporting. Doctors have described pentobarbital as the ultimate gold standard in North America for controlling seizures in patients with refractory status epilepticus when other medications fail. The use of this product to carry out the death penalty in US prisons falls outside its approved indications. Lundbeck does not promote pentobarbital for use in lethal injections or any other unapproved use."

"We have engaged in a constructive dialogue with human rights advocates to discuss and evaluate ideas to prevent the incorrect use of our product for lethal injections. We have carried out a thorough assessment of ways to prevent distribution for use in capital punishment."

"However, Lundbeck does not control the application of pentobarbital. Based on our evaluation and the advice of external experts, we have concluded that there are no viable steps Lundbeck can take to prevent end-users from obtaining the product for unapproved use, short of withdrawing the product from the market. However, taking pentobarbital off the market would be a tragedy for the many patients who benefit from legitimate uses of this important therapy."

Lundbeck have more to say on the matter in their corporate responsibility webpages (link above), particularly with regard to their 'end user agreement'. They think that it would be a waste of time to put one on the box/vial as this would be (and could be legally) ignored.

Thanks are due to Lundbeck's courtesy in replying to emails about this issue.

#SmilesC Answer 5

2011-05-23T18:41:00.000+01:00

#SmilesC what has this compound got to do with the law? O=N(=O)C1=CC=C(O1)C=NN2CCOC2(=O)

The compound is called furazolidone ...

... and it was at the centre of the original Norwich Pharmacal court case that led to the Norwich Pharmacal Order.

A Norwich Pharmacal Order is issued by a court against a third party in order to discover evidence of wrongdoing by someone.

For example, if an anonymous blogger made defamatory remarks on their blog about someone, in order to find out who it was the claimant would ask the Court to issue a Norwich Pharmacal Order against the internet service provider that hosted the blog in order to discover the name of the blogger.

Conspiracy Theorists Ngrammed

2011-05-23T16:18:00.002+01:00

The other day I read Derek's note about using google's Ngram viewer to track the incidence of the phrase "Big Pharma" in the English language.

I thought of Derek's post when I listened to the part of the Corbett Report podcast, Episode 050 The C Word, 'c' referring to the word 'conspiracy', in the expression conspiracy theory (ist, ists).

So I decided to plug 'conspiracy theorists' into ngram ...

click on link for clearer picture
...an expression supposedly dreamt up by the CIA in order to undermine those who criticised the Warren Commission's ~~conspiracy theory~~ explanation of the assassination of Kennedy. It was fascinating to see the expression 'conspiracy theorists' appearing in the 1960s (but not before) and its use exponentially increasing: it gives the impression, almost, of an animation of the oppression of free thought over time, where the expression is used in lieu of reasoned debate.

Whilst over in the UK the expression took a little longer (between 1970 - 1975) to appear in the British English corpus of literature.

Click the images for a clearer view but better still, do your own analysis using ngram.

Update 1^st June 2011. In his Nobel lecture, Pinter says,

"Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay."

As I read Pinter's speech I couldn't help but think that the expression, conspiracy theorist, is another expression employed to keep thought at bay.

Here's the part of the speech where the expression appears,

"Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

"It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable."

#SmilesC Answer 4

2011-05-23T11:55:00.000+01:00

#SmilesC what's special about this arrangement of atoms? [Rb+].[Na+].O=C([O-])[C@H](O)[C@@H](O)C(=O)[O-].O.O.O.O

The compound is sodium rubidium tartrate which is of interest to me because, as far as I'm concerned, it produced the most important crystal structure [pdf] ever determined.

to be continued ...

The Usual Problem

2011-05-23T11:21:00.002+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I attended one of the Hexham debates; this one given by Professor Paul Rogers and titled, '9/11 Ten Years After'.

Professor Rogers gave an assured description of the official narrative of 9/11 beginning by explaining about the role of Afghanistan during the cold war; he alluded to the US funding of the Mujahideen (although Charlie Wilson and Gust Avrakotos were not mentioned) and the subsequent downfall of the Soviet Union. The official narrative with regard to the destruction of the twin towers was a given as was other terrorist atrocities under the name of al-qaeda. He then then took questions from the audience. The questions were interesting and varied: for example, the opening question discussed Robin Cook's 'Ethical Foreign Policy.

A question towards the end of the session caught my ear: "how do you authenticate your facts?" He answered that over the years sources that he'd acquired had turned out to be correct and hence more trustworthy but he did concede that there was a problem. It wasn't always possible to be sure that the information he was receiving was true.

An excellent event organised by the Quakers of Hexham, looking forward to the next one.

Addendum 24^th May 2011. I've just been reminded of one of the points that Professor Rogers made in his presentation about Osama bin Laden: he said that OBL and al-qaeda thought that they were eschatological. He went on to define eschatology as the expectation that their philosophy would live on beyond death.

I was reminded of this by the latest Corbett Report, The Last Word On Osama bin Laden in which Corbett says,

"Even in death, we are told, he [OBL] and the mythical army of devotees he supposedly ruled over, are a clear and present danger to our society..."

#SmilesC Answer 3

2011-05-18T14:40:00.000+01:00

#SmilesC what is this compound called? If not wonderland, where is it found?
C=CC[S+]([O-])SCC=C

The compound is called allicin and it is found in garlic.

The chemistry associated with this compound is described in Eric Block's book, "Garlic and Other Alliums". Block explains how allium was discovered, the difficulties in working with these compounds, the precursor compounds and the analogous chemistry of onions. He tells us about the onion LF and introduces us to the zwiebelanes and much more! Get a copy if you can.

Y Me?

2011-05-18T12:16:00.001+01:00

Or, what are the chances of that?

I've just come back from Euroland (Holland): instead of converting euros back to pounds I decided to hold onto them with a view to spending them at a later date.

Nothing unusual in that, except I began to think about the Greek debt crisis. As we should all be aware the single currency isn't really a single currency: each of the nation states of Euroland still has a central bank and it is these central banks that issue their allocated proportion of notes. If the central bank cannot support its currency then - theoretically - that part of the currency will collapse forcing it out of the euro. In order to trace the issuing bank each of the notes has a letter at the beginning of its serial number.

The country code for Greece is Y.

So, what are the chances of getting a €10 note?

Notes in circulation and notes issued by Greek Central Bank

Date	Total	€500	€200	€100	€50	€20	€10	€5	Notes
Mar 2011	824	288	36	153	269	52	19	7	ECB in billions. 1
Mar 2011	22,058	-	-	-	-	-	508.6	-	Greek Central Bank millions. 2

Notes: 1, total value used (table 2). 2 the proportions of notes in circulation were not available from the Greek Central Bank; the same proportion for the rest of europe was used.

We can now work out what percentage of €10 notes in circulation originate from the Greek central bank.

100*(508.6/19000) = 3 %

I had a three percent chance of getting a single Greek €10 yet I get two (a nine in ten thousand chance). Stats is a tricky business but I'm suspicious that there is a hugely disproportionate number of Greek euros in circulation with other notes being hoarded.

(I don't know how bank accounts work with respect to allocation of risk: perhaps every euro bank account is subject to the same proportionate risk, perhaps not? Watch this space.)

Is this the beginning of the fracture of the single currency? When are you going to stop taking them in your change? I'm going to try and palm those off onto someone else and I'm going to avoid taking Greek denominated euros when I can. How about you?

#SmilesC Answer 2

2011-05-16T14:19:00.000+01:00

#SmilesC name this reaction c1ccccc1C=O>CC(=O)OC(=O)C.[O-]C(=O)C>c1ccccc1C=CC(=O)O

This is the Perkin reaction. I chose this as a question because of the importance that William Perkin has with respect to the history of chemistry.

Chaff Seeded With Lies and Propaganda

2011-05-16T11:18:00.002+01:00

Ever had the feeling that you've been cheated?

The wikileaks saga continues with people behaving as though the wikileaks diplomatic cable release is the fount of truth. But ever present epistemeology continues to whisper, 'but how do you know?'

As the wikipedia article explains,

"According to The Guardian, all the diplomatic cables were marked "Sipdis", denoting "secret internet protocol distribution", which means they had been distributed via the closed U.S. SIPRNet, the U.S. Department of Defense’s classified version of the civilian internet.²⁰ Although more than three million U.S. government personnel and soldiers have access to this network,²¹ "top secret" documents are not included in the system."

A data dump of emails with a circulation of three million people is hardly going to be secret: some may classify it as such, but that doesn't make it so.

In other words: it's chaff.

The next question is one of verification - how do we know that this, or other wikileaks leaks, aren't emanating from some US propagandist? How do we know that they aren't riddled with lies? As has been pointed out by others; if one compares wikileaks to Watergate, not the story but the mechanics of the story, there was one thing that makes all the difference: Watergate had a verifiable source. Wikileaks has no historical verifiability; it simply has visual verifiability - it looks real, so it must be real. By visual verifiability and looking real, I mean the theatre around wikileaks; for instance, the creepy Assange who is perpetually on the lam, the rape allegations and extradition, the torture of Bradley Manning (they wouldn't do that if he wasn't guilty of something heinous would they?), the squealing from the Whitehouse and the condemnation of the leaks by the responsible media, and of course, the drip, drip, drip feeding of the information. In the absence of verification and the theatrical spectacle in lieu of verification, we are left with two things:

lies and propaganda.

In some respects, wikileaks has been and is an ongoing massive success. Want to manipulate the media ... release some lies via wikileaks; that way people will believe it.

Saps.

#SmilesC Answer 1

2011-05-11T09:34:00.002+01:00

#SmilesC what is the name of this vitamin? OC[C@H](O)[C@@H]1C(O)=C(O)C(=O)O1

This is vitamin C, here's the chemspider link and the wikipedia link.

The wikipedia link is worth reading in full - the name of the compound, its discovery, synthesis, the first clinical trial, the industrial synthesis (which I remember learning about at college): all fascinating.

Prince Appropriation

2011-05-11T09:06:00.001+01:00

How common is it for police officers in the UK to appropriate the property of suspects or from the scene of a crime?

I've written about this before in, "Troubled by Julie", a case where a police officer was supposed to destroy evidence that was no longer required but instead appropriated it. The property, jackets and shoes, was valued at £1,200 but the judge overseeing the hearing (Mr Justice Prince) said that the value of the goods, because they were going to be destroyed, was nothing and as such it wasn't in the public interest to bring the prosecution. After this hearing the CPS dropped the case.

I thought this was an isolated incident but now I'm not so sure.

A week ago the Independent reported, "Gun police suspended over photograph" where, hidden in the confused story we have,

"Three officers - a sergeant and two Pcs - were arrested for misconduct in March in connection with allegations that items seized during raids later appeared on eBay, the force said."

Is there a culture of entitlement to this property within the police forces in the UK?

(I posted a similar article to http://policestate.co.uk/ but it hasn't been published, hence the note above).

Semiotic Hyperreality

2011-05-05T12:08:00.001+01:00

Thinking of Umerto Eco's, Travels in Hyperreality: Essays (Picador Books) after the 'deathing' of Usama Bin Laden. Where

"Hyperreality is used in semiotics and postmodern philosophy to describe a hypothetical inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures."

With this in mind, please find a poll which relates Al-qaeda to hyperreality using defintions given by Baudrillard, Eco and, er, the Conspiraloon Alliance. Sad as it seems, all three sources have greater credibility than the MSM.

Update 6^th June 2011. For those who find the distinction between reality and hyperreality confusing consider Cary Grant.

Cary Grant never existed, he was the creation of someone called Archie Leach

"My family name is Leach. To which, at my christening, was added Archibald Alexander, with no opportunity for me to protest. For more than half my fifty-eight years I have cautiously peered from behind the facade of a man known as Cary Grant."

which he did with the help of the Hollywood entertainment industry.

Archie Leach was real, Cary Grant hyperreal. Cary Grant was the simulation of something (someone) that didn't exist; he was an authentic fake. Archie may sometimes be tongue tied, Cary never so; Archie may snore in bed, his hair may sometimes be unkept, he may be poor company; but in the case of the hyperreal Cary, none of this was true.

#SmilesC

2011-04-21T10:33:00.028+01:00

A coffee morning quiz for chemists ...

#SmilesC this cpd was designed as a weapon, what is it? OC(c1ccccc1)(c2ccccc2)C(=O)OC1CN(CC2)CCC12

I'm going to post some SMILES structures with related questions on twitter under the hashtag #SmilesC (the C standing for chemistry); I'd be curious if anyone could work-out the answer without using any software; if you can, post the answer in the comments section below. Kudos to the first to post! Acknowledgement is due to K J Haxton who has been doing this sort of thing on her blog Endless Possibilities for quite a while. For those who are unfamilliar with SMILES - Simplified Molecular Input Line Entry Specification - it is a method of describing the structures of molecules in 1D instead of representing them in 2D as is usual. The theory of smiles can be found from the Daylight company. A useful decoding webpage can be found at DEPICT. If you copy the following molecule, CC(=O)C into the form on the DEPICT website, the structure of the molecule (acetone) will be returned. Another useful piece of software - for checking purposes only - is ChemSpider.

Questions asked to date with links to answers (when the answer is posted in the comments section).

#SmilesC what is the name of this vitamin? OC[C@H](O)[C@@H]1C(O)=C(O)C(=O)O1
#SmilesC name this reaction c1ccccc1C=O>CC(=O)OC(=O)C.[O-]C(=O)C>c1ccccc1C=CC(=O)O
#SmilesC what is this compound called? If not wonderland, where is it found? C=CC[S+]([O-])SCC=C
#SmilesC what's special about this arrangement of atoms? [Rb+].[Na+].O=C([O-])[C@H](O)[C@@H](O)C(=O)[O-].O.O.O.O
#SmilesC what has this compound got to do with the law? O=N(=O)C1=CC=C(O1)C=NN2CCOC2(=O)
#SmilesC what is so controversial about this compound? [Na+].[S-]C1=NC(=O)C(C(C)CCC)(CC)C(=O)N1
#SmilesC what is being prepared here? OCCSCCO>HCl.HCl>ClCCSCCCl
#SmilesC whose degradation is used to prepare this compound? CC(=O)C1CCC2C1(C)CCC3C4(C)CCC(=O)C=C4CCC23
#SmilesC some say this cpd has save more lives than any other, what is it? ClC(Cl)(Cl)C(c1ccc(Cl)cc1)c2ccc(Cl)cc2
#SmilesC this cpd was designed as a weapon, what is it? OC(c1ccccc1)(c2ccccc2)C(=O)OC1CN(CC2)CCC12

Reconciliation and Contrition

2011-04-19T12:41:00.002+01:00

Excellent write up by Inforrm's Blog of The Citizen 1978 Ltd v McBride, a South African defamation case.

"In 1986, ..., as an operative of the African National Congress’s armed wing, detonated a car bomb outside Magoo’s Bar and the Why Not Restaurant in Durban, in which 69 people were injured and three women killed. He was sentenced to death, but was reprieved and released in the early ’90s."

The bomber went on to stand for election for the position of chief of police. This resulted in a slew of potentially defamatory newspaper articles about the bomber by The Citizen.

The bomber sued for defamation.

Inforrm's blog gives a better explanation than I could of what happened next, get the story, here.

Sceptics of Darwinism

2011-04-19T10:51:00.002+01:00

Anyone who expresses any scepticism of Darwin is usually written off as some God-bothering crank. However, there are some interesting critics of Darwinism, a study of whom and why they are critical of the hypothesis leads to a deeper understanding of science. In that vein, here's Marcel-Paul Schützenberger

From The Miracles of Darwinism,

"In 1966, Schützenberger participated in the Wistar Symposium on mathematical objections to neo-Darwinism. His arguments were subtle and often misunderstood by biologists. Darwin's theory, he observed, and the interpretation of biological systems as formal objects, were at odds insofar as randomness is known to degrade meaning in formal contexts. But Schützenberger also argued that Darwin's theory logically required some active principle of coordination between the typographic space of the informational macromolecules (DNA and RNA) and the organic space of living creatures themselves -- which Darwin's theory does not provide."

How Dare You Assume I Wanna Parlez Vous With You?

2011-04-14T11:28:00.002+01:00

As the #coulson #metgate scandal unfolds with Operation Weeting making arrests and such I have the Fall's 'Telephone Thing' running through my mind ...

Gretchen Franklin

I wonder if I'm tapped?

"I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
Sorry to be so short with you
But I'm tapped
But I'm tapped

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

The use of [..] and your smug advertisements
of your tendril ocean bed achievements does not
justify your abuse of privacy piracy act

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I feel you Telephone Thing listening in

How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron thing

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

Sense you

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?
You Gretchen Franklin nosey matron type

Does the Home Secretary have the barest faintest inkling of what's going down?

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

The use of [..] and your amug advertisements
Of your tendril ocean bed achievements does not justify your abuse of privacy piracy act

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I do you Telephone Thing listening in

How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you
You Gretchen Franklin thing

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

Sense you

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

Sense you

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in
I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

How dare you assume I want to parlez-vous with you?

I'm tapped

I hear you Telephone Thing listening in

I HEAR YOU TELEPHONE THING "

lyrics from here.

Iatrogenic Justification

2011-04-06T14:32:00.000+01:00

The Activist Teacher has blogged about illness. In his note he compares the mortality rates of smoking and iatrogenesis - being harmed by your physician (note not murdered, simply killed or made ill).

In isolation, the stats may be stark and clear cut. (As yet, we don't have them in the UK; however, Margaret has taken steps to correct this anomally). The problem is that I don't think that these statistics should be read outside of their context. Usually, a person seeks medical help when they are ill; further, these medical treatments tend to have side effects. The patient is putting himself at risk in the hope of becoming well. So, when collating statistics how does one count someone who was seriously ill and so opted to take a risky procedure which killed him?

I'm not dismissing or excusing the problem of iatrogenesis, in the last six months I've met two people whose relatives went into hospital for a leg amputation and had the wrong one taken off! Instead, I would be very interested in how one should collate the figures. Perhaps, Margaret's FoI will yield an interesting discussion.

A Different Class

2011-04-03T17:41:00.000+01:00

In a previous post I asked whether or not anyone else had noticed how apt the quote from Animal Farm,

"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."

was when John Prescott went to the House of Lords. A person who everyone (apart from him) pretends to think of as working class becoming enobled.

Thinking of Prescott one thinks of class. He once said in a radio interview that he was middle class, famously, this caused a rift between himself and his father,

"The rift was said to have begun in 1996 when Mr Prescott told a radio interviewer on the BBC programme, Today: "I'm pretty middle-class."

His father, Bert, who is 89, disagreed, saying that his son was working class. He claimed his son had barely spoken to him since."

as reported in the Guardian.

This obsession with class runs deep within the British psyche where a very large number of Britain's middle classes, particularly the petit bourgeoisie, irrationally believe that they are working class. They may certainly have working class origins but that doesn't mean that they're working class now.

Unfortunately this belief has a negative effect on the politics of this country. The negative effect manifests itself when the middle classes vote for the labour party, a party supposedly for the working classes. This leads to politicians pandering to the middle classes, sometimes disingenously called middle England. Unfortunately, this 'we are working class' myth leads to an entitlement mentality which appears to be beyond criticism. An egregious aspect of this phenomenon is seen with the rigging of the UK economy so that the price of houses does not fall. If this was seen as a policy of pandering to the middle classes it would not be feasible; as a policy of pandering to the working classes, this policy is accepted and acceptable.

So, if the working classes are really middle class; what of the real working classes? They are describes as the underclass. As such they are alienated from the economy, their only function being to support the currency through need, they are dehumanised and objectified. They are a valuable source of income to a fairly large section of the caring middle class economy (health, education and social work) and the not so caring, eg landlords who live off housing benefit.

Expect this situation to continue as long as the myth remains alive.

Cocaine Without The Drug Barons

2011-03-25T18:24:00.000Z

As I've been saying for quite a while now, the day is getting very close, if not here already, when cocaine will come from a chemical plant rather than a coca plant.

My blogger feed has just yielded, doi/abs/10.1021/jo200069m a paper that describes the, "Total Synthesis of (−)-Cocaine and (−)-Ferruginine".

When I wrote about, "No Future For Cocaine" that should've read, no future for cocaine from coca plants. If you can synthesise the product in your shed you can disintermediate the criminals. As the chemistry develops, this is what is happening.

What Does Race Mean?

2011-03-24T10:06:00.001Z

The Daily Mirror tells us about 'The Rainbow Family: Three children with different skin colours born to the same parents' explaining that,

"A couple have called their kids the Rainbow Children... because one is white, one is mixed race and the other is black.

White mum Carla Nurse, 27, and her mixed-race husband Cornel, 31, were not surprised when their first child Jermaine was born with a brown complexion.

But they were stunned when daughter Tanisha arrived with an Afro-Caribbean appearance and second son Jayden was born with white skin and blonde hair. Carla, a part-time model from Lowestoft, Suffolk, said: "It looks strange when I walk around with my rainbow children.""

When the children grow up, they will most probably be confronted with race monitoring forms where they have to tick a box that best describes their race. So, what race are they?

Quite sensibly we might say that they're mixed race; after all, their parents are different races. But what does the law say?

Curiously,

" racial" is not a term of art, either legal or, I surmise, scientific. I apprehend that anthropologists would dispute how far the word " race " is biologically at all relevant to the species amusingly called homo sapiens.

in Ealing London Borough Council v Race Relations Board.

Further consideration of the question leads me to the conclusion that, unless someone is being discriminated against, the question is irrelevant. The word does not bear any meaning except in discrimination law: a close reading of the Race Relations Act 1976 takes us to some definitions in section 3 which says,

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires ...

(my emphasis) so, without this Act, the word does not bear a meaning; it isn't a term of art either in law or science.

And here are a couple of chaps who are illustrating that race is nothing but a social construction. Go on, make up a name for the ones who are white on the left because they are superior aren't they? They should own all the property, do no work and exploit the ones who are white on the right. Everybody knows that don't they?

Press Harassment

2011-03-23T11:24:00.001Z

scroll over map for links

We've all seen people become victims of the press. Often they're implicated, tangentially, in some sort of crime. This seems to give the press a bogus right to harass the person.

I wonder why people who find themselves in this sort of situation don't rely on the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

A journalist makes an approach to the person; the person asks the journalist for their details, the person checks the previous reports of the journalist and finds them lacking, then tells the journalist that they don't want them to contact them again. If the journalist doesn't respect the person's wishes, the journalist becomes liable in the statutory tort of harassment, as does the journalist's employer (see, Majrowski "What matters is the closeness of the connection between the offending conduct of the employee with the nature and circumstances of that employment.").

Consider the resignation letter of the journalist Richard Peppiat from the Daily Star. The letter describes very bad practice by that newspaper. Now, imagine being contacted by this journalist - pre the letter - looking at his articles, finding them lacking and telling the journalist that you don't want to be contacted by him again. What can he do?

I wonder how often this mechanism is being used to prevent press harassment.

Update 24^th March 2011. Using the novel techniques of 'reading' and using something called 'google'; I've managed to find the following story, The harassment of press freedom.

The story, from 2007, gives details of people using PHA 1997 to stop the press harassing them. The article also points out that the press has some redress via article 10 of the convention of human rights. The real problem is that the law is like the Ritz, open to everyone.

Tax Tax Tax; or, My Budget

2011-03-22T16:57:00.004Z

Budget week in the UK, so here's my budget.

Tax Borrowing/Lending: The principal of every loan in the land would be taxed at 5% (maybe more, maybe less). Every mortgage loan taken out would yield 5% of the principal, this would go straight to the Chancellor; likewise, every purchase on tic, every car loan, every holiday etc, etc. Huge city buy outs, using money borrowed against the company being bought (think, Manchester United / Glaser bros; think, Kraft / Cadbury) would yield more cash for the treasury. No, we're not all in it together. Those who borrowed up to the hilt brought it on the rest of us. They can pay us all back.
Tax Benefits: All benefits to be added up and taxed as income. No longer will people be able to get more money on benefit than someone who is working. (Exception: sickness).
Equity for Rent: All rent paid on land will buy a beneficial interest as will any investment in the property. The renter will immediately become a beneficiary and will then have all the settled equitable rights and benefits that are already in place.

Crank It Up, Mark

2011-03-19T11:42:00.002Z

Brilliant paper just come over my google feed, "Palladium-Catalyzed Mono-α-arylation of Acetone with Aryl Halides and Tosylates" which says,

"We report the first example of selective Pd-catalyzed mono-α-arylation of acetone employing aryl chlorides, bromides, iodides, and tosylates. The use of appropriately designed P,N-ligands proved to be the key to controlling the reactivity and selectivity. The reaction affords good yields with substrates containing a range of functional groups at modest Pd loadings using Cs₂CO₃ as the base and employing acetone as both a reagent and the solvent."

In other words, there is a simple, cheap and efficient route to the amphetamine structure.

To understand what I mean, here is the author's drawing of the chemistry described in the paper,

the products formed by this reaction can be used as the starting material for the synthesis of amphetamine, methamphetamine and ecstacy.

I've blogged about this sort of thing before in "No Future For Cocaine": I discussed the change of the source of drugs of 'abuse' from natural to synthetic. This chemistry is part of this thrust of technology; drugs of abuse will become yet more cheaper, their control will slip from the hands of drug Barons into the hands of technically minded crooks where they will be manufactured locally. Massive drug importations will be left to state actors (see the work of Alfred McCoy), whilst there will be a steady and continuing transistion from global to local.

Fascinating.

Watch this space for updates.

3.89 MB pdf with procedures etc ... expect to see on Erowid very soon.

Softened Up

2011-03-11T11:40:00.000Z

Radio 4 broadcast "Fingerprints on Trial" last night (available for a further seven days) which covered issues discussed previously by this blog. For example, search 'fingerprints', and more specifically, "Fingerprint Examiners Fallacy".

One of the things of interest that was broadcast was the news that the "Fingerprint Inquiry Scotland" was due to report its findings.

If the inquiry has done its job properly this could have profound consequences for the use of fingerprint evidence.

Oddly feable

2011-03-09T11:09:00.002Z

Ella Guru's Work

The Telegraph criticises Equality legislation in, "Other odd rulings on equality legislation".

It's a disappointing read since it's very light on legal analysis; the report is aimed at those who might be excited by the gambit of, 'you'll never believe this but ...'

One of the cases chosen to examine is Grainger v Nicholson,

"Tim Nicholson, the former head of sustainability at a property firm called Grainger plc, won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his green views after a judge ruled that environmentalism had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs.
....

Mr Justice Michael Burton concluded that "a belief in man-made climate change ... is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations"."

I also disagreed with this finding. For my discussion see, here.

However, as yet, I haven't found any other criticism, with legal discussion, of the ruling. (Apart, of course, from this, from the Employmentlaw Advocate blog).

Freedom To Squat Under Attack

2011-03-07T11:34:00.004Z

Her plight ensures your house price. Enjoy!

The Telegraph looks at "The middle class serial squatters exploiting the law", and comes up with a curious conclusion.

The article explains that,

"A ragtag bunch of up to 40 activists and undergraduates has exploited legal loopholes to live for free in a string of historic buildings in London.

Dressed in scavenged clothes and ripped vintage tweed jackets, the squatters have struck four times in the past six weeks.

They occupied a building in Bloomsbury Square belonging to a well-known art dealer before invading a £6m house owned by Guy Ritchie, the film director. Then they took over an empty pub near Oxford Street before moving on to another near Leicester Square.

But despite leaving a trail of damage running into thousands of pounds, they can move on to their next target because squatting is not illegal. "

Rather than explaining that this story is untypical of homelessness and of squatting; rather than explaining that the middle class brats were either amusing themselves or part of some establishment campaign to change the law, our intrepid journalist bring us quotes of MPs railing against the freedom to squat.

"Their case typifies the failings of the law. The Sunday Telegraph is campaigning to reform the law to make squatting a criminal offence.

A change is backed by MPs, including Mike Weatherley, Conservative MP for Hove, who said England and Wales should be brought into line with Scotland, where squatting has been a criminal offence since the 1860s.

"It is far too easy to legally squat," he said. "Squatters know they just get moved on without penalty and they are never stopped from doing it again."

Mr Weatherley is backed by other MPs including Caroline Dineage [sic], Conservative MP for Gosport, and Nigel Adams, Conservative MP for Selby. "

Further into the article the journalists explain that squatting has increased during the recession partly as a rise in the number of empty homes. Why should there be any empty homes? As far as I can see the (genuine) squatters are doing a public service by putting to use an empty property. This should be encouraged.

The article is followed by another piece, deceiptfully titled, How squatters evade the law. This article purports to be a legal analysis of squatting but is full of loaded sentences simlar to its title and makes a mistake. It says,

"Another area of legislation which squatters can use to their benefit in England and Wales is the law on “adverse possession”, which can allow someone who has occupied a building for 10 years to claim ownership of it. "

That should be twelve (not ten) years according to section 15(1) of the Limitation Act 1980.

Addendum Squatting for beginners
See Nothing Gets My Blood Boiling Like Squatters particularly,

"Anonymous | 7 Mar 2011 3:20 pm

I know lots of people who live in squats and have been to several of them. Not one is in a property that was being occupied at the time it was taken. Cases like the Archway property are the exception rather than the rule, as it is counterproductive to squat in somebody's home.

This article is a piece of fearmongering aimed at getting middle class homeowners freaked out at the prospect of anarchists moving into their home - which isn't going to happen! What about people getting evicted from their homes by the banks? Why don't you do some useful journalism and write about the problems going on in modern Britain that have caused a massive housing shortage, countless unused empty homes and a general unaffordable market. Jobs are being cut, benefits lost and more people are squatting."

Update 20^th March 2011. It looks like Grant Shapps wants to sully his reputation by ensuring that more properties fall into disuse and more people end up sleeping on the streets just to try and keep up property prices. See, Grant Shapps: why the Government will outlaw squatting 'once and for all'

Update 6^th September 2011. A slap in the face for Grant Shapps' campaign to maintain property prices at the expense of homeless people, "Squatters could be good for us all, says judge in empty homes ruling", reports the Telegraph,

"Squatters are not criminals and could be good for society, a judge has ruled in ordering a London council to make public a list of empty homes in its area. "

about, Voyias v IC & London Borough of Camden (Freedom of Information Act 2000) [2011] UKFTT EA_2011_0007 (GRC) 2011.

Technical Difficulties

2011-03-05T12:27:00.000Z

Libyan rebels who are part of the forces against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi guard outside the refinery

reports The Independent in, "Gaddafi 'tightens grip' on Zawiya".

The problem I have with the picture is that it is of technicals; ie, mercenaries. As the wikipedia link explains, this region of the world is rife with mercenaries, people who weld a machine gun onto their Toyota jeep and use it as a weapon of war. The War Nerd also explains in an old article,

"Habre's rebels took it from the Libyans in a battle which might've been the debut of one of the major new weapons systems of the late 20th century, the "technical." If you've read up on Somalia, you know that a "technical" is just a Toyota 4wd pickup with a big machinegun or grenade launcher welded onto the bed."

Who is paying for their services?

We've been sold the idea that we are witnessing a spontaneous peoples uprising but the sight of mercenaries seems to undermine that idea. Are we looking at another Charlie Wilson's War?

I left a comment explaining the above on the newspaper website; as yet the moderator hasn't deigned to share it with the readers.

The Problem With Innocentive

2011-03-05T10:37:00.001Z

Innocentive is a fantastic idea and is obviously proving to be successful.

"InnoCentive is where organizations turn to solve problems that matter. We help companies innovate better, to find the fastest path to solutions. Novel ideas and new approaches are crucial if a company is to survive and thrive."

If you have a technical capability go to the webpage and join up. (You need to go to the website to understand the rest of this post).

The problem that I found with it was that I wasn't playing on a level field: a considerable number of the other solvers were academics. They were using their institutes' money (facilities / time) in order to line their own pockets - when they took on a project, they could do it at leisure. If I took on a project, it had to pay. I was taking on a risk, whilst competitor academic solvers where not taking on this risk. A consequence of this is that the people who set the challenges did so - wittingly or otherwise - such that, largely, they were only feasible for academics to solve.

So sadly, now I'm out.

Obviously there are exceptions to these observations and I wish Innocentive well. I'm simply railing against the effect of State spending leading to the crippling of innovation.

Retracting Daubert

2011-03-04T17:34:00.000Z

Jane Ruby as Frida Kahlo

I've posted about Daubert, the persuasive American decision regarding the admissibility of scientific evidence, on numerous occassions.

Here is the relevant passage,

"Faced with a proffer of expert scientific testimony ..., the trial judge, ..., must make a preliminary assessment of whether the testimony's underlying reasoning or methodology is scientifically valid and properly can be applied to the facts at issue. Many considerations will bear on the inquiry, including whether the theory or technique in question can be (and has been) tested, whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication, its known or potential error rate, and the existence and maintenance of standards controlling its operation, and whether it has attracted widespread acceptance within a relevant scientific community. The inquiry is a flexible one, and its focus must be solely on principles and methodology, not on the conclusions that they generate."

The part I want to criticise is,
"whether it has been subjected to peer review and publication,".

As more and more peer review papers are being found to be, at best, wrong by groups such as Retraction Watch; a mockery is made of this Daubert criterion. Expect to see this challenged in the courts.

Codename "Perjurer"

2011-02-21T17:39:00.001Z

During the Stockwell inquest (Friday, 8^th November 2008), "Codename "Neil"" on page 140, beginning at line 14 says,

"14 them in the car and take them with them. Once again,
15 there was evidence of TATP explosive at the bomb-making
16 factory in Leeds. The other four devices --"

Whilst, as Bridget has point out, during the evidence given by Clifford Todd to the Coroner's Inquests into the London Bombings of 7 July 2005
Hearing transcripts – 1 February 2011 - Afternoon session, no evidence of the presence of TATP is given.

If we take from this that there isn't any evidence of TATP at Alexandra Grove, what is "Codename "Neil's"" liability for perjury?

Section 1(1) of the Perjury Act 1911 provides,

"If any person lawfully sworn as a witness or as an interpreter in a judicial proceeding wilfully makes a statement material in that proceeding, which he knows to be false or does not believe to be true, he shall be guilty of perjury, and shall, on conviction thereof on indictment, be liable to penal servitude for a term not exceeding seven years, or to imprisonment . . . F1 for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine or to both such penal servitude or imprisonment and fine."

On page 125 line 11 of the inquest transcripts we can see that "Codename "Neil"" was sworn. Bearing in mind section 1(2) of the Perjury Act 1911 which says,

"The expression “judicial proceeding” includes a proceeding before any court, tribunal, or person having by law power to hear, receive, and examine evidence on oath."

Did "Codename "Neil"" know that the statement he made was false or did not believe it to be true?

If he made the statement knowing it to be false then he is liable for perjury. This is a serious discrepancy; whether anything will come of it, I don't know. But if "Neil" cannot justify his answer ~~when~~ if called upon to do so, I would imagine that he would be facing a term in jail.

Not so Clever Hans

2011-02-19T10:41:00.001Z

I've blogged about this before but it seems as though others are catching up.

In short, the police powers of stop and search are found in the section 1 of the Police and Crimanal Evidence Act 1984, where s1(3) PACE 1984 provides,

"This section does not give a constable power to search a person or vehicle or anything in or on a vehicle unless he has reasonable grounds for suspecting that he will find stolen or prohibited articles"

When police use sniffer dogs as a basis for stopping and searching people is this lawful?

It depends upon whether or not the sniffer dog behaviour gives the officer reasonable grounds.

We can only answer that question if we know the (i) false positive rate, (ii) false negative rate, and how the Clever Hans effect is prevented.

The Clever Hans effect being a mechanism whereby the animal's behaviour is a result of unwitting cues given to it by its trainer.

Well, it seems that someone has decided to bother investigating the Clever Hans effect with regard to sniffer dogs - here's a link to the Mind Hack's article that has more details, Sniffing Out the Unconscious.

Link to original article dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10071-010-0373-2.

My previous notes,

Feasibility Study of Pepper to Ecstacy (MDMA) Route

2011-02-18T09:51:00.000Z

In a previous post I presented as much data as possiblel to try and determine whether or not Alexandra Grove was a bomb factory or a drug factory. This analysis was based around the chemistry of the substances involved.

In this post I want to pull together the quantities of material necessary in order to make one kilogram of ecstacy (MDMA) - a skeleton costing where the reader is asked to supply his own prices.

Starting Material (kg)	Product (kg)	Notes
Pepper (225)	Piperine (11.24)	Assuming 5 % wt piperine in pepper
Piperine (11.24)	Piperonal (2.66)	assuming a 45 % theoretical yield on the basis of the Erowid Chemistry
Piperonal (2.66)	MDMA / Ecstacy (1.0)	based on a theoretical yield of 29 % from the UN Drug Report, 2.5 p 4

In short, you're looking at using a quarter of a tonne of pepper to obtain over a kilogram of MDMA.

This analysis doesn't include any labour or other raw materials.

It doesn't look like a commercially viable process to me. As to whether or not the Alexandra Grove crew did this feasibility study is anyones guess.

But when trying to answer the question drug factory vs bomb factory, it is a useful piece of information.

Alexandra Grove: Bomb Factory Or Drug Factory?

2011-02-17T11:11:00.000Z

Whilst reading transcripts from the 7^th July bomb inquests (Coroner's Inquests into the London Bombings of 7 July 2005 Hearing transcripts – 1 February 2011 - Afternoon session) with a view to understanding the chemical nature of the bombs that were used, apart from hydrogen peroxide, the name of one other chemical kept cropping up again and again: piperine.

Clifford Todd explains (p44 line2),

"1 Our first analysis on some materials from
2 Alexandra Grove showed us the presence of a material
3 called piperine. It later transpires that that is
4 simply something that is contained within black pepper."

I looked up the structure of piperine ...

... and immediately thought of MDMA/ecstacy.

To see why, you need to be familiar with the structure of ecstacy, and see how it compares with piperine. In the diagram, the lower structure is ecstacy (MDMA)

we are already familiar with piperine.

A bit of googling quickly takes us to the drug site Erowid (very useful site for the study of chemistry, btw), which has a couple of pages dedicated to converting pepper to piperonal.

Piperonal, as is obvious from the wikipedia link, is a starting material for the synthesis of ecstacy.

This is depicted in the diagram below; the piperonal to MDMA transformation is seen

in the chemistry section of the MDMA link.

Further thoughts on hydrogen peroxide/piperine as an explosive mixture

Throughout the Hearing Transcripts (I've only made a close study of Coroner's Inquests into the London Bombings of 7 July 2005 Hearing transcripts – 1 February 2011 - Afternoon session) the purity of the piperine isn't made clear. Nor is it made clear why piperine is particularly effective, when mixed with hydrogen peroxide, as a bomb. The idea of a hydrogen peroxide and piperine bomb is something called a Sprengel explosive.

Quoting from wikipedia,

"Sprengel explosives are a generic class of materials invented by Hermann Sprengel in the 1870s.^[1] They consist of stoichiometric mixtures of strong oxidisers and reactive fuels, mixed just prior to use in order to enhance safety. Either the oxidiser or the fuel, or both, should be a liquid to facilitate mixing, and intimate contact between the materials for a fast reaction rate."

Applying this to the purported hydrogen peroxide/piperine mixture; supposedly hydrogen peroxide is the 'strong oxidiser' and supposedly the piperine is the 'reactive fuel'. As for 'stoichiometric', this means there is the necessary amount of hydrogen peroxide to piperine in order to oxidise the piperine to carbon dioxide, water and nitrogen dioxide.

The balanced equation is

2 C₁₇H₁₉NO₃ + 85 H₂O₂ → 34 CO₂ + 104 H₂O + 2 NO₂

From the balanced equation we can work out the proportions of piperine to hydrogen peroxide

Piperine	Hydrogen Peroxide	Notes
2 x 285.34	85 x 34	theoretical calculation
570.68	2890	assuming 100 % pure hydrogen peroxide
1	5	assuming 100 % pure hydrogen peroxide
1	10	assuming a 50 % w/w hydrogen peroxide

As far as I'm aware, we don't know the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide used; depending upon the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide, the ratio of piperine to hydrogen peroxide would be 1 g to 10 g. Does this sound like a thick slurry to you? It certainly doesn't to me.

A thicker slurry needs more concentrated hydrogen peroxide with all of the associated lack of credibility. If the slurry is thicker without the necessary hydrogen peroxide present to oxidise it, the chances of finding traces of piperine post explosion increases.

The choice of hydrogen peroxide as an oxidiser in a Sprengel explosive is a poor choice due to reasons discussed elsewhere (difficulty in obtaining the appropriate concentrations, instability, etc); but why choose piperine as the fuel?

There aren't any obvious reasons. It is a fuel but I don't get the impression it is a particularly reactive one.

Thinking about the two competing hypotheses: drug factory or bomb factory; there is insufficient evidence to conclude one way or the other. But the idea that it was a drug factory is a sensible and viable hypothesis.

Lastly, I wonder if anyone has tried to repeat the chemistry? Extration of piperine from pepper followed by oxidation with hydrogen peroxide, with a view, perhaps, to making piperonal?

Pepper and Hydrogen Peroxide Bombs?

2011-02-15T11:01:00.000Z

I've been following the 7^th July Inquests via the J7: 7/7 Inquests Blog. As the inquest has unfolded the J7 group have revealed some absolute shockers that are being simply ignored by other media sources. For those following the blog, if I mention things such as the curious case of the Jag and leading prosecution evidence in other trials that "simply does not exist", you'll know what I mean.

However, throughout all of this process I've always accepted the general thrust of the official narrative. I do appreciate that the official narrative has some very serious shortcomings such as putting the bombers on a train to London that was cancelled but I haven't allowed this to lead me to doubt various threads of the narrative.

But now I'm beginning to doubt one of these threads.

That is, I'm beginning to doubt the nature of the bombs: namely, were they really a mixture of concentrated hydrogen peroxide and pepper?

It was thought that the bombers bought bottles of hydrogen peroxide, concentrated the hydrogen peroxide by boiling away water, and after cooling back, mixing the hydrogen peroxide with pepper to form a slurry. The slurry was transported to London in rucksacks cooled by freezer bags packed amongst the contents. Subsequently the rucksacks were detonated by the bombers.

From the perspective of a chemist, the preceding paragraph has a number of flaws. When hydrogen peroxide is heated it begins to decompose. Hydgrogen peroxide is prone to catalytic decomposition from materials such as rust, metals, metal salts, the list goes on - see Brethericks Handbook of Reactive Chemical Hazards, which suggests that heating up hydrogen peroxide in a saucepan wouldn't be wise. Mixing the concentrated hydrogen peroxide with an organic substance (pepper) is fraught with hazards; not least that it would be anticipated to react with the organic material in an uncontrolled chemical reaction.

But simply saying that these decompositions and thermal runaways would happen is not possible.

To understand what I'm trying to say, look at the pictures at the other side of this link,
175 Times and then the Catastrophethe link shows the results of a reaction that wasn't particularly safe. The point is, the unsafe process was run 175 times before the catastrophe.

Getting back to the hydrogen peroxide bombs: although on paper their preparation - from start to finish - shouldn't have been possible, maybe the bombers did manage to do it. Maybe if they had done it one more time, like the chemical plant example above, it would've ended in disaster. From the information given, it isn't possible to know.

The above analysis was gleaned from newspaper and internet reports prior to the inquest.

Now, courtesty of Mr Clifford Todd we have clearer details of what is known about the 7^th July bombs because of his contribution to the 7^th July inquest, beginning at p38 line 7 of the 1^st February 2011 hearing transcript, afternoon session.

Reading the details of his contribution one comes to p58 line 2 where we have the following exchange between Mr Keith (the questioner) and Mr Todd,

"2 Q. You then turn to consideration of the main charge, the
3 hydrogen peroxide/piperine mix, but you've covered that
4 area to a great extent already.
5 You concluded, in essence, in relation to all four
6 scenes, that despite the absence of traces of piperine
7 at the scenes, the absence of any other recognised high
8 explosive, together with the material found at
9 Alexandra Grove, led you to conclude that the main
10 charge was an improvised mixture, a home-made mixture of
11 pepper and hydrogen peroxide?
12 A. That's correct, yes."

I don't believe there is sufficient evidence to come to the conclusion that the bombs were hydgrogen peroxide/piperine mix. A working hypothesis may be that the bombs were a piperine/hydrogen peroxide mix but this isn't a conclusion. The 'absence of traces of piperidine at the scences,' could be because there wasn't any there in the first place and considering the sophistication of the analytical equipment available to the forensics department is the more likely explanation. '[T]he absence of any other recognised high explosive,' means that an explosive was used that was not recognised; I appreciate that this is trite, but it doesn't mean that the piperine/hydrogen peroxide mix was used.

To state that the explosive charge was a piperine/hydrogen peroxide mix is multiplying entities beyond necessity. The narrative would gain a lot more credibility by stating that the nature of the explosive charge was not known.

This would lead to the evaporation of the scepticism around the processing and associated hazards of concentrating hydrogen peroxide and mixing it with an impure organic substance.

CW/74

There is another piece of evidence that would shed a lot more light on what the alleged bombers were doing at the purported laboratory at Alexandra Grove.

During the proceedings, evidence was lead (p3 line 24 - p4 line 2 of the 1^st February Session of the Hearing) in order to connect the alleged bombers to Alexandra Grove. One piece of evidence found at Alexandra Grove was a piece of paper with Tanweer's handwriting on it which contained a chemical formula. Unfortunately this evidence was not made available for publication, for all we know it could give the proportions of pepper to hydrogen peroxide; similarly, it could give the procedure for making piperonal from piperine using hydrogen peroxide, alternatively it could be about anything else.

Lastly, I have alluded to the question of whether or not Alexandra Grove was a drug factory or a bomb factory. I will leave analysis and discussion of that question for another post.

Gove's Irrelevance

2011-02-12T14:01:00.000Z

The Telegraph reports, Michael Gove loses High Court case over scrapping school building projects, explaining that,

"Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, lost a High Court battle to cancel school building projects in a landmark case which threatens to slow the Government’s spending cuts."

But in the scheme of things this is an irrelevance.

Turning to the court decision, Luton Borough Council & Nottingham City Council & Ors, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for Education [2011] EWHC 217 (Admin), Mr Justice Holman makes a point of saying,

"124 I wish, finally, to make two matters very clear so there is no future misunderstanding.

125 First, other local authorities than these claimants will no doubt read this judgment and may consider that they are in the same or a sufficiently similar factual position to claim the same relief. I have stretched a benevolent discretion to Sandwell, who were shortly out of time, for the reasons I have given. The decision is now, however, over seven months ago, and in my view any other authorities would now be far too late to apply for judicial review. I do not mean to trivialise so important an issue, but it may be said that fortune has favoured the brave.

126 Finally, the extent of my decision is that the Secretary of State must, I stress must, reconsider the position of each of the claimants with an open mind and paying due regard to whatever representations they may respectively make. But provided he discharges that duty and his equality duties, the final decision on any given school or project still rests with him. He may save all, some, a few, or none. No one should gain false hope from this decision."

The Telegraph reports explains that,

"Chris Robbins, the leader of Waltham Forest Council, called the decision “a victory for common sense and fair play”. David Mellen, Nottingham council’s portfolio holder for children’s services, said: “This is a powerful judgment and a vindication of all the determination and hard work that has brought us to this point.”"

It isn't.
The process has wasted more money and the result will be the same.

Yes, there is some incompetence on behalf of Gove for not going through the process properly: if he had bothered to discharge his common law, consultative burden, he would have most probably discharged his statutory equality burdens. However, he will simply go through the process again; properly this time, and stop the building programmes.

JACS-B Image Challenge

2011-02-08T20:49:00.000Z

At last. I've got one right.

The Journal of the American Chemical Society has an internet feature that takes an image from one of its publications and asks the viewer a question as to what it represents. The picture above is from, Challenge 127.

See if you can answer the question provided at the other end of the link.

Simply Wrong

2011-02-05T11:32:00.000Z

The J7: 7/7 Inquests Blog has just released the following utter and complete shocker from,

http://77inquests.blogspot.com/2011/02/simply-wrong.html

"Q. Detective Sergeant, just to clarify it, if we could go back to [INQ105680-12] at paragraph 64 , when, in the opening to the Theseus trial, as was widely reported, it stated there that this information was recovered from that mobile phone found at Edgware Road, is that simply wrong?

A. Yes. [ibid p39:22 on]"

"Simply wrong? We can add this 'simply wrong' to the litany of errors anomalies and inconsistencies that J7 have detailed, so far, over the 15 weeks of the 7/7 Inquests. The fact that 'simply wrong' evidence can be used in an attempt to convict 3 men, all found innocent, who faced up to 40 years in prison isn't just 'simply wrong' it's 'simply appalling'."

Cannabis Cultivation

2011-02-04T12:53:00.000Z

Auton & Ors v R. [2011] EWCA Crim 76 is a fascinating case where Lord Justice Hughes explains,

"The present four cases require us to consider sentencing in cases of smaller scale, but well planned and resourced, cannabis cultivation operations. Often, but not always, they may be carried on in the defendant's home."

However, it is not only the sentencing guidelines that are fascinating but the description of cannabis cultivation.

NATO's Kosovo

2011-01-26T10:40:00.003Z

The 'Finger Assisted' Nephrectomy of Professor Nadey Hakim and the World Presidents of the International College of Surgeons in Chicago, or, The Wise in Examination of the Torn Contemporary State by Henry Ward.

I saw the above at the National Portrait gallery and thought of Kosovo.

See, PACE calls for investigation on alleged organ trafficking in Kosovo.

Planning Defamation

2011-01-19T16:46:00.001Z

An interesting story from the Guardian tells us a few bits and pieces around the beginning of a defamation case, Soil Association given libel warning after objection to huge pig farm.

The soil association objected to the granting of planning permission to a pig farm, in response they received

"a threatening letter from Carter-Ruck, [acting for the pig farmers], saying its objection is defamatory and should be withdrawn.
....
When MPP was asked why it had chosen to use the libel laws against the Soil Association, it said the association had made comments not relevant to the specific planning application.

"We were concerned that this could lead to misunderstanding of the facts," it said. "We requested the Soil Association's research to back up these claims and asked if we could meet them to discuss the situation. Disappointingly we did not receive a response until we sent a letter from our solicitor. MPP has used a completely open and transparent approach and we have always made it clear that we respect people's right to their own opinion. With regard to libel laws, we are not qualified to comment."

Carter-Ruck said: "Our client was concerned by the Soil Association's use of the planning process as a platform to raise concerns about issues of policy which were not directly relevant to its specific planning application. The allegations were defamatory and as such our client had a right to defend itself. Our client's rebuttal made clear that it was not seeking to influence the views of the Soil Association or to stifle debate [but is committed to ensuring that] and that all sides of the debate are as accurate and informed as possible. Our client was not seeking to silence opposition but to engage with it.""

I imagine defamation issues around planning permission is fairly commonplace.

In a village close to where I live, someone objected to their neighbour's planning application for an extension to their house on the basis that the neighbour would be able to see into their daughter's bedroom from the extension. This was considered to be a libel; the objectors had to apologize for their defamatory statement and had to put a notice on their gate containing the apology.

The Relevant Act

2011-01-16T15:26:00.003Z

The Guardian writes an interesting story under the headline,

"Mark Kennedy and the strange case of undercover sex".

The article is about the vicarious tortious liability that the police may have incurred because of the sexual relationships that Mark Kennedy/Stone had with some of the environmental activists upon whom he was spying.

As I was reading the article, I was immediately struck as to whether or not, Kennedy/Stone was liable for rape.

The article quotes one of the women Kennedy/Stone slept with,

"... "Anna", the woman who came forward to the Guardian said: "if somebody was being paid to have sex with me, that gives me a sense of being violated.""

She goes on to say,

"Anna suspects that Kennedy's sexual relationship with her, and others, was not a genuine and private act of intimacy but a "tactic" to further his mission of gleaning inside information about the environmental protest movement."

The Sexual Offence Act 2003 section 1 describes rape and makes a point of stating (s1(3)) that sections 75 and 76 are relevant to the offence; whilst section 76 of the Act provides,

"76 Conclusive presumptions about consent

(1)If in proceedings for an offence to which this section applies it is proved that the defendant did the relevant act and that any of the circumstances specified in subsection (2) existed, it is to be conclusively presumed—

(a)that the complainant did not consent to the relevant act, and

(b)that the defendant did not believe that the complainant consented to the relevant act.

(2)The circumstances are that—

(a)the defendant intentionally deceived the complainant as to the nature or purpose of the relevant act;"

On the basis of this it looks as though there is a conclusive presumption that Anna and others have been intentionally deceived.

Just imagine if Anna rolled up at a police station and complained that she'd been raped by Stone/Kennedy, the police would be compelled to begin an investigation. Statements would be taken, a file would be prepared and this would be sent to the CPS. The CPS would look at s1 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 and s76 of the Act and weigh up whether or not there was a fifty percent chance of getting a conviction of Stone/Kennedy, and whether or not it was in the public interest to do so.

As to whether this will happen; I don't know. If it did happen ...

As to whether or not he would be prosecuted; well, he's a police officer, she's an environmental acitivist, what do you think?

Addendum from wikipedia, rebuttable presumption,

"Both in common law and in civil law, a rebuttable presumption (in Latin, praesumptio iuris tantum) is an assumption made by a court, one that is taken to be true unless someone comes forward to contest it and prove otherwise. A rebuttable presumption is often associated with prima facie evidence.

Rebuttable presumptions in criminal law are somewhat controversial in that they do effectively reverse the presumption of innocence in some cases. For example, in the United Kingdom, Section 75 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes the rebuttable presumption that a person who is unconscious or asleep cannot consent to sexual activity."

I haven't seen any other comments in the media as yet regarding Stone/Kennedy's liability but he should be worried.

Continuous Flow Business Model

2011-01-12T16:14:00.001Z

As I read details about the, "Successful 1st Symposium on Continuous Flow Reactor Technology for Industrial Applications, by Gayle de Maria", it becomes obvious, at least to me, that this technology will become common place.

example of a continuous flow reactor
One of the drivers for this will come from the fine chemical outsourcing market, it will be expected that a company will not only provide the product but a continuous flow process for the manufacture of that product.

An increasingly important selling point will be whether or not a fine chemical supplier can produce a continuous flow process as well as the product.

Libraries And Academics

2011-01-12T14:06:00.001Z

The above is a screen copy of a post,

gyges says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
January 12, 2011 at 12:05 pm

“…and that means they can search the chemical literature, which they can do in pretty well any public library.”

This statement is simply not true. Not in the UK at any rate. Try doing a literature search without access to your university account and access to Chem abs and you’ll see what I mean.

... that I left at the end of a note called, "Is David Nichols just a wee bit disingenuous?".

The article is of interest to those following the world of designer drugs.

But my comment refers to the usual gripe; that is, the vast number of people do not have access to academic literature.

Literature based on research funded by their taxes.

Metgate Lombardi Diagram

2011-01-11T16:18:00.009Z

Here's my attempt at a Lombardi Diagram of the ongoing metgate scandal ...

click on the image for greater clarity
I will update and map.
Note how Coulson doesn't even appear in this version ... the scandal is the Met sitting on the details of 6,000 victims.

Useful link, "News of the World phone-hacking scandal".
Update, 14th January 2011, "Scotland Yard fights to keep phone-hacking targets a secret".

The Independent newspaper produced a pdf of the diagram that I have copied below. (I don't know whether or not they were inspired by my attempts).

Hunt Kidd Charged With Theft

2011-01-10T15:02:00.004Z

I've been following the story of the closure of Newcastle solicitors Hunt Kidd since November 2009 (see, Legal Trouble In The Northeast): the BBC have just reported that,

"Two solicitors have been charged with stealing more than £1m from clients.

Barbara Gayton, 52, from Newcastle, and 64-year-old Kenneth Hunt, from Alnwick in Northumberland, will appear before magistrates in Newcastle on 31 January.

Ms Gayton and Mr Hunt are jointly charged with thefts from clients of the Hunt Kidd law firm in Newcastle where they both worked."

Will update as the story develops.

Update, 11^th January 2011, the Newcastle Journal has provided a slightly fuller account, "Newcastle solicitors charged with stealing from clients". However, as yet, we are still unsure of the specific charges.

Update, 11^th May 2011. The press have been extremely quiet about this case and so I decided to 'phone Newcastle Law Courts. They explained that (i) they didn't know what happened on the 31^st January; (ii) the defendants had not yet pleaded; (iii) that they received the case from the Magistrates court on 7^th March of this year, and, (iv) the case was due to be heard next week (w/c 16^th May 2011).

Update. 12^th Oct 2011. As yet nothing has happened in this story since the Newcastle Journal reported on 1^st Feb 2011 that, "North East solicitors enter no plea at court date." In other words they opted for a trial on indictment rather than a summary conviction, see s1(3) Fraud Act 2006.

The Journal also provides two useful tags

which will help in following the case.

Still following.

Grave Note

2011-01-09T18:04:00.003Z

Kilometer blog produced the following,

a post about the Robert Graves poem, In Broken Images, which is very impressive.

In Broken Images

He is quick, thinking in clear images;
I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images;
I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance;
Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.

Assuming their relevance, he assumes the fact,
Questioning their relevance, I question the fact.

When the fact fails him, he questions his senses;
When the fact fails me, I approve my senses.

He continues quick and dull in his clear images;
I continue slow and sharp in my broken images.

He in a new confusion of his understanding;
I in a new understanding of my confusion.

Robert Graves

Why is such perception found amongst poets rather than scientists?

Another example of such thinking comes from Keates and his idea of Negative Capability "that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties,"

The words of someone who would easily be able to grasp the wave particle duality of the nature of light.

The words of someone who would be able to grasp Bayes Theorem.

Learning to love uncertainty, a piece from the New Scientist by David Malone which, I think, is captured by Graves' poem.

Schools and Burst Pipes

2011-01-07T15:41:00.000Z

A google search of "school burst pipes" throws up a number of stories about schools being trashed by burst water pipes.

The schools are facing massive repair bills and significant disruption for pupils.

In this story, School counts cost of flooding damage,

"The school caretaker discovered the flood on Monday, December 20, after a pipe burst in the roof."

However, "At Badsley Moor Julia Pennington said the damage could have been worse if the caretaker had not checked the school on a day when he was meant to be off duty.

She said: "It was very lucky for us that he did – if not the water that was flooding into the school would have continued for a full 24 hours more."

I underline to ask a couple of questions ... who would have checked the school if it wasn't for the caretaker coming in on his day off? How many of these school bursts could have been mitigated by headteachers checking up on their schools?

These schools are worth hundreds of thousands of pounds; they are in their care, are they taking adequate care of the buildings? I doubt it but I would hope to be proved wrong.

Stasiland in Blighty

2011-01-06T19:21:00.002Z

The Yorkshire post reveals examples of civil servants abusing their positions by spying on their friends and neighbours.

"At one hospital, in Rotherham, a cleaner was caught only last month accessing the private medical files of a friend to determine that she had recently had an abortion."

Undoubtedly this is the tip of the iceberg.

The difference between here and East Germany is that this abuse isn't state sanctioned. However, a large part of the apparatus is present for minor civil servants to spy on people.

Update 27^th January 2011. David Allen Green suggests an interesting abduction in a New Statesman article, Police and RIPA requests,

"One of the interesting questions raised by the developing scandal into the use of phone-tapping by tabloid reporters and private investigators is: how did they get the telephone numbers and other data, such as pin codes?
....
There is currently no evidence that the police wrongly used their RIPA request powers to pass on (or even sell) information to reporters and journalists. So I am not making any suggestion of wrongdoing, and my supposition here may well be wrong."

Check out the New Statesman link for more details.

All Women Are Size Tens

2011-01-06T10:06:00.000Z

The MHRA has just released a safety warning for a medicine called implanon, "Implanon contraceptive implant: Information for women and healthcare professionals," which in part says,

"When used correctly Implanon is a safe, effective and reliable contraceptive that prevents pregnancy for up to three years. However, it is important that Implanon is correctly implanted by someone who is trained to fit it."

(Buck conveniently passed from MHRA to NHS)

The summary of product information says,

"One implant contains 68 mg of etonogestrel; the release rate is approximately 60-70 µg/day in week 5-6 and has decreased to approximately 35-45 µg/day at the end of the first year, to approximately 30-40 µg/day at the end of the second year and to approximately 25-30 µg/day at the end of the third year."

The point of the post is to draw attention to the lack of differentiation between patients with regard to medical treatment.

Every patient had exactly the same dose with exactly the same excipients.

I appreciate that I may be making a comparison error but just imagine if every woman you knew was given a size ten dress irrespective of their size.

Us and Them

2011-01-01T22:25:00.000Z

The Lockerbie Case blog has just posted, "So What Has Changed?", an observation about the poor state of forensic evidence in British courts.

Although not hard to do, the piece is extraordinarily damning of British justice; that is, it exposes the lack of satisfactory forensic analysis within the system.

One aspect of forensic analyses that strikes me is that they are unnecessarily poor.

If we were thinking about some sort of medical test, we would demand to know its false positive and false negative rates but when we think of a forensic test (eg sniffer dogs, fingerprints etc) this demand goes out of the window. We just don't seem to think something as vital as knowing whether or not our test is valid is necessary.

Pathetic?

Yes.

But why? Why do we entertain assays in our courts that have not been validated?

I think the difference between the two circumstances is that medical assays apply to us while forensic assays apply to them.

There may be a chance that we will need a reliable medical assay but forensic assays only apply to criminals, right?

Can you think of a better reason?

David F Noble

2010-12-30T17:31:00.002Z

"Arguably the greatest critical historian of science and technology died on Monday December 27, 2010, suddenly and unexpectedly of natural causes and within a few days of being admitted to hospital."

Obituary on Counterpunch by D Rancourt.

Books on Amazon UK.

Beyond the promised land.

"If we look at the idea and structure of a promise. ... It shifts our focus of attention from the today, the moment, the here and now, from the present, to some future fulfilment of the promise. That's one of the implications of a promise. Secondly, it shifts the source of your destiny: that is, from you shaping your own life, to some kind of faith that I will as the keeper of the promise. ... "

Update, Selected web-links for David F. Noble

Man Tax

2010-12-23T11:39:00.002Z

Does the student loan company discrimate between people on the basis of their gender?

The Student Loan Company provides loans for students in order to fund them through college.

Although they do not publish the figures with regard to gender (FoI in the offing), I anticipate that they provide loans on the basis of whether or not someone has a place at college: not on the basis of their gender.

But what about collecting repayment of the loans?

Anecdotal evidence is saying that there is a disparity of repayment based upon gender. Men are paying back loans; women are not paying back loans. I appreciate that the latter, is a sweeping statement; of course, when people (men or women) earn sufficient to pay back their student loans they are doing so. However, there is a pay discrepancy between men and women of, from memory, ten percent. Further, women take time off from work for child rearing. Both of these factors impact upon the ability of women to pay back the student loan.

There would be nothing wrong with this if we were talking about tax: each paying to their respective abilities to pay; the higher earner paying more than the lower earner.

But this isn't a tax. It is a loan. Loans don't look into the personal circumstances of the one in debt.

On the basis of anecdotal evidence, and the terms of these loans, a greater burden is being placed upon one group of people when it comes to paying back student loans. This group of people are defined by their gender, so arguably, the student loan system is discriminatory.

The legislation, section 1(2) Sex Discrimination Act 1975, provides,

"(2)In any circumstances relevant for the purposes of a provision to which this subsection applies, a person discriminates against a woman if—

(a)on the ground of her sex, he treats her less favourably than he treats or would treat a man, or
[F2(b)he applies to her a provision, criterion or practice which he applies or would apply equally to a man, but—
(i)which puts or would put women at a particular disadvantage when compared with men,
(ii)which puts her at that disadvantage, and
(iii)which he cannot show to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.]"

Which, of course, is read in conjunction with section 2(1) of the Act,

"Section 1, and the provisions of Parts II and III relating to sex discrimination against women, are to be read as applying equally to the treatment of men, and for that purpose shall have effect with such modifications as are requisite."

Working through section 1(2) of the Act and assuming that the anecdotal evidence with regard to repayment is correct, s1(2)(b)(i) and s1(2)(b)(ii) are in being breached depending upon s1(2)(b)(iii) of the Act.

Is the student loan system, as implemented at present, a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim?

This analysis hasn't covered any case law (due to time constraints) which if covered would give clarity to the situation.

But on the basis of the above, I don't think that the mechanism is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. The system is a disproportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim; particulalry, since there are other ways in which the funding of students through higher education could be done.

ps The Equality Commission are the people to ask as to whether or not this argument has any substance, and if it does, they are the ones to de-rail the student loan system.

Detective Instinct

2010-12-21T14:07:00.001Z

The Mindhacks blog drew our attention to some work they did about scopolamine. Here's the link.

Mindhacks is always worth a read but the thing that struck me was the example they chose of the police in late 1920s Hawaii using scopolamine in order to question a suspect. At the time the procedure was somewhat unusual and was written up in a medical journal. After a child had been kidnapped from school and a ransom had been paid, the child turned up dead. Since the kidnapper was thought to be oriental in appearance the police arrested the familly's Japanese chauffeur. The police tried to torture a confession from him but to no avail; so they decided to inject him with scopolamine.

"Under the influence of the substance the man became co-operative, confessed to the crime and described his evil plan in intricate detail, although he quickly recanted when the effects wore off. Wanting a confession that would stick, the drug interrogation was administered for a second time, only for the police to be embarrassed when real murderer was caught."

As usual there was no attempt to validate the technique.

Of course, this couldn't happen today, could it?

The Sienna Zugzwang

2010-12-17T11:34:00.005Z

It was only yesterday that I was writing about the "Phone Hacking Stalemate where I wrote,

"Most probably in view of the civil cases pertaining to the phone hacking scandal crawling through the courts the CPS says,

""It is possible that further allegations will be made and the CPS remains willing to consider any evidence submitted to us by the police. To facilitate this, the CPS and the Metropolitan Police Service intend to convene a panel of police officers and prosecutors to assess those allegations with a view to determining whether or not investigations should take place.""

Lo and behold, here is a story from the Telegraph, "'New evidence' found in phone-hacking lawsuit.

"Lawyers for Sienna Miller claim to have discovered evidence which shows that a senior News of the World executive was aware a private investigator was being paid to hack into the actress' voicemails.

The claims are detailed in a document lodged with the High Court in preparation for Ms Miller's civil case against the newspaper. She is suing News of the World for breach of privacy and harassment.

The claims come just a week after the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that there was no new evidence which would justify bringing prosecutions against any other journalists from News of the World.

....

It has been suggested that Scotland Yard failed to investigate the phone tapping at the News of the World properly and that evidence implicating other journalists in the hacking of voicemails was ignored. But last week the CPS said that – despite a number of new witnesses coming forward to say that the practice was widespread at the newspaper – none of them had evidence which would reach the threshold necessary for a criminal prosecution."

See Inforrm's, "“Phone Hacking – Questions to Answer” – Brian Cathcart" note on the matter. See the Guardian's story, Sienna Miller Phone Hacking Documents, which gives Miller's Particulars of Claim. Expect the scandal to keep simmering.

Update, 5^th Jan 2011. The Telegraph tells us, "The News of the World suspends staff member over alleged phone hacking."

Sienna has kept the heat up,

"The allegation is understood to have stemmed from fresh litigation brought about by Sienna Miller, the actress and model, ..."

but as yet, no zugzwang from Scotland Yard/CPS.

Update 7^th January 2011. The Independent reports, "Phone hacking: Now Met police are in the dock. Calls for force to lose control of investigation after 'News of the World' executive is suspended."

This is the sort of thing I meant by the Sienna Zugzwang.

"Britain's largest police force faces growing calls for it to be stripped of its powers in the inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World, with MPs and public figures demanding that an independent police force take over the case.

....

It emerged last night that Scotland Yard had known of evidence against Mr Edmondson four years ago when officers were investigating the paper's former royal correspondent Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who were both convicted of unlawfully intercepting telephone calls in 2007. Asked yesterday why it had not questioned Mr Edmondson, the Met refused to comment, but a source said that senior figures at the Yard had resisted broadening the investigation.

....

Last night the Crown Prosecution Service declined to say whether its lawyers had been sent the "new" [note the speech marks] evidence yet by the police.

....

Brian Paddick, a former senior Metropolitan Police officer who is taking legal action over allegations that his phone was hacked, told The Independent last night: "When the police are forced to disclose information by court order then it tends to raise doubts about whether the case has been properly investigated or not.""

Update 9^th January 2011, The Guardian Editorial is headed, "Phone hacking: Questions keep coming. We need answers",

"A powerful news organisation pays cash to avert scrutiny of dubious practices. Those practices are inadequately investigated by a police force that is thought to collaborate with the same news organisation. MPs say their inquiries are tempered by fear. The man who presided over the newspaper at the centre of the allegations is now the prime minister's chief media aide.

These are the ingredients for a major scandal. Mr Cameron needs to start responding to it as such."

Clarity is now beginning to appear in the mainstream.

Hotel Victor

2010-12-17T09:25:00.001Z

The news tells us that Julian Assange has got bail under various conditions one of which is that he's staying as a guest of Vaughan Smith, (that is, Henry Vaughan Lockhart Smith) at Ellingham Hall.

Throughout the wikileaks phenomenon everyone has been wondering whether or not Assange is some valiant people's journalist or an actor performing a role, financed and created by the world of spooks, in order to peddle propaganda.

I don't know the truth of the matter.

In order to asssertain one way or another all I, or anyone can do, is look at the evidence.

So, who's this Smith character that has bailed Assange?

According to the wikipedia link above,

"Smith was an officer in the British Army’s Grenadier Guards, serving in Northern Ireland, Cyprus and Germany. Smith captained the Army shooting team and won the inter-army rifle shooting championship."

Interesting company for a people's journalist to keep. (Interesting CV of Smith's: two places noted for psyops/counter intelligence/General Kitson).

Where's Assange staying?

"Ellingham Hall is a country house in the English county of Norfolk, .... It is situated in 600 acres (240 ha) of countryside .... Built from grey brick in the 18th century during the Georgian period, Ellingham Hall is a three-storey building with five bays, a large central doorway and ten bedrooms. ... The building has belonged to the Smith family for 225 years and before then the Johnsons, whom the Smiths married into.[2]

The hall is currently owned by Vaughan Smith, ..."

All very interesting - very much part of the Establishment.

A bit more about Smith from an article in the Telegraph, "Inside Story: Life on the frontline",

"The Prekaz massacre of March 1998, in which 58 Albanians were killed by Serb forces in the Drenica Valley region of Kosovo, was a key trigger for the conflict which eventually led to the Nato invasion of Yugoslavia. Vaughan Smith was one of the first cameramen to arrive in the province. "We heard there was fighting Prekaz, so I went to film the Serbs attacking this tiny hamlet," he remembers. "I got shot at and a bullet hit my phone, which was in a pouch around my waist with cigarettes and a roll of 3,000 Deutschmarks. I felt something but didn't realise I'd been hit, so I carried on filming. After, I thought I'd better contact my missus to say I was alright and discovered my phone was not capable of making calls. It slowed down the bullet, but ultimately I think I was saved by the Deutschmarks.""

So, Smith played a key propaganda role in NATO's illegal war.

I don't want to share any conclusions that I may have drawn from the above other than to say that it gives a massive dent to the credibility of wikileaks.

I've said before that it looks as though wikileaks is chaff seeded with lies, the above reinforces my opinion.

Update 17^th Dec 2010

From the Guardian story, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange granted bail: as it happened at 3:27pm

"Jennifer Robinson, one of Assange's lawyers, said the five new people who would be accepted as surety were former journalist and author of The First Casualty Sir Phillip Knightley; magazine publisher Felix Dennis; Nobel prize winner Sir John Sulston; former Labour minister and chairman of Faber & Faber publishing house Lord Matthew Evans; and Professor Patricia David."

Bridge to Hell

2010-12-16T14:33:00.000Z

Back in 2008, prosecutor for the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Carla Del Ponte, wrote about people having their organs taken. The people were non-Albanians (Kosovan Serbs) who were taken to Albania where they had their organs extracted. As one would imagine, from the wikipedia link,

"The book caused a considerable controversy with Kosovan and Albanian officials denying these allegations and Russian and Serbian officials demanding more investigation."

The story appeared in The Telegraph, Serb prisoners 'were stripped of their organs in Kosovo war'",

"According to the sources, senior figures in the Kosovo Liberation Army were aware of the scheme, in which hundreds of young Serbs were allegedly taken by truck from Kosovo to northern Albania where their organs were removed. Miss Del Ponte provides grim details of the alleged organ harvesting, and of how some prisoners were sewn up after having kidneys removed.

"The victims, deprived of a kidney, were then locked up again, inside the barracks, until the moment they were killed for other vital organs. In this way, the other prisoners were aware of the fate that awaited them, and according to the source, pleaded, terrified, to be killed immediately," Miss Del Ponte writes."

But nothing seemed to happen. The story went quiet.

Now we have a draft report from Dick Marty, rapporteur for the Council of Europe,

"Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo 12 Dec 2010" [retrieved 16.12.2010],

This report is worth reading in full.

"In concluding, we should once again recall that that this report has been drawn up in the wake of the revelations that appeared in the memoirs of the former Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY. Shocked by those disclosures, the Parliamentary Assembly entrusted us with the task of looking more closely into the allegations and the human rights violations said to have been committed in Kosovo in the material period. The elements reported in the former Prosecutor's book primarily concerned the alleged trafficking of human organs. Our difficult, sensitive investigations enabled us not only to substantiate those elements, but also to shed light on further, related allegations and to draw a very sombre, worrying picture of what took place, and is to some extent continuing to take place, in Kosovo. Our task was not to conduct an criminal investigation -we are not empowered to do so, and above all we lack the necessary resources - let alone to pronounce judgments of guilt or innocence.

176. The information we have gathered nonetheless concerns extremely grave events that took place in the very heart of Europe."

Phone Hacking Stalemate

2010-12-16T12:18:00.001Z

The CPS has released a statement (10/12/2010) explaining that the prosecution of the phone hacking allegations are to be shelved.

They explain that the person who brought the world's attention to the allegations by publishing an article in the New York Times refused to give further details to the police, consequently there is no evidence upon which to proceed.

Most probably in view of the civil cases pertaining to the phone hacking scandal crawling through the courts the CPS says,

""It is possible that further allegations will be made and the CPS remains willing to consider any evidence submitted to us by the police. To facilitate this, the CPS and the Metropolitan Police Service intend to convene a panel of police officers and prosecutors to assess those allegations with a view to determining whether or not investigations should take place."

But finish with ...

"...a criminal prosecution can only take place if those making allegations of wrongdoing are prepared to cooperate with a criminal investigation and to provide admissible evidence of the wrongdoing they allege."

For detailed legal analysis see, "Jack of Kent: MetGate: the law relating to interception of telephone calls and voicemail" and for comparison, a case where there is ample evidence but no prosecution, see "She cut me."

Loss of Scholarship

2010-12-16T08:32:00.000Z

Student loans/grants/fees are in the news: the background doesn't need to be rehearsed here.

One aspect that isn't addressed is the scholarship aspect of student grants.

There was a time - before 1987 - when A-level students were assessed in a normative manner. The A-level results for the whole country were collated and from that the pass grades were calculated. That is, if ten percent of the population got sixty percent or above, the pass mark for a grade A was sixty percent or above. One year the pass mark for a grade A may have been seventy-five percent or above, another year it may have been eighty percent or above. This method of moving goal posts meant that your results were linked to how well the rest of the country did in the exam.

If you got a student grant and free tuition on the basis of this assessment criteria you were effectively given a scholarship.

Post 1987 the assessment method changed from the normative one described above to a criteria assessment. If you fulfilled certain criteria you were deemed to have attained a particular grade.

I can see the argument for the virtues of criteria assessment rather than normative assessment.

However, why can't normative assessment run in parallel to criteria assessment?

In this way the best in the country can receive scholarships - full grant and free tuition - from the State?

The people who would be capable of getting normative A grades and similar are the ones who are being cheated in the current arrangement.

See "A-levels worse than useless for a similar post to the above.

Something Smells Funny

2010-12-13T17:10:00.003Z

In medicine, where a screening test has false positivies and false negatives such that the test brings with it risks as to its usefullness; the test is dropped.

For an example, consider the Telegraph report, "Prostate cancer test is too risky, say doctors" where,

"It has been claimed that the test leads to over-diagnosis as it cannot distinguish between cancer and other conditions, such as a benign enlargement of the prostate or a urinary infection. Nor is a negative result fully reliable, as it can miss a tumour and dangerously provide a false reassurance."

A test that has its effectiveness judged on the basis of its false positive and false negative rates seems sensible to me.

Now, imagine if someone said that they had trained a dog to sniff out cancer, would you believe them?

I doubt it. Nevertheless, if false positive and false negative rates were provided in support of the claim we might think differently.

So, why do we accept this screening test when it comes to drug screening? That is, using sniffer dogs to indicate whether or not someone is carrying drugs?

I've blogged about this in the past "Validity of Your Assay".

Someone was stopped and searched leaving a tube station on the basis of the behaviour of a sniffer dog towards him. He tried to seek a legal remedy and that was the last that I heard. Periodically I would search for the case but nothing came of my searches.

I thought of this case again when I read Leveson LJ's recent lecture about expert evidence. On the grapevine, I found that there was an attempt to get a hearing but the court would not allow legal aid. At which point the case ground into the dust.

So, we've got a situation where a screening test is used as the basis of reasonableness in justifying the stopping and searching of someone. However, no criteria that describes the validity of the test is given by those operating the test. Further, reports suggest that the screening test has a false positive rate of 75%.

Not only that but the screening test can be gamed either unwittingly, or wittingly.

Animals are sensitive to their handlers unwittingly giving them cues, see, Clever Hans. Cues which would simply be reflections of the handlers prejudices.

The handler could also train the dog to behave as though drugs were present on the basis of hidden cue.

All this because Release did not manage to have their case heard.

(The Guardian has another example).

Update 19^th February 2011. It appears that someone else has grasped the significance of the Clever Hans effect to sniffer dogs. You can read about a study reported by the Economist on the Mind Hacks blog, Sniffing Out the Unconscious.

Why wasn't this study done years and years and years ago? Talk about science being manipulated by those who control the purse strings.

P(A Person Has Committed A Crime | The Person Has Been Convicted Of That Crime)

2010-12-06T19:19:00.012Z

What is the probability that a person has committed a crime given that the person has been convicted of that crime?

With a prison population of 88,000, if the answer to that question was 99%, 880 people would be in prison who had not committed the crime for which they were incarcerated.

The question forces us to think about the fiction of conviction and the fact of committing. One is a reality constructed in our minds and supported by violence, the other a reality that is independent of our minds. If someone commits an offence and we don't convict them, it doesn't mean that they haven't done it; similarly, if someone is convicted of an offence, it doesn't mean that they did it.

Unfortunately, this distinction is easily forgotten.

Ask people whether or not to bring back capital punishment; ask people whether or not it is acceptable to conduct medical experiments on prisoners; ask if prisoners should have rights, and the fiction of conviction becomes the reality of 'they committed the crime'.

Does this matter?

To the people who have been convicted but have not committed an offence it matters. But to society as a whole?

To society as a whole it is just as important to convict people who have committed a crime as it is to acquit people who have not committed a crime. Due to the imperfections of the process, for the greater good, we must accept some injustice.

Acceptance of injustice is difficult enough, especially to the victim, but what about the nature of the injustice. Being a victim of circumstance is different from being a victim of others.

What happens when people are prosecuted not because it is thought that they have necessarily committed the crime but because they are vulnerable, less able to defend themselves. What happens if policing is done such that people are pursued not because it is thought that they have committed the offence in question but because they are not especially able to defend themselves.

Some appalling examples of wrong convictions easily spring to mind, such as Stefan Kiszko.

I can't see into the hearts of the police officers who pursued Stefan Kiszko; I don't know whether they held the belief that he had committed the crime, but I can imagine similar circumstances, perhaps less extreme, where those who convict have no interest whatsoever as to whether the person found guilty has committed the crime. It is rumoured that some prosecutors get a greater satisfaction in convicting a person knowing that he hasn't committed the crime rather than knowing that he has committed the crime.

Not only can one imagine instances of people being convicted of a crime that they didn't commit due to unfortunate circumstances such as bad luck; due to incompetence or spite of police and prosecution services, one can also envision people being convicted for political reasons.

Handing over the baton to Gareth Pierce we have,

"It is not difficult to achieve a conviction of the innocent. Over many decades several common factors have been identified, [...] achieving the co-operation of witnesses by means of a combination of inducements and fear of the alternative (the tried and tested method of obtaining evidence for the prosecution on which many US cases rely); the provision of factual information by scientists where there is no proper basis for it (a recurrent theme in UK convictions as well as in the US); reliance on ‘identification’ evidence which is no such thing. Add to that the political will to achieve a prosecution, and the rest is easy. Fabrication demands outright dishonesty, but it isn’t always necessary, or necessary in every aspect of an investigation: the momentum of suspicion, and a blinkered determination to focus on a particular thesis and ignore evidence pointing to the contrary, is a certain route to achieving the desired end."

The more we consider the question, "What is the probability that a person has committed a crime given that the person has been convicted of that crime?", the more difficult it will be to convict innocent people.

Update, 24^th Dec 2010. The following paper may be of interest,

A Derivation of Probabilities of Correct and
Wrongful Conviction in a Criminal Trial
Henrik Lando
Copenhagen Business School and Lefic
March 14, 2006

Update 28^th February 2011

"Charonqc
Listened to Radio4 last night. Gerry Conlon (innocent of Guildford 4 bombing yet 15 years in jail) said 20,000 miscarriages of justices p.a "

Update 7^th April 2011. I've had a couple of thoughts about putting a number to the question I asked at the beginning of the post: the probability that someone has committed a crime given that they've been convicted is 0.5.

Firstly, either the person did commit it (p=1) or he didn't (p=0), the average of which is ((1+0)/2) 0.5.

Secondly, we know that people do commit crimes and that of those who do some are convicted, in this case p=1. Unfortunately, we know that some people are convicted on the basis of lies (Birmingham 6, etc), incompetence or mistake, which takes our value of p=0. Taking these three values and finding their average, ((0.5 + 0 + 1)/3) doesn't shift us from 0.5. Until we know the proportions of people who definitely did do it and the proportions who definitely did not do it, we can't shift from this 0.5 probability level.

As far as I'm concerned, this research is screaming to be done since, as is, we're saddled with a criminal punishment system where there is only a 0.5 probability that a person who has been convicted of a crime committed it. Yes, I know that our prejudices tell us differently but we should be able to do better: our system shouldn't be based on faith and prejudice.

Update 14^th April 2011, from Mindhacks, How to jail the innocent,

"The Innocence Project has used DNA technology to overturn hundreds of wrongful convictions. Slate has an excellent two part series on the two main reasons why these people were falsely jailed: eyewitness misidentifications and false confessions."

Update 12^th August 2011, again from Mindhacks, False Confession Fishing in the Lab.

"During the test, which was filmed by a hidden camera, ten participants actually did cheat. Bafflingly, though, another eight falsely confessed when accused by the experimenter, despite participants having been told cheats would be fined €50 ($72). "

Vaughan also gives us, "The Persuasive Power of False Confessions": yet more scientific studies suggesting that there are a lot of innocent people who have been falsely convicted of a crime.

This time the focus is on the corrosive effect towards the objectivity of investigators upon hearing a confession: once the confession is heard they turn into Procrustes and fit ambiguous evidence to the hypothesis that the 'confessee' did it.

Update 22^nd September 2011. Columbia University provides the study, A Broken System: Error Rates in Capital Cases, 1973-1995" and a follow-up study, A Broken System, Part II: Why There Is So Much Error in Capital Cases, and What Can Be Done About It.

The first report provides the following diagram:

which gives us an answer to the question posed at the very top of this post. What is the probability that a person has committed a crime (in this case one which courts the death penalty) given that the person has been convicted of that crime? Based on this work the answer is 32 %; you would've got a better chance from flipping a coin than going through this judicial system.

If that's the answer for capital crimes, what about non-capital offences? Criminal damage, theft, fraud etc.

The methodology used in the report is that of results from the justice system being used to test the justice system. It isn't a case of some sort of scientific analysis being used. This would be better ... as to whether or not any State has a system that could withstand this scrutiny, I don't know.

Update 3^rd October 2011. Of course, don't forget that the fiction of the findings of a court are applicable to civil cases as well as criminal ones. Hence in both situations,

"We must not allow [Court] decisions to construct our reality."

Update 5^th October 2011. It looks as though my question will be answered soon. Academics at Probability and Law blog have got the funding to answer my question.

"We have already got the support of people at the Criminal Cases Review Commission to look at cases on file to do exactly this."

Too Much Sugar?

2010-11-04T17:13:00.004Z

Tate & Lyle have just been to court in order to get the UK gov to review a decision as to how much enviro subsidy they should get for a biomass driven combined heat and power plant. (Tate & Lyle Industries Ltd & Anor, R. (On the application of) v Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change & Anor [2010] EWHC 2752.)

The case is worth reading because it gives a lucid explanation of the way the Renewable Energy Market works in the UK; the case gives the appropriate regulations explaining about banding and gives their ultimate origin as being the EU.

Tate & Lyle were whinging 'cos the UK gov had made a mistake in determining what funding should be given and hence what renewal obligation certificate (ROC) rating should be given to their equipment. However, Tate & Lyle where whinging 'cos they did not benefit from this mistake.

They went to court and said that they hadn't been treated fairly because everyone else had been over subsidised by the governments error except for them.

They were given short shrift by the court on this issue.

However, if they were whining because they didn't get over subsidised, who did get over subsidised, and by how much?

Update, 5^th November 2010

Closer reading of the case at paragraph 63,

"63 The review under Article 33(2) has started in October 2010. It is expected to last three years. Until it is completed, in 2013, the Secretary of State is in no position to know whether, as a result of the increase in wholesale electricity prices, other technologies are being over-subsidised under the present continuing allocation or not. It is not possible to know whether those technologies are in the same position as Tate & Lyle until such a review takes place. In respect of some, their costs may have been increased at a greater rate than revenue. In respect of others, their costs may have been reduced. But the statutory scheme cannot work at all if such features are to be constantly updated. The only occasion for updating is either a lengthy review lasting a number of years in respect of all technologies or the review contemplated by Article 33(3) in respect of one or more technologies once Article 33(3) is triggered."

Which means that on this particular issue, trying to find examples of over subsidy would be pointless until 2013.

Update 6^th June 2011, Tate and Lyle Sugars Ltd v Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change & Anor [2011] EWCA Civ 664 is a report of a failed appeal. It was obviously worth Tate and Lyle's while to pursue this claim.

Custom Search Engines

2010-10-22T15:06:00.004+01:00

Financial Services (Regulation of Deposits and Lending) Bill

2010-09-15T13:55:00.001+01:00

First reading of the title Bill by Douglas Carswell. He discusses the Bill on his blog, here.

In a nutshell, he's proposing that bank customers can prevent the banks lending the money that they deposited. I imagine the outcome would be that interest would be paid on the money that is lent - the ownership of the money belonging to the bank - interest (for want of a better word) would also be paid on the non-lending money - the ownership remaining with the depositor, but the money would be used as fractional reserve.

Anything but privatise currency.

As yet, it is not on Hansard. I will provide the links here when they are updated and I hope to comment on the Bill as or if it progresses through Parliament.

South West Trains Taking Money Under False Pretences?

2010-09-14T16:17:00.000+01:00

There follows a peculiar tale from the Daily Echo under the title,

Couple fined £114 for getting off South West Train too early at Eastleigh
Which says, " A HAMPSHIRE couple were fined more than £100 – for getting off a too train early.

Emma Clark and her fiancé Davyd Winter-Bates were travelling back from London to Southampton when they decided to hop off two stops earlier at Eastleigh.

When they handed over their tickets they were shocked to be told they had breached railway rules and were ordered to pay a fine of £114 – double the price of two standard fares.

[....]

"A South West Trains spokesman said: "[...]. All tickets on the UK rail network have specific terms and conditions and customers should check that they are purchasing the right ticket for their journey. It is a specific condition of all advance purchase tickets [...] that leaving the train at an intermediate station is not permitted. [...]

"In this case, the customers bought a discount ticket on the megatrain.com website that did not allow them to travel from London to Eastleigh. The customers would have known this as the website they used to book the ticket does not offer Eastleigh as a destination. Unfortunately, by breaking the conditions of travel, this meant they had an additional charge to pay. This would have been the case in a similar situation anywhere on the UK rail network."

The first question to ask is whether or not the terms of the contract that the spokesman for South West Trains discussed are incorporated into the contract: if they have been incorporated into the contract there isn't anything else to discuss. However, there are a number of cases that point out that if you are trying to incorporate onerous terms into a contract you must draw the attention of the other party to these onerous terms.

One of these cases is Interfoto Picture Library Ltd v Stiletto Visual Programmes Ltd [1989] QB 433. Although terms in contracts can be incorporated by notice, there must be sufficient notice for this to happen. Further, the more onerous the term, the greater the sufficieny of notice required for incorporation. Then there is the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 which has a reasonableness test - do you think that what happened to the couple was reasonable?

Another point is that penalty clauses are not enforced under English law if their purpose is to punish the party in breach, rather than to provide compensation.

I wonder how many people have been charged by these train companies? And, I wonder when someone is going to challenge them?

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