The Death Penalty - Brief Thoughts

There's a debate been started on the death penalty, David Allen Green blogs here on it as well as he usually does, and for the serious points from a legal perspective I recommend reading this. This blog is my thoughts on the death penalty.

Basically I'm against it. In his autobiography Albert Pierrepoint, who probably executed more people than anyone in the UK, said the following:

All the men and woman whom I have faced at that final moment, convince me that in what I have done, I have not prevented a single murder.

If it's not preventing the crime then why execute anyone? As Pierrepoint also said, it's revenge. Pure and simple and state sanctioned. I don't get the need for revenge, possibly because no-one I'm close to has ever been murdered, but I like to think I'd still be against it then. Our penal policy is a mess, the re-offending rate is ridiculously high for prisoners who come out, unlike say Norway who actually believe in rehabilitation. And people think now that we should start executing them?

The revenge thing makes no sense anyway, revenge would imply suffering and a good hangman could kill them in seconds, no suffering, other than the expectation of what is going to happen before it does. Or do those who want to bring back the death penalty also want torture on the statute books?

If you're going to have a debate on the death penalty, can I suggest this as the question - Do you the British public want to have state sanctioned revenge as an option for those who have committed a crime regardless of the consequences for those innocent who are executed. For there will be innocent executed, mistakes are made in court on occasion.

Morrissey, Meat and Norway

I see we've had Morrissey mouthing off again, comparing the mass murder in Norway to the way Macdonalds and KFC treat animals. I suppose being fair if anyone could say it a militant veggie is at least consistent, all killing is wrong, but he's wrong, in a lot of ways. I've said before that I don't think Meat is Murder, and I'm almost certain he said what he said to create a shitstorm and gain publicity, but anyway I'll still put this out there.

Meat for food tends to be bred as such, we tend not to kill random animals for our Dinner, and we don't just take a gun and go round shooting in public at anything that moves. If you don't want to eat meat or meat products do you just let the animals free, what do they eat? Or do you kill them and let the corpses rot? I understand the vegetarian arguments, I just disagree with them.

 Another thing in that article is where he says killing a Stag is like killing a child, quoted from an interview he did mentioning David Cameron. Wrong again, really. comparing hunters with paedophiles going a bit too far. It's attention seeking. We as a species eat meat. We've evolved eating meat. Some animals will eat us given the chance, so why not? I've taken more words than neccessary to call you it, but Morrissey, you're a dick.

Although one last thing, if you ever find it, read a Neil Gaiman short story called Babycakes. I think it was written for PETA, and basically it's about testing and food after the animals all disappear. And it may make you consider for a second. But I'll keep eating Meat.

Divided into Them and Us

I'm not one of them. I'm not sure who "they" are. It's the playground coming out in people, you have a gang of friends as a child and the other groups are them. We're always us, even if we're them to someone else. Thing is this is basically how our politicians are currently talking. You have to be with us, or you're against us, and one of them. Them being either evil, stupid, or just someone we don't agree with who needs to be demonised or removed from visibility. 

The Labour party have been doing this pretty much since they went into opposition. They're saying if you don't agree with these cuts the government are making you have to support us. If you don't support us you're with them and you're wrong. This seems to be the only argument, as I haven't heard exactly what they'd do differently, although I may have missed something, but it's basically what our politics have descended into, you're With us or Against us, don't ask us to elaborate. Playground arguments between elements of what is becoming a political class, worryingly similar to the Hydra in that you could cut off a head and another would appear almost the same. They are all similar enough to each other that the them and us thing makes no sense when used by political parties. 

When you make everyone who disagrees with you "them", you're trying to ostracise them from the mainstream. From here extremism comes, for if you refuse to listen to what people are saying, and condemn them as stupid or ignore their views and say they have to agree with you and you alone then you push them to the margins. If you don't address peoples fears and explain, or leave them nowhere to go and say that they are "them", who no-one wants to be then people kick back. Sometimes this is targeted in violence, sometimes in protest, but if you push people into a group you just think of as "Them", to be ignored then you damage the democracy you claim to hold dear. You disenfranchise groups of people, who have no-one to support with a good conscience. What do you think starts to happen then?

I'm not Middle Aged

I turned 35 earlier this month. Someone has told me recently that this means I'm now middle aged, as this apparently last from age 35 to 55. First point, I am not middle aged, I refuse to accept this, I'm no different from when I was in my 20s, I don't want to buy a pipe and slippers. (Is that what you're meant to do when your middle aged? Actually I bought a pipe in my early 20s, but that's another story). Secondly does that make everyone over 55 old? Sure they're delighted about that if it is.

Who really makes these things up? The Middle Ages were a period of European history, they have sod all to do with how old I am. So why am I suddenly middle aged? What does it actually mean? If you ever find out let me know. A mid-life crisis might be good fun though I just can't afford to have one. So I'll get on with my life as it went before. And keep getting older, hopefully anyway, but never middle aged.

I'm not making a serious point here, although there is one somewhere, about people being pigeonholed because of their age and only their age. I've met pensioners who can act like teenagers, and are fitter than a good few, and 20 year olds acting so old to try to fit in and seem mature that they could be retired. You're as old as you feel, as old as you act, whatever people say. The only thing I feel has changed from when I was 18, really changed, is the hangovers. They stick a lot worse these days. But that's it. And it still doesn't make me middle aged.

Spoilers (Doesn't Contain Spoilers)

Was listening to Jeremy Vine earlier today, or Friday lunchtime radio 2 depending on when you read this, and they were having a discussion about leaving a will when you die. Wasn't that interested but he then made a comment about a plot point in an Agatha Christie book called Why Didn't They Ask Evans, but stopped himself saying I can't say that, someone might be reading it. Basically he was concerned about giving plot spoilers about a book originally published in 1934. How far do you stretch the idea of spoilers?

The main gripes I see at the moment concern Torchwoods new series (this may be because of the people I follow on twitter), but it does show another issue. With broadcast times being different in different countries, and the crossover on Facebook, Twitter, and now probably google plus, what are you allowed to say to stop someone who hasn't seen something, or read something, getting pissed off with you and giving abuse. Are just major plot points not to be discussed, should everything have a spoiler warning, for how long do you need them?

There was the recent thing with Steven Moffat and the latest series of Dr Who as well, where someone at the premiere of the first couple of shows went online and sent out spoilers before it was even broadcast for the first time. He was pissed off with that, in this case rightly as it could have made some of the moments less vivid on a first viewing. But getting back to the original question how far should you take this?

I remember on Usenet, and I always feel like an old fart when I mention it for some reason, but I followed a few groups for fans of authors and when a new book came out it was discussed, but you generally had spoiler space which meant that

you

wound

up

with

people

doing

this

to

stop

the

comments

showing

up

in

the

newsreader.

A little annoying, but it worked, apart from the people who top posted replies, and there's still a circle reserved for them in hell, and everyone was happy. We'll ignore those who gloried in posting spoilers to annoy people, they're still out there, but easier to ignore.

But again trying to get back to the original question, how long after something is broadcast or published before you should not worry about posting spoilers. I think Jeremy Vine took it a little too far with nearly 77 years, but where is the line, and what is important. Do you think nothing should be openly discussed without warnings for any show ever, which is daft, do you think there should be a reasonable time limit on these things, within a week of broadcast for a TV show say, or is it all fair game once it's out, if you haven't seen it, tough? Should it just be for major plot points, or anything that may interest an individual in the show or book for a certain period of time?

I don't know the answer, I know what I personally prefer to read, and I tend to avoid most spoilers, but they don't bother me too much, as if the show or book is good enough it shouldn't matter, it should still get you even if you know some of what happens, but I know some people believe everything should be kept back. For how long, apparently some say at least 77 years. I think that's a bit too much.

Freedom of the Press

We're happy to have a free press, our politicians are always saying so as well are they not? But they don't exactly want a free press in one sense, they want a compliant press, one that will back them and not criticise them too much. That might ignore a few inconvenient things. Which is why they were all sucking up to Rupert Murdoch so much. Owner of one of the few papers that sometimes changes sides, to it's own benefit first and foremost, which is fair enough for them, but when it becomes to it's benefit through political promises then that becomes an issue.

One of Murdochs comments the other day did make me laugh a bit, he was asked about politicians and PMs coming to him and inviting him to Downing St and everything and said that he wished they'd leave him alone. Would be easy to get them to leave you alone Rupert, although they may be doing so anyway for a bit now, but tell them you're going to leave your editors to make the decisions, they will back what policies they believe is best, and criticise what they disagree with, holding the politicians to account as they do so. But that won't happen will it, and never would.

You invite politicians in to your circle, and use the influence to benefit you, you back the winners and convince them they won because of your support. We now have the situation where our politicians believe it's more important to appease the editors and owners of newspapers rather than the people of this country and it's depressing.

You used to have the situation where the newspapers would give unqualified support to politicians, we've wound up with the politicians giving unqualified support to a newspaper group. And it's now stopped and the world moves on. Will they learn? We hope so. If not we must make our voices heard louder then before to say they must.

Meats Not Murder

Had a conversation on twitter recently about eating meat, and how people don't always think about meat coming from animals, and I've now remembered this story about Mark Zuckerberg stopping eating meat, except that which he killed himself.

The relevant part of that as far as I'm concerned is the bit where he says:

 "I had a pig roast at my house. A bunch of people told me that even though they loved eating pork, they really didn't want to think about the fact that the pig used to be alive."

This does annoy me, if you're not prepared to accept your meat used to be walking about, don't eat it. Give up your bacon and become a vegetarian. As you're not a meat eater. You're might like the taste, but if you're not prepared to accept that your bacon roll used to be part of a pig or that your sirloin steak comes from a cow then you shouldn't be eating it. Animals as part of the food chain has been part of human existence for about as long as we've been on the planet. You have to accept that if you want to eat meat. I accept it and if it came to it would be prepared to kill my food, I'm not likely to have to anytime soon, but if you're not why eat meat?  


Vegetarianism is an acceptable lifestyle choice these days, we shouldn't do battery farming of chickens, or any other animal to get our food, but eating meat isn't wrong in my view. Treat them properly while alive, but always remember that they were when you eat them. 


And the perfect bacon roll should be a Scottish morning roll, smoked bacon, enough to mean you have to eat 2 layers each bite, butter. No Sauce needed, but a runny egg is acceptable on occasion. 

The Chairman

Once upon a time there was a Chairman. The Chairman had power but no responsibilities, influence was his coin, and he gave it to those who would be successful in the land. He could tell which way things would go, and promised others that he would help them gain the power they so badly wanted, and convinced them they could not do it without him, as he would turn on them if they didn't. His lieutenants gathered information and used this as their currency.

After many years of success with this plan, the Chairman became arrogant, and thought he could increase the influence that he had. He put his influence behind the shiny one, who promised much if he could gain power, and courted the lieutenants of the Chairman as his friends and advisors, to help him gain the power he thought the Chairman's backing would enable him to get.

But the shiny one did not know that the chairman was an evil influence on his lieutenants. He did not tell them to break any law explicitly, but they did so to increase their standing with him, to keep his influence with them not against them. The leaders and the sheriffs of the land ignored the misdeeds of the Chairmans lieutenants as they were afraid of what they knew about them, or what they would say to the public to turn their views of the leaders, who held power but were scared to use it except for the good of the few, rather than the many.

Then one day someone was caught out, by telling something they should not have known. The Chairmans lieutenants managed to keep out of trouble for a while, by telling the sheriffs there was nothing to see, and that it was a rogue amongst them. But gradually the web unravelled, as some who did not care what the Chairman knew began to speak out against him. They harnessed the power of the majority, and the leaders came to realise they had to turn against the chairman in public, to try to show they had never been in his power, or never sought his influence. The Chairman had to back away for a short time, and some of the leaders and sheriffs worried what he might say when he was called to account. The Chairman had decided to bide his time, and protect those closest to him, while cutting loose those who had been caught, but keeping them quiet in mysterious ways.

The Chairman has yet to speak, and the story is not ended, but there will be more to tell.

The News Of The End

The News of the World was first published in 1843, and it's about to be killed off. It seems to be a cynical move by News International, to attempt to hide behind the end of one title but keeping what it did under another name, with a streamlined staff running alongside those of the Sun. Which they'd announced they were looking at doing if I remember right. I'd assume that some of the staff of the News of the World will be offered jobs on a new title, but not all. And I doubt anyone getting made redundant as a result of this will get much more than the minimum pay off required by law, News International could afford more easily, but I get the impression the Murdochs are look after the pennies types and if they can save a few quid all the better. I've been through some redundancies, including surviving one where a whole load of friends wound up being paid off. That's unpleasant, and your senior management don't lose a penny or a second of sleep over it. It's a shit thing to go through however it works out.

Whatever you think of the paper itself, and it is/was a rag which printed a fair amount of shit and unpleasant stories, it wasn't any worse than a few other papers that are still out there. If the illegality had been stopped, and we assume they stopped hacking after Coulson resigned and the "Rogue Reporter" was jailed, then why close it now? Just to make yourself look better, and attempt to protect the people at the head of the paper it would appear. Sacrifice the people who were doing the jobs you were paying them to do, and more importantly ASKED or TOLD them to do to save the necks of those who were in the positions of responsibility who you need to protect to save your own necks. It's disgraceful behaviour, although I suppose you don't get to the positions of power without being a complete bastard in one way or another.

There is still a lot to come out on this whole story, the hacking parts can't get much worse, there was no reason for them to hack Milly Dowlers phone, the police would have been checking it you'd think, so by deleting messages to check for stories they were in a sense perverting justice. Doesn't get much worse than that really, although perjury is also a possibility with regard to the Tommy Sheridan case apparently. But this isn't the fault of the journalists, you could even blame the press generally. We're proud of our freedom of the press, to write what they want without fear. And they give us who premiership footballers are shagging, what the stars of big brother are doing now, and other crap I'm not interested in. Although it seems plenty are, how many people buy Heat Magazine after all? That's an argument I may make sometime, but not today.

The people working at the News of the World have been cut adrift, to try to save the News International empire, to put a cover on it where they can say we've dealt with it, that title no longer exists so nothing else needs to happen. This should not be the end of things, there are issues with the bribery of police, paying for information to corrupt cops, hacking phones as what appears to be a matter of course. And the management of the time who were at best operating the US army model of Don't Ask, Don't Tell with regard to the illegal acts. They need to answer the questions, they should not be protected at the expense of the staff of the News of the World. I hope they've maxed any corporate credit cards they had access to and are getting rat arsed somewhere. I hope they find some other workplace that treats them better. It may have been a rag, but that was under the command of the proprieter. And he's apparently going nowhere. And neither is his lieutenant so far.

Andy Murray

Andy Murray lost his semi final yesterday. There's been a lot of comment on this and him in the last couple of weeks while everyone pretends to enjoy tennis during Wimbledon. He gets a lot of negative comments due to his perceived arrogance, there are others about how he's another nearly man of british sport. But there are quite a lot of people who don't like him and I'm not certain why.

We can lose the Scottish/British thing out of the way first, tennis players compete under Britain, so while he is a Scot, he's also British. It is possible to be both, although some seem to think, and not just in relation to this, that you can only be English and British, not Scottish or Welsh and British. Although there does seem at times to be more of an issue with Scotland, which is slightly detached and always has been with a separate legal system and possibly a stronger sense of Scottish nationality, but it's still a United Kingdom.

I don't think it has anything to do with the Anyone but England comment a few years ago either, that was another joke, and most people aren't that sensitive. There are hundreds of comments made about the Scots and sport by the English, which everyone apart from a few idiots ignore. It's got nothing to do with hm being Scottish apart from in a few sad minds. So why is one of our most successful individual sportsmen slagged so much. No Grand Slams but 17 career titles to back that idea up.

People moan about his arrogance, but sportsmen are arrogant, and a few of those commenting back some footballers, some of whom are the most arrogant people walking around. Arrogance is ok to a point, and I don't think he oversteps it, and he does tend to praise opponents in defeat although it can get ignored by people whose agenda it does not fit. There is an issue with what seems to be a dryer than some people get sense of humour in his possession, and he can be a sarky and moody bugger but that's apparently forgivable in others. I don't get it, he isn't Tim Henman which seems to offend some of the more pompous tennis set, but that can't be it either. We tend to celebrate others who don't quite hit the heights, although Murray may yet, and that may change peoples minds.

What it could simply be is we can't see yet if he's a plucky loser or a winner, and some can't make up their minds about him on that basis. But I still find it a bit strange. 

The Creeping Criminalisation of Smokers

Of the UK population around 21% are classed as regular smokers. Just so you know I am still one of them. Yesterday I came across a link to this story, basically a Buckinghamshire councillor has proposed a law banning smoking anywhere in the town. It spoils the environment and he doesn't see why people should be able to smoke in his face. First point on that, I doubt anyone is coming up to you and blowing smoke in your face, even if you're especially obnoxious. If you are outdoors passive smoking will not have that huge an effect, compared to the cars going past you on the street and the exhaust fumes they spew out. Concerned about the cigarette butts on the ground? Put some bins out for them and fine people who don't use them. Although of course that would cost money and wouldn't be a cheap headline to gather publicity for you. Which is what a lot of these stories seem to be, but they get support from otherwise reasonable people.

The main point is, if you want to ban smoking on the street, is it that much of a stretch just to ban smoking altogether? And why not argue that? What some seem to want is piecemeal banning, gradually reducing places you can smoke until it's physically impossible to actually light up without breaking the law, but still technically legal to smoke. Remember they want to stop it in cars as well. I did see a Doctor apparently seriously quoted as saying that you would be safer driving with the exhaust coming into the car interior than smoking in there. Really? You sure on that one? Also if you ban smoking on the street, and ban smoking inside any public buildings, and if you have children you're not allowed to smoke near them, where are you allowed to smoke? Or you're not allowed to smoke but others are? When does that start going too far with regard to civil liberties?

To be honest I can see some of the points with regard to banning smoking, I don't have kids but can see the argument why you shouldn't smoke in front of them and agree with that. You don't need to encourage anyone to smoke, and no-one wants to do that. I don't have kids, my sister has 2 and my brother in law does smoke, but out the back of the house always, which can be interesting when you visit and go out for a smoke with our weather but you live with that. Same in the pubs now, you go outside and deal with the weather whatever it is. Some shelter, or even a windbreak, is nice, but not essential when you're addicted. The issue with pushing smokers outside isn't just how it looks, it's also that you do hang around the doors if there is no area to go, and anyone coming in has to walk through the cloud of smoke, which even I agree isn't pleasant to have to do, and doesn't exactly give kerb appeal for your premises. But what is the alternative?

As far as I can see there are other choices. First one would be to just ban smoking. Give up on doing it bit by bit and ban it. you will reduce the number of smokers. Freedom of choice? Who worries about it. by doing it gradually you hope people won't notice you reduce it, but why not be honest, lose the taxes you gain from smokers and be done with it. Obvious problem being prohibition doesn't work and you end up with something like the war on drugs but if you think it's right, do it. Stop messing about.

Or you could actually compromise, which might be an idea on drugs as well but I'm not getting into that one here. I saw a comment in a newpaper letters page today saying that there was no way any relaxation of the smoking ban should be allowed, as otherwise you couldn't take your children into the pubs with you. To a point fair enough, but if you spend your quality time with your kids in the pub then there are other issues you have. If you have a pub that allows adults only, or even set up a club specifically with smoking allowed what is the issue there? If you set the law that no-one is forced to work there what exactly would be wrong with it? You can allow smokers to gather in a reasonable place, maybe keep some off the streets and keep them tidier for your councillors and everyone is happy.

You don't want smokers to be happy I know, but you need to consider what you're doing, with regard to everyone. Once they've got the smokers where they want them, which seems to be locked in a room sealed to the rest of the building and only accessible through a skylight via the fire escape, they will then start on your Chardonnay, and your burgers. Don't drink, don't get fat, they'll come after you.