Ben Goldacre (Bad Science) annoys me

http://www.badscience.net/2009/02/lbc-mmr-jeni-barnett-an-early-day-motion-the-times-and-er-a-bit-of-stephen-fry/

Apparently, he thinks that law is inaccessible. I presume that he has
never found the legal section of a book shop, and is unaware of
bailii.

As to the substance of his criticism that law is vague, that can
hardly be laid at the feet of lawyers - a different legislative
process would be the appropriate way of having obscure bits of law
fixed in a non-contentious way, or having adequate legal aid
available. I think there may be a group of people who complain about
that not being available.

Blogging, comments, and abuse of process

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2009/29.html

 

A reminder for bloggers on how the law of defamation applies to attacks against them published on their own blog's comments.

 

In brief (where "you" is a blogger), based on the LexisNexis summary of the judgment (which I have not read in full):

• once you discover a comment you dislike, if you can remove it, you acquiesce in publishing it, and cannot claim for subsequent views;
• you must prove the actual number of views, as there is no presumption that a web page is widely distributed; and
• if there are no or almost no views, and there is no prospect of further repetitions of the offending claims, the action may be an abuse of process and so liable to be struck out.

(As usual, this is not legal advice, and if you have any problems or questions ask a lawyer, not me. Apart from reading the judgment please conduct your life as if you had not seen this page. Do not pay attention to things you read on blogs without verifying them yourself. Do not rely on this page in any way at all. This information is generic. Don't even think about suing me or blaming me for anything that happens in your life.)

Fwd: AT LAST HE IS MINE AGAIN

If my reading of the below is correct, the author - whom I do not know at all - is jazzed because after two years of having swanned off with his lover, he has returned to her, because his lover has left him, penniless. Note that he won't even sleep with her when she wears the nurses' uniform. Note further that the intended recipient may be a present or former member of the committee of the Mermaids, of Swiss Cottage, whose email address (being rosethornn@samewebmail.domain) naturally causes confusion. Update: There have been two follow-up emails, each detailing an apparent deterioration of the situation. Having received the third email, rather than ignore the emails, I decided to alert the sender to her mistake. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: woman who needs to learn about email <qux@webmail.domain> Date: Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 1:16 PM Subject: AT LAST HE IS MINE AGAIN To: foo@webmail.domain, bar@webmail.domain, baz@webmail.domain, rosethorn@samewebmail.domain I AM BLOODY ECSTATIC and I want the whole world to know so everyone on the list gets a copy whoever they are. Christine your dad will email you himself later on I couldn't bloody wait to tell you the good news AND HE IS COMING BACK TO THE UK NEXT SUNDAY WITH ME. He,at last, told me all about the last two years etc and about his life with Lynda and why they are not together, and believe it or not it is very sad, for he was very much in love with her, and lots of people here have said the same thing but he has not said a bad word about her,and yet around here rumours abound about both of them.. To keep you happy we HAVE NOT slept together ,yet, I tried the nurse uniform that didnt work and i dont want him on the rebound its going to take a lot of time to get her out of his system and I didnt realise the full extent of what he has given up for her over here, he gave up a flat and a possibility of a bar business and is penniless so I love him even more for giving it all up for love what a man. more later love Marilyn and Dad xx

Food meme extravaganza

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake [What is this?]
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu or shaojiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie [??]
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict [??]
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Howard Neal

I just heard Radio 4's Friday play, "This is a true story" based on the autobiographical writings of Howard Neal, a man condemned to death by the State of Mississippi on essentially no evidence. He has severe learning difficulties, with a measured IQ of 54. He seems to have had the hardest of hard lives, and been ill-used by law men and by uncaring lawyers, as well as almost everyone else.

The Guardian reports that he will now not be executed, but is condemned to life in prison. His story points to the danger of a public defence system, rather than well-funded legal aid. I've emailed Reprieve to ask if there is a fund for his benefit. I will update if they tell me anything. In the meantime, do consider sending him a postcard at the address Reprieve lists.

law usa death row execution injustice miscarriage of justice howard neal

A trip to India

This is the account of a friend who took a business trip to India recently. I thought it was pretty interesting.

The visit was short but breath taking.

The company was in "Electronic City" a district on the outskirts of Gurgaon, I haven't checked the maps, but from the driving we were doing "Electronic City" is an area about the size of a large English town (sort of thing that would accommodate 20,000 people.) And is solid labs, offices, meeting rooms. All of it up to western standards, and all of it hooked together by dirt-track roads, hodge-podge grid distribution, and other bodges. The Indians are making a good stab at moving in on the IP industry, as IP is the only thing it's profitable to make in the UK at the moment, I'm a little concerned by this, but can't blame them.

Back to the feel of the place though, The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was as exhilerating as any ride in Disney-World. Street markings are painted primarily as a job creation scheme, and the last traffic cop died of exhaustion sometime in the nineties. On a number of occasions the car we were in turned and casually drove the wrong way up a street, and nobody cared. The horn, over there is to indicate "I am here, and pose a hazard to what you are doing" rather than "You %^&*(tard".

The accommodation was good, but even on the client's budget (£150 a night) it wasn't safe to leave anything in the rooms, I lost a laptop power brick, a comb and a tooth brush.

On our last night there, the company rep [The manager, Kapreesh] took us on a shopping trip, and to a restaurant. According to him, everything in the restaurant had been stolen. As in it had all been the subject of theft, and then sold on at bazaars and fares! The English tendency not to ask too many questions about stolen property kicked in around now, I think he was disappointed that Herman and I couldn't think of anything to respond to this with!

There was a strange mix of attitudes and skill levels, they seem to have cracked quantum engineering as well. While I was pulling my hair out trying to work out why the rack was nackered, there were three people staring at me and the rack, I think they were trying to collapse the wave function or something.

Whatever else India might be, it does seem to be full of people working like hell. And that made me realise where the cliche of $FOREIGNER coming to the UK believing it to be a land of opportunity, comes from. It IS a land of opportunity if you get down and work at it.

They currently have an electricity shortage in India, and the mains would periodically drop. For this purpose EVERYONE has UPSs, (UPS batteries get such a hammering that they're even advertised as commodities!) And most hotels and offices have multi-tiered supply systems of mains/UPS/standby generator. It's not unusual to walk past an office that starts belching black smoke as the genny kicks in. Computers and comms get the UPS supplies, everything else gets to wait a few seconds while the genny comes up, after the first couple of days you don't notice the room being plunged into darkness every couple of hours.

I want to go back some time to see some of real India.

Bailii Recent decisions RSS

On the sidebar, I've added a link to the RSS feed for Bailii's Recent Decisions page, made by page2rss. It's not exactly what one would want - all new links are aggregated into one post, and there are no summaries - but it's not worse than nothing. I'm about to add one for the recent decisions of interest page.

law tech web rss

Ladele -v- Islington LBC

Head of Legal has an opinion, and a link to the full judgment.

The part of the judgment that I found odd was the idea (at paragraph 50) that there is a conflict in this case between the rights of two groups, being Christians, and homosexuals, and the legislative schemes that exist to protect them. Surely, the relevant conflicts are between Mrs. Ladele (and her desire not to be involved in such registrations), and the ability of the council to operate a service for the particular persons wishing to be registered as civil partners.

There is, after all, no right to be registered by a registrar who has not met a homophobe that day, only to be treated equallly, which one would have thought would include the same level of expedition in performing ceremonies, and the same choice of days to have them performed. The evidence is that no couple were refused a registration, and it appears that the rota system was operated so as to provide those registering civil partnerships the same level of service. The people who were inconvenienced were (on the basis of the evidence of complaints made by her colleagues) Mrs. Ladele's colleagues. Incidentally, the judgment doesn't show that there is any reason why Mrs. Ladele could not have been given more marriages to register, to compensate for her colleagues doing more civil partnerships.

For those wondering about direct discrimination, it was held to arise in quite a few ways, some of which I found a little strange, with respect to the tribunal. Firstly, from the decision to initiate disciplinary proceedings (at 58), and at 62 by labelling Mrs Ladele as homophobic. 70 is an odd one as it treats designating Mrs. Ladele as a civil partnership registrar without her consent as direct discrimination, even though all registrars in the district were so designated without reference to them. Paragraph 59 once again treats this as a matter of group rights not to be discriminated against.

All in all, I think the judgment is well made, and I look forward to seeing it considered on appeal, if only to see whether there are any gyrations to fit this into a model where such treatment becomes proportional or non-discriminatory.

law employment conscience ladele

One sharing link, please

I've just added a a box to the sidebar of my items shared on facebook. What I'd really like is a site that not only made it easy to share to multiple sites, it would share what I commented on, and my comment, and make it easy to follow replies.

Please, someone make this.

web technology sharing request idea