Unfortunately, blogging doesn’t pay the bills. So, no serious blogging from me this week. Just humour.
I like to play fair. (See yesterday’s post on Christianity vs. atheism.) So, yes, I will be poking fun at my fellow Christians as well as at my atheist friends! (Please read my humour policy for full details.)
[Hat tip: James Jenkins]
Alan Turing (June 23, 1912 – June 7, 1954)
War hero, mathematician, the father of computer science and State rape victim.
If you’ve done a Google search today, you probably noticed that it’s Alan Turing’s 100th birthday. Who was Alan Turing and why am I paying tribute to him?
Why I like Turing … from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Alan Turing (1912–1954) never described himself as a philosopher, but his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” is one of the most frequently cited in modern philosophical literature. It gave a fresh approach to the traditional mind-body problem, by relating it to the mathematical concept of computability he himself had introduced in his 1936–7 paper “On computable numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem.” His work can be regarded as the foundation of computer science and of the artificial intelligence program.
Here’s British Prime Minister (in 2009) Gordon Brown to tell you a few other things you need to know about Turing. (Thanks to Ian Watson for the transcript of Brown’s apology.)
This has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude that characterise the British experience. Earlier this year, I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against fascism and declared the outbreak of the Second World War.
So I am both pleased and proud that thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship: that of code-breaker Alan Turing.
Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of the Second World War could have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely.
In 1952, he was convicted of “gross indecency” – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.
Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time, and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair, and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I am and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and so many thousands of other gay men who were convicted, as he was convicted, under homophobic laws, were treated terribly. Over the years, millions more lived in fear of conviction. I am proud that those days are gone and that in the past 12 years this Government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality, and long overdue.
But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for this contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices – that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out European civilisation for hundreds of years.
It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present. So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work, I am very proud to say: we’re sorry. You deserved so much better.
Turing was found dead on 7 June 1954, two weeks before his 42nd birthday, after biting into a cyanide-laced apple. Wikipedia notes that
The logo of Apple Computer is often erroneously referred to as a tribute to Alan Turing, with the bite mark a reference to his method of suicide. Both the designer of the logo and the company deny that there is any homage to Turing in the design of the logo. In Series I, Episode 13 of the British television quiz show QI presenter Stephen Fry recounted a conversation had with Steve Jobs, saying that Jobs’ response was, “It isn’t true, but God, we wish it were.”
Turing’s work is the foundation of computer science and of research into artificial intelligence. Turing is responsible for the Turing Test (the CAPTCHA‘s big brother), the Turing Machine and (jointly with Alonzo Church) the Church-Turing thesis.
Here’s a Turing Machine built of Lego. (Are you Lego or Logos?)
This simple machine can, given a long enough ticker tape, do anything your mind can do—and much more. It’s humbling for some to realise that the human mind is the biological equivalent of a read-write head, a binary internal state, a look-up table and a ticker tape. But that’s all anyone ever is—biological ticker tape. (In fact, we’re all world lines.)
From go …
… to woe.
19-year-old Daniel Briant’s car, a Nissan Laurel, was crushed yesterday. It became the first car to be crushed under National’s “boy racer” legislation—the Vehicle Confiscation and Seizure Bill, 2008.
Why crush? According to Judith “Crusher” Collins (via NZPA)
Cars could be confiscated under current law and courts could order them to be sold, she said, but they were bought by other boy racers and the problem was recycled.
Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of the car review website dogandlemon.com, says the law is a waste of time.
“Yesterday, the owner of the first crushed car was just another boy racer with an attitude problem. Today he will be a hero to his fellow boy racers.”
“The idea that this car seizure will stop other youths offending is basically wishful thinking.
I love how he flat-out contradicts himself in the next two paragraphs (although what he’s trying to say is basically right, I think).
“Young females are attracted to young males who take risks. That’s one reason young males are so reckless. A young male would rather lose his car and be attractive to young females than obey the law and sleep alone.”
“The part of the male brain that links cause and effect doesn’t fully develop until the early 20s. That’s why young males often do silly things without thinking of the consequences.”
Stuff.co.nz has a photo of the boy-racer hero Briant, informs us that
A Facebook memorial site has been created for the souped-up car.
and helpfully links to Briant’s Facebook page, where we learn that Daniel’s interests include
Doing your mate’s ex to see what the problem was
Not dumping your girlfriend cause she’s a fucking hectic root
Being a cheeky cunt to everyone you know. Because, wtf else is there to do?
I wish I was on E as often as my gas tank
Never underestimate a guy’s ability to not give a shit
Going out for a Quiet One and Coming Home with a Court Date
While Daniel mourns the loss of his Nissan Laurel, we can mourn the misspent youth of today. Or mourn the misspent youth of yesteryear. (I don’t ever recall having that much fun! Well, not at that age, anyway. Oops, I think I’ve said enough. Time for a closing parenthesis.)
This is not a pretty picture. (It’s Minister of Police Anne Tolley, standing atop the crushed Laurel.)
The NZ Herald tells us
A grinning Police Minister Anne Tolley pressed the button to crush the Nissan Laurel at a Lower Hutt scrap metal yard.
Ms Tolley said it sent a “graphic” deterrent to illegal street racers.
But Stuff.co.nz reports
Tolley said less than three hours after receiving his third strike from the court Briant was back behind the wheel performing a burnout.
He lost control and crashed into a fence. It is understood he and a passenger fled the vehicle on foot.
There’s every sign that Briant is undeterred. (And, you know, I could have done with a souped up Nissan Laurel to replace my ground down Nissan Maxima.)
I’m against the whole idea of the government using cases like this to make “an example” and destroy property as “a deterrent to others”. It’s an unjust, utilitarian way of going about things. As philosopher Immanuel Kant rightly remarked
Juridical punishment can never be administered merely as a means for promoting another good either with regard to the criminal himself or to civil society, but must in all cases be imposed only because the individual on whom it is inflicted has committed a crime. For one man ought never to be dealt with merely as a means subservient to the purpose of another…
Here’s something truly dark and depressing to mark the winter solstice.
Pray, I am waiting
Pray, make us proud of you, my sonPropriedad de Dios
La propriedad de Dios
Our deal is closed …Kill, your god is waiting
Die, in our war
Make us proud of you, my sonPropriedad de Dios
La propriedad de Dios
Y no hace falta firmar
This excellent article (excerpt below) is by Ben Mostyn and Helen Gibbon of the Australian Drug Law Reform Initiative (ADLaRI) based at the UNSW Faculty of Law.
Drug prohibition makes a mockery of criminal law
Recent reports into the criminalisation of drugs in Australia have all concluded that the criminal law is a counterproductive and harmful way to deal with the issue of drug use and addiction, and that prohibition has failed.
It is now time for the legal profession to add its voice to the community’s calls for reform.
Australia’s criminal law has developed over centuries, by legislation and through the courts as part of the common law. Out of this development came some basic concepts that all law students are taught early in their legal education: mens rea (guilty mind); actus reus (guilty act); the presumption of innocence; the right to silence; and the “golden thread” of the criminal law, that the prosecution bears the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Throughout history the common law has never developed criminal offences of drug possession or drug supply. Drug offences are mala prohibita (wrong because prohibited). That is, the drug laws have been created by parliaments over the past century or so. In this time, parliaments have severely eroded and ignored the basic concepts of criminal law that are deeply entrenched in the common law and that underlie legislation.
Due to the widespread popularity of illegal drugs and the fact that only a tiny proportion of drug transactions and drug use are caught by the authorities, parliaments around Australia and the world have continually created legal fictions and extended criminal liability to make it easier to prosecute drug offences.
Some of these legal fictions include: “deemed drug” provisions, where supplying a harmless substance (such as parsley or flour) will be considered supplying an illicit drug if you misrepresent it as such; “deemed supply” provisions, where if you are found to be in possession of a certain amount of drugs it is assumed you had it in your possession for the purpose of supplying it to other people; and “deemed possession”, so that if a drug is found in your house it is assumed you are the owner of it, unless you can convince a jury that you had no knowledge of its presence.
All of these creations fly in the face of traditional common law. They infringe the common law right to silence and the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Instead, the onus falls on the defendant to prove innocence. They also erode the concept that the criminal law should only punish acts where a criminal act coincides with criminal intention.
The drug laws have eroded some of the most important protections the common law has given us. …
Click here to read the rest of the article.
[Hat tip: David Peterson]
Malum prohibitum (plural mala prohibita) is a Latin phrase used in law to refer to conduct that constitutes an unlawful act only by virtue of statute as opposed to conduct evil in and of itself, or malum in se (plural mala in se).
Wikipedia says
Conduct that is so clearly violative of society’s standards for allowable conduct that it is illegal under English common law is usually regarded as malum in se. An offense that is malum prohibitum may not appear on the face to directly violate moral standards. The distinction between these two cases is discussed in State of Washington v. Thaddius X. Anderson:
Criminal offenses can be broken down into two general categories malum in se and malum prohibitum. The distinction between malum in se and malum prohibitum offenses is best characterized as follows: a malum in se offense is “naturally evil as adjudged by the sense of a civilized community,” whereas a malum prohibitum offense is wrong only because a statute makes it so.
Check out Wikipedia’s list of mala prohibita offences and you’ll recognise many, perhaps most, as classic victimless crimes. Of course, all laws prohibiting victimless crimes now on our statute books should be repealed. As a libertarian, writing for a (mostly) libertarian audience, I take that as a given.
What concerns me in this post is not that victimless crimes are on our statute books, it’s the sheer number of mala prohibita offences on our statute books. It’s a number that keeps getting bigger and bigger.
Why is the number of such offences a concern? Because, as honest lawyer Scott DeSalvo points out
More and more things are being criminalized, so the number of otherwise law-abiding citizens who are technically guilty of a malum prohibitum crime rises.
This has the effect of causing everyone to be technically illegal, and thus in fear of a rightful imprisonment and seizure of property for what amounts to perfectly acceptable conduct. This shuts everyone up—no one wants to protest wrongdoing
We live in a society that I am sure all … can agree features too many malum prohibitum crimes (crimes that aren’t like murder, which are bad in themselves, but illegal because a politician said so). Witness the MASSIVE numbers of new such laws—seatbelts, helmets, cellphone use, smoking bans, foie gras bans, etc. that have been passed recently. And also consider innocuous use of marijuana at home—illegal, but not hurting anyone. Congratulations, we are all criminals in a society with too many laws that aren’t sensical or necessary. Now that we are all technically criminals, the government can snoop on us, right? Give me any person, let me snoop through their stuff—I promise, I’ll find some technical violation of some law.
So, you can see, we are on the way [to a totalitarian dictatorship.]
It’s time to call a moratorium on new legislation. Whoever’s driving the ban wagon, for pity’s sake, hit the brakes!
If you think Christians are free from discrimination in this country, think again. (Note that the MSM doesn’t even have the courtesy—or the literacy—to capitalise ‘Bible’.)
SkyCity worker disciplined over bible
A SkyCity Casino worker has been threatened with dismissal for carrying a pocket bible with her when she works.
Last week Tuni Parata, who has been a SkyCity employee for more than a decade and is currently a tower host at the casino, received a letter to attend a disciplinary meeting on Thursday over alleged misconduct for breaching departmental policies.
The letter said that the possible outcome of the meeting was “a final written warning”.
Mike Treen, Unite union national director, said the action was “absurd”.
“Since when does carrying a bible in your pocket become unlawful in New Zealand workplaces. For some Christians carrying a bible on the person at all times is a vital part of their faith and relationship to God.
“We do not believe that ordering staff not to carry a pocket bible is a lawful or reasonable instruction in a workplace in the 21st Century.”
Treen said the union had tried to reason with the company. “We tried to explain that the image the company is getting for its unhealthy relationship with the government will not be assisted by this stupidity… However our efforts fell on deaf ears.
Calls to SkyCity were not returned.
It’s good to see Mike Treen doing something useful, though! Good luck with this one, Mike.
[Hat tip: Darryl Ward]
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. (NIV)
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. (NIV)