A New Low

I popped in on my parents last night to discover my father unconscious following the ingestion of an entire bottle of champagne. When he finally stirrde from his drunken slumber and I asked him what occasion had prompted this debauchery, he pointed out that Boro had staved off relegation that day.

How bad does a team have to get for voiding relegation to be a bubbly-breaking situation?

Also, bonus bleurgh-points for my mother's story about having to remove a partially-digested sock from our dog's anus. This is exactly why I don't want kids. Or, in an ideal world, clothes.

In Which I Finally Give Up

Seriously, London? Boris fucking Johnson? There are at least five million people in our capital who don't get to complain about the US re-electing Bush any more, since we're apparently A-OK with racist homophobes as long as they have floppy hair and a neat line in one liners. It's been said before that relying on the public's intelligence is a mug's game, but surely there's a limit. A friend of mine asked today if this was one of Nostradamus' conditions for the apocalypse, but frankly I don't believe even he could have forseen so many fucking people being so fucking idiotic at the same fucking time. The people who vote for X Factor exhibit more taste.

I mean, c'mon, London; I get that we're supposed to root for the lovable loser, but the whole fucking point is that the lovable loser loses. Endearing is not the same thing as competent. I love my dog far more than I ever will you pathetic flesh-bags, but I am unlikely to suggest her name for the Mayor of Europe's most populous city. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I know my way around a witty put-down, too. Why not put me in charge? At least I won't call anyone a piccaninny or fuck someone other than my partner. I won't even accuse people of cannibalism or threaten to use Navy Seals against bicycle thieves.

It's something to think about as your chaotically-fringed new leader accidentally loses your entire city down the back of the fucking sofa.

Foiled and Shell-Shocked

I notice that after well over a year Nintendo still can't get their shit together Wii-wise. You can't get hold of Mario Kart for love nor money up here (well, for love nor money under £40, anyway). Seriously, I had this whole bit planned in which I mocked all those people whining that the game was too random, but since I have just about sufficient integrity to play the game first, I can't write it.

I will not soon forgive this impediment to my bilious rampages!

It's Hot As Hell In Here!

It’s not easy being the student representative for the maths department; every damn postgraduate mook wants you to lobby for them. Case in point: Danny and BT, who are annoyed about how hot the office has gotten. This leads to an oddly amusing half-hour of attempting to locate the University’s health and safety policy on temperature.

Danny: Hurry up, it’s getting hotter!

SS: It is not!

Danny: It is! The Thai Buddha thermometer you got me says so.

SS: I wouldn’t put too much faith into that thing; it cost me one-ninety nine from Woolworths. Plus, I’m pretty sure IBB broke it last week.

Danny: Just find the damn policy, would you?

SS: It’s pretty difficult to navigate.

BT: Nothing on temperature?

SS: No, although I can tell you our policy on chemical weapon attack, if you want.

Danny: We have a policy in case we get hit with Agent Orange?

SS: Yes. Also if we contract gastroenteritis, or if we get covered in amniotic fluid.

BT: What the Hell goes on in this university?

SS: Ah!

Danny: You got it?

SS: Maybe. It’s a check-list for office safety. Say, we’re not using razor-blades instead of scissors, are we?

BT: We try to keep sharp objects out of your reach.

SS: Very wise. We can tick that box, anyway.

Danny: Are you going to read the whole form?

SS: Wait! I’ve got it. The magic number for maximum temperature is… thirty degrees.

Danny: You’re kidding! We could open up a damn sauna. This is outrageous.

SS: The policy on amniotic fluid is pretty slap-dash, too.

BT: So we can’t get the university to do anything?

SS: They did install those tinted windows.

Danny: That just make the room darker.

SS: And those fans.

Danny: They just make the room louder.

BT: They’re also a hazard to paper work.

Danny: Do you have any work on paper?

BT: Shut up.

SS: If we can focus, the key aspect to all of this is: you’re boned.

Danny: But it’s hot as Hell!

SS: It’s only twenty-five degrees.

Danny: In April. In the North-East.

SS: Come back to me in June, then.

Danny: I’ll be a shrivelled, desiccated husk by then!

SS: We could turn off the computers.

Danny: We’re not allowed to turn off the computers.

BT: We could throw the computers out of the window; claim the insurance.

SS: Hypothetically speaking, BT, what would we write on the claims form?

BT: That the computers exploded from the heat.

SS: What, exploded, levitated, threw themselves out of the window, and smashed themselves on the ground?

A pause

BT: I’m starting to come around to this sauna idea.

SS: Ooh! We could grow tomatoes.

Danny: Or pineapples.

SS: Or opium.

BT: We could be drugs dealers!

Danny: Driving around in limousines with tinted windows.

SS: Haven’t we already decided that would just make it unbearably hot? We’d be halfway through hiring our first bunch of runners before we’d spontaneously explode, levitate, smash through the window, and throw ourselves to the ground.

BT: So what do you suggest?

SS: Erm, we check ourselves for gastroenteritis?

Our heroes exit, intent upon checking the firmness of their stools.

Torturous Logic

I've been thinking a bit more about Ashcroft's comments (the ones I repeated a few days ago, plus others) and about the debates they start (including here, apparently, which was a pleasant surprise). I still don't think people are making the right arguments against current US policy. There are a lot of posts along the lines of "Torture is axiomatically wrong", which is all very well, but once you take that stance you'll find it hard to back up (always the problem with axioms); so you sort of take yourself out of the debate. There is the much more practical point that torture is immoral and of questionable benefit, both in the short and the long term. I don't think the latter is under much debate, other than the usual nut-cases convinced that terrorists will become less keen to attack the US once they find out their mates are getting knocked about.

Most of the arguing, then, is over whether or not torture can, in the short term, save lives, and whether or not that makes it OK. I'm going to entirely skip the latter, although there are some interesting things to be said on it. What I want to concentrate on is the idea that torture is a useful tool, specifically in the case of the "ticking bomb" situation the GOP seems convinced is just bound to go off sooner or later like, well, a ticking bomb.

The logic runs that if we catch a terrorist and if he knows where a bomb is planted and if we can't find it any other way and if standard interrogation techniques have failed and if we assume that torture will lead to accurate intel (as oppose to whatever lies this guy decides to come up with in order to win a reprieve, however brief), we'd better make damn sure there is a legal contingency for that. I guess they're terrified that " if we catch a terrorist and if he knows where a bomb is planted and if we can't find it any other way and if standard interrogation techniques have failed and if we assume that torture will lead to accurate intel" is terrifyingly plausible, but " if we catch a terrorist and if he knows where a bomb is planted and if we can't find it any other way and if standard interrogation techniques have failed and if we assume that torture will lead to accurate intel and if one of his captors is prepared to torture him without rules allowing him to do so" is fairly unlikely.

It suddenly occurred to me the other day that legally allowing torture in case the above situation comes up is equivalent to removing speed limits on roads in case someone needs to get their dying child to a hospital. Or making murder legal purely in case an abused wife stabs her husband in self-defense the next time he drunkenly lunges at her with a baseball bat. I think I'm pretty safe in saying that the vast majority of people understand that laws are frequently inflexible, and that the system relies on compensation for this from the police, and from the courts. We don't want them completely overruling what they want when they want, but there are reasons a policeman can book driver A for speeding, but let driver B off, or why a judge can give a jail sentence to one drug user and community service to another. Oftentimes we hear about the ways this system has gone wrong, or given the impression that is has gone wrong (Pete Doherty is certainly an example of one or the other), but in principle, there are very good reasons we call them "judges". [1]

So why make torture legal on the off-chance this ticking bomb scenario actually does arrive? Surely if everything clicks into place, and a nuclear bomb is discovered because Agent Brown beat on some terrorist until he blabbed, then should Brown be officially charged, the system will take the situation into account. The man's a hero, the saviour of millions of American lives. He'd be showered in medals. Serious repercussions are liable to be somewhat thin on the ground. So what exactly is the situation that permitting water-boarding prevents? More likely, it's the occasion when someone gets tortured and it turns out to have been fuck-all use. This, apparently, is supposed to be OK too [2]. We're not talking about enabling success, we're talking about removing the repercussions of failure. Much as I pointed out in my last post, it's an attempt to shirk responsibility for what are potentially very serious mistakes, and pass it off as an attempt to save lives. And as cplcarrot said, people need to be willing to stand by this sort of stuff.

[1] There's a more general point to be made here. People really need to stop screaming and shouting every time a new law seems overly draconian. Take the furore over no longer allowing parents to give their children any alcohol in their own home. Is that the Nanny State flexing its muscles? Or just ensuring that there is no ambiguity over the law if the police choose to deal with parents who are clearly giving their children too much.

[2] Here's an interesting set of questions. If such an event occurs, and a terrorist is being tortured right up to the moment where the bomb goes off and a million people are vaporised, then there's no longer any reason to keep up the torture. Do we think it likely that Agent Brown will then immediately stop? Or is more likely that the guy the US Government are paying to inflict pain upon its enemies is going to continue out of frustration, or loss, or revenge? How would the system deal with that one?

An Odd Line

Thanks to dday over at Hullabaloo I got to read an exchange between a Daily Kos diarist and fiend-in-human-form John Ashcroft from a college Q&A on Tuesday night. Much of what he said has already been ripped apart. Deservedly so, too; I like to hear conservatives make arguments so that I can try and counter them, but Ashcroft didn't actually put forward arguments, he just ridiculed or sidelined every tough question he got.

There was one thing, though, that neither dday nor Elsinora (the Kossack in question) tackled (maybe because it was just too depressing to unpick) the way I would have, which was this exchange ("me", of course, refers to Elsinora):

ME: After WWII, the Tokyo Tribunal was basically the Nuremberg Trials for Japan. Many Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. And among the tortures listed was the "water treatment," which we nowadays call waterboarding...
ASHCROFT: (interrupting) This is a speech, not a question. I don't mind, but it's not a question.
ME: It will be, sir, just give me a moment. The judgment describes this water treatment, and I quote, "the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach." One man, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding American troops to obtain information. Since Yukio Asano was trying to get information to help defend his country--exactly what you, Mr. Ashcroft, say is acceptible for Americans to do--do you believe that his sentence was unjust? (boisterous applause and shouts of "Good question!")
ASHCROFT: (angrily) Now, listen here. You're comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges. We don't do anything like what you described.
ME: I'm sorry, I was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water down their throat...
ASHCROFT: (interrupting, red-faced, shouting) Pouring! Pouring! Did you hear what she said? "Putting a cloth over someone's face and pouring water on them." That's not what you said before! Read that again, what you said before!
ME: Sir, other reports of the time say...
ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read what you said before! (cries of "Answer her fucking question!" from the audience) Read it!
ME: (firmly) Mr. Ashcroft, please answer the question.
ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read it back!
ME: "The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach."
ASHCROFT: (shouting) You hear that? You hear it? "Forced!" If you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring...does this college have an anatomy class? If you can't tell the difference between forcing and pouring...
ME: (firmly and loudly) Mr. Ashcroft, do you believe that Yukio Asano's sentence was unjust? Answer the question. (pause)
ASHCROFT: (more restrained) It's not a fair question; there's no comparison. Next question! (loud chorus of boos from the audience)

dday points out that this is muddying a clear precedent. My argument would be more damning that that. I think that even if Ashcroft is right, and there is a difference between "forcing" and "pouring", which is ridiculous stance to take, but never mind (I guess Ashcroft isn't using "forcing" in the sense of "entering without permission" so much as "using force beyond that which is supplied by gravity"; one can only assume he'd be fine with holding a person upright and pumping water into their mouths and nostrils at a rate consistent with the flow of water downhill), he is still implicitly making the case (by refusing to either admit either that current tactics are bad or that the Japanese gentleman in question was unjustly punished), that a fractional change in the velocity of the water used should genuinely make the difference between morally justifiable and punishable by a decade and a half of hard labour.

So my question (this wasn't a speech either) is this. Can anyone out there think of a situation in which such a tiny difference (i.e. a rate of flow greater than the terminal velocity of a water stream) in methodology can suddenly change the legal and moral into the illegal and harshly punished?

Update: Yes, I promised something lighter, and delivered torture. I am not always to be trusted.

A Passing

Dr P passed away peacefully in her sleep yesterday afternoon, with her husband present. She was a tremendously intelligent and unflinchingly determined woman, whose dedication to her profession was remarkable even before you factor in her terminal illness, which caused her great discomfort and inconvenience. Despite the many obstacles her condition placed in front of her, she never complained about her situation, or at least no more than you or I might bemoan the rain or a cold bacon sandwich. I am both proud and humbled to share authorship of the paper she worked on last, and endlessly grateful for the support given to me by her, in circumstances where so many would have tempted to give up anything so irrelevant as keeping a PhD student happy. The department, the world of probability, and the world in general are all the lesser for losing her. I hope she knew the value I placed upon her.

I promise my next post will be lighter.