B12 Solipsism

Jonathan Evans is a liar, in other words

The director general of Britain’s MI5 security service denied Friday that his agency colluded in torture, after a court ruling showed that it knew that a detained British resident had been abused by American intelligence officers. The court disclosed information provided to MI5 by the C.I.A. that Binyam Mohamed, a British resident from Ethiopia, had been shackled, threatened and deprived of sleep in American custody.

The MI5 director general, Jonathan Evans, left, wrote in The Daily Telegraph that British intelligence had been slow to detect “the emerging pattern of U.S. mistreatment of detainees” after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “But there wasn’t any similar change of practice by the British intelligence agencies,” he said. “We did not practice mistreatment or torture then and do not do so now, nor do we collude in torture or encourage others to torture on our behalf.” One paragraph of the judge’s ruling that strongly criticized MI5 was deleted at the request of a government lawyer. Mr. Mohamed has been fighting to prove that he was tortured and that British authorities knew about it. [Click to continue reading World Briefing | Europe: Britain: Security Chief Denies Collusion With U.S. In Instances of Torture]

Since the NYT doesn’t bother to include the link so you can read Mr. Evans statement, here it is in all its self-serving glory

Strange byproduct of EU food rules: Stilton cheese is not really Stilton cheese, and probably will never be.

STILTON, England — This small hamlet shares its name with a famous curd. But under European Union law, it’s illegal to make Stilton cheese in Stilton.

The bar on producing Stilton cheese here is a curious consequence of EU efforts to protect revered local foods by limiting the geographical area where they can be made.

The EU’s protected list of more than 800 foods and drinks includes famous names like Champagne and Parma as well as lesser-known delicacies such as Moutarde de Bourgogne, Munchener Bier and a Spanish chili pepper called Asado del Bierzo. It even covers Foin de Crau, a hay for animals from the fields of Bouches-du-Rhône in southern France.

But to the chagrin of locals, no cheese made here can be branded as Stilton. That’s because a group of outsiders, called the Stilton Cheesemakers Association, raised a formal stink.

The association, whose members have been making the cheese for more than a hundred years, in 1996 sought to protect the “Stilton” name by applying for a Product Designation of Origin from the EU. In its application, the group wrote that “the cheese became known as Stilton because it was at the Bell Inn in this village that the cheese was first sold to the public.” The 17th-century inn, which still stands in the main street, is the village’s oldest.

[Click to continue reading English Village Tries to Milk a Connection to Its Cheesy Past - WSJ.com]

Gotta love this detail:

One 18th-century notable who dropped by was Daniel Defoe, author of “Robinson Crusoe.” He wrote about the inn, and the cheese he enjoyed there, in a travelogue published in 1724. He remarked that the cheese, unfettered at the time by EU product rules, was known as the English Parmesan, and he offered a mouth-watering description of how it was consumed. The cheese, he wrote, “is brought to Table so full of Mites or Maggots that they use a Spoon to eat them.”

So how many photos of St Paul’s Cathedral are taken every day? How easy would it be for someone to find a photo without even having to visit London? Pretty easy, methinks.¹ Or just purchase a postcard, usually sold right in front of the building in question. And of course, what terrorist needs to have snapped art photos of architecturally and culturally significant buildings before planning their attack? None, remember? It’s just a movie plot, never happened in real life.

A BBC photographer was stopped from taking a picture of the sun setting by St Paul’s Cathedral in London. A real police officer and a fake “community support officer” stopped the photog and said he couldn’t take any pictures because with his professional-style camera, he might be an “al Qaeda operative” on a “scouting mission.” Now, St Paul’s is one of the most photographed buildings in the world (luckily, there is zero evidence that terrorists need photographs to plan their attacks), and presumably a smart al Qaeda operative with a yen to get some snaps would use a tiny tourist camera — or a hidden camera in his buttonhole. An ex-MP² goes on to describe being stopped for talking into a hand-sized dictaphone in Trafalgar Square (where thousands of people talking in their phones — most of which have dictaphone capabilities — can be seen at any given time).

The real damage from terrorist attacks doesn’t come from the explosion. The real damage is done after the explosion, by the victims, who repeatedly and determinedly attack themselves, giving over reason in favor of terror. Every London cop who stops someone from taking a picture of a public building, every TSA agent who takes away your kid’s toothpaste, every NSA spook who wiretaps your email, does the terrorist’s job for him. Terrorism is about magnifying one mediagenic act of violence into one hundred billion acts of terrorized authoritarian idiocy. There were two al Qaeda operatives at St Paul’s that day: the cop and her sidekick, who were about Osama bin Laden’s business in London all day long.

[Click to continue reading BBC photographer prevented from shooting St Paul's because he might be "al Qaeda operative" - Boing Boing]

Indeed.

video interview at the BBC:

BBC News photographer Jeff Overs was stopped and questioned for taking photographs in Westminster.
Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, for which he takes photographs, Mr Overs said he was worried that policing against terrorism was making the UK feel like “the Eastern Bloc”.

[Click to continue reading BBC News - BBC photographer on being stopped by police]

Know Your Rights! These Are Your Rights!³ /⁴

1. 54,464 items just at Flickr [↩]
2. Mathew Parris [↩]
3. apologies to The Clash. This is a public service announcement. With guitars! [↩]
4. Bert Krages Photographer’s Right in handy PDF form [↩]

Either Rupert Murdoch is too close a friend of most US media conglomerate CEOs, or else they are scared of incurring Murdoch’s wrath. What other explanation for the lack of coverage of the juicy Guardian UK scoop regarding Murdoch illegality?

But so far the Guardian, which last Wednesday broke the news of how two newspapers belonging to Rupert Murdoch illegally hacked into the mobile phone accounts of “two or three thousand” people, as well as “gaining unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemized phone bills [belonging to] Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars” has the story pretty much to itself.

On the surface this is surprising. Here, after all, is a story that combines boldface names like Gwyneth Paltrow, Elle MacPherson, Nigella Lawson and George Michael with the official spokesman of the Conservative Party (Andy Coulson, media strategist for Tory leader David Cameron, was editor of the News of the World when the paper allegedly paid private investigators for access to the celebrities’ accounts) and Rupert Murdoch, the world’s most powerful media baron. The BBC put the story at the top of its world news lineup, and followed up the next day with a story about how some of famous targets were contemplating lawsuits. So why has the Guardian’s incredible scoop turned out to be a 2 day wonder?

[Click to continue reading  The Dog That Didn't Bark]

Quite curious, no?

Rupert Murdoch’s News Group News papers has paid out more than £1m to settle legal cases that threatened to reveal evidence of his journalists’ repeated involvement in the use of criminal methods to get stories.

The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the mobile phone messages of numerous public figures as well as gaining unlawful access to confidential personal data, including tax records, social security files, bank statements and itemised phone bills. Cabinet ministers, MPs, actors and sports stars were all targets of the private investigators.

Today, the Guardian reveals details of the suppressed evidence, which may open the door to hundreds more legal actions by victims of News Group, the Murdoch company that publishes the News of the World and the Sun, as well as provoking police inquiries into reporters who were involved and the senior executives responsible for them.

[Click to continue reading Murdoch papers paid out £1m to gag phone-hacking victims | Media |The Guardian]

such as

When the high court last summer ordered the News of the World to pay damages to Max Mosley for secretly filming him with prostitutes, the paper was furious. In an angry leader column, it insisted that public figures must maintain standards. “It is not for the powerful and the influential to run to the courts to gag newspapers from publishing stories that are TRUE,” it said. “This is all about the public’s right to know.”

Even as those words were being published, lawyers and senior executives from News International’s subsidiary News Group were preparing to run to court to gag Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, who was suing the News of the World for its undisclosed involvement in the illegal interception of messages left on his mobile phone.

By persuading the high court to seal the file and by paying Taylor more than £400,000 damages in exchange for his silence, News Group prevented the public from knowing anything about the hundreds of pages of evidence which had been disclosed in Taylor’s case, revealing potentially criminal behaviour by journalists on its payroll. It also protected some powerful and influential people from the implications of that evidence.

[Click to continue reading  Trail of hacking and deceit under nose of Tory PR chief guardian.co.uk ]

names like:

Scotland Yard disclosed only a limited amount of its evidence to Taylor. The Guardian understands that the full police file shows that several thousand public figures were targeted by investigators, including, during one month in 2006: John Prescott, then deputy prime minister; Tessa Jowell, then responsible for the media as secretary of state for culture; Boris Johnson, then the Conservative spokesman on higher education; Gwyneth Paltrow, after she had given birth to her son; George Michael, who had been seen looking tired at the wheel of his car; and Jade Goody.

When Goodman, the News of the World’s royal editor, was jailed for hacking into the mobile phones of Palace staff, News International said he had been acting without their knowledge. One of the investigators working for the paper, Glenn Mulcaire, was also charged with hacking the phones of the Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes, celebrity PR Max Clifford, model Elle MacPherson and football agent Sky Andrew as well as Taylor. At the time, the News of the World claimed to know nothing about the hacking of these targets, but Taylor has now proved that to be untrue in his case. Others who are believed to have been possible targets include the Scottish politician Tommy Sheridan, who has previously accused the News of the World of bugging his car; Jeffrey Archer, whose perjury was exposed by the paper; and Sven-Göran Eriksson, whose sex life became a tabloid obsession.

What an awesomely great, interesting online resource! If I were to ever work on a screenplay set in The Age of Enlightenment, in Victorian England (or other eras), having access to such a compendium of names and events would be spectacularly useful.

The Proceedings contain accounts of trials which took place at the Old Bailey. The first published collection of trials at the Old Bailey dates from 1674, and from 1678 accounts of the trials at each sessions (meeting of the Court) were regularly published. Inexpensive, and targeted initially at a popular audience, the Proceedings were produced shortly after the conclusion of each sessions and were initially a commercial success. But with the growth of newspapers and increasing publication costs the audience narrowed by the nineteenth century to a combination of lawyers and public officials. With few exceptions, this periodical was regularly published each time the sessions met (eight times a year until 1834, and then ten to twelve times a year) for 239 years, when publication came to a sudden halt in April 1913.

[From The Proceedings - Publishing History of the Proceedings - Central Criminal Court]

I was reading an old issue of The Smithsonian Magazine¹, and found mention of Old Bailey and its chronicle, The Proceedings, and the digitization project found at Old Bailey Online.

Thanks to Google, I found the article by Guy Gugliotta, which begins:

By the time the hangman finished him off, Jonathan Wild had few friends. In his own way he had been a public servant—a combination bounty hunter and prosecutor who tracked down thieves and recovered stolen property, a useful figure in 18th-century London, which had no formal police force of its own. Such men were called “thief-takers,” and Wild was good at his work. But along the way, he became more problem than solution.

He called himself the “Thief-Taker General of England and Ireland,” but he became London’s leading crime boss, specializing in robbery and extortion. He frequently encouraged or even set up thefts and burglaries, fenced the booty for a relative pittance, then returned it to its owner for the reward. If his cronies tried to double-cross him, he had them arrested, to be tried and hanged—then collected the bounty. It was said that he inspired the term “double-cross,” for the two X’s he put in his ledger beside the names of those who cheated him.

Daniel Defoe, a journalist as well as the author of Robinson Crusoe, wrote a quickie biography of Wild a month after he was hanged, in 1725. Henry Fielding, the author of Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews, satirized him in The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great. John Gay took him as his inspiration for the villainous Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera.

But by the time that work had morphed into the Bertolt Brecht-Kurt Weill hit The Threepenny Opera two centuries later, Wild had all but faded from memory. And when Bobby Darin made a hit out of “Mack the Knife” 30 years after the play opened, Wild was largely a forgotten man.

But thanks to a pair of expatriate Americans fascinated by the way England’s other half lived during the Age of Enlightenment, anyone with a computer can now resurrect Jonathan Wild and his dark world. The original record of his trial is in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, the digest that described and often transcribed the more than 100,000 trials that took place in the criminal court of the City of London and the County of Middlesex between 1674 and 1834. Working with grants totaling some $1.26 million, historians Robert Shoemaker of the University of Sheffield and Tim Hitchcock of the University of Hertfordshire have digitized the 52 million words of the Proceedings—and put them in a searchable database for anyone to read on the Internet.

[Click to continue reading Digitizing the Hanging Court | History & Archaeology | Smithsonian Magazine]

More details of the publishing history from OldBaileyOnline.org

In October 1678 the first edition which described all the trials at a single session appeared. In December 1678 a particularly detailed account was published with a more objective tone. Perhaps in recognition of what such publications could achieve, and in order to have some control over their content, in January 1679 the Court of Aldermen of the City of London ordered that accounts of proceedings at the Old Bailey could only be published with the approval of the Lord Mayor and the other justices present. At this point a more or less standard title was adopted: The Proceedings of the King’s Commission of the Peace and Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol-Delivery of Newgate, held for the City of London and the County of Middlesex, at Justice-Hall, in the Old Bailey. With some minor variations, this title remained unchanged for decades. Although sometimes referred to as the “Sessions Papers”, this project has adopted the short title of Old Bailey Proceedings, or just Proceedings.

The fact that publication had to be approved by the Lord Mayor, and London Lord Mayors serve yearly terms of office from November to November, explains why later editions of the Proceedings were bound together and paginated in annual volumes, from the first sessions in the Mayoral year (November or December) to the last (October). Until the late eighteenth century printers had to pay an annual fee to the Lord Mayor for the privilege of printing the Proceedings.

Early editions of the Proceedings were between four and nine pages long, included brief summaries of trials, and were not necessarily comprehensive. Nonetheless, by the mid 1680s most trials seem to have been reported. Around 1712 the Proceedings began to include some verbatim testimonies, especially in trials which were thought to be salacious, amusing, or otherwise entertaining.

Click to see a sample of the original page, here’s some of the text from that page:

WILLIAM RICHARDSON . I am a police Inspector. I was at Fairlop fair on the 6th of July, about six o’clock in the evening—William Gibson was charged with felony, and brought into the Crown and Anchor booth, where the Magistrates were sitting—after the examination he was committed to Ilford gaol for re-examination—the warrant was given into the hands of Pope, the constable who apprehended him, and the Magistrates ordered a sufficient force to see him safe to Ilford gaol—they departed with Gibson in their custody—I followed for safety through the crowd in the fair—I observed a crowd following us—I got the assistance of two other police-constables—when we got about one hundred and fifty yards through the fair, I observed a large mob assembling—several people rushed forward in an outrageous manner, and the cry was, “Go in and take him away”—” Don’t go”—”Give it to the b—s”—the mob made several attempts to come and take him away, but were kept back by the police—there were about six of us, and three or four parish constables—we continued in that state for about twenty minutes—it took that time to go a quarter of a mile—Gibson at last said he would not go—I turned round, and saw the whole of the police attacked by the mob, which was two or three hundred people—those who were not engaged in combat with the constables flew on me—I was forcibly thrown off my legs on my back, and Gibson was taken from us, and taken away—I could not myself swear to the prisoner being one of them

HENRY PARKER . I am a policeman. I was at Fairlop fair, having charge of Gibson—the Inspector’s evidence is correct—a large mob followed us, which we were one hour contending with—(the prisoner, before we could get Gibson to the booth before the Magistrates, had held a stick in his hand, brandishing it, and threatened to strike me several times)—the mob said, “Go in and give it to him”—he immediately up with his stick, and struck me across the shoulder—I closed on him—he struck me on the nose, and made it bleed—he was within three or four feet of the Inspector when he was knocked down, and was very active—he was about the wont.

Prisoner. Q. Did you strike me first, or I you? A. You struck me three times—here are the dents in my hat, where you struck me with the stick.

WILLIAM SAWYER . Q. I am a policeman. I was at Fairlop fair—I have heard the witness’s evidence—it is true—the prisoner was active in the mob—I saw him in contest with Parker.

Prisoner. Q. In what part did you see me? A. About five yards from the Inspector.

WILLIAM SHAW . I am a policeman. I was on duty at the fair—Gibson was charged with felony—we were endeavouring to take him to a place of confinement—a mob of two or three hundred attempted to rescue him—the officers were attacked and very much ill-used—the prisoner was close to us at the time Gibson was rescued—he got quite off with his handcuffs on, and has not been taken since—he was charged with stealing a gentleman’s coat—the prisoner was very active, calling, “Go in, you in—I saw him strike Parker across the shoulders and over the nose—the blood flew over the prisoner’s foot, and he bit a piece, flesh and all, out of the sergeant’s thigh—we were an hour with him in the forest, endeavouring to secure him.

CHARLES SMITH . I was at the fair. The evidence of the officers is true.

Prisoner’s Defence. I was at the fair—the prisoner was being taken away—I did not know him—I ran to see what was going on, and when I came up, the prisoner was a hundred yards before me—I was shoved against Sergeant Parker—he struck me on the chin with his staff, and another policeman struck me on the back of my head, and made me senseless.

GUILTY . Aged 20.— Confined Two Years.

Some things never change.

For fun, I searched the surname, Murphy

At this Sessions the 5 persons burnt in the Hand were

John Wickham, Thomas Hoskins, John Clark, Emm Sanbie, and Mary Toulson.

The 5 persons ordered to be Transported were
John Harrock, William Finchman, Richard Scot, Frances Abraham, and Richard Scarlet.

The 9 Persons that Received Sentence of Death were
Abraham Biggs, Richard Caborn, Christopher Redman, Phileman Adams, Dorcas Morgan, Dorothy Waller, Jane Langworth, Elizabeth Stoakes, and Katherine Cotterel.

The 11 Persons Sentenced to be Whipped , were,
Richard Williams, David Roberts, Thomas Murphy, George Clarke, Jacob Clark, Margaret Shipley, Joseph Lawrence, George Laurence, Nicholas Dun, Ambros Hog, and William Cole.

Andrew Craford being convicted and brought to the bar, was ordered confinement in the Goal of Newgate, during the KING’S pleasure.

Thomas Murphy’s offense?

Thomas Murphy and Charles Doyle Indicted, the former as principal, and latter as accessory, for stealing a Golden cross, a Handkerchief, and a Leaden Meddal, inlayed with Gold , from Justin MacCartis Esq , of St. Martins in the fields, on the 19th of November, it was proved against Murphy, that he had stollen the goods specified, and delivered them to Doyle, in order to expose them to sale , nor did he deny the Fellony, in Court, only alledging that his Companion was Innocent, and knew not that the goods were stole; whereupon Murphy only was found Guilty to the value of 10d and his companion acquitted .

1. April, 2007, if you want to know [↩]

A few interesting links collected February 16th through February 17th:

• Kotori Magazine – The Master of Low Expectations: 666 Reasons Sentient Citizens are Still Celebrating the Long Overdue Departure of George W. Bush – 666 Reasons Sentient Citizens are Still Celebrating the Long Overdue Departure of George W. Bush

• 

• Talking Points Memo | Study Harder – In the late 1930s, of course, Great Britain didn’t have a Labour government with a principled Tory minority. It had conservative Tory government with a Labour minority. And Churchill was on the outs with both, although on some fronts he was beginning to make common cause with some Labourites on his key issue, which was foreign policy. When Churchill eventually came to power it was in a national coalition government for the purposes of fighting the war. And when he eventually went to the voters as head of the Tory party toward the end of the war they got crushed by Labour in a landslide.

  I say all this as a big Churchill fan. But, I mean, not only is Eric Cantor no Winston Churchill, I’m not even sure he’s read a book about Winston Churchill.

Why not name your village something memorable? Too many places have generic names. Language is one of the best inventions humans ever came up with – why not celebrate it?

In the scale of embarrassing place names, Crapstone ranks pretty high. But Britain is full of them. Some are mostly amusing, like Ugley, Essex; East Breast, in western Scotland; North Piddle, in Worcestershire; and Spanker Lane, in Derbyshire.

Others evoke images that may conflict with residents’ efforts to appear dignified when, for example, applying for jobs.

These include Crotch Crescent, Oxford; Titty Ho, Northamptonshire; Wetwang, East Yorkshire; Slutshole Lane, Norfolk; and Thong, Kent. And, in a country that delights in lavatory humor, particularly if the word “bottom” is involved, there is Pratts Bottom, in Kent, doubly cursed because “prat” is slang for buffoon.

As for Penistone, a thriving South Yorkshire town, just stop that sophomoric snickering.

“It’s pronounced ‘PENNIS-tun,’ ” Fiona Moran, manager of the Old Vicarage Hotel in Penistone, said over the telephone, rather sharply. When forced to spell her address for outsiders, she uses misdirection, separating the tricky section into two blameless parts: “p-e-n” — pause — “i-s-t-o-n-e.”

Several months ago, Lewes District Council in East Sussex tried to address the problem of inadvertent place-name titillation by saying that “street names which could give offense” would no longer be allowed on new roads.

“Avoid aesthetically unsuitable names,” like Gaswork Road, the council decreed. Also, avoid “names capable of deliberate misinterpretation,” like Hoare Road, Typple Avenue, Quare Street and Corfe Close.

[Click to continue reading No Snickering - That Road Sign Means Something Else - NYTimes.com]

Corfe Close is a stretch – you have to live at 4 Corfe Close, and even then say the first two words quickly. The NYT is of course too afraid of language to say “Fuck Off“, perhaps the New York Times style guide should be updated to include the substitution of fracking, as appropriate?

[via Chuck Shepherd]

“Rude Britain: The 100 Rudest Place Names in Britain” (Ed Hurst, Rob Bailey)

“Sniggering at double entendres is a loved and time-honored tradition in this country,” Carol Midgley wrote in The Times of London. Ed Hurst, a co-author, with Rob Bailey, of “Rude Britain” and “Rude UK,” which list arguably offensive place names — some so arguably offensive that, unfortunately, they cannot be printed here — said that many such communities were established hundreds of years ago and that their names were not rude at the time.

“Place names and street names are full of history and culture, and it’s only because language has evolved over the centuries that they’ve wound up sounding rude,” Mr. Hurst said in an interview.

Mr. Bailey, who grew up on Tumbledown Dick Road in Oxfordshire, and Mr. Hurst got the idea for the books when they read about a couple who bought a house on Butt Hole Road, in South Yorkshire.

The name most likely has to do with the spot’s historic function as a source of water, a water butt being a container for collecting water. But it proved to be prohibitively hilarious.

“If they ordered a pizza, the pizza company wouldn’t deliver it, because they thought it was a made-up name,” Mr. Hurst said. “People would stand in front of the sign, pull down their trousers and take pictures of each other’s naked buttocks.”

The couple moved away.

Heathrow bound 1994 double exposure, originally uploaded by swanksalot.

Ahh, to be young again…

Your humble photographer about to leave London, combined with an inadvertent double exposure of some gravel pit outside of Austin Tx. A scan of a 35mm print, circa 1994, when I was 24 going on 65.

view larger on black:
www.b12partners.net/photoblog/index.php?showimage=10