I’m not a fan of Twitter, that’s in case you didn’t realise however should this Tweet get you a £1,000 fine?

Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high! Paul Chambers.

In case you didn’t know Robin Hood airport is in Doncaster. Chambers was found guilty under the communications act for the offence of sending a menacing message and ordered to pay £1,000 in fines and legal costs. Absolutely ridiculous – be careful what you write on the net.

A Catholic adoption society today won the right in the high court not to consider homosexual couples as parents.

Mr Justice Briggs, sitting in London, has allowed the society’s appeal for an exemption from the sexual orientation regulations – opposed by the Charity Commission – which means the society can continue operating as it has always done.

Catholic Care, serving the dioceses of Leeds, Middlesbrough and Hallam in South Yorkshire, warned it would give up its work of finding homes for children – as many Catholic adoption societies have already done – rather than comply with the legislation.

Mr Justice Briggs has ordered the Charity Commission to reconsider its opposition to the society’s operation. Maev Kennedy, The Guardian.

Where will it stop? What other bigoted religious beliefs are we to allow?

A young British man described as “the world’s worst tennis pro” appeared at the high court in London to sue the Daily Telegraph for ruining his professional reputation.

Robert Dee, 23, from Bexley in Kent, has already secured more than 30 apologies and tens of thousands of pounds in damages from media organisations that made similarly disparaging allegations about his sporting prowess.

But the Telegraph refused to back down over two articles on the front page and in the sports section on 23 April 2008 under the headlines “World’s worst ­tennis pro wins at last” and “A British sensation – the world’s worst”. The newspaper is ready to call high-profile ­witnesses, including Boris Becker and John Lloyd, the former British No 1 who is now captain of the Great Britain Davis Cup team.

The offending stories said Dee did not win a single match during his first three years on the professional circuit but finally ended this “dismal run” by beating an unranked 17-year-old in Spain in April 2008. One article, claiming Dee had lost 54 matches in a row, compared him to the ski jumper Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards and Eric the Eel, the Equatorial Guinea swimmer who struggled at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Helen Pidd, The Guardian.

Personally I don’t have the slightest interest in tennis and even less in the scummy rag that is the Daily Telegraph – what concerns me is that you can libel a player with such an appalling record by calling him the worlds worst tennis pro – which ever way you look at it Dee’s professional record isn’t something a young player aspires to – another example of our countries ridiculous libel laws.

It must be the week for petitions on Tuesday I received an email asking me to sign a petition against legislation before Uganda’s parliament that punishes gays with prison and death – which I signed.

Today I received an email from Simon Singh who is being sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association for an article he published in The Guardian – if you look for the article on the newspapers website you won’t find it at best you’ll receive the message Sorry – we haven’t been able to serve the page you asked for. I’ve republished the original article at the end of this post along with a list of websites publishing the article and here’s the text of Simon Singh’s email.

I’ve had an idea – an unusual idea, but I think it might just work.

As you know, England’s chilling libel laws need to be reformed. One way to help achieve this is for 100,000 people to sign the petition for libel reform before the political parties write their manifestos for the election. We have 17,000 signatures, but we really need 100,000, and we need your help to get there.

www.libelreform.org/sign

My Idea

My idea is simple: if everyone who has already signed up persuades just one more person each week to sign the petition then we will reach our goal within a month!

One person per week is all we need, but please spread the word as much as you can. In fact, if you persuade 10 people to sign up then email me (simon@simonsingh.net) and I promise to thank you by printing your name in my next book … which I will start writing as soon as I have put my own libel case behind me. I cannot say when this will be, but it is a very real promise. My only caveat is that I will limit this to the first thousand people who recruit ten supporters.

When persuading your friends remember to tell them:

(a) English libel laws have been condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee.

(b) These laws gag scientists, bloggers and journalists who want to discuss matters of genuine public interest (and public health!).

(c) Our laws give rise to libel tourism, whereby the rich and the powerful (Saudi billionaires, Russian oligarchs and overseas corporations) come to London to sue writers because English libel laws are so hostile to responsible journalism. (In fact, it is exactly because English libel laws have this global impact that we welcome signatories to the petition from around the world.)

(d) Vested interests can use their resources to bully and intimidate those who seek to question them. The cost of a libel trial in England is 100 times more expensive than the European average and typically runs to over £1 million.

(e) Three separate ongoing libel cases involve myself and two medical researchers raising concerns about three medical treatments. We face losing £1 million each. In future, why would anyone else raise similar concerns? If these health matters are not reported, then the public is put at risk.

My experience has been sobering. I’ve had to spend £100,000 to defend my writing and have put my life on hold for almost two years. However, the prospect of reforming our libel laws keeps me cheerful.

Thanks so much for your support. We’ve only got one shot at this – so I hope you can persuade 1 (or maybe 10) friends, family and colleagues to sign.

www.libelreform.org/sign

Simon Singh

I’m never sure how much influence a petition has but it only take a few seconds to complete so what have you got to lose – also you can email your MP, so sign the petition and email your MP!

Beware the spinal trap – Republished

This is Chiropractic Awareness Week. So let’s be aware. How about some awareness that may prevent harm and help you make truly informed choices? First, you might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that, “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.
You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

I can confidently label these treatments as bogus because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared: “Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Professor Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

Bearing all of this in mind, I will leave you with one message for Chiropractic Awareness Week – if spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

About this article: This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday April 19 2008 on p26 of the Comment & debate section.

Source: Svetlana Pertsovich.

Or here’s a copy of the printed version – click to enlarge:

Source: London Skeptics in the Pub.

Beware the spinal trap also appears at

COSMOS magazine

The Skeptic (UK) magazine

New Humanist magazine

The British Humanist Association

ECSO The European Skeptics

The National Secular Society

Jack of Kent’s blog

Richard Wiseman’s blog

Steven Novella on Science-Based Medicine

Neurologica Blog

The Skeptics Guide to the Universe Blog

PZ Myers Pharyngula

The Quackometer.net

EBM first

Gimpy’s blog

Dr Aust’s Spleen

DC’s Improbable Science

Respectful Insolence at Science Blogs

Ministry of Truth

Bigger Pills

Thinking is Dangerous

Zeno’s blog

jdc325 weblog

The Pequod

D-Notice

The Lay Scientist

Phytobabble blog

Skepticat UK

The Millenium Project

The Sceptics Book of Pooh-Pooh

Media Watch Watch

Skepchick

Keeper of the Snails

Podblack Cat

Harry’s Place

The Eternal Gaijin

Mushkush on Livejournal

Tycho’s Elk

Teek blog

The Voyage

Carmen Gets Around

Ad Hominin

Open Parachute

Wood Pigeon blog

HiFi WigWam

Zygoma blog

A day at the pharmacy

Heresy Dungeon

Hawk/Handsaw

Konstantine’s Nook of the Web

Mrs Walker’s Weblog

Skeptikeren

Tufted Titmouse

Aurora Walking Vacation

Henry Queen

Adamus

Rodibidably

Nick Seeber

Everyday Skeptics

Know Now Today

Andrew Steele

Committee for Skeptical Enquiry

Shiraz Socialist

The Robsons

Max Dunbar

Skepfeeds

The Deer Yard

Natural Remedies That Work

bjoern.brembe.blog

Leaving Faith Behind

Silobreaker

Radisworld

Acoustics etc.

Jakobische Rant

Some Canadian Skeptic

Cubik’s Rube

Frumious Thought

PopeHat.com

Legally Unbound

Manxforums.com

BaldySlaphead

Science Notes

Rooker’s Soapbox

Trousers to Grow Into

Bastard Sheep

Science Based Medicine

An Evening Persons Blog

Jeff Olsson

The Mad Skepic

The Skeptics Guide

Left Outside

Red Rabbits Life

Curiouser and Curiouser

Mully410 Critical Blog

Struck By Enlightning

Its a Crime! (Or a Mystery)

Botswana Skeptic

Godless Liberty

Spidercomment

Friendly Humanist

Dr Petra Boyntons blog

Consider, Evaluate, Act

Skepsis blog

Realm of Reason

Molecular Fossils

BunkBlog

Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men

Plausibility.net

ICBS Everywhere

Cycle Ninja

Life Without Frank

The Skeptical Teacher

News Sluice

SkepticReport.com

Bad Reason

Stuff and Nonsense

Leicester Secularist Blog

Cherwell.org

Australian Skeptics

Association Francaise pour l’Information Scientifique (Translated into French)

brightsfrance.org (Translated into French)

GWUP Die Skeptiker (Translated into German)

Swedish sceptics Vetenskap och Folkblidning (Translated into Swedish)

Hungarian Sceptic Society (Translated into Hungarian)

Source: Sense about Science.

Naked rambler Stephen Gough has been warned he faces spending the rest of his life in prison if he continues to to wear clothes in public.

The former Royal Marine, a veteran of two “boots-only” hikes from Land’s End to John O’Groats, has spent most of the last four years in solitary confinement in Scottish jails after stripping off on a flight to Edinburgh. Since then he has declined to wear prison uniform or to appear clothed in court resulting in further custodial sentences for contempt.

This week he was found guilty of causing a breach of the peace following his arrest as he left Perth prison in December where he had just finished serving a 12-month sentence for the same offence. On that and a previous occasion police have been waiting to re-arrest him at the prison gates. Source: Jonathan Brown, The Independent.

Personally I’ve no wish to meet Stephen Gough the naked rambler, however I’d rather take the risk than see the state wasting ever increasing sums of money on continually imprisoning him, his legal aid fees alone are estimated to amount to
500,000 which does seem steep – perhaps that includes the cost of imprisonment – but whatever the figure it seems a vast waste of money to prevent scenes like this.

From left to right - Stephen Gough, his girlfriend Melanie Roberts and friend Jeffrey Woodhouse

Five men have been cleared of raping a woman after it emerged she had spoken online about group sex fantasies.

…

Judge Brown told the jury: “This case depended on the complainant’s credibility.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, her credibility was shot to pieces.” Source: The BBC.

So let’s get this straight if you’re raped and it’s discovered that you’ve admitted to fantasies of group sex then your rapists will walk free. Will this mean rapist trawling internet to find their next victim?

Hat Tip: HarpyMarx.

MPs have called for a fundamental overhaul of government policy to curb excessive drinking.

A minimum price of 50p per unit of alcohol, to curb excessive drinking in England, could save over 3,000 lives a year, the Health Select Committee said. Source: BBC.

How is this a fundamental change – the attempt to prohibit the use of alcohol isn’t any sort of fundamental overhaul of the governments approach this is just a tweak – an attempt to make alcohol a preserve of the wealthy.

Alcohol is certainly a problem and fundamental change is certainly required a price increase isn’t going to achieve a thing – those who can afford too, will pay more – and alcohol problems certainly aren’t limited to the poor as these misguided MPs seem to think – those who are ill placed to afford the price increase are jus going to cut back elsewhere, food, the kids clothing and such like.

If one looks at alcohol the cultural changes that have taken place then one of the biggest changes has been the criminalisation of underage drinking. It’s been illegal for under 18’s to drink in pubs since the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. Until the late nineties enforcement was lax and if the underage wanted to they could always fin a pub that would serve them alcohol Since the late 1990s enforcement of the drinking laws has become stricter and the penalties for breaking the law have increased.

The effect of this increased vigilance regarding drinking hasn’t lead to a decrease in underage drinking instead teenagers have been forced out onto the streets or into our parks.

This has meant teenagers drinking cheaper alcohol from wherever they can get hold of it – I’m sure many of you’ve seen teenagers hanging around off licences and supermarkets in the hope they can persuade someone to buy them alcohol – off licence and supermarket alcohol is cheaper than drinking in the pub which means teenagers are also drinking more than their parents generation did.

Another important factor of is that drinking on the streets and in parks has meant teenagers are free from the restrictions of a pub which moderated their behaviour – if they got too drunk or behaved inappropriately they’d be banned and unable to return to their chosen pub.

The strict enforcement of the drinking laws has created a generation of drinkers who are used to drinking larger amounts of alcohol in an uncontrolled environment – this policy has helped to sow the seeds of what the press call the binge culture – minimum prices won’t change a thing.

The government is planning to introduce a “radically reduced cap” on the level of fees in successful defamation cases as part of radical reforms to Britain’s libel laws, according to Jack Straw, the justice secretary.

Signalling his desire for reforms, Straw insisted that the changes can be introduced “without the need for primary legislation”.

Straw highlighted the plans amid concern at the way huge payouts awarded to claimants are attracting “libel tourists” to Britain, and what the minister described as the “chilling effect” of existing libel laws on democracy. Hélène Mulholland, The Guardian.

Reform of our libel laws is long over due for too long they have been used by companies and rich individuals to suppress those that haven’t the money to defend themselves – UK libel law is all about how much money you have not about justice – but then again that’s the justice system the world over.

I’ve long believed our Libel laws at require a radical overhaul. English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense About Science have set up The Libel Reform Campaign which aims to do just that – Jo Glanville and Jonathan Heawood have published the report “Free Speech is Not for Sale” on the campaigns website which includes 10 recommendations.

1. In libel, the defendant is guilty until proven innocent
We recommend: Require the claimant to demonstrate damage and falsity

2. English libel law is more about making money than saving a reputation
We recommend: Cap damages at £10,000

3. The definition of ‘publication’ defies common sense
We recommend: Abolish the Duke of Brunswick rule and introduce a single publication rule

4. London has become an international libel tribunal
We recommend: No case should be heard in this jurisdiction unless at least 10 per cent of copies of the relevant publication have been circulated here

5. There are few viable alternatives to a full trial
We recommend: Establish a libel tribunal as a low-cost forum for hearings

6. There is no robust public interest defence in libel law
We recommend: Strengthen the public interest defence

7. Comment is not free
We recommend: Expand the definition of fair comment

8. The potential cost of defending a libel action is prohibitive
We recommend: Cap base costs and make success fees and ‘After the Event’ (ATE) insurance premiums non-recoverable

9. The law does not reflect the arrival of the internet
We recommend: Exempt interactive online services and interactive chat from liability

10. Not everything deserves a reputation
We recommend: Exempt large and medium-sized corporate bodies and associations from libel law unless they can prove malicious falsehood.

The Libel Reform Campaign.

I wish the campaign success before many more of us fall foul of our ridiculous libel laws.

After the Carter-Ruck/Trafigura super-injunction scam in which the Guardian was gagged from reporting parliament, Charlie Booker asks a very pertinent question.

The Trafigura debacle is one of the very few occasions where the cloaking device of the super-injunction has actually malfunctioned, leaving the hovering mothership visible, which raises a worrying question: what else don’t we know about? Literally anything could be going on. Like the mysterious “dark matter” that scientists believe makes up a huge percentage of the universe, an entire alternative reality could be thriving just over our shoulders. Charlie Booker, The Guardian.

Worryingly we won’t be getting any answer to the question.