Liadnan

... in England, given the so-cunningly-timed introduction of the ban on smoking, are clearly the Clerk of the Weather's attempt to prove he has a truly unpleasant sense of humour. Either that or punishment for Gordon Brown. (But I thought Gordon Brown was our punishment for Tony Blair.)

Never mind. I shall persist in my stand against this government's roughshod trampling of civil liberties.. oops, sorry, wrong page, that's a rant for another day about something or other. I may not like the ban but this (the petition for JR referred to in the post, not the post itself, obvs) is clearly balls and I hope the costs order reflects that.

Going back to the weather, I bet the AELTCC wish they'd pulled their collective fingers out re sorting out that roof on the show courts at Wimbledon. This must be shaping up as one of the worst Wimbledons, weatherwise, of recent history, and I suspect I am not the only one whose interest has waned as a result.

Prompted by Oursin I have just been poking around the Downing Street Petitions site. I finally broke at this one. Although I could have been convinced to sign up for this one.

The British Library one, which sparked Oursin's original visit, I happily signed, incidentally.

Someone has created an anonymous journal to preserve for posterity yesterday's bizarre account of "My Tornado Hell" in the London Evening Standard. It takes rare genius to cause me to lose sympathy for someone who has, after all, seen their home destroyed, but she almost manages it... Every sentence a gem, though the narrow frontrunner is probably:

"He said we could stay in a hotel. Adrian explained that there is only one hotel in London: Claridge's. Simon did not demur. And he loved what's left of our specialist-polished plaster walls".

Gunter Grass has admitted that he served in the Waffen SS

As Moorish Girl says, WTF?

Mark Stephens on The Times Law Blog on the Orgasmic Asbo granted this week in Newcastle.

I started several paragraphs but have to admit to being somewhat lost for words. I mean, what are the terms of the ASBO? "You shall not have a noisy orgasm"? Breach of an ASBO is, of course, a criminal offence.

In the mean time, Chris Bertram on Crooked Timber, and Gary Slapper and Mark Stephens (again, and rather more succinctly than Slapper) put the boot in on Blair's plans to "rebalance the criminal justice system", reminding him of this little thing called the presumption of innocence, and the difference between a suspect and a convicted criminal.

A very sketchy check of google, technorati, and BBC News would seem to indicate that bird flu has somehow slipped into being old news. Have we given up worrying about it, or just resigned ourselves to being Doomed?

"When five-year-old Jehan Martin was murdered in 1457, the culprits were quickly apprehended, imprisoned and brought to trial. The case followed the normal procedure for such a serious crime, except in one important respect: the accused were pigs. Following the customs of the Burgundian court that dealt with the matter, the pigs' owner was invited to make representations "concerning the punishment and execution of justice" against the animals. He waived this right and the prosecutor demanded the death penalty. The judgment that followed was unusually tricky, since one of the animals appeared to be more culpable than the others. The child was killed by a sow in the presence of her six piglets. These were stained with blood at the scene of the crime but there was "no positive proof that they had assisted in mangling the deceased". After consulting with local experts[*] the judge ruled that the sow should be executed. A hangman was brought from a neighbouring town to hang the beast by its hind legs from an oak tree. The verdict on the piglets was less severe. They could return to their owner if he was prepared to vouch for their future behaviour and present them in court "should further evidence be forthcoming to prove their complicity in their mother's crime". The owner refused these terms and the pigs were forfeited to a local noblewoman. It appears that their subsequent conduct was blameless and no further punishments were needed."

Darren Oldridge, Strange Histories: the trial of the pig, the walking dead, and other matters of fact from the medieval and Renaissance worlds chap. 3 citing E.P Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals (1906 repr 1987) and E. Cohen, "Law, Folklore, and Animal Lore", Past and Present 110 (1986)

[*] This was a recognised area of expertise?

You WHAT? -Journal entry leads to FBI/CIA investigation. At least, so the author says: I know nothing about her but it seems an unlikely story to make up and from the rest of her journal she seems sane... (Link from Quixotic Kitten)

Some other links, that in my painkiller fuelled world seem to connect in some way to paint a picture of a seriously fucked-up world:

Bush website blocked outside North America (and see also Crooked Timber)

The fallout from what I continue to think was a rather twattish idea of the Grauniad's.

And on a rather different note, Queen of the Sky suspended by Delta for "inappropriate" photographs on her blog (no one seems entirely sure what was so inappropriate about them).

ETA that it is now time for episode 2 of The Power of Nightmares

Edited to further add, because they seem to belong here, two other bits from Crooked Timber:

The ridiculous row about Charlie Brooker's throwaway comment in the Guardian listings mag;

and On bombing Fallujah because they "won't hand over Zarquawi".

"I am, as a result haunted by a nightmare in which I am flying in a helicopter gunship above the town of Fallujah, looking down on the wrecked buildings and bodies below. I find myself having a conversation, through a megaphone, with one of the residents:

Me: Just hand over Zarqawi and we’ll let you live!
Resident: OK! OK! We’re having a bit of trouble finding him!
Me: A likely story! Bomb them again, Lurch!
Resident: Could you just give us a hand? Like maybe tell us where in Fallujah he’s staying?
Me: I don’t know. But we have excellent intelligence that tells us that you’re harbouring him! Bomb that coffee shop, Lurch, it looks like an ammo dump!
Resident: Well, what does he look like?
Me: Everyone knows what Zarqawi looks like! You’re just playing for time! Bomb him again!
Resident: Well, how many legs does he have? Give us something to work with here!

And at that point I wake up, screaming."

Once again, Christ on a bike... (link via Rainstorm).

LAX or Checkpoint Charlie circa 1970: you decide.

On a more amusing note (via Neil Gaiman) thousands of Christians (for certain values of Christian) plan to move to South Carolina and then secede from the union. As Gaiman notes, it is unclear what the current population of South Carolina think about this.

On a final note, days spent arguing against litigants in person are somewhat tiring. And I have a full day's trial on something rather more substantial tomorrow...

Edited to add a small theological point on the Christian Exodus people.... they say their definition of Christianity is as wide as possible, but I notice they've included the doctrine of salvation by faith alone. Well, that excludes the Catholic and, to the best of my knowledge, Orthodox churches...