Working out what to think about Julian Assange is a very, very difficult thing. Even for those of us in the Skeptics community, who are used to saying “it’s not quite a simple as that”, are left struggling to work out what is going on.
Ultimately, I think it comes down to this – Wikileaks has been an important development in creating a free, more open society. However, such services to the public do not qualify you from an exemption from rape, and if he did it, he should be brought to justice.
Of course we don’t know if he is guilty or not.
Last month, Australia’s ABC Network aired an episode entitled “Sex, Lies & Julian Assange“. It came out very favourably on the side of Assange. Biased? Possibly. But I’m not sure what the motive would be. It has a 50 year history and won many awards for their investigative journalism. In any case, the episode is available in full from their website, so you can make up your own mind.
EDIT: The video has now been removed from YouTube, but you can still watch it on ABC’s website.
Last month, I wrote to KFC to let them know that some of their customers do in fact want genetically modified products in their food. They wrote back.
Dear Mr Worfolk,
We would like to thank you for your interest in KFC.
Whilst we are certainly interested in new ideas, suggestions and information that will enhance our products we are unfortunately unable to accept unsolicited ideas and suggestions from the general public. This is partly due to the fact that a majority of ideas submitted by the public have already been considered by KFC and partly because they are not useful given the limitations of our particular field of business. Also, experience has shown the practice of considering ideas can give rise to misunderstandings as to the origin and ownership of particular ideas and lability in relation to them.
We nevertheless appreciate your interest, thank you for taking the time to correspond with us here at KFC and we look forward to your continued custom.
Yours sincerely,
Customer Careline
Basically, it says thanks for your opinion, but we’re not going to read it lol.
Back in 2010, we created the annual Worfolk Lecture for public understanding of science. If you have missed any, or all of them, you can find them on the Worfolk Lectures website. This year’s talk, delivered by Leeds Skeptics, saw Paul Hopwood present “You Know Less Than You Think“.
Recently, we said a fair well to Rich, who is moving down to London to further his career in medicine. Rich has been a dear friend to many of us since we first met five and a half years ago, and I wish him all the best.
I’m a big fan of the Gates Foundation, they do a lot of fantastic research and are working to wipe out a lot of diseases that are prevalent in the third world, such as malaria. Plus, it was co-founded by Bill Gates, who I am a big admirer of.
However, one thing that has always bugged me is their pushing of woo in one particular area – using circumcision to prevent the transmission of HIV. They even have a page about it on their website.
It doesn’t work though. Or, at least, we should say that there is insufficient evidence to suggest that it does work. This was the finding of a meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Pooled analyses of available observational studies of MSM revealed insufficient evidence that male circumcision protects against HIV infection or other STIs.
Ok, fine, you could argue, but there are some studies that suggest otherwise. IE, if you cherry pick your studies and ignore the meta-analysis, you can get the result you want. But interestingly, there was a study in 2009 by Maria J Wawer, and here is what they concluded.
Circumcision of HIV-infected men did not reduce HIV transmission to female partners over 24 months; longer-term effects could not be assessed. Condom use after male circumcision is essential for HIV prevention.
Why is this study so key to the debate? Because of its funder – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Their own study concluded that circumcision does not stop HIV. So why are they still pushing it?
I’m currently reading “The Sex Myth: Why Everything We’re Told is Wrong” by Brooke Magnanti, also known as Belle de Jour. So far it’s a fascinating reading, including a section on how the idea that strip clubs in Camden have increased the rape rate is complete nonsense.
In general, rape is an area of law that suffers a lot of misconceptions.
For example, the conviction rate for rape is 58%. As Amanda Bancroft points out in The Guardian, the conviction rate across all crimes is only 57%. That means not only is the idea that rape convictions are low a myth, but that rape convictions are actually slightly higher than you would expect. That’s good news.
But the perpetuation of the stereotype that rape conviction rates are low is a real problem. As Bancroft also points out, 68% of women are concerned by the low conviction rates (that don’t really exist), potentially putting off victims from coming forward. This disinformation is something we really need to crack down on, to ensure victims aren’t afraid to report incidents.
A couple of weeks ago I was speaking to a friend who works for G4S, the company that totally messed-up the Olympics security.
He was telling us how we can somehow become some kind of comic villain – he only works on reception and yet he was telling us how kids have been booing him every time he goes out to get some lunch.
More importantly however, it turns out that G4S have a corporate song! Not just any song, but a rock power ballad with someone singing “G4S, protecting your world…” It’s brilliant! Check it out below.
TAM seemed to take quite a bad wrap for the harassment that has been reported (albeit never officially according to JREF president D.J. Grothe).
I’ve just read Amy Roth’s comments on the incidents that upset her at TAM. She notes that they had a team of 19 people tackling harassment and once she had raised her concerns, a member of the team regularly checked up on her to make sure she was OK.
While unfortunately, I didn’t make Amy feel any better, it certainly seems that TAM have been responsive to harassment concerns and implemented some positive steps to trying to prevent such issues.
