———- Forwarded message ———-
From: 10 Downing Street <number10@petitions.pm.gov.uk>
Date: 2009/9/11
Subject: Government response to petition ‘turing’
To: e-petition signatories <number10@petitions.pm.gov.uk>Thank you for signing this petition. The Prime Minister has written a
response. Please read below.Prime Minister: 2009 has been a year of deep reflection – a chance for
Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who
came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred
in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British
experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to
honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches
of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which
have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take
up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am
both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists,
historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and
celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of
dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on
breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that,
without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could
well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can
point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt
of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that
he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross
indecency’ – in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence – and he
was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison – was chemical
castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own
life just two years later.Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing
and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt
with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his
treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance
to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and
the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted
under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more
lived in fear of conviction.I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this
government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT
community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most
famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long
overdue.But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to
humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united,
democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once
the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in
living memory, people could become so consumed by hate – by
anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices
– that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European
landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls
which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is
thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism,
people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war
are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely
thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved
so much better.Gordon Brown
If you would like to help preserve Alan Turing’s memory for future
generations, please donate here: http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/Petition information – http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/turing/
If you would like to opt out of receiving further mail on this or any other
petitions you signed, please email optout@petitions.pm.gov.uk
Category: Society Page 18 of 69
John Marcotte is on a mission to protect traditional marriage. And I am 100% in support of his efforts. What is he trying to do? He’s asking the people of California to step up and help him put the “2010 California Protection of Marriage Act” on the ballot. The act reads:
SECTION 1. Title. This act shall be known as the “2010 California Protection of Marriage Act.â€
SECTION 2. Section 7.6 is added to Article I of the California Constitution, to read:
No party to any marriage shall be restored to the state of an unmarried person during the lifetime of the other party unless the marriage is void or voidable, as set forth in Part 2 of Division 6 of the Family Code.
That’s right, no divorces. At all. One you’re married, that’s it.* Some might object, saying that that this is giving the state far too much power of the lives of two consenting adults.  But as Marcotte explained, in a recent interview:
[s]ometimes other people need to sacrifice in order to protect my ideas about traditional marriage. It’s just a fact of life. It’s not about their soul-sucking sham of a marriage, it’s about what we value as a society. We live in a divorce-promiscuous society. It’s on the television, it’s in movies, the newspapers. It’s even in our kids textbooks. I’m Catholic. In my religion, divorce is a sin — completely impermissable.
And how does he think he’s going to do this?
We’re going to set up a table in front of Wal*Mart and ask people to sign a petition to protect traditional marriage. We’re going to interview them about why they thing traditional marriage is important, and then we’ll tell them that we are trying to ban divorce.
People who supported Prop 8 weren’t trying to take rights away from gays, they just wanted to protect traditional marriage. That’s why I’m confident that they will support this initiative, even though this time it will be their rights that are diminished. To not support it would be hypocritical.
We’re also going to collect signatures in front of “Faces,” the largest gay nightclub in Sacramento.
Get on it, California.
*Okay, some marriages might be not be forever. Marcotte does acknowledge that “[t]he only exception would be if the marriage was “voidable” — if you married an 8-year-old, you don’t get to keep her. She goes back on the shelf. You can’t marry the mentally incapacitated, etc.”
Brazilian authorities say drug dealers and other hoodlums were dying to get on Wallace Souza’s TV program. Literally.
Souza, a state legislator and former host of a police TV show called “Canal Livre,” also was a drug trafficker, officials say. And to get rid of the competition — and drive up ratings — he would order that criminal rivals be killed and then would have his camera crews arrive first on the scene, authorities say.“In truth, they went as far as creating acts,” said Thomas Augusto Vasconcelos, intelligence secretary for Amazonas state. “It’s been determined that the crimes were committed in order to generate news for the program.”
This is the natural end of all that reality television so many people lap up. Don’t feed the beast.
(I also take this as an opportunity to recommend Ian MacDonald’s Brasyl.)
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
From Richard Metzger:
Titled Harry Patch (In Memory Of), [the new Radiohead] song is a tribute to the oldest surviving Tommy who fought in World War I. Harry Patch was 111 years old when he died on July 25th, 2009. He fought in one of the grimmest battles of the war, the Battle of Passchendaele, where over 325,000 Allied casualties occurred and over, 260,000 Germans. The 99 day battle from July 31st 1917 to November 6th 1917, saw an average of 3,000 British troops killed, wounded, or captured daily. (By contrast, in Iraq, 3,650 US troops have died and approximately 26,000 have been wounded).
“Irrespective of the uniforms we wore, we were all victims”.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vztj_TnUQyY[/youtube]
You can buy the track here. All proceeds go to the Royal British Legion. Please consider.
(Found via Xeni Jardin)
Honestly, I just don’t know what to say about the Associated Press and its lawyers, these days:
The Associated Press — which thinks you owe it a license fee if you quote more than four words from one of its articles — doesn’t even care if the words actually came from its article. They’ll charge you anyway, even if you’re quoting from the public domain.
I picked a random AP article and went to their “reuse options” site. Then, when they asked what I wanted to quote, I punched in Thomas Jefferson’s famous argument against copyright. Their license fee: $12 for an educational 26-word quote. FROM THE PUBLIC FREAKING DOMAIN, and obviously, obviously not from the AP article. But the AP is too busy trying to squeeze the last few cents out of a dying business model to care about little things like free speech or the law.
I used to try and defend the South against stereotype-fueled charges of racism and ignorance, but I’ve long since stopped, in part because of things like this:
It turns out, less than surprisingly, that the cradle of the birther faith is in the South. Just shy of a majority of Southerners — not just Republicans, but everyone — believe Barack Obama was born in the United States. 47% of Southerners say Obama was born in the US; 30% aren’t sure; and 23% say Obama was not born in the USA.
And for those that don’t trust a DKos/Research 2000 poll, well:
Public Policy Polling was skeptical of the results found by DailyKos/Research 2000 that fewer than half of Republicans believed President Obama was a natural born American citizen.
However, in a Virginia poll currently in the field, PPP finds that just 79 of the first 168 respondents — both Democrats and Republicans — think Obama is a citizen, while 56 say he is not and 33 are not sure.
Update: Okay, that’s it. Get out of the )(*@#@%@# Union.
One of the human qualities I find myself least able to deal with is a lack of self-awareness. And that’s the only thing I can imagine explains this:
A year after SLJ reported on the contentious dispute over a proposal to add a children’s room to the East Hampton Library in New York, the kids of the posh summer community are no closer to seeing it become a reality.
Library Director Dennis Fabiszak has said that the East Hampton Village Board of Zoning Appeals has expressed concern that an expanded children’s collection would lead to more library usage by those who live in the less affluent areas of Springs and Wainscott.
Poor kids reading books? Oh noes!
Whatever would we do without them?
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg[/youtube]
(There’s a fair chance that this was something of a PR stunt by the publisher. But given the ineptness of DHS, and opportunity to publish the awesomeness above? I’m comfortable with this post.)