Interesting Links for 21-11-2013

[andrewducker]

• Mathematicians Team Up on Twin Primes Conjecture
  (tags: mathematics )
• Church of England approves female bishops plan
  (tags: religion women uk )
• Defamation law reforms to take effect from the start of 2014
  (tags: law uk libel )
• Doctor Who Fiftieth Anniversary - here's what should happen
  (tags: drwho )
• Firefox OS now 12% of phones in Venezuela, 9%

Comments

[bart_calendar]

If that defamation law existed in America:

1. Fox News would be sued out of existence.

2. Wal Mart would no longer have to sell products. They could just survive by suing people who left comments about them on various blogs.

[andrewducker]

The law provides a defence of "It's true!"

Of course, if people are _lying_ about Walmart, then they deserve everything they get.

And yes, it will be really interesting to see what happens with newspapers in this country.

[bart_calendar]

Well people post "Obama is a monkey" and "Obama is Hitler" all the time on Fox News. Those people could be fucked.

As for Wal-Mart, how far does the "it's true" defense go.

If I post "Wal-Mart is run by money hungry monsters" can they sue me on the basis that monsters don't exist?

[naath]

AIUI there are also defenses of it being an opinion rather than a claim of fact, and it being "parody"; people don't usually seem to get hit by libel suits for voicing their poor opinions of people or companies. Although of course defending a libel action is extremely expensive.

[ext_2212763]

Fox News successfully went to court to justify lying. They stated that they were an entertainment channel and the second amendment allowed them to say what they want.

I wish I was joking.

[andrewducker]

Terrifying, isn't it.

I wonder how that one will pan out over here...

[simont]

I'd like to think that if they used that defence over here the response would either be "Entertainment channels are still not allowed to commit libel", or failing that (if it's not a libellous lie for some reason) "OK, you're an entertainment channel, in that case calling yourself 'News' is a breach of the Trade Descriptions Act so kindly rename yourself forthwith to 'Fox Nonsense' or equivalent."

[cartesiandaemon]

The example I was thinking of was something like http://foxnewsboycott.com/resources/fox-can-lie-lawsuit/, where they made false positive statements about someone or something. But they probably report false negative ones often too, especially about non-republican politicians.

I'd love to see that challenged under the trade descriptions act, though I don't know if it would be.

[autopope]

The antibiotics piece is provocative but over-eggs the pudding. Take antibiotic use in animal feed, for example: "Most of the meat we eat in the industrialized world is raised with the routine use of antibiotics, to fatten livestock and protect them from the conditions in which the animals are raised." Speak for yourself, American: that practice is illegal in the EU -- and has been so for many years -- but we still get to eat animals. Again, it's not going to mark the end of transplants and cancer treatments. All it's going to do is raise the mortality rate during and after surgery -- and even then, we have antisepsis best practices going back to the 1870s that can reduce the risk considerably.

Finally, there are other approaches to killing bacteria. Phages, for example. Or waiting for antibiotic resistance to go away: Chloroquine (an anti-malarial that became ineffective and therefore fell out of use in the mid-1980s) appears to be regaining its efficacy after 30 years of non-use.

[steer]

Yes and no. While technically banned in foodstuff actually that didn't stop EU farmers using them. So the antibiotics are routinely used in EU farming practices but for "medical reasons" not as "growth promoters" -- but this became purely a designation change for some farmers. So it depends which countries you look at. Some places the ban decreased use, some places it had no effect, some places enacted local laws to increase the strength of the ban. The EU is wrangling over enacting new laws.

Overall though I agree with the rest of what you say. But the EU does still have a problem in some member states with widespread routine use of antibiotics in farming.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/03/23/149221287/europes-mixed-record-on-animal-antibioticshttp://www.globalmeatnews.com/

[drdoug]

Good to see the Church of England displaying moral leadership on tricky issues like "should women be barred from senior leadership positions or not".

[steer]

Church of England leadership confuses me. How do you get promoted from archbishop to queen?

[a_pawson]

I think you have to make it all the way to the far side of the board.

[steer]

*laugh* I was very slow to get that -- went from "huh?" to laughter. Applause.