legislating life sciences

It is always intriguing to compare and contrast how legislation and public debates on bioethics subjects like stem cells, cloning, etc. differ between countries, even between those that share similar outlooks on other policy issues. On the occasion of the ongoing revision of the groundbreaking Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act (1990) in the UK, I've had a look at the state of play in the UK, US, Germany, and Brazil:

Embryonic developments
Current Biology, Volume 19, Issue 11, R427-R428, 9 June 2009
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.036

abstract and restricted access to pdf file

PS I was about to use the phrase "debates on ethically sensitive issues" but then realised there are lots of things happening which I find unethical but which don't stir much debate in the Western world. Strange that.

authors guild v. google

The newsletter of the UK Authors Licensing and Collecting Society has arrived, with all the details of the "Google Settlement" agreed between the US Authors Guild and Google regarding all those zillions of books that Google have had scanned to make them available and searchable online. Looks like we authors stand to earn some money for our out of print books, which is a nice surprise. So far I can see nothing wrong with the deal, and would certainly be grateful for my old books to be made more widely accessible, but would be interested in other authors' opinions. All details should be online at the settlement website.

I know from the German press that VG Wort, the German equivalent of the ALCS, is planning to collectively withdraw German books from the settlement. While every author can individually opt out of the settlement, I'm not sure yet whether I can opt out of that withdrawal for my German books.

top spy speaks out

Former MI5 boss Stella Rimington is rocking the boat again:

Government accused of exploiting terrorism fear

love it. She did a similar interview in the Guardian last October, but it's worth reiterating, especially as the "war on terror" doctrine is still surviving in some parts of the media (as you can tell from the fact that her interviews make such a splash).

advance to mayfair

I really liked the story of the squatters who took over a 30-bedroom place in Mayfair, one of London's poshest parts (and the most expensive street on the London-based Monopoly board): £6m house, 30 rooms, one careful anarchist collective: inside Britain's poshest squat.

Hope that the publicity doesn't alert the owners -- but then again, anybody rich enough to forget they have a property like this standing around unattended will not read the Guardian. It is a remarkable thing about the British legal system that it is very friendly to squatters. The owners will have to get a court order to get them evicted, and if they don't do so within 12 years, the squatters will officially own the place. And yes, that has actually happened in the past. So good luck to them.

six weeks without charge

we're all shocked that the UK government actually got through with the "42 days detention without charge" thing. The police said they don't need it, the members of parliament don't want it and had to be arm-twisted, bribed, etc. to vote for it, and nobody understands the point of giving up the most fundamental freedom we have, the freedom of not being locked up without charge, for no good reason.

Shadow home secretary David Davis resigned from his seat, with this speech. Which really says it all -- if we need the tories to defend the most elementary human rights, we're in deep trouble.

There is also a comment by Timothy Garton Ash.

PS I was so busy jumping up and down pulling my hair out that I forgot to mention the comment by Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty.

Also, the time limits for detention without charge appear to be increasing exponentially with time:

2000 -- 7 days
2003 -- 14 days
2006 -- 28 days

So it's easy to work out that by 2036 we can be locked up for a lifetime (80 years) without being charged with anything. As the prisons are overcrowded already, one might have to build camps for that ...

life and death

I read a feature this weekend about people who received sentences of life without parole for crimes committed when they were 13-17. Deeply depressing:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2140431,00.html

Never mind that a few of the cases reported look like clear miscarriage of justice to me, the whole idea of spending 70 years in jail for something you did (or in a few cases, didn't stop others from doing!) when you were 13, looks perverted to me.

Although some people are apparently allowed to kill at random. Jean-Charles de Menezes did nothing wrong except looking a bit foreign. The inquiry into his death has now finished with essentially no consequences:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2140692,00.html