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Not so sorry as all that, Alan Turing
February 8, 2012 3:09 PM Subscribe
Alan Turing, British code-breaker during WWII, imminent computer scientist, and much else has been denied a posthumous pardon from the British government for his 1952 conviction on charges of "Gross Indecency" because of his homosexuality.
The pardon had been called for by MP John Leech, and a online petition was started in December 2011. A public apology to Turing for his treatment post-conviction (chemical castration through estrogen injections) was rendered in 2009 by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. (previously: 1, 2)
posted by clavier (92 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
Disgraceful what happened to him, but once you start with pardons, where do you stop?
posted by GallonOfAlan at 3:10 PM on February 8, 2012
GallonOfAlan: "Disgraceful what happened to him, but once you start with pardons, where do you stop?"
Yeah, then you'd have to pardon everyone who was wronged by a heinous law. We certainly can't go around admitting we were wrong now and making amends now, can we?
posted by mullingitover at 3:14 PM on February 8, 2012 [85 favorites]
I don't know, but I guess somewhere after you've pardoned all the people who were convicted of crimes because they don't have the most popular sexual orientation.
posted by IAmUnaware at 3:14 PM on February 8, 2012 [41 favorites]
I'm pretty sure Oscar Wilde returned to life as Stephen Fry in order to avenge his own persecution under unjust laws.
posted by KokuRyu at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2012 [31 favorites]
Seems like that's a problem you worry about once you run out of people who need to be pardoned.
posted by The World Famous at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2012 [21 favorites]
He's going to be a computer scientist any minute now.
posted by crunchland at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2012 [8 favorites]
Well, at least they didn't try and drug him out of it.
Oh, wait.
posted by Sphinx at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
I pardon Alan Turing. He is now free to go.
posted by michaelh at 3:18 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
HMG grants pardons for process issues but not moral issues. It has already said the law was wrong during the earlier Brown apology, and reiterated that here. The direct statement that the law, conviction and resultant castration were morally wrong seems better to me then to rewrite history, but I appreciate that people of good faith may disagree on this matter.
posted by jaduncan at 3:19 PM on February 8, 2012 [10 favorites]
His conviction was a travesty, and I guess I'd be inclined toward a pardon because of the debt the country (and not just the country) owes him.
Aside: the horrific chemical castration bit, so to speak, was an option selected in order to avoid prison. I am not saying he should have been threatened with prison time in the first place (see above), or that it should have been on the table as an alternative, but I feel vaguely differently about this versus a court-ordered sanction. The original post was accurate about this, but just in case others don't pursue the links . . .
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 3:19 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
where do you stop?
You could, perhaps, draw a line at national heroes without too much slippery sloping going on.
posted by pompomtom at 3:20 PM on February 8, 2012 [9 favorites]
I noticed that mistake as soon as I posted and am now quietly having spasms in the corner. argharghargharghargh
posted by clavier at 3:22 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
TBH I'm not entirely certain why this was needed on top of the public apology, and the double-dip did bring with it the possibility of failure, so my outrage level is set at "meh" on this one.
posted by Artw at 3:24 PM on February 8, 2012
If you didn't study Computer Science, it's hard to grasp just how brilliant Turing was. He more or less single-handedly founded the mathematical study of morphogenesis and engaged Wittgenstein on philosophy of language/math.
Imagine if the state had tortured and killed Einstein for his personality. Turing will be widely known long after these government ministers are forgotten.
posted by phrontist at 3:24 PM on February 8, 2012 [33 favorites]
pompomtom: "where do you stop?
You could, perhaps, draw a line at national heroes without too much slippery sloping going on."
Or, to be safe, you could move that line further up to national heroes that were castrated by the state, if you want to be extra careful not to slip.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:24 PM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]
Or they leave it be and just spend the rest of recorded history having to answer for it. Pardoing a dead man is pretty irrelevant; he's not going to appreciate it; I am sure it would make a bunch of living people feel better but then it's not about Alan then is it?
posted by Dark Messiah at 3:25 PM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]
"It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence which now seems both cruel and absurd, particularly... given his outstanding contribution to the war effort," [Justice Minister Lord McNally] said.
"However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times."
posted by wreckingball at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2012 [11 favorites]
It's always possible there's something more hidden behind veils of secrecy, but given what we know now, it's quite possible that Alan Turing did more to win World War 2 than any other single person. His word on codebreaking had a wildly disproportionate impact. It's one thing to have a huge armed force, it's an entirely separate thing to have it in the right place at the right time, and Alan Turing's work made sure that, over and over, we did.
Then he went on to lay most of the conceptual groundwork for digital computing, including defining the minimum possible machine that can compute any computable problem -- the Turing machine.
He was one of the most intelligent men that ever lived, and utterly devoted to the welfare of his country. Yet, he was castrated for being gay by the very government he'd done so much to protect. And somehow, in a country where you can now marry a same-sex partner, that horrific decision isn't worth overturning.
I think rather less of Britain tonight.
posted by Malor at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2012 [21 favorites]
The apology was the correct move, a pardon is not. The pardon would basically state that he wasn't gay, the removal of such laws and the apology state that the law was unjust and the conviction shameful.
posted by karmiolz at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2012 [14 favorites]
Yeah, then you'd have to pardon everyone who was wronged by a heinous law.
The truth is so elegant sometimes.
posted by New England Cultist at 3:28 PM on February 8, 2012 [9 favorites]
The 2008 official apology was necessary and long overdue. What the British government did to him was evil. Apparently there were plans in the works to arrest him as early as 1944, but "not before he had done his finest work." They wanted to milk him for all they could get before snubing, shaming and castrating him.
However, there's no question that Alan Turing broke the law, to the eternal shame of British law.
"...long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times."
Let Pilate wash his hands all he likes -- Turing no more needs a pardon than Jesus Christ.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:28 PM on February 8, 2012 [10 favorites]
Back when the apology was issued (I think), the Guardian Daily podcast interviewed a man who had a conviction for homosexuality that had been following him around since the 1960s. He'd get to the background check stage of job applications and suddenly the offer would evaporate. Repeatedly. You're not erasing Turing's homosexuality by pardoning him, you're opening the door to acknowledging that the law is still fucking people over more than 40 years after its repeal.
It's not disastrous to acknowledge that your law was so fucked up that you need to erase the convictions. (I can think of precedent for this, actually, but it'd be perilously close to Godwin-ing the thread.)
Full disclosure: I signed the petition this morning.
posted by hoyland at 3:33 PM on February 8, 2012 [18 favorites]
Sounds like something worth campaigning about, especially with the not-being-dead bit.
A posthumous pardon won't bring him back for the dead.
I'd rather my elected officials worked hard to address issues affecting the living than spend time flattering themselves by issuing oh-so-enlightened declarations regarding the deceased.
posted by ocschwar at 3:39 PM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]
Holy shit. I was actually thinking I might be sympathetic to the non-pardon side, since I think pardons for the dead are generally used to assuage modern guilt more than actually delivering justice, but this bullshit still affecting the living is fucking appalling.
posted by kmz at 3:41 PM on February 8, 2012 [2 favorites]
You can't unburn witches.
posted by timsteil at 3:42 PM on February 8, 2012 [4 favorites]
Granting the pardon would not have been any more work than denying it. They already did the work.
Have you actually conducted double-blind, peer-reviewed research to reach that conclusion? I think your assertion is faith-based. I think we need to pardon Turing if only to test your hypothesis. Then we need to pardon lots of others, since just trying it once isn't scientific. You do support SCIENCE!, don't you?
posted by The World Famous at 3:45 PM on February 8, 2012 [6 favorites]
Back when the apology was issued (I think), the Guardian Daily podcast interviewed a man who had a conviction for homosexuality that had been following him around since the 1960s. He'd get to the background check stage of job applications and suddenly the offer would evaporate. Repeatedly. ... the law is still fucking people over more than 40 years after its repeal.
I withdraw what I said. An immediate pardoning spree is necessary to protect people who are still being harmed by this law.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:47 PM on February 8, 2012 [4 favorites]
Something the original petition wouldn't have achieved.
A pardon would not "state that he wasn't gay". It would state that he was not guilty of gross indecency, a "crime" which was never actually defined by law save that it involves two men.
As far as I'm concerned, when someone claims that "the law at the time required a prosecution" their claim can and should be questioned. Selective enforcement has been a tool of the oppressor for millennia (see the Pilate reference above), and there's every suggestion that Turing fell victim to it. He seems to have been targeted as much or more for the sensitivity of his position as for his "illegal" actions, even though no breach of his privilege was ever proved or even plausibly suggested... and that means that the trial itself was an unjust farce, in addition to the law.
posted by vorfeed at 3:49 PM on February 8, 2012 [17 favorites]
The part of this that bugs me is the statement "the law at the time required a prosecution". It's a curious attribution of agency. Not "we prosecuted him under the law" but "the law required".. Maybe it's different in England, but in the US there's an understanding that it's not the state's job to prosecute every person for every single infraction of the law. That judgement is applied. By saying "the law made us do this terrible thing" it avoids responsibility for choosing to do that terrible thing.
posted by Nelson at 3:50 PM on February 8, 2012 [13 favorites]
HMG just failed their Turing Test.
posted by benito.strauss at 3:56 PM on February 8, 2012 [6 favorites]
For what it's worth, old convictions for consensual gay sex will soon be able to be erased if current measures before Parliament are passed (and there is no indication that they will not). This doesn't mean the conviction doesn't stand: but it does mean they will no longer show up on criminal record checks. So that legacy, at least, of the UK's old laws on gross indecency should become a thing of the past.
posted by greycap at 4:06 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
The text of the 'gross indecency' provision in question (Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885):
Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures, or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted shall be liable at the discretion of the Court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour.
There is an obvious argument that anything that Turing did (i.e. consenting sex with another adult) was not 'indecent', and therefore that he did not breach that provision. This is essentially the argument that that homosexual sex is not indecent. Accordingly, there is no good reason why they should no pardon him.
The refusal to grant the pardon is basically saying that homsexual sex is indecent, because that is the only way that Turing could be guilty, and the only way that the law could 'require' a prosecution (a stupid and inaccurate phrase).
tl;dr: this is pretty pathetic and, in fact, homophobic, IMO.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 4:06 PM on February 8, 2012 [4 favorites]
It's hard for me to separate my feelings about Turing from the broader issue. Apologising to or pardoning someone who's dead is an empty gesture at best. (I don't think Turing has surviving relatives who knew him, but I'm not positive.) Pushing the government to pardon Turing may be the most efficient method to get them to pardon everyone, so it may be worthwhile from that perspective.
But maybe my feelings about Turing are relevant here. Reading Andrew Hodges's biography of Turing in high school had a huge influence on me. It was one of the things that convinced me that people actually were mathematicians and that maybe one of those people could be me. At the time, I didn't understand I was queer. I don't think I really thought about it as more than an outside possibility. But the memory of reading the end of that biography (which is largely about gay rights--Turing dies in the penultimate chapter) stands out so clearly in my mind that it probably should have been a great big hint to me.
It matters that we can teach kids that a) people do mathematics beyond school, b) that they do things that are important and c) some of those people doing important, useful mathematics are gay.* But, really, we should be able to point to Turing to do that without saying 'And then we drove him to kill himself.' Of course, we can't. What's done is done. But it'd be better if we could throw on a point d) and say 'And we're really, really very sorry and erased the convictions.' (Preferably not only Turing's.)
*My deep pacifist streak makes me reluctant to have the example of mathematics being 'important' and 'useful' be military, but you can't quibble with fighting Nazis.
posted by hoyland at 4:06 PM on February 8, 2012 [4 favorites]
the law at the time required a prosecution
That's just horseshit. What percentage of gay Britons were ever prosecuted? 0.001% And Turing was doing his work, minding his own business. He wasn't exactly Oscar Wilde, launching a public prosecution against someone who accused him of sodomy.
posted by msalt at 4:08 PM on February 8, 2012
Well, the passive voice is often used to try and pass the buck. Why take ownership for something you or your government did when you can pass it off to the bureaucracy? Be it this or Penn State or anything else, the weak apologies happen as "mistakes were made" rather than "we made a mistake and we're sorry."
posted by birdherder at 4:08 PM on February 8, 2012
"A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence," Justice Minister Lord McNally said.
Basically, if it's on the books, it's "proper" to enforce it - government officials have no moral obligations or need to use discretion in conducting criminal prosecutions. As long as they stick to the letter of the law everything that follows is automatically "proper". To admit wrongdoing might offend those dead government employees that participated in Turing's oppression. It's much easier to just robotically adhere to literal interpretations of laws than expect officials to exercise human agency.
Congratulations. Minister, on rendering your own office obsolete. Under your interpretation of your own obligations, you can now be replaced by a Turing machine.
posted by mek at 4:10 PM on February 8, 2012 [2 favorites]
GallonOfAlan: Disgraceful what happened to him, but once you start with pardons, where do you stop?
I hate to ask, but have you heard of Alan Turing before this post? Or at least of "Turing tests" for artificial intelligence? Or that his treatment was solely because he was a gay man, and opted to be chemically castrated instead of going to prison, and grew breasts because of the estrogen injection that made him impotent? That is not the start of any sort of slippery slope.
posted by filthy light thief at 4:11 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
Wait, so is that it in terms of a definition? Is there a more detailed definition somewhere, or a list of 'indecent acts'? I don't see how you can define it by using the same term.
posted by mannequito at 4:11 PM on February 8, 2012
I agree with many of the comments above that it seems like the Cameron government is trying to pass blame on to the "laws" when in fact it was very obviously the people in government who were carrying out these sham charges.
That said, the rule of law is about process, not justice; it is meant to apply to all people, equally. I'm not saying it will happen, but under the logic of pardoning Turing, someone today could argue that they cannot be convicted of hate speech against x, y, z minorities because their views will undoubtedly be vindicated sometime in the future.
Again, I'm not saying that anyone would actually buy this argument, but by pardoning Turing the government would effectively say that any legal decision is open to review and evaluation based on the morals of today; it would ruin whatever illusion of continuity and stability the government still has.
But hey, if you're interested in that kind of thing, I can understand why you'd be pissed off about this rebuff.
posted by anewnadir at 4:12 PM on February 8, 2012
Tough to unring this bell. I get what the pardon is supposed to do, but I'm not sure it should be unrung, just yet. People need to know what their governments are capable of.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:17 PM on February 8, 2012
I don't think Alan Turing was the only guy working on breaking codes at the time.
Maybe that's something people care more about in the UK then in the U.S? It seems odd to think people care about "the government"'s stability and legitimacy over centuries, certainly we recognize that witch burning was wrong when it was done, why not chemically castrating gay people?
posted by delmoi at 4:18 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
When were these witch pardons issued?
Hmm, 1988 it would seem.
posted by Artw at 4:21 PM on February 8, 2012 [3 favorites]
Wait, so is that it in terms of a definition?
Yes. Statute didn't define what gross indecency meant, in either the 1885 Act or in section 13 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956 which replaced the offence Turing was convicted of. As a result it was up to the courts, who took a very wide interpretation. For example in one Court of Appeal case involving two men masturbating in separate toilet cubicles next to each other, the court ruled that an act of gross indecency simply had to involve participation of two or more men in an 'indecent exhibition'. The offence was repealed in 1967 as part of the decriminalisation of homesexuality.
posted by greycap at 4:22 PM on February 8, 2012
Again, I'm not saying that anyone would actually buy this argument, but by pardoning Turing the government would effectively say that any legal decision is open to review and evaluation based on the morals of today;
Isn't that obviously the case? This is a democracy, right? Isn't that the entire point of the primacy of the legislature in determining policy, because as elected representatives in a democracy they are expected to review and evaluate policy based on "the morals of today"? Isn't that part of what supreme courts consider (constrained by jurisprudence, unlike legislators), and why a law such as one prosecuting homosexual behaviour can be both legitimately passed at one time and legitimately struck down at a later time?
Social change as a mechanism for legal upheaval is a feature, not a bug. It's defintely one we don't want to quash. The law is constantly changing and this is a good thing.
posted by mek at 4:23 PM on February 8, 2012
I don't understand how granting the pardon somehow prevents people from knowing what their government is capable of. In the U.S., the law requiring the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII is acknowledged to have been wrong, and is now held as anathema (by sane people). Yet we still know that our government was capable of that, and still is or can be. Pardon Turing, and we can still know that the government prosecuted him under bad law.
posted by rtha at 4:26 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
Though, as far as i can tell, more of a public pronouncement than a legal ruling. So equivalent to the Brown apology really. And TBH that it downplays the importance of that apology is one of the reasons why I've not been impressed with this effort, because the apology really should be a big deal.
(Also, as far as I know, the only likeable or right thing Brown did while in power.)
If you haven't seen the movie Wilde, you are missing out. It also showed me how crazy the laws were about all this. When i hear the most fervent cries against gay marriage and gay people, i get a bad feeling we could head that way now.
posted by usagizero at 4:34 PM on February 8, 2012
Alan Turing would by any measure be a finalist for "Greatest Briton of the Twentieth Century", and yet they tortured him, using some of the same methods as the Nazis he helped defeat, until he committed suicide. His very existence is a permanent rebuke to the decency of his government. He should have as many important things named after him as Winston Fucking Churchill. There is no amount of apology that can make up for the harm that was done him.
posted by Fnarf at 4:43 PM on February 8, 2012 [8 favorites]
I don't understand how granting the pardon somehow prevents people from knowing what their government is capable of.
Let me explain:
The fact that someone with a high-placed a social, functional role as Justice McNally would argue that Turing shouldn't be pardoned, because he was charged and tried appropriately within the guidelines of that time, suggests to me a couple things. Namely:
1. McNally does not yet feel enough shame to be part of a government that would treat Turing in that fashion, or otherwise empathize with Turing as the victim, to have administered the pardon he did
2. UK as a society does not yet feel enough shame about Turing's treatment, or empathize with him as a victim, that it has not yet already administered a pardon
Some healing started with Gordon Brown's apology, but the wound, perhaps, still seems too raw, to me.
The people in charge and involved with the decision didn't seem to express much embarrassment, so with a pardon coming at this time, perhaps in some way it would be easier for society to collectively, gradually forget or come to terms with what was done.
Maybe no pardon is better, for now. It underscores the offense caused. It seems complicated. Do you know what I'm driving at, though?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:49 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
If some government had something similar to me, and then later they offered to pardon me, I would tell them to go to hell. It is I who should be pardoning them.
posted by jfuller at 4:50 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
a country where you can now marry a same-sex partner, that horrific decision isn't worth overturning.
Would that it were so.
In this country of mine and Turing's, we cannot now marry a same sex partner, but I'm sure that your thinking less of 'Britain' [eh? what - you think less of a concept? Well, OK then...] remains the same.
Personally, why not pardon us all? If we were all wronged, do it: show us all how magnanimous government can be.
Open the floodgates!
posted by dash_slot- at 4:51 PM on February 8, 2012
I think pardons matter -- for the public record, for any family, and for those of us who are LGBT today. it may be a symbolic gesture, but it is an important symbol when a society formally moves on.
In my city, Saanich, BC, there was a news item recently about how there used to be racist covenants on many properties. A family bought a home and found it had a covenant saying the property could never be owned by anyone Asian. Even though this covenant is not (any longer) enforceable under Canadian law, they had the covenant formally removed, with the City's staff's help.
The family in question didn't happen to be Asian, but said they wanted it removed because (a) it is right to do so and (b) they couldn't stand the thought of someday selling it to someone Asian who found this language in their new home's title, how devastating to see someone had left it without correction.
The news story about it was fascinating and informative, and I bet it was an important lesson these parents gave to their kids as well.
Similar to what happened with these covenants, the UK could issue a blanket pardon for such cases. and then each case could be handled as it arises (through family request, historical research finding the documents, whatever) without much inconvenience.
posted by chapps at 4:57 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
Turing was a genius and one of the architects of our current world. This is disgraceful.
posted by jonmc at 5:13 PM on February 8, 2012
You are talking about the removal of a condition or overturning of a law chapps, not a pardon. That's the key issue here. A pardon is basically saying, yes you committed the crime, but are not, or posthumously should not have been, subject to the penalties. It almost re-affirms the initial statute. Considering what he was convicted of was repealed in 1967 a pardon makes no sense to me.
posted by karmiolz at 5:14 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
Arguing that Turing deserves a pardon based on his fame and accomplishment doesn't stack up terribly well on the logic and morals test, you know.
Either no one (convicted of gross indecency for an act of consensual homosexuality) gets a pardon, or everyone does.
Otherwise you're in effect stating that the law is and should be different for the famous.
posted by wilful at 5:17 PM on February 8, 2012 [4 favorites]
"Act of homosexuality"? WTF??
You know what I meant.
I disagree with pardoning Turing. A pardon is an acknowledgement that the person did commit a crime, and it was validly a crime, but because of who they are and what they have done or the circumstances under which they committed it, they will not be punished for it. This is different from expunging a criminal record, where a person is later found to be innocent of the crime in question, however the crime is still a crime and people could and should be prosecuted for it.
Neither really applies here. What's happening here is that the acts in question are no longer considered to be a crime, and in that case the government must consider whether to expunge the criminal records of people prosecuted under it, and that will vary from case to case. There may be circumstances under which a crime was validly committed at the time, but it is no longer possible to commit that particular crime, or circumstances in society have changed such that it is no longer warranted to call it a crime. For example, running a motorcar at a speed of over thirty miles an hour on a country road; horrendously dangerous in 1920, but by 1940, common practice, and someone's conviction from 1920 ought to stand even when the roads were paved.
On the other hand society may have moved on such that it is not just a matter of us no longer considering the act to be a crime, but that we believe it should never have been considered a crime, and this is the circumstances here.
Pardoning him alone, just Alan Turing, or expunging his record, does nothing to address the general wrongs of the government. Turing should not have been prosecuted, but neither should anyone else. Everyone prosecuted under this law should receive the same treatment, whatever that is decided to be.
In this case, I think expunging the records of all living persons prosecuted under that law would be entirely appropriate and needs to be done, and any living person who has suffered because of it ought to be compensated as well. If there are living people who have a genuine interest in having a dead person's criminal record expunged, that ought to be available too; "family honour" and "national treasure" status would both be good reasons for doing that.
However a line needs to be drawn. I don't think it's appropriate to expunge convictions for escaping slavery, for example, or for heresy, or being out of bounds after curfew at Eton. For people to run around looking for things that are no longer crimes, even if they should never have been crimes, to have them expunged from historical figures' records, strikes me as make-work for government departments, an abuse of the legal system, and silly besides. Some genuine gain to some living people should be required.
Even worse is the prospect of retrospective, especially posthumous, prosecution.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 5:39 PM on February 8, 2012 [7 favorites]
Back when the apology was issued (I think), the Guardian Daily podcast interviewed a man who had a conviction for homosexuality that had been following him around since the 1960s.
This. An apology that is not accompanied by the simple act -- or the complicated one, I don't care -- of scrubbing the records of people now living convicted of the same 'crime', is nothing but empty words. At the time I was impressed by the apology and that he troubled to make it. Not so much, now.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:42 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
On didn't-preview, aeschenkarnos said it better.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:43 PM on February 8, 2012
You know what's grossly indecent (decent in the sense of being a mensch)? Lord McShithead's response. Go chemically castrate yourself, you rotten bastard.
posted by notsnot at 5:48 PM on February 8, 2012 [1 favorite]
I think you meant to say "eminent", not "imminent".
posted by monospace at 6:13 PM on February 8, 2012
It's always possible there's something more hidden behind veils of secrecy, but given what we know now, it's quite possible that Alan Turing did more to win World War 2 than any other single person.
Very nicely put, Malor, and interesting in several respects.
I think Turing's role in the Allies' victory does loom larger, like Wordsworth's mountain, the farther away from it we're carried, and yet I wonder whether you may not also be right about "something hidden behind veils of secrecy" here, though if there is, I'd guess it to be a thing that would not redound to Turing's discredit, but which, if known, might cause the English government of its day to live in infamy as deep as that of the English forces who burned Joan of Arc.
I think there is a significant possibility Turing did not commit suicide by eating a cyanide-laced apple as our histories have it, but instead was assassinated by British Intelligence because they judged him too much of a security risk to be allowed to live.
Turing's conviction led to the removal of his security clearance, and barred him from continuing with his cryptographic consultancy for GCHQ. At the time, there was acute public anxiety about spies and homosexual entrapment by Soviet agents,[72] because of the recent exposure of the first two members of the Cambridge Five, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, as KGB double agents. Turing was never accused of espionage but, as with all who had worked at Bletchley Park, was prevented from discussing his war work.[73]
On 8 June 1954, Turing's cleaner found him dead; he had died the previous day. A post-mortem examination established that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning. When his body was discovered an apple lay half-eaten beside his bed, and although the apple was not tested for cyanide,[74] it is speculated that this was the means by which a fatal dose was delivered. An inquest determined that he had committed suicide, and he was cremated at Woking Crematorium on 12 June 1954.[75] Turing's mother argued strenuously that the ingestion was accidental, caused by her son's careless storage of laboratory chemicals. ...
Turing took a holiday in Norway in the summer of '52, apparently because "He had been attracted to Scandinavia on hearing rumours of its dances 'for men only'", and met a young man named Kjell, and in 1953 Kjell visited England. Turing mentioned this visit in a letter to a graduate student:
"Your last letter arrived in the middle of a crisis about 'Den Norske Gutt' so I have not been able to give my attention yet to the...."
Turing never fully explained this crisis about Kjell, the young Norwegian, but told Robin later that 'for sheer incident' it rivalled the arrest and trial in 1952.
Kjell had arrived at Newcastle from Norway, and police ('the poor sweeties' as Turing called them) were watching his house, and were deployed all over the North of England to intercept him.
There was something serious going on that his friends never realised: they did not think of Alan Turing as the repository of the greatest state secrets.
In the summer of '53, Turing traveled again:
We do not know Alan Turing's dreams, but he certainly needed escape from the Britain of the Fifties. Unable to travel to the future to where he belonged, only travel abroad offered the chance of freedom.
He remained very interested in learning Danish and Norwegian. He mentioned in 1953 the possibility of getting a job in France, but nothing came of it.
In summer 1953 he took a holiday in Corfu, Athens and Paris. He came back with a list of men he had met (which I saw in 1978 before it was destroyed by a censorious employee of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment.)
These were the days of panic in the Cold War. The first British atomic bomb (thanks to the Manchester computer) was successfully tested in October 1952. The first Soviet H-bomb was tested in August 1953; the 14-megaton American H-bomb was detonated in March 1954... and that parallel figure Robert Oppenheimer was effectively on trial...
Alan Turing had no holiday in summer 1954.
I suspect this would have been too much for the unseen world of British intelligence to allow.
Interesting, that mention of a "censorious employee of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment", because it wasn't until 1955 that an "Agreement for Cooperation Regarding Atomic Information for Mutual Defense Purposes" was signed by the US and the UK, essentially allowing the transfer of nuclear technology and information to the UK after delays and great reluctance on the part of the US because of concerns about the the leakiness of the UK defense establishment.
posted by jamjam at 6:14 PM on February 8, 2012 [7 favorites]
I wrote a short but strong email to Tom McNally yesterday over his failure to pardon Alan Turing. It essentially stated what you have said, namely that Parliament alone has committed an indecent act, and that I'm not ready to pardon them for it yet.
On a different note, the issue of marriage equality is being raised within government at the moment. A very public pardon for Turing would be a nice piece of propaganda against those who seek to prevent new marriage laws. I am happy with a purely symbolic pardon if it helps paint gay haters as criminal and indecent people who use the law to persecute others. Turing may be dead, but his prestige is a weapon it would be foolish not to use.
posted by Jehan at 6:28 PM on February 8, 2012
the only value of this action, or inaction, is that it highlights yet another in the long-running story of how shabbily treated many are who fall outside the "norm."
posted by TMezz at 6:56 PM on February 8, 2012
Whenever someone mentions Alan Turing, I always think of the decorative gargoyle of him on the side of the computer science building at the University of Oregon.
posted by mirv at 6:59 PM on February 8, 2012
>Otherwise you're in effect stating that the law is and should be different for the famous.
Are you saying it isn't?
I think hoyland is on to something about what story we tell to the future. Right now the story of Alan Turing ends with "hounded to suicide by the British government". It is well within the power of the government to change that last line to "In 2012 the government officially pardoned him, and expressed great regret ... etc., etc.". I guess to some there's a perceived cost of having to consider law & government as merely institutions created by men and women.
But since we're talking love and law, maybe it's best to let another british homosexual have his say. I hope you'll forgive the amount of scroll bar it takes up, and it certainly says nothing conclusive, but it just seems appropriate.
Law, say the gardeners, is the sun,
Law is the one
All gardeners obey
To-morrow, yesterday, to-day.
Law is the wisdom of the old,
The impotent grandfathers feebly scold;
The grandchildren put out a treble tongue,
Law is the senses of the young.
Law, says the priest with a priestly look,
Expounding to an unpriestly people,
Law is the words in my priestly book,
Law is my pulpit and my steeple.
Law, says the judge as he looks down his nose,
Speaking clearly and most severely,
Law is as I've told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.
Yet law-abiding scholars write:
Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.
Others say, Law is our Fate;
Others say, Law is our State;
Others say, others say
Law is no more,
Law has gone away.
And always the loud angry crowd,
Very angry and very loud,
Law is We,
And always the soft idiot softly Me.
If we, dear, know we know no more
Than they about the Law,
If I no more than you
Know what we should and should not do
Except that all agree
Gladly or miserably
That the Law is
And that all know this
If therefore thinking it absurd
To identify Law with some other word,
Unlike so many men
I cannot say Law is again,
No more than they can we suppress
The universal wish to guess
Or slip out of our own position
Into an unconcerned condition.
Although I can at least confine
Your vanity and mine
To stating timidly
A timid similarity,
We shall boast anyvay:
Like love I say.
Like love we don't know where or why,
Like love we can't compel or fly,
Like love we often weep,
Like love we seldom keep.
-W. H. Auden
The local MP who called for Turing to get a pardon was a Liberal Democrat, while the justice who refused to overturn the decision was a Liberal Democrat... one who was once a Labour politician, before deciding that Labour was too left-wing for his tastes.
Basically, this shows how the topmost ranks of the Liberal Democrats are neither liberal, nor democratic, and are fundamentally at odds with the very large progressive elements in their own party.
It's no surprise that people like Brian Eno, Colin Firth, and Daniel Radcliffe no longer support the LibDem.
posted by markkraft at 8:41 PM on February 8, 2012
Isn't that obviously the case? This is a democracy, right? Isn't that the entire point of the primacy of the legislature in determining policy, because as elected representatives in a democracy they are expected to review and evaluate policy based on "the morals of today"?
The UK is 1000+ year old constitutional monarchy. Except it doesn't even have a written constitution. That's why I'm saying maybe it's a UK thing, where people are worried about the government being "legitimate" even when it's clearly wrong.
Also, in the U.S the president can pardon anyone for any reason, including because they were friends with the convicted (i.e. Fords pardon of Nixon) while it sounds like pardons are only issued in the event of judicial problems there?
A pardon is an acknowledgement that the person did commit a crime, and it was validly a crime, but because of who they are and what they have done or the circumstances under which they committed it, they will not be punished for it. This is different from expunging a criminal record, where a person is later found to be innocent of the crime in question, however the crime is still a crime and people could and should be prosecuted for it.
First of all, no, you can pardon someone without acknowledging anything. Nixon was never convicted, but he was pardoned for "for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from July 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974." Second of all, it seems like the pardon in this case works differently then in the U.S, at least a parliamentary pardon? Perhaps the queen could pardon him, I have no idea.
The UK is NOT the US, and does not have regular pardoning of people by the hundreds like the US does. I have a faint suspision that people are forgetting that, even some folks in the UK.
The UK is 1000+ year old constitutional monarchy.
Erm. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are not attempting to portray the UK as a millenium-long uninterrupted regime, given the absurdity of such a statement. Anyway, the British Empire has had its share of political disruption and upheaval in the last 500 years or so. If anything the USA is remarkable for having 250 years of basically uninterrupted regimes (minus that whole Civil War thing). While Britain is not as discontinuous in its history as France or much of continental Europe, the continuity of its monarchy has very little to do with its complex political history. Unless you guys are still taking all your orders from the King, in which case, I apologize, I clearly don't know what I'm talking about.
Whoops, pre-emptive apology delmoi: I'm not arguing AT you, I'm arguing WITH you.
I can understand the disagreement on this point, and if it actually were the case that the British government hadn't prominently condemn its former policy, I would also join the outrage, but now instead it looks either ignorant or dishonest.
posted by Anything at 10:32 PM on February 8, 2012
I'd volunteer to be a gay Englishman for a day (I'm really neither) if only to stand together with Mr. Turing. Maybe we all should.
posted by newdaddy at 10:34 PM on February 8, 2012
(The outrage, not the disagreement.)
I'm glad they are making these changes. When I was in high school, English and history classes often required students to write up bios of various people. And you'd either end up with encyclopedias that just said people had been convicted of a crime or that they'd done something indecent. If you asked around, you'd hear they did some sort of indecent thing. Even though the teacher or your parents might clarify that it was just that the person was gay and that was illegal at the time, many of us still walked away a bit suspicious of the person's character, since we couldn't really fathom that being gay = indecent. So, while times have changed since the 80s, I think it's good that we prevent future generations from thinking people were criminals or "indecent" simply for loving people.
posted by Chaussette and the Pussy Cats at 11:30 PM on February 8, 2012
Hmm, I wonder. Everyone who understands anything about how their computer works feels the debt to Turing. Is there any way we could use them to show solidarity? I think I'm going to track down an HTTP header-munging extension and add something like
X-Pardon: Alan Turing
to every request I put on the net.
posted by benito.strauss at 12:03 AM on February 9, 2012 [3 favorites]
"Yeah, then you'd have to pardon everyone who was wronged by a heinous law. "
Yes, and there are how many millions of those worldwide? How many in the UK even? How long would due process in the courts take ? What if Turing got pardoned and another person didn't - what are the family of the other wronged dead person going to think?
You can't apply law retrospectively like that.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:44 AM on February 9, 2012
If you're a big old nerd and want to let the entire internet know that you like Alan Turing, here are the tools:
Firefox add-on to modify headers.
Quick instructions on how to use it. (I didn't have a Start/Stop button so I just clicked the "Always On" button.
To check if it's working for you, go to a web site that will report all the headers in your request. This was surprisingly hard to do. I found this site — they seem to be adding a few because of their forwarding infrastructure. Don't go to reliply.org — they only seem to report a few standard headers.
posted by benito.strauss at 12:53 AM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
I don't get the complaints that it can't be done because it would be special treatment. This is Great Britain we are talking about — they turn the occasional ordinary person into a Lord. Or a Princess. They love special treatment.
What will the LibDems do without a titan like Daniel Radcliffe?
posted by atrazine at 5:44 AM on February 9, 2012 [2 favorites]
-BRILLIANT! Although technically it's a "grotesque". A proper "Gargoyle" includes some manner of rain-spout.
-Britain's Greatest Codebreaker is a docu-drama about Alan Turing, how we owe pretty much both the defeat of the Nazis AND the modern computer age to the ideas he was the first person to have. Ever.
Much of the dramatic scenes are recreated from the notes of Turing's psychiatrist whom he began seeing after his conviction. Turing became quite close to his shrink's family, and the Dr's daughter talks about the pleasant mathematician who came on family vacations and discussed math puzzles with her as a little girl.
The things we do to our fellow humans is heartbreaking.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:14 AM on February 9, 2012
John Graham-Cumming, the creator the original petition for an apology, thoughts on why he did not support a pardon via the hacker news discussion of this news.
posted by Z303 at 9:22 AM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Of interest in that second link:
Secondly, even if a pardon is appropriate, a pardon for simply Turing would be unjust to the other gay men who suffered under the law. There were many, many others. And there are men alive today living in Britain with a criminal record because of offenses committed during the time the laws were in force. I could get behind a petition for a pardon for all those people, especially since living people are still hurt by that law, but not just for Turing. Pardoning him doesn't help the living.
But even that's unnecessary. Subsequent to the 2009 apology campaign the UK government introduced legislation that actually does roll back the criminal convictions of gay men. The Protection of Freedoms bill has already passed all stages in the House of Commons, two readings in the House of Lords and enters (this coming Monday) committee stage. That means it's close to being law.
Chapter 4 of that Act specifically allows for the disregarding of convictions under the old law that was used against Turing. Once disregarded the law causes their convictions to be deleted. It's not quite the same thing as a pardon, but its effect is to lift the burden of a criminal record from these living men.
posted by Artw at 9:41 AM on February 9, 2012 [1 favorite]
Agreed. Honestly, were I him -- and dead -- I'd rather not have the pardon at all.
The government wasn't fit to pass judgment the first time; they're not fit no tell me it was all OK now. It's a second slap in the face.
posted by coolguymichael at 10:16 AM on February 9, 2012
There are people living who are still affected by convictions under this law. Everyone - living or dead - who was prosecuted or affected in any way by this law should be pardoned immediately.
posted by The World Famous at 10:26 AM on February 9, 2012
"What will the LibDems do without a titan like Daniel Radcliffe?"
Radcliffe's leaving the LibDem is only systematic of a much larger problem for them. A recent poll puts them at their lowest level of support in 14 years.
The party backed the wrong horse. They should've made a deal with Labour instead of the Conservatives, as it was a closer ideological match. Instead, they get to rubberstamp policies that inflict horrible damage on those institutions they supposedly supported.
posted by markkraft at 6:04 AM on February 15, 2012
That's actually not the worst news for LibDem, as the poll is somewhat old.
The latest "poll of polls" for The Independent suggests that Nick Clegg could see his number of MPs reduced from 57 to 19 unless the party improves its ratings. The figure slumps to just 11 MPs when the proposed new parliamentary map is taken into account.
In practice, election experts believe the Liberal Democrats would do better than that because they would target their resources on the most winnable constituencies and their MPs have often defied the odds by holding on to their seats. But the experts say the reduction in the number of MPs from 650 to 600 will hurt the Liberal Democrats proportionately more than Labour or the Conservatives.
In another headache for Mr Clegg, Liberal Democrats who oppose the Coalition with the Conservatives are to form a rebel group within the party.
Liberal Left will be launched at the party's spring conference in Gateshead next month, at a meeting addressed by Baroness (Jenny) Tonge, a Liberal Democrat peer, and Richard Grayson, the party's former policy director. Accusing Mr Clegg of shifting the Liberal Democrats to the right, the new group's founding statement says: "We are now part of a Government which is Eurosceptic, neo-liberal and socially conservative." It calls for the spending cuts to be slowed.
The coalition is on the verge of ending; the LibDems are in full meltdown.
Alan Turing's 1950s tiger stripe theory proved
posted by Artw at 11:23 AM on February 22, 2012
« Older Portia Nuh Play | Kevin Goes to Kink Camp Newer »
Supercomputer fools Kryton from Red Dwarf June 8, 2014
Alan Turing today. Oscar Wilde tomorrow? July 21, 2013
Turing's 100th Birthday June 22, 2012
Sorry, Alan. September 10, 2009
Asking for an apology. August 19, 2009
turing
alanturing


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The Online Teaching Certificate is a comprehensive professional development program designed for current or prospective teachers, administrators, home schoolers, college faculty, and educators from other training institutions who are interested in making online teaching an important part of their academic career. The certificate is also designed for those who wish to take on a leadership role in online learning at their institutions. The program is beneficial both for those who already have experience in online education, and those who seek the necessary training. The Certificate is offered online to meet the demands and needs of working professionals.


South Australia's huge Solar River Project, in the Robertstown region in the state's Mid-North, is gearing up to get under way.
The first stage of the Solar River Project is to include 200MW of solar panel capacity and a 100MW lithium- ion battery system (the project web site just notes it as 120MWh).
The Advertiser (paywall) reported on Monday that Downer has inked an "early contractor involvement" (ECI) deal concerning the project. ECI arrangements enable a contractor to be involved in the early phases of a project, before design has been completed, in order to leverage specialist knowledge the contractor has that can assist in finalising design.
Downer's renewable energy experience in Australia includes Ararat Wind Farm Project (Victoria – 240MW), Sunshine Coast Solar Farm (Queensland – 15MW) Clare Solar Farm (Queensland – 100MW) and Ross River Solar Farm (Queensland – 148MW).
Previously to start in January, construction of Stage 1 of Solar River is now expected to commence in May and take approximately 2 years.
As to how large stage 2 will be – the project site states "200MW with 150MWh battery". There could also be other stages subsequent to that, but any further development past Stage 1 will depend on issues such as securing power purchase agreements and the construction/status of the SA/NSW interconnector project, known as RiverLink. The proposed new interconnector would run from Robertstown to Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, via Buronga.
The clean power station will be connected to the grid via a low profile 275,000-volt line with pole construction designed similar to other lines in the area.
Solar River Project Pty Ltd says Stage 1 will create 350 regional jobs during the construction period and 45 full time permanent jobs for the 25-year life of the facility. The company has also committed to supporting local sporting teams with sponsorship and facilities upgrades. Local roads utilised during construction will be upgraded and maintained.
South Australia has more than a dozen large-scale PV projects at various stages – including Bungala, Tailem Bend and Cultana. Plans have also just been publicly released for another huge solar + storage project near Robertstown.
The state is no slouch on small-scale solar power either, with more than 241,600 systems installed across South Australia as at the end of last year, representing 991MW of capacity. Just over 32% of dwellings in South Australia have solar panels on their rooftops. Small scale per capita capacity works out to be 570 watts, well ahead of the Australian average of approximately 315 watts.


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Jasmine Byrne's 2013 decision to join Big Mountain Foods Ltd. paid off quickly for her, the company and her business partner, Kimberly Chamberland – who happens to be Byrne's mother.
With Byrne on board suggesting new products and networking to gain new wholesale buyers and capitalize on the burgeoning vegetarian food market, the company's revenue surged within five years from the low six figures into millions of dollars.
Her goal is for Big Mountain Foods to generate $20 million in annual revenue within the next several years.
"We don't like putting on paper actual dollar figures because in the category we're in, we're growing like crazy and by the time publications are on the internet [they are outdated]," she said.
She estimated that Big Mountain Foods products are on shelves at more than 3,000 locations across North America. That's up from about 200 stores five years ago.
Stimulating that expansion is demand for the company's vegetarian burger patties, which are "allergen-free" with no soy, wheat, nuts or other ingredients many consumers are allergic to, Byrne said.
Byrne's inspiration for suggesting those veggie burger patties came in part because in 2013 she was diagnosed with celiac disease – an autoimmune disorder that meant that Byrne could cause damage to her small intestine if she consumed gluten.
Big Mountain Foods had been operating out of a 2,500-square-foot facility in south Vancouver for decades until recently expanding that space into a 5,000-square-foot manufacturing plant.
Bryne said that plans are underway to move into an even larger building to ensure that there is enough space for expansion.
Outside of work, Byrne is an active volunteer at the British Columbia Food Processors Association, where she recently won an award as a rising star.
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text:
SET THEM FREE
LET'S END THIS YEAR WITH WHAT MATTERS
The story of this year on the surface is one of difficulties and division, but a closer look reveals countless instances where we have witnessed community, care and concern for each other, and innovations to overcome these challenging times. This year has connected us in new ways and reminded us what is most important in our lives. Together and with persistence, we have made it here, and we want to celebrate some of the good with you.
Against all odds, this year was the most successful one in the history of the Innocence Project of Florida.
Our success is only made possible because of thousands of individual donors who have stood by our side. We have weathered this year, and you can play a critical role in paving the way for our continued pursuit of justice in the face of hardships before us.
Our community supported us without doubt or delay when these difficult times began. The uncertainty of the future and the climate of the nation demands we persist in our work to find and free the innocent, and reform the criminal legal system to prevent wrongful convictions. We need to join together in pursuit of justice. This work cannot wait.
Contribute to our year-end campaign in the way that works best for you and help IPF reach more innocent people in prison in 2021.
Thank you for a remarkable year.
IPF helped bring home four innocent people from prison in 2020; Leonard Cure, 16 years imprisoned, came home April 14th; Stephanie Spurgeon, 10 years imprisoned, came home August 3rd; Amanda Brumfield, 9 years imprisoned, came home September 4th; and Robert DuBoise, 37 years imprisoned, came home September 14th. All of them now safe from the spreading pandemic in the prison system.
We have even more to celebrate. Exonerees Nathan Myers and Clifford Williams were compensated for the 43 years they were wrongfully imprisoned. Dean and Danie McKee opened their own small business and wed, just a year after his exoneration. Chad Heins and his partner Amy welcomed a baby girl to the world. Twenty-five individuals serving harsh drug sentences were re-sentenced and reunited with their families through a partnership between IPF and prosecutors in Broward County.
We couldn't have achieved the things we have this year without critical advocacy, funding and support from individuals like you. Your compassion and investment in our work allows us to bring more wrongfully convicted people home from prison each year.
HINDSIGHT IS 20/20
IN PURSUIT OF JUSTICE
"Find the good. It's all around you. Find it, showcase it and you'll start believing in it."
Jesse Owens
It takes dozens of actors to put an innocent person in prison, and it takes a community to get the same person out. Ensure our services are available long into the future to fight for those who are wrongfully imprisoned and waiting to come home in our state by making an investment in our work. Your donation and advocacy directly supports the wrongfully imprisoned.
There are many ways to support our mission - both financial and non-donation based. Everyone has something to give - find what fits you best and advance our mission to find and free innocent people in Florida's prisons.
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Our continued operation and success depends on the generosity and financial support of friends, like you.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This full-day private tour will take you through Lisbon, Estoril, Cascais, Sintra, Obidos, Batalha, and Fatima.
Cross the central Marques de Pombal square and go down by the XVII century boulevard called Liberdade avenue to the popular Restauradores and Rossio squares; it's been the heart of Lisbon since Roman times, and the Pombaline downtown which has been the main shopping area there for more than 2000 years.
The majestic waterfront Comercio square, facing the extraordinary estuary of the river, once the welcome gate to seafarer and caravels.
The tour ontinues along the riverside by the harbour with sights of one of the world's leading cruise destinations. On the way to Belem, the most monumental and historical quarter, we pass by Belem palace, official residence of the President of Portugal. Stop at Belem tower – icon of the Age of Discovery (stop for photos, drinks and toilettes).
Close by is Jeronimos Monastery, magnificent example of the Manueline style, the most impressive symbol of Portugal's power and wealth during the age of discovery (stop to see the church).
We leave Lisbon passing by the scenic harbour and the estuary of the river and its shore. The Estoril coast, incorporating holiday hotspots offers great beaches and a choice of historic sights.
Cosmopolitan seaside town of Carcavelos is popular for its long stretch of sandy beach and its XVII century fortress – the biggest in Tagus river.
Other beaches on Estoril's include Parede. Waters here are rich in iodine and have therapeutic qualities. Around Sao Pedro, Sao Joao and Santo Antonio do Estoril the beach scene gets more cliff like, but there are small beach bays with aristocratic palaces, manor houses and deluxe villas, a safe haven of exiled kings and politicians.
Cascais fishing port swiftly expanded into an elegant cosmopolitan coastal resort. Once the stop of navigators like Columbus and Vasco da Gama. From the harbour there's a nice view of Estoril bay and one can watch he typical fishing boats unloading the catch, a flash marina and a castle.
Drive across the luxuriant Sintra Mountain and its gardens – 'The Glorious Eden' – by twisted roads bordered by several plants, its mystical hills dotted with fairytale palaces and extravagant villas that have bewitched visitors for centuries.
Sintra's historical town centre is a listed UNESCO world heritage site. It is made up of a charming maze of steep, narrow streets lined with fine examples of old palatial homes hiding behind lichen-covered walls, while local pastry shops provide the famous Sintra 'queijadas' (cheese pastries), 'travesseiros' (egg and almond pastries) and local wine. The town is also full of shops that carry many of the local crafts like pottery, ceramics and lace.
Travel northwards through the countryside by a landscape of vineyards, cork trees, pine and eucalyptus forests. Beautiful Portuguese typical homes with laid out gardens and an outlook of windmills topping the hills, make us feel we left the big city.
We step back in time when we arrive at the stunning and very ancient walled town called Obidos. A medieval city surrounded by the walls of the castle with picturesque narrow streets, whitewashed houses, iron balconies, flower pots in every window.
Inhabited by the Romans and the Arabs, this was the dwelling palce of the Portuguese court for more than 500 years. We'll walk through the feudal streets up to the main square close to the highest castle-tower, from where you can enjoy a nice view over the countryside and Obidos. Walking the ramparts, visitors can enjoy view of windmills, vineyards and surrounding farmlands.
Time to visit the many handicraft shops and wine taverns with the local liqueur 'Ginginha'. Just walk around the let the streets lead you into the steep alleyways and colourfully framed houses.
Continue to XIV century Batalha Monastery, the supreme achievement of gothic architecture in Portugal. You should not miss the Royal Pantheon with the tombs of the Portuguese 'Conquerers of the Sea' – the so-called 'magnificent generation', the remarkable Manueline cloister, the chapter house with guards keeping watch by the tomb of two unknown soldiers and the Unfinished Chapels with an incomparable Manueline portal.
Finally Fatima – the center of Christian faith and a local of world's pilgrimage. See the chapel on the place where Our Lady appeared to the shepherds, the Basilica and the vast square wher epeople crawl on their knees towards the heart of the shrine, in an impressive sign of faith and devotion, lighting a candle, praying and making a vow to Our Lady or fulfilling a promise. Religious services can be attended.


text:
package com.netflix.priam.defaultimpl;

import java.io.IOException;

import com.netflix.priam.utils.FakeSleeper;
import org.junit.Before;
import org.junit.Test;

import com.netflix.priam.FakeConfiguration;
import com.netflix.priam.IConfiguration;
import junit.framework.Assert;

public class CassandraProcessManagerTest
{
    CassandraProcessManager cpm;

    @Before
    public void setup()
    {
        IConfiguration config = new FakeConfiguration("us-east-1", "test_cluster", "us-east-1a", "i-2378afd3");
        cpm = new CassandraProcessManager(config, new FakeSleeper());
    }

    @Test
    public void logProcessOutput_BadApp() throws IOException, InterruptedException
    {
        Process p = null;
        try
        {
            p = new ProcessBuilder("ls", "/tmppppp").start();
            int exitValue = p.waitFor();
            Assert.assertTrue(0 != exitValue);
            cpm.logProcessOutput(p);
        }
        catch(IOException ioe)
        {
            if(p!=null)
                cpm.logProcessOutput(p);
        }
    }

    /**
     * note: this will succeed on a *nix machine, unclear about anything else...
     */
    @Test
    public void logProcessOutput_GoodApp() throws IOException, InterruptedException
    {
        Process p = new ProcessBuilder("true").start();
        int exitValue = p.waitFor();
        Assert.assertEquals(0, exitValue);
        cpm.logProcessOutput(p);
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Review, television
REVIEW of RIVERDALE EP. 2, "A Touch of Evil"
February 3, 2017 Danny McCarthyCW, CWTV, Review, Riverdale CW, television, Television Review, tv, TV Review Leave a comment
Grade: B+ for questions answered but also questions left unanswered.
Source: CW
Did I mention that until I was eight years old, I lived in a town called "Riverdale?" So maybe that's why this episode of Riverdale struck so true with me. Because when my best friend, who's just confessed her love for me, won't answer my texts about a mysterious town murder, I also run shirtless to the house of the teacher I'm having an affair with. So spooky how similar I am to Archie!
The revelation that Jason Blossom's death was due to him being shot in the face rather than drowning shakes the foundation of misty Riverdale. Seriously, there is some serious dust in the air in Riverdale High and I can't help but worry for the kids with asthma. Are provisions being made for them?
Archie is racked with guilt over the knowledge he possesses. He knows that whoever shot Jason did it early in the morning on the Fourth of July. But he can't open up to anybody because he only knows this because he was entwined in the arms of music teacher Ms. Grundy. Let us remember that Archie—despite his oiled, muscled body and jawline that protrudes out of the screen—is supposedly a high school sophomore.
The "living mannequin" twins ask Cheryl during science class (Algebra? Chemistry? Physics?) the very question I was wondering myself: Is Cheryl lying? Cheryl told the police that Jason fell into the water to get the gossamer-cloth white glove she had dropped. Later we find out that Jason was shot.
But more comes out—with a proctologist's snap of her rubber glove, Cheryl reveals that they both fell into the river. Cheryl made it to shore—alone. But can we believe her? Something seems off with this blossom.
The school organizes a pep rally to honor Jason because why not, and Betty uses Veronica's "I'm sorry" mani-pedi with Cheryl as a mani-petty.
And more comes out of the falling-out between Jughead and Archie. They were meant to go on a road trip (do either of them possibly have licenses?) on the Fourth of July, but Archie canceled and the entire summer was weird after that. Later, Jughead witnesses Archie and Ms. Grundy canoodling BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT CAREFUL AT ALL and confronts Archie. It seems like Ms. Grundy might be this episode's titular "touch of evil."
Archie, torn with guilt and also just shredded, wants to tell the truth about the Fourth of July. Ms. Grundy holds Archie in the palm of her hand and says no, claiming that she has feelings for him and this would ruin what they "have." What they "have," Ms. Grundy, is a jailable offense, you freak. Ms. Grundy is officially on my shit list. She's emotionally manipulating Archie into not telling that creepy Principal Weatherbee about them because she doesn't want to go to prison for child molestation.
While Cheryl straddles Petty Betty to do her makeup, she asks a lot of questions about Polly, Betty's sister who went insane and now lives in a group home. Yikes. Yikes. Things escalate (not sexually) and Cheryl accuses Polly of killing Jason. But in that moment, there's something cracked in Betty. Something raw. You can see it in her face as she rises up against Cheryl, and something dark blacks out her eyes.
New Theory: Polly, the unseen sister, is the secret half-sibling of Cheryl and Jason. Think about it—without reason, Mrs. Cooper is so against Polly and Jason. And there's something incestuous about Cheryl and Jason—sipping out of the same milkshake, wearing coordinated outfits. Could it that sibling love runs deep in the river of relatives? Cheryl and Jason, and Jason and Polly?
In a fun little aside, we see Betty's mom (Mom Cooper) bribing the coroner to get the straight truth-tea of Jason's autopsy. "Marbling of the veins, signs of scavenger activity, ligature marks on both wrists, and a hint of cryo-necrotic preservation." I don't know what any of that means but I'm pretty sure that—plus the whole "bullet to the face" thing—means that Jason didn't die of natural causes.
At the pep rally, which was always a horrible idea, Cheryl is overcome with memories of Jason. She sprints away and Veronica comforts her, Petty hovering just beyond the doorway.
"Jason, he was supposed to come back," said Cheryl, sobbing in the locker room. Veronica mouths the words.
Come back.
And suddenly, Cheryl's anger at Betty makes more sense. "I think your crazy, tweaked-out sister killed him." Was Jason going to meet Polly? Was Cheryl covering for him?
And did Jason actually meet Polly in the woods? Or was someone else waiting for him there? Someone with a motive to kill him, maybe someone whose sister was driven insane by a relationship with Jason?
Did Betty kill Jason?
But before we can get an answer to that: we get an answer to last week's burning question—Who gets arrested?
The answer, kind of surprisingly, is Cheryl. But also not that surprisingly because she was the last person to see him alive and she already fudged the details of what had happened. But her willingness to accept that she's been arrested (but never came forward) proves that she believes herself to be responsible for Jason's death. Whether she actually caused it, I don't believe to be the case. But her twintuition means double the guilt.
OBSERVATIONS AND QUESTIONS FOR NEXT EPISODE:
If both Betty and Archie have iPhones, then WHY ARE THEY USING SOME WEIRD SMS SYSTEM? THIS INFURIATES ME.
Archie's sweaty, shirtless body flipping around in bed=peak.
What alternate universe is this where a sophomore in high school can leave the house in the dead of night and all his parental guardian says is, "Where'd you sneak off to last night?" If I did that as a sophomore in high school, or NOW, I wouldn't have legs the next day.
Btw, the fact that he calls her "Ms. Grundy" instead of her first name ("Pamela" I'm presuming, or something else terrible) proves that HE SHOULD NOT BE WITH HER.
"Watch it, Wednesday Addams," is my favorite new diss.
Only Cheryl Blossom could end her threat that her brother's killer will end up in the electric chair with a hashtag. #RiverdaleStrong
"I am devastatingly handsome in that classic pre-accident Montgomery Clift kind of way," says Kevin Keller, and so say we all.
What is that "Max Where the Wild Things Are" beanie that Jughead is wearing?!
"Let's honor the memory of our murdered classmate, Jason Blossom, with a pep rally and a sexy cover of "Sugar, Honey, Honey" by Josie and the Pussycats!"
Also the song "Sugar, Honey, Honey" is by the band, The Archies. Very spooky.
"Butt out, closet monster, you have forfeited the right to take the higher road," Cheryl
We also learn that Moose, the sexually fluid guy who wanted to have sex on a riverbank, has an official girlfriend named "Midge." That is such a "beard" name.
Also I would like to say that I used a locker room all throughout high school and was never hit on by a football player named Moose. I would find this more insulting had I not looked like a thumb in high school.
→ CONGRATZ PATS (?)
← ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM: MY NIGHT WITH REPUBLICANS


Farm Bureau Spring Hill at Port Royal Apr 18 Farm Bureau Spring Hill at Port Royal updated their profile picture. Farm Bureau Spring Hill at Port Royal Farm Bureau Spring Hill at Port Royal Apr 18 Farm Bureau Spring Hill at Port Royal is with Chris Webb. Farm Bureau Spring Hill at Port Royal Dec 14 Some food for thought! The weekend is here, make the most of it!


Anyone familiar with Wushu? I'd like to join a game on this or test it out with anyone who is interested.
"Wushu is a free universal role-playing game by Dan Bayn released under the Creative Commons license.
Wushu is a non-traditional role-playing game. In a traditional game, a player would describe his character's action, and then roll dice to see if it succeed. In Wushu, a player describes what his character does, and then rolls dice to determine how effective the action was. For example, in a traditional RPG, one would say "I try to hit him with my sword." and roll dice to determine success. In Wushu, one would say: "I slash across his stomach, releasing a spray of blood." and then roll dice to determine the effect on the larger plot. The description, rather than a character's stats, also determines the number of dice that are rolled. Each detail in the description adds one more die to the roll (up to dice 'cap' determined by the gamemaster), thus making the action more effective.


Welcome to perfection. This lovely custom home located in the heart of downtown Ojai glows with beauty. Emerged from an empty lot; Supan Builders brought it all together. This nearly 2400 square foot custom home with vaulted nine foot ceilings, spacious open floor plan showcases a majestic stone fireplace, a cook's dream kitchen with open shelving, massive master bedroom and bath and a separate one bedroom, one bathroom granny flat/artist's studio with great views. The covered porch in the backyard is quiet and private with mountain views as well. You will love this walk to town location which is just a stone's throw to the Ojai Walking/Biking Trail. Wow, you can't miss this one!
Sold by Donna Sallen BRE#01488460 of Re/Max Gold Coast Realtors.
Listing provided courtesy of Donna Sallen DRE#01488460 of Re/Max Gold Coast Realtors.


Flag Retreat at WDW - Pixie & Pirate Destinations *|* Wishes become memories. One dream at a time.
Since October 1, 1971, each day at 5 pm, the flag on Main Street USA is ceremoniously retired in a big way. Sadly, in all my years of visiting, I only saw this for the first time this past December. It's a little known gem at Magic Kingdom and something I really wish I had seen sooner.
For a little daily event, there is much pomp and circumstance. It all begins in the hours surrounding park opening when Cast Members silently search for an unsuspecting veteran who is chosen to be "Veteran of the Day." How this person is chosen can vary and I found conflicting information on various sites on the internet, so I went to the one person I know who would have some personal insight in this – someone I introduced you to last week – my friend and fellow former Cast Member, Leslie. Since she had worked Main Street Operations on College Program, it made sense she would probably have been a part of this a time or two. Sure enough, I was right.
_ But, back to the Flag Retreat. Once a veteran was chosen, they are asked to return to Town Square by 4:45 pm that day, where they will be given instructions. While it all seems to be an "event," there is a very simple process. The band is spread out on and below the train platform. Cast Members form 2 lines facing each other and blocking the path to the flag pole. Next three members of Magic Kingdom Security Detail, along with the veteran join the line closest to the flag pole. The veteran's family stands nearby with the Dapper Dans acapela group. The band marches through the lines and the Cast Members follow, along with security and the veteran. At this point, the Pledge of Allegiance is said and a single trumpet sounds retreat. Next the flag is lowered as the band plays "The Star Spangled Banner".
_ At this point, security folds the flag as the Dapper Dans sing "God Bless America". Once folded, the flag is presented to the veteran who is introduced to the crowd by name and hometown. Finally there is a short procession down Main Street along with an announcement to the crowd that this is the Honorary Veteran of the Day. He/she is presented with a Magical Moments certificate commemorating this along with a Veteran of the Day pin. Photopass photographers also capture the ceremony and the participant does receive a complimentary 8x10 along with the photos on the photopass card.
_ So, it's safe to say the experience is moving for all involved, from the vet, to the Cast Members, to the guests watching. I know it gave me chills (not just because it was 30-some degrees out that day) and brought tears to my eyes when we saw it in December. I highly recommend taking the 15 minutes out of your day to witness this at least once. You won't regret it!
Experience the Walt Disney World Flag Retreat in person - start planning your Disney vacation today!


(Photo : Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Three popular companies Google Maps, eBay, and Amazon have recently removed their Apple watch apps from their app store.
A list of popular companies has silently removed their Apple watch apps from the App Store. Google Maps, eBay, and Amazon have already done it without any official announcement.
Earlier, after the debut of the much-discussed smartwatch of Apple in 2015, Google Maps, eBay, and Amazon released apps and supported the device. But, currently, none of these companies offer the Apple Watch apps. In a word, a sudden twist has surfaced in the tech arena.
According to Mac Rumors, these companies have already dropped their support for the Apple Watch through their App Store updates. Surprisingly, users of this device possess no clear idea when Google Maps, eBay, and Amazon updated their apps to remove the support. That means consumers of the said smart watch are now facing a series of sudden changes.
Apple Insider reported that Google Maps' latest updates on iOS have ditched the support for the Apple Watch. Interestingly the release notes did not mention any word about this removal. Even Google uttered no words about whether the support for the watch OS will be reinstated or not. Though, recently a spokesperson for Google has revealed that the removal is done temporarily and the Apple Watch app will be reinstated later.
Earlier Amazon and the eBay included the Apple Watch support in their iOS apps. Both the companies have provided an update in the late April, but currently, they don't include their Watch apps. It is obvious that there must a valid reason behind these crucial steps by three popular companies.
It is believed that the key cause of the removal of the Apple Watch support must be the insufficient number of users of these apps. It is true that Google Maps was the only essential app that was able enough to indicate any specific direction very quickly. That means it was useful for the smartwatch of Apple.
The Apple Watch app of Amazon supported the voice-based searching and the one-tap purchase. But, both these features are more flexible in a phone or a computer. On the other hand, the eBay app for the smartwatch of Apple helped the users to track the bid statuses.
Recent news says retailer Target has also removed the Apple Watch support from its app, though the functionality is still available through its Cartwheel app. Removal of certain apps makes it clear that which apps are suitable for the wrist-worn devices like the smartwatch of Apple. Consumers still have enthusiasm about the wearable devices, but it is not yet clear what will be their next approach after this incident.


text:
Велю́ () — коммуна во Франции, находится в регионе Пикардия. Департамент коммуны — Эна. Входит в состав кантона Лан-2. Округ коммуны — Лан.

Код INSEE коммуны — 02791.

Население
Население коммуны на 2010 год составляло 257 человек.

Экономика
В 2010 году среди 172 человек трудоспособного возраста (15—64 лет) 124 были экономически активными, 48 — неактивными (показатель активности — 72,1 %, в 1999 году было 75,0 %). Из 124 активных жителей работали 112 человек (60 мужчин и 52 женщины), безработных было 12 (6 мужчин и 6 женщин). Среди 48 неактивных 17 человек были учениками или студентами, 19 — пенсионерами, 12 были неактивными по другим причинам.

См. также
 Список округов Франции

Примечания

Ссылки
 Национальный институт статистики — Велю

Коммуны департамента Эна

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


The NFL has had nearly three years, including two full seasons without Colin Kaepernick around, to come up with a policy for player conduct during the pregame national anthem.
And during that time it has settled on …. nothing.
Now, after the league settled the collusion lawsuit Kaepernick brought against it, the issue is likely to boil up again for the 2019 season if Kaepernick is on a roster.
His lawyer is predicting that will happen, mentioning Carolina or even New England. There are other possibilities, too, of course. Kaepernick may not be a sure-bet starter, and there will be rust to his game, but even his most ardent critic has to admit he's a better on-field player than a lot of backups or injury fill-ins who get signed during the season. Time will tell.
What is clear is that once again the NFL is dealing with a potential crisis (in its view) created wholly by its kick-the-can-down-the-road leadership. The league still doesn't know, let alone agree, on how to handle players who want to protest.
The current policy is the same as the one around when Kaepernick first sat (and later knelt) for the anthem during the 2016 preseason to protest social justice issues. The league was caught flat-footed and unprepared for the reaction. It's no different now.
There have been proposals, but no agreements that stuck. Likewise there have been various iterations, even as the practice has all but died out. Sometimes lots of players knelt. Sometimes they linked arms. Sometimes team owners joined them. Sometimes teams tried to stay in the locker room together.
There was a short-lived attempt to keep players disinclined to stand for the anthem to remain in the locker room by themselves while the rest of the team was on the sideline, but that was stupid and did nothing to diffuse the situation. Staying in the locker room was a protest in and of itself, after all.
All these weeks and months and kickoffs and nothing, just a rudderless ship that can't decide what it wants to be and thus pleases no one.
There are two obvious routes here.
The NFL could say it is fine with players and coaches doing whatever they want during the anthem. It could say it wants to afford everyone their freedom of expression and the platform the game provides. The league could own it and tell everyone to deal with it.
Many fans would accept it, or even applaud it. And with the continued expansion of legalized sports wagering, television ratings would likely continue to climb. Eventually nearly everyone would tire of it, and not even grandstanding politicians could whip it up into much of an issue.
The problem for the NFL is a significant number of owners aren't fine with allowing anything to happen. Fan backlash, even in dwindling numbers, is extremely concerning to the league. In settling the Kaepernick grievance, it acknowledged on some level that there was merit to the argument that it spent two years locking Kaepernick out of the league.
Sure, the motivation may have been to hide internal league communication from the public, but a settlement is a settlement.
The other option is to go the route of just about every other employer in the country, including, most notably, the NBA, and say that while at work the boss gets to determine certain conduct. If you're a UPS driver, you wear brown and deliver packages. You don't engage in political statements, no matter what the politics are.
The NBA is an extremely progressive league with outspoken coaches and players. They are active on social media, in news conferences and community work. About half the league, including mega stars such as LeBron James, Steve Kerr and Gregg Popovich, routinely criticize President Donald Trump. It's extremely unlikely any championship team will ever visit him in the White House.
Yet they all stand at attention for the anthem.
Because that's the rule and it's a sensible one. Say and do what you want on your own time when you are a private citizen, but this is what we do at work.
The NFL has not adopted that nor has it embraced the free-for-all. It has done nothing. A vast majority of the public has long ago moved on because almost no one's mind ever gets changed, yet the NFL is still in square one, paralyzed.
If Kaepernick is on a roster, then what he does during even a preseason anthem will once again be major news … the kind of major news the NFL dreads.
It's all the league's fault though and it all comes back to a lack of leadership, from the commissioner to various powerbroker owners. NBA commissioner Adam Silver didn't deny recently that he was approached by some NFL owners about taking the same position in the football league. (He's sticking with the NBA.) That suggests not that owners necessarily agree with the politics of the free-wheeling NBA – which plays to a smaller, and seemingly a more politically like-minded fan base than the NFL – but that they crave someone who can solve problems and articulate the plan.
The league is completely lacking in that regard and now the issue, or what ownership considers a problem, is potentially returning.