Posts by Rikkeh

No case in law, I'm afraid

You can't just grant pardons willy nilly in the UK to the extent that you can in the US.

My understanding of the concept of pardon is that it is applied to situations where the person is somehow "morally innocent" of the crime he was found guilty of (essentially, being guilty... by the letter but not the spirit of the law- given the context of his conviction and the standards of the time, this isn't Turing). This was also used as a way to give plea deals way back when, but probably wouldn't be allowed today.

It's also what's called a "royal perogative" right, i.e. something that is at the monarch's discretion. The scope of the perogative has been cut down over several hundred years by parliamentary sovereignty. To extend the perogative would (in my limited understanding- it's been years since I did constitutional law) almost certainly be unconstitutional. And, unfortunately, pardoning Turing would be such an extension.

That's not to say that there shouldn't be some kind of law which retrospectively annuls all convictions for homosexual conduct (I think there probably should). However, what they were asking for was, strictly speaking, illegal without a new law being made. What Brown gave in 2009 was probably the limit of what you could do without a new law.

More info on the concept of pardon (and how the UK and US systems apply it differently) can be found here in an article by the late great Lord Bingham: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n06/tom-bingham/at-the-white-houses-whim

A worrying picture

I'm more worried about the 5/6 who *don't* stop having sex when they answer the phone. I'll never be able to call my parents after Emmerdale again.

Here's a question, reg cloud

Is there a reason why no one's thought to do the batteries for e-cars like barbeque gas cylinders- i.e. you pay a big deposit the first time you buy one to "hire" the cylinder and then bring it back when empty and pay to exchange it for a full one?

This would seem to solve the long charge time and degrading problems (the main reason it seems why people aren't keen on electric cars) at a stroke.

Moral Damage

Moral damage in this case is likely equivalent to what we would call damage for pain and suffering over in the UK, or "emotional distress" in the US.

It comes from the French, where the word for "mental" in certain circumstances is the same as the word for "moral". What is sometimes translated from French cases as "moral damage" is actually damages awarded for emotional distress. It seems to be the same here.

How do I claim my pint?

I've got one of these...

....and I didn't pay nearly anywhere near £80 for it- it's much cheaper elsewhere

While it's really good for fighting off boredom while you do lengths, I've found that it's not good when your ears are under water (say, during front crawl) for listening to podcasts and the like where you need to make out words - the sound of the water going past drowns out the detail.

So no Mark Kermode film reviews in the pool.

Irony

So, the guy who made getting other people's work for free a philosophy is whining that no one gave him anything in return for all his hard work?

I'd be playing the world's smallest violin, but I've put it down somewhere and can't seem to find it..