My, what a long comment! And all based on a misunderstanding. Of course I do know that "Hill Street Blues" is fiction. But one of the reasons I enjoy it is that it appears to be accurate, realistic fiction. Regardless of the many details, the basic plot idea I mentioned - a political boss who is willing and eager to throw a subordinate to the wolves "for the look of it", regardless of the facts - is something that is common in real life.

Actually I do think about these things before I write. The Daily Mail story is something quite unusual nowadays: a well-researched, fully documented, professional piece of journalism. We already knew that Sir Tim Hunt was a distinguished scientist who has made great contributions to his field. After reading the story, it's clear that his accuser is not quite what she pretends to be - to say the very least.

In short, my reaction might sound "pretty kneejerk" to you - but it's not.

We see this kind of outcome all over the place nowadays. It's mostly because those in positions of power are far too worried about public perception. (Of course, their almost complete lack of any firmly held moral principles leaves them adrift, and very much at the mercy of popular sentiment). Obviously Sir Tim Hunt is of infinitely more value to society than Connie St Louis - a glance at the Daily Mail story referred to in the summary makes that clear. So why was he forced to resign as a kneejerk reaction to a wave of ephemeral indignation, which will be forgotten by next week (and it's Saturday as I write)?

Recently I have been glued to a box set of the complete "Hill Street Blues" - yes, I know that telegraphs my age and unadventurous taste in TV. It was only the other night that I got quite angry at the spectacle of the police chief twisting Captain Furillo's arm to get him to abandon his defence of an apparently "bad cop". This guy, a narcotics agent, had shot and killed a young black man while interrupting some suspicious activity in the small hours. The cop claimed that he had given due warning, and fired only after being fired on - all of which was true. Also, the group he tried to apprehend were in fact committing crimes. Nevertheless, the police chief tells Furillo that it's vital for the department to be seen to throw this "bad cop" to the wolves. It's all about perception, he explains. The facts don't matter at all; all that counts is that this is a good time to throw someone to the wolves.

University College London (UCL) has indeed stained its reputation. Its refusal even to consider reinstating Professor Hunt makes matters worse. And Britain, which seems to prefer Ms St Louis to Professor Hunt, will get what it has chosen. Not to its advantage.

"Think every government does this to each other, it just seems the US is better at it. Nations don't have friends they have interests and spying on friends is the norm I think".

Fine. Just don't act surprised next time your government asks ours for help and we tell you "No, because we know you are only pursuing your own interests and everything you say otherwise is a lie".

Surely your sig should read "Procrastinate Now!"

Ah. OK. Now I see. When I posted the parent, I had only read the summary on Slashdot. I assumed the research was competently done, and accurately reported. As I finished posting, I realised those are not safe assumptions, so I took a closer look.

Well, folks, the study was done on... mice. Because obviously mice have evolved to eat the same diet as human beings, and react in exactly the same ways to changes in diet. Right.

Reminds me of the early researchers in the "cholesterol will kill you" racket, who did painstaking studies that showed a diet of fatty foods leads to clogged arteries and death. Right - in *rabbits*. Herbivores. Those "scientists" fed exclusive herbivores a diet heavy in *animal fat* - something they would never have consumed in nature - and then wondered that it harmed them.

As far as I can see, the study concluded that "too much" fat or sugar impairs cognitive function. Presumably the study itself explains what is considered "too much"; but obviously no diet can reduce both fat and sugar very far, or the majority of calories would have to come from protein. And that is very unhealthy. It is well known that deriving more than 40-50% of calories from protein leads to ill health and, in extreme cases, death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

So at least half of daily calories must come from carbohydrate and fat in some combination. And all carbohydrate is rapidly broken down to simple sugars in the gut. Sounds like Scylla and Charybdis.

"You'll always have your very rich who don't have to work and your very poor who choose not to..."

Huh? Run that by me again...

The "very rich who don't have to work" amount to perhaps the wealthiest 1% (or much less) of the population. So we can ignore them, as it's a vanishingly small proportion.

But "your very poor who choose not to [work]..."?

Surely someone who is very poor has the greatest incentive of all to work? According to all economics textbooks, anyway. Remember how the marginal value of income increases the less money you have? Consider that someone who is hungry and cannot get anything to eat has a strong motive to get some money.

Of course you may be one of those superficially sophisticated, callous people who like to feel better by condemning millions of complete strangers for their supposed "laziness". In which case, please think again.

The bls.gov website's figures don't match reality.

FTFY.

For a closer approximation to reality, refer to http://www.shadowstats.com/

The 'purchaser' doesn't pay less, but the writer gets paid less because Amazon just wants to pay them less.

That's it right there. If the reader turns the pages and you end up getting more at the end of the book, then I can work with that. But that's not what's happening. If someone buys your book and doesn't read it, you get squat but Amazon still gets paid.

It's kind of a ripoff for authors.

I think you're kinda screwed either way, actually. Words do hurt; you can tell people to just tough it out but it means that you end up conceding large amounts of the political space to the ones most willing to be cruel and least injured by being defamed.

I'm not calling for speech policing here. I'm just pointing out that the real people who participate in political processes are subject to human failings. It's not a logical conversation; it's emotionally charged rhetoric. So just saying "everybody says whatever they want" amounts to a different kind of censorship. It may well be the most unbiased form of censorship and the one that is most "just", but it's not without downsides.

You see it in social media all the time. Trolls can shut down conversations. Web sites that don't want to be primarily about trolls and up providing tools to reduce their visibility, one way or another. It's often called "censorship", and in some senses it is, albeit not government censorship because it's not a state matter. The national conversation is a state matter, and a state may well want to think about what kinds of tools are appropriate for keeping the conversation civil and productive.

Again, not calling for censorship. I haven't got any policy to offer. It's just that I think it's important to recognize that free speech has non-obvious feedback loops that make it less free than it appears.

" Now we get bullshitted and bored at the same time? What's that, we're moving towards communism?"

No, more like flying on any commercial airline in the USA.

Or you could concentrate on threats that aren't vanishingly improbable.

"As We Show In This Updated list, You’re Much More Likely to Be Killed By Brain-Eating Parasites, Toddlers, Lightning, Falling Out of Bed, Alcoholism, Food Poisoning, Choking On Your Meal, a Financial Crash, Obesity, Medical Errors or “Autoerotic Asphyxiation” than by Terrorists".
http://www.washingtonsblog.com...

Is it necessary? Is there any particular reason to compel Estonia to change its laws? If they want to be the-country-that-censors, is there a reason not to let them (and deal with the consequences)?

The consequences could well be serious, and compel them to change their laws on their own. If web sites start fleeing because they don't want to risk what their users might say, the monetary loss might compel a legal change. But for all I know the Estonians themselves are more comfortable living in a country where they are free from offensive opinions. If they can coexist with the rest of Europe that way, maybe they should.

Maybe they can't; perhaps cross-border commerce means that the local law is incompatible with being a functioning part of the EU. But off the top of my head, I don't know of any specific reason why (being only passingly familiar with the rest of EU policy).

It's because nobody speaks the binary language of moisture vaporators. Sure, it's a lot like the language of binary loadlifters, but the joke just doesn't work in translation.