Violence in Kenya

The death toll has now reached 600. BBC News

Some 250,000 people have fled their homes in clashes between rival political supporters, ethnic groups and the police.

A UN backed panel has described the killings as genocide according to the AFP, but to be honest, it doesn't appear to me to be a correct label, and a American Africa envoy has stated that "Even the worst of what has happened cannot be considered a genocide".

Nonetheless whatever label is put on the violence it is certainly very unpleasant.

Having said that, it is worth comparing the violence to that in Iraq, where if projections based on the October 2006 Lancet report are correct, then approximately 500 people have died a day in Iraq since the violence began.

Jeesy Creesy

Rowan Williams has got into a bit of bother about his description of the Nativity. He was interviewed on the Simon Mayo show, and here is a transcript. He was quoted by the Telegraph as saying the whole thing was a 'legend', although I don't think thats quite what he said. He did however say that there weren't three wise men (although they were bearing three gifts there is no indication of their number or gender, and indeed Williams argues they probably weren't there at all, and the idea they were is a conflation of two seperate stories). He also casts doubt on the idea it was in december, that there was snow and that there were animals around.

I have to say, I'm quite interested in who Christ was as a historical figure. And I really would like to know when he was born what he did and so on. My understaning is that he was born between 4 and 6 BC, was Jewish as were most of the people around him, and was basically a philosopher.

The thing is there's just so much nonsense spoken about it its hard to get to the real historical facts of the matter. I think very few historians would accept the validity of the Bible as a written source given the list of miracles and other irrational or unlikely events it contains. Nonetheless, Christ as a historical figure is clearly of interest and importance.

Ricky Gervais on the same programme Rowan Williams was on said that being taught about the nativity was a form of indoctrination, and compared the nativity to Father Christmas. While I agree with him to an extent about it being a form of indoctrination, I think that it is a story that has come part of our tradition.

Theres some information on the people who wrote the bible here, from the Straight Dope's website, based on the Chicago Reader column. This book looks quite interesting too.

NB the title of the post is from an Eddie Izzard sketch.

Kenya

I noticed the violence in Kenya following the election which has killed around 30 people has been described by both sides as genocide. While it isn't genocide, it certainly is a complete mess. The violence doesn't appear to be anything on the scale of that that occurred in Rwanda, although I would caution that any reports of deaths are likely to be an underestimate - the deaths in Rwanda in 1994 were not recognised as such for sveral weeks, and initial reports suggested that only a few thounsand had been killed - an underestimate of at least an order of magnitude.

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On a completely seperate matter I've been reading this excellent discussion about Media Lens and the Propoganda Model.

Most journalists who have been targeted by Media Lens detest them and their tactics

argued the journalist writing the piece and there is a great deal of further discussion about whether or not the Propoganda Model is applicable in the UK.

My own thoughts are that the criticisms Media Lens has been making about Iraq Body count are relevant. Basically, they say that there are two main sources the media have been using to determine the number of deaths in Iraq - a Lancet paper and the Iraq Body Count website. The Lancet paper was based on an epidemoligical study, and the Iraq Body count website uses a variety of sources but mainly the media. The reliance on the media to get its figures means it has a lower overall total than the Lancet study which was peer reviewed. Furthermore this lower figure is quoted by the press wheras the higher figures has tended not to be, and Media Lens alleges that this is due to an unconcious bias. I think they do seem to have a point here. If a figure is in dispute and there are different numbers from different sources, at the very lease the media should quote both of them. Ideally they should point out the flaws in the methodology of the Iraq Body count website as it relies on secondary sources and news reports. In reality the media has tended to neither of these things.

Happy face

So today I was looking at the well known "face on mars", and apparently it doesn't look anything like the orginal image well photographed at higher resolution


However, what does look like a face is the Galle crater - it looks remarkably similar to those 1970s smileys you used to see everywhere and which are nowadays overused as emoticons. NASA has a discussion about the whole thing here. But theres an even better discussion here.




In other news, I found this random photo of a fish with what look like arms and legs. There was a bit of a discussion as to whether or not it was a fake photo or not, some suggesting it was mocked up on photoshop. But it seems it is a real animal, called a axolotl. Not only that, but while they are relatively rare in the wild, but they are quite numerous in captivity and you can actually buy one for around £20.