MPs always seem puzzled by the way they’re viewed with such contempt. Well, here’s one reason, in a revealing story from the Hull Daily Mail: Continue reading
Missing link
Missing link
The Guardian carried a a report about the planned march through Woolton Bassett by the extremist Islamist group, Islam4UK.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/04/wootton-bassett-islam4uk-parade-troops
http://www.islam4uk.com
There is widespread opposition to its taking place, and the Guardian reports that a Facebook group opposing the march “quickly attracted more than 120,000 members”. (At the time of writing, membership stands at 201,047.)
The report links to the Islam4uk web site, but for some reason, doesn’t carry the link to the Facebook group.
Can’t think why. Anyway, here it is.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=228021139869&ref=mf
The Guardian carried a report about the planned march through Woolton Bassett by the extremist Islamist group, Islam4UK. Continue reading
Gawdless help us
Gawd help us
Had a tweet today from a friend of mine (a bit of a Comrade) tagged #godlesschristmas.
So… a Godless celebration of the birth of the Son of God…how does that work?
Eat
I suppose if you want to eat yourself fatter…
Drink
…and drink yourself senseless…
And be pretentious
…you just ignore the tedious spiritual stuff and get on with it.
Party people
It seems odd to me though. I mean, I’m not a Comrade, so I don’t celebrate the birth of Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, etc., etc.
And if a Comrade were to invite me to a festive do to mark the birth or mourn the passing of any of the above, I’d politely decline.
I wouldn’t think, OK, they’re mass murderers, but what the hell, it’s a chance to pig out.
But it’s somehow fine for atheists to think, OK, well, I don’t believe any of this God thing, but, what the..er…whatever they say in place of hell, it’s a chance to pig out and prig out, so ding dong merrily on high.
Still…
Merry Christmas to all.
Nuff said
PS
I read they’re calling themselves Brights now.
Pretentious? Nom de Derrida, certainement pas!
Had a tweet today from a friend of mine (a bit of a Comrade) tagged #godlesschristmas.
So… a Godless celebration of the birth of the Son of God…how does that work? Continue reading
One rant, one voice, one leader
The Guardian has joined forces with 56 other newspapers so that they can all run exactly the same leader on climate change. Scary… Continue reading
Fee news at the BBC
Free news at the BBC
The BBC has announced that it won’t be charging users for its online news service.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/24/bbc-wont-charge-online-news
Trust me, I’m a chairman
BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said that the corporation has “no intention of diluting BBC commitment to universal access to free news online”.
Fee at last
The more perceptive among viewers, readers, listeners, surfers, etc. will have spotted the weirdness in this.
The BBC already charges for online news. They charge everyone via the licence fee.
They top-slice a chunk of the fee and use it to fund www.bbc.co.uk.
(Every time I think about how the licence fee works, it seems weirder.
Nuff definitely not said.)
The BBC has announced that it won’t be charging users for its online news service. Continue reading
Moderation madness
Moderation madness
I’ve been moderated again. The Guardian has deleted yet another of my comments from its CIC (Comment is Cheap) site.
Fry oh Fry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/nov/20/stephen-fry-twitter?
I made the comment after reading a piece from the Great Man on the Guardian’s Digital Content blog.
The Living Saint was complaining about rude and ill-mannered comments and tweets on blogs and Twitter.
He said: “Their resentment, their desire to be heard at the most vituperative level, at the most unpleasant and malevolent, genuinely ill-willed malevolent, level is terrifying.”
Fry not
Englands’ Premier Wit, you’ll recall, was so upset at the treatment meted out to him (a tweet actually described him as boring) that he quit Twitter for good.
Well, for a week or so.
Fry indeed
Some may think his case is rather undermined by his reaction to Jan Moir’s comments on the Daily Mail web site about the death of pop star Stephen Gately. He tweeted:
“I gather a repulsive nobody writing in a paper no one of any decency would be seen dead with has written something loathsome and inhumane”.
Class act
Yes, it oozes class – upper class in fact. But it’s not what you’d call moderate, is it?
Second-class post
Anyway, to get to my post. I read the piece and wrote the following:
This article should has been removed by a moderator. Comments should also have been deleted.
We mustn’t – simply mustn’t – risk upsetting Stephen.
Fell at the first offence
When I went to reread it (as one does..), I was shocked and appalled to see the following:
This comment has been removed by a moderator. Replies may also be deleted.
Maybe they were being funny.
Then again, the Guardian isn’t known for its sense of humour.
Nuff not said
I’ve been moderated again. The Guardian has deleted yet another of my comments from its blog site. Continue reading
I spy
I spy
Lincolnshire County Council are playing their own game of I-spy. But it’s no fun.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/17/childrens_data/page2.html
They’re sending parents a four-page questionnaire asking them to reveal intimate details about their children.
It’s part of something called the School Entry Wellbeing Review. This is being piloted in Lincolnshire before being rolled out over the rest of England and Wales.
Ticked off
There’s no mention of parents’ right to opt out.
And the one box parents should tick – the one that says ‘None of your business’ – doesn’t appear on the questionnaire.
Been there, done that
As the article points out, we’ve been here before.
People who didn’t want their medical records stored on the NHS national electronic database had the right to opt out. Many did
The Chief Medical Officer asked GPs to provide the names and address of the refuseniks to central government, on the grounds that their dissent was not “correct”.
This out of hand. Enough is enough.
Lincolnshire County Council are playing their own game of I-spy. But it’s no fun. Continue reading
Headline news at the BBC
Headline news at the BBC
The BBC news website is to carry longer headlines in a bid to boost stories’ searchability.
Front page headlines will still be limited to 31-33 characters so that they can appear on Ceefax and Digital Text.
Search me
But internal pages will carry 55-character headlines, which means they will be more search-friendly, as news editor Steve Herrmann explains on his blog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/11/changing_headlines.html
Short changed
It makes sense. I always held up the headlines on the BBC news site as a great example of tight, disciplined editing. But it’s unlikely having another 20 characters will change this, and headlines have to be written for search engines as well as for humanoids.
The BBC news website is to carry longer headlines in a bid to boost stories’ searchability. Continue reading
Great news – newspaper plan axed
Great news – newspaper closes
Some good news from the newspaper industry at last – Press Gazette reports that “Thurrock Council has abandoned plans to launch a fortnightly council newsletter costing £300,000 per year”.
http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/5817
None of our business
Council leaders found there was no business case for the publication. (It’s very rare that there’s a business for anything local government does – but let’s not carp …)
The report quotes Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw as saying that council-run newspapers “reminded him of Pravda”. (I’m not sure whether that’s praise or condemnation. But, again, let’s not carp …)
Not now
The report was slightly marred by a classic typo:
In an investigation for the Evening Standard, Andrew Gilligan revealed that council-paid journalists and press officers may not outnumber independent local newspaper journalists in London.
What Gilligan actually said was:
A Standard investigation has found that in London more writers are now employed by these official papers than by the local independent press.
Lies, damned lies, and council news
But as the Gilligan piece makes clear, these council-run propaganda sheets pose a threat to real newspapers, and possibly even a threat to local democracy.
At least, they would if anyone read them. Mine go straight in the cat-lit tray.
Nuff said
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23724285-the-propaganda-newspapers.do
Some good news for the newspaper industry at last – Press Gazette reports that “Thurrock Council has abandoned plans to launch a fortnightly council newsletter costing £300,000 per year“. Continue reading
Thoughtless for the day
Thoughtless for the day
The BBC has rejected requests to open Radio Four’s Thought for the Day slot to atheists, humanists, secularists, and…er…anyone who thinks anything really.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/17/bbc-thought-for-the-day
The BBC Trust said that Thought for the Day was religious output, and as such, didn’t breach the BBC’s guidelines on impartiality.
We never had a prayer
Secularists are bitterly upset at the trusts’s ruling, while the Church of England has welcomed it. No religious group has commented so far.
There’s probably no Richard Dawkins
National Secular Society president Terry Sanderson said: “Naturally we are very disappointed. This is a campaign we have been waging for 50 years, ever since Thought for the Day and its predecessors were first broadcast on the BBC.
“Of course, to look on the bright side, it does mean people like us can give up and get a life, or at least find something more important to obsess about, such as the way they make crisp packets look bigger by filling them up with air, even though there are fewer crisps in the packet than there were even five years ago, let alone 50. Now that’s a real scandal. I was only saying as much to Richard Borekins the other day…”
Actually, he didn’t say that at all. I made the last bit up.
The BBC has rejected requests to open Radio Four’s Thought for the Day slot to atheists, humanists, secularists, and…er…well, anyone who thinks anything, really. Continue reading