Dying to get that bargain

November 28th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

New York Times:

A Wal-Mart employee in suburban New York was trampled to death by a crush of shoppers who tore down the front doors and thronged into the store early Friday morning, turning the annual rite of post-Thanksgiving bargain hunting into a Hobbesian frenzy.

At 4:55 a.m., just five minutes before the doors were set to open, a crowd of 2,000 anxious shoppers started pushing, shoving and piling against the locked sliding glass doors of the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., Nassau County police said. The shoppers broke the doors off their hinges and surged in, toppling a 34-year-old temporary employee who had been waiting with other workers in the store’s entryway.

People did not stop to help the employee as he lay on the ground, and they pushed against other Wal-Mart workers who were trying to aid the man. The crowd kept running into the store even after the police arrived, jostling and pushing officers who were trying to perform CPR, the police said.

FFS. It’s only stuff. Nothing is worth that.

On Damian Green

November 28th, 2008 § 1 comment § permalink

EU Ref (via):

…on receipt of leaked confidential information, the MP sends it to the “proper authorities”. If he then uses the information so gained to “guide” questioning in the House – whether written or oral – and thereby puts that information into the public domain, then he is pretty much watertight, protected by Parliamentary privilege.

The place for opposition to hold the government to account is the House of Commons, not the pages of the press. If the media then publish the proceedings of the House, that is a matter for them and, generally, to be welcomed – that is democracy at work. MPs leaking confidential government information, passed to them illegally by civil servants, is not. In that context, it is not so much what you do, but how you do it.

Chicken Yoghurt:

…in the spirit of fairness that a leak is a leak is a leak whether it’s in the government’s favour or not. Does anybody think that, if the substance of the information leaked to Green had been ‘everything’s rosey at the Home Office’, he’d have had nine policemen standing around him yesterday?

Damian Green MP arrested

November 27th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Telegraph:

Mr Green, who is the shadow immigration minister, was arrested at his home in Kent by counter-terrorism police officers.

The arrest follows a series of leaks to the Conservatives about Government policy, including a sensitive memorandum from the Home Office’s most senior official on crime figures earlier this month.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, is said to be “extremely angry” about the arrest and has privately accused the Government of “Stalinesque” behaviour.

Mr Green is understood to have been arrested at lunchtime today and is still in custody. He has not been charged.

No surprise that counter-terrorism police were used. Feels like it’s the default apparatus to use.

Andrew Gilligan: Ailing Standards

November 27th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

(I was gonna post this last night, but completely forgot. So, I’m late to the party, as usual)

[[image:ailing_sample.gif:Ailing Standards:left:0]]
Andrew Gilligan is still not answering the question

Do you deny leaving comments underneath your own articles and articles about you, whilst pretending to be a third person?

So Manic The Sockpuppet-Slayer has branched out into his own free newssheet which was handed out out the front of the offices of Associated Newspapers, the publishers of the Evening Standard, Gilligans employer.

Go see Tims’ post for the full story.

Dancing with the devil

November 27th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Georgina Baillie:

If the media is making money off you, you’re entitled to make money off them. That’s a rule Max Clifford taught me.

That’s a Max Clifford rule, because what ever the outcome, he wins.

Everytime.

Via

On stimulation

November 26th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Simon Warr of the Lap Dancing Association a House of Commons on lap dancing clubs:

“People go for the alcohol and the entertainment – so, the entertainment is nude. But it is not sexually stimulating.”

He’s either trying to pull a fast one or he’s never been in a lap dancing club.
OK, they’re not everyones cup of tea. Some people aren’t going to be ‘sexually stimulated’ by a lap dance, but that’s not through bad design.
What then, is the point of paying a young lady to jiggle about with very little or no clothing on, very closely to you, if it’s not for walking away with a big woody?

What’s that on your foot, honey?

November 25th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

The Lay Scientist:

“Healing therapist” Russell Jenkins tragically died after a minor injury to his foot became gangrenous when he refused to seek medical attention, an inquest has heard.

As local Portsmouth newspaper The News describes: “Russell Jenkins injured his left foot treading on an electrical plug at his home. The wound later became infected, but the 52-year-old shunned conventional treatment, saying his ‘inner being’ told him not to go to hospital. Instead he tried treating it with honey, an ancient remedy for the treatment of infected wounds.”

Fair play for sticking to his beliefs.

Anyone called the people at the Darwin Awards?

Petrol Prices

November 25th, 2008 § 2 comments § permalink

PetrolPrices.com:

The changes are designed to be neutral, but calculations by PetrolPrices.com show that there will be a slight increase at the pumps of 0.4p a litre, or 20p per average 50 litre tank of unleaded when the changes come into effect on December 1st. The fact that fuel prices will increase at all is contrary to the message from the Chancellor that the changes will be revenue neutral.

I thought that all these revenue changes were meant to stimulate the economy, to help minimise the effect of a recession.
If so, what the fuck is the point in them being neutral?

They’re not neutral, it’s just sleight of hand.

Meandering thoughts.

November 25th, 2008 § 3 comments § permalink

I’m not too good with numbers, especially when it comes to tax. My sister, an accountant, reckons tax is shit too, because apart from having to pay it, there is no logic to it. The man at No. 11 makes it up as he goes along.

Apparently VAT is going to be dropped to 15% for the next year. That’s a cut of 2.5% but apparently it drops prices by 2.13%. Eh? How does that work?

Income tax has also gone up to 45% for people earning over £150,000. I don’t earn that much but I reckon that’s gotta hurt.

As usual, depending on where you read/listen, you’re either better off if you have an income of under £19k, worse off if you earn over £40k, both, neither or some other combination

What we have is an economic system that is supposed to be great. We keep hearing how many people capitalism has raised out of poverty and that it is the best system for economic growth.
If it’s so good, then why do we have more people in poverty than out? If its so good why does it keep crashing and wiping out peoples savings and chucking people out of jobs?
The captains of industriy cry for more privatisation, less regulation, to stop distorting the markets, to free the markets for wealth creation. But when it all goes belly up, it’s all because there was not enough regulation.

I heard a couple of times the word ‘radical’ being used in connection with what the Chancellor is doing. But it’s not is it? It’s just tinkering, rearranging the furniture.
Once we come out of this recession and downturn(TM) we will have another period of unprecedented growth. This period of growth will be followed by another crash.
Boom. Bust. Boom. Bust.
Ad.
Nauseum.

All the while the people able to insulate themselves from the downturns get more affluent, and the worst off get shafted, again and again. No. that’s not quite right. The worst off already have nothing, so it’s the not quite worst off that end up joining the worst off.

It’s not going to change either. Labour, Conservative or Libdems. We’re being taken to the same destination, it’s just the route that different.

Safe for work

November 25th, 2008 § 0 comments § permalink

Via email:

[[image:sfwgoggles.gif:Safe For Work Goggles:center:0]]

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