Just two small errors: the headline and the story

September 27th, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

The Daily Star ran a story, not too long ago. What with not reading the Daily Star very often I missed it and it has now been taken down from it’s website. This was due to two small factual errors (well, I say errors but…).

The PCC has adjudicated…

The front-page article had reported that a Rochdale shopping centre had installed “Muslim-only squat-hole loos” and that the local council had wasted “YOUR money” on them. The complainant argued that as the facilities would be available to everyone, it was inaccurate to state they were “Muslim-only”. Nor was taxpayers’ money involved, as the decision to pay for them had been taken by the shopping centre, not by the local council. The newspaper, while claiming that the toilets had been designed with Muslims in mind, nonetheless accepted that both its headline was inaccurate, and that the toilets were paid for by a private developer as opposed to the council. It removed the original article from its website and offered to publish a page 2 correction.

Once again, the PCC has excelled itself.

The Daily Star has portrayed these toilets as public. They may be open to the public, but they aren’t in the sense of the council paying for and having responsibility for them. The central claim that makes this story a story is false, because not a penny of taxpayers money was spent on them. That’s without the completely false headline. This story should just never have happened.

And what does the slavering, razor-toothed beast of a regulating body do? It accepted an offer of a page 2 correction.

This was a front page story. Shouldn’t an editor make sure that the biggest story of the day be correct? Shouldn’t a big, *ahem* ‘mistake’ like this need more than a correction hidden inside the paper when the, *ahem* ‘error’ was on the front?

This sort of ‘mistake’ shouldn’t happen. when it does, the PCC needs to be able to do more. Self regulation isn’t working.

This adjudication highlights not only the inadequacies of the PCC but also the agenda of Richard Desmonds publications, and arguably, the man himself.

Express blames some victims

September 24th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

I’ve just done my first post for the new media watch site Express Watch UK.

It’s about some immigrants and home owners getting scammed by dodgy estate agent. The Express blames the immigrants, naturally.

Campaign or recruitment?

September 22nd, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

The latest BNP newsletter slithered into my email inbox last night.

I proclaims that last Saturday, their first ‘Day of Action’ with regards to their ‘Bring Our Boys Home’ campaign an “unqualified and refreshing” success.

Obviously I don’t know if the figures they quote for the amount of signatures they got in their petition is true or inflated, but is this campaign really about bringing British soldiers back from the battlefield?

You already know the answer, I’m sure. But just incase you didn’t the newsletter urges us to contact their local branch to get involved in future days of action and…

…take part in the largest, most successful nationalist recruitment campaign in British history!

Soldiers. Just another useful tools for the BNP.

On stupid ideas for young drivers

September 21st, 2010 § 5 comments § permalink

BBC

Newly qualified young drivers should be banned from night-time motoring and carrying passengers of a similar age, Cardiff University researchers say.

They said such “graduated driver licensing” for those aged 17-24 could save more than 200 lives and result in 1,700 fewer serious injuries each year.

What an absolute cunt of an idea.

A someone in the article suggests, what about young people that work nights? People are also being encouraged to lift share, but kids at college wouldn’t be allowed to.

Surely it would be better to go along the same lines as has happened with motorcycles and restrict what vehicles new/young drivers can drive. Not that that will help, I gather during the local car of choice for the local joy riders when it was big all those years ago was the Metro. So power is not really the issue.

In a side bar on the BBCs’ story is a comment from a father whose daughter was killed in an accident with an 18 year old driver. Surprisingly, it isn’t about not letting people drive until they’re fortyfive or only letting young drivers loose in pedal cars, well most of the quote at least…

They should abolish the driving test completely.

These children are not being taught how to drive at all, they are being taught how to pass a test.

Instead, there should be a driving log – similar to aircraft – where learners have to log 200 hours with an experienced motorist.

They should drive at night, in the sunshine, in rain, snow, ice, on the motorway – under instruction at all time.

What an excellent idea. At the moment you if you learn through the summer the first time you experience adverse conditions or night driving is going to be on you’re on own. You can’t experience motorway driving whilst you’re a learner, and I’ll bet most people after their test don’t bother to book one more lesson to be taught how to drive on a motorway properly.

What’s needed, and is more practical, is better tuition for new drivers and harder penalties for people that fuck up through recklessness. Everybody, not just the young.

Pope terrorists not terrorists after all

September 18th, 2010 § 1 comment § permalink

BBC

Police sources say officers think there was “no credible threat” to the Pope after six arrested men were questioned.

Searches have finished without the discovery of anything significant.

So not only weren’t the men plotting the untimely demise of the Pope, they’re not member of Al Qaeda (however it’s fucking spelt) or Islamist extremists either.

And the Express seemed so sure, as well.

At least there’s still immigration to fall back on to get rid of the forriners.

An interesting assertion from the Express

September 18th, 2010 § 2 comments § permalink

An interesting use of words from the Express

ISLAMIC terrorists disguised as street cleaners allegedly hatched an audacious plot to blow up the Pope.

(screenshot)

Six men have been arrested in relation to a plot to assassinate the Pope. Allegedly. The Express from the first line of the above article acknowledges that they might not have been planning to help the pope meet his boss, but in the wording used the Express is saying for definate that these guys are Islamist terrorists.

The Express is saying these six guys *are* terrorists but may *not* have been plotting to kill the pope.

That’s quite an interesting assertion when the information that prompted the arrests was…

…not the result of intercepts or undercover work, but was, sources said, more akin to an overheard conversation that could be interpreted as posing a threat.

So the source of the intelligence that got the ball rolling was unlikely, in my opinion, to have heard what organisation, if any, these six suspects belong to. Details of a plan maybe, but not the parent organisation.

Anyway, if these guys, from North Africa, are not terrorists, then Immigration are bound to get them…

An investigation is also under way to determine if the foreign nationals had entered Britain legally and were entitled to work here.

Curiously enough, that line only appears in the Express as well.

18/12/2010 22:20 Update.

What a coincidence

September 15th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

BBC

A senior Papal adviser has pulled out of the Pope’s UK visit after saying arriving at Heathrow airport was like landing in a “Third World” country.

Cardinal Walter Kasper reportedly told a German magazine the UK was marked by “a new and aggressive atheism”.

Oh, cheers. Thanks for that.

Isn’t that a bit of a contradiction? Being here in the UK is like being in a third world country and yet we are in the grip of Teh Eeeeviiiil Godless Ones? The impression I got, and as you know I’m not really one for sniffing out stats, so correct me (with links) if I’m wrong, was that third world countries were quite religious.

The Vatican said the cardinal had not intended “any kind of slight” and had simply pulled out due to illness.

So it was a fucking compliment, then? In what way, ever, has being like a third world country not been a compliment? You can’t even think of one way can you?

He also criticised British Airways (BA), saying that when you wear a cross on the airline “you are discriminated against”.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha! What a fucking old cunt. Has he travelled with BA? He probably has. Did he get discriminated against? I’d bet my right testicle he didn’t. Has any one who’s travelled by BA whilst wearing a cross been refused service or stopped from using the toilet or been denied anything at all? Get to fuck have they.

If this deluded dipshit is referring to that woman that wanted to wear a cross but was told not to because it was against BAs’ uniform policy. Well, it’s not like wearing a cross is one of the central tenets of christianity like say, a Sikhs’ turban.

Vatican sources said Cardinal Kasper [for it is he…] – who stepped down in July as the head of the department that deals with other Christian denominations – was suffering from gout and had been advised by his doctors not to travel to the UK.

That’s fucking handy, isn’t it? The cardinal calls the country he about to visit a bunch of cunts and suddenly he’s had an attack of gout and can’t go. Obviously I don’t know if the cardinal really has gout, or has been advised by his doctor not to travel, but what is it from Rome to London? 3 hours? 4? Hardly a long haul flight.

A bit of a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?

On Mugabes’ ‘foreign owned comany’ policy

September 14th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

Talking of fucking stupid ideas, here’s another, also based on the colour of someones skin, from Mugabe this time…

Mugabe told Reuters the government would proceed with a plan for local blacks to acquire 51 percent shares in foreign-owned firms, including mines and banks, despite criticism it will hurt investment flows into the country.

It has always been our aim to have control of our resources … and I don’t think the private sectors of the Western countries would, in total, decide to stay away

Don’t you just love the word ‘aquire’. It could mean oh so many different things.

If that 51% share of froeign owned companies is to be bought by individuals, then not many, I imagine, zimbabwean blacks are going to be able to afford to buy into it (if ‘aquire’ does indeed mean ‘buy’ and not ‘steal’), which leaves just the elite that already have money, keeping the redistrubution of wealth from local resources in the already wealthy.

The term ‘local blacks’ does not mean owned by the state, which income from those investments could be put back into the infrastructure of the country for all, for say, transport, education and health. Although the white Zimbabweans would also benefit, much much more of the impoverished black population would benefit rather than a few of the not so needy.

Denying an opportunity for a section of the popluation on the basis of skin colour, well that’s just good old fashioned racism isn’t it.

Mugabes statement tells me that he is just after an easy buck for him and his mates.

Cunt.

Oh dear, Diane

September 14th, 2010 § 1 comment § permalink

I heard Diane Abbott on Radio 4s’ Today programme this morning. I couldn’t believe what I heard (I can’t get a link to it from R4 now so here it is from the Independent)…

Ethnic and gender monitoring should be carried out when public bodies axe jobs to prevent planned spending cuts having a disproportionate impact on minority communities, Labour leadership candidate Diane Abbott said today.

Ms Abbott warned that a “last in, first out” approach to redundancies would hit black and female workers particularly hard and could set back race relations by a generation, risking “instability” in society.

What the fuck is she thinking? This is outrageous.

‘Last in, first out’ is a sensible way of deciding redundancies. If there’s two people in role, then it is a completely arbitrary way of making the decision. There is no chance of being accused of trying to get rid someone in an underhand manner, no chance of being accused of sexaul/racial discrimination. It is also not bad for the organisation either, by way of having to pay less redundacy money than needed.

Another way of deciding who gets the chop is my drawing up a skills matrix. Those with the higher skills stay. Again, colour of skin or whether someone has a penis or not doesn’t come into it. The matrix makes sure only what a person can do the matters.

Abbott may have a point about the cuts disproportionally affecting minorities and women, but that’s hardly a consolation to the employee, or their family that has been made redundant because of something an empoyer can be prosecuted for doing when hiring.

I think the public sector cuts have the potential to set back race relations and black and ethnic minority communities by a generation.

To use an over used phrase, WTF? The only way these cuts will fuck race relations is if a policy of deciding who gets the boot is done by race. Exactly as Diane Abbot is advocating.

DuckDuckGo: The private search engine

September 11th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

So. DuckDuckGo. A hybrid search engine. This one though, doesn’t collect personal data. Which many people would say is A Good Thing.

What DuckDuckGo also does is prevent what they call ‘search leakage‘…

At other search engines, when you do a search and then click on a link, your search terms are sent to that site you clicked on (in the HTTP referrer header). We call this sharing of personal information “search leakage.”

For example, when you search for something private, you are sharing that private search not only with your search engine, but also with all the sites that you clicked on (for that search).

In addition, when you visit any site, your computer automatically sends information about it to that site (including your User agent and IP address). This information can often be used to identify you directly.

So when you do that private search, not only can those other sites know your search terms, but they can also know that you searched it. It is this combination of available information about you that raises privacy concerns.

Because DuckDuckGo prevents ‘search leakage’, by redirecting your click on a result in a way…

…that it does not send your search terms to other sites. The other sites will still know that you visited them, but they will not know what search you entered beforehand.

No information about your computer is sent to the site you click on via a DuckDuckGo search. Not even the search terms. The very thing that tells you in your analytics package what someone was looking for.

This could present a problem for Search Engine Optimisers/Marketers if this type of ethos gains traction*. Not being able to tell what operating system someone was using when they landed on your site is one thing, but not knowing what someone was looking for when they got there is another.

*I don’t think it will as the money to be made from this information is too great an opportunity to pass up for some people.
**Discovered via Tygerland.

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