March 19th, 2009 § § permalink
OK, just humour me, because I have been known to be wrong, believe it or not.
I wasn’t able to watch Stewart Lees’ Comedy Vehicle when it was on the telly the other night, so I recorded it and watched it last night.
When Stewart was saying what Amazon suggested he might like, after buying six Jeremy Clarkeson books, I had to rewind and watch that little bit again.
The first book Stewart says Amazon recommends is Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler. The little Amazon recommend bar graphic at the side of the screen schows a picture of the book, quite clearly, but the sound is edited so that instead of saying the title of Hitlers book, Stewart says…
mumph
I originally thought that, being shitty freeview, the signal when originally broadcast was a bit lumpy and my freeview box decided to just skip the bit inbetween the first and last sounds of the book title. But it wasn’t. I also thought it was because of what I had imbibed, hence the disclaimer above. But after several passes I can confidentely claim that the BBC censored the words ‘Mein Kampf’.
The question I have is this: Why is the BBC scared of giving away the name of an important Nazi book to blind people? It must be something to do with blind people as the cover of the book with the title clearly readable was shown on screen.
Are blind people especially sensitive to the thoughts of Hitler, so sensitive that even the mention of the name of his book reduces them to tears?
Are partially sighted people so easily seduced by Nazism, to the extent that if they hear the words ‘Mein Kampf’ they will become right wing fascist thugs, ready to blame their ‘different sightedness’ on immigrants and teh Jews?
Obviously the BBC thinks so.
I also believe that the BBC think blind people can’t use computers as the show on iPlayer (url will probably change once the BBC get wind I’m onto them) has not been doctored (3 minutes in).
I think I might be onto a big conspiracy here. I may be back with more later, if the Coporation doesn’t silence me first.
March 18th, 2009 § § permalink
I’m away for a very long weekend, so expect even less content than usual.
Now, remember. You can have a party, just don’t trash the place.
March 17th, 2009 § § permalink
March 11th, 2009 § § permalink
BBC:
A man jailed 27 years ago for murdering a barmaid could be released from prison after DNA evidence was reviewed.
Sean Hodgson, 57, is serving a life sentence for killing Teresa De Simone, 22. She was found strangled in her car in Southampton in December 1979.
The case has now been sent to appeal over claims tests on semen found at the scene prove it was not Hodgson’s DNA.
The BBC understands the Crown Prosecution Service will not contest the appeal on 18 March.
This guy has spent 27 years in prison, and now some DNA testing can, it is thought, prove that it wasn’t him that killed this girl. The fact that the CPS isn’t going to try to keep him in prison is a strong indicator that this man will be free and pronounced innocent.
So. Still want to bring back hanging?
March 11th, 2009 § § permalink
Chicken Yoghurt…
Yay, my Project Honey Pot honey pot caught an email harvester. Go me!
“WTF is Project Honey Pot?” I thought.
Project Honey Pot…
Project Honey Pot is the first and only distributed system for identifying spammers and the spambots they use to scrape addresses from your website. Using the Project Honey Pot system you can install addresses that are custom-tagged to the time and IP address of a visitor to your site. If one of these addresses begins receiving email we not only can tell that the messages are spam, but also the exact moment when the address was harvested and the IP address that gathered it.
…
We collate, process, and share the data generated by your site with you. We also work with law enforcement authorities to track down and prosecute spammers. Harvesting email addresses from websites is illegal under several anti-spam laws, and the data resulting from Project Honey Pot is critical for finding those breaking the law.
Additionally, we will periodically collate the email messages we receive and share the resulting corpus with anti-spam developers and researchers. The data participants in Project Honey Pot will help to build the next generation of anti-spam software.
Everyone hates spam and spammers, unless of course you are a spammer, and as someone who’s had their email address spoofed and then been spammed by my own email address, I particularly like this idea.
So, to all those spammers, I have this message, in the immortal words of Farmer Palmer…
Get orff moy laand!
March 2nd, 2009 § § permalink
Harriot Harman received a new position in the government this morning.
After making comments yesterday about taking back Fred ‘The Shred’ Goodwins’ exorbitant pension without giving the sightest hint as to how, Ms Harmann, currently the Leader of the House, will take on the portfolio of Minister with No Mates. A position created especially for her.
This insistance by the new ‘Minnie’ No Mates was greeted with joyful surprise by lawyers, who have a new hope to get through the credit crunch by drawing out a legal wrangle for years, should Ms Harman press ahead.
Several Treasury Officials, who would be tasked with working out how to claw the money back, were so surprised the cry of “WTF?” could be heard ringing all around whitehall.
Magaret Beckett, a veteran MP and current housing minister, took Harriots’ appointment very seriously by isolating Ms Harman by refusing to comment and even suggesting that the government will do nothing.
The shadow chancellor George Osborne commented…
I’m not sure I know… Harriet Harman… at all.
The Prime Minister speaking at Some Forum or Other was momentarily caught off guard. He excelled himself by refusing to address the question, in a way normally only seen in PMQs’, with an answer that we’re not going to unsult you with by printing.
Vince Cable couldn’t help himself and described Ms Harmon as ‘potty’.
February 27th, 2009 § § permalink
The Croydonian spotted someting in the Lords Hansard that could be filed under ‘Whoa! I wouldn’t have said that’…
“Baroness Warsi: To ask Her Majesty’s Government which religions and faiths are officially recognised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
The Lord President of the Council (Baroness Royall of Blaisdon): The Equality and Human Rights Commission recognises all religions and faiths“.
Hmm. Let us say that I decide to subscribe to the First Presleytarian Church of Elvis the Divine or define myself as a Jedi Knight, should I then be able to avail myself of the full panoply of protections etc under equality law? Equally well, should the same apply to any ethical / moral system that I cook up which owes nothing to the divine?
As he says, an answer like that leaves you open to a whole world of trouble.
February 27th, 2009 § § permalink
Good grief. The Sun is on the shortlist for the Press Gazette British Press awards.
So, what awards are they up for? First off there’s Gordon Smart for Showbiz Reporter of the Year. Yes, apprently he’s a really good reporter. It must be true, it’s in the Sun!
Also shortlisted is another showbiz reporter of the Suns’, Richard White. Who?
Next is Tom Newton-Dunn, the Defence editor, who is on the list for Best Specialist Journalist. Again, the words ‘Could do better‘ spring to mind.
Best website and Dickie Pelham for best photographer are next. No comment one way or another on those two.
Our monumental Baby P petition has also been included in the Campaign of the Year shortlist.
I suppose it is worthy of an award, although rather than Campaign of the Year I would’ve thought the Baby P campaign would have sat better in the Best Use of a Lynch Mob catagory.
For the Cudlipp Award, there are two nominees. The Millies and Panoramic Posters. The Millies has failed to impress who they were honouring, namely the ordinary guys and girls in the army and the Panoramic Posters, well I haven’t a clue what that is as the only mention of it with a search on Google is in this page detailing the awards shortlist.
The final two awards are for Scoop of the Year. The first is “Ashley Cheats on Cheyl”, which is really worthy of an award, the private life of a footballer, cheating on his popstar wife. Great.
The second is of a bit better quality, and probably the only one that should be on the list is “Starberks”, about how the Coffee company keep a time running all day wasting a huge amount of water.
The standard of journalism must be pretty low if this is the standard on the shortlist [unfortunatley, I can’t see who else is on it as I am on my work computer and the Press Gazette site does work on it for some reason. I’m not at home later either, to update. Oh well.]
February 27th, 2009 § § permalink
The LibDems have launched a bill, The Freedom Bill, to repeal a load of laws that have steadily eroded our freedoms and civil liberties.
At the moment they have twenty thing to look at…
Our first draft of the Freedom Bill contains twenty measures to restore the fundamental rights that have been stripped away in recent years. We would:
- Scrap ID cards for everyone, including foreign nationals.
- Ensure that there are no restrictions in the right to trial by jury for serious offences including fraud.
- Restore the right to protest in Parliament Square, at the heart of our democracy.
- Abolish the flawed control orders regime.
- Renegotiate the unfair extradition treaty with the United States.
- Restore the right to public assembly for more than two people.
- Scrap the ContactPoint database of all children in Britain.
- Strengthen freedom of information by giving greater powers to the
- Information Commissioner and reducing exemptions.
- Stop criminalising trespass.
- Restore the public interest defence for whistleblowers.
- Prevent allegations of ‘bad character’ from being used in court.
- Restore the right to silence when accused in court.
- Prevent bailiffs from using force.
- Restrict the use of surveillance powers to the investigation of serious crimes and stop councils snooping.
- Restore the principle of double jeopardy in UK law.
- Remove innocent people from the DNA database.
- Reduce the maximum period of pre-charge detention to 14 days.
- Scrap the ministerial veto which allowed the Government to block the release of Cabinet minutes relating to the Iraq war.
- Require explicit parental consent for biometric information to be taken from children.
- Regulate CCTV following a Royal Commission on cameras.
It looks good to me so I’ve added my name to the petition.
Via
February 25th, 2009 § § permalink
A big number two at number two, beaten by a man who was a number two and had two (cont. p. 94)…
background 1, 2.
