Sim-O

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.

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 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.

The Sun and the Daily Mail got bollocked telling porkies about the Tamil chap that was on hunger strike last year.

New posts are at The Sun Lies, by Septicisle, and Mailwatch, by me.

Hand out mephedrone in nightclubs, says ex-drugs tsar Professor David Nutt

You what? Has the man taken leave of his senses? This stuff is dangerous. D.A.N.G.E.R.O.U.S.

But in a classic Daily Mail sidestep, that’s not quite what the Prof said. There’s more to it than just doleing out drugs.

I wouldn’t be against exploring the possibility of some sort of regulated use for MDMA or mephedrone where people, maybe in clubs, could have access to small amounts, safe amounts under guidance.

What Professor Nutt is saying is have a look at regulated access to the drugs. He isn’t even saying we should do that, just that we should look into what sort of harm reduction may be achieved from letting consenting adults, because only adults are allowed in nightclubs, buy untainted drugs that aren’t cut with all the usual rubbish along with the information to let those adults make an informed choice. We do that with alcohol and cigarettes, so why not with other substances that are no more harmful than alcohol and cigarettes?

The headline which gives the impression that every club should have someone just dishing out mindbending drugs to who ever wants them in what ever quantities are asked for. That is just ridiculous. We don’t even do that in pubs, and pubs are only there to sell you a mindbending drug.

This sort of mis-representation would be right at home at the Daily Mail. But it isn’t. It’s the Independent, a supposedly ‘quality’ paper. No wonder it’s had to pay someone to buy it. Which is bribery, isn’t it?

Tiger Woods has apologised.

Who gives a shit?

What the fuck is he apologising to us for? Did he sleep with my wife? did he sleep with me after telling me he was single? No. Obviously not.

With his adverts, and I must say I didn’t follow them ever so closely so I might not have seen them all, did he proclaim that he was an the epitome of of the monogamous family man? Not from the ones I’ve seen. The adverts I’ve seen him don’t have much talking, by Tiger himself, or many women in them, his wife or any other woman.

So why the fuck is he top of the cunting news? Even my local BBC news had a slot on him this evening!

The only people he needs to apologise to are his family. This is just a fucking media stunt to get Woods’ sponsorship back and the media are complicit in this. Woods plays chuffing golf, for christ sake. He doesn’t need anyone’s forgiveness to play and win tournaments, he needs the publics’ good feelings to get sponsorship.

What a waste of fucking airtime.

Update:
Immediately after I published I found, via MamaJunkyard, this flow chart to work out if Tiger owes you an apology or not.

As you can see, if you follow the link to our petition, iPetitons dog ate it.

For all his efforts, Tim couldn’t get iPetitions to feed it some canine laxatives so we could have it back in a timely manner, and so is still waiting the data that was collected and probably won’t see it this side of March. Which will be too late.

So what we need you to do, even if you left your name and suggestions for the review on the petition is to send an email to:

Vivien Hepworth, Chairman, (PCC) Independent Governance Review:
governancereview@pcc.org.uk

This one needs to be done today (25 January) as it closes today. If you do not want your submission to be made public, you will have to specifically tell them. Also send you suggestions to:

Ian Beales, Code Committee Secretary, Editor’s Code of Practice Committee:
ianbeales@mac.com

The deadline for this one is 31 January.

Here are the five suggestions on the original petition…

SUGGESTION ONE: Like-for-like placement of retractions, corrections and apologies in print and online (as standard).
Retractions, corrections, and apologies should normally be at least equally prominent to the original article, in both print and online editions. Any departure from this rule should only be in exceptional circumstances, and the onus on showing such circumstances should be on the publication.

SUGGESTION TWO: Original or redirected URLs for retractions, corrections & apologies online (as standard).

Retractions, corrections, and apologies in respect of online articles should always be displayed either at the original URL or at a URL to which the reader is redirected.

SUGGESTION THREE: The current Code contains no reference to headlines, and this loophole should be closed immediately.

Headlines should be covered by the same rules as the rest of a story. Further, headlines and titles for links should never be misleading in what they imply or offer and should always be substantiated by the article/contents.

SUGGESTION FOUR: Sources to be credited unless they do not wish to be credited or require anonymity/protection.

Sources should normally be credited. Any departure from this rule should only be when the source does not wish to be credited or if the source requires anonymity/protection.

SUGGESTION FIVE: A longer and more interactive consultation period for open discussion of more fundamental issues.

I submit all of the above without implying support for the PCC, the remainder of Code as it stands, or even the concept of self-regulation, and request that the 20th year of the PCC be marked with an open debate about its progress to date, and its future direction.

There is also a post at Liberal Conspiracy where submissions can also be left via the comments.

If reading a page full of text about how the PCC Editors Code of Practice could be improved isn’t your thing and you’d rather watch a lovely spangley video with some great music, then watch this (there’s even a game at the end for you to enjoy).

go and sign the petition and maybe even leave your own suggestion.

Oh, and tell yer mates, too.

The above piece isn’t exactly a lie, which is why I’m posting here rather than at The Sun Lies, except that maybe travellers, although outraged, aren’t demanding Lord Adonis cut short his christmas holiday, as most probably didn’t even realise he was on holiday. The reader doesn’t find out, no travellers are quoted in the article, only bods from organisations and the like.

What has pee’d me off about this article is the way that the Sun starts off screaming about Lord Adonis ‘sloping’* off for a ski holiday while the country grinds to a halt.

*From the Suns’ position, that is a fantastic pun. Not only does it fit with Adonis going on the piste**, but it aslo goes with the sneaky, useless Labour government narrative.

**apologies for that one.

The next paragraph carries on the narrative by introducing the bumbling sidekick…

Lord Adonis, 46, left his hapless deputy Sadiq Khan to face the avalanche of fury over cancellations, delays and the road gritting shambles.

That’s the groundwork for the piece laid down: the boss has snuk (sneaked?) off and left his bumbling deputy to cope.
Naturally the shadow local government minister is gonna have pop and say that Adonis should come back, via airports that are closed, to help out with a shovel and a bag of grit.

Once all that is set up there follows a great long list of things that have happened because of the cold, as if it’s Lord Adonis’ fault:

Nine people have died during the cold snap as temperatures plunged to as low as -16C in some parts of the UK.

Two women were killed and almost 50 injured when a coach overturned on icy roads in Cornwall late last night.

In Northamptonshire Paul Litchfield, 30, and Philip Sturridge, 42, drowned as they tried to rescue their pet Labrador from a frozen lake near Ringstead.

Adonis should’ve been handing out thermal underwear, and called the bus company to tell them not to send the driver out and gone onto the frozen lake himself instead of making those two chaps go out on the thin ice themselves to rescue a fucking dog.

In Sale, Greater Manchester, recovery worker Denis Livesly, 60, was killed as he attended to a car in a snowstorm on the M60 motorway.

Malcolm Brown, 32, was also killed in Basingstoke, Hampshire, when a deer smashed through his windscreen during a blizzard.

On the island of Lewis 35-year-old electrician Donald Martin froze to death after locking himself out of his home after a Christmas party.

How could Adonis have prevented Mr Livesly from dying? Deers are a nightmare whatever the weather, is it Adonis’ fault Donald Martin didn’t have the sense to smash a window to get back in his home?

There’s more stories about people trying to save their dogs and people dying after slipping on ice and aeroplanes slipping off the end of runways and trains and the Royal Mail and Asda and Eurostar and roads and… and… and…

If only Lord Adonis was here. The country would be able to stop being so shit at bad weather.

I got a new post up at Mailwatch. Some cunt thinks smoking is good and that smokers do the NHS a favour by dropping down dead prematurely, which obviously all smokers do, except the ones that die a protracted painful death over many years of course.

I didn’t even go into the nightmare that was the comments underneath it.