Sim-O

I said earlier I was going to write a post but now it actually comes to it, like it seems so many other times lately, what do I write a post about?

The News International/News Corp./News of the World hacking scandal (I fucking hate the the term ‘hackgate’)? Well, I don’t have any news that you can’t anywhere else, and be more accurate and more recent too. An incisive bit of opinion that’ll make you think? Not that either.

So what do I have instead? Not a fucking lot. To give my mind some time to think while I type go and check out Septicisles’ musings on the Murdoch situation and Tim is doing his own digging in the archives to give the FBI somewhere to start looking to help bring the Murdoch empire down. Give him some support, would you. (See? even the first two links I have for you aren’t exactly original, are they? What hope have I got of writing an interesting blog post?)

Oh, and Unity at the Ministry of Truth has been kicking the absolute shit out of Nadine Dorries too, which is always a joy.

The PCC are running scared. Uponnothing hits the PCC bang on the head with just why, exactly, they are a bag of shit and are less than pointless and irrelevant using the example of a couple of women, who were raped, that had had their anonymity revealed by a paper. The PCC condemned the actions of the paper and adjudicated against them in, for the PCC, the strongest terms. What was the strongest punishment that could be handed to the offending paper?

[The PCC} contacted the owners so that they could ensure it never happened again. All well and good you might think, but imagine of this kind of adjudication happened in any other walk of life. Would the tabloids be happy if a teenager found guilty of doing something ‘exceedingly serious’ was not punished in any way, instead the judge just passed on his thoughts to the parents in the hope that they could take the appropriate action?

What if the Chief Executive of Trinity Mirror doesn’t do anything? What would the PCC do in that case? What could they do in that case?

And that is the problem with the PCC. It can do fuck all else except point a finger and that doesn’t seem to be stopping the usual suspects and transgressing the code, as the more prominent media bloggers highlight on a daily basis.

Anyway, this post about bugger all has taken me far, far longer to write than it’ll take you to read, and I’m sorry to have wasted your time waffling on about fuck all, so I’ll leave you with a link to a site that should’ve gone on my blogroll ages ago, but you know what sort of waste of space I am. It’s called Stuff and Nonsense, written by jdc325. Enjoy.

A former editor of the Sunday Express is trying to get together a consortium to breath life back into the News of the World.

Susan Douglas reckons…
“I think News of the World readers want the News of the World, and the team that produces it is still extant and haven’t done anything inappropriate or unlawful as far as we know,” she said. “The News of the World’s trouble is really about misdemeanours of management. People talk about prurience and invading people’s privacy but when it’s in the public interest, it’s completely justified. I think there will be mounting public opinion behind anyone who tried to save the News of the World on that basis.”

Well, the current staff may not have done anything unlawful, alledgedly, saying they haven’t done anything inappropriate is pushing it a bit, as Charlie Brooker points out (my emphasis)…

The centre pages consist of a gallery of their “greatest hits”: curiously underwhelming when it’s all laid out. The Profumo scandal and Jeffrey Archer are in there, but so are three “gotcha!” snaps of celebs snorting coke – one of whom, Kerry Katona, was captured by a camera hidden in her own bathroom. Call me squeamish, but I’d say concealing a lens in a woman’s bathroom is worse than hacking her phone. At least voicemails can’t reveal which hand she wipes her arse with.

Also nestled amongst the roster of glorious front pages – JACKO’S DEATHBED: a photograph of the rumpled sheets on which Michael Jackson died. Yum! Proud of that, are they? Why, yes: hence its inclusion in their farewell souvenir. At least they didn’t include a little collectible square of his skin.

The News of the World readers may still want the News of the World, is someone that used to head the Sunday Express and the NotWs’ current staff the best people to revive the title as a “responsible investigative newspaper”?

The NotW readers probably don’t want to read a “responsible” paper anyway.

h/t Jon Slattery

As the Wapping Cowboy landed in London he was asked what his priority was. His smiling reply was “this one”, gesturing to Rebekah Wade Brooks who was with him at the time.

What the hell does that mean? Why should Brooks be his priority? in what way is she his priority? To ensure nothing is pinned on her?

I’d have thought his priority would’ve been along the lines of sorting this mess out, repairing the damage to his/News Corps reputation, getting justice for the phone hacking victims (too far fetched?) or even making pots of cash. But Rebekah Brooks is his priority?

What has she got on Murdoch that he wants, almost seems to need her within his empire? Murdoch could cut her loose, not even hang her out to dry, just let her resign with dignity, in their eyes, and a big part of the problem goes away.

Unless, of course, he’s just fucking with our minds… as usual.

Not that it’s of any importance, but I spotted this (click to enlarge)…

Google reassures us the News of the World is (or was) regulated by the PCC

Like I say, it’s not important, but just curious as Google doesn’t reassure us that any of the other national newpaper websites are regulated by the PCC.

The Guardian…

Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl’s own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.

But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly’s voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the News of the World intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.

The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper’s own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: “If Milly walked through the door, I don’t think we’d be able to speak. We’d just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug.”

The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police by confusing the picture when they had few leads to pursue.It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.

To angry for words, but just who, exactly, do these cunts, and not just the fuckers at the News of the Screws, now and then, but the red tops and the press in general, think they are? All in the pursuit of profit. Fuck the feelings of people. They not only tried to get exclusives from this right fucking good wheeze of listening in to a dead girls phone, but also took an exclusive where the parents explained how they were clinging onto hope that the News of the World itself was feeding. Did no one feel a little bit guilty? no one had a little nagging feeling at the back of their mind that what they were doing wasn’t just illegal but so fucking morally wrong?

They must be cunts of the highest order, because I bet no one involved, the private investigators or the reporters, made a shitload of cash out of it, not enough to stuff in the black hole where their soul should be. The Editors, didn’t do too bad, Coulson became the spin doctor to a Cameron, Rebekah Wade is now Murdochs’ man in charge of the UK and is very friendly with the political classes of all colours.

And what exactly were the fucking police doing, too?…

The newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly’s phone, the paper informed police about it. It was Surrey detectives who established that the call was not intended for Milly Dowler. At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly’s parents also were being targeted.

Couldn’t they fucking multi-task? Can they only do one crime at a time? The News of the World goes to the police with a message from Millys’ phone, and the police don’t ask where they got it from? The papers aren’t the only ones that need a kick in the face.

News International, part of Murdoch’s media empire, said: “We have been co-operating fully with Operation Weeting since our voluntary disclosure in January restarted the investigation into illegal voicemail interception. This particular case is clearly a development of great concern and we will be conducting our own inquiries. We will obviously co-operate fully with any police request on this should we be asked.”

Yeah, and look how the previous internal enquiries turned out.

I know, I know. It’s the News of the World and the News of the World does have it’s own parking place at the Old Bailey car park.

Wouldn’t it be nice, though? To have see John Coombes and Dick Hamilton refute the claim…

A 12-year-old girl there with her dad (we are protecting her identity) held a golly called Winston over the fire as Coombes “charged” him with “mugging, rape, drug dealing”.

He sneered: “Right Winston, you’re about to get cooked. Anything else to say?

“Says he ain’t a drug dealer. He thinks he’s not black. He’s charged with being black. Now get on there.”

Skinhead Hamilton chipped in: “If he jumps off he’s innocent.” Coombes went on: “He’s guilty, guilty as charged.

“Let’s get a real one – in the town we’ll find one or two. They’ll also be guilty of the heinous crimes I charged him with – may God forgive your horrible soul.” Coombes repeated the charges then added: “He may have appeared innocent to you lot but I’m sure he done lots of things wrong.”

or for Andrew Brons to deny ever saying…

I’m less concerned about the presence of mosques than the presence of the people that use them. Being worried about the presence of a particular mosque is almost like looking at a disease like smallpox and saying it’s a problem with spots.

It would make a fantastic spectacle. These fuckers trying to deny their racist, fascist roots and all their rhetorical acrobatics to try and show how they’ve changed.

They won’t though. Because they can’t. Because underneath their carefully chosen words, they are exactly what we see them as. Racist, fascist cunts.

[screen capture including 91 comments is here. I doubt the page will change, but you never know]

Winners don’t use drugs.

Don’t they? Looks like he’s an old pro, too. You don’t pick up a bong the first you smoke Mary-Jane, especially not in public.