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Top news from The Times, Daily Telegraph, The Indepedent and The Guardian newspapers

Global Warming: Al Gore, The Apocalyptic Visions And Tim Flannery’s Sulphur

global-warming.gifSUMMER’S here and the Al Goreans are making easy predictions:

“Last year,” he said, “a catastrophic storm hit Bangladesh. The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China … We’re seeing the consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continual global warming.”

Says Robert Robert Skidelsky:

Apocalyptic beliefs have always been part of the Christian tradition. They express the yearning for heaven on earth, when evil is destroyed and the good are saved…

The danger is that we become so infected with the apocalyptic virus that we end up creating a real catastrophe – the meltdown of our economies and lifestyles – in order to avoid an imaginary one.

The skys turn red. There cometh the stench of sulphur.

Former Australian of the Year and climate change activist Tim Flannery has come up with a novel solution to climate change, which he says could change the colour of the sky.

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Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (3)


Population Control: The Anti-Birth Lobby

PEOPLE hate other people’s children: 

As for “population policy”, the sanest response is not to have one. The only humane approach is to let each family, in every country, choose its own fertility rate according to their own desires and concerns for the future. Forget about “national birth rates”: every family is different. Even within nations there is – and should be – no such thing as a “norm”. Some people will want to have only one child – or none at all. Let them. Others, despite the easy availability of contraception, will want a home tumbling with children. Let them. The alternative is tyranny and torment.

Other people’s chidlren are horrid…

Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (2)


Britain’s Anti-Abortion Parasites

A VOTE on abortion:

Haemadipsa picta, the Borneo tiger leech, sits on a leaf in the rainforest, waiting for something, anything to pass by: an orang-utan, you, my daughter Eve, whatever. Actually it sort of stands there like a tiny penis, using its horrid thin end as an antenna, trying to detect body heat. When it does, boing! It throws itself off the leaf and down your Calvin Kleins, there to suck your blood. I’ve seen it do this, but most people really don’t believe it until it happens to them.

The tiger leech, however, is a monstrously inefficient parasite compared with Britain’s anti-abortion movement, which – always alert to the least possibility – has somehow leapt from its bush on to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, and may by this evening have won an improbable vote to curb the abortion rights of British women. While most of us were distracted, engaged in debating saviour siblings and hybrid embryos, Haemadipsa Restricta worked its way through our political underwear.

Read on…

Posted: 20th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comment


The New Viagra’s A Bitter Pill For The ‘Overpopulation Lobby’

happy-life.pngIN the Telegraph the talk is of a “wonder pill” that could “increase sex drive in women and men and outsell Viagra” is being developed by “scientists”.

The medication, which has the potential to boost fertility rates, is also believed to help aid weight loss.

More sex. More people. But not more fat people.

Asks Johann Hari in the Independent: Are there just too many people in the world? Is our planet over-stuffed with human beings? Are we breeding to excess?

Now sure about everybody else, but there are some people who aren’t breeding enough.

There’s an “overpopulation lobby”, says Johann.

“They say with a frown that this global swarming is driving global warming. How can you be prepared to cut back on your car emissions and your plane emissions but not on your baby emissions? Can you really celebrate the pitter-patter of tiny carbon-footprints?”

How can anyone who loves the planet and life have children? It is a view that is beyond parody. But Hari is not alone:

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Posted: 19th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (22)


Madeleine McCann: My Brilliant Career

MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

THE GUARDIAN: “Heard the same song three times today? Blame the craze for ‘testing’ tunes”

Martin Kelner is writing on his career in radio:

“The problem is that during the day most of my local radio stations are aiming at a broadly similar audience, roughly women of a certain age, from around 30 to a shade over 55. Those who claim to be in the know say this is the constituency that will help you to a good score in the quarterly Rajar figures.

The slavish adherence to this perceived wisdom was made clear to me at the BBC local station that sacked me just over a year ago (on the same day Madeleine McCann went missing actually, which is probably why you never saw much about it in the newspapers) for not being “female friendly” enough.

Irony? Given the Madeleine McCann is now a linked to the f9 button on a journalist’s keyboard, it’s  hard to tell…

Posted: 19th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann | Comments (252)


Eunuchs On Trains: Aboard The 7:15 To New Delhi

eunuchs.jpgEUNUCHS On Trains is not the new Hollywood blockbuster, starring Dr Fonseca from EastEnders, a foundation-heavy Russell Grant and the voice of Ringo Starr.

The scene is no less chilling.

Passengers aboard the 7:32 Great Western to Paddington may care to consider goings on aboard rolling stock in New Delhi.

New Delhi’s Railway Protection Force (RPF) are on the look out for miscreants extracting money with menaces.

“The on-duty RPF staff was asked to check the illegal activity of eunuchs who were forcibly taking money from passengers”, says Additional Director General in Railway Ministry Anil Kumar Saxena to the Times of India.

Says the paper: “Most regular train passengers have a horrifying tale to tell about their brushes with eunuch’s traditional antics of hurling abuses and even taking their clothes off if the required amount is not paid for.”

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Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Strange But True | Comments (11)


Johnny Vegas Sues Guardian and Observer Over Grope Allegation

Press Gazette – Johnny Vegas sues Guardian and Observer over ‘grope’ story: Comedian Johnny Vegas has begun libel proceedings against Guardian News & Media over two articles which claimed he had molested a woman during a stand-up performance. At the centre of the libel claim is a piece by Mary O’Hara, published in the Guardian’s G2 section on 1 May, headlined: “Since when is sexual assault funny?” O’Hara, who was in the audience at Vegas’s gig at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London, claimed in her report that the comedian “gratuitously groped a woman on stage”. The comedian is also suing over a follow-up comment piece in the Observer on 4 May, written by comedian Jackie Clune and headlined: “Sorry, but that really isn’t funny, Johnny”. Vegas has hired law giant Schillings to bring the action against the Guardian and Observer publisher. The two pieces have since been removed from the Guardian website.

Here

Via 

Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities | Comment


Guido Fawkes: When Bloggers Go Native

GUIDO Fawkes is ablogger. THE Indy:

As reported here two weeks ago, police arrested the thirsty Guido – real name Paul Staines, 41 – after catching him with bloodshot eyes and beery breath, drink-driving without insurance in his wife’s VW Golf. Yesterday, he narrowly escaped being jailed when he appeared at Tower Bridge Magistrates Court. District Judge Timothy Stone told him he was “fortunate not to be going to prison” and added: “You cannot help yourself, can you? You drink four bottles of wine a week, for a start. Do you realise what a danger you are to the public?

Staines replied: “I do realise.”

Four bottles a week..

Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comment (1)


Tony Blair Years: Binge Eating, Sex, Dead Babies And Greed

the_blairs_cashing_in.jpgTO the offices of Tony Blair,where the paper shredding machcine is in use:

Some of Tony Blair’s expenses claims, which the High Court last week ruled should be disclosed to the public, have been shredded. The documents, itemising Blair’s claims for household expenses during a year of his premiership, were destroyed in the midst of a legal battle over whether they should be published. All MPs’ expenses are funded by taxpayers.

Picture: Beau Bo D’Or Website

It is a criminal offence to destroy documents to prevent their disclosure under freedom of information (FOI) laws, but Westminster officials say they were unaware that the files were the subject of a legal challenge. They insist they were destroyed by mistake.

Very soon, the only record of the Blair years will be found in his colleagues’ and wife’s notes and memoirs. And we will mistake his tenure for a time of binge eatingunprotected sex , dead children, and greed

Posted: 18th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (5)


Mortgage Tips With The Express And Telegraph

money.jpgMONEY matters now with the aid of experts at the Telegraph and Express.

EXPRESS (front page): “HOORAY! CHEAPER HOME LOANS.”

TELEGRAPH: “Mortgage shock as cost of fixed-rate deal soars.”

Such are the facts…

Posted: 16th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Money, Tabloids | Comment (1)


No Drinking In Moscow For Manchester United And Chelsea Fans

CHELSEA and Manchester United fans listen: there’s no alcohol in Moscow:

Russia’s minister of sport has promised an unprecedented police presence, a ban on public drinking and the absence of outdoor TV screens to keep order when more than 42,000 Chelsea and Manchester United supporters descend on Moscow for the Champions League final.

A ban on public drinking?

“Drinking in public areas is not allowed under Russian law but there are plenty of places where consumption can take place,” said Alexey Sorokin, head of Russia’s Champions League organising committee.

Like in shop doorways, on benches, in teh gutter – which are all private…

Posted: 16th, May 2008 | In: Back pages, Broadsheets | Comment (1)


Paul McCartney Got An Airline Lexus: John Lennon Got An Airport

lennon-airport.jpgPAUL McCartney has a new car. It’s a Lexus LS600H, which costs £84,000 to you, but nothing to Paul.

Lexus sponsored Paul’s US tour in 2005 and by way of a thank you for Paul allowing them to be the official car of the Frog Chorus, Lexus offered him a free car.

Says a source in the Telegraph: “Paul was offered a Lexus as a gift and ordered the hybrid limo because it helps to reduce emissions. He’ll be horrified after learning it was delivered by plane. Paul has always campaigned for green issues and he can’t understand why anyone would send an enormous car from Japan to Britain on a plane.”

Who knew that a top-of-the-range limo would cause pollution? And that it would not arrive as if by magic?

Anorak readers may well recall that Liverpool Airport is named John Lennon Airport in honour of the murdered Beatle.

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Posted: 14th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities | Comment (1)


Enlightened Glasgow Rangers Teach Zenit Thugs To Unite For Common Good

glasgow-rangers-zenit.jpg“EUROPE’S most racist fans come to Britain (and there’s not a black player in sight),” says the Independent.

Tonight it’s the Uefa Cup final and Glasgow Rangers are taking on Zenit St Petersburg at the City of Manchester Stadium.

In a bid to give Zenit some kind of face, the Indy shows one of the club’s fans dressed in a balaclava and wearing a black leather glove and no shirt. He looks not unlike Michael Jackson trying to negotiate a typical British summer.

But he is, we are assured, a rabid thug, a hooligan the likes of which British football has never seen, moreover an enlightened club like Glasgow Rangers.

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Posted: 14th, May 2008 | In: Back pages, Broadsheets | Comment (1)


Wrinkle Test For Smokers

nicole-kidman.jpgDOES Nicole Kidman smoke?

We ask in the spirit of scientific endeavor on hearing news of a cigarette-vending machine that can identify underage customers just by looking at them.

As the Guardian reports, these machines are equipped with a digital camera that can compare users’ facial characteristics with a database of more than 100,000 people.

They can duly spot “sagging skin, wrinkles around the eyes and other signs of maturity”.
Anorak has presented the machine with pictures of Lulu (accepted), Michael Jackson (nose – pass; chin – fail; hair – fail) and Jimmy Krankie (fail).

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Posted: 14th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Strange But True | Comment


Hanging Saddam Hussein, Patron Of Iraqi Culture And Modern Art

modern-art-iraq.jpgTHE GUARDIAN says that “Iraqi singers, actors and artists are fleeing the country after dozens have been killed by Islamic radicals determined to eradicate all culture associated with the West.”

No Rick-rolling in Baghdad, then.

According to the Iraqi Artists’ Association, at least 115 singers and 65 actors have been killed since the US-led invasion, as well as 60 painters. But the terror campaign has escalated in recent months as both Shia and Sunni extremists grow ever bolder in enforcing religious restrictions on the citizens of Iraq.

It all grim stuff. But somehow in this climate of fear and death the Guardian finds a painter called Haydar Labbeb who has received five death threats. He’s living in Jordan now.

Says he: “My art is seen by extremists as too modern and offensive to Islamic beliefs. For them, every painting has to be based on Islamic culture. But I am a modern artist.”

First they came for the modern artists, but we thought it was an installation and just watched.

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Posted: 13th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (2)


Fritzl Watch: Hitler Did It, Norman Bates And Nazis

hitler-fritzl.pngFRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl, Nazis and assorted Frtizls in the news

The pensioner made the statement in notes to his lawyer Rudolf Mayer, which were passed on, at Fritzl’s request, to News, an Austrian current affairs magazine. Now read on…

DAILY MIRROR (front page): “I CONFESS”

A picture of Josef Fritzl and the news that “I learned to be disciplined from the Nazis

He claimed he only locked up daughter Elizabeth, who was then 18, out of love and as a result of Hitler’s Germany which instilled “a high regard for decency and uprightness” in him.

Hitler. He never drank alcohol and shunned tobacco. We also hear that he had only one testicle:

He said that by kidnapping Elizabeth and keeping her in a dungeon labyrinth protected by eight doors, he “rescued” her from “going out to seedy bars” and “drinking and smoking”.

THE SUN (front page): “FRITZL: MY STORY”

Mein Kampf:

“HITLER MADE ME DO IT”

There’s picture of Josef Fritzl and Adolf Hitler. They are “faces of evil”. One’s mania led to the systematic murder of 6 million Jews, hundreds of thousands of gypsies, and a war that cost the lives of 20 million Russians (and many more dead and crippled). The other had sex with his kids.

“Adolf Hitler had been given a rapturous welcome in Fritzl’s home town of Amstetten when he visited in 1938, around the time of the cellar fiend’s third birthday.”

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Posted: 9th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (12)


The World’s Worst Columnist

SAYS he: “If someone were to produce a mash-up of Dowd and Polly Toynbee, leavened with a dollop of George Monbiot we might have the world’s most compellingly-appalling columnist.”

Posted: 8th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (2)


Fritzl Watch: Making Nazis, Monsters And Austrians

FRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl, Nazis and assorted Frtizls in the news

THE GUARDIAN: “The human monster”

When we seek for causes that distance us “nice” people from the actions of those the media likes to label as “monsters”, Nazi or otherwise, we also dilute the very sense of vigilance and awareness that, perhaps, one day might give help to the most vulnerable at a time when it makes the difference between life and death, or a living death.

COURIER MAIL (Aus): “Spotlight on Austrian horrors”


An interview with writer and filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky, who directed The Counterfeiters, teh first Austrian film to win an Oscar:

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Posted: 8th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comments (3)


Boris Johnson Is Your Unelected Leader For Watford

president-boris.jpgBORIS Johnson is the new mayor of London, Ken Livingstone is free to spend more time with his newts, sorry, his children, and the Independent’s Johan Hari is making some snese of it all.

“At last – a solution to my Boris blues! I have just forced myself to read the detailed election stats from last Thursday. It seems the media cliché is true: it’s the angry, whiter outer suburbs that elected Boris, out of rage with the congestion charge and council tax. Boris will forever be the mayor of Zones Four to Six, the chief executive of Watford and Bromley and Amersham”.

Watford and Amersham are not in zones 1-6. Residents of those locales were afforded no vote in the election. And you can’t have a democratically elected leader who you didn’t vote for, at least not outside the US and Zimbabwe.

Posted: 8th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (3)


Gordon Brown Does Not Add Up

SAYS political nodding head Steve Richards Independet column on Labour’s drubbing in the local elections:

It can be summarised in three words: “Brown is a disaster”

There’s only one word for that: magic darts…

Posted: 8th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians | Comments (8)


Madeleine McCann And McGuckin: Max Clifford, Robert Murat And Portugal Is No Spain

mcguckin.jpgMADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, with special guests the McGuckins.

British media massed in Portugal for the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are filling in the blanks by watching the telly. Eamon and Antoinette McGuckin flicker into life. Now read on…

THE GUARDIAN: “Holiday couple insist they were not drunk”

Friends in their village in County Derry, Northern Ireland, said the McGuckins had been the victims of “media paranoia” generated by the first anniversary of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

You can never be too careful. There could have been three more Maddies.

Their children – aged one, two and six – were temporarily taken from them last weekend by the Portuguese authorities. The McGuckins said they were saddened and traumatised by the furore.

Portugal – bring the kids and get away from the kids.

DAILY MIRROR: Watching the parents. And what do we know about them?

“The couple live in a £450,000 house in Maghera, Northern Ireland.” Such are the facts.

DAILY MAIL: “’We were ill, not drunk’, claim Portugal holiday couple who had children seized”

Last night, a statement released by the McGuckins failed to state how much or what had been drunk, only that it was not “an excessive amount”.

Semantics. Well, Mr McGuckin is a “former bank manager”.

The incident has caused outrage in Portugal, where the year-long investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has already raised questions over standards of British parenting.

Let’s bomb Portugal, or at least give our young offenders a free holiday there.

BELFAST TELEGRAPH: “Did Derry duo pay for McCanns’ mistake?”

Lindy McDowell plays tabloid bingo and wonders…

And here we come to the crux of the matter. Two words — Madeleine McCann.

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Posted: 8th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (669)


Madeleine McCann: McGuckins, CCTV And A Mother’s Scream

mccann-screaming.gifMADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

SUE CARROLL (Mirror): The McGuckins are “ashamed”.

“What they should not be are convenient scapegoats for the Portuguese police who, a year on, have failed to turn up even a sliver of evidence on the fate of Madeleine McCann”

McCann. McGuckin. It’s Tabloid Bingo! Bingo! Bingo! Bingo!

DAILY MAIL: “Big Brother? Hardly. The CCTV cameras don’t work – and actually make crime even worse”

Says Ross Clark: “The revelation that only three per cent of London street robberies are solved by CCTV cameras comes as no surprise to me.”

It is a similar story with that other great arm of the surveillance society: the national DNA database. So far, there has been muted public protest at the database, on which there is now the DNA of 4.5 million Britons recorded. But the public’s view of the database is based on the assumption that it is helping to catch criminals. Yesterday, however, the Home Office admitted that for every 800 samples added to the database, it helps solve just one crime.

For example?

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Posted: 7th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (93)


Fritzl Watch: Hitler’s Brothel, Josef Fritzl’s Bunker And England Invades

hitller-fritzl.jpgFRITZL Watch: Anorak’s look at Josef Fritzl, Elisabeth Fritzl, Nazis and assorted Frtizls in the news

THE SUN (front page): “Inside Fritzl’s other dungeon”

To the dungeon room at Villa Ostende, a brothel in Linz where a blonde prostitute says: “I was hired by him many times and he was sick beyond imagination. He chose me because he said he liked young, plump girls who were happy to submit to him.”

Did you know that “Adolf Hitler was among its former clients”?

Barman Christoph Flugel tells us: “Ninety-five per cent of the guests are entirely normal, three per cent are slightly ‘derailed’. Fritzl belonged to the last two per cent of extreme perverts.”

Which group he’d put Hitler in was not enlarged upon, although he was something of a prude and insited on keeping his socks on. Those kinky Nazis.

Meanwhile, back at the house:

“Pipework is also being checked after Fritzl bragged he would turn the cellar into a Nazi-style gas chamber if the kids disobeyed him.”

Those Austrian really are obsessed with Nazis. Perhaps we should invade before it gets outyof hand, again?

THE lawyer representing Fritzl, Rudolf Mayer, yesterday claimed he had received death threats from English soccer fans planning to travel to Euro 2008 games in Austria.

Cue the theme song to Escape To Victory. We’re going in…

DAILY TELEGRAPH: “MPs from Austria’s two far-Right parties, the Alliance for the Future of Austria and the Freedom Party, have demanded castration for repeated sex offenders, plus compulsory examinations of children for the purpose of detecting sexual abuse.”

All kinder will have their genitalia examined and probed for signs of interference and deformity.

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Posted: 7th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Tabloids | Comment (1)


Madeleine McCann: The McGuckins, Middle-Class Drinks And

mccann-drunks.jpgMADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann

DAILY MIRROR: “Portugal booze parents’ court fear”

It’s Eamon and Antoinette McGuckin.

Bank manager Eamon, 35, passed out in the hotel reception while Antoinette, 36, vomited before falling unconscious.

A source close to the family said last night: “They are very ashamed. They want to go to court. They want to say to the judge that the children are safe with them.”

Significant:

Vilamoura is 45 miles from Praia da Luz, where four-year-old Madeleine McCann went missing while her parents were out with friends a year ago.

DAILY MAIL: “Shamed: The middle class parents who got so drunk on holiday their three children were taken into care”

Middle-class drinkers. Who knew of such a thing?

Mr McGuckin used to be manager of the Magherafelt branch of the Ulster Bank, a spokesman said. He left 18 months ago and is understood to now work for a mortgage company. His wife is a full-time mother.

British parents:

The incident has caused outrage in Portugal, where the year-long investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann has already raised questions over standards of British parenting.

BELFAST NEWSLETTER: “Couple ‘will face NI social services’”

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Posted: 6th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids | Comments (460)


Global Warming: Warmists Skew The Arctic Ice Tipping Point

warmists.jpgGLOBAL warming – the truth is out there:

On April 24 the World Wildife Fund (WWF), another body keen to keep the warmist flag flying, published a study warning that Arctic sea ice was melting so fast that it may soon reach a “tipping point” where “irreversible change” takes place.

This was based on last September’s data, showing ice cover having shrunk over six months from 13 million square kilometres to just 3 million.

What the WWF omitted to mention was that by March the ice had recovered to 14 million sq km (see the website Cryosphere Today), and that ice-cover around the Bering Strait and Alaska that month was at its highest level ever recorded

In Snowdon, where there’s no snow, tthe builders are getting snowed on (gerrit?)…

Posted: 5th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets | Comments (6)