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We don’t just report off-beat news, breaking news and digest the best and worst of the news media analysis and commentary. We give an original take on what happened and why. We add lols, satire, news photos and original content.
Jack Letts: Jihadi Jack is just a lad whose let’s his dad pick out his clothes
Is Jack Letts the “Posh teen” (the Sun) from Oxford the first white Briton to join the Islamic State (ISIS)? The Mail calls him ‘Jihadi Jack’. His dad, John, is an organic farmer who once appeared on the BBC’s Countryfile magazine show, we learn in every newspaper.
John says his son is a translator in Syria. He says lots of Jack’s friends are medics. Jack’s family do not know where he is “because he’s not stupid enough to tell us”. John tells the The Guardian his son “had a strong humanitarian conviction”. Jack is in Syria to help the people.
How he’s helping them is up for debate.
Is Jack a lad or is he a jihadi called Ibrahim or Abu Mohammed, as the Mail says he is?
The Sunday Times says Jack is a Muslim convert who told his parents of his plan to study Arabic in Kuwait before joining ISIS in September 2014. The paper says he married a woman after he moved to Fallujah, Iraq.
Jack’s mum, Sally, says: “We spoke to him yesterday and he said he had never had a weapon in his life.”
John says the pants Jack’s wearing in the above picture – the one of him giving the “ISIS one-finger salute” – are not ISIS Army issue. “I bought him those cargo trousers from a sports shop in Oxford,” says John Letts.
The Independent says Letts has announced via Facebook that he is working with ISIS. “It’s sort of awkward when the media thinks you’re ISIS and you’re not,” he allegedly wrote. “Thinks you have a son and you don’t. Thinks you’re married when you’re not. Maybe they got bored worrying about what colour socks certain celebrities wear and took out the frustration on me. The formula with the media is simple: English guy became Muslim + went to the Middle East + followed Islam = ISIS + eats babies x evil.”
Further reports says Letts admitted in his Facebook posts that other people have used his Facebook account: “some of whom are extreme etc… and only got my password through one guy I stupidly trusted… One of the funniest articles was the one were the last sentence was ‘Jack Letts and ISIS have been contacted for comment’. Like me and ISIS have like a shared office in which we receive requests for comment and were still thinking about whether to reply or not.”
Police have twice raided the family home, taking away laptops and mobile phones. John says: “It’s like he’s walking on a train track with a blindfold, with a train [coming down the tracks]. Blindfolded in the sense he can’t see the danger ahead of him but determined to help people… If the ramifications were not so serious, it could be a comedy.”
Police threaten Yorkshireman with jail for having sex without their say so
Heard the one about the Yorkshire man ordered to tell police if he’s planning to have sex 24 hours later? He’s been in court accused of rape. Last year he was found not guilty. But his innocence was not proven, so it seems, because the man was handed an interim Sexual Risk Order. Under its terms, he must inform police is he plans to have sex “at least 24 hours prior to any sexual activity taking place”. He must tell police the name, age and address of his intended partner.
We suppose the police can look them up online to see if they’re shaggable or not. Other than for reasons of getting off, it’s hard to fathom why the police are so interest in an innocent’s man’s sex life. Maybe they miss the News of the World (ask The News of the Screws)?
In May the man’s behaviour will be considered for a full Sexual Risk Order. If he’s broken the rule, he can be imprisoned for up to five years. If he hasn’t he can still be on-watch for the duration of his life.
Funny stuff. Until it happens to you.
Cardiff asylum seekers gets free fashion, food and beds like Jews in Nazi Germany
Asylum seekers staying at Lynx House in Cardiff have been handed free wristbands. The residence, operated by Clearsprings Ready Homes, wanted asylum seekers to wear these wristbands at all times “or they would not be fed”. Well, that’s how the Guardian puts it. The other view is that by showing the wristbands the asylum seeker can get free meals three times a day in the company’s restaurant.
The Welsh Refugee Council (WRC) is aghast. It says the wristbands are like the yellow stars the Nazis forced Jews to wear. The Nazis, of course, gave Jews – citizens of Germany – free food, lodgings and a burial at halls of residence operated by Concentration Camps Inc. Millions loved it so much they never returned.
The similarities between people seeking a better life and genocide is clear to the people at WRC, like WRC policy officer Hannah Wharf , who says: “We have raised the matter many times with the Welsh Government. It harks back to the Nazi regime with people being forced to wear a Star of David and stand out. It’s absolutely appalling, it is treating people like lesser beings. It is treating them like animals lining up to feed.”
We hear from a 36-year-old refugee in Cardiff called Eric Ngalle. He says people spotted his wristband and told him “go back to your country”.
Cardiff – 2016. No. Austria are exhibited in public with a cardboard sign stating ‘I have been excluded from the national community (Volksgemeinschaft)’, during the anti-Jewish pogrom known as Kristallnacht, November 1938.
The Mail says he was granted refugee status and now works as a writer on a theatre production backed by the Arts Council of Wales. (Eat yer heart our, Primo Levi.) He says the wristband made him feel like an “outcast”, which, sadly, is what he is. He was in limbo, waiting for official acceptance and the chance for a life free of persecution in the UK.
A spokesman for Clearsprings Ready Homes tells the Guardian its policy came in the face of an increase in asylum seekers: “Volumes of people in initial accommodation sites, including Cardiff (have) increased quickly. Clearsprings has taken steps, agreed with the Home Office to increase capacity in line with this demand in the form of additional self-catering accommodation. Those clients in the self-catering units receive a weekly allowance in the form of supermarket vouchers and those in full-board accommodation are issued with a coloured wristband that bears no other logo or text identifying its use or origin. Full-board clients are required to show their wristbands in order to receive meals in the restaurant.”
So nothing like those yellow stars Jews was forced to stitch onto their outer clothing on pain of sale labour, torture and death.
But the elite have seen a chance to make themselves look good. Jo Stevens MP thinks this a matter of national debate. Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood says the Home Office should also face “serious questions” about the situation in Cardiff. “I have been told that this alarming practice of forcing asylum seekers to wear coloured wristbands will be stopped,” she says. “It is understandable the Home Office requires asylum seekers to carry some form of identification for practical reasons such as when they collect meals.”
Clearsprings has heard the complaint and murdered the asylum seekers done away with the bands. Asylum seekers will now carry photos ID, you know, like people did under Nazi Germany.
Papers!
Posted: 25th, January 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Good news: woman finds traces of real chicken parts in her KFC
To Wellingborough, U.K., where amidst the fat, cardboard, grease and batter, Cassandra Perkins, 22, has found something exciting and newsworthy in her KFC dinner
“It looked disgusting and pink, I didn’t want to touch it,” she tells the Northampton Chronicle. “I first thought that it may have been brain or lung, it certainly wasn’t chicken. My burger had a hair in it as well.”
Beef? Fish? Tortoise? No. It was chicken. As KFC explains:
“Sometimes mistakes can happen and unfortunately on rare occasions, giblets are not removed when they should have been. We have reminded our team members to take extra care in future, and if a customer is ever unhappy with their food we encourage them to let our team know, who will always be happy to help.”
Who knew there was actual chicken in a KFC meal?
In other news: nuggets grow on trees.
Posted: 24th, January 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment
The most insane wind turbine photo of all time
Wind turbines reduce the amount of CO2 being released to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. Well, that’s the idea. And then you see this picture from Sweden.
The rotor blades of a wind turbine to ice up bringing the blades to a complete stop. To fix the “problem” a helicopter is employed (burning aviation fuel) to spray hot water (which is heated in the frigid temperatures using a truck equipped with a 260 kW oil burner) on the blades of the turbine to de-ice them.
The aviation fuel, the diesel for the truck, and the oil burned to heat the water, could produce more electricity (at the right time to meet demand) than the unfrozen wind turbine could ever produce. (Before it freezes up again).
Spotter: WUWT
Posted: 24th, January 2016 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comment
Free speech: police prevent more violence at Ami Ayalon talk to King’s College Israel group
What do we make the news that an Israeli students’ event at King’s College University, London, was attacked? The event held by students from the KCL and LSE Israeli societies was disrupted by what many think were supporters of KCL Action Palestine (KCLAP), who let off fire alarms, threw chairs and smashed a window.
The invitation to the event went like this:
KCL Israel Society are pleased to bring you this event. Admiral, Ami Ayalon is the former director of Israel’s Security Agency (the Shin Bet/Shabak) between 1996 and 2000 and is a former commander of Israel’s Navy. He has served as a cabinet minister and as a member of the Knesset for the Labour party. With much of the Middle East in turmoil and a stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, he will focus on discussing the steps that are needed to bring stability and security to the region from a military perspective. He will also examine the question, ‘is there a partner for peace?’ and look at what relationships need to be built in the region to create a viable future peace agreement. He will also discuss his experiences as head of Israel’s main agency that combats terrorism, and to what extent the Israeli experience might be relevant to our own safety and security in the UK (in light of recent events in Europe).
Expect an evening of challenging discussion and, of course, free refreshments. Looking forward to seeing you all!
Richard Millett was there:
Ayalon was head of Israel’s Shin Bet between 1996 and 2000 and then served as a Labour MK. He also launched a peace initiative called The People’s Voice. He’s now in the UK being whisked around by Yachad to give various talks, the gist of which seem to be Israel needs to mend its ways.
The activists’ leaflets, after falsely incriminating Ayalon and Shin Bet in war crimes, accused Ayalon of being “overtly racist” for supporting a two state solution because this implies “Israeli Jews must always be a majority…due to a fear of losing the ethnic and colonial supremacy Israel has enjoyed since 1948”.
As soon as the doors shut the frustrated anti-Israel activists pounded the doors and the windows looking into the talk. They screamed “Free Free Palestine”, “Viva Viva Palestina” and “From the River to the Sea Palestine will be free” and smashed a window…
Ayalon’s talk lasted an hour. Ironically, Ayalon was talking in front of a white board describing the rules for “safe spaces” at universities. But there is no “safe space” for an Israeli-Jew at British universities.
KCL Action Palestine issued a statement:
In light of the accusations surrounding yesterday’s events, KCL Action Palestine would like to categorically condemn any aggression that took place at the Israel Society’s Ami Ayalon event.
KCLAP had planned to challenge Ami Ayalon and inform the audience of his complicity in the torture of Palestinians as former head of the Shin Bet and the problems surrounding his current views – as is within our rights and detailed on our blog (https://permissiontonarrate.wordpress.com/…/kclaps-stateme…/). Our intention was to attend the event and shed light on Ayalon’s crimes and views through deliberation.
That the event escalated into a disruption was beyond our control and not incited by any member of our committee. KCLAP is not connected and does not control the actions of external attendees. As stated we do not condone any aggressive reaction on our campuses. Some of our members protested after they were left out and people were arbitrarily selected to go into the event, we refute any involvement with what took place beyond this.
That blog has the stated aim “to rewrite the fabricated and falsified histories of yesteryear and presenting a more balanced take on contemporary affairs”.
They also declare:
“That the event escalated into a disruption was beyond our control and not incited by any member of our committee. KCLAP is not connected and does not control the actions of external attendees.”
Esther Endfield, President of KCL Israel society was also there:
Protests by KCL action Palestine at this event was inevitable but it was never inevitable that it would turn violent, not to the point that I have just reported being assaulted to the police (which is also being investigated under a hate crime), not to the point that there were chairs thrown at the room and at me, not to the point where they were so violent that Kings College London windows have been smashed, not to the point where two police cars and two police vans along with 15 + officers came to protect the people inside the room, not to the point that in a 4 story building that on each floor the fire alarms were set off 15 + times, not to the point where my event had to be stopped and the building evacuated because college security and the police were so scared that they would light a real fire and that we wouldn’t know because of the false alarms. When did I become so unsafe in one of the global universities in the world that we can no longer hold an event without being scared for our safety.
Former communities secretary Sir Eric Pickles told the Commons:
“(Labour MP Wes Streeting) mentioned that we travelled together to France in the autumn of last year to look at anti-Semitism there and I vividly recall meeting with Jewish students and their talk of how frightened they were, of how wary they were on campuses. I can’t help but reflect at the disgraceful attack upon Jewish students in King’s College in London just two nights ago, where a peaceful meeting – literally about peace – was broken up with obscenities and with the breaking of a window and the breaking of glass and the offering of violence. Frankly, we’ve seen this before – we have seen broken glass, we have seen Crystal Night and if we need to know where the neo-fascists are then they truly represent the neo-fascists in that attack that occurred in King’s College.”
Tom Slater (Spiked):
The rage against pro-Israel students, speakers and societies is, without question, the most flagrant political censorship taking place on campus today. While petty, hysterical and often hilarious restrictions on fancy dress and pole-dancing have stolen focus in recent years, pro-Israel students are being shut down because student politicos simply don’t like what they say. And, while policy after policy are passed at students’ union AGMs in the name of protecting ethnic minorities from offence, anti-Israel fury, so often bordering on out-and-out anti-Semitism, is tacitly ignored.
The Daily Mail:
Tonight Universities Minister Jo Johnson criticised the protesters. He told MailOnline: ‘Britain and Israel share many important academic links and speakers must be able to address meetings peacefully. ‘Our universities should be safe spaces for students to expand their minds, and there can be no justification for violent intimidation that curtails free speech.’ The angry protest is the latest in a series of oppressive incidents reported at universities across the country.
Iranian-born human rights activist Maryam Namazie faced intimidation from members of a student Islamic society when speaking at Goldsmith University in London.
Students at Cardiff University also campaigned to ban Germaine Greer from speaking. At Oxford University, students have called for the pulling down on a statue of 19th Century mining magnate Cecil Rhodes over claims of racism.
Well…
Posted: 23rd, January 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Alexander Litvinenko was murdered for free
The Daily Telegraph dashed out to read up on Polonium 2010, the radioactive poison used in 2006 to murder Russian spy in London.
The paper tells readers is a “lethal but hugely expensive substance to manufacture”. It adds that Polonium 210 “would have cost “tens of millions of dollars if bought on the open commercial market”.
No. The World Health Organisation says it “can be derived from lead-containing wastes from uranium, vanadium, and radium refining operations”. In other words, Polonium 210 costs nothing to make on account of it being a waste product of the nuclear industry. You don’t need to buy it for ten of millions of pounds – not if you know a few high-ups in the Russian nuclear industry, say. They probably give the stuff away.
George Monbiot and Heathrow hooligans make a lot of noise about nothing
“The Heathrow ‘hooligans’ are our modern day freedom fighters,” says George Monbiot in the Guardian. We think of a freedom fighter fighting for choice, glory and human endeavour. Monbiot’s freedom fighter is someone who wants to stop you taking a package holiday.
They have been reviled as vandals, hooligans and lunatics. But to me, these people are heroes. The 13 women and men on trial this week for cutting through the perimeter fence around Heathrow airport and chaining themselves together on a runway were excoriated by police, passengers and politicians. (One of the defendants in the case is a member of the cooperative society that rents my house.) If convicted, they all face a possible prison sentence. But there are two trials here: the legal proceedings in a local magistrates court, and a test of something much bigger.
Aviation enjoys some astonishing exemptions from the civilising rules that constrain other sectors. Other industries must limit the noise they make; but aircraft, thanks to an obscure clause in the 1949 Civil Aviation Act, are exempt.
Wrong. Says the Government:
Noise is regulated to some extent at all UK airports. This can include noise limits and restrictions on night flights.
Gatwick Airport has more:
The rules for night time
Until 1962, the government had no policy on night noise, and airlines were free to fly into and out of the airport at any time. Since 1962, in response to increasing community concern about noise, the government has tightened the rules…
The night time rules apply from 23:00 until 06:00. There is also a ‘shoulder period’ at either end of the night, with slightly less strict rules – that is 23:00-23:30 and 06:00-07:00.
From 23.30-06:00, the rules allow for a limited number of flights and a limited amount of noise over the whole summer or winter season. The number of flights is based on a points or ‘quota’ system relating to each plane’s noise levels.
On top of the quota system, there is also an absolute limit on the number of flights permitted at the airport. Under the quota system, the airport has a total number of ‘quota points’, which are then used up by night time flights. Different types of planes use up different numbers of points, depending on how noisy they are.
The noisiest aircraft use 16 points of the quota, and they’re called QC16s (QC = Quota Count). The next noisiest have eight points – QC8s. As planes get quieter, their points get smaller until the quietest planes have just half a point or are exempt altogether.
During the night quota period the noisiest types of planes are not permitted to be scheduled. Because there is a limit on the airport’s total quota of points for night-time flying, this system encourages airlines who want to fly at night to use the quietest aircraft.
Monbiot is utterly wrong, then. There rare rules governing noise at airports.
He then utters:
Airlines operate in a legislative vacuum, a transnational, extralegal limbo, accountable nowhere and to no one. As a result they threaten everything that was agreed at December’s climate talks in Paris.
No shareholders. No staff. No laws. Nothing and no-one.
You can do a course in aviation law at the Air Transport Association (IATA), which begins by telling anyone:
International air transportation is governed by a complex and fragmented system of global regulatory agencies
Being an expert on such things is far simpler at the Guardian.
Lord Janner: 3 missed chances, a self-serving CPS inquiry and allegations now fact
Westminster paedos: a look at reporting on the story of sex crimes in high places.
The Daily Mirror has been at the forefront of the allegations of murderous paedophiles protected by the Establishment. Today over pages 6 and 7 it looks at the late Lord Janner, a former Labour MP and peer who died an innocent man. The story, however, is that he dodged justice. He was accused of 2 counts of sex offences against boys between the 1960s and 80s. He never stood in the dock.
“Lord Janner Child Sex Abuse Probe ‘Shambles – they had 3 chances to charge him. It was just one big cover up.”
Lord Janner is now covered by earth, what with his having been buried, if not exactly laid to rest.
Failures by police and prosecutors allowed Lord Janner to escape child sex charges three times, a damning independent inquiry has revealed.
Janner is damned! How’s that for rough justice.
But a man who told detectives Janner abused him as a boy has denounced the report as another Establishment whitewash. Paul Miller, 52, one of 25 alleged Janner victims, said: “This report is another cover up. Nobody has been named yet again. The people who failed the victims should be named and held accountable.”
The story continues:
The independent inquiry’s report published yesterday said it was ‘wrong’ Janner…had not been charged with child abuse in 1991. It added that police and the Crown Prosecution Service also failed to act in 2002 and again in 2007 despite there being a ‘realistic prospect’ of convicting him.”
The independent inquiry was commissioned by the director of public prosecutions. It was carried out by retired High Court Juge Sir Richard Henriques. He says: “I have concluded that the decision not to charge Janner was wrong and that there was enough evidence against Janner on December 4 1991 to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.”
Page 10: “Voice of the Mirror.”
Voice of the Mirror: Victims of Lord Janner need the truth
Not alleged victims. “Victims”.
For decades the former Labour MP Lord Janner preyed on vulnerable children.
Justice denied is judgement delayed until the accused is dead. Guilty!
He is now dead but he leaves behind a legacy of wrecked lives, trauma and misery. The authorities have serious questions to answer as to why they failed to press charges against Janner. All the evidence points to a cover-up by an establishment either too fearful to prosecute one of their own or which, in the worst instance, deliberately concealed his wrongdoing.
Daily Mail Page 16: “How Janner dodged justice 3 times”
What about the law and all those barriers to justice?
The Sun Page 13: Jane Moore says, “Protect victim of serial liars.”
Last week, nearly a year after 20 officers raided Lord Bramall’s home, the Met police issued a churlish statement in which it said there was “insufficient evidence” to pursue the claim against him. “Zero evidence” might have been a better description.
He has expressed his frustration that the Met described his accuser’s claims as “credible and true” before he even knew he was under investigation… is it possible that the culture of Jimmy Savile and police failure to act has prompted the pendulum to swing too far the other way?
Lord Bramall questions whether detectives had carried out a “partial and objective” investigation and suggested they lacked judgment because they were “terrified” of being accused of covering something up. In other words, it has become a victim-centric culture where all accusers are believed even when the most cursory of initial checks might suggest something doesn’t quite add up.
The dead are always guilty. The living are always clean and keen to emphasis that “lessons have been learnt”.
As Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders says:
“The inquiry’s findings that mistakes were made confirms my view that failings in the past by prosecutors and police meant that proceedings were not brought. It is a matter of sincere regret that on three occasions, opportunities to put the allegations against Lord Janner before a jury were not taken. It is important that we understand the steps which led to these decisions not to prosecute, and ensure that no such mistakes can be made again.”
Daily Express Page 6: “Outrage at ‘three missed chances’ to charge Janner over sex abuse claims”
The Express points to failures by police and Crown lawyers. It says the police failed to listen to the alleged victims. The police never do listen. They talk and expect us to hear. Time to name them and the lawyers. Or are we waiting for them to die before they can be questioned?
Posted: 20th, January 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
School uniform news of the day: Yorkshire teenagers sent home for too-tight trousers
One popular subject matter for the tabloids is the school child sent home for wearing unsuitable kit. The Barnsley Chronicle reports on Barnsley Academy in South Yorkshire, which has been “measuring the width of pupils’ trouser legs since last week”.
“Less than ten centimetres is a breach of school rules apparently. It’s totally ridiculous,” says Jane Ogden, of Worsbrough, whose daughters Ellie, 14, and Mollie, 12, were excluded from the Academy two days on account of their “oo-tight trousers.
The Academy’s website has more: “There is an increasing number of students wearing tight fitting trousers. Tight fitting trousers are unacceptable and are not allowed in the academy.”
Never had this trouble in the 1980s. It’s Madness, I tell ye. Madness!
Norway clocktower chimes Lemmy and David Bowie songs every day
To Oslo, where the 49 bells in the clocktower on City Hall play Changes by David Bowie and Electricity by Lemmy Kilmister’s Motörhead at 6pm and 7pm respectively. This will continue until May 31st.
Posted: 18th, January 2016 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
Naked photos of Princess Margaret, a Tory paedo and an honest villain
Just when you thought the story of paedophiles in high place had died on its arse, the Daily Mirror brings news. We no longer need rely on ‘Nick’ to blow the whistle on VIP paedos in Westminster because we have a convicted felon to tell all.
Hatton Gardens heist boss Brian Reader was horrified when his gang broke into a bank vault and found sickening photos of a leading politician abusing children.
‘We might be thieves but we don’t go in for blackmail,’ ma’am. It’s all about standards.
But the notorious crook was shocked further when the thieves left the pictures for police to find – only for the Tory Cabinet minister’s crimes to be hushed up.
Crooks trust police to solve sickening crimes! Read all about it!
Reader, known as The Guv’nor, is facing jail for planning last year’s £14million Hatton Garden raid and claims about his previous high-profile break-in can now be revealed for the first time.
Reader will very soon have an actual Guv’nor to tuck him in of a night.
A close confidant of 76-year-old career criminal Reader said: “It was a shock for them when they found photographs of a famous politician abusing children. The gang were disgusted and left them lying on the floor of the vault for the police to find but nothing was ever done.”
Not one career villain thought, ‘Allo! this could be our ‘Get out of jail free card.’ They just dropped the sick images on the floor and scarpered.
The Government of the time allegedly forced the press to stop reporting on the burglary as a matter of national security amid allegations raunchy photos of the late Princess Margaret were found in another safety deposit box in the vault.
Raunchy? Got to love the Mirror that manages to cover a story from the 1970s by employing the language of that time. And as for being forced to stop reporting, well, isn’t the Mirror a, er, newspaper. Can it ask old staffers to confirm or deny that allegation? The paper can’t say for certain what it was doing on the night of Monday, September 13, 1971. Can’t today’s scoopsters just ask Tony Miles, who was the Mirror’s editor during that period, if a D Notice was issued?
But the latest claims, revealed to the Daily Mirror, are more disturbing and further evidence of the Establishment cover-up of powerful paedophiles.
No. They are evidence of nothing. They are a claim by an unnamed source who knows a villain.
We are not naming the politician, who has since died and was never publicly linked to allegations of child sexual abuse.
Why spoil the fun. Name away. He’s dead. And what’s that part about not being “publicly linked to allegations”? Was he linked to allegations in private?
But we have passed details to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which is set to examine claims against Labour peer Lord Janner, who died before facing trial for child sexual abuse, and Lib Dem MP Cyril Smith, whose paedophilia was exposed after his death.
Dead. Dead. And dead. What’s one more corpse to kick around.
Inquiry chairman Judge Goddard said in November: “We will conduct an objective fact-finding inquiry into allegations of abuse by people of public prominence associated with Westminster.”
More or less objective than the Mirror’s story of a missing photo of an unnamed “TORY CHILD ABUSER”?
“The investigation will focus on high-profile allegations of child sexual abuse involving current or former Members of Parliament, senior civil servants, Government advisers, and members of the intelligence and security agencies. It will consider allegations of cover-up and conspiracy and will review the adequacy of law enforcement responses to these allegations.”
Well, if that’s what the State’s judge says…
Over pages 4 and 5 we hear moe of “The Guv’nor”, a name-de-crime the Mirror hopes will lend his statement credibility. Villains named Matt The Talc, Fingers or Skull Cracker are less trustworthy. And don’t get us started on Tony Bagels.
If the images found by Reader had been made public at the time, it would have caused a massive political scandal.
Well, yes. If.
In 1971, he was beginning a criminal career spanning five decades which would involve him in raids worth more than £150million and make him Britain’s biggest thief. His gang had spent months planning the Baker Street job. They rented a leather goods shop, two doors up from the bank, and then tunnelled 40ft from the shop basement into the vaults. Once inside, they ransacked 268 safety deposit boxes – nearly four times the 73 opened by the Hatton Garden gang.
Was he the Guv’nor back then? Or was he a Junior?
A second source, a gang member, previously told the Mirror in 2008 that child pornography was found in the vaults but did not give further details. He said: “We were disgusted and left it in their open boxes so police could trace the owners.”
Exhibit a: Items found in open boxes left by villains after a raid. Yes, we can see that one standing up in court.
“We didn’t want to take anything that might give us extra trouble. All we wanted was cash and jewels.”
Gawd bless ’em.
At the time of the raid, Princess Margaret’s marriage to Antony Armstrong-Jones, Earl of Snowdon, was in its final stages. In the 60s and 70s the Queen’s sister was known to party hard on the Caribbean island of Mustique… She is said to have taken snaps of male friends frolicking naked but it is not known if any were ever taken of her.
Oh?
The ex-raider would only say: “I can’t talk about that.”
At which point a flag lowers, the Great British villains bow their heads, tug a forelock and say as one, “Nuffink wiv women or kids.”
Posted: 18th, January 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Warning: Big Foreign Worms Invading Britain
Big news in the Daily Star: “Worms as big as snakes are invading Britain.”
Is that big? The world’s smallest snake – named Leptotyphlops carlae – is 10cm (4 inches) long and “as thin as a spaghetti noodle”. There are 3,100 known snake species. The world’s longest snake is a reticulated python – 7.67 m (25 ft 2 in) long.
Bow big is this invading worm? “More than 2ft long,” we learn.
“Experts warn the beasts, which are already the size of a newly-hatched adder, could grow ‘bigger and bigger”.
An adder is poisonous. A long worm is not. And these long worms – “slithery predators” – have been found only on the “remote Isle of Rum, off Scotland”.
Jeff Farrell’s story make no mention of how these worms have launched an invasion. The Star once supported the EDL. The fear is that self-styled British patriots are right now hunting down Lumbricus terrestris for slaughter and deportation. But the worm is also known as the “common earthworm”, a creature native to the British Isles. Although fears they they have radicalised in Scotland are hard to disprove.
Posted: 18th, January 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Investigate Nick: Lord Bramall wants police to go after man who accused him of sex crimes
Lord Bramall was once head of the British Army. He achieved prominence in more recent times because someone told the police he’d abused them. Last Friday, Lord Bramall was, 92, was cleared of all any any wrong doing. In between the accusation and being cleared, the Lord saw his home raided by police working with Operation Midland .
They found nothing to prove the allegation.
Operation Midland is described thus by the BBC:
Established in November 2014, Operation Midland is examining claims that boys were abused by a group of powerful men from politics, the military and law enforcement agencies at locations across southern England and in London in the 1970s and 1980s. It is also examining claims that three boys were murdered. Operation Midland has focused on the Dolphin Square estate in Pimlico, south-west London.
Bramall now says police should take a closer look at ‘Nick’, the figure who told the police about the alleged dead boys and the rape. He says: “I think he should be. My lawyers suggested to the police when we…knew they had absolutely nothing: surely Nick should be prosecuted for wasting police time?”
Tory MP Bob Stewart agrees: “I can’t believe the police would even entertain such claims against a man like Bramall. Why can’t they bring charges against the man making these claims?”
Wasting police time, or police wasting their own time in what critics have labelled a witch-hunt and an exercise in police PR.
The Sunday Times:
Nick’s allegations followed claims that a VIP paedophile ring involving politicians, military figures and spy chiefs had operated at the heart of Westminster. So far police have failed to substantiate this.
‘So far?’ Bit leading that comment, no?
Council leader dressed man as elderly woman for bogus news conference
It is a widely held belief that to render yourself completely invisible, you need only look ‘old’. Mindful of that, we look at events in Branston, Rhode Island, where director of senior services department Sue Stenhouse is stood by an elderly woman at a press conference.
She’s there to salute a new city programme “connecting high school students with seniors who need help shovelling snow this winter”. The OAP has a sign identifying her as “Cranston senior home resident”.
But all is not as it seems. The snow has been scraped up from a city ice rink. The old woman is a man, a local van driver, who was, reportedly, invited by Stenhouse to dress like an old lady. Rumbled, Stenhouse has resigned. We don’t know about the man, but look out for him being voted Brantson Woman of The Year 2016, or dying alone and unheralded.
Posted: 17th, January 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment
Witch Hunt Update: Lord Janner Case Dead And Buried (Like Him)
Daily Mirror, 3rd December 1991
Lord Janner is in the clear.
That the peer and former Labour MP is dead is not part of his plea. Plans were to try his corpse in a court of law in what is laughably called a ‘Trial of The Facts’, a phrase that overlooks the key point that facts are hard to make factual if only one side of the argument is heard.
No official word as yet from anti-paedo MPs Tom Watson (“he’s evil”) and Simon Danczuk (“Phwoar- gerrumoff”).
Posted: 15th, January 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)
Scientist says global warming creates humans with webbed fingers, three eyes and more hair
We glimpse into the future with paleoanthropologist Dr. Matthew Skinner of the University of Kent. He says that as the world’s temperature alters, we will see humanity adopt. You will grow webbed feet and fingers, a third eyelid and lots of hair.
He’s a doctor. HeKate Middleton next Wednesday
People of the Forest of Dean, Norfolk and Westminster, as you are.
[Daily Mail | Photo: Pinterest]
Posted: 14th, January 2016 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comment
David Bowie: the most ludicrous tribute of them all
This might be the most trite David Bowie tribute of the lot. In New Zealand one local paper asks ‘whose shirt are you wearing?’ #davidbowie
Next week: which tin can is your favourite?
Posted: 14th, January 2016 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
Daily Mail publishes ‘loving’ picture of dying kangaroo being raped
Jane Fryer sees the picture of the kangaroos “in the shade of a Australian mango tree”. She sees the “last loving embrace for a dying kangaroo”. Fryer says the male kangaroo “tired to revive his mate” as his little joey looked on.
The loving male’s revival technique, says Australian Museum Principal Research Scientist Dr Mark Eldridge, involves attempting to insert his penis into her dying body.
Says the expert:
There is a story behind the images, but not the anthropomorphised version of true love that has accompanied the images in publications. The male, which appears to be lovingly “cradling the head” of the female as she dies, is actually in a state of sexual arousal.
“The male is clearly highly stressed and agitated, his forearms are very wet from him licking himself to cool down. He is also sexually aroused: the evidence is here sticking out from behind the scrotum (yes, in marsupials the penis is located behind the scrotum).”
Kangaroos are extremely sensitive to heat, says Dr Eldridge. Furthermore, the kangaroo is not, unfortunately, “propp[ing] up her head so she could see her joey before she died”. Instead, says Dr Eldridge, “this is a male trying to get a female to stand up so he can mate with her.”
Cancel the Disney movie.
Posted: 14th, January 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment
Oh No! They’ve made David Bowie a role model, like the Queen Mum
David Bowie is being praised in death by such unlikely sources as the BBC, Daily Mail and every other media outfit who favours the safe over the daring.
The Daily Star is leading calls for a State Funeral.
When did David Bowie become the Queen Mother? He never drank that much…
Posted: 13th, January 2016 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
Beating back pain over and over in the Daily Express
How dod I beat back pain? Funny you should ask. The Daily Express has news on just how to beat back pain.
Standing up and moving forward – i.e. walking – can help.
Giles Shedrick has facts:
Seven in ten people have suffered recurring neck or back twinges for more than a decade, research has shown. The pain has forced three in ten to take time off work. Last year almost 10 million sick days were taken.
This augments Giles’s previous reports:
September 2015:
The official figures show seven people in 10 have lived with recurring neck or back pain for more than a decade and three in 10 took time off work last year… The number of sick days caused by the condition rocketed by 29 per cent to almost 10 million in the year to 2014.
Scoop!
Posted: 12th, January 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
New York Times RIP: ‘It’s a good time to be David Bowie’
The British dead tree Press utterly missed David Bowie’s death. The USA had a few hours more to digest news of the Thin White Duke’ passing. And it still managed to balls it up:
Spotter: @brianstetler
Posted: 11th, January 2016 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment
David Cameron has died: newsreader mistakes PM for David Bowie
David Cameron has died. Well, so says Fiona Winchester, a newsreader for Heart FM.
Whoops! Her mistake.
That’s David Bowie who died. Spot the difference?
Posted: 11th, January 2016 | In: Celebrities, Politicians, Reviews, TV & Radio | Comment
Coroner shares his hilarious response to a court-room exchange
One Coroner in court has shared his response to cross-examination:
Spotter: Tumblr
Posted: 9th, January 2016 | In: Reviews | Comments (13)
