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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.

The Human virus: making IPAT divided by technology

Writing in the Gaurdian, Travis N Rieder wants to talk about what leading Left-wing British politicians call ‘the human virus‘:

Yes, humans are producers, and many wonderful things have come from human genius. But each person, whatever else they are (genius or dunce, producer or drag on the economy) is also a consumer. And this is the only claim needed in order to be worried about climate change.

Eating and breathing are wrong? Before we go on, one of the comments below the line is wonderful:

Daverob

‘Modern human beings’ have only inhabited the earth for around 200,000 years. I have no doubt that one day a microbe will wipe us out, efficient little things that they are…

Mother nature will have its day! So I’d stop worrying about population growth and concentrate on saving the NHS for the here and now.

Once you stop rolling your eyes and sneering, we can continue:

The problem here is that we have a finite resource – the ability of the Earth’s atmosphere to absorb greenhouse gases without violently disrupting the climate – and each additional person contributes to the total amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. So although humans will hopefully save us (we do, in fact, desperately need brilliant people to develop scaleable technology to remove carbon from the air, for instance), the solution to this cannot be to have as many babies as possible, with the hope that this raises our probability of solving the problem. Because each baby is also an emitter, whether a genius or not.

Wow. Utter tosh, of course.

He is stuck on this:

What is the IPAT Equation, or I = P X A X T?
One of the earliest attempts to describe the role of multiple factors in determining environmental degradation was the IPAT equation1. It describes the multiplicative contribution of population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T) to environmental impact (I). Environmental impact (I) may be expressed in terms of resource depletion or waste accumulation; population (P) refers to the size of the human population; affluence (A) refers to the level of consumption by that population; and technology (T) refers to the processes used to obtain resources and transform them into useful goods and wastes. The formula was originally used to emphasize the contribution of a growing global population on the environment, at a time when world population was roughly half of what it is now. It continues to be used with reference to population policy.

George Monbiot notes:

David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Development, points out that the old formula taught to all students of development – that total impact equals population times affluence times technology (I=PAT) – is wrong. Total impact should be measured as I=CAT: consumers times affluence times technology. Many of the world’s people use so little that they wouldn’t figure in this equation. They are the ones who have most children.

The Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), was published in 2000. Tim Worstall looks:

More humans means more emissions therefore we should have fewer humans. This is one of those things which is possibly true. But of course what we want to know is, well, is it true? And the answer is no.

For this has been considered. In the SRES which came out in, erm, 1992? And which is the economic skeleton upon which every IPCC report up to and including AR4 was built. And it specifically looks at the varied influences of wealth, population size and technology upon emissions. That’s what it’s actually for in fact. It can be thought of a working through of Paul Ehrlich’s I = PAT equation, impact equals population times affluence times technology. Except, of course, it gets that equation right, dividing by technology, not multiplying by it.

And the answer is that population isn’t the important variable. Nor is affluence, not directly, it’s technology which is. Move over to non-emitting forms of energy generation (and no, not some crash program, just the same sort of increase in efficiency which we had in the 20th century will do it) as in A1T and we’re done. Or if you prefer a bit more social democracy, as in B1.

Population size just isn’t the driving force behind the problem. Thus it’s also not the solution. And we’ve known this for more than 20 years.

Carry on breeding, then.

Posted: 13th, September 2016 | In: Broadsheets, Reviews | Comment


‘The Ginger Twat Called Angus’ and other people on a South London pub’s banned list

The Half Moon pub in London’s Herne Hill has banned the following people. Santero tweeted the list, says“… it’s like a Guy Ritchie casting call.” I have to agree.

banned from herne hill pub london banned

Posted: 13th, September 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Strange But True | Comment


Hillary Clinton’s not bitter: she and Trump are just symptoms of a diseased system

Compare and contrast Hillary Clinton’s opinion of millions of Americans. She said the words at a New York fundraising do:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic. you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic – you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”

Now listen to Barack Obama in 2008:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment, as a way to explain their frustrations.”

And Hillary Clinton’s response:

“I was taken aback by the demeaning remarks Senator Obama made about people in small-town America. His remarks are elitist and out of touch.”

Is this why people are voting for Donald Trump?

No, says one writer:

You can’t win an American presidential election without the deplorables’ vote. Deplorables are America’s biggest minority. They might even be the American majority. They may or not be racist, homophobic and so forth, but they know they’re deplorable. Deplorable, and proud…

They might even forgive Hillary for losing tens of thousands of compromising emails on an illegal private server and then repeatedly lying about it in a way that insults the deplorable intelligence of the average voter. But the one thing you can’t do is spit on them and tell them it’s raining. They’ll never forgive you for that. They’re hurting, and they rankle at candidates who rub their faces in it.

Yes, says another:

Clinton’s staffers started handing out stickers saying “I’m not bitter” and she went on to win the primary by nine points. She ultimately lost the nomination by a convincing margin.

What of the lasting damage to candidate Obama from this revealing insight into this elitist character? In the general election, Obama won Pennsylvania by 10 points. He took God-fearing Virginia by 6 points, and gun-loving Indiana by 1 point.

Clinton or Trump?

One comment chimes:

Many people see the choice of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee as a disaster for the Republican Party. Maybe. That out of the chaos of 17 Republican candidates we get Trump because of a disconnect between the Republican base & the money-men is one thing. But, for the entire Democratic political & cultural establishment to get together & choose Hillary as their only possible standard-bearer is a rot of an entirely more profound order. The fact that within the Democratic Party the only faction that resisted Hillary’s spell was the space-cadet Left under Bernie Sanders just makes the total picture all the more horrifying.

Vote now and vote often.

 

Posted: 12th, September 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment


The Dryathon: no, cancer patients want you to drink and have fun

Have you shaved your head for cancer? Have you stopped drinking for Cancer Research UK’s Dryathlon? Stop. Rather, carry on. Drink. Grow your hair and have fun. Abstinence is for the religious and the dependent.

Stopping the booze for a month is like braking as you pass the speed cameras, only to slap your foot on the accelerator as you leave the police zone of intolerance?

Don’t stop. Drink! Your local cancer patient demands it.

PS – yes, if you are worried about booze leading to cancer, then give it up. But, then, lots of stuff has been linked to cancer. Will you give up broccoli, too?

 

Posted: 12th, September 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


In Theresa May‘s meritocracy the useless work for Somerset council

This question is filed in today’s Daily Telegraph: “In Theresa May‘s meritocracy, what will become of the stupid and useless?”

Answer: they will work co the council.

 

fail spelling

 

Plus ca change.

Posted: 12th, September 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment


ISIS and Putin yet to claim responsibilty for bogus Hillary Clinton fainting video

Did you see the video of Hillary Clinton wobbling as she was placed in a large van after “overheating” at a 9/11 memorial event in New York? People says she “nearly fainted”. The Daily Star says “Hillary Clinton faints and gets dragged into car”.

The LA Times says the “Video shows Hillary Clinton struggling to stand”. Fox News says Hillary succumbed to a “medical episode”.

Shock Jock Alex Jones says: “This video proves we have been right all along and Hillary Clinton is sick and needs urgent medical care.”

 

 

And Slate says it might all be a fake.

 

hillary faints

 

Yeah, the website thinks the video might be bogus, a fake. On 9/11, a day not exactly a stranger to conspiracy theories, Slate says forces unknown (ISIS? FSA? K-Tel) produced that video.

Slate adds:

After lots of confusion among those present about what happened, the Clinton campaign released a statement. “Secretary Clinton attended the September 11th Commemoration Ceremony for just an hour and thirty minutes this morning to pay her respects and greet some of the families of the fallen,” spokesman Nick Merrill said. “During the ceremony, she felt overheated, so departed to go to her daughter’s apartment and is feeling much better.”

Later, we all got to see another video, an official one released by Team Hillary as the would-be President left her daughter’s New York flat. Conspiracy theorists will note that the child bears only a passing resemblance to more recent photos of Chelsea Clinton.

 


 

The video has not been checked for authenticity, and the girl with ‘Hillary’ could well be a Russian dwarf.

Posted: 11th, September 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment


Woman arrested for stealing policeman’s French fry

Once upon a time, a policeman might have laughed it off. Now they are humourless and supremely territorial about their food. So when a woman took three chips from a copper’s plate at Washington’s Italian Pizza Kitchen, he arrested her for theft.

She took one chip. The officer asked her to stop. She took another. He thundered a warning her that she was engaging in theft and could be arrested. She took another one.

The officer notes that the “offender appropriated the listed property without the consent of the complainant”. He lists the stolen goods as “French fried potato“.

She has been charged with second-degree theft.

She did not offer to regurgitate the stolen goods.

Of course, police think nothing of interrupting your meals:

Posted: 11th, September 2016 | In: Reviews, Strange But True | Comment


What happened when ‘four big guys’ lifted a woman’s car into parking bay

To Fremantle, Western Australia,where Sally is outraged. She’s received a parking fine for not parking within the white lines. She posts a picture of her car with a front tyre barely an inch over the line. Sally says the ticket is a gross “unfairness”. But the traffic warden says Sally is wrong.

 

parking freemantle fine sally

Sally’s photo

 

His picture shows Sally’s car parked well over a white line.

 

parking freemantle fine sally

The warden’s photo

 

“I see the time on his photo at 6.47pm and I don’t understand that at all,” she says. “I have absolutely no recollection of moving the car and nor do my witnesses. A friend did tell he, though, that he’d seen ‘four big guys’ lift and move her car.

Balls, right?

No. The council looked at CCTV footage. Nine minutes after the warden has issued Sally with a fine Sally, four men lifted her car into the centre of the parking bay to allow enough space for their vehicle to park in the adjoining bay.

 

parking freemantle fine sally

 

“We now see this not as case of trying to fabricate evidence, just a really unusual series of events,” says a council rep. “While this doesn’t change the fact the car was illegally parked across two bays at the time of the fine being issued, it does support the confusion Sally would have faced when she came back to her car.”

The fine stands.

Posted: 10th, September 2016 | In: Money, Reviews, Strange But True | Comment


Seven-year-old boy’s pet lion goes missing

To Russian, where a seven-year-old boy is looking for his lost cat. It’s a big cat. It’s a lion, albeit a cub.

Happily, a local in the city of Ufa spotted the lion and managed to tie it to a fence.

 

pet lion missing

 

The father of the boy, who had been given the cub for his birthday, says Shere Khan escaped after being taken for a vaccination.

“When we arrived [home], we gasped – the lion was not in the car,” he said.

Local news says, “The cub has a huge territory of 40 hectares to explore and is not alone, as the family also has horses, rabbits and a peafowl” – although in time the peafowl, rabbits and horses may well make even more room for a hungry lion.

Posted: 10th, September 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Strange But True | Comment


Why not allow police in burkas? They’re already wearing masks

Do you think it’s ok for a policewoman to wear a veil over her face? The Express and Daily Star says it could happen. Actually both papers say a police woman could wear a burka. They’re wrong.

Dave Thompson, chief constable of West Midlands police, says he’s looking at allowing female staff to wear a niqab. The niqab is a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear.  The burka  is a one-piece veil that covers the face and body, often leaving just a mesh screen to see through.

 

Burkas a

burka

 

Thompson says it’s “cultural sensitivity” would be taken into account if a woman officer wanted to wear one. He says the force must “reflect the community we serve”.

As yet no female officer has asked to wear a niqab. We don’t know if any woman has been put off from joining the force because they can’t wear one at work.

A spokesman from The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), quips: “The women who do [wear a veil] would probably not want to be in the police.”

Like the Express and Star, Omer El-Hamdoon, deputy secretary general of the MCB, also gets it wrong:

“We appreciate that West Midlands police are trying to open up and recruit more ethnic minority backgrounds, but we feel wearing the burka would restrict duties… In policing that involves a high level of action, you need the face to be shown so the burka would not work in the normal policing environment. But steps to increase the involvement of Muslims in policing are welcome.”

A source at West Midlands police tells the Times:

“Apart from anything else there is the health and safety issue. How could you possibly have an officer pursuing a suspect down the street while wearing a burka over their face?”

Tory MP Philip Davies tells the Express:

“It’s is a load of politically correct nonsense. I’m not for banning people wearing the burka as the government should not tell people what they can and cannot wear. But I do not think we should be encouraging people. The police are supposed to be about getting close to the community. People wearing the burka are actually removing themselves from it.

“This is exactly what happens with political correctness. It builds resentment with ethnic minorities when it is not their fault.”

Of course, they’re right. A copper covering up their face is, as one source tells the Express, “mad”:

 

Niqab police

PC Samira

 

Police in veils. Madness!

 

Posted: 10th, September 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Brexit: Liam Fox, fat and lazy Britons must work for fascist UK

Good news, Brexiters, Britain’s trade secretary, Dr Liam Fox, a former GP, wants you to stop playing sport and work for the State. He says:

“This country is not the free- trading nation that it once was. We have become too lazy, and too fat on our successes in previous generations.

“What is the point of us reshaping global trade, what is the point of us going out and looking for new markets for the United Kingdom, if we don’t have the exporters to fill those markets?…

“We’ve got to change the culture in our country. People have got to stop thinking about exporting as an opportunity and start thinking about it as a duty – companies who could be contributing to our national prosperity but choose not to because it might be too difficult or too time-consuming or because they can’t play golf on a Friday afternoon.”

Put the clubs down and go to work for Dr Liam.

As Tim Worstall notes: “Contributing to national prosperity is not a duty of anyone or anything. Let’s not come over all fascist here, shall we?”

A Number 10 source adds that “clearly he’s expressing private views”. It’s not Government policy to call you all fat and lazy.

As you were…

 

Posted: 10th, September 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment


Facebook says Napalm Girl ‘protects the community’

Having banned Napalm Gil from Facebook – and sent us a warning that posting the image could lead to our Page being removed – the website has relented.

“Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed,” says Facebook in a statement. “It will take some time to adjust these systems but the photo should be available for sharing in the coming days. We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe.”

Oh dear. They want to keep the community safe from people in the, er, community.

Free expression means just that. Free. No buts…

 

Posted: 10th, September 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


The status of Jerusalem: Czech government agrees with King David (not the BBC and The Guardian)

And the capital of Israel is… Jerusalem! The city’s mayor, Nir Barkat, thanks the Czech government for that news. The Czechs have printed all school textbooks to show that Israel’s capital is the ancient city of Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is where the Israeli Knesset (parliament) and government are based.

“Jerusalem is on the map!” says Barkat. “Truth has indeed overcome lies: The Czech government has reversed its decision and Czech textbooks will correctly teach that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.”

The Palestinian Embassy had complained.

“I’m thankful to the Czech government for making the right choice and for refusing to surrender to Palestinian incitement and lies,” adds Barkat. “I am pleased that my letter to Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka and the additional diplomatic efforts have positively impacted this decision,” Barkat said.

“The friendship between the Czech and Jewish peoples has deep and historical roots. Future generations of Czech students will continue to learn the truth: Jerusalem is Israel’s capital and the heart and soul of the Jewish people.”

True enough. My wife is granddaughter to Jan Smudek (aka Elusive Jan). But the history of the Czechs and the Jews is long and very mixed.

As for Jerusalem’s status, CBC reminds its readers: “King David was the first to declare Jerusalem the capital of the Jewish people 3,000 years ago.”

Almost all countries, including the U.S., consider Jerusalem to be a disputed city and have their embassies in Tel Aviv. Palestinians want the eastern section of the city, commonly referred to as East Jerusalem, for the capital of a future state…

Jerusalem was divided from 1948 to 1967, with Jordan ruling the eastern side of the city, including the Old City, Western Wall, Temple Mount and just about every biblical site. As a result of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel re-united the city under its sovereignty, and in 1980 officially enshrined in law that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel.

It is a hot topic.

The BBC was confused. It said Israel had no capital at all in its profiles of all nations competing in the London 2012 Games.

 

Jerusalem capital BBC bias

 

In 2014, Collins Bartholomew, a subsidiary of HarperCollins, featured no Israel on maps distributed to English-speaking schools in the Middle East. Why? Because it matched “local preferences”.

The Guardian regretted the error:

The caption on a photograph featuring passengers on a tram in Jerusalem observing a two-minute silence for Yom HaShoah, a day of remembrance for the 6 million Jews who died in the Holocaust, wrongly referred to the city as the Israeli capital. The Guardian style guide states: “Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel; Tel Aviv is” (Eyewitness, 20 April, page 24).

But it is. Isn’t it?

Posted: 9th, September 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Phuc Off: Zuckerberg and Facebook’s thought police erase Napalm Girl and you’re next

Facebook napalmFacebook has a tricky relationship with censoring images. It recently censored a drawing of a human hand and banned Stephen Ellcock, who’d posted the image. But how do we stand of pictures of naked children?

Facebook’s boss Mark Zuckerberg has been accused of “abusing power” after Facebook deleted pictures of 9-year-old Kim Phúc, aka ‘Napalm Girl’, one subject in Terror of War, a Pulitzer prize-winning photograph by Nick Ut that showed children fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam war.

Norwegian Tom Egeland had posted the picture on Facebook as part of a wider debate on “seven photographs that changed the history of warfare”.

Espen Egil Hansen, the editor-in-chief and CEO of Norway’s Aftenposten, newspaper has used his organ’s front page to accuse Zuckerberg of “abusing your power”, adding:

“I am worried that the world’s most important medium is limiting freedom instead of trying to extend it, and that this occasionally happens in an authoritarian way.”

Egeland’s post earned him a one-month suspension from Facebook. Aftenposten posted the news on its Facebook page, including the offending photo. It received the warning:

“Any photographs of people displaying fully nude genitalia or buttocks, or fully nude female breast, will be removed.”

So what?

Facebook is a website – a very large one, but, nonetheless a website. You can post the picture on your own website if you like.

What Facebook should mind is that it’s dull. It thinks a startling picture of the pain and horror of war is too strong for its delicate readers. It thinks you might get sexually aroused by the image. Facebook has a pretty low view of its customers.

And what goes for pictures goes for words, too. At a 2016 event in Berlin, Zuckenberg vowed to work closer with the German police and look out for victims. “Hate speech has no place on Facebook or in our community,” he said, declining to explain what hate speech is and who gets to decide what is and what is not offensive. He expanded on his view of “protected groups”, saying that Facebook will “now include hate speech against migrants as an important part of what we just now have no tolerance for… Until recently in Germany I don’t think we were doing a good enough job, and I think we will continue needing to do a better and better job.”

Protect migrants seeking better lives in countries where they can think and speak freely by censoring people in those countries from doing just that, banning the natives from doing the very things that make those places desirable to the oppressed. Got it?

That’s the viewpoint from the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company like Facebook.

If you can be banned from Facebook for publishing a picture of a hand or a crying child, can you be banned for calling for a wall to be built between the USA and Mexico, saying ‘White Men Can’t Jump’, or stating that Nickelback fans are deluded?

Facebook is founded on human-to-human communication.

If you stymie that, the site loses its way. It becomes a safe space where only big corporations that play ball (and pay Facebook’s exorbitant fees to reach all of their own readers who ‘like’ their pages) show up on timelines. Then people will go elsewhere to talk freely and air an opinion.

Given the amount of time and effort we and many others have spent cultivating readers on Facebook – my own Flashbak page is soaring but not everyone who ‘liked’ it sees the thing – this is shaping up to be one of the biggest corporate pratfalls of all time.

UPDATE: Facebook will let this one go.

“Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed. It will take some time to adjust these systems but the photo should be available for sharing in the coming days. We are always looking to improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe.”

Protecting the community. Sheesh.

Posted: 9th, September 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment


Fabric closes as London goes soft on fun and hard on drugs

Islington council’s licensing committee said a “culture of drug use” existed at Fabric, the biggest nightclub in its manor, and revoked its license. The Metropolitan Police called for Fabric’s application to be reviewed following two drug-related deaths at the club between June and August this year. The council was duty bound to investigate.

Jack Crossley, 18, died after collapsing outside Fabric on August 6. Ryan Browne, 18, died after taking drugs at Fabric on June 26.

Undercover police entered the club and observed revellers and staff. They reported their observations to the council.

“Staff intervention and security was grossly inadequate in light of the overwhelming evidence that it was abundantly obvious that patrons in the club were on drugs and manifesting symptoms showing that they were,” ruled the council. “This included sweating, glazed red eyes and staring into space, and people asking for help.”

Sweating means you’re on drugs?

Cameron Leslie, who co-founded Fabric, said: “The police no longer want to work with us… they started from the end point, and gathered [evidence] accordingly.”

Alan Miller, chairman of the Night Time Industries Association, thinks holidaymakers will go elsewhere. “People come on easyJet and the Eurostar to see Buckingham Palace and Madame Tussauds, but they also come to go to Fabric,” he said “Now our nightlife is on the ropes. People will vote with their feet and go to Berlin or Barcelona.”

It’s a matter of reputation, for London and Fabric. The thinking seems to be that Fabric – not the drugs – were behind the awful deaths of two young men. But Fabric does not sell illegal drugs. It expressly forbade them. The venue has been closed because its adult patrons chose to break the rules. Can that be fair?

Alex Proud, owner of the Camden Proud nightclub, adds: “They’ll come for me next. Once the police have the ability to close a club that is well-run on those sorts of grounds, every club in London has to think it could be closed tomorrow. It’s a profoundly disturbing precedent to set.”

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of the Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers, is unimpressed. “Late-night clubs are crucial to the health of restaurants, pubs and cafés,” she says. “Also, Fabric was a world-class venue and a breeding ground for up-and-coming DJs and acts. It had one of the most stringent door security regimes and, like any other club, had a vested interest in making sure venues are safe and crime free.”

Note: If you want a sneer, the police operation was called Lenor, presumably after the Fabric softener.

 

Posted: 8th, September 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


Why I’m not buying an iPhone 7

Like millions of you, I’m not buying the New iPhone 7 because: a) they told me the iPhone 6s was the greatest phone ever and could not be beaten, and I beliveed them – still do!; b) the new cameras are so clear they force you see your own life as it really is; c) something about tax and stuff.

In the Guardian, you can read one man’s reasons for opting out:

….because they had pulled the Double Irish, the European commission has ruled, Apple deprived the EU of $14.5bn over the last 10 years. The EU ordered Apple to pay the taxes with interest at the end of August, a decision whose logic the company refutes.

No. The EU does not set tax rates.

This is hardly surprising: Apple is a massive multinational, and behaves like one despite its sanitized image. It has a long track record of looking the other way on suppliers’ human rights abuses, documented by the New York Times and other outlets. And it pays a tax rate lower than that of 99.99% of the human beings reading this story right now – and they clearly work harder at that profit margin and squeezing their supply chain now than they do on their actual technology. And in the last few years it is beginning to show.

d) They’re expensive.

Posted: 8th, September 2016 | In: Money, Reviews, Technology | Comment (1)


Dani Mathers naked gym shots make our skin crawl

Playboy model Dani Mathers, Playboy’s playmate of the year 2015, took a photo of a naked woman in the changing rooms at her gym, posted it on twitter and for explained: “If I can’t unsee this, then you can’t either.”

TMZ says Los Angeles police have spoken to a woman in her 70s who is apparently keen to prosecute Dani Mathers.

Mather says she’s sorry for mocking a woman minding her own business in the gym and only “accidentally” posted the image publicly and that it was intended for a friend.

As for Mathers being ageist, well, we await the after-show shots:

 

dani mathers shower bath

 

Posted: 8th, September 2016 | In: Celebrities, Reviews | Comment


Manchester United’s Academy is full of soft lads, says Nicky Butt

Former Manchester United stalwart Nicky Butt is talking to Henry Winter in the Times. Butt is now runs the Manchester United academy. It;s a good read, but the pick is what Butt has to say about today’s youth, schooled by helicopter parents and indoor sports:

“I see players in our academy and they can’t move. Our lads don’t know how to fall, roll, and you should see the amount of injuries we get from popped shoulders or their arms. I probably fell out of a tree 15 times and never hurt myself. I don’t think my son’s ever climbed a tree.

“Body mechanics lose so much when you’re not climbing trees, not playing basketball, cricket, rugby. I played rugby, cricket, football, basketball…

“I’m a softie parent. I don’t let my kids go anywhere. My daughter’s 12, I don’t think she’d be able to cross a road. The whole life now is middle class: all kids have iPads and PlayStations. Social media’s a massive problem. We had a player who put his address on Facebook and gets a knock at the door from people asking why he’s chatting up this girlfriend. We reiterate to them every six weeks about what to do and not do on social media.

“They’re not streetwise. We’re looking for leaders on the pitch, so when you’re down, they fight back, somebody like [Paul] Scholes who was playing football on the streets at 12 and knocking around the park at 15. They get a lot of street knowledge through that.”

Is it because these children see football mainly as a way to riches, not as a sport to play for fun?

Former United youth player Danny Higginbotham:

I learned so much from the responsibilities I had as an apprentice at Manchester United. I made the orange squash for the players and was anxious watching Peter Schmeichel take his first sip in case it was too weak or too strong. I had the privilege of cleaning the boots of Roy Keane and Brian McClair. I was so proud of it that I would tell all my mates. I would be pleased when the pitch was especially muddy because it meant that I could do an even better job. It meant the world to me.

If I had done a good job, the first-team players would be grateful, and we would be given a bit of cash – just £10 or £20 – at Christmas, and at the end of the season. If we had not done a good job we would know about it too.

This mattered, first, because it taught us apprentices – players like Wes Brown and Jonathan Greening – about the importance of responsibility. But it also mattered because it was a shared rite of passage between us and the senior pros…

That does not happen in football any more. That old bond is broken…

The fact is that young players today do not need to do that sort of thing. When I was an apprentice at United I was paid £40 per week. When I played for the A and B teams we got a £4 win bonus and £2 if we drew. That was only 20 years ago.

Teenage players at top clubs can now hope to earn £20,000 per week before they’ve even made themselves noticed in the first team.

That sounds a tad cynical. Academy players are not all on great salaries:

How many new young players does a club like Liverpool or Arsenal sign every season? The answer is very few. The fact is that most trainees will never make the grade.

Trainees released from scholarship schemes are put into a central pool which allows other interested clubs to come in for them. And former Fulham scout Roger Skyrme believes there’s nothing wrong with lowering your standards. “Never lose faith in your ability, but do be prepared to move down a level,” Roger told BBC Sport.

Your parents can take you there and keep you in a cosy bubble, but they cannot make you want it and go for it.

Posted: 8th, September 2016 | In: Back pages, manchester united, Reviews, Sports | Comment


EastBenders: rewriting the ‘legend’ of Michael Cashman and ‘yuppie poofs’

barry and colin eastbendersLord Michael Cashman, the Labour MEP, is making a return to BBC soap opera EastEnders as  Colin Russell, the show’s first gay character.

Colin is remembered for a scene in 1987 when he and Barry Clark (Gary Hailes) preformed the first gay kiss on a British soap opera.

The Sun is delighted Colin is back, calling the character a TV “legend”.

Back then the paper dubbed the show EastBenders and called Barry and Colin “yuppie poofters”, whose “homosexual love scenes” was performed “when millions of children were watching”.

The Gay Times recalls:

When the storyline did air, Michael’s real-life boyfriend found his world turned upside down. On the centre pages of the News of the World read the headline “secret gay love of AIDS scare east ender” – outing Michael’s partner to his friends and family. “They printed our address – all but the door number – and that afternoon a brick came through the window.”

Legends can involve real people. Who knew?

Posted: 8th, September 2016 | In: Reviews, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment


IKEA balls: customer who said he got testicles caught in stool comes clean

When news broke that Claus Jorstad had got a testicle trapped in an IKEA stool, he laughed. “Haha, part of the story is a lie,” he tells Altaposten. “What is true and less true I won’t go into here.”

It was his penis that got trapped as he sat on the stool in the shower?

 

IKEA testicles stool

Passing a stool

 

“I sat there and discovered all of a sudden that stool use could have unfortunate consequences for a man,” says Jorstad. “So decided to warn Ikea about what potentially could happen in future.”

Thanks, Claus, for the public service announcement. Others have been even more selfless, like herhimhim and him. And mind out in the hardware ssection:

Dr. Kevin Klauer, an E.R. doc based in Canton, Ohio, still remembers the day he dealt with a patient who was trying to fix his roof when he fell off and impaled himself on a shovel. You can see the shovel sticking out of what appears to be the rectal area. Even when you’ve seen a lot of bad injuries, this is really a cringe moment. Turning somebody to examine them while they have a shovel impaled in their rectum is not something anyone’s been trained to do. You have to work as a team.”

IKEA is not for everyone. Take care in there.

 

Posted: 8th, September 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Strange But True | Comment


Assad takes care not to hit Obama’s red line as he drops chorine on Aleppo

Compare and contrast the following:

VOA:

Yesterday Assad government helicopters dropped barrels of chlorine on a rebel neighborhood in Aleppo.

CNN, August 1, 2012:

“We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people,” Obama told reporters at the White House. “We have been very clear to the Assad regime — but also to other players on the ground — that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus; that would change my equation.”

Maybe the chorine is to clean the city’s swimming pools?

Posted: 7th, September 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment


Britain builds a wall in France to keep them out

CNN reports that the UK is to build a ‘big new wall’ in Calais to stop migrants.

The four-meter (13 foot) high wall is part of a £17 million ($23 million) deal struck between Britain and France earlier this year to try to block migrants from crossing the English Channel.

Donald Trump is wrong: you need to build the wall inside Mexico.

“We’ve done the fence. Now we’re doing a wall,” British Immigration Minister Robert Goodwill announced at a government hearing on Tuesday.

It’s all about ambition. But we’d like to see a traditional dry-stone wall. British walls for British wallers!

PS: With any leftover bricks, we can shore up the Chunnel.

PPS: If the would-be Britishers can jump it in a photogenic fashion, they’re in. There’s a TV show in this. Call me Channel 4, I have ideas:

 

Posted: 7th, September 2016 | In: Reviews | Comment


IKEA customer gets his testicles trapped in MARIUS

Claus Jørstad of Alta, Norway got his testicle trapped in a MARIUS Stool from IKEA. We mention the product’s name so that any masochists know which one to go for.

 

Ikea balls

MARIUS – GSOH, loves to hug

 

Claus was seated on his stool in the shower when one of his testicles got stuck in a hole on the seat. The story goes that hot water caused them to expand – not the holes; the nuts – and Claus was transformed into a Nordic-budget furniture hybrid.

“Sitting there and noticing the accident, I bent down to see what happened, I realized the little nutter has got stuck,” he tells the Daily Mail.

Happily, Claus eventually ran out of hot water and the cold stuff caused considerable shrinkage.

Elsewhere in IKEA:

 

IKEA meatballs testicles

Posted: 7th, September 2016 | In: Key Posts, Reviews, Strange But True, The Consumer | Comment


Derby balls: Manchester United and Manchester City fight The War Bitchy Comments

Why don’t Manchester City’s Pepe Guardiola and Manchester United’s Jose Mourinho just duke it out. The Mail previews the big United v City match by drooling over the prospect of violence:

 

pep jose manchester united manchester city daily mail

 

“Police fears for Jose v Pep,” screams the headline.

The usually harmonious Manchester derby is causing police to be scared?

“The explosive rivalry between Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola – and the increased tension it may bring to the terraces – are part of the police’s planning for the Manchester derby. Sportsmail understands that officers on duty for Saturday’s clash between the two sides, the first battle between the feuding managers with their new clubs in England, will be told of the pair’s feisty history and the effect that may have on their operation.”

It’s war. We’ve had the War of Jenkin’s Ear, the War of The Stray Dog and The Pastry War. Prepare yourselves for The War of The Bitchy Comments. It’s gonna be bloody (marvellous).

Posted: 7th, September 2016 | In: Back pages, Manchester City, manchester united, Reviews, Sports, Tabloids | Comment