Reviews Category
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.
Amanda Knox: The Book Sequel And Celebrity Are In The Bag
Amanda Knox smiles during a television interview, Friday, Jan. 31, 2014 in New York. Knox said she will fight the reinstated guilty verdict against her and an ex-boyfriend in the 2007 slaying of a British roommate in Italy and vowed to “never go willingly” to face her fate in that country’s judicial system . “I’m going to fight this to the very end,” she said in an interview with Robin Roberts on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
LIKE an episode of Dynasty, two women fight for the headlines. One one side, there’s Amanda ‘ Foxy’ Knox, the blonde “she-Devil” who snogged her lover in a way that had one writer thinking of Adolf Eichmann. Against her is Meredith Kercher, the silent and goodly brunette. Theirs has been a trial in three parts. The hearts are with Kercher, but the headlines are all Knox’s.
As one wag put it: “Look, the only thing that girl’s guilty of is being beautiful and maybe murder.”
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What’s New at The Brit Awards This Year?
Boy George and his band Culture Club with Michael Jackson’s sister Latoya. The band won Best British Group and Best Selling Single for ‘Karma Chamleon’. Latoya was there to collect the award for Best Selling Album for her brother for ‘Thriller’. 1994.
THE Brit Awards – the British recording industry’s lavish work’s do – is less than 3 weeks away and a slurry of famous faces will be trudging through the doors of the O2 Arena, hiding cocaine in their underwear, getting wasted in front of their label bosses and making unpleasant sexual advances toward interns.
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She Devil Amanda Knox Murdered Like Eichmann: Third Time Lucky For Meredith Kercher
AMANDA Knox and Raffaele Sollecito did murder British student Meredith Kercher, in Perugia, Italy. Today an appeals court in Florence upheld the convictions of U.S. student Knox and her ex-boyfriend for the November 2007 murder of her British roommate. Knox was sentenced to 28 1/2 years in prison, raising the specter of a long legal battle over her extradition. After nearly 12 hours of deliberation Thursday the court reinstated the guilty verdict first handed down against Knox and Raffaele Sollecito in 2009.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
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Posted: 30th, January 2014 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (5)
Red Hot Chilli Peppers To Be Most Hateful Super Bowl Halftime Ever?
THE Super Bowl halftime show is a mixed bag. Highlights have included Prince, The Rolling Stones, Chubby Checker (and 88 grand pianos), Michael Jackson, Paul McCartney and Beyonce.
With that, there have been lowlights too. Madonna’s turn at the show was met with stifled yawns, while The Black Eyed Peas performed their songs while everyone in the stadium ran off to the bar.
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All Aboard The Martin Mars Flying Hotel
THERE was Luxury Aloft the Martin Mars Flying Hotel. What was once a US Navy flying boat was now swanky. In 1945, air travel was a thing of wonder. It was sophisticated, stylish and offered the promise of romance. War was over. Technology used to drop bombs and catapult men into French onion fields was being harnessed for wonderment.
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Posted: 30th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment (1)
10 Dream Jobs For 1970s Men
CONSIDER me your 1970s guidance counsellor. I’m not going to recommend civil engineering or medical school. Those careers are all well and good, but save them for the 1980s when it’s all about the paycheck. No, we’re smack dab in the Twilight Zone (AKA the 70s) when the Baby Boomers are breaking out on their own, the sexual revolution is in full swing, drugs are highly encouraged, and blue collar is king. If you’re a man and want to enjoy the 1970s to their fullest extent, take heed of my advice. Choose one of these career paths, and all will be groovy.
10. Fitness Instructor
It doesn’t matter that you have no idea what you’re doing – when it comes to physical fitness, no one does. It’s the seventies – they don’t even know how to pronounce “jogging” –
Veronica and I are trying this new fad called uh, jogging. I believe it’s jogging or yogging. It might be a soft j. I’m not sure but apparently you just run for an extended period of time. It’s supposed to be wild.
– Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)
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Posted: 30th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment (1)
Checking The Daily Mail: I Heard It Through The Hate Vine
WOMEN don’t have any agency. They don’t choose to have children nor are they capable of rejecting the advances of rich men. Women are wombs to be squirted in to and then used. Women are basically cattle. Welcome to the world of the Daily Mail as most recently articulated by the paper’s newest woman-who-hates-woman, Sarah Vine.
Shipped in to throw shade like an angry ancient oak, Vine’s latest target is Hugh Grant, an old enemy of the Daily Mail’s whose campaigning with Hacked Off has further enraged the potato-faced Paul Dacre. As it goes I don’t agree with Grant’s characterisation of the press, his advocacy for regulatory regimes that would bring the press dangerously close to state control nor his belief that he’s above scrutiny. However, Sarah Vine’s characterisation of his private life, the women he is involved with and his children is vile.
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Posted: 30th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)
The New York Post’s Masahiro Tanaka Gag Bombs
GET a load of the New York Post’s front page, created in tribute (not fear) to new New York Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka. He’s Japanese. And he’s riding on a divine wind of change in the cockpit of a Japanese warplane. He is the “$155m Bronx Bomber”. He is the new “Japanese ace”.
The Asian American Journalists Association is displeased:
Frank Zini
Managing Editor
The New York PostDear Mr. Zini:
Your front page last Thursday showed recently signed Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka in the cockpit of a Japanese warplane, labeling him the “$155M Bronx Bomber” and a new “Japanese ace.”
The depiction was of poor taste, and the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) is relieved to learn that editors at The Post also found the graphic offensive and pulled it – but not before some editions containing the objectionable cover hit the street.
We appreciate your candor in explaining, in an email responding to AAJA’s query, that the image and accompanying headline were meant to “amuse and play off the Yankee nickname ‘Bronx Bombers.’ ” We take you at your word that it was not the paper’s intent to offend.
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Women’s Lib Caused Rising Inequality!
Pickets from a group calling itself “Women’s Liberation Party” march in front of the Convention Hall in Atlantic City, N.J. in protest of the annual staging of the Miss America Pageant, Sept. 7, 1968. (AP PHOTO)
YOU may think this is absurd but nevertheless it’s is actually true. From somewhere around a lot to all of rising household inequality has been caused by womens’ lib. Which is, of course, an exciting finding:
The economists test this by comparing the Gini coefficient against their model of what the Gini coefficient would have been if men and women married randomly. In 1960, the actual Gini coefficient in the U.S. was 0.34, almost indistinguishable from the Gini coefficient produced by their random model (0.33). That suggests there was very little assortative mating back then. (Think of all the executives who ended up with their secretaries.)
By 2005, the Gini coefficient was 0.43. That’s a big increase. What’s more, the economists found that “if people matched in 2005 according to the 1960 standardized mating pattern there would be a significant reduction in income inequality; i.e., the Gini drops from 0.43 to 0.35.”
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How The Beatles Hypnotized Western Youth To Fight For Russia In The Cold War
IN 1974 the Reverend David A. Noebel put own in words his thought on The Beatles. These thoughts were deep enough to form an entire book, The Marxist Minstrels: A Handbook on Communist Subversion of Music.
Who is Rev. Noebel? We turn to the back of the book:
Rev. David Noebel, Associate Evangelist of Billy James Hargis and Dean of the Christian Anti-Communist Summer University, The Summit, Manitou Springs, Colorado, is the author of this excellent study. When Dr. Hargis discovered Rev. Noebel and recognized his leadership ability, the author of this book was pastor of a Bible Church in Madison, Wisconsin, where he was also working on his Doctorate of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin. Rev. Noebel enthusiastically joined Dr. Hargis’s team and has become a leading spokesman for Christian Crusade in recent months.
That same year, he penned Rock ‘N’ Roll: A Prerevolutionary Form of Cultural Subversion.
These followed other works, like the 1966 panic reader Rhythm Riots and Revolution and 1969’s The Beatles: A Study in Drugs, Sex and Revolution. The artwork on this is fabulous.
But Communism, Hypnotism, and The Beatles is hard to beat. In it we learn:
“And, since our teenagers under Beatlemania will actually riot, it is imperative to understand the basic underlying philosophy of the Beatles. Are they susceptible to the enemies of our Republic?”
The subtitle to his insight is “Analysis of the Communist Use of Music – the Master Plan”.
The Beatles as Communists? The Beatles who sang:
Let me tell you how it will be,
There’s one for you, nineteen for me,
‘Cause I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.
Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cause I’m the Taxman,
Yeah, I’m the Taxman.(If you drive a car ), I’ll tax the street,
(If you try to sit ), I’ll tax your seat,
(If you get too cold ), I’ll tax the heat,
(If you take a walk ), I’ll tax your feet.
Taxman.
You see, rock ‘n’ roll is making your Communists and gay. Pop is “un-Christian, mentally unsettling, revolutionary and a medium for promiscuity”.
And that’s why we love it!
In 1965, Newsweek covered Noebel in an article called Beware The Red Beatles:
Fluoridation, mental-health programs, and the United Nations are, as every Right-thinking fundamentalist well knows, insidious Communist plots to soften up America for the Bolshevik takeover. But by dint of ‘hard intelligence’, a 28-year-old Wisconsin preacher, on tour for Billy Hargis’s Christian Crusade says he has unearthed a more subtle Communist ploy -the Beatles.
“In the excitatory state that the Beatles place these youngsters into, these young people will do anything they are told to do . . . One day when the revolution is ripe,’ the minister warns in dark, apocalyptic tones, ‘they [the communists] could put the Beatles on TV and [they] could mass hypnotize the American youth. This scares the wits out of me.”
Writes Noebel:
The Communists, through their scientists, educators and entertainers, have contrived an elaborate, calculating and scientific technique directed at rendering a generation of American youth useless through nerve-jamming, mental deterioration and retardation. The plan involves conditioned reflexes, hypnotism and certain kinds of music. The results, destined to destroy our nation, are precise and exacting. Little wonder the Kremlin maintains it will not raise the Red flag over America—the Americans will raise it themselves. If the following scientific program destined to make our children mentally sick is not exposed, mentally degenerated Americans will indeed raise the Communist flag over their own nation!
Noebel had science to support his theories:
Pavlov experimented with animals in other areas as well, for example, in an area known as artificial neurosis. Here the scientist took healthy animals and using two conditioned reflexes, the excitatory reflex and the inhibitory reflex, caused these healthy animals to break down mentally with cases of artificial neurosis. As we shall see, this is exactly what the Beatles, in particular, and rock and roll, in general, are doing to our teenagers’.
You want more?
Former rock player, Bob Larson, in conjunction with a physician, offers some light on the relationship between hard rock and promiscuous sex. He contends that the low frequency vibrations of the bass guitar, coupled with the driving beat of the drum, have a decided effect upon the cerebralspinal fluid. The fluid in turn affects the pituitary gland which directs the secretion of hormones, resulting in an abnormal balance of primarily the sex and adrenalin hormones. Instead of their normal regulatory function in the body, these hormones secreted under such conditions produce radical changes in the blood sugar and calcium of the body. Since the brain is nourished exclusively by blood sugar, it ceases to function properly, causing moral inhibitions to either drop to a dangerous low or be wiped out altogether. (Former rock player, Bob Larson, in conjunction with a physician, offers some light on the relationship between hard rock and promiscuous sex. He contends that the low frequency vibrations of the bass guitar, coupled with the driving beat of the drum, have a decided effect upon the cerebralspinal fluid. The fluid in turn affects the pituitary gland which directs the secretion of hormones, resulting in an abnormal balance of primarily the sex and adrenalin hormones. Instead of their normal regulatory function in the body, these hormones secreted under such conditions produce radical changes in the blood sugar and calcium of the body. Since the brain is nourished exclusively by blood sugar, it ceases to function properly, causing moral inhibitions to either drop to a dangerous low or be wiped out altogether.
MORE?
Hermina Eisele Brown, Director of Music Therapy Dept, New Jersey State Hospital, says that primitive rhythms are rarely good as they arouse basic instinct in the emotionally insecure person. Rock and roll has a direct bearing on delinquency since all delinquents are emotionally insecure;
But The Beatles as Communists… Really?
But our younger children are not the only ones being tampered with by the Communists. Our teenager is also being exploited. Exploited for at least three reasons: (a) his own demoralization; (b) to create in him mental illness through artificial neurosis and (c) to prepare him for riot and ultimate revolution in order to destroy our American form of government and the basic Christian principles governing our way of life.
Four young men, noted for their tonsils and tonsure, are helping to bring about the above. When the Beatles conducted their “concert” in Vancouver, British Columbia, 100 persons were stomped, gouged, elbowed and otherwise assaulted during a 29-minute performance.
Nearly 1,000 were injured in Melbourne, Australia; in Beirut, Lebanon, fire hoses were needed to disperse hysterical fans. In the grip of Beatle fever, we are told the teenagers weep, wail and experience ecstasy-ridden hysteria that has to be seen to be believed. Also, we are told teenagers “bite their lips until they bleed and they even get over-excited and take off their clothes.” To understand what rock and roll in general and the Beatles in particular are doing to our teenagers, it is necessary to return to Pavlov’s laboratory. The Beatles’ ability to make teenagers take off their clothes and riot is laboratory tested and approved. It is scientifically labeled mass hypnosis and artificial neurosis.
And not just The Beatles:
The music isn’t “art-form” at all, but a very destructive process. Teenage mental breakdown is at an all time high and juvenile delinquency is nearly destroying our society. Both are caused in part by emotional instability which in turn is caused in part by destructive music such as rock and roll and certain kinds of jazz. But no matter what one might think about the Beatles or the Animals or the Mindbenders, the results are the same—a generation of young people with sick minds, loose morals and little desire or ability to defend themselves from those who would bury them.
And:
The Beatles’ public pronouncements, in the main, could not please this socialist-communist coterie more and, therefore, although the Beatles might not fully understand all the ramifications of their usefulness, they have been considered more than acceptable by the Left. Hence, rock’n’roll in general and the Beatles in particular have a special significance to the disrupters of society for their promotion of drugs, avant-garde sex and atheism. The revolu- tion, though sometimes veiled, is fundamentally against Christianity and Christianity’s moral concepts. Karl Marx sought to dethrone God before he set out to destroy capitalism. Since the rebellion or revolution not only sustains, but feeds on the sexual revolution, it is quite natural that the revolutionaries are against morality and Biblical Christianity which impedes the sexual revolution . . . There is good reason, therefore, why the Red revolution- ists who are dedicated to attacking Christianity and the morals of Christianity look to the Beatles as their ‘cultural heroes’. Of course, to the naive and uninitiated, the Beatles simply appear as four, fine, wholesome, uplifting musicians, but to those who peer at the clenched fisted, radical revolutionists on our college campuses (and their useful idiots), the Beatles take on a vastly different hue and tone.
What to do? What to do? Your writer knew:
In conclusion, it seems rather evident to this writer that the communists have a master music plan for all age brackets of American youth. We know from documented proof that such is the case for babies, one- and two-year-olds with their rhythmic music; we know such is the case for school children with their rhythmic music and for university students with their folk music.4 What but rock and roll fits the teenager? This isn’t saying that the communists have invented rock and roll or any other type of music, but they do in fact know how to use each type for their own purpose
.Throw your Beatle and rock and roll records in the city dump. We have been unashamed of being labeled a Christian nation; let’s make sure four mop-headed anti-Christ beatniks don’t destroy our children’s emotional and mental stability and ultimately destroy our nation as Plato warned in his Republic.
He wasn’t alone. When John Lennon me his quip about Jesus being smaller than The Beatles, records were torched. “Christianity will go,” said Lennon. “It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first — rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
In 1p82. Noebel retuned The Fab Four with his screed The Legacy of John Lennon: Charming or Harming a Generation?. In 2006, Noebel wrote that these “pied-pipers from Liverpool led tens of thousands straight into the drug culture and sexual revolution. Indeed, Lennon’s gospel was a gospel of freedom without God, moral boundaries or adult responsibility. His mantra of ‘give peace a chance’ was merely a cloak to cover his drug-drenched lifestyle, promiscuity (free love) and Marxist/socialist revolution.”
Such are the facts…
Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
Jesus Appears On Woman’s Foot To Remind Her To Wears Sandals
SANDALS. Had Paula Osuna been wearing the godly shoes in her Albuquerque, NM, home she would have not hurt her foot. And Jesus would have have shown up on her metatarsals to remind her.
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Epic Cars: The 1972 Toyota RV Passion Wagon
IN 1972, Toyota unveiled the greatest RV never made.
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Flashback: Feeding Soup To The Orphans In Canning Town Soup 1931
FLASHBACK Photo: A 1931 picture of children eating soup at a Children’s Home in London’s Canning Town.
Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Photojournalism | Comment
Maxim Martsinkevich Might Be Putin’s Chief Anti-Gay Enforcer
MAXIM Martsinkevich is the head of Occupy Pedophilia, an anti-gay group. He used to be a leading light in the neo-Nazi groups Format18. He’s just been deported from Cuba, accused of kidnapping and torturing Russian LGBT teens. It’s alleged that he lured his victims through fake social media profiles. Attacks were filmed and uploaded onto the web.
This site reports that in 2012, Martsinkevich, 29, told Lenta.ru news website that he charged people a fee to take part in these child abuser-hunting “safaris.”
Maxim Martsinkevich, also known as “The Hatchet” in Russian, gives the Nazi salute during a gathering of skinheads outside Moscow, in this June 16, 2004, file photo. A Moscow court sanctioned the arrest of Martsinkevich for his role as a leader in a right-wing ultrtanationalist group, the RIA-Novosti news agency reported on Wednesday, July 4, 2007. Russia has seen a spike in racist and anti-immigrant violence in recent years.
Other than finding an excuse to beat people up, the apparent idea behind this movement was to trap peadophiles. But most of the alleged victims seem to be gay teenagers.
Martsinkevich’s VK.com profile includes photos like this.
Maybe Martsinkevich is of one mind with Vladimir Putin, for whom being gay and being a child abuser are two sides of the same coin. After all, it was Putin who opined:
“We do not have a ban on non-traditional sexual relationships. We have a ban on the propaganda of homosexuality and paedophilia. I want to underline this. Propaganda among children. These are absolutely different things – a ban on something or a ban on the propaganda of that thing… We are not forbidding anything and nobody is being grabbed off the street, and there is no punishment for such kinds of relations. You can feel relaxed and calm [in Russia], but leave children alone please.”
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Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: Reviews | Comments (10)
Madeleine McCann: Secret Meetings, Three Non-Arrests And All Over By Lunch
MADELEINE McCann: Anorak’s look at the missing child in the news. Today ‘Maddie’ is on the front page of the Daily Mirror:
The pictures and the news illustrates a “secret kidnap summit”. Yeah. Define “secret”. It’s as – as if – the Mirror is presenting this as a scoop. The Mirror has more:
Madeleine McCann’s parents ‘on tenterhooks’ as Scotland Yard detectives fly to Portugal to arrest three suspects
We know this because a “source” – whose anonymity is pretty much the only secret thing about the story – says Gerry and Kate McCann are “anxious”. This “source” then explains the law and what is going on:
“It is necessary for British police to request the Portuguese authorities allow them to operate on their turf. It means they have the intention of arresting and interviewing X, Y or Z.
So. News of the arrests is based on the opinion of an unnamed “source”, not the police? What about the front-page headline of cops “flying in to arrest three suspects”?
After arriving in the Algarve yesterday the Yard team held a secret four-hour meeting with senior Portuguese officers and prosecutors. The discussions are believed to have centred on getting local officials to sanction the arrests and subsequent questioning.
Any more facts?
It has pin-pointed three men who are said to have been very close to the scene when three-year-old Maddie was snatched from her family’s holiday apartment at the resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007. The records also indicate the suspects, believed to be a burglary gang, made a high number of calls to each other in the hours following her abduction.
But what links this trio to the child? The Mirror turns to another unnamed source – because when a child is missing maintaing secrecy is of vital importance, right?
An insider said of yesterday’s talks: “It’s the first time the UK and Portuguese police have met since the request was made…The investigation is at a sensitive stage and it remains to be seen what action will be taken by the Portuguese police.”
The rest of the newspapers catch up:
Daily Mail: “Are Maddie police about to make three arrests?”
The Mail says the meeting was “important” and lasted “three hours“, not four. They then went for lunch.
The Irish Indy answers the Mail’s question: “UK police set to make arrests in McCann disappearance”
The Telegraph is more circumspect: “Madeleine McCann detectives arrive in Portugal to discuss possible arrests”
Such are the facts….
Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: Madeleine McCann, Reviews | Comment
15 Wonderfully Awful Album Covers For Your Viewing Displeasure
THE 1960s through the 1980s saw a flood of low budget albums released around the globe. It seemed all you needed to make a record was some loose change and poor decision making skills. Indeed, much of what landed on record store shelves can only be described as deeply regrettable. Of course, this endless variety of awfulness is what makes record collecting so enjoyable 30+ years later.
I won’t pretend to even scratch the surface of the worst of the worst in this article. Instead, here’s a random handful of 15. Enjoy!
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Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment (1)
Why Raising The Minimum Wage Isn’t A Great Way To Help The Poor
In accordance with ancient custom after the Good Friday service at St. Bartholomew The Great Smithfield, 21 poor widows of the Parish were invited to pick up sixpences from an old flat tombstone. They also afterwards received a hot cross bun each from an alms dish. Some of the 21 poor widows picking up the sixpences from the flat tombstone outside St. Bartholomew The Great in London, on April 7, 1939. (AP Photo)
Date: 07/04/1939
WE’RE being told, endlessly, that we must raise the minimum wage in order to increase the incomes of the working poor. It’s an outrage that people cannot support themselves in the style we think they all ought to be simply by the sweat of their brow. Thus the minimum wage must be raised to a truly living wage to make the world a better place.
However, here’s why that’s not actually all that great an idea:
Across the bulk of the income distribution, a 10% rise in the NMW leads to an increase in net family income amongst NMW families of around 3%; this is around 4% for families where the NMW is the main source of earnings, and around 2% for families where the NMW is the secondary source of earnings.
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Posted: 29th, January 2014 | In: Money, Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)
Watch A Man Run Over A Cyclist’s Foot In London And Then Punch Said Cyclist (Video)
A wrecked bicycle after a crash involving a bus.
Date: 04/09/1936
YES, yes. We all know that cyclists can be really annoying. They sometimes run red lights on empty roads and mount the pavement when drivers can’t. And yes, we know that they’re mostly bearded, middle-aged men who drink porters and have pot-bellies from a enviously rich diet… but really, when it comes down to it, they’re probably going to die if you toy with them on the road.
That pretty much makes you a murderer for not liking someone because they read The Guardian.
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Posted: 28th, January 2014 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
The Jump And Suicide: Juxtaposition of The Day
HOW does the caring Daily Mail report a suicide? Badly:
Face of The Day: Looting Muslim Homes In The Central African Republic
FACE of the Day: A Christian man looks for goods to loot in a Muslim house in the PK13 district of Bangui, Central African Republic, Saturday Jan. 25, 2014. Christian Anti-Balaka militias and civilians have virtually flushed all Muslims from the area, claiming their property, looting and dismantling their houses. Christian militiamen killed a prominent Muslim former government minister who supported last year’s rebellion, officials said, raising the spectre of further sectarian bloodshed . Graffiti reads ‘house occupied’.
Posted: 28th, January 2014 | In: Photojournalism, Reviews | Comment
Tech Rewind: Before Phones Got Smart
TECHNOLOGY has been rocketing along so quickly, it’s difficult to put on the breaks, stop for a moment and get a perspective. Sometimes you just need to dig your heels in and take a look backward. As the current rushes you madly onward, it may do you good to just pause and see how far we’ve come in such a short amount of time.
Taking a look at progress in technology as whole is much too broad; our heads will likely explode if we try and take it all in. Instead, let’s just look at your phone – that thin little rectangle you have in your pocket or are looking at right now…
It can do more than Hubot could ever dream of. And while it is unlikely Hubot was capable of dreaming, it could play AM/FM radio, check the temperature, tell the time, and play Atari 2600 games. Hubot came with a price tag of $3495 in 1981 – adjusted for inflation that comes to $8957 (£5432). For that kind of price, Hubot better be able to do dishes, kill intruders, and stimulate pleasure centers on command.
Alas, it did not. But let’s look at a single function on your mobile device that you likely take for granted: voice messages.
To read this advert, it sounds as though your very life is going to change thanks to an answering machine. Indeed, the Phone Butler will rid you of your cumbersome existence, and introduce you to the jet-setting world of recorded phone messages.
Now you can spend your vacations and nights out on the town with complete ease, knowing that all your calls and messages are being handled efficiently, and are waiting at home for you!…. Don’t worry about missing calls while you’re out doing yard work, in the shower, shopping, sunbathing, or socializing with the neighbors, you’ll never have to make a run for the phone again!
It’s hard to imagine that something as commonplace as voice messaging was sold as an answer to prayers just a few decades back. That would be like saying having no phone cord was a miracle of science – hey, what a sec…
“You see, with our cordless phone you’re not tied down by the cord – because there is no cord!”
No longer was mankind tethered; he was free to roam from patio to garage to toilet with splendid freedom. Advertisements announced this latest break with great fanfare. Of course, no longer being “tethered” meant you were also never out of reach. So, in a twist of fate, going cordless resulted in less freedom. Who knew?
In the ‘80s, you knew you “made it” if you could conduct business from your tub… preferably while sporting a self-important smirk. Once again, the advertisers are driving the point home that your tech devices no longer require terminals – they are wherever you are. Our younger generations will never know the type of world where you have designated phone and computer locations – things haven’t just become portable, they are damn near bodily appendages.
Another thing future generations will never know is the telephone queue. The very thought of actually having to wait your turn to use a phone is madness. But there’s a flipside to this: If you knew you had to spend a painful amount of time waiting in line every time you had to make a call, wouldn’t you use the phone less? And if so, might you be doing something more enriching or enjoyable with the time?
That’s crazy talk. Let’s move on.
One thing that we’ve all collectively dreamed about in our science fiction is the “video phone”. Every futuristic depiction worth its salt had one. Of course, now Skype, Face Time and the like are just boring parts of life – no more shocking than your washing machine or toaster oven. Who would have thought that a technology so anticipated would so quickly be taken for granted?
Well, we could stand in amazement at the many examples of brilliant communications technologies which have become mundane overnight. However, the current is quickly pulling us onward. No time to linger in quiet appreciation; in the time it took you to read this article, at least three of your tech devices have gone obsolete.
Posted: 28th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Samuel Beckett Took André the Giant On The School Run
ONCE upon a time Samuel Beckett was waiting for André the Giant, nee André Roussimoff. Geekologie notes:
Samuel Beckett, Nobel Prize winner (literature) and esteemed playwright, probably most noted for Waiting for Godot, bought some land in 1953 near a hamlet around forty miles northeast of Paris and built a cottage for himself with the help of some locals.
One of the locals that helped him build the cottage was a Bulgarian-born farmer named Boris Rousimoff, who Beckett befriended and would sometimes play cards with. As you might’ve been able to guess, Rousimoff’s son was André the Giant, and when Beckett found out that Rousimoff was having trouble getting his son to school, Beckett offered to drive André to school in his truck — a vehicle that could fit André — to repay Rousimoff for helping to build Beckett’s cottage. Adorably, when André recounted the drives with Beckett, he revealed they rarely talked about anything other than cricket.
It being the done thing…
Posted: 27th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Phone Hacking: You Can’t Kill The Sunday Mirror Because It’s Already Dead
Former tabloid journalist Dan Evans leaves The Old Bailey law court in London, Monday, Jan. 27, 2014. Evans told Britain’s phone hacking trial on Monday that he intercepted voicemails with the knowledge of senior staff _ not just at the now-defunct News of the World, whose employees are standing trial, but at the rival Sunday Mirror. Dan Evans has pleaded guilty to phone hacking while working at both newspapers between 2003 and 2010. He gave evidence as a prosecution witness at the trial of former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson and five others. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
CLAIMS that Dan Evans learnt how to hack phones at the Sunday Mirror before the News of the World recruited him for his skills is interesting.
Evans made his claim at the Old Bailey phone hacking trial of ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson. He says he told Coulson of his skills during an interview. He got the job. Coulson, former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks and five others deny charges linked to phone hacking.
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Why Britain’s The Winner In This Online International Trade Stuff
A special constable stands guard at a rubber factory which exports rubber in latex from, in British Malay, Nov. 15, 1948. (AP Photo)
SO we’re told by a report about international online trade: the UK has the world’s largest trade surplus in it. Woo Hoo!
Makes up for the fact, well, just a little bit, that we’ve been running trade deficits for as long as most of us have been alive. Here’s the good news:
The value of online exports in six of the top e-commerce markets will grow fivefold to $130 billion by 2020, with Britain currently generating the biggest online trade surplus by selling more goods abroad, research showed on Monday.
It’s just that, well, I didn’t believe this. So I went off and got a copy of the report and asked the people who had written it quite how they had come to this conclusion.
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