Join Labour For 1p?

...if you're in the Forces, that is.

Ah, it's not like the good old days when joining Labour cost you £1million...but at least they gave you a seat in the House of Lords along with your membership card.

It's their new gimmick to attract a group of the population that they've always dumped on from a great height. How quickly people forget Bob Ainsworthless and Geoff "Hoon" Hoon.

From Jim Murphy, the Shadow Defence Secretary:

"...This would be an excellent and exciting move which would strengthen (not just) Labour's defence policy..."

This, of course, comes a big surprise to those of us who can't think of a single Labour policy on anything, and whose only memorable defence policy when in Government was to build two white elephant aircraft carriers at the end of Gordon Brown's allotment to provide bribes for Scottish voters. And make it more expensive to cancel them than to start building them.

Plus invading sandy places too. They did a lot of that.

But thinking about it - Rowan Williams has managed to destroy the Church of England from the inside...so maybe there's something to be said for this infiltration lark?

Sign up today! Maybe they've got a snooker table.

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Ed Nose Day

Good news, everyone! The opportunistic little shit Leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband has finally had that NHS-funded (that's you) nose-job designed to take the edge off his squeaky voice.

There was initially an outcry that he was getting cosmetic surgery to make his speeches slightly less painful on the ear. So a Labour supporting doctor was wheeled out to diagnose an imaginary "pre-existing" case of gonorrhea or something similar to justify the operation.

Well you'll be delighted to know that your taxpayer cash has been well spent:

One source who spoke to him after the operation said he sounded "exactly the same".

Hahaha ahaha ahaha hahaha

"Meet the new voice; same as the old voice."

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Study: Sharp Things Are Sharp

Good drills from the University of Leicester this week who have triumphed with a study published in this weeks Science Daily:

Mr Nolan said: "It is common knowledge that broken glass bottles can be used as an effective stabbing weapon and the results of the study have reaffirmed this."

Good effort.

It seems the point of this was to measure the amount of force it takes to stab someone effectively with a broken bottle. Apparently it might be relevant in stabbing prosecutions although the justification given for this appears to be bollocks tenuous. Another suggestion is to use the data in the search for a pint glass design which won't be of any use in a Glasgow boozer after 8pm. To be fair that's preferable to forcing us to drink from the abomination that is a plastic pint 'glass'. Which is wrong on every level.

But the whole thing boils down to a group of researchers proving that stabby things can stab you.

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Scream 2

TheEye blogged on this cartoon appearing in the Times, but it seems that no good idea goes "unborrowed".

The Irish Daily Mail went with this a day later. There's nothing new under the sun, it seems...

Good spot by Gavan Reilly

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Unbiased Media?

From here and how depressingly true.

The chorus of demands for Islamic terrorism to be disregarded now or somehow placed on an equal basis with a lone gunman have already reached fever pitch in the gutter appeasement sections of the Guardian (search for your own links to KommentenMachtFrei if you wish but no linky traffic provided from here.)

The BBC also quote "...campaigners say..." too often for it to be an accident. Odd how they are always unnamed 'campaigners' and what they say always fit the BBC agenda, but hey ho. That's your telly tax money at work.

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Tasteless Or Topical?

Yesterday the Sunday Times printed a very dark cartoon on its main op-ed pages, drawn by Gerald Scarfe.

Channel 4 News technology correspondent Ben Cohen said that 'mass murder seems more than a little inappropriate for parody' and promptly kicked off a fierce online debate about it.

TheEye thinks that it is an inspired re-imagining of the mental anguish, terror and helplessness shown in the original and that makes it rather brilliant.

...and that Ben Cohen should wind his smug prissy over-sensitive neck in and shut up.

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Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics About Terrorist Attacks

or, if you prefer as a headline: Observations On Life No.5263 : Eyes Closed


The EU collect statistics on many things, and one interesting example is a breakdown of terrorist attacks within its borders; completed, uncompleted and foiled efforts.

Their summary for 2010 is:

Islamist: 3 (1%)
Separatist: 160 (64%)
Left Wing/Anarchist: 45 (18%)
Right Wing: 0 (0%)
Single Issue: 0 (0%)
Unspecified (UK): 40 (16%)
Total: 249

And why is that list interesting? Not for the numbers themselves because they are influenced by the ongoing separatist and murderous campaign of ETA - plus a few Breton flag-burners gone rogue.

But for the fact that the UK and only the UK refuse to be specific about the origins of residents of Lutonistan our home-grown terrorists. It can only be the BBC's Great Unmentionable Religion Of Peace by process of elimination, obviously, because everyone in Northern Ireland "we haven't gone away, you know" have given up their guns, adopted orphaned fluffy bunnies and are no danger to anyone at all. No sir'ee.

When you're an ostrich and you have two big political reasons to bury bad news then you just push your head even further into the sand. Are we surprised? Not really....

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UN Green Helmets?

In their ongoing struggle to find a mission and a purpose, we have more New World Order authoritarian nonsense from the United Nations...this time it is deploying ground troops to 'combat'the fictional global warming menace:

A special meeting of the United Nations security council is due to consider whether to expand its mission to keep the peace in an era of climate change. … There has been talk … of a new environmental peacekeeping force — green helmets — which could step into conflicts caused by shrinking resources.

Snipers will be deployed in urban areas to eliminate anyone daring to hold a barbeque. Bicycle owning will be compulsory and offenders will be waterboarded.

The madness isn't confined to the UN though.

The Pentagon and other military establishments have long recognised climate change as a “threat multiplier” with the potential to escalate existing conflicts, and create new disputes as food, water, and arable land become increasingly scarce.


[Germany's UN ambassador Peter] Wittig seems to agree, noting that UN peacekeepers have long intervened in areas beyond traditional conflicts.


“Repainting blue helmets into green might be a strong signal — but would dealing with the consequences of climate change — say in precarious regions — be really very different from the tasks the blue helmets already perform today?” he wrote.

And Chris Huhne can call us all Nazis again. Which will be nice.

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Godwin's Law (Huhne Edition)

He's lost the plot. Jumped the shark...utterly utterly mad. And why isn't he in jail for the driving stuff yet, anyway?

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Job Opportunity: Chief Plod

Considering Boris' recent track record with losing senior policemen, this job advert might be a bit optimistic when it says the job of Metropolitan Police Commissioner is a five year post.

It'd be interesting (ish) to know if the job has graced the SitVac pages of any national newspapers and if so which ones.

Applicants should be serving UK chief constables

..which rules most of out.

If you are one, though, then applications to someone who rejoices in the name of A Llama* before 12th August.

* almost

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You May Now Juggle

In great news for the inhabitants of Cook County, Illinois, the Forest Preserve Commissioners voted last week to change laws covering "misconduct" within the region. Now you can legally try your hand at fortune-telling, "acrobatic feats" and juggling there.

Splendidly, it is no longer "disorderly conduct" for confidence men to lounge around in a barn after the repeal of:

all persons who are known to be thieves, burglars, pickpockets, robbers or confidence men, either by their own confession or otherwise or by having been convicted of larceny, burglary, or other crimes against the laws of the State of Illinois, who are found lounging in or prowling or loitering around any house, barn, building or other structure within any forest preserve, and who are unable to give a reasonable excuse for being so found.

It was a fantastically vague law which applied to anybody "known to be" in one of the listed categories because of a confession, a conviction, "or otherwise." It also didn't offer a legal definition "lounging" or "fortune telling" but that makes no difference now because you can do both. Perhaps even at the same time.

"Fortune-tellers are now free to go in the forest preserve and do whatever it is they do," he said.

Good stuff, and well done to Cook County, Illinois.

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Hacking

With every newsreader and lazy journalist in the world apparently ignorant of what the word 'hacking' actually means, it's about time that some of the real gurus in the field made themselves available.


LulzSec have taken down a raft of News International sites, including The Times, the Sunday Times, the Sun, the old News of the World site and News International itself. They've also compromised an older Sun test server and retrieved a raft of address lists and contact details which they are releasing. It's not up to date but it is nevertheless interesting to those who are interested in such things.

This morning the sites listed above are just down, but before they collapsed entirely readers of the Sun were directed to a spoof news story supposedly reporting the death of Rupert Murdoch.

TheEye will be patiently waiting for a refund on the recently purchased iPad Times subscription...and waiting, and waiting, probably.

All of this nonsense leads us to the newest and breaking story of the Murdochalypse*....why can't LulzSec work out how to use apostrophes?

* Copyright SeanT of PoliticalBetting

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Watch Your Language

The thing with being mugged by genuine muggers is they only get away with your wallet, and don't make you say sorry. In Canada we have someone hitting the Compensation button because a stewardess didn't speak Frog. What's the only difference between Sprite and 7Up anyway...apart from the fact that it was easier to find a picture of 7Up with a girl attached to illustrate this story?

The Federal Court of Canada on Wednesday ordered Air Canada to pay $12,000 to Ottawa French-language rights crusader Michel Thibodeau in part because when he asked an English-speaking flight attendant for 7Up in May 12 of 2009, he got Sprite.

"The applicants' language rights are clearly very important to them and the violation of their rights caused them a moral prejudice, pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of their vacation," Justice Marie-Josee Bedard wrote in her judgment.

The judge's name, sounds a bit *cough* French, eh?

Air Canada was also ordered to apologize to Mr. Thibodeau and his wife Lynda.

Bloody hellfire. Has it really come to this?

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'Ang On!

Oh now ‘ang on, I’m not ‘avin that

Following Andy Hayman's extraordinary outburst yesterday (YouTube) in front of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee when asked if he took bribes, a photographer at The Times has grabbed one of those perfectly juxtaposed snaps. Worth re-posting as it will be lost and unappreciated behind the paywall otherwise...

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Mother Doesn't Know Best

The Express has only three headlines on continuous daily revolution: Diana, Immigration and BureaucracyGoneMad. If they had a sister paper in Colorado it would need a pull-out colour supplement to fully take the piss out of the recently released Colorado Department of Human Services Proposed Child Care Center Rules.

It starts harmlessly enough.

ALL PERSONNEL SHALL REFRAIN FROM CONDUCT THAT WOULD ENDANGER THE SAFETY OR WELL BEING OF CHILDREN.

...which is fine. Throwing darts at them is never likely to be a good idea. But it quickly moves into OCD induced madness - there are two pages with multiple points and sub-points precisely dictating precise methods for adult and child hand-washing.

Do you think you know how to raise your child? Well you are WRONG

TELEVISION, VIDEO, AND COMPUTER TIME IS LIMITED TO 20 MINUTES PER DAY UNLESS IT IS A SPECIAL OCCASION.
4. TELEVISION AND VIDEO VIEWING SHALL NOT BE ALLOWED FOR CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF TWO (2).
5 TELEVISION, VIDEO AND COMPUTER TIME SHALL NOT BE AVAILABLE DURING SNACK OR MEAL TIMES.

So wrong. You know nothing about how to raise your own children. Do you, for example, have this at home?

EACH INFANT AND TODDLER CLASSROOM SHALL HAVE AT LEAST ONE (1) SET OF 6 OR MORE SOFT VINYL OR PLASTIC
BLOCKS.

SCHOOL AGE BLOCKS AND ACCESSORIES
A. EACH CLASSROOM SHALL HAVE AT LEAST TWO (2) SETS OF BLOCKS WITH A MINIMUM OF TEN (10) BLOCKS PER SET.
B. EACH CLASSROOM SHALL HAVE A VARIETY OF AT LEAST FIVE (5) ACCESSORIES FOR EACH BLOCK SET. THE ACCESSORIES
SHALL BE STORED WITH THE BLOCK SETS AND SHALL BE REPRESENTATIVE OF PEOPLE, ANIMALS, TRANSPORTATION ETC.

Worse still, you are certainly racist. There is no doubt of that.

DOLLS SHALL REPRESENT THREE (3) RACES.

And because you didn't transport your child to nursery in a solar powered yoghurt pot, the global worming you have personally caused need to be deflected by more regulation:

1. The center must obtain the parent or guardian’s written authorization and
instructions for applying sunscreen to their children’s exposed skin prior
to outside play. A doctor’s permission is not needed to use sunscreen at
the center.
23. When supplied for an individual child, the sunscreen must SHALL be
labeled with the child’s first and last name.
3. 4. If sunscreen is provided by the center, parents must SHALL be notified
in advance, in writing, of the type of sunscreen the center will use.
45. Children over FOUR (4) years of age may ARE ALLOWED TO apply
sunscreen to themselves under the direct supervision of a staff member.

Read that bit again - the suncreen SHALL have both the child's first and last name on it. If it has only the Christian [aaaaargh, religious bigotry alert!] first name or surname on it then you are a BAD PARENT and probably a TERRORIST as well and must be SHOT!

Rules and regulations are one thing. Even as manic and overbearing as this nonsense. Even as terrifying and oppressive as we've got here. But at least there's one thing you can't regulate...human interaction and politeness...

CHILDREN SHOULD BE GREETED INDIVIDUALLY AND PLEASANTLY UPON ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE

...oh

“In the beginning, God created idiots. That was for practice. He then created School Boards.”
– Mark Twain

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Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

In a poll released today by polling organisation Angus Reid (who, to be fair, made a complete hash of the General Election percentages so maybe we shouldn't pay too much attention) it seems that half of Britons would vote for freedom and an escape from the EU.

The level of animosity towards the European Union (EU) in Britain remains high, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.

In the online survey of a representative national sample of 2,003 British adults, a majority of respondents (57%) believe that EU membership has been negative for the United Kingdom, while only one third (32%) think it has had a positive effect.

Respondents aged 18-to-34 are more likely to express positive feelings about the EU (45%) than those aged 35-to-54 (31%) and those over the age of 55 (22%).

Half of Britons (49%) say they would vote against the United Kingdom remaining a member of the EU if a referendum took place, while only one-in-four (25%) would vote to stay. Older respondents favour the idea of abandoning the EU by a 3-to-1 margin (68% to 19%).

Finally, Britons oppose the notion of the UK adopting the euro as its national currency by a 10-to-1 margin, with 81 per cent of respondents saying they would reject this course of action in a referendum.

10-1 against the Euro these days...remind us again, did anyone thank William Hague for successfully running that campaign?

The arguments for what this poll means can cut both ways, but there is one depressing truth - if there is a referendum then the full scare tactics of (the leadership of) the two main parties, all of the other yellow one and the massive media tyranny of the BBC would come to bear on any EU naysayers. We'd be told that if we quit then the country would turn into the economic and social wastelands of Somalia, Mogadishu or Bradford overnight.

On the other hand, Bradford already has turned into Bradford so maybe we should take the risk....

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Question Time LiveBlog 7th July 2011

Question Time comes tonight from Basingstoke, which is twinned with Isengard in Mordor. Locally known as Gaysinblokes it is a marginally stylish buffer between the twin dumps of Southampton and Reading. It only features a swimming pool, two instantly forgettable colleges and a massive nightclub called Liquid which is populated by tattooed grannies dressed as 17-year olds.*

On the panel tonight we have Dept of Work and Pensions Minister Chris Grayling, the most self-righteous woman in the entire Universe Shirley Williams, Wee Dougie Alexander, the unpredictable but usual voice of sanity Jon Gaunt and...wait for it...Hugh Grant...

..right that's right. Hugh Grant. This show has finally jumped the shark. An ugly-cheap-slapper-acquiring bloke who is notorious for trying too hard with high profile "girlfriends" to deflect the fact that he's obviously gay. He appeared in some B movies. Years ago. Mug shot here, just for fun :-)

Oh yes. That's the BBC's premier political programme tonight.

The LiveBlog will also stay open for the bizarreness of This Week with Andrew Neil, and Michael Portillo. They are joined on the Sofa of Mediocrity by crater-faced failed postie Alan Johnson and the pompous Max Clifford. Sylvia Syms is promised as an extra (from Ice Cold In Alex? Surely not!), and a political round-up from Guradian bore Nick Watt.

David Vance, TheEye and David Mosque will be moderating the abuse here from 10:30pm. See you later!



* Note to the bloke who emailed me last week about the description of his town - I've never been to these places and it's only humour, eh? *It's a laugh* Go shoot yourself. Slowly.

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The Word "Inmate" Is Hurtful

In a rather entertaining lawsuit just filed in the Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn), a woman is demanding that the State stop using the word "inmate"...because it is offensive to inmates the unenthusiastically liberty-inhibited. The court action has been started on behalf of her brother and claims that he has suffered extreme mental anguish because, according to her, the word "inmate" implies that he has been "locked up for the purpose of mating with other men."

This implication apparently will have a "disgraceful" impact on the reputation of the *cough* convicted murderer *cough*.

"To me," the sister told the New York Post, "it just sounded very wrong" ...to apply the label "inmate" to a murderer doing 25-to-life for shooting someone in the head during a drug deal that went wrong.

Pedants would point out that the word "inmate" doesn't actually means what she thinks it does. In fact from its earliest recorded use in 1589, it is defined as "one allowed to live in a house rented by another" (usually for a consideration), from in "inside" + mate "companion." You even have to wait until 1834 to find it used in the context of "one confined to an institution". Taking it up the Gary has never featured.

Also fun is the claim for $50m in damages. But she isn't anywhere near the summit of stupidity with that amount. If you're going to take the piss then do it properly - one bloke set the standard by suing the Bank of America for 1,784 billion trillion dollars which is a whole bigger hatful of stupid.

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More Eco-Stupid Products

Glasses made out of human hair. Who thinks up this nonsense?

Is cos it will save the polar bears, innit...

Two Royal College of Art graduates have discovered a way to turn human tresses into sustainable eyewear. Not all of us are blessed with 20/20 vision, which means that petroleum-based plastic or energy-intensive wire frames are a necessary evil. Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves' aptly named "hair glasses," however, tap into a readily available and renewable resource: the millions of pounds of hair cuttings that salons across the United Kingdom throw away each year.

But how do you turn flimsy follicles into a durable yet lightweight structure? The answer lies in a plant-based bioresin that acts as a binding agent. No harmful substances are released during production, plus the resulting frames are 100 percent biodegradable when they're no longer useful.

The natural second stage of this idea is to kill off all bald people - who are obviously no use in the Brave New Eco-Society.

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The Politics Of Spinning A Crime

The ever-breathless Nick Robinson is leading the joint Labour - Al Beeb charge to pin as much blame as possible on David Cameron for fact that a private investigator working for a newspaper listened to (and deleted) some voicemails of a murdered child eight years ago.

TheEye has been keen to put a post together on the sheer hypocrisy and fuckwittery on show here, but was beaten to the punch on another forum. For a great summary of the whole story, take it away the splendid Richard Nabavi:

It is alleged that, in 2002, five years into a 13 year period of Labour government, journalists working for a Labour-supporting newspaper edited by a someone who was a close friend of the then Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair, and who was also feted by the then Labour Chancellor and later Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, illegally accessed the voicemail of missing Milly Dowler.

The NOTW passed the police information about this; the police took no action against the NOTW at the time. A few months later, in March 2003, the full extent of this then-common illegal phone-blagging activity became known to the Labour government when Operation Motorman revealed that many newspapers, including notably the Labour-supporting Mirror and Labour-supporting Guardian, used similar methods.

But nothing much was done until, six years later, the Labour government was finally voted out of office, when suddenly this whole story became an issue.

And this is all the fault of David Cameron, an opposition backbencher at the time of the Milly Dowler murder?

One cannot but admire the highly effective, vicious, hypocritical chutzpah of New Labour, who are prepared to twist any story, including the murder of a young girl, into an anti-Tory attack.

If you get your news from the BBC and only have a passing interest in the political angle of current affairs, of course, you won't have been challenged to consider the timeline of the affair. You'll just have Al-Beebja reporter after reporter explaining how Cameron eats babies.

And to add insult to duplicitous injury we knew a while back from the Guardian:

Rupert Murdoch used his political influence and contacts at the highest levels to try to get Labour MPs and peers to back away from investigations into phone hacking at the News of the World, a former minister in Gordon Brown’s government has told the Observer.

The ex-minister, who does not want to be named, says he is aware of evidence that Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, relayed messages to Brown last year via a third party, urging him to help take the political heat out of the row, which he felt was in danger of damaging his company.

Brown, who stepped down as prime minister after last May’s general election defeat for Labour, has refused to comment on the claim, but has not denied it.

But still, Cameron is obviously the wife-beating, baby-eating evil bastard as opposed to the Prime Minister of the time. If TheEye paid the licence fee, he would stop.

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Burn The Witches!

Everyone, of course, knows what a witch is. Ragged and wild old woman; misdirects lost travellers, hobbles and cackles whilst saying lawks and is often seen at public executions performing a task impossible to mere mortals - knitting.

Sir Bedevere will also prove to you that they weigh the same as a duck and are made of wood.

Some of them also, it seems, live in Warwickshire.

Two witches descend on an ancient market town – only to be targeted by terrified Christians calling for them to be burned at the stake.

But for dad-of-one Albion and his partner Raven, 39, this is no historical event... it is a 21st Century nightmare.

The couple opened their shop The Whispering Witch in the quaint town of Alcester, Warwickshire, around 15 months ago and claim to have been subjected to a hate campaign ever since.

So who are the nasty people?

“We’ve also had letters quoting extracts from the Bible telling us not to ‘promote the work of darkness’ in ‘their town’. I can only assume this is the work of Christians.

Christians? Ah good, the one religion you can pick on with impugnity and no chance of being arrested or sued or stoned. Christians! Boooo! Hisss!

It’s like living in the 16th century.”

The 16th Century? Except with extra flush toilets, plasma televisions and benefits fraud.

The pair, from Redditch, have been Pagans for years and no longer use their birth names, which they refuse to reveal.

That used to be a classic dodge from the Community Charge. Who are they running away from?

“Things have gotten so bad that Raven has been close to a nervous breakdown,” Albion said. “When she walks down the street, people cross the road to avoid her.

They probably didn't mean "cross" there. Or maybe they did. Irony?

So, do you think they want money, maybe?

“She’s been to the doctor to get help, the stress is too much.

Aaah, we can all relax now. We're sauntering into familiar I Want Some Compensation territory. It's like slipping on an old pair of slippers.

All you need now, chaps, is a good -ism. Perhaps you could start with a small one? Work upwards gently?

“It is pathetic and unbelievable. What we are suffering is racism from people with a 16th century mentality.

BANG! Straight in at the top with racism. Mornington Crescent! Well played, Sir!

“People come and ask us for advice and sometimes they want to be put in touch with loved ones who have passed away,” Albion said. “We can do that through our seances. Sometimes it works, but sometimes it doesn’t.”

Confidence tricksters too...hmmm, wonder if they pay tax on those earnings?

And their proposed local 'festival'...

"It’s something that could really put Alcester on the map.”

Being put on top of a bonfire has the effect of highlighting your community...oh yes...

The couple have not yet reported the incidents to police

Can't be that bad then, eh?

This post started out as a light-hearted reporting of a joke newspaper piece.

By the end of it TheEye now thinks they need a good kicking.

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