Will The Norwegian Terror Attack Break The Right In Scandanavia?

There is a large rise of right wing parties in Sweden, Denmark & Norway. The person who carried out the attacks in Norway was once a member of the Norwegian equivalent of the BNP. I hope that those who have a small, but posibly legitimate, worry about immigration may review their voting intentions in the view of this tragedy.

Posted via e-mail via my mobile.

Computer problems

Sorry I haven't posted anything recently, nice juicy 'phone hacking' & American debt crisis stuff to get my teeth into. Instead the damn computer goes kaput and I am reduced to posting by e-mail from my N86!

Perhaps the secret world order have sabotaged it to stop me blogging! (roflol)

Don't expect to many posts in the near future.

Lewis Hamilton Wants Longer National Anthem

It would seem that Lewis Hamilton doesn't think he is getting long enough on the podium as the British national anthem is too short (compared with somewhere like Brazil, say)!

If we do change the national anthem to accomodate this talented F1 driver, wecould do a lot worse than following the suggestion made by the comedian and folk singer Billy Connolly. In one of his monologues, 'The Big Yin' suggested changing the national anthem to the theme music from the BBC radio 4 soap opera 'The Archers'!

Villa Beat Blackburn To Get To Final

Villa have beaten Blackburn 1-0 to go forward to the final of the Barclays Asia Trophy! Darren Bent scored the only goal. 


Match report.

OFCOM Changes Mind On 'Fit and Proper' Test

OFCOM have reversed their decision not to investigate News Corps' 39% shareholding in BSkyB on  the basis of the 'Fit and Proper' test while police investigations are ongoing.

They may be caving into pressure from MPs, but I think that it is something that needs to be looked into bearing in mind all that has been coming out in recent weeks.


This is a link to an article dealing with this change of heart.

It has also been suggessted that Rupert Murdoch and News International were not the power in UK politics that they have been portrayed as.

The article at the end of this link develops this argument.

Finally, Private Eye issue 1293 has a lot of coverage on the whole scandal.


See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/james-murdoch-accused-of-lying.html

Choinok Crash 1994 - A Correction

I'm afraid I forgot that the late Paul Foot also campaigned about the injustice in Private Eye in 1994, making him one of the earliest journos to smell a rat with the original findings.

See also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/choinok-crash-1994.html

Norway Terror Attacks

Firstly, may I make this very clear that I am not touting for hits with this headline.

Secondly may I give my condolences to all in Norway who are related to or known all those who have been killed or injured in the attacks by Anders Behring Breivik.

 As a minor conspiracy theorist, all I wanted to say was:

1. How did he know that there was no chopper available as all the crew was on holiday? (If he did know, I'm not suggesting that whoever told him was a co-conspirator, just that they may have mentioned it in the pub, or the Norwegian equivalent thereof.)
2. Why was there no backup crew for the chopper? 
3. Why were the crew all allowed to go on holiday at the same time?

I am also worried that people who have a degree of possible mental illness are attracted to massively right or left of centre political parties with with anti-immigrant agendas. This includes the 'Religious Right' in the States, Islamic political parties (who I feel are ripe for takeover by Jihadi's), Zionist parties, etc, etc! (I think any political party who wants to bring about a state with an 'ocracy' at the end of it, other than 'dem', can not be trusted!)

If anyone feels I have insulted their political or religious views, I'm sorry, but I'm drunk!

Help Archeologists Transcribe Greek Papyri Fragments

Ancient Lives: I would like to promote this worthy project to assist in the transcription of fragments of Greek papyri found in the ruins of a Ptolemic era city in Egypt. This link goes to a news story describing the project, and this one to the project's web-site.

Links To A Number Of Scientific Stories

Hints of the Higgs Boson have been found at both the Tevatron collider near Chicago, and at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN near Geneva:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14266358
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/25/higgs_boson_warmer/

Scientists have shown that the simplest form of time travel is impossible:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14289114
• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/26/time_travel_disproven/ 

Astronomers discover huge cloud of water vapour surrounding distant Quasar:

• http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/25/cloud/ 

Has The Zodiac Killer's Final Code Been Cracked?

40 years after the so called Zodiac Killings took place in Northern California, an amateur codebreaker claims to have decrypted the final part of the killer's coded message to the press, however there is no confirmation that he has correctly solved the encryption.

Please Don't Come To The Olympics

Studies suggest that London will be so congested during the Olympics (both public transport and private cars) that nobody will get to work or to an Olympic venue! Just one crash, one fire or one power failure in the wrong place could cause chaos, and, just possibly, total gridlock!


See: http://uk.autoblog.com/2011/06/14/london-olympics-set-to-blight-one-of-europes-most-congested-cit/

FIFA - Cleaning The Augean Stables?

Mohamed Bin Hammam has been banned for life by FIFA for attempted bribery. FIFA are obviously coming down hard on corruption in football! Good show!

Or is it that the Qatari former head of the Asian Football Confederation is being punished for having the timerity to challenge Sepp Blatter for the presidency of FIFA?

I leave it to the reader to apply Occam's razor to determine the most likely reason for the banning.

Villa - Winger Replacement

Well, we finally got Wigan to sell us Charles N'Zogbia! So we have replaced one of two wingers we sold, wonder if we will get a replacement for the other?

See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/villa-replace-goalkeeper.html

Debt Crises

Well, Europe have sort of sorted out the Greek Debt Crisis (if we are lucky). This link gives access to an interesting article on the subject (and why the Euro came to these sorry straights!).

Over the other side of the pond it would seem (from this distance) that people are playing politics with a debt crisis that is so serious that it should be above politics. Of course the comments of one of our cabinet ministers will just stir everything up. What they should remember is that a US default will foul up China's economy as they hold so much US debt. If the US and China go, we all go.

See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/germany-greek-bailout-ii.html

5th day - 1st Test

If you have been unable to get into Lords today, you may like to follow this link to the BBC / TMS commentary.

I probably won't post again until the end of the match.

Congratulations ...

.. to Matt Prior and Stuart Broad for their play in the 4th Day of the Test. And also to Mark Cavendish for winning the Green (points) Jersey in the Tour de France! Oh, and to Lewis Hamilton for his win in the German GP.

James Murdoch Accused of Lying

Well I did suggest that the Murdochs' performance before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee may have been a bit of a put up job.

Now there are suggestions that young James may have been a little economical with the truth when he gave his testimony.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any better ...

TV Comebacks

O.M.G.! Big Brother (on Channel 5) and Dallas (TNT in the USA) are coming back.

Why Lord, why? Why are you punishing us like this?

News Portmanteau - My Comments

Amy Whinehouse RIP

The singer Amy Winehouse has passed. This is unfortunate, but not surprising. My condolences to her friends and family. What worries me is just how far up the news this event is. One person dying, no matter how famous, should be after the Norwegian bombing and shootings (as it is), the Chinese train crash (which it isn't) and the Texas roller-skating shooting (which hardly gets a mention)!


Norwegian Bombing and Shootings

I can add very little to this except to condemn extremist religious and political views of all stripes, wonder why it is possible to get automatic weapons in certain jurisdictions, and say  that my condolences go to the Norwegian People, especially those close to the dead and injured.

 
Chinese Bullet Train Crash

Again a very unfortunate incident, and again my condolences to the friends and families of the dead and injured. I feel it interesting that the problems on this reasonably new high speed line have been associated with corrupt practices in it's construction and running.

Texas Roller-Skating Shooting

Tragic, really tragic, but what do you expect in Texas!

Hey FanBois - Fake Chinese Apple Stores ...

Or are they?

Check out this story from El Reg!


And you may find this humorous as well!

Oh, and I won't be posting 'til Sunday.


Later (25/07/2011 pm)


Some of them have been closed down, but not for being fakes!

Germany - The Greek Bailout II

The German public are not keem on bailing out the Greek economy for the second time. I can see where they are coming from. They have the best economy in Europe and don't want there money going South (in both senses!).
However do they realise how much Greek debt is held by German banks? Do they want an RBS style bailout happening in their country? I think they should be told!

This has been posted from my mobile, so I will tart this up later.

Tarted up!

Could The News International Phone Hacking Scandal Be A Smokescreen?

Yesterday the Murdoch's went before the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee. Rupert did his doddering old man act so as to come across humble, while James acted the loving son and a competent technocrat. It is thought that they practiced this deflect the MP's questioning. Also people who have worked with or interacted with 'The Dirty Digger' within the last couple of years still describe him as very sharp and able.person (If his facilities have started to desert him at a rate of knots recently, my apologies and condolences), so it looks like his appearance yesterday may have been a bit of an act! I seem to remember an American Mafia don stumbling arround in his pajamas and dressing gown, trying to give the FBI the same impression as Rupert may well have been trying to give the committee.

News Corp's share price rose during the committee meeting. This was probably due to people shorting News Corp on the expectation that the questioning would go disasterously for Rupert and James having to go back into the market to cover their position.

But to get to the main thrust of my post. This 'Phone Hacking' Scandal has cropped up at the same time as and taken the media spotlight off the so called 'Debt Crisis' in both the EuroZone and the USA. You seem just to get the Murdoch media empire's woes taking up 80 to 90% of any news or current affairs programs, also pushing out any reporting of the Greek Bailout II crisis, the USA debt ceiling negotiations and the problems with the Tea Party, Eurozone debt contamination and what to do if Spain and Italy get into simillar straights.Have you actually noticed any of this on the news? Could it be that someone or something is trying to distract us all from the fact that the economy is going to Hell in a handbasket? It looks a bit like it!

See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/was-murdoch-pied.html

Space Arm of Giant Russian Radio Interferometer Now In Orbit

RadioAstron, a 10m diameter radio telescope has been placed into orbit by the Russians. While a 10m radio telescope is quite small as radio telescopes go, it is to be used a the orbiting arm of a Very Long Baseline Interferometry project, effectively synthesising a radio telescope of massive size.

See here for full details.

Was Murdoch PIEd?

Was the 'Custard Pie' attack on Rupert 'The Dirty Digger' Murdoch carried out by the London based anarchist group PIE (People Insurgent Everywhere)? Or possibly by the Belgian TARTE group?

It was a right laugh that Wendy floored the errant 'pieman'!

In any event, was it Contempt of Parliament?

Discuss ...


See Also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/sean-hall.html

Vesta Imaged by Dawn

The asteriod Vesta as imaged by the spacecraft Dawn

The Dawn spacecraft, now in orbit arround the asteroid Vesta has beamed back a series of stunning images (such as the one above). Full details are available here.

Villa Replace Goalkeeper

Well finally we have goalkeeper after signing Shay Given. However, after flogging both our wingers, Wigan won't sell us N'Zogbia!

If there is a plan for the future of our great club, I can't see it at the moment!

The Late Sean Hoare - Ex NotW Entertainment Journalist

It is a great pity that Sean Hoare has passed before he could testify before any investigation into the 'NotW' 'phone hacking' scandal.

If you are a conspiracy theorist, it may be thought that the Murdochs may have had him hit by a good mechanic who can make a hit look like an XPD, in order to stop such a testimony!

Check out the news from the Westminster committee on Tuesday!

See also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/phone-hacking-contagion-spreads.html

Egyptology

I have just heard that the lady who got the temple(s) of Abu Simbel to its new position above the waters of Lake Nasser when the High Aswan Damn was constructed has passed! She needs a lot of praise!

Not Posting Today

If you have been expecting a post from me today, I'm sorry. I have been on a pub crawl for my fren's son's 21st! I feel bad, but the birthday boy had to be taken home after the 12th of the 21 pubs he was trying to do. No stamina these youngsters!

Booze!

I got you in with the header didn't I?

I have heard that the tax on beer is now in the area of £1 a pint! This is insane!
This may be why 5 men died in Boston (Lincs, UK) running a moonshine operation.
Is the level of tax on alcohol leading to bootlegging?

Alle Le France

It's Bastille Day!

Phone Hacking - The Contagion Spreads?

Things go on apace in the 'phone hacking' scandal!

• US Senators call for an investigation of 'phone hacking' on 9/11 victims and suggestions are made about the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act being used against News International / Corp
• The BSkyB takeover is called off
• Parliament debates BSkyB takeover, even though the the takeover was called off just prior to the debate
• Third man arrested over 'phone hacking' claims
• Rebekah Brooks to attend hearing to be held by the Commons Culture Committee, who issue summons to the Murdochs

Will this God awful mess spread to News Corp itself or other Murdoch press holdings? Will it spread to other newspapers outside the Murdoch empire?

Who knows? Watch this space ...

See also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/news-international-new-revelations.html

Choinok Crash 1994

Finally, the two pilots in the 1994 Chinook crash have been exonerated! When I first head of this crash I assumed that, due to the number of N.I. spooks on the chopper, the IRA or some other Irish Republican 'freedom fighters' had sabotaged itin some way! Latterly I learnt (mostly from the exemplary journalism carried out by Computing) that there was possible problems with the software (which we had installed at massive cost) that was in that in the particular mark of that hellicopter.

I think that, considering how much this mark of Chinook cost the RAF, they may have been very very loath to say that something went wrong with one of them, prefering to blame it on the pilots! (It's a bit like when you bu a fake artwork; the more you pay, the less you are willing to admit that that is a fake!)

Happy Birthday Rhod Sharp

Today is Rhod Sharp's (Up All Night on Radio 5) Birthday. Many Happy Returns! (Great programme).

South African Lesbian Rape

Got you looking with that headline, didn't I! You must be slightly prurient!

I heard that men are raping lesbians in S. African townships in what is called 'Corrective Rape'. I am totally disgusted!!! How can the authorities allow this! I know a few lesbians over here in GB, and I would never ever consider raping them to try and make them straight! These actions are ridiculous and the ANC should make sure this does not happen!

Channel 5 should redo their revamp their trailers for Candy Bay Girls. Love is love, be it Les, Gay, Straight, or Bi!!!

I'm straight, but I loved Julian and Sandy on Round the Horne in the sixties when I was about 8 years old, so I have always supported Gay Rights.

No Facebook?

As of 14:20 up 'til now (15:10), it would look like Facebook is down or at least unavailable from London. (Well, I can't get to it anyway.) This means that all the Facebook Freakz won't be able to update their statuses for a while. How sad for them!

Looks like Facebook is still down (12:51am). They still can't unfriend people or update thier status!

Still down at 2:45am!

And still suffering problems at 13:15 on the 14th!

Various bits of Science and Technology

M.I.T, researchers have developed solar cells that can be printed on paper and scrunched up and still work. Full story here.

You would not believe this could be true, but it is! TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) actually ripped down a hill in order to build the tsunami hit Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant! Full story here.

It is possible that on-line clothes shopping may get a touchy-feely edge in the near future with new developments in crowd sourcing. Full story here.

Holding Post

There may be a slight hiatus in my postings due to problem with my computer. Thank you for your forebearance in this matter.

Thanks To Everyone!

May I take this opportunity to thank all of you out there who have visited my little blog here. You have taken this blog all around the world, having read it in ...

• United Kingdom    282 times
• United States          84 times
• Ukraine                    8 times
• Germany                   3 times
• India                        3 times
• Malaysia                   3 times
• Brazil                       2 times
• France                     2 times
• Indonesia                 1 time
• New Zealand            1 time

Again, thank you all!

(If you got to this blog due to an inappropriate link from an irrelevant post on another forum, please accept my apologies! I have no idea who has put these links out there on sites dealing with stuff like golf swings, cosmetics, degrees in London, etc.)

Inflation

The 'basket' and services of goods used calculate the various price indices used in inflation statistics seem to not make sense to me at the moment. Who is going to buy a camera or TV (down 11.5% in a year) when food is inflating by something in the region of 6% and household energy costs look like they will be going up by something like 17.5%! Not to mention the prospects of the job market remaining at best static and employers clamping down on wage rises.

Shows what food and energy speculation (over and above the effect of the rise of the 'BRIC' economies) has on regional/national inflation.

Nobody minds normal commodity trading (well members of the SWP might), but the use of energy and food in speculative, 'get-rich-quick' schemes seems morally flawed.

I just published this and on the post published page was an ad suggesting you can 'get-rich-quick' by trading in carbon credits. The world can go to hell in a handcart providing market speculation can go on. I dispair!

Did the Big Bang Rotate?

Astronomers have discovered that disproportionate number of galaxies are rotating in an anti-clockwise direction. They think that this may imply that the big bang may have been rotating when it spawned the Universe.

Link to full story.


On a vaguely related note, on the 12th July it was one Neptunian year since the discovery of that planet!

Full story here.


Related posts: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-distant-quasar-discovered-in-infra.html
                        http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-hole-swallows-star.html
                        http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-supernova-in-m51-whirlpool-galaxy.html

Southern Cross - Sell & lease back your assets - go bust!

The Southern Cross care home business has gone bust. In the opposite way to the London Fire Brigade who sold all their fire engines to a leasing company which has now gone bust, Southern Cross sold off all their care homes to a large number of landlords and then rented them back. Only thing was, they promised to increase the rent year-on-year and so now Southern Cross has gone bust! Shows what happens when you try to make a quick buck through dubious accountancy.

Only thing is that my mother who has Alzheimer's, is in one of their care homes. Even with the assurances that everybody if giving, I'm still worried.

This links to the story.

News International - New Revelations

Now The Sun and the Sunday Times have had revelations/allegations about them in regards to:

• information about Gordon Brown's son's medical details being dubiously obtained,
• Royal phone numbers and other contact details being bought from dodgy Royal Protection Officers,
• Etc, etc (it's all coming out so fast you can't keep up!)

I'm all for good investigative journalism, but I don't think that this, if true, in anyway qualifies for that term. Spying sounds closer.

If all of this turns out to be true, what does it say about the attitude and standards of management throughout News International? Where does it put News International in regards to the 'fit and proper person(s)' test for media ownership? Will the contagion from this scandal spread up to News Corp? Who will end up owning BSkyB?

Watch this space ....

The Gordon Brown hack ...
'Phone hacking' scandal - live
See what the foreign press think about the demise of the NotW

See also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/notw-phone-hacking-relevant-radio.html
                http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/news-of-screws-we-made-our-excuses-and.html
             

NotW Phone Hacking - Relevant Radio Programmes.

If you are still interested in the now defunct News of the Screws (All Human Sex Scandals Were Here*) 'phone hacking' scandal, and if you are reading this within at least 7 days of this being posted, the may like to check out the relevant Westminster Hour (10th July, available for 30 days as a podcast) or What The Papers Say (Episode 60) (the latter having a great theme tune and is actually quite funny).

*All Human Sex Scandals Were Here is a pun on their motto 'All Human Life Is Here'.

I'm sure Private Eye has more relevant and more humorous things to say on this topic! (Or will have in a couple of weeks! Problem with being bi-weekly!)

You may find this relevant: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/news-of-screws-we-made-our-excuses-and.html

Or even this: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/politicians-vs-journalists.html

The Big Society! - A Smokescreen?

While the Prime Minister, David Cameron, probably believes in the 'Big Society', I would think that the rest of the Conservative Party are using this as a smokscreen for the vicious cuts they are imposing! When it comes to elections they can just tell the electorate that they didn't buy in to the 'Big Society', so it is your fault that everything is so bad!

Blond child singing in an Idilic pastoral setting with the Tory Pary behind with liter stiens of lager: Tomorrow belongs to Me.

OK, why did this post just jump from June to today? Is there a problem with Blogger? I'm certain Mountain View won't tell us!

Politicians vs Journalists

The News of the World scandal has no bearing on Tommy Sheridan's perjury conviction, leading QC Paul McBride says. (Full story here.)

Personally I would consider both Sheridan and the now defunct NotW both as bad as each other over matters of ethics and truthfulness considering their past records! It would be rich if the NotW used 'phone hacking' or other dubious methods to discover Sheridan's 'club visits' which eventually lead to his perjury conviction!

But then again, the rich and famous are keen to use super-injunctions to stop us knowing of their peccadilloes, so why shouldn't journo's use 'phone hacking' to expose them? Well BOTH are wrong!

• Unless somebody (star, politician or whatever) is taking a strong moral stance or suchlike, why should the general public be treated to details of private affairs? The public might be interested in a prurient manner, it may sell newspapers, but it is not real news and I don't think we need to know!
• Super-injunctions are bad, people should know when other people are trying to stop something from coming out. And companies using them to hide news of their bad (but not illegal) practices in the 3rd World is totally unconscionable. (See this article). And if the government ever use them, God help us all. It will make 'Comercial in Confidence' or 'National Security' excuses look totally reasonable!
• Busting into people's e-mails, texts, voice-mails, etc. to expose sexual misdeeds or other unimportant things which may sell a few more copies is very, very wrong. If it was to expose a criminal conspiracy or government cover-up, it may, just, be morally justifiable (if still probably illegal).

Politicians and journalists have been arguing about privacy issues for years, off and on. Politicians seem to be broadly in favor of privacy laws and regulations (not really surprising due to the number of them that have been bought low by sex scandals and corruption revealed by the press), while the press seem more or less against against (paparazzi photos and 'who bonks who' sells papers). The judiciary, who are caught in the middle, are being forced to make up case law on the hoof based on the present defamation laws and the Human Rights Act! 

This can not be right. Britain needs it's privacy laws properly debated, clarified and, if needed, updated. And we need to loose these super-injunctions!

(Note: I am fully in favour of good, clean investigative journalism.)


(Unless this is all a plot by the UN Super-Government to hide their contacts with the aliens from Beta Recticulai II and the plot to .... )


See related: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/news-of-screws-we-made-our-excuses-and.html

British GP - Silverstone - Pit Stop Madness!

Vettel has a cross threaded nut on his right rear tyre which probably costs him the race!

Button doesn't even get his wheel nut put on!

And poor di Resta has his team try to give him Sutil's tyres!

Not to mention a couple of other incidents (or near incidents) from early releases!

This is a lot more problems in the pits than you usually get. A couple of pit lane problems you can expect each race, but this seems a bit much. It may well be just a statistical anomaly (as would seem most likely), but could this have been arranged by the FIA or Bernie to improve the TV viewing and keep Vettel from winning (possible, but unlikely)?

Related: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-f1-regulations.html

London's Burning? Can't Fetch The Engine!

It would seem that the London Fire Brigade has sold and leased back all their fire engines in order to save a bit of money.

The company that they did the lease back deal with seems to be going bust!

Creditors can seize any and all of London's fire engines and sell them off!

If you live in London, don't smoke in bed. If you fall asleep, there may not be anything to save you!

See here for details.

The last 'Shuttle' has launched

The final flight of the space shuttle has blasted off from the 'Cape' today. It carries one years worth of food. Looks like America is not certain of resupplying the ISS easily!

Check out Space.com for the latest info on the final flight of the shuttle!

You may also be interested in this: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-distant-quasar-discovered-in-infra.html

A blog to look at ...

If you like my blog & are slightly to the left of centre in your political views, you may like to have a look at this:

http://www.samizdata.net/blog/

Sudan - North and South

On Saturday the 9th, Sudan officially splits into two republics.

The North is kicking out the UN peace keepers from North of the border. Sounds like the North may want to grab the Oil for itself and hopes that the Chinese will keep the UN off their backs, as China gets most of the oil that Sudan exports.

Meanwhile the South is selling off vast swathes of the country to foreign companies!

Plus ça change, ...

Aston Villa - No New Moves

The only thing I want to know is why Villa has not yet bought anyone to replace the players they have sold off. I suppose I should be glad that the only really big player we have lost is Young to Man U (sorry while I was my hands after typing that), and that we have managed to hang on to Cuellar. But the loss of our experienced Yank keeper and the fact that we have not replaced him yet worries me.

Pity we got McLeish rather than Jol.

Related: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/hi-ashley-young-has-gone-to-man-u-we.html
              http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/villa-dublin-cup.html
              http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/aston-villa-managerial-speculation.html
              http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/aston-villa-what-expletive-deleted-is.html

News of the Screws - "We made our excuses and left"

After Sunday the infamous 'News of the Screws' newspaper will cease to be published. The paper that rose to fame on the antics of 'dirty vicars' & 'smutty scoutmasters' and later perfected the 'fake sheikh' newspaper sting is now in its last throes.

It has fallen due to the current 'phone hacking' scandal. Advertisers deserted in droves and the predicted readership of next Sunday's paper was close to zero. News International/Corp look like they have decided to cut their losses and throw the paper to the wolves in the hope of salvaging their takeover of the remaining 60% of BSkyB.

I will not comment on the morality of the phone hacking or the way the scandal is being handled by News International/Corps, as this is filling the news outlets on the net. (See here, here and here for example).

I will merely comment that I find it inconceivable that senior management in this organisation had not idea that this method of 'news gathering' was going on. They may have hidden their knowledge behind  a smokescreen of plausible deniability, but they, IMHO, must have known, otherwise they are incompetent.

So would you prefer people who at least turned a blind eye to phone hacking and possible police corruption, if not condoning it, or people who have no idea what their subordinates are up to in charge of a major news and media corporation? Do you feel that either sort of person is a 'fit and proper' person to run a news organisation? Do you really feel that this is an organisation that UK politicians of all political parties should be cosying up to in the hope of being re-elected?

And how many other news and media operations also use these methods to get their news?

RIP "News of the Screws" - You made your excuses and left!

You may find the comments here and here interesting. As well as this.

British Satire

If you have never listened to this, try it out.

Life Imitates Art

I was passing a shop selling mobile phone equipment yesterday and I spotted a bluetooth headset made by a company called Blue Ant.

I thought that Blue Ant was a publishing/media/marketing company invented by the renowned author William Gibson for use in his Hubertus Bigend series of books.

One wonders who was first, and does anybody owe anyone else money?

New Distant Quasar Discovered in Infra-Red

Just a quickie to let everyone know a very bright, very distant Quasar has been discovered in the infra-red part of the e.m. spectrum.

Details here and, if you want to listen, here.


See also: http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/black-hole-swallows-star.html
               http://deadmanchatting.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-supernova-in-m51-whirlpool-galaxy.html