Wednesday, 20 July 2011
Monday, 18 July 2011
Tom Pellereau Wins 'The Apprentice'
Taking a break from political ranting to just say this on behalf of TV land:
CONGRATULATIONS TO TOM ON WINNING THE APPRENTICE! ♥ ♥ ♥
Seriously I really do think this was a well-deserved win for him because there were some really manipulative and tough characters this year and it was nice to see the well-mannered, sensible walking-calculator of creativity win out against the competition.
I was certain Helen would win - and had it been the old format she probably would have. However her business plan was flawed. I think she and Jim fell into the trap of choosing to present their businesses in a way they thought Lord Sugar would like rather than what they *really* wanted themselves. Susan and Tom stuck with their guns but I think in the end Susan is a bit young and Lord Sugar did say that he wanted to keep in contact with her because her business and Tom's could be put together because, of course, Tom was the inventor of the curved nail file.
(It was so weird when the show started and he said, "I invented the first curved nail file." because I immediately thought, "Was that you?!")
Anyway, something can be done to link Susan and Tom together because he had loads of inventions within the nail care industry and Susan is obviously in the cosmetic industry.
But Tom was the one who could benefit the most from Lord Sugar's investment and support because he has a business where things hae gone wrong because of Tom's difficulty in seeing things though. This is more to do with his mind; he has so many ideas and he needs someone to tell him what to focus on. So I think it was the right choice in the end, although if Helen or Susie had won I could have lived with it.
Another reason I am very glad Tom won is because he was so unlucky on the tasks, usually due to the fault of other people. I'm glad that Lord Sugar did bear in mind - especially in regards to Tom and Susan - that being business leaders rather than working under someone else, they weren't used to having to shout over people to be heard. In the beauty treatment task in particular I thought Felicity was very rude to have slapped Tom down when he was making sensible statements and again Melody (who I f***ing hated, btw!) together with Felicity, ignored him = losing the task. It happened with the French task as well; Tom wanted the carseat-rucksack and Melody lied about the market research to trick Tom into getting the products she wanted to sell in France... and it cost them the task. Tom put a lot of faith in Melody and on three occassions she lied, cheated and ignored him to suit herself.
She really was a pain in the arse and thank God Lord Sugar got rid of her after the investment task, because she really did bugger that up - and that was the third time she led Tom down the deep end while he wasn't there to stop her.
It wasn't Natasha who got where dirt can't, as Zoe put it one time. It was Melody! That said Zoe was pretty Zoe, although a lot more likeable that pig-ignorant Melody.
But back to Tom, I was very impressed with him and Helen in the Fast Food task. They were only a twosome against Susan, Natasha and Jim's threesome, and they beat them hands down. So it was right that it was down to those two and, again, it was right that Tom won.
Now I'm just sad this series is over. :'(
OK, time to catch-up on True Blood. Last week's cliffhanger was so... weird. Eric, you bad, bad boy. But it was Sookie's reaction that made me giggle.
Again, well done Tom! You did it for all the geeks and nerds of the world and we love you!
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
The BSkyB Takeover Has Been Dropped!
MURDOCH HAS BEEN FORCED TO DROP HIS BSKYB TAKEOVER!
(Sorry, it's the only YAY animation I have to hand :p)
Excellent news, nay? I'm too lazy to write a long-winded response to this news and I made a video just to prove own lazy I am about it. However it is good that at least David Cameron has finally got Murdoch to pull his BSkyB takeover... after Ed Miliband forced him to push Murdoch onto the sword. Hell, apparently even Nick Clegg has decided at the last minute to grow a pair, even going as far as to threaten to split the coalition should the BSkyB takeover bid not be blocked.
David Cameron can't even get back on track now because he has to face the frankly humiliating fact that it was the opposition, not the government, who forced the issue of blocking the BSkyB takeover. Not to mention his terrible judgement in appointing Andy Coulson as his press officer. Cameron's answer was to get Jeremy Hunt to write a letter to Ofcom. Ed Miliband's, the most unlikely heavyweight in this whole story, answer forced a vote in parliament for the bid to be blocked. Furthermore all of Labour, all the LibDems and a good portion of the Tories agreed with him!
I suppose it was easier for Ed Miliband to jab knives into Murdoch because he has never had to deal with him. The last time the Labour Party were well and truly connected to Murdoch was back in Tony Blair's era. Gordon Brown met with Rebekah Brooks but everyone knows that he was not friend of the tabloids and was not prepared to pander to them. What has been revealed now about their - what can only be described as - revenge for his choice not to arse-lick like Blair had, was to hack his phones and steal his son's PRIVATE health records. Now, I don't care what you say, that's illegal.
Cameron is too close to Murdoch and, unlike Blair or Thatcher, IS (or WAS) completely reliant on his support, which ultimately failed to win him a majority in parliament. Had Murdoch not chosen to back Cameron, Labour would probably have won the last election without having to form a coalition with anyone. They'd have lost a chunk of their majority... but they'd have still had a majority. Even with Murdoch's aid and Ashcroft's money, everyone knew even before the election that David Cameron wasn't going to win the election. Most people were hoping for a coalition between Labour and the LibDems.
Not surprising when all the LibDem voters are apparently saying they'd vote Labour now. I dread to think what would happen if there was an election tomorrow. Cameron would lose a chunk of the larger minority he'd have, a good chunk of the LibDems would vote Labour... but we still wouldn't have a majority government (although I suspect Labour would probably have the largest minority). It really is a good argument for proportional representation.
But there won't be an election called for at least another year. Even if the LibDems do pull out - as I suspect they will soon - Cameron will still struggle on with a minority for another year before he'd give up. If in that time then Murdoch sells off his papers and flees, it'll be interesting to see how the election would run without cringy front pages like this which makes you ashamed to be British:
Incidently I found this image by typing "cringe sun front cover" into Google.
(Sorry, it's the only YAY animation I have to hand :p)
Excellent news, nay? I'm too lazy to write a long-winded response to this news and I made a video just to prove own lazy I am about it. However it is good that at least David Cameron has finally got Murdoch to pull his BSkyB takeover... after Ed Miliband forced him to push Murdoch onto the sword. Hell, apparently even Nick Clegg has decided at the last minute to grow a pair, even going as far as to threaten to split the coalition should the BSkyB takeover bid not be blocked.
David Cameron can't even get back on track now because he has to face the frankly humiliating fact that it was the opposition, not the government, who forced the issue of blocking the BSkyB takeover. Not to mention his terrible judgement in appointing Andy Coulson as his press officer. Cameron's answer was to get Jeremy Hunt to write a letter to Ofcom. Ed Miliband's, the most unlikely heavyweight in this whole story, answer forced a vote in parliament for the bid to be blocked. Furthermore all of Labour, all the LibDems and a good portion of the Tories agreed with him!
I suppose it was easier for Ed Miliband to jab knives into Murdoch because he has never had to deal with him. The last time the Labour Party were well and truly connected to Murdoch was back in Tony Blair's era. Gordon Brown met with Rebekah Brooks but everyone knows that he was not friend of the tabloids and was not prepared to pander to them. What has been revealed now about their - what can only be described as - revenge for his choice not to arse-lick like Blair had, was to hack his phones and steal his son's PRIVATE health records. Now, I don't care what you say, that's illegal.
Cameron is too close to Murdoch and, unlike Blair or Thatcher, IS (or WAS) completely reliant on his support, which ultimately failed to win him a majority in parliament. Had Murdoch not chosen to back Cameron, Labour would probably have won the last election without having to form a coalition with anyone. They'd have lost a chunk of their majority... but they'd have still had a majority. Even with Murdoch's aid and Ashcroft's money, everyone knew even before the election that David Cameron wasn't going to win the election. Most people were hoping for a coalition between Labour and the LibDems.
Not surprising when all the LibDem voters are apparently saying they'd vote Labour now. I dread to think what would happen if there was an election tomorrow. Cameron would lose a chunk of the larger minority he'd have, a good chunk of the LibDems would vote Labour... but we still wouldn't have a majority government (although I suspect Labour would probably have the largest minority). It really is a good argument for proportional representation.
But there won't be an election called for at least another year. Even if the LibDems do pull out - as I suspect they will soon - Cameron will still struggle on with a minority for another year before he'd give up. If in that time then Murdoch sells off his papers and flees, it'll be interesting to see how the election would run without cringy front pages like this which makes you ashamed to be British:
Incidently I found this image by typing "cringe sun front cover" into Google.
The Murdoch Scandal Continues...
Just as I'd suspected the cancer is spreading to the rest of Murdoch's empire as last light the US called more an investigation into News Internationals actions in the US:
I cannot say that I'm surprised. The fact that the 7/7 victims families were hacked is a horrible thing, but if the 9/11 - or as I prefer to call it "11/9" because I have difficulty working out American dates when the two numbers are those of a month and a day, I genuinely sometimes think it's the 9th November rather than the 11th September - victims and their families were hacked, it would be awful.
All of Murdoch's papers are dodgy. It isn't just the News of the World; the Sun illegally obtained private medical records of Gordon Brown's son (and Rebekah Brooks actually called him to say she was running the story and there was nothing he could do about it) and he suspected for a while that the Sunday Times were hacking his phone (and the police have told him since they think it was hacked).
That's potentially 3 out of the 4 papers that Murdoch owns in the UK. Odds are on the Telegraph are at it too and we're bound to find it out once the public inquiry into News International gets underway. If those papers are at it you can be certain other papers are. I believe Murdoch owns (or partly owns) the New York Post, opening a real possibility that the terrorist victims and their families were hacked.
I also bet that it's going on at News Corporation back in Oz. The worrying thing about that is that Murdoch pretty much owns Australia's media. It's not like the US and the UK where he owns a couple of papers - he owns over twenty papers that cover different states. I was talking to my cousin Roz the other say and she said he pretty much owned Australia on the newspaper front.
Getting any dirty work exposed there would be difficult because Murdoch probably has everything watertight there. I should point out that it was a left-wing broadsheet paper The Guardian that exposed the scandals here in the UK. I think left-wing papers all over the world should get their groves on and start ferreting for dirty in Murdoch's empire.
He's backed into a corner and we shouldn't let him slip passed us because he has been controlling our governments and our media for too long. The UK Election is a good example of that; everyone hated David Cameron and hates the Tory party, yet with a combination of the Tories (more or less) buying seats with Ashcroft's money and Murdoch launching an unjust hate campaign against Gordon Brown, Labour would still be in power. They'd have lost a chunk of their majority but I believe that Brown would have beaten Cameron easier than Cameron could hate beat him simply because Cameron and Clegg are both inexperienced and out of touch. Murdoch hates elites and so he likes to make them jump for him, and it's sent him into a potentially dangerous ego trip.
It's like I said to that Green Party representative - power corrupts everyone in the end and Murdoch is a great example of this.
Politicians have been frightened of Murdoch for too long and it's time they stopped asking him to pull out of BSkyB and just told him, "No!" He's covered in crap because he won't let Rebekah Brooks reign. Why? Because she knows where all the bodies are buried. If he lets her out of his sight for too long she might blab. She's already blabbed a lot which she should have been arrested for but there isn't enough evidence.
Seriously, politicians, you never hold back when you see your opponant limping and always go in for the kill. The nasty, painful kill too. Why hold back over Murdoch? If you all join together to give him the heave-ho then what's the worst he can do? Tell people not to support any of you? Grow some balls, Cameron.
The greatest irony of all is that Ed Miliband, written off just a couple of months ago as a weak political geek, is the only person who seems to have correctly judged how the people feel about Murdoch's BSkyB takeover, or him in general. Cameron is (and always has been) completely out-of-touch with his public, and Clegg is just slightly better (although the TRUE politically weak magot - but then so is Cameron). This really has become a case of 'the worm that turned' as Cameron rather cowardly chose to try and sell his Big Society: Privatisation thought the backdoor/Let's get plebs to work for free and get rid of public spending crap to a crowd of unconvinced people, rather than face Miliband's questionning in Parliament. He sent Jeremy Cun-*cough**cough*HUNT*cough**cough* to face him instead. Labour were so pissed off with everything Hunt said you'd have thought they'd start lobbing handgrinades at him.
Cameron just doesn't seem to realise how disturbed the public are by his closeness to a man who is right at the heart of the phone hacking scandal, and who allegedly abused his position while in power. It was his employee and he should have known better. They try so hard to turn this around on all politicians but NO - they are the ones who have been caught holding the biggest cookie from the jar, THEY have to answer for it.
Like I said, politicians are frightened of Murdoch and Cameron is still scared of him. He knows he's only there thanks to money and Murdoch, and he knows that this entire thing is probably the last nail in the coffin FOR HIM. He can't blame the LibDems for once. Furthermore he must realise that Ed Miliband called for this vote in parliament to completely block the BSkyB takeover due to lack of confidence in News International today in order to test the coalition.
Nick Clegg has already come out and made it clear he is keep his hands clean and keeping Cameron at a ten-inch-pole's length this time. He knows he's on his way out and the coalition is crumbling regardless.
Miliband knows that by forcing this vote - which couldn't be denied - forced a wedge between not only the LibDems and the Tories but the Tories in general, those who can see the ship sinking around David Cameron and don't want to be on that ship, and those who cling to Cameron because he's the one who got them their jobs. Moreover if the vote DOESN'T pass it makes Cameron and the Tories look corrupt, and if it does go though then it proves that the Coalition have abandoned Cameron (including Clegg, it seems).
Either way Miliband can't lose. This is a Labour vote, and that has been made clear in the papers. If it passes, it's a feather in their cap - not the coalition's.
I want to leave you all with this video I just uploaded to YT. It's a clip from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe by documentary maker Adam Curtis. I've titled it 'Nixon Syndrome' because it's about how we've all become like Nixon - paranoid that the elite are running the country to suit themselves. It mentions Murdoch in it, stating his hatred of elites:
The irony is that he IS an elite and runs things to suit him.
"I am concerned that the admitted phone hacking in London by the News Corp may have extended to 9/11 victims or other Americans," he said. "If they did, the consequences will be severe." more by Jay Rockefeller - 1 hour ago - Evening Standard |
I cannot say that I'm surprised. The fact that the 7/7 victims families were hacked is a horrible thing, but if the 9/11 - or as I prefer to call it "11/9" because I have difficulty working out American dates when the two numbers are those of a month and a day, I genuinely sometimes think it's the 9th November rather than the 11th September - victims and their families were hacked, it would be awful.
All of Murdoch's papers are dodgy. It isn't just the News of the World; the Sun illegally obtained private medical records of Gordon Brown's son (and Rebekah Brooks actually called him to say she was running the story and there was nothing he could do about it) and he suspected for a while that the Sunday Times were hacking his phone (and the police have told him since they think it was hacked).
That's potentially 3 out of the 4 papers that Murdoch owns in the UK. Odds are on the Telegraph are at it too and we're bound to find it out once the public inquiry into News International gets underway. If those papers are at it you can be certain other papers are. I believe Murdoch owns (or partly owns) the New York Post, opening a real possibility that the terrorist victims and their families were hacked.
I also bet that it's going on at News Corporation back in Oz. The worrying thing about that is that Murdoch pretty much owns Australia's media. It's not like the US and the UK where he owns a couple of papers - he owns over twenty papers that cover different states. I was talking to my cousin Roz the other say and she said he pretty much owned Australia on the newspaper front.
Getting any dirty work exposed there would be difficult because Murdoch probably has everything watertight there. I should point out that it was a left-wing broadsheet paper The Guardian that exposed the scandals here in the UK. I think left-wing papers all over the world should get their groves on and start ferreting for dirty in Murdoch's empire.
He's backed into a corner and we shouldn't let him slip passed us because he has been controlling our governments and our media for too long. The UK Election is a good example of that; everyone hated David Cameron and hates the Tory party, yet with a combination of the Tories (more or less) buying seats with Ashcroft's money and Murdoch launching an unjust hate campaign against Gordon Brown, Labour would still be in power. They'd have lost a chunk of their majority but I believe that Brown would have beaten Cameron easier than Cameron could hate beat him simply because Cameron and Clegg are both inexperienced and out of touch. Murdoch hates elites and so he likes to make them jump for him, and it's sent him into a potentially dangerous ego trip.
It's like I said to that Green Party representative - power corrupts everyone in the end and Murdoch is a great example of this.
Politicians have been frightened of Murdoch for too long and it's time they stopped asking him to pull out of BSkyB and just told him, "No!" He's covered in crap because he won't let Rebekah Brooks reign. Why? Because she knows where all the bodies are buried. If he lets her out of his sight for too long she might blab. She's already blabbed a lot which she should have been arrested for but there isn't enough evidence.
Seriously, politicians, you never hold back when you see your opponant limping and always go in for the kill. The nasty, painful kill too. Why hold back over Murdoch? If you all join together to give him the heave-ho then what's the worst he can do? Tell people not to support any of you? Grow some balls, Cameron.
The greatest irony of all is that Ed Miliband, written off just a couple of months ago as a weak political geek, is the only person who seems to have correctly judged how the people feel about Murdoch's BSkyB takeover, or him in general. Cameron is (and always has been) completely out-of-touch with his public, and Clegg is just slightly better (although the TRUE politically weak magot - but then so is Cameron). This really has become a case of 'the worm that turned' as Cameron rather cowardly chose to try and sell his Big Society: Privatisation thought the backdoor/Let's get plebs to work for free and get rid of public spending crap to a crowd of unconvinced people, rather than face Miliband's questionning in Parliament. He sent Jeremy Cun-*cough**cough*HUNT*cough**cough* to face him instead. Labour were so pissed off with everything Hunt said you'd have thought they'd start lobbing handgrinades at him.
Cameron just doesn't seem to realise how disturbed the public are by his closeness to a man who is right at the heart of the phone hacking scandal, and who allegedly abused his position while in power. It was his employee and he should have known better. They try so hard to turn this around on all politicians but NO - they are the ones who have been caught holding the biggest cookie from the jar, THEY have to answer for it.
Like I said, politicians are frightened of Murdoch and Cameron is still scared of him. He knows he's only there thanks to money and Murdoch, and he knows that this entire thing is probably the last nail in the coffin FOR HIM. He can't blame the LibDems for once. Furthermore he must realise that Ed Miliband called for this vote in parliament to completely block the BSkyB takeover due to lack of confidence in News International today in order to test the coalition.
Nick Clegg has already come out and made it clear he is keep his hands clean and keeping Cameron at a ten-inch-pole's length this time. He knows he's on his way out and the coalition is crumbling regardless.
Miliband knows that by forcing this vote - which couldn't be denied - forced a wedge between not only the LibDems and the Tories but the Tories in general, those who can see the ship sinking around David Cameron and don't want to be on that ship, and those who cling to Cameron because he's the one who got them their jobs. Moreover if the vote DOESN'T pass it makes Cameron and the Tories look corrupt, and if it does go though then it proves that the Coalition have abandoned Cameron (including Clegg, it seems).
Either way Miliband can't lose. This is a Labour vote, and that has been made clear in the papers. If it passes, it's a feather in their cap - not the coalition's.
I want to leave you all with this video I just uploaded to YT. It's a clip from Charlie Brooker's Newswipe by documentary maker Adam Curtis. I've titled it 'Nixon Syndrome' because it's about how we've all become like Nixon - paranoid that the elite are running the country to suit themselves. It mentions Murdoch in it, stating his hatred of elites:
The irony is that he IS an elite and runs things to suit him.
Tuesday, 12 July 2011
A Letter to My MP on BSkyB
I wrote a letter to that Tory MP I always bitch about, asking her to vote in favour of the vote to block Murdoch's BSkyB takeover:
I have seen reports that there may be a vote on Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB takeover this Wednesday. Please can you assure me that you will vote in favour of halting the takeover?
Everything has changed since the takeover process started last year. Rupert Murdoch's empire stands accused of appalling crimes and is now under criminal investigation. The reliability of the "undertakings" he is offering must be in doubt. I am fully aware that the takeover bid might be postponed until September anyway but this is not enough. I’m sure you know as well as I do that this investigation into the workings of News International could take years. To handover the whole of BSkyB to them at a time while they are being investigated for committing illegal actions such as hacking the phones of murder victims’ families and paying police officers for support, would look sordid and would be unwise during this fragile period in our country.
Better to block the takeover and allow Murdoch to try again when he has a clean sheet.
You are my MP and I hope you will represent the feelings of your constituency, not just that of your leader or your party. I believe you would be hard pushed to find any member of the general public who is supportive of the move for Murdoch’s bid to takeover BSkyB and is not disturbed by the arrest of Andy Coulson due to his closeness to Mr. Cameron.
If you were to vote in favour of halting the BSkyB takeover it would be a feather in your cap, and give the people who have written in protest of your fortnightly news column (one of whom was my father) proof that you are not just a tool of the Conservative movement but your own free-thinking person who takes the concerns of her constituents to heart rather than ignores them to defend party lines.
I believe that if you vote in favour of the BSkyB takeover it will not show solidarity with your party leader; it will leave him, your party and your own reputation in question. I know how important image is to our Prime Minister, so it is better to save him and your party the humiliation now and vote in favour of the halt to Rupert Murdoch’s takeover bid for BSkyB.
I look forward to hearing what you think.
Yours sincerely,
Louisa Ball
I doubt she paid any attention and will vote with the other sheep that are only there because Cameron put them there. But at least I made my feelings known.
I have seen reports that there may be a vote on Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB takeover this Wednesday. Please can you assure me that you will vote in favour of halting the takeover?
Everything has changed since the takeover process started last year. Rupert Murdoch's empire stands accused of appalling crimes and is now under criminal investigation. The reliability of the "undertakings" he is offering must be in doubt. I am fully aware that the takeover bid might be postponed until September anyway but this is not enough. I’m sure you know as well as I do that this investigation into the workings of News International could take years. To handover the whole of BSkyB to them at a time while they are being investigated for committing illegal actions such as hacking the phones of murder victims’ families and paying police officers for support, would look sordid and would be unwise during this fragile period in our country.
Better to block the takeover and allow Murdoch to try again when he has a clean sheet.
You are my MP and I hope you will represent the feelings of your constituency, not just that of your leader or your party. I believe you would be hard pushed to find any member of the general public who is supportive of the move for Murdoch’s bid to takeover BSkyB and is not disturbed by the arrest of Andy Coulson due to his closeness to Mr. Cameron.
If you were to vote in favour of halting the BSkyB takeover it would be a feather in your cap, and give the people who have written in protest of your fortnightly news column (one of whom was my father) proof that you are not just a tool of the Conservative movement but your own free-thinking person who takes the concerns of her constituents to heart rather than ignores them to defend party lines.
I believe that if you vote in favour of the BSkyB takeover it will not show solidarity with your party leader; it will leave him, your party and your own reputation in question. I know how important image is to our Prime Minister, so it is better to save him and your party the humiliation now and vote in favour of the halt to Rupert Murdoch’s takeover bid for BSkyB.
I look forward to hearing what you think.
Yours sincerely,
Louisa Ball
I doubt she paid any attention and will vote with the other sheep that are only there because Cameron put them there. But at least I made my feelings known.
Monday, 11 July 2011
The Cameron/Coulson Affair
Michael Fallon is a tosser anyway.
His interview aired on Channel 4 News a few days ago (09/07/2011) showed that. The Tories try to blame Labour again but Krishan's not having it. BTW for those of you who are unaware Andy Coulson HAS been arrested and charged. That happened the day after this interview; he is now released on bail.
It is silly what Fallon is saying because only Tony Blair dealt with Murdoch. Gordon Brown had nothing to do with him (and it was because of that he lost the election) and Ed Miliband hasn't either. In fact it has come out now the the News of the World targetted Gordon Brown by hacking into his back accounts and the medical records of his son. It was in the BBC news tonight as well.
Gordon Brown suspect that his phones were being hacked all the way back in January and he suspect that it wasn't the NOTW that did it, but the Sunday Times. This is another Murrdoch paper. Hence why the papers are all saying News International targetted Gordon Brown. Apparently Brown is set to lob another bomb in Murdoch's way because of this. Frankly, I don't see why it should be surprising. If one or Murdoch's papers did it, they're probably all doing it. Here the FT did a piece on it.
Memo to our American and Australian cousins -- get your independant newspapers to investigate his dealings there too. There is a reason why Murdoch has kept Rebekah Brooks close; it because she knows where all the bodies are buried. If he's doing it in the UK, he probably doing it in all the other countries too. I do hope it does make other countries touched by Murdoch stop and think, "Maybe we should investigate his dealings with these places before he shreds all the evidence."
Pressure is mounting on David Cameron to halt the BSkyB takeover and Ed Miliband was successful in calling for a vote on stopping the BSkyB takeover on Wednesday. I even wrote an email to my MP (who I hate because she's a useless Tory) asking her to vote in favour of stopping the BSkyB takeover. Fat chance but at least it's something Thurrock can hold against her later if she doesn't vote in favour of it.
Interestingly enough the cowardly Cameron has been keeping his head down the last few days. Instead of going to the house to answer Ed Miliband's questions he got Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, to answer them. Would you like to know his weighty actions to halt the BSkyB takeover? He wrote a letter to Ofcom. Wow.
David Cameron was off trying to sell the Big Society for the millionth time. What does that involve I hear you cry? Privitisation through the back door. Go to Hell, Cameron!
His interview aired on Channel 4 News a few days ago (09/07/2011) showed that. The Tories try to blame Labour again but Krishan's not having it. BTW for those of you who are unaware Andy Coulson HAS been arrested and charged. That happened the day after this interview; he is now released on bail.
It is silly what Fallon is saying because only Tony Blair dealt with Murdoch. Gordon Brown had nothing to do with him (and it was because of that he lost the election) and Ed Miliband hasn't either. In fact it has come out now the the News of the World targetted Gordon Brown by hacking into his back accounts and the medical records of his son. It was in the BBC news tonight as well.
Gordon Brown suspect that his phones were being hacked all the way back in January and he suspect that it wasn't the NOTW that did it, but the Sunday Times. This is another Murrdoch paper. Hence why the papers are all saying News International targetted Gordon Brown. Apparently Brown is set to lob another bomb in Murdoch's way because of this. Frankly, I don't see why it should be surprising. If one or Murdoch's papers did it, they're probably all doing it. Here the FT did a piece on it.
Memo to our American and Australian cousins -- get your independant newspapers to investigate his dealings there too. There is a reason why Murdoch has kept Rebekah Brooks close; it because she knows where all the bodies are buried. If he's doing it in the UK, he probably doing it in all the other countries too. I do hope it does make other countries touched by Murdoch stop and think, "Maybe we should investigate his dealings with these places before he shreds all the evidence."
Pressure is mounting on David Cameron to halt the BSkyB takeover and Ed Miliband was successful in calling for a vote on stopping the BSkyB takeover on Wednesday. I even wrote an email to my MP (who I hate because she's a useless Tory) asking her to vote in favour of stopping the BSkyB takeover. Fat chance but at least it's something Thurrock can hold against her later if she doesn't vote in favour of it.
Interestingly enough the cowardly Cameron has been keeping his head down the last few days. Instead of going to the house to answer Ed Miliband's questions he got Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, to answer them. Would you like to know his weighty actions to halt the BSkyB takeover? He wrote a letter to Ofcom. Wow.
David Cameron was off trying to sell the Big Society for the millionth time. What does that involve I hear you cry? Privitisation through the back door. Go to Hell, Cameron!
Sunday, 10 July 2011
OUTFOXED: The Truth About Rupert Murdoch
OUTFOXED
This was an interesting documentary that someone on Facebook referred me to. It really does say a lot about Murdoch's control over the media in the US. It appears to me to be much stronger than the one he has over the UK or any where else, and it seems odd that no one in the US has stood up and stopped the clear lack of balance at FOX news.
Now, to us in the UK FOX news is a joke. You can get it through your Sky subscription should you desire it but most people in this country take the piss out of it because it is unbias republican propaganda. In the UK, while the Conservatives are right-wing and more right-wing than most people in the UK are, they are not like the republican party. Of course, in the States there isn't really a true left-wing. There's a far right (The Republicans) and the centuralists (The Democrats) whereas here in the UK you have the the centuralist-to-mid-right (The Conservatives), the centuralist-liberal-right (The LibDems) and the centuralist-to-mid-left (The Labour Party). You can get some serious radicals in all three of the parties but it is generally accepted that the Tories are on the political right, Labour are on the political left and the LibDems are a mixture of the two... although they like to think they are more left-wing than right-wing.
So our political ideologies are very different. In a way I think the US are where the UK were 100-150 years ago and they need to catch up really. Typically the longer a conservative ideology goes on, the more people desire a liberal or left-wing alternative. With the US power diminishing in favour of China, this trend will probably over the next 100 years.
But that's not my point. My point is that Murdoch owns FOX news, which is one of the four main broadcasters in the US. That's like Murdoch owning Channel 4 in the UK. One thing we should be grateful for in the UK is that it would be against the law for a channel such as FOX to broadcast most of its material on a main channel in the UK. Every channel that reports the news is required by law to remain unbias and in political situations all three of the main parties are required to receive the same amount of coverage. Apparently in the US that rule was removed in the 1980s. I don't know if it's been put back in the mean time but apparently in the US channels are not required to be unbias, which is why FOX gets away with what it does.
You learn something new everyday.
Obviously if you don't like FOX news you can always just not watch it. The thing that is distrubing however is the fact that they have broadcast lies and half-truths in the past, and people have believed them and stated them as fact. Given that people are a group can be unbelievably stupid, it is cause for concern that Murdoch can influence people though his power in the US media.
Here in the UK his power is somewhat more minimal. He is still bound by the broadcasting law which means he is forbidden from treating Sky news the same way. Moreover if you ask most people which news channel they watch, most will tell you they watch the BBC, some will say ITN and the odd person will say Channel 4 News. Sky has got to be everyone's least favourite channel, not least because you need cabel or satelite to see it. Even then hardly anyone watches it because they aren't the most reliable news channel. It is a good argument to stop Murdoch getting full control of BSkyB.
Ed Miliband is going to call for a vote in parliament, something which Cameron won't be able to deny him under public pressure. The nerd has finally found his feet it seems.
No, Murrdoch's grip on the UK media lives in the papers and one thing he clearly hates is how little influence the papers have now. Most people get their news from the BBC or Twitter. News is becoming more unbias because people can now have news beamed to their phones from their favourite news channel instead of reading it in the papers. Moreover the general public seems to know that certain papers are a joke. We all know "The Scum" (AKA The Sun) is a thick working-class-traitor's paper that people read with a sense of irony, rather than taking it seriously. We know "The Daily Wail" (AKA The Daily Mail) is traditionalist Tory-hugging trash created for the wives of rich men. The Daily "Rich Man's Sun" Telegraph is the untimate Tory paper and my middle section says it all. The "Waving the Red Banner" Mirror is the left-wing-man's Sun, only slightly more intelligent (**slightly**). The Independant is what is says on the tin... but it tittering towards the left, as too is The Gurdian (who broke the phone hacking scandal in the first place), who are unashamedly left-wing and proud.
As for the Express, well, they're more of a joke than any of them. Diana-huggers and so on.
People know what the British papers are like and they have lost their impact as a result. I'm sure plenty of my UK friends saw the front of the British Sun on election day last year. It was one of the most horrible propaganda pieces of BS every to grace the front of a British Tabloid. It tried to compare David "The Pig-Faced" Cameron to Obama! It was embarressing to look at! Once more it didn't work - Cameron didn't actually win the election. He had a minority. Murdoch failed.
Nonetheless we shouldn't let him have any more power than he already has. It's ethically wrong that so many media outlets reflect the views of one man.
This was an interesting documentary that someone on Facebook referred me to. It really does say a lot about Murdoch's control over the media in the US. It appears to me to be much stronger than the one he has over the UK or any where else, and it seems odd that no one in the US has stood up and stopped the clear lack of balance at FOX news.
Now, to us in the UK FOX news is a joke. You can get it through your Sky subscription should you desire it but most people in this country take the piss out of it because it is unbias republican propaganda. In the UK, while the Conservatives are right-wing and more right-wing than most people in the UK are, they are not like the republican party. Of course, in the States there isn't really a true left-wing. There's a far right (The Republicans) and the centuralists (The Democrats) whereas here in the UK you have the the centuralist-to-mid-right (The Conservatives), the centuralist-liberal-right (The LibDems) and the centuralist-to-mid-left (The Labour Party). You can get some serious radicals in all three of the parties but it is generally accepted that the Tories are on the political right, Labour are on the political left and the LibDems are a mixture of the two... although they like to think they are more left-wing than right-wing.
So our political ideologies are very different. In a way I think the US are where the UK were 100-150 years ago and they need to catch up really. Typically the longer a conservative ideology goes on, the more people desire a liberal or left-wing alternative. With the US power diminishing in favour of China, this trend will probably over the next 100 years.
But that's not my point. My point is that Murdoch owns FOX news, which is one of the four main broadcasters in the US. That's like Murdoch owning Channel 4 in the UK. One thing we should be grateful for in the UK is that it would be against the law for a channel such as FOX to broadcast most of its material on a main channel in the UK. Every channel that reports the news is required by law to remain unbias and in political situations all three of the main parties are required to receive the same amount of coverage. Apparently in the US that rule was removed in the 1980s. I don't know if it's been put back in the mean time but apparently in the US channels are not required to be unbias, which is why FOX gets away with what it does.
You learn something new everyday.
Obviously if you don't like FOX news you can always just not watch it. The thing that is distrubing however is the fact that they have broadcast lies and half-truths in the past, and people have believed them and stated them as fact. Given that people are a group can be unbelievably stupid, it is cause for concern that Murdoch can influence people though his power in the US media.
Here in the UK his power is somewhat more minimal. He is still bound by the broadcasting law which means he is forbidden from treating Sky news the same way. Moreover if you ask most people which news channel they watch, most will tell you they watch the BBC, some will say ITN and the odd person will say Channel 4 News. Sky has got to be everyone's least favourite channel, not least because you need cabel or satelite to see it. Even then hardly anyone watches it because they aren't the most reliable news channel. It is a good argument to stop Murdoch getting full control of BSkyB.
Ed Miliband is going to call for a vote in parliament, something which Cameron won't be able to deny him under public pressure. The nerd has finally found his feet it seems.
No, Murrdoch's grip on the UK media lives in the papers and one thing he clearly hates is how little influence the papers have now. Most people get their news from the BBC or Twitter. News is becoming more unbias because people can now have news beamed to their phones from their favourite news channel instead of reading it in the papers. Moreover the general public seems to know that certain papers are a joke. We all know "The Scum" (AKA The Sun) is a thick working-class-traitor's paper that people read with a sense of irony, rather than taking it seriously. We know "The Daily Wail" (AKA The Daily Mail) is traditionalist Tory-hugging trash created for the wives of rich men. The Daily "Rich Man's Sun" Telegraph is the untimate Tory paper and my middle section says it all. The "Waving the Red Banner" Mirror is the left-wing-man's Sun, only slightly more intelligent (**slightly**). The Independant is what is says on the tin... but it tittering towards the left, as too is The Gurdian (who broke the phone hacking scandal in the first place), who are unashamedly left-wing and proud.
As for the Express, well, they're more of a joke than any of them. Diana-huggers and so on.
People know what the British papers are like and they have lost their impact as a result. I'm sure plenty of my UK friends saw the front of the British Sun on election day last year. It was one of the most horrible propaganda pieces of BS every to grace the front of a British Tabloid. It tried to compare David "The Pig-Faced" Cameron to Obama! It was embarressing to look at! Once more it didn't work - Cameron didn't actually win the election. He had a minority. Murdoch failed.
Nonetheless we shouldn't let him have any more power than he already has. It's ethically wrong that so many media outlets reflect the views of one man.
Friday, 8 July 2011
My Opinions to a Green Party Rep
A Green Party representative seems to think their policies are better thought out than the major parties. Um. This is what I say:
@Ade Jones I respect your points but I was merely pointing out that the LibDems were once the protest party just like the Green Party are now. They all think they are impregnable when they are merely running on principle but you need to have friends in high places to get anywhere in this world, and that's a mere fact of life. The further political parties get to power, the more they seek it. That's what happened to the LibDems, and if the Green Party gain any more power it will happen to them too. It's unavoidable because in order to get your policies through you need power, and to get power you usually have to sacrifice a few of your principles.
There are always a handful of politicians who remain clean. My last MP, Andrew MacKinley, was one of them. He had a loyal following in Thurroch because he did his duty by us, not just the party. He always lived in the area; he lived down the street from me in my childhood. He didn't fiddle his expenses, he always had surgeries, he took up our cases... and he was Labour. When he retired at the last election hardly anyone voted because we foolishly believed Labour would get in anyway, and we ended up with a lazy do-nothing Tory whose only there as one of Cameron's straw women who won by the skin of her teeth. We hate her and she'll be gone at the last election.
MacKinley was one man - and there a other MPs like him - but when a party gets power it become about using power than that having simple principles. The Green Party are new, fresh and "want to save the world", which is geat... but the closer they get the power, the more "group-think" they'll become. It'll be more about keeping the party powerful and less about policies the higher they climb. I'm sure the Green Party polices are better thought out - but so were the LibDem policies once upon a time. And why? Because they had no chance of putting them into practise. They had a lot of time to think about it.
I am a socialist through and though. I vote Labour because they are the left-winged party in our area and I am a member of the party. We are a Labour area - but unfortunately our representative isn't as well liked as MacKinley because he's an ex-councillor. But at least we know him. I wouldn't know any of the other candidates from Adam, including our current MP. The Greens don't even stand here. My own political views are far more to the left than Labour is these days.
But short of a nuclear holocaust wiping our the current society and the need to rebuild it from scratch, I know the chances of my views ever being realised by those in power are zero. I'm a socialist but this Con-Dem government has blown all the faith I have change being made. I foolishly believed that the LibDems would keep control of the Tories, but they haven't. That's why I don't believe the Green Party would be any different given half the chance. If they were offered power, they'd take it... and bend to superiors. It's just the way things are.
I support Labour simply they are the leftist party out of a selection of ultimately centralist parties. They are an opposition to the Tories and therefore get my vote. I won't waste my precious vote on parties that will just allow the Tories to stay in. That's my principle as a voter; keep the Tories as clipped as possible. I don't care as long as they are losing.
And it's true. I'm slowly starting to realise that to get power to make the slightest changes, you can't think you're above corruption. Even if you are the Green Party. :p
@Ade Jones I respect your points but I was merely pointing out that the LibDems were once the protest party just like the Green Party are now. They all think they are impregnable when they are merely running on principle but you need to have friends in high places to get anywhere in this world, and that's a mere fact of life. The further political parties get to power, the more they seek it. That's what happened to the LibDems, and if the Green Party gain any more power it will happen to them too. It's unavoidable because in order to get your policies through you need power, and to get power you usually have to sacrifice a few of your principles.
There are always a handful of politicians who remain clean. My last MP, Andrew MacKinley, was one of them. He had a loyal following in Thurroch because he did his duty by us, not just the party. He always lived in the area; he lived down the street from me in my childhood. He didn't fiddle his expenses, he always had surgeries, he took up our cases... and he was Labour. When he retired at the last election hardly anyone voted because we foolishly believed Labour would get in anyway, and we ended up with a lazy do-nothing Tory whose only there as one of Cameron's straw women who won by the skin of her teeth. We hate her and she'll be gone at the last election.
MacKinley was one man - and there a other MPs like him - but when a party gets power it become about using power than that having simple principles. The Green Party are new, fresh and "want to save the world", which is geat... but the closer they get the power, the more "group-think" they'll become. It'll be more about keeping the party powerful and less about policies the higher they climb. I'm sure the Green Party polices are better thought out - but so were the LibDem policies once upon a time. And why? Because they had no chance of putting them into practise. They had a lot of time to think about it.
I am a socialist through and though. I vote Labour because they are the left-winged party in our area and I am a member of the party. We are a Labour area - but unfortunately our representative isn't as well liked as MacKinley because he's an ex-councillor. But at least we know him. I wouldn't know any of the other candidates from Adam, including our current MP. The Greens don't even stand here. My own political views are far more to the left than Labour is these days.
But short of a nuclear holocaust wiping our the current society and the need to rebuild it from scratch, I know the chances of my views ever being realised by those in power are zero. I'm a socialist but this Con-Dem government has blown all the faith I have change being made. I foolishly believed that the LibDems would keep control of the Tories, but they haven't. That's why I don't believe the Green Party would be any different given half the chance. If they were offered power, they'd take it... and bend to superiors. It's just the way things are.
I support Labour simply they are the leftist party out of a selection of ultimately centralist parties. They are an opposition to the Tories and therefore get my vote. I won't waste my precious vote on parties that will just allow the Tories to stay in. That's my principle as a voter; keep the Tories as clipped as possible. I don't care as long as they are losing.
And it's true. I'm slowly starting to realise that to get power to make the slightest changes, you can't think you're above corruption. Even if you are the Green Party. :p
Thursday, 7 July 2011
The End of the World. News of the World, that is.
It's the anniversary of the 7/7 bombings and we have this story!
This whole thing stinks of a big bucket of old moldy food:
The News of the World closes - live coverage
My first reaction was "YES! THAT'S GREAT!" but then I realised that Murdoch is probably only doing it to distract people from the phone hacking scandal. Worst still someone else in one of the comments on the link above said that this doesn't mean anything, that Murrdoch will just bring out The Sun on Sundays as well, the evil, corrupt, f-king twat!
It's not right that a man like that holds such power and I really hope that past this Sunday the papers continue putting pressure on the independant investigation into News International's dealings. One thing that definately needs to be stopped is Murrdoch's full take over of BSkyB. He corrupts British newspapers and the Sky channels enough without him having clout over them completely.
Still, there's always a chance the journalists could go on strike. :p
This whole thing stinks of a big bucket of old moldy food:
The News of the World closes - live coverage
My first reaction was "YES! THAT'S GREAT!" but then I realised that Murdoch is probably only doing it to distract people from the phone hacking scandal. Worst still someone else in one of the comments on the link above said that this doesn't mean anything, that Murrdoch will just bring out The Sun on Sundays as well, the evil, corrupt, f-king twat!
It's not right that a man like that holds such power and I really hope that past this Sunday the papers continue putting pressure on the independant investigation into News International's dealings. One thing that definately needs to be stopped is Murrdoch's full take over of BSkyB. He corrupts British newspapers and the Sky channels enough without him having clout over them completely.
Still, there's always a chance the journalists could go on strike. :p
Wednesday, 6 July 2011
Trouble with the NHS? Tories just don't get it, do they?
Pledges of NHS waiting times in doubt.
The moral of the story? Never trust conservatives with the public sector.
My dad has been waiting for his hernia operation since the end of March. He has a blood disorder and so he needs to have blood taken out regularly in order for it to be safe to operate on him. It should have been sorted out months ago but they're still messing around as they keep pushing his operation back, which means he has to keep having blood take out to make it safer for them to operate on him. They have cancelled his operation three times now. That's just a simple hernia operation.
This whole thing has just proved that you NEED bureacracy in order to make an organisation like the NHS run smoothly. You need more managers all the time with a population growing all the time and nearly every single one of them using the NHS at some point in their life. You can't ship out duties or look for cheap deals in the NHS. That's just the Tories' brainless and uninformed tinking.
Least we don't live in America. If we did my mum would be dead and by dad would be on the way out too. At least he is on a sodding waiting list - I guess they're just treating all the more seriously ill people first. But it's just a hernia operation! It's not fair that my dad has to keep having his blood fixed over and over again. It tires him out, for Christ's sake! He's an ill man.
Cameron talks a load of crap but has yet to deliver on anything, even the polices he was supposedly passionate about. Given that his family relied on the NHS for so many years, he should be ashamed of himself. Yes, Blair was the first true 'career' politician and career PM but at least he was good at it. Cameron and Clegg have always been nothing more than Tony Blair wannabes. They are trying to become 'the next Blair' but lack the charisma and the ability to sweat out the critics of press and opposition. They care more about their non-existant image than about doing their jobs. They don't appear to care about anything and lack even the illusion of substance to make up for lack of leadership. Say what you like about Gordon Brown, he was the last true party leader. They are all faceless wonders now he's gone. They might as well be the same bloody nasty, poorly made Tony Blair clone.
At least Ed Milliband is vaguely recognisable because he's a geek. :p
The moral of the story? Never trust conservatives with the public sector.
My dad has been waiting for his hernia operation since the end of March. He has a blood disorder and so he needs to have blood taken out regularly in order for it to be safe to operate on him. It should have been sorted out months ago but they're still messing around as they keep pushing his operation back, which means he has to keep having blood take out to make it safer for them to operate on him. They have cancelled his operation three times now. That's just a simple hernia operation.
This whole thing has just proved that you NEED bureacracy in order to make an organisation like the NHS run smoothly. You need more managers all the time with a population growing all the time and nearly every single one of them using the NHS at some point in their life. You can't ship out duties or look for cheap deals in the NHS. That's just the Tories' brainless and uninformed tinking.
Least we don't live in America. If we did my mum would be dead and by dad would be on the way out too. At least he is on a sodding waiting list - I guess they're just treating all the more seriously ill people first. But it's just a hernia operation! It's not fair that my dad has to keep having his blood fixed over and over again. It tires him out, for Christ's sake! He's an ill man.
Cameron talks a load of crap but has yet to deliver on anything, even the polices he was supposedly passionate about. Given that his family relied on the NHS for so many years, he should be ashamed of himself. Yes, Blair was the first true 'career' politician and career PM but at least he was good at it. Cameron and Clegg have always been nothing more than Tony Blair wannabes. They are trying to become 'the next Blair' but lack the charisma and the ability to sweat out the critics of press and opposition. They care more about their non-existant image than about doing their jobs. They don't appear to care about anything and lack even the illusion of substance to make up for lack of leadership. Say what you like about Gordon Brown, he was the last true party leader. They are all faceless wonders now he's gone. They might as well be the same bloody nasty, poorly made Tony Blair clone.
At least Ed Milliband is vaguely recognisable because he's a geek. :p
Friday, 1 July 2011
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