Key Posts Category
The Peoples’ March was futile: 700,000 demand the impossible
There’s really only one explanation for the Peoples’ March today in London – an advertising of personal virtue. For absolutely nothing else will be achieved at all, that time and money has been completely wasted.
Big media pretty much ignores the futile march
But out they came, to march through the streets of London:
No one knows where negotiations over the U.K.’s exit from the European Union will end up. (Things are not looking great.) But it’s now obvious that no one heading to the polls in 2016 could possibly have grasped the full implications of this misguided decision — and that the British people deserve another say.
That’s not an entirely ridiculous claim. I say this as a committed Leaver too – rethinks are indeed part of responsible governance and democracy. There are two good arguments against another vote though:
Organisers say more than 600,000 people rallied in central London on Saturday to call for a referendum on the final Brexit deal
People’s Vote march: ‘more than half a million’ rally for new Brexit referendum
That’s part of the battle over numbers. Don’t trust that count for a moment:
Protesters seeking a referendum on the final Brexit deal have attended a rally which organisers say was the “biggest” demonstration of its kind.
Young voters led the People’s Vote march to London’s Parliament Square, which supporters say attracted more than 600,000 people.
MPs from the main parties backed the event calling for a fresh referendum.
This is something which has already been ruled out by Prime Minister Theresa May.
The People’s Vote campaign said stewards on the route estimated 670,000 were taking part.
Scotland Yard said it was not able to estimate the size of the crowd.
No, really, do not believe that number.
Still, why shouldn’t we?
The first reason is that we’re British dammit. It’s the Europeans, the continentals, who keep having referenda about the European Union until the proles vote the right way. As was done in Ireland, France, Denmark. Admittedly, that’s an argument unlikely to find favour with those who like the EU.
So, the killer one. We’re out the door on 29 March next year. The deal, whatever it is going to be, is not finished yet. Reasonable people – that is others than me – think it might actually get sealed on March 28 at 11.59 pm. But even if it were sealed today then what?
British law insists that there be a 6 month run in to a referendum. Which is, of course, what a peoples’ vote is.
Our own laws say that we cannot have a Peoples’ Vote therefore. So why were half a million people pissing away their Saturday?
Posted: 21st, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Police escape and race riots averted as Huddersfield rapists jailed
At Leeds Crown Court 20 men have been found guilty of raping and abusing 15 girls as young as 11 in and around Huddersfield between 2004 and 2011. One of their victims had the mental age of a seven-year-old. Who are the criminals? We’ll get to that, just as soon as the BBC has told us their nicknames, like “Dracula”, “Bully”, “Beastie” and “Nurse”. The ringleader was Amere Singh Dhaliwal, 35, a married father of two. He’s starting a life sentence. He’ll be in prison for a minimum of 18 years. The other child rapists “are all British Asians mainly of Pakistani heritage”, says the BBC.
Amere Singh Dhaliwal
Deeper into the BBC story we get to the police. One victim told police: “Every time I went out something bad happened. I risked my life every time. I was a mess.” Another escaped only by moving home, saying: “It was the best thing I ever did, and that’s bad saying that burning your house down is the best thing you ever did.” How did police view the victims – as fair game? As someone once said of teenage girls: “If you think they’re doing it, they’re doing it.”
So after the stories of rapes and abuse by men mainly of Pakistani heritage in Rotherham, Oxford, Rochdale, Derby, Banbury, Telford, Peterborough, Aylesbury, Bristol, Halifax, Keighley, Newcastle we get to Huddersfield. Is that the end of it?
Top row left to right: Amere Singh Dhaliwal (Pretos), Irfan Ahmed (Finny), Zahid Hassan (Little Manny), Mohammed Kammer (Kammy), Raj Singh Barsran (Raj). Bottom row left to right: Mohammed Rizwan Aslam (Big Riz), Abdul Rehman (Beastie), Nahman Mohammed (Dracula), Mansoor Akhtar, (Boy) and Mohammed Irfraz, (Faj).
And one question pervades all others: why didn’t the police and authorities act sooner? The BBC’s Home Editor Mark Easton has a theory:
The grooming gangs of provincial England tend to operate where the disinfectant of public scrutiny struggles to reach – poorer neighbourhoods on the edge of town, around the mini-cab ranks and fast food joints, the twilight zones of urban life.
Public scrutiny wasn’t needed. Local media might have got wind of something ill, but local newspapers are dying. The BBC has reach and resources but it missed the scandal as it failed to notice its in-house paedophile Jimmy Savile, preferring to focus on innocent men with higher profiles. So what then of the local child minders, councils, schools and police? Huddersfield is not hundreds of miles from civilisation. Oxford is no cultural wasteland. Easton adds:
Child abuse thrives in such dark corners, where people look the other way, not asking questions or following concerns because the subject matter is uncomfortable and scrutiny is potentially damaging. But when we look, we find.
Top row left to right: Nasarat Hussain (Nurse), Sajid Hussain (Fish), Faisal Nadeem (Chiller), Mohammed Azeem (Mosabella), Wiqas Mahmud (Vic). Bottom row left to right: Manzoor Hassan (Big Manny), Niaz Ahmed (Shaq), Mohammed Imran Ibrar (Bully), Asif Bashir (Junior) and Mohammed Akram (Kid).
This was child rape on a huge scale. It wasn’t behind closed doors, within the family, where child abuse can go undetected. This was on the street. People knew. Did the wives of these men suspect? If every time we look we find, as Easton says, why don’t “we” look more often? Or is it that the “we” – police, social workers and other State employees – are scared of what “we” might find? Are they less bothered about the rule of law and teenage girls being abused than they are scared of the white working class, a group the State views as a race riot-in-waiting? So crime is allowed to fester. One rape become countless rapes. One rapist tells his friends the fun he’s having, and a gang is formed. So who suspected and knew, and why was nothing done earlier?
During the trials, the court heard girls would be driven up to remote moorland late at night and abandoned if they refused the men’s sexual demands. A sheep farmer told the BBC how he found distressed girls on the doorstep of his isolated home on a number of occasions…
At house parties, girls would be plied with alcohol and drugs before being sexually abused “one by one” by the men, sometimes without contraception.
The court heard they were abused in cars, car parks, houses, a snooker centre and a takeaway, often with other defendants and fellow victims watching on.
And now the hammer blow:
Victims and their families said they repeatedly told West Yorkshire Police what was happening but no arrests were made until years later.
Who police’s the police? Drive over the speed limit, smoke a joint or fail to pay your TV licence and the law is all over you. Rape a vulnerable child and, as is alleged, the police ignore it. Why?
Detective Chief Inspecor Ian Mottershaw tells one and all:
“The investigation into this case has been extremely complex and the investigative team have worked tirelessly for the past five years to ensure that no stone has been left unturned. We welcome the convictions and sentences which have been passed down throughout the year to these depraved individuals, who subjected vulnerable young children to unthinkable sexual and physical abuse.”
But the victims’ families say the police knew. Now the police tell us how hard they worked. But did they listen?
Barry Sheerman, Labour MP for Huddersfield, nails it: “Let’s be honest: no-one, local authority leadership, police, many of the people that should have been taking this more seriously earlier did not. But also, what happened in Rotherham and the publicity of Rotherham galvanised the action.”
So this is huge news, right? Wrong. Only the Guardian leads with the story. It mentions the men’s ethnic heritage only once, in paragraph 18. The paper quotes Judge Geoffrey Marson QC we’re told:
“Amongst the aggravating factors are that these girls were young when the abuse started, they were targeted because of their extreme vulnerability. They were threatened and intimidated and plied with drink and drugs often to insensibility and often in order to facilitate sexual abuse. These were planned offences by a large group of Asian men.”
But as with the BBC’s report, there is space to mention the criminal actions of Tommy Robinson, former leader of the anti-Islam English Defence League. The BBC injects its report on depraved criminality to tell readers:
In May, the former leader of the English Defence League Tommy Robinson was arrested for reporting on the case live on Facebook during the second of the trials.
He was jailed for contempt of court but his conviction was quashed because of a number of procedural errors. He faces a fresh hearing in relation to the alleged breach.
Anyone doing what Robinson did would have been arrested. As Luke Gittos notes:
The men he targeted are entitled to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence. Robinson was not arrested because of what he said. He was arrested because of when and how he chose to say it…
Free speech is too important for us to allow it to be consistently warped and slandered by both left and right. Free speech is about allowing a free and unhindered exchange of ideas. But, at the same time, we must recognise that the reason Robinson has a career is that we have become overly sensitive as a society to the kind of arguments he makes. He is a product not of too much free speech, but of too little. His arrest is not symbolic of a state conspiracy to shut him up. But it is at least connected to our continuing discomfort with discussing certain ideas.
Which brings us to how so many vulnerable children came to be raped by so many men over such a long period? Were certain lines of investigation taboo? Was there a cover up? In the absence of transparency and honesty, censorship grows, legitimate concerns are sidelined and damned; conspiracy theories fester, seeping to the surface.
There are no race riots. Huddersfield is not an outpost of the Fourth Reich. Trust us with the truth. We can handle it.
The Criminals:
Amere Singh Dhaliwal, 35, of Holly Road, Huddersfield, guilty of 54 counts, including 22 counts of rape, sentenced to life with a minimum term of 18 years
Irfan Ahmed, 34, of Yews Hill Road, Huddersfield, guilty of one count of sexual assault and two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, sentenced to eight years
Zahid Hassan, 29, of Bland Street Huddersfield, guilty of six counts of rape, one count of attempted rape, one count of sexual assault, one count of trafficking for sexual exploitation, two counts of child abduction, two counts of supplying class A drugs sentenced to 18 years
Mohammed Kammer, 34, of West View, Huddersfield, guilty of two counts of rape, sentenced to 16 years
Mohammed Rizwan Aslam, 31, of Huddersfield Road, Dewsbury, guilty of two counts of rape, sentenced to 15 years
Abdul Rehman, 31, of Darnely Drive, Sheffield, guilty of supplying a class C drug, one count of rape, one count of assault and one count of trafficking for sexual exploitation, sentenced to 16 years
Raj Singh Barsran, 34, of Caldercliffe Road, Huddersfield, guilty of rape and two counts of sexual assault, sentenced to 17 years
Nahman Mohammed, 32, of West View, Huddersfield, guilty of two counts of rape and one count of trafficking for sexual exploitation, sentenced to 15 years
Mansoor Akhtar, 27, of Blackmoorfoot Road, Huddersfield, guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, sentenced to eight years
Wiqas Mahmud, 38, of Banks Crescent, Huddersfield, guilty of three counts of rape, sentenced to 15 years
Nasarat Hussain, 30, of Upper Mount Street, Huddersfield, guilty of three counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, sentenced to 17 years
Sajid Hussain, of 33, of Grasmere Road, Huddersfield, guilty of two counts of rape, sentenced to 17 years
Mohammed Irfraz, 30, of North Road, Huddersfield, guilty of child abduction and two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation, sentenced to six years
Faisal Nadeem, 32, of Carr Green, Huddersfield, guilty of rape and supplying class A drugs, sentenced to 12 years
Mohammed Azeem, 33, of Wrose Road, Bradford, guilty of five counts of rape, sentenced to 18 years
Manzoor Hassan, 38, of Bland Street, Huddersfield, guilty of administering a noxious substance, inciting child prostitution and supplying a class A drug, sentenced to five years
Mohammed Akram, 33, of Springdale Street, Huddersfield, guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation and awaiting sentencing
Niaz Ahmed, 54, of Woodthorpe Terrace, Huddersfield, guilty of sexual assault and inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and awaiting sentencing
Asif Bashir, 33, of Thornton Lodge Road, Huddersfield, guilty of, rape and attempted rape and awaiting sentencing
Mohammed Imran Ibrar, 34, of Manchester Road, Huddersfield, guilty of trafficking for sexual exploitation and assault and awaiting sentencing
Brexit 1 Nick Clegg 0: Facebook seduces Mr EU to Leave for California
See ya, Nick Clegg. The man who wants a second EU referendum in the hope the great unwashed will vote for the status quo has opted to leave for the US, where he’ll work for Facebook. The former Deputy Prime Minister is now Facebook’s head of global affairs and communications.
On Facebook, natch., Clegg told us: “Having spoken at length to Mark and Sheryl [Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg] over the last few months, I have been struck by their recognition that the company is on a journey which brings new responsibilities not only to the users of Facebook’s apps but to society at large.”
A journey…to Luxembourg to pay less taxes? Clegg continues his travels into X Factor speak:
“I hope I will be able to play a role in helping to navigate that journey. Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, Oculus and Instagram are at the heart of so many people’s everyday lives – but also at the heart of some of the most complex and difficult questions we face as a society: the privacy of the individual, the integrity of our democratic process, the tensions between local cultures and the global internet, the balance between free speech and prohibited content, the power and concerns around artificial intelligence, and the wellbeing of our children.”
Maybe. Or you could just, you know, disable the app? Life will go on. But Clegg’s already at work, it seems, assuring us that Facebook is life itself. It’s not a company geared to make money from a leisure activity; it’s part of who we are.
He adds: “I believe that Facebook must continue to play a role in finding answers to those questions – not by acting alone in Silicon Valley, but by working with people, organisations, governments and regulators around the world to ensure that technology is a force for good.”
Or as he put it in a 2017 column: “Other critics of Silicon Valley are just plain disingenuous: traditional newspaper groups vilify social media companies for scooping up the lion’s share of advertising revenue. What do they expect? Social media companies – notwithstanding their occasionally pious New Age slogans – are profit-making companies, not charities.”
Good job he’s gone for the betterment of humankind and not the money.
Spotter: Financial Times
Posted: 19th, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians, Technology | Comment
I Was Big Bird: Caroll Spinney retires from Sesame Street
Oscar the Grouch and big Bird are looking for a new inside man following news that Sesame Street puppeteer Caroll Spinney has retired from the roles he’s performed since the show’s 1969 premiere.
“Big Bird brought me so many places, opened my mind and nurtured my soul,” said Spinney. “And I plan to be an ambassador for Sesame Workshop for many years to come. After all, we’re a family! But now it’s time for two performers that I have worked with and respected – and actually hand-picked for the guardianship of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch – to take my alter-egos into their hands and continue to give them life.”
…
After five decades as the heart and soul of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch, it’s impossible to entirely separate the man from the characters he so vibrantly brought to life. Big Bird visited China with Bob Hope in 1979. He’s danced with the Rockettes, and with prima ballerina Cynthia Gregory. He’s been feted with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, celebrated with his likeness on a U.S. postage stamp, and named a “Living Legend” in 2000 by the Library of Congress. Performing Big Bird has taken Caroll to China, Japan, Australia, France, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. He has performed on hundreds of episodes of television, starred as his big yellow avatar in the feature film Follow That Bird, and conducted symphony orchestras throughout the United States, Australia, and Canada. Spinney even met his wife of 45 years, Debra, on the Sesame Street set in 1973.
From now on, Matt Vogel and Eric Jacobson, will be warming Oscar and Big Bird. For an inkling of what they can expect, Spinney told Jessica Gross in 2015:
There used to be an urban tale that my right arm was twice the size of my left. Although that wasn’t true, I would say it was twice as strong. The bird’s head weighs four and a half pounds, which doesn’t sound heavy until you try to hold it over your head for fifteen minutes. A guy once said, “Well, four and a half pounds, that’s nothing. I could hold a hundred pounds over my head.” I said, “I don’t think so. I bet you can’t hold your empty hand over your head for five minutes, let alone if I put a four and a half pound head in your hand at the same time.” About two and a half minutes into it, he’s going, “Geez…” He never made it to the five minutes. He said, “This is stupid, I’m not doing this.” Well, he was stupid, anyway.
You can see Spinney at work in I Am Big Bird :
Posted: 19th, October 2018 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comment
Arsenal fans lament the loss of their shares to a heartless Kroenke
When Arsenal fans watching their side thrash Fulham 5-1 began to sing “We’ve got our Arsenal back”, billionaire Stan Kroenke must have smirked. It’s not the fans who have Arsenal, it’s him. And he’s got the lot.
Not too long ago, the list of Arsenal owners with clout read like a Damon Runyon play: Peter Hill-Wood, Sir Chips Keswick, Lord Harris of Peckham, Danny Fiszman and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith. But they cashed in. The old school stability that had defined Arsenal for decades vanished when David Dein, the hymned vice-chairman, sold his shares to Alisher Usmanov, an Usbek billionaire, in 2011 for £75m – each share valued at £11,750. Fiszman wasn’t keen on Usmanov, so sold his stake to Kroenke for £159.5m. The Bracewell-Smiths got £116m for theirs. The so-called Establishment Club was no longer a rich man’s chattel; it was a brand to exploit.
It’s Stan’s Arsenal now. He’ll let you know his plans for Arsenal when he thinks you need to know.
To take full ownership of the club, Kroenke was required to buy all the shares, including those owned by fans. He ordered those fans to relinquish their little bit of the club they loved and felt part of. Not everyone has signed the forms and taken the £29,000 per share. But they will.
Rory Smith spoke to a few of them:
“Owning a share made me feel as though Arsenal was actually my club: It was a closer, more emotional bond,” says Martha Silcott.” That sense of custodianship is very important to me; it is right that fans, the lifeblood of a team, own a part of that team… I don’t like the idea of it being owned by someone whose only interest in it is money, buying up the shares of people who bought them for reasons that had nothing to do with money.”
“I have been a member of the family called the Arsenal for 75 years,” says Jeffrey Freeman. “..It upsets me that one man can decide the destiny of the Arsenal, can accrue all the benefits of ownership himself, especially given that he does not regularly attend games. Does he have the interests of the Arsenal at heart?.. By taking them, Kroenke has bought the body of the club. The heart, though, will always evade him. The heart will always belong to the fans.”
Arsenal fans will get their Arsenal back one day – but for now it’s the property of Mr Walmart.
Posted: 19th, October 2018 | In: Arsenal, Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Fugitive Daley Smith lets Madeleine McCann do his PR
Daley Smith is getting to be quite famous. On the run from police, Daley Smith has now upped his game by comparing his escape to the police search for Madeleine McCann. On Facebook, Smith says he’s going to throw a party when he reaches the milestone of 100 days at large. It’s been 88 and counting. But this is about the media’s favourite missing child, and the Sun says, “Smith has sparked fury with his sick posts about Madeleine McCann”. Do we need to hear the man’s sickness? Apparently, yes. He is “claiming: ‘It’s my personal opinion that her mum and dad covered the whole thing up’.” If the police don’t get him, doorstepping journalists, internet trolls or the McCanns’ lawyers might. (Just to state: the McCanns are not suspects.)
And now he’s added to the sickness with a poem:
“Cheshire police have got more chance of finding Madeleine Mcann [sic], I may as well be in Japan, they’ve even been harassing my nan, but everything hasn’t gone to plan. They’ve fucked with the wrong man, I feel like Peter Pan. So far I don’t know how far I’ve ran, but it’s been mad since this Journey began.”
Daley, who has been charged with possession with intent to supply class B cannabis and concerned with the supply of cocaine, according to police, seems fully aware of how using Madeleine McCann can further his own career, such as it is. Last night his account featured this ‘sick joke’:
Speech bubble ours
That message was posted after Smith found a message from someone claiming to represent ‘Kennedy News’. All the photos in the Sun’s story carry the ‘Kennedy News and Media’ watermark, which seems odd given that you can see the same images for free on Facebook.
Madeleine McCann is missing. Daley James Smith is in the papers, on tour and on Facebook.
Posted: 18th, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
The Civilian Action Trining Program protects Snowflake police from bad words and thoughts
Objects in the mirror are more heavily armed and prone to ruin your life than they appear
When men and women are added to the every-growing list of “protected characteristics” that can make you the victim of a hate crime, we wondered if every group was now deemed special? Like the cosseted child of helicopter parents, our governments see us as victims-in-waiting, vulnerable and in constant need of their supervision, direction and protection. (How they fear us.)
And now you can add police to the list. The State’s enforcers are sensitive types who can be triggered by you thinking and saying mean things. Compliance is all. Officer Snowflake demands it.
To Texas, then, where the “Civilian Interaction Training Program”, a project of the Texas Commission On Law Enforcement, is teaching children how to be nice to police. As Boing Boing says, “Reviewing these training materials is mandatory for anyone hoping to receive a diploma from a Texas high school.” Compliance is all in the era of total control:
Madeleine McCann stars in a sick Facebook quiz and audience growth campaign
Madeleine McCann: a look at reporting on the missing child. The Daily Record directs our gaze towards a Facebook Post we’re pretty sure nearly everyone missed. Lots of children whose names you will be more familiar with are mentioned in a post on a page run by the “Savage Banter Casuals”. Says the Mirror:
Paige Doherty and Milly Dowler among child murder victims mocked by ‘banter’ Facebook post.
And then more savage banter:
Madeline McCann, Kriss Donald, Holly Wells, Jessica Chapman and Keith Bennett are included in the so called ‘humorous’ social media quizz.
Best to stick with the tabloidese ‘Maddie’
That, of course, is Madeleine McCann and a ‘quiz’. It’s always bet to spell a missing child’s name correctly. But when you’re incandescent with rage, mistakes are easy to make. Thanks to the Record reading an obscure Facebook post, we get to know of a “sick and vile” Facebook quiz “making fun of child murder victims” that “has been revealed”. That’s “revealed” as in ‘read’. And also seen: “The face of each child was photoshopped on top of the English football team, with the caption: ‘Sunday night quiz, name the full 11’.”
The Record reproduces the photo:
The sick quiz
And then the paper helps quizzers with the correct answers. Spoiler alert!
Clockwise, starting from the top left, the tragic kids being mocked in the post are: Madeleine McCann , Tia Sharp, Paige Doherty (pictured twice), Steven Lawrence, Milly Dowler, Kriss Donald, Sarah Payne, Jessica Chapman, Keith Bennett and Holly Wells.
If you don’t want to know the answers, look away now.
We then get a small story of each horrific case, and hear from Disgusted of Facebook telling us it’s “disgusting using murdered children’s faces as a joke”. Adding:
The post has now been removed and page administrators have apologised for causing offence.
So the Facebook page is not all that “savage” then. It’s actually just adolescent, sad and apologetic.
In other news, the Daily Mirror’s “Audience Growth Editor” hits the web with a story: “The Cry author says Madeleine McCann case DID inspire BBC drama.”
The scene where they react to Noah no longer being in the car prompted many viewers to compare the the show to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
Madeleine McCann went missing from her bed in a real-life horror show. Noah was made up.
In 2007, four-year-old Maddie disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal sparking a huge media campaign to find her, that’s still ongoing to this day.
Not so much. It’s more of a police investigation than a media campaign. But, sure, the media did turn the single-thread story of an innocent missing child into ‘Our Maddie’, “every parent’s worst nightmare”.
The Cry author told The Herald about the inspiration for her work in a story headlined “The Cry author Helen FitzGerald on how real-life heartache inspired BBC drama”:
THERE is a moment in the first episode of new Sunday night drama The Cry when Jenna Coleman’s character, a washed-out new mother weighed down with baby, buggy and bags, struggles up the steps of her tenement flat.
“I watched it thinking – my God, that was my life,” marvels Glasgow author Helen FitzGerald, upon whose novel the new series is based.
Yes, indeed – author bases work of fiction on own life’s experiences, ideas and thoughts. Who knew? But will that help “audience growth” as much as zooming in on the Maddie McCanna angle? As the Mirror works out which missing child gets the most clicks (who needs Facebook for “sick” stuff?), we learn that like The Cry, FitzGerald’s life was set in Australia, what with her having been born there.
Australian-born FitzGerald, author of a string of successful thrillers, is certain the roots of her novel – which has been adapted by screenwriter Jacqueline Perske – lie [sic] in her experience of new motherhood.
And Madeleine McCann, right? After 15 paragraphs of how her own life shaped her work, we finally reach the Mirror’s headline news:
FitzGerald, now 52, was a teenager in Australia in 1980 when Lindy Chamberlain was wrongfully convicted of murdering her nine-week-old daughter. She claimed she saw a dingo leave the tent where Azaria was sleeping, during a family camping holiday…
In 2007, four-year-old Madeleine McCann vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal’s Praia da Luz, sparking another high profile media campaign in which accusations were levelled at Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry.
Adding:
“I saw Lindy speaking on television to the McCanns, giving them support and I thought – what a terrible community this is, what an awful thing by which to be bound together.”
She adds: “I have always believed both of them. But thinking about their cases made me wonder – what kind of couple would get away with something like this? What would have to be going on behind the scenes in that relationship?”
And on motherhood:
“Does anyone remember Mr Chamberlain’s name?” she says, wryly. “Lindy was incredibly naïve and open and just had no clue, and she got slaughtered by the media. Her case was really the first example of trial by television.
“Women are always the target, especially when babies are involved. No matter how much we talk about parental or gender equality, that’s what happens.”
Actually, no. We can’t recall his name. Maybe that can be a quiz question? But he’s called Gerry McCann. But, then, he’s not the inspiration for the book and the TV drama as such as Lindy Chamberlain’s story was.
Spoiler: Lindy Chamberlain’s husband was Michael Chamberlain.
Fact: Madeleine McCann is missing. There are no suspects. If you know what happened to her, call the police. Please don’t speculate here.
Posted: 15th, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Princess Margaret’s absurd morning rituals were ‘such fun’
In 1955, Princess Margaret shared with the world her morning routine. The Queen’s chain-smoking sister’s regimented daily habits, with her “punishing schedule of drinking and smoking”, were revealed in Ma’am Darling by the satirist Craig Brown. “For a while,” writes Brown, Princess Margaret “glued matchboxes to tumblers so that she could strike matches while drinking, but it was a craze that never caught on.’ But worse than her fabled rudeness – an “unstoppable urge to say the first thing that came into her head, just so long as it was sufficiently unpleasant” – and vapid weltschmerz of her rank in life, were the sycophants. As Brown notes:
Receiving a prize from the young Princess Margaret in 1958, the 52-year-old John Betjeman was so overwhelmed by her curvaceous presence that tears came into his eyes, a reaction duly noted by his waspish friend, Maurice Bowra, the chairman of the judges, who lampooned it in a parodic verse:
“Green with lust and sick with shyness
Let me lick your lacquered toes.
Gosh, O gosh, your Royal Highness
Put your finger up my nose …”
Mingling with the obsequious is wonderful, but the morning’s were peak princess:
Princess Margaret’s morning routine c 1955. Yassgirl. pic.twitter.com/YbCAvhtfMC
— Gareth Roberts MA (Failed) (@OldRoberts953) October 20, 2017
They really are not like the rest of us. As JG Ballard noted in Princess Margaret’s Facelift: “Somewhere in this paradoxical space our imaginations are free to range, and we find ourselves experimenting like impresarios with all the possibilities that these magnified figures seem to offer us.” As Mags would say through a tight mouth, her sarcastic eyes a small sign of life amongst the panto Munsters, “Such fun!”
Posted: 15th, October 2018 | In: Books, Key Posts, Royal Family | Comment
Rick Stein is missing: the greatest obituary to a man of mystery
The News Journal’s obituary for Rick Stein is something to remember. Mr Stein was a cancer patient at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
When medics went to check on him, they discovered him gone. CCTV footage shows him leaving the hospital at 3:30pm – “but then the video feed mysteriously cuts off. Authorities say they believe Stein took an Uber to the Philadelphia airport where they assume he somehow gained access to the aircraft…
“Rick Stein, 71, of Wilmington was reported missing and presumed dead on September 27, 2018 when investigators say the single-engine plane he was piloting, The Northrop, suddenly lost communication with air traffic control and disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Rehoboth Beach.”
“The sea was angry that day,” says NTSB lead investigator Greg Fields in a press conference. “We have no idea where Mr. Stein may be, but any hope for a rescue is unlikely.”
And then it gets spellbindingly brilliant:
His daughter, Alex Walsh of Wilmington appeared shocked by the news. “My dad couldn’t even fly a plane. He owned restaurants in Boulder, Colorado and knew every answer on Jeopardy. He did the New York Times crossword in pen. I talked to him that day and he told me he was going out to get some grappa. All he ever wanted was a glass of grappa.”
Stein’s brother, Jim echoed similar confusion. “Rick and I owned Stuart Kingston Galleries together. He was a jeweler and oriental rug dealer, not a pilot.” Meanwhile, Missel Leddington of Charlottesville claimed her brother was a cartoonist and freelance television critic for the New Yorker.
David Walsh, Stein’s son-in-law, said he was certain Stein was a political satirist for the Huffington Post while grandsons Drake and Sam said they believed Stein wrote an internet sports column for ESPN covering Duke basketball, FC Barcelona soccer, the Denver Broncos and the Tour de France. Stein’s granddaughter Evangeline claims he was a YouTube sensation who had just signed a seven-figure deal with Netflix.
When told of his uncle’s disappearance, Edward Stein said he was baffled since he believed Stein worked as a trail guide in Rocky Mountain National Park. “He took me on a hike up the Lily Peak Trail back in the 90s. He knew every berry, bush and tree on that trail.” Nephew James Stein of Los Angeles claimed his uncle was an A&R consultant for Bad Boy records and ran a chain of legal recreational marijuana dispensaries in Colorado called Casablunta. Niece Courtney Stein, a former Hollywood agent, said her uncle had worked as a contributing writer for Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm and was currently consulting on a new series with Larry David.
People who knew Stein have reported his occupation as everything from gourmet chef and sommelier to botanist, electrician, mechanic and even spy novelist. Police say the volume of contradictory information will make it nearly impossible to pinpoint Stein’s exact location.
In fact, the only person who might be able to answer the question, who is the real Rick Stein is his wife and constant companion for the past 14 years, Susan Stein. Detectives say they were unable to interview Mrs. Stein, however neighbors say they witnessed her leaving the home the couple shared wearing dark sunglasses and a fedora, loading multiple suitcases into her car. FAA records show she purchased a pair of one-way tickets to Rome which was Mr. Stein’s favorite city. An anonymous source with the airline reports the name used to book the other ticket was Juan Morefore DeRoad, which, according to the FBI, was an alias Stein used for many years.
And: “That is one story”:
Another story is that Rick never left the hospital and died peacefully with his wife and his daughter holding tightly to his hands.
You can choose which version you want to believe or share your own story about Rick with us at the Greenville Country Club on Friday, November 9, 2018 from 3:00-6:00pm.
For online condolences, please visit www.chandlerfuneralhome.com.
Posted: 13th, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Gay Cake bakers rejoice: Supreme Court say bakery was right to refuse to make gay wedding cake
Gay cake haters are cock-a-hoop, moreover Gay Cakes R Us, which can now own the market in gay cakes. The UK supreme court has sided with the bakers in a row over their right to refuse to decorate a cake with a pro-gay marriage – a political message – for a customer who wanted them to. Things kicked off in 2014 when Ashers, a Belfast bakery run by evangelical Christians, declined gay man Gareth Lee’s request to produce a cake carrying the order “Support Gay Marriage”.
Belfast county court and the Court of appeal had earlier ruled that Ashers discriminated against Lee on the grounds of sexual orientation. In 2016, Lee, a gay-rights activist, was supported in his case by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland. Ashers was no longer a private business providing non-essential goods and services, a family-run store free to discriminate in its private choices, but a public cause. In the new hierarchy of ideas and morals, sexual orientation held more sway than religious conviction.
Now the five judges on the Supreme Court have decided that Asher’s were not bothered by Lee’s homosexuality. That’s not why they refused to fill his order. There was no discrimination on those grounds.
“It is deeply humiliating, and an affront to human dignity, to deny someone a service because of that person’s race, gender, disability, sexual orientation or any of the other protected personal characteristics,” Judge Hale said in the judgment. “But that is not what happened in this case and it does the project of equal treatment no favours to seek to extend it beyond its proper scope.”
The court pointed to freedom of expression, as guaranteed by article 10 of the European convention on human rights, which says we have the right “not to express an opinion which one does not hold”. Hale says “nobody should be forced to have or express a political opinion in which he does not believe. The bakers could not refuse to supply their goods to Mr Lee because he was a gay man or supported gay marriage but that is quite different from obliging them to supply a cake iced with a message with which they profoundly disagreed.”
It’s a triumph for tolerance, then. We can reject ideas. But it might not end there because Lee is reportedly considering appealing to the European court of human rights in Strasbourg. And I’m off to the kosher deli to order my ‘Holohoax’ almond ring.
Your Facebook account hasn’t been cloned
There’s an old concept called chain mail. There’s nothing actually to it at all, it’s just that a letter contains the message “pass it on.” Thus it gets passed on until everyone has had multiple copies of it. The older versions always used to die out because it cost actual, real, money to send letters. In an age when we can reach hundreds, or thousands, in moments and at zero cost there’s a greater likelihood of that sending on. This is what is happening here with this Facebook message:
A hoax message on Facebook is being spread that warns users their account has been cloned.
The fake warning is being spread due to its chain mail format with the message encouraging those who receive it to pass it on to more users.
No one’s even making anything out of this. There’s no malicious code contained, this doesn’t lead on to phishing or anything. It just makes people panic and the originators get to look and laugh as they do:
The hoax message reads: “Hi….I actually got another friend request from you yesterday…which I ignored so you may want to check your account.
“Hold your finger on the message until the forward button appears…then hit forward and all the people you want to forward too….I had to do the people individually. Good Luck!”
It’s that pass it on to all your friends part which makes it replicate. But thankfully that is all it does, replicate:
A range of similar messages have spread across Facebook in recent months, including similar posts about making sure that posts appear in your feed. It’s not clear why such hoax messages begin, since there is nothing really to be gained by starting one, though they have been going on for decades in the form of chain letters.
Quite so. There’s nothing to this at all. Other than the flood of messages themselves, nowt to worry about. Just delete them – and don’t, don’t send it on. There’s just something about us humans which makes us prey to this sort of thing. It’s of no matter, merely slightly boring.
Posted: 10th, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Technology | Comment
Innocence unproven in the Brett Kavanaugh witch hunt
Can you tell the difference between real life and fiction? One is messy, complex and unpredictable. The other is written to a script, an idealised version of things built to entertain and reach a satisfying climax. Slate, the online magazine, has watched the Brett Kavanaugh witch hunt and come up with the headline: “No One Could Be Further From Atticus Finch – Defenders of Brett Kavanaugh liken themselves to the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird. That’s appalling.”
To Kill a Mockingbird is a work of fiction. Atticus Finch was never an actual person. No-one made up Brett Kavanaugh, and if they did the only ponderable would be: why did they bother.
Yesterday, Kavanaugh was worn in as a Supreme Court justice. At the signing in shindig, Donald Trump said Kavanaugh was “proven innocent” of allegations of sexual assault. The Guardian calls that a “baseless claim”. Of course it is. You don’t need to prove yourself innocent, unless it really is a witch hunt in which case you die trying. Said Trump of his man:
“On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure. Those who step forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation, not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception.What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency, and due process. Our country, a man or woman must always be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”
And that’s it. End of. Christine Blasey Ford made for a compelling and credible accuser when she claimed Kavanaugh had at age 17 and she 15 pinned her to a bed, placed his hand over her mouth, groped her and tried to remove her clothes. He denied it all in a testimony that was no less compelling and credible. The world’s richest country became transfixed and frozen as two adults debated what they did and didn’t do as teenagers in the 1980s. What was worrying was that to question Ford’s story, to ask for evidence, to wonder why she never told the police, a friend, her family, and to look for witnesses to corroborate her story was heresy. We were told to “believe” her. We should do this because she is a woman. But women can lie, right, forget or misremember.
To believe without evidence was to support victims of sexual violence, we were told, and say #timesup to the oppressors. To believe the anti-abortionist Kavanaugh or seek facts and evidence was to advocate rape and misogyny.
Kavanaugh wasn’t proven innocence. Trump’s a berk for saying he was. But to believe without question, to assume guilt on the strength of a single word is to undo democracy. But if you still want Kavanaugh lynched, let’s hark back to another era in American history were one group were always believed:
In 1931, a fight occurred between black and white boys on a freight train traveling through the town of Scottsboro, Alabama. The police rounded up all black boys riding on the train and ultimately arrested nine black boys, ranging in ages from 12 to 19 years old. Two white girls then came forward alleging that they were gang raped on the train. All nine defendants claimed innocence. After four separate one-day trials with all-white juries, eight of the nine were convicted and sentenced to death.
Their appeals would last over 20 years. On re-trial, one of the rape victims testified that the rape was fabricated, yet all-white juries again returned guilty verdicts. In the end, after facing multiple re-trials, all of the Scottsboro boys had their convictions dropped or were sentenced to lesser charges.
Believe without question? Check your bias at the door and consider the facts.
Daily Telegraph pay: Boris Johnson promotes gender equality to deadline
You can read Boris Johnson’s thoughts in the Daily Telegraph. The Tory MP’s column earns him around £5,000 a week. The paper marks them as ‘Premium’ stories on its website. If you want to read them all you have to pay. Or you can read them on his Facebook page for free. This week, Johnson pitches himself on the side of girls. The article is entitled: “Put a sock in it men: It’s time to end the global injustices and bigotry towards women.” It’s the kind of article any newly single man whose been caught cheating on his long suffering wife, as Johnson allegedly has, will think a good way to pull the birds.
On Facebook, Johnson’s publishes the following for free:
When a mighty dam is about to burst it does not just collapse in one explosive roar; it first springs a leak. A jet of water shoots from the crack, and then another crack appears and another horizontal fountain of foam; and as the whole vast curtain of masonry finally begins to tremble the onlookers behold the valley beneath and wonder who and what will be in the path of the billions of pent-up gallons as they are released from their captivity.
That is roughly how it feels today as we watch these extraordinary feminist movements like #MeToo, and the frenzy surrounding the nomination of judge Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. We have a sense of the welling emotion behind these phenomena. We feel the rage at decades, centuries, millennia of complacency and injustice. We see women and men uniting to call for a change of attitudes, for a new and progressive sensibility…
What can possibly have triggered Johnson’s fire? One clue comes via Private Eye, which notes that the Telegraph’s new digital MD is one Dora Michail. Her twitter profile includes a rainbow flag. And recent retweets and tweets give a clue to her agenda, which takes in ‘tackling discrimination and promoting gender equality with an intersectional approach’:
So there’s Boris Johnson’s column on his drive to tackle gender equality. Fee for the social justice warrior’s wisdom: £260,000 a year. In next week’s column Boris says: ‘Time to go, Theresa May, and give a bloke a chance…’
Posted: 8th, October 2018 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, Politicians | Comment
Manchester United balls: Pogba saves sacked Mourinho
Can the Daily Mirror reassess the quality of its “Manchester United” insiders” who were “convinced” Jose Mourinho was going to be sacked last weekend? The paper leads with United’s 3-2 win over an average Newcastle side lacking in top talent, hailing it as a “stay of execution”. The comeback from 0-2 down “papered over the cracks”.
David McDonnell saw United play for 70 minutes “without spark or purpose”. They were “abject”. But “from somewhere deep within themselves”, the players stirred for a “staggering Fergie-like 20-minute comeback”. It was a “miracle”. No word on Mourinho’s role in the resurgence. Not a peep about what the manager might have done at half-time to reform his side trialing by two goals. And nothing said on the Mirror’s story, as told by one David McDonell, that Mourinho is today looking for a new job.
Daily Mirror knows
As the Mirror memory holes the words “Mourinho Jose Mourinho set to be sacked this WEEKEND whatever Manchester United’s result vs Newcastle”, the Sun has its own exclusive. The Sun is the paper that has cheered longest and loudest for Mourinho. The team might be dull, but to the Sun it’s all part of the “RED-OLUTION”.
The Sun loves Jose
And so to the day’s scoop: “HOW POGBA SAVED JOSE”. The want-away midfielder saved Mourinho, how? “He told boss best way to spark fightback.” Pogba Tip 1: Tell Juan Mata to score direct from a free kick. Mata scores! The trust is less poetic. We hear that Mourinho listened to his players at half time. Pogba suggested a “deeper role for himself and brining on Fellaini”. Genius. Bring on the hairy elbow and lob it up into the mixer.
Mourinho tells everyone that he and the team chatted for 10 minutes about this and that at half time. To seasoned Mourinho watchers this might look like the manager trying to exculpate himself from the mess. But to the Sun’s it’s honest Jose binding the team and securing victory. It “showed how they could all work together”. It also showed that Newcastle United – six defeats from eight played; two draws – can’t hang on to a two goal lead.
But as Jose and Pog hug in the Sun, the Mail says Pogba wants to leave regardless of Mourinho’s future. Looks like the miracle will only last if plucky minnows United can play huge-spending Newcastle at home every week…
Posted: 8th, October 2018 | In: Back pages, Key Posts, manchester united, Sports, Tabloids | Comment
Manchester United balls: Mourinho sacked when noodle deal goes cold
That the Press have no idea what Manchester United’s moneymen will do about Jose Mourinho is no clearer than in the BBC’s news that the club “could” sack the draining Portuguese “if his side lose to Newcastle United on Saturday”. Could and if are not news. But the Sun goes further. It says senior boardroom figures have lost faith in Mourinho. No names are revealed. No boardroom suit has given the rumours of top-level discord a face.
Are they upset by Mourinho’s dire man-management of Paul Pogba, Luke Shaw, Anthony Martial, Antonio Valencia, Phil Jones, Marcus Rashford and Eric Bailly? Before he criticised those current members of the United squad in public, Mourinho sniped at Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Bastian Schweinsteiger, although of the later he did say, “He’s in the category of players that I feel sorry for something I did to him.”
Or are the suits voicing dissent over the dull style of play and poor results? Most likely they’re fretting about sponsors. Under the Glazers, United are a brand for hire. Mourinho, like Pogba, was recruited for his market appeal. Mourinho’s the man with a range of perfumes, whose name was licensed for Jose Mourinho briefcases and umbrellas. Jaguar and Hublot have paid big money for Mourinho to advertise their stuff. As one Times writer notes, the Glazers’ yes man, Ed Woodward, “can nail a noodle deal but not provide any heavyweight footballing guidance or astute succession planning.”
If Mourinho is deemed to have lost his cache in the luxury goods arena, he’s toast. If it’s all abut football, why did United ever hire the man whose teams are set out to pinch a goal and hang on? Sack the suits, right, for neglecting Manchester United’s footballing history.
But who if not Mourinho?
The BBC says Mauricio Pochettino is “Manchester United owner Ed Woodward’s preferred candidate”. The reporting is shockingly bad.
And over in the Manchester Evening News, we learn that when Zinedine Zidane was at Real Madrid, he was an admirer of David De Gea, Paul Pogba and Anthony Martial. So much did he admire them that moneybags Real never recruited any of the trio. But they all play for United and Zidane’s between jobs, so the story must be that the great Frenchman wants to take over at United – noodle deal permitting.
Posted: 5th, October 2018 | In: Back pages, Key Posts, manchester united, Sports | Comment
Free speech for Jew haters: Mahathir Mohamad addresses Oxford University students
Is Mahathir Mohamad a fan of Katie Hopkins, the rent-a-gob former Mail columnist and LBC radio presenter? Both seem to have missed the memo from Josef Mengele, the Nazi who when not dreaming up new ways to murder Jews in his lab was measuring Jews’ anatomy to check for nose size. It turned out that despite Nazi propaganda painting Jews as hook-nosed freaks, Jew noses were no different in dimension to the Aryan master race’s. So when Hopkins reportedly says “I got the nose but not the Jewish bit, which is shit” and Mohamed, the Malaysian prime minister, states that all Jews are “hook-nosed”, you might think they’re harking back to anti-Semitic tropes. You might also get the feeling that the sighting of “Jew noses” is not meant as a compliment, but intended to other the Israelites and mark out Jews as, well, “shit”.
Hopkins is no longer a regular presence on the mainstream British media. But you can catch Mohamad on the Beeb and on stage during his tour of the UK. He’s a lovely bloke. Not in the least bit of an anti-Semitic bastard. “If you are going to be truthful, the problem in the Middle East began with the creation of Israel,” he opined knowingly on BBC’s Hard Talk, pointing to those fabled pre-Israel lands flowing with the milk and honey of human comradeship [see the Bible, Islamic history, the big book of beheadings and the Horrible Histories series for children]. That is the truth. But I cannot say that.” He also knows that 4 million not 6 million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust – which means 2 million dead Jews are liars, so too the ones who mourn them.
Not that the bigger figure is not without its appeal:
“1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews,” he said at the Organization of the Islamic Conference summit in 2003 in Kuala Lumpur. “There must be a way. And we can only find a way if we stop to think, to assess our weaknesses and our strength, to plan, to strategize and then to counterattack. We are actually very strong. 1.3 billion people cannot be simply wiped out. The Europeans killed six million Jews out of 12 million.”
He “wrote on his personal blog in 2012 that ‘Jews rule this world by proxy,” The Associated Press reported’.
But why read the case notes when you can catch him live? The man who says he’s “proud” to be called an anti-Semite appeared at Oxford University’s Islamic Centre, Imperial College and Chatham House. Good to see universities are not full of snowflakes after all – at least those sensitive students didn’t issue a ‘no platform’ decree when Jew-baiters and Jew haters are delivering the address…
Posted: 4th, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Manchester United players betrayed Mourinho – it’s Chelsea 2015 all over again
Is Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho looking to be sacked? Asked how his team are responding to a poor run of results, he told media “some [players] care more than others”. Which players are actors only pretending to care? He won’t say. Does he think his job’s on the line? “No.”
“Every player is different, no player is the same,” said Mourinho apropos of something self-serving. “I see different actions but what you see is not really inside. I see upset people, some people that don’t look like they lost a game. I see so-so but in the little two sessions of training we had [since Saturday] everything was normal, desire to work and play.”
Can anything be done? Yes, says Mourinho: “What I can do to improve things I do, and I will improve the things that depend on me and my work.” Got that? Now hark back to his departure from Chelsea – the second time he was sacked by the Blues – when he told media in December 2015 following defeat to Leicester City:
“The only thing I can say is that I want to be. I have no doubts and I think you know me well enough, three years this time, plus three years another time, that I am not afraid of a big challenge, and in this moment this is a real big challenge. I want to stay, I hope Mr Abramovich and the board want me to stay.”
See a pattern? What about now:
“My board, my club I don’t think it’s right that I go to them and say these players are not good, we need to spend £50m or £100m or whatever, I don’t think it’s fair. We have these players and it’s with these players we have to go. The players that are not performing well, they must feel attacked in their pride and their self-esteem and they have to do everything to get results in a humble way.”
And his main point:
“I feel my work is betrayed. I worked four days in training for this match. I identified four movements where Leicester score a lot of their goals and in two of the four situations I identified they scored their goals. I went through it all with the players, you can ask them.”
Don’t blame Mourinho. He’s not changed. He’s certainly not improved. Just wonder what the Manchester United board who recruited him thought they were getting.
Posted: 1st, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, manchester united, Sports | Comment
Elon Musk got off lightly – Tesla is damaged
There will be, from the fan boys, screeches and wails of discrimination over this decision to fine Elon Musk. They’ll be right too, this is discrimination, wholly in favour of Elon Musk and Tesla. For he most certainly did mislead the markets, a serious financial crime, and there’s a very good argument that he should have been punished much more than he was. The Securities and Exchange Commission could have insisted that he entirely remove himself from the management of a listed company – that would have been extreme perhaps but it was possible.
Elon Musk: trust me I’m a car dealer
As has been pointed out before, Musk should have been punished for what he did:
Insofar as (a) is concerned: LSD? Lack of sleep? Impending mental breakdown? Or was there something more desperately Machiavellian about it? Regardless, I can’t think of an explanation that bodes well for Tesla.
With regards to (b). It is so blindingly obvious now (and should have been from word one) that his announcement Tweets were materially false. They had large impacts on the price of Tesla stock. They followed years of other dubious announcements, both on Twitter and in SEC filings and investor disclosures. If the SEC lets this slide it will make a mockery of the securities laws, and suggest that there are different standards for some people.
So, what really is that he did? Well, his actual tweet was along these lines:
The fraud allegation relates to his August tweet in which Mr Musk said he was considering taking electronic car maker Tesla off the stock market and into private ownership.
He wrote he had “funding secured” for the proposal, which would value Tesla at $420 per share. Shares in the company briefly rose after his announcement, but later fell again.
Effectively, he announced that someone was going to buy all Tesla shares at that $420. This, not unsurprisingly, made the price of Tesla shares rise to close to that $420. The problem being that it wasn’t true, he didn’t have a buyer. That’s misleading the markets.
Elon Musk, the billionaire technology entrepreneur, will step down as chairman of the electric car company Tesla and pay a £15 million fine to settle fraud charges.
And that’s the punishment. But there are those who think it’s a pretty light one:
Elon Musk just dodged a bullet. It’s Tesla that bears the scars.
Just a couple of days after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Tesla Inc.’s chairman and CEO – an action he described as “unjustified” – Musk has settled. Without admitting wrongdoing in connection with his bizarre claims of having teed up a buyout of the company in August, Musk will pay a fine of $20 million and relinquish the position of chairman for at least three years.
Given the apparent strength of the SEC’s complaint, with so much evidence typed and broadcast by Musk’s own hand, this surely counts as a win for him. The fine is immaterial compared to the $8.9 billion value of his stake in Tesla. Crucially, he has avoided the ban on being an officer of a public company, as the SEC was seeking.
It could have been so much more and it wasn’t – yes, that’s a win. Well, a win after having done something so ridiculously stupid as having sent the tweet in the first place.
Posted: 1st, October 2018 | In: Key Posts, News, Technology | Comment
Madeleine McCann: Gerry’s tears, Pope is religious and Maddie is missing
Did you tune in to BBC Radio 4 show on fathers and daughters to hear Madeleine McCann’s father, Gerry McCann, as he “weeps uncontrollably”, as the Daily Star says he did? TV loves tears, from cake baking shows to pro-celebrity dance contests, no broadcast is complete without a close up of someone crying. But does it work for radio? In “MADDIE DAD BREAKDOWN” the Star leads with Gerry McCann saying how he “believed in heaven”. The man who along with his wife, Kate McCann, met the Pope when the hunt for his daughter was in full cry, is religious. Want more news?
The front-page story continues on Page 5. The Star’s editorial says “Gerry McCann’s heartbreak over missing Madeleine must touch every parent’s heart… Listeners will have sobbed along with Gerry as his tears flowed.” All of them? Having spent 11 years watching the parents and now listening to them, many people will be interested in the actual investigation and what happened to an innocent child? Well, the Star says the Metropolitan Police should get more cash because “we may be looking for a serial offender” and “it could be money well spent”. May. Could. Reporting on the disappearance of a missing child continues to be sensationalist and speculative.
The Mirror also leads with Madeleine McCann, and news that Gerry “dreams of hugging” her again. Over pages 4 and 5, we’re told Gerry McCann wholeheartedly believes his daughter is alive – “a view backed up up by Scotland Yard’s plea for more funds to probe the mystery.” What plea? There has been some newspaper talk of funds running low and police considering applying for more. Indeed, the Star says there is a “debate” over whether police will request more funds or not. If there is a plea for money – and does Scotland Yard plea or merely ‘apply’? – the Mirror has no details about it. It would be useful to know what progress police think will be made with more fund.
Daily Star
The Sun picks up the radio broadcast, and pretty much transcribes the whole thing:
“I couldn’t get the darkest thoughts out of our minds, that somebody had taken her and abused her. I remember just being in the bedroom – the two of us just completely distraught. It was almost feral, the reaction and the pain, feeling helpless, alone.”
And amid the pain and the emotion, the Sun surmises the story so far:
“A number of potential leads have emerged since the little girl vanished, but none amounted to anything and no arrests have ever been made.”
Can you arrest anyone when all you know is that a child vanished?
This is the BBC’s story, and it’s useful to see their take on it:
Madeleine, then aged three, disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in 2007, sparking a worldwide search for her whereabouts.
A search stoked by a media feeding frenzy.
Mr McCann was speaking to BBC Radio 4 for a programme about the relationship between fathers and daughters. He said that he was sure immediately that his daughter had been abducted.
After being told by his wife Kate that their daughter was missing, Mr McCann said “automation kicked in” and he began searching the apartment.
“We started searching more widely really quickly and then very quickly raised the alarm,” he said.
“You’re in this quiet little holiday resort – that seemed idyllic – out of season and I certainly didn’t speak Portuguese so I asked [our friend] Matt to go to reception and ask them to call the police.”
…
“I couldn’t get the darkest thoughts out of our minds, that somebody had taken her and abused her,” he continued.
“I felt that every moment that we couldn’t find her was worse.
“I remember being slumped on the floor and starting to call some of my family members and just saying: ‘Pray for her.'”
And the “plea” for money:
The Home Office said last week it is currently considering a police request for an extra six months’ funding for Operation Grange.
Such are the facts.
Posted: 30th, September 2018 | In: Key Posts, Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids | Comment
Hate crime: Julia Hartley-Brewer defiled sacred safe space at Labour conference
You don’t have to like Julia Hartley-Brewer to be on her side in a story about safe spaces. Disability News Service (DNS) says Labour Party members want the LBC presenter disciplined by her employers and banned from future events because she criticised safe spaces. Labour says Julia Hartley-Brewer’s opinion that safe spaces are for “snowflakes” “caused considerable distress” to Labour delegates. She posted a video of her sat in a safe space “put aside for disabled people and others who need a quiet area for impairment-related and other reasons”. She said “boo” when a colleague with a camera entered the room. Hartley-Brewer then tweeted: “Comrades, if you’re feeling triggered at the Labour Party conference, don’t worry, we’ve found the official #SafeSpace…”
Comrades, if you’re feeling triggered at the Labour Party conference, don’t worry, we’ve found the official #SafeSpace… #Lab2018 @talkRADIO pic.twitter.com/ssoJRpfvrJ
— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) September 24, 2018
This mocking of safe spaces – places for contemplation that used to be called the toilet cubicle, stationery cupboard, library or car – left one delegate feeling “humiliated and violated”. She approached the Disability Labour stand and “just burst into tears, shaking with anger and rage”. She intends to report the incident to the police “as a potential disability hate crime”. A campaigner calls it “nothing less than a hate crime against disabled people”. Disabled people who have fought hard to be seen as resilient, spirited and capable might recoil at this portrayal of them as needy and fragile, reliant on the police and censors to counter different opinions. Another says Hartley-Brewer defiled the safe space, which can no longer be called a safe space, presumably because infidels have touched the sacred ground.
Hartley-Brewer adds in a tweet: “I’m told that this ‘safe space’ at Labour conference is meant for people with autism and other disabilities. The sign doesn’t say that. For the avoidance of doubt, there was no intention to upset disabled people, but every intention to upset snowflakes. Hope that clarifies.”
All it clarifies is that a woman voiced an opinion some other people don’t like, and now seek to turn into a crime – an actual criminal offence as dictated by a society defined by a desire to find and coset the victim in each of us.
Posted: 28th, September 2018 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment
They might be Her-oes: the trans debate is valid
Being a woman is easy. All that suffrage stuff was bunkum. The penis and the womb make no impact on our life experiences. You just need a dress, some heels, a wig and the mantra “I am a woman” to be one of them. That’s it. It’s why Philip Bunce, a married father of two and a director at Credit Suisse appears on the list topped ‘Top 100 Women in Business’. He is, according to the list compiled by the Financial Times as one of the “Her-oes” doing their bit for gender equality. Philip is one of those “female executives who have made a difference to women’s careers”
Philip, who alternates between Pippa, his female alter-ego, says he is “gender fluid” and “non-binary.”
All the newspapers focus on the upset caused by Mr Bunce making the cut. There is “outrage” (Mirror, Sun) and “anger” (Times). Let’s all agree, good for Mr Bunce. He can dress how he likes and call himself what he pleases. He’s evidently talented, reasoned, authentic and bright, and his gender fluidity has no impact on his ability to do a demanding job. In 2015, he wrote in the FT:
… there is a real value in allowing employees to bring their authentic selves to work, whether they be gender variant, gay, women, Sikh or simply eccentric. Companies are beginning to understand such openness increases employee engagement, discretionary effort and productivity while developing an inclusive culture within the workplace that benefits retention and recruitment… As Oscar Wilde said: “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”
Of course, if he’s in the Top 100, it means the woman at 101 isn’t. And that’s the root of all that “anger”. The anger is good because it’s form of free speech and actual open debate. And the people who are angry are also erudite and considered. Kiri Tunks, co-founder of Woman’s Place UK, tells the Times: “This makes a mockery of women and their achievements and begs the question does Bunce simultaneously feature in top 100 male executives and if not, what were his particular achievements as a woman to merit inclusion in the female list?” And:
Kristina Harrison, an LGBT activist who was born male but transitioned 20 years said ago, she would never accept a place on an all-women shortlist as it was “insulting” to women who faced different challenges. “Being a woman is not a costume you can put on, on some days and not on others. The idea that you can become a woman by donning a wig and a dress is deeply sexist.”
All good points well made. What if Mr Bunce wanted to appear on the Credit Suisse sports teams as Pippa? sports?” People born biologically male are physically stronger than biological women. Is it fair and safe for a sportsperson born biologically male and still in possession of all the tackle, to play women’s rugby? Credit Suisse sponsors the Credit Suisse Sports Awards. Sportswoman of the Year 2017 was Wendy Holdener, the Apline skier. She represented Switzerland at the 2018 Alpine Ski World Cup. She was slower than all the men in the team. So what if Luca Aerni or Mauro Caviezel wanted to compete as women? Could they her ‘Her-oes”?
How about the opinion of Professor Rosa Freedman, of the University of Reading, who says biological males should not have access to women’s refuges? Freedman tells The Times of the reaction to that: “We are talking about the aggressive trolling of women who are experts. I have received penis pictures telling me to ‘suck my girl cock’.” It’s not an isolated example. In recent times, arguing over such things has seen people accused of hate speech and transphobia.
In one notable instance, a poster put up on a billboard in Liverpool featuring the legend “Woman, women, noun, adult human female” – the dictionary definition of woman – has been removed after someone complained that it made transgender people feel unsafe. Facts are not facts. Truth can be whatever you decide it is. “We’re in a new realm of misogyny when the word ‘woman’ becomes hate speech,” said Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, who organised the poster. “I wanted it to be a conversation starter but this is a new level of absurd.”
Surely gender is worth a debate? If we want to be ourselves – resilient, complex, questioning, contrary and open – it must be.
Posted: 27th, September 2018 | In: Key Posts, News | Comment
Doors to manual: Meghan Markle shuts that door
Today the Duchess of Sussex closed a car door. Arriving at the Royal Academy of Arts in a chauffeur driven luxury motor, Meghan Markle (Tabloid Rule 11: all Royals keep their maiden names – see Middleton, Kate) stepped out of her car – having had the door opened for her. She then shut it behind her.
Video: #duchessofsussex arrives at the RA. A princess who still takes the time to shut her car door. Well done Meghan! pic.twitter.com/kJZXctr8AH
— Emily Andrews (@byEmilyAndrews) September 25, 2018
A debate rages?
Is it harder to open the door than shut it? Shutting a door, aka slamming a door, is so simple millions of teenagers do it on a daily basis. Larry Grayson understood its familiarity and made it his catchphrase:
Opening a door requires knowledge and risk: push or pull? Knock first and enter; knock and wait to be invited in; or just open and walk in? Should you rely on “magic”, as in this clip?
Shutting the door is what you do on the way out; it’s rarely if ever done on the way in. And are the Middletons hands all over this, it being known that former airline hostess Carole Middleton was greeted with the phrase “doors to manual” by admiring Palace staffers and some of Prince’s Williams’ doorphobic “circle”?
“Etiquette expert” William Hanson explains all in the BBC:
“Usually, if you are a member of the royal family or a dignitary, you have a member of staff to open and close a car door for you.”
Job creation in action, right?
“Now that Meghan is a member of the royal family, there’s no more selfies, no more autographs, she can’t vote and all public social media has to be deleted.”
The door it is, then. You’ve got to keep busy any way you can…
Posted: 26th, September 2018 | In: Key Posts, Royal Family | Comment
Manchester United: Pogba shunts Mourinho closer to the exit
Anyone in any doubt that Paul Pogba’s words were all about Jose Mourinho is obviously not Jose Mourinho, a man for whom everything is always and essentially about him. Responding to Pogba’s comments post a 1-1 with the mighty Wolves that United should “attack, attack. attack” at home, Mourinho has told the club’s most expensive player ever he will never captain the team again.
In his programme notes for Tuesday’s Carabao Cup game with Derby County, Mourinho sniped: “[The game against Wolves was] an important lesson; a lesson that I repeat week after week after week, a lesson that some boys are not learning. Every team that play Manchester United are playing the game of their lives, and we need to match that level of aggression, motivation and desire – 95% isn’t enough when others give 101%.”
Joyous, no, to see United imploding, the manager blaming the players for his side’s dullness and inability to win every match. Either Pogba or Mourinho will surely leave the club soon. But which one? Who would the fans miss most: the charismatic young, over-hyped blade who offers promise or the chippy former Chelsea boss surfing a tsunami of braggadocio who masterminds a tired, pragmatic style of football that seeks to nick a lead and hold it; the manager who having told Mo Salah and Kevin de Bruyne they were not good enough for The Blues is doing his best to make World Cup winner Pogba feel inferior?
But who cares, right? Aside from United supporters, fans of all other teams are hardwired to enjoy the country’s biggest team failing. We used to enjoy and envy Fergie’s swashbuckling sides, but now United have invested vast sums in a team coached into stultifying plodders by a man who has always favoured negative tactics. Mourinho is the man who bought Pogba, Alexis Sanchez et al and invited them to play like the ambulatory elbow that is Marouane Fellaini. What was once viewed as hauteur and charisma been stripped back to reveal nothing more than Mourinho’s petulance, sarcasm and insults.
Who do you want to stay, United fans? The rest of us want Mourinho to…
Posted: 25th, September 2018 | In: Key Posts, manchester united, Sports | Comment
