News Category
That Labour manifesto in full : blame the Jews
The tweet was a smear, of course. “There we have it folks, proof if any was needed that the Labour Party IS institutionally racist and will be until Corbyn and his cronies go #EnoughIsEnough” was not written by a Labour Party activist awoken to the fact that the Party supports Jew hatred, advocates Jew hatred and acquiesces to Jew hatred. It was the view of a hacker. And once the NEC, NCC, NKVD and whatever panels and groups Labour uses to process matters via Twitter has investigated to the full, someone will be blamed – very possibly the Jews.
The BBC TV investigation into the Party’s ‘little problem’ proved only that you know who are behind utterly unwarranted attacks on a Labour Party led by a man who likes anti-semitic murals, endorses books alleging European finance is controlled by “men of a single and peculiar race” (“brilliant” – J. Corbyn five stars one big yellow star stitched on to your death camp clothing), pays tribute to Jew killers, counts a group who want to see all Jews dead as his “friends“, worked for Iranian state television, which peddles anti-Israeli conspiracy theories, and tells British Jews they are something other than British.
“This account was briefly hacked. It has now been re-secured,” says Labour.
As Labour fights to control the media (chiefly to regain control of it’s twitter account and the biased BBC from you know who), the Equality and Human Rights Commission continues its investigation into whether Labour has “unlawfully discriminated against, harassed or victimised people because they are Jewish”. To which Labour might well argue: can we change the law which as everyone knows is run by you know who.
Posted: 12th, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
Manchester United transfers: Pogba’s £160m party and planet Lindelof
Paul Pogba’s agent Mino Raiola says “there will soon be a satisfying solution for all parties”. And what a party it will be should Raiola engineer a – get this – £160m (Marca) move to Juventus or Real Madrid for his ambulatory marketing department. Reports suggest Raiola eaned £41m wean Manchester United paid Juventus £89m for Pogba. The mind boggles at hoe many party balloons and encores from the Cheeky Girls that kind of cash can fund.
Away from the Pogba nonsense, another United player’s agent has already lined up the remaining half of the Chuckle Brothers. Victor Lindelof’s agent Hassan Cetinkaya tells Mundo Deportivo: “Lindelof is in the orbit of a great European club.” Wrexham? “But leaving depends on the English club.”
Hats off to Cetinkya for not naming the club Lindelof is orbiting. Perhaps there’s an NDA? The Sun, however, has gotten wind of the possible interested party. “Given the impact of Lindelof since he made his £31m move to Manchester in 2017,” it tells readers, “the standard of Barcelona’s scouting network must now surely come into question.” Yeah, £31m. the kind of money that gets Team Pogba’s an hour of Boyzone and a chocolate fountain.
Jeffrey Epstein charged with trafficking children for sex
Jeffrey Epstein has been arrested by the FBI-NYPD Crimes Against Children Task Force. He is accused of scores of sex crimes against young girls. The BBC says that “according to the charges, the girls, some as young as 14, were given hundreds of dollars for sex acts. He faces one count of sex trafficking and one of sex trafficking conspiracy.”
Epstein has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He denies any wrongdoing.
After years of secrecy and secret deals, the well-connected multimillionaire is in the judiciary’s crosshairs. Justice ought to be done and seen to be done, at every stage.
The Times says the action “came 11 years after federal prosecutors in Florida granted him a deal that meant that he served 13 months in prison despite sex abuse allegations from 36 females, some as young as 14.”
Epstein, once a friend of Prince Andrew, former US President Bill Clinton and President Donald Trump, was previously accused of abusing dozens of teenage girls between 1999 and 2007. But he reached a plea deal to avoid federal sex trafficking charges in the case.
He instead pleaded guilty in 2008 to lesser Florida state charges of soliciting and procuring a person under the age of 18 for prostitution.
He spent 13 months in jail and registered as a sex offender, avoiding a possible life sentence.Earlier this year, a Florida judge ruled that federal prosecutors broke the law by not informing Epstein’s victims of the plea deal at the time.
The Daily Beast tells us about the former pal of Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew:
The alleged victims, who sued the government for violating the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, asked the court to rescind Epstein’s non-prosecution agreement and called for the feds to hold him criminally liable. The NPA also granted immunity to Epstein’s co-conspirators, identified in the document as “including but not limited to Sarah Kellen, Adriana Ross, Lesley Groff, or Nadia Marcinkova.”
But in June, prosecutors for the government advised the judge to uphold the plea deal, saying that voiding it would “cause unintended harm to many of” the victims and jeopardize monetary settlements that more than a dozen of them received.
“If today’s report is true, it only proves that Epstein should have been charged by federal prosecutors 12 years ago in Florida. With his money, Epstein was able to buy more than a decade of delay in facing justice—but fortunately he wasn’t able to postpone justice forever,” said attorney Paul Cassell, who represents multiple victims of Epstein in their lawsuit against the federal government.
“While New York prosecutors are apparently seeking to hold Epstein accountable, the fight will continue to force federal prosecutors in Florida to do the same thing,” Cassell added in a statement. “While Epstein was at the head of the international sex trafficking organization, that conspiracy could not have functioned without many others playing their part. Jane Doe 1 and 2 will continue to fight for all of Epstein’s co-conspirators to be held accountable in New York, Florida, and anywhere else they committed crimes.”
Much to follow…
Illegal immigrants rain on London
The body of a Kenya flight ‘stowaway’ has been “found” in a garden in Clapham, south London. The man fell off a Kenya Airways flight from Nairobi. The BBC says the “force of the body falling” dented paving slabs. To say nothing for the impact of the body landing on the patio.
“If it had been two seconds later,” says an eyewitness, “he would have landed on the common where there were hundreds of people – my kids were in the garden 15 minutes before [he fell]. I spoke to Heathrow. They said this happens once every five years.” In 2024, it might be best to remain indoors.
Thoughts, of course, are with the dead man, someone desperate enough to clamber inside the landing gear of a large commercial jet and take his chances. Although maybe he was already dead and someone else stowed him? Whatever the background, the tabloids keep things in perspective.
The Mail warns owners of £2m homes that immigrants might be targeting their properties:
The Sun warns sunbathers that there’s something worse than perverts with camera drones:
The man has yet to be identified.
Posted: 2nd, July 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True, Tabloids | Comment
News Corp writers paid by the click; Guardian subs paid by the typo
Writers for Australia’s Herald Sun can boost their pay by turning their stories into sponsored posts and marketing campaigns. Writers can earn between $10 and $50 for, as the Guardian puts it, “driving digital subscriptions and traffic through their own stories”.
Journalists are engaged in something akin to a popularity contest. Nothing new in that, of course. Columnists have long been hired to keep readers reading. It’s why they’re often their views are front-page news. The new bit is that analytics can measure who readers read the most and are willing to pay to read. The writer can then get their dues.
The News Corp system, called Verity, “empowers our editors, newsrooms and content promoters with real-time information to understand and influence the content for which our audiences are willing to ‘pay & stay’”.
According to Nathaniel Bane, the title’s head of digital, the number crunchers “know how many subscribers viewed it, how many times it was shared on social media, how many clicks it drove to other content, and how long readers dwelled on it.”
If you’ve a large social media following, a column in a paper could be the best way to cash in on it. (I have 650,000 followers – call me, I have ideas.)
So much for the strongest links in the news chain. What of the weakest? The Guardian has that covered:
Priceless.
Posted: 26th, June 2019 | In: Broadsheets, Key Posts, News | Comment
North London bakery damaged in anti-semitic attack
To the local bagel bakery in North London. The message on the window – scratched in by an amateur sign writer – declares “RICH JEWS”.
I’ve heard this slight first hand. I believe it’s called a trope. My Sephardic ancestors worked hard and behaved themselves. “Our race can do anything but fail,” wrote one of the hynmed Montefiore family to Benjamin Disraeli. I’d add, “but try not to be too successful. Try to be invisible.”
I’ve heard the anti-Semitism first hand over the last few years. Someone I thought I knew and who I thought knew me declared without batting an eye “All Jews are rich”. Another hissed “Zionists” like gas escaping as I sat down in a pub. And, yep, that bastard was sat on the same table as me with mutual friends. And, no, not all the mutual pals called him out.
You live and learn.
One of my children was told by a classmate that Jews were not allowed to play. That Jews were not allowed to her house. Rare events. But all in past few years. When put together they chill the blood.
These are worrying times…
Freddie Starr never ate a hamster
Freddie Starr (9 January 1943; died 9 May 2019) never ate a hamster, at least not Supersonic. In 1986 the Sun told how the entertainer had put the rodent between two slices of bread and bit into it. It was just his loveable, madcap way of punishing the critter’s female owner for her refusal to make him a sandwich.
“Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster,” said the Sun. The story was false, cooked up by Starr with his agent, convicted paedophile Max Clifford. Starr noted in his autobiography: “I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any other small mammal.” It’s the kind of line Starr would have ended with “But I bet he had a cockatoo”.
Starr’s dead now. But the story lives on, the Sun modestly hailing the original as the “greatest headline in the world”. Back then the story promoted Starr’s career. Told now the casual misogyny and cruelty would have ended it.
Posted: 10th, May 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Tumblr is dead: network bans Iggy Pop, David Bowie and The Bayeux Tapestry for being too dangerous
Tumblr is dead. The social media network owned by Verizon bans everything and anything. It offers users a right to “appeal” its ridiculous decisions. Why bother? It’s not worth the effort. Here are some images Tumblr has banned from my page for Flashbak. The offence for each image is the same:
Thee are just some of the images that are for adults only. Yeah , as if the cool kids us Tumblr – dream on:
Tumblr is dead. What odds large chunks of the corporatised web follow?
Posted: 12th, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Technology | Comment
Daily Star sacks all its Page 3 topless models
The job market is looking bleak for topless stunnas. The Daily Star says it will no longer feature pictures of topless women on Page 3, following the Sun’s move to end its Page 3 feature 2015. Readers looking for tit-bits of news will be lost to the web.
“The Daily Star is always looking to try new things and improve,” says the paper’s editor, Jonathan Clark. “In that spirit, we’ve listened to reader feedback and are currently trialling a covered-up version of page 3.”
Do Daily Star readers do feedback in anything other than sales?
How different things were when the Sun sacked Dannii from Basildon. “The Daily Star is proud to continue the great British page 3 tradition,” announced the paper. “It brightens the day for our readers during tough times and has launched many successful careers. We will continue to listen to what our readers want and put a smile on their faces with our lovely, bright, talented and independent young ladies. Page 3 is as British as roast beef and Yorkshire pud, fish and chips and seaside postcards. The Daily Star is about fun and cheering people up. And that will definitely continue!”
What the Star is about now is unsaid. Maybe it’ll be about a different kind of hard news?
Posted: 12th, April 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Upskirting still legal in the newsagents
It is illegal to take photos up a person’s skirt or other items of clothing without their consent. Upskirting is a crime if “the offender has a motive of either gaining sexual gratification or causing humiliation, distress or alarm to the victim”. What about if you’re an underwear researcher for M&S? What about if it’s newsworthy?
The Daily Star once alerted us to the “clea-vadge”, a happening so rich it was hailed as “The FILTHIEST celeb trend yet”. Female celebs had taken to wearing very small knickers and skirts with long slits. Men wielding very long lenses with endoscopy attachments were taking photos of the ‘trend zone’. You’ve seen 90% of the star’s naked flesh but the contest to reveal the remaining portions is keenly fought in panting PR agencies and on the kerb.
Following the arrival of the new anti-upskirting law the questions for editors are: when are knickers being “flashed” and when are you just gawping at a woman’s crotch?
In 2014, the Express brought us: “Top 10 knicker flashes including Kate Middleton, Susanna Reid and Emma Watson.” Flashing suggests an act of free will. But in its article the Express said these leading flashers were “blundering”. BBC TV presenter Alex Jones was a flasher because she “had unwittingly showed off her brown polkadot pants as she crossed her legs in front of the camera, giving viewers a little more than they bargained for.”
The paper went on:
Kate Middleton proved that not even royalty can escape the embarrassment of an accidental flash. The mother-of-one ended up victim to a bluster of wind during a nine-day Canadian tour with Prince William, and showed off bottom when the breeze lifted up her yellow summer dress…
Emma Watson revealed more than she intended when she made a quick dash to the shops in 2011.
Is it now the case if a celebrity accidentally “flashes” her knickers that if no police action follows the gusset exposure was accidentally-on-purpose?
Just what is the message police and media are presenting us with? Now magazine once looks for meaning in Britney Spears’ gunties – and found some:
We now await the first paparazzo tried in court for upskirting who solicits the defence: “If I’d spotted early stage of cervical cancer, she’d be thanking me.”
Posted: 12th, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Labour Group linked to John McDonnell says Jewish group ‘stabbed Labour in the back’
An article on the website for the ‘Labour Representation Committee’ (LRC) – Honorary President: John McDonnell, the current shadow chancellor – appears beneath the headline: “JLM Stabs Labour in the Back.” JLM is the Jewish Labour Movement. This week the JLM voted to pass a motion of no confidence in Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over the party’s handling of anti-Semitism. They says he is unfit to be Prime Minister.
The LRC states its mission: “The task for today’s LRC, founded in 2004, is to fight for power within the Labour Party and trade unions and to appeal to the tens of thousands who, during the Tony Blair years, turned away from our party in disillusion and despair.”
The LRC article says the JLM has “declared war on Labour”. The JLM “want the Tories to win”. They aim to “feed the allegations of ‘institutional antisemitism’ against Labour, and as such has been eagerly gobbled up by the Tory press”. It spots an article that “points the finger at Israeli intelligence in helping to refound the dormant JLM”. It ends: “They are stabbing us in the back. That is insupportable. The JLM must be disaffiliated from Labour as soon as possible.”
JLM Vice-Chair Joe Goldberg tells the Jewish Chronicle: “This article makes it clear that they will blame Jews for any failure at the ballot box, further enabling racism towards Jews. The language of ‘betray’ and ‘backstabbing’ are dogwhistles to antisemitism that Jews have experienced too many times to monstrous effect… They continue to deny and obfuscate the scale of anti-Jewish racism within the Labour Party, and attack Jews for standing up to racism, citing conspiracists and fake news as their evidence. Yet the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, continues as its president. The Labour Party cannot in good faith claim to be acting against antisemitism and whilst its leadership in the shadow cabinet and the NEC associate themselves with this organisation.”
Nasty stuff.
The LRC website says it’s affiliated to the sensitive Fire Brigades union. Interesting to hear if they have anything to say on this.
Posted: 10th, April 2019 | In: News, Politicians | Comment
Barking teenager extorted millions from porn users
Zain Qaiser was quite the bedroom entrepreneur until the law caught up with him. Qaiser, a student from Barking, London, is estimated to have made £4m blackmailing pornography enthusiasts. Hit the wrong site, press the wrong button (often disguised as an advert on a legal porn site) and trigger malware to download. You read the message demanding money on pain of never being able to access your computer / aide to masturbation again, which has suddenly frozen. Habitual onanists might see this as a blessing.
For added punch an on-screen messages would issue an additional threat, saying something like: “HALT! This is the FBI. You have broken the law. Face jail or pay a fine. We have webcam footage of your disgusting self-abuse and will not hesitate to use it in a court of law and publish details in the Rotary Club newsletter”
Fearful of being exposed as a tossers, the threatened victim pays up and stays schtumm. And that was where the sophistication ended. Qaiser was, of course, the biggest tosser of the bunch (you have to know your victims’ flaws intimately to be an adept blackmailer) spending his cash – estimates are that he cleared £550,000 – on a vulgar and predicable Rolex watch, prostitutes (natch.), drugs and gambling, including around £70,000 at a casino in what one site calls “an upmarket shopping centre”.
Can it happen again? Not if we get our porn licences and everyone knows that everyone else is looking at smut. Of course, we already do know. Take this from 2011, in which Craig Brown harks back to the 1960s, spotting Harold Pinter, Vivien Merchant, Peter Cook, Wendy Cook, Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret watching a post-prandial porn movie at Kenneth Tynan’s pad. The film, for you buffs, is Un Chant d’Amour by Jean Genet:
Peter Cook saves the day by starting to speak over the images. Tynan is thankful: ‘He supplied a commentary, treating the movie as if it were a long commercial for Cadbury’s Milk Flake chocolate and brilliantly seizing on the similarity between Genet’s woodland fantasies and the sylvan capering that inevitably accompanies, on TV, the sale of anything from cigarettes to Rolls-Royces. Within five minutes, we were all helplessly rocking with laughter, Princess M included.’
No sex tape was made. Or was it? Send £250 to the usual address and await further details.
Posted: 9th, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, Money, News | Comment
Hollywood PRs weep as Felicity Huffman admits guilt
In a move that has sent a chill wind through the offices of the Hollywood PR industry, actress Felicity Huffman offered no sympathetic backstory or refreshingly dishonest non-denial denial as she accepted “full acceptance of my guilt” in buying her daughter a place at college. She is in a state of “deep regret and shame” over her actions.
“I am ashamed of the pain I have caused my daughter, my family, my friends, my colleagues and the educational community,” says Huffington, the voice barely audible over the din of wailing spokespersons.
“I want to apologise to them and, especially, I want to apologise to the students who work hard every day to get into college, and to their parents who make tremendous sacrifices to support their children and do so honestly… In my misguided and profoundly wrong way, I have betrayed her. This transgression toward her and the public, I will carry for the rest of my life.”
Says one Hollywood PR: “Maybe therapy can save her – and us! I think she must be ill.”
Posted: 9th, April 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Fire Brigades Union official censured for using antisemitic phrase ‘rootless cosmopolitans’; Corbyn escapes
Fire Brigades Union official Paul Embery must stop all social media activity at some point in the future or else, reports the Jewish News. His offence is to have used the phrase “rootless cosmopolitans”. He tweeted: “I fear this encapsulates the divide in our society – between a rootless, cosmopolitan, bohemian middle-class … and a rooted, communitarian, patriotic working-class.”
A spokesperson for the Fire Brigades Union goes on the record: “Racism in all its forms weakens and undermines trade unionism. The FBU has a longstanding history of standing up to and challenging racism. These traditions are not reflected in the recent comments made by someone who is an official of the FBU, whether this was done knowingly or not. We sincerely regret the use of this phrase (“rootless, cosmopolitan”) by an FBU official, and have requested that the person in question ceases all activity on social media until our executive council is able to meet to discuss. The FBU will deal with any potential abuse of policy in accordance with our organisational rules.”
In case you are not au fait with the phrase and why it is anti-Semitic – and, I know, there are so may rich, snide, sneaky and varied ways to insult Jews (see Book of Corbyn) that knowing them all can be testing. Jews are pretty good at spotting it.
Labour MP Alex Sobel explained all in a tweet: “Literally an antisemitic trope used by Stalin the culmination of which saw many good bundists imprisoned by East European Communist regimes (including my grandfather) just what I needed to see after the @JewishLabour AGM. Stop othering Jews.”
Embery tells Jewish News: “My remarks were directed at a section of Britain’s middle-class liberals and were made during a discussion that had absolutely nothing to do with Jews, Jewishness or race in general. How some can construe this as antisemitism is beyond me. The fact that Stalin might have used similar words in a derogatory way a century ago does not mean that everyone who ever uses those words in the future intends them to be heard in the same way. Normal people are not obsessed with communist history in that way. It’s a shining example of how Twitter sometimes goes all hysterical and is desperate to take offence at innocent comments. If people are ‘offended’, it can only mean they were looking to be offended.”
It can also mean that ignorance is no defence. Which brings us to Jeremy Corbyn. And his words are relevant because the FBU supports the Labour leader – and, boy, does Jeremy have a problem with Jews.
Let’s look beyond Corbyn’s schilling for Holocaust-denying Iran, liking a huge anti-Semitic mural painted on a wall in London, honouring Jew killers with a wreath, his reluctance to sign up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, and for purposes of this article focus solely on what he told two unnamed British Jews. They “clearly have two problems,” said Corbyn. “One is they don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either … So I think they needed two lessons, which we can perhaps help them with.” That is blatantly anti-Semitic. That is othering. And Jezza is still on Twitter. He’s still leader of the Labour Party. In 2018, he told one and all: “I am proud to lead a Labour Party that is supported by the FBU and its members campaigning for worker’s rights, social justice and defending our public services.”
The union never did upbraid Corbyn for his bigotry. But Embery, who has no previous, is, reportedly, fair game. Context matters. Embery has explained his phrasing, and why not accept his words at face value? Corbyn on the other hand, should get no pass. If the FBU wants to make a stand against racism, it can start by calling out the man it supports.
Lead image: The Wandering Jew by Samuel Hirszenberg (1899).
State steals Teagan Appleby’s cannabis medicine; the Dark Web beckons
Walk down most streets in London and you can small skunk, the strong, hot-house grown cannabis. The Mail says cannabis is so commonplace throughout the UK that police don’t bother nicking people for smoking the stuff.
But if you want to use marijuana to treat your sick child, the authorities will get you. Emma Appleby schlepped to The Hague to buy £4,000-worth of TGC oil capsules, a form of medical cannabis, for her daughter Teagan, 9, who has severe epilepsy. When the family arrived at Southend Airport, boarder guards confiscated all of it. It’s pretty clear that Mrs Appleby is neither weed dealer nor pot head. A quick chat with Anorak’s slacker division reveals that you can get all this stuff delivered to your door via the dark web or ‘Malc The Talc’, who has a mate in ‘The Dam’ who can post it. Next time, eh…
Mrs Appleby had tried to get the treatment with a prescription. UK doctors can issue the drug legally. But she was refused because the medics say THC is a psychoactive compound found in cannabis and might be detrimental to Teagan’s wellbeing. So Emma asked for help via a crowdfunding campaign, raised some money and arranged to collect the blow at a Netherland’s pharmacy.
“I’m absolutely gutted,” she said after the drugs were seized. “They just took everything. This is our last resort. There’s nothing else. We’ve tried all the medications at home. If there’s a single, slight chance that this medication will help and save her I’m going to be here.”
A government spokesman goes on the record: “The decision to prescribe cannabis-based products for medicinal use is a clinical decision for specialist hospital doctors, made with patients and their families, taking into account clinical guidance, which is based on the best international evidence. The Border Force has a duty to enforce the law and stop the unlawful import of controlled substances into the UK.”
And what’s a mother’s duty – to accept that guff and watch her daughter suffer? The drugs seems to help. This from December 2018:
A young girl with a severe form of epilepsy is back at home after receiving cannabis-based medication in a London hospital. Teagan Appleby of Milner Crescent, Aylesham, had up to 300 fits a day but her life-threatening condition has now stabilised. Doctors at the Evelina Children’s Hospital have successfully treated the nine-year-old who was born with the rare condition Isodicentric 15, a chromosome abnormality that has led to Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a form of acute epilepsy.
Teagan spends her days in a wheelchair. Would you take her medicine away and turn her mother into a criminal?
Brexit: our elites are the best in the world
Lots of chuntering about the UK’s “elites” stitching up the Leave-voting electorate over Brexit. Admiration for the elites’ behaviour is deserved.
Our elites are probably the best elites in the world. Other nation’s elites stop elections ever happening, jail dissenters or befriend Vladimir Putin. The UK’s elites are able to square democracy with trying to overturn the result of the Referendum. No riots. No strikes. No need to wear flat shoes in the Kremlin. Just lots of telly. Give these people a Bafta for giving us TV the nation can coalesce around.
Not everyone is impressed, however. The top people at Spiked lambaste our Great British elites. “Democracy and liberty must be protected against the out-of-control elites,” they say. But you don’t really get elites being under anyone else’s control. Elitism demands top billing.
The debate is tortuous, the language tautologous. But the elites never change.
Half a yard onward!
Cannabis is full of good shit, bad shit and the smuggler’s diarrhoea
Anyone buying cannabis in Madrid should know that it contains “dangerous levels of faecal matter”. What safe levels of human shit are in your good shit is unsaid. But the fact is that traces of e.coli bacteria and the Aspergillus fungus were spotted in cannabis tested by experts in such things. Apparently the poo is a byproduct of how the cannabis is brought into the country – the smuggler swallows the stuff and then once in Spain takes laxatives to enact a dose of Montezuma’s revenge. Drugs runners, indeed.
Spotter: Forensic Science International
Posted: 4th, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True | Comment
DNA company says we have a ‘moral responsibility’ to snitch on our family
If you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve nothing to fear. Of course, the rules can change at any time and what is ok now might not be ok in the future. Customers of FamilyTreeDNA are helping crimefighters by having their DNA data shared with the FBI. The home DNA test company reportedly shares customers’ genetic information with US federal law enforcement.
FamilyTreeDNA have updated their rules, announcing: “Users now have the ability to opt out of matching with DNA relatives whose accounts are flagged as being created to identify the remains of a deceased individual or a perpetrator of a homicide or sexual assault.”
But a new campaign called “Families Want Answers” rises eyebrows. A soon-to-aired advert features Ed Smart, father of Elizabeth Smart, the child kidnapped in 2002 and held captive for nine months:
In the ad, Ed Smart makes a plea for people to share their DNA so they can help families who have lost a child. “When a loved one is a victim of a violent crime families want answers,” he says as the ad shows footage of a child’s shoe on a playground, crime scene tape, and parents embracing. “There is more DNA available at crime scenes than any other evidence. If you are one of the millions of people who have taken a DNA test your help can provide the missing link.”
Gizmodo has more, alerting readers to a statement from FamilyTreeDNA’s president and founder, Bennett Greenspan. As specified in FamilyTreeDNA’s Terms of Service, law enforcement can only receive information not already accessible to the standard user by providing FamilyTreeDNA with valid legal process such as a subpoena or a search warrant. But get a load of this:
“The genealogy community has the ability to crowd-source crime solving. With the evolution of the family matching database, which FamilyTreeDNA first created nearly two decades ago, we can do the greatest good for the greatest number of people in our society… If FamilyTreeDNA can help prevent violent crimes, save lives, or bring closure to families, then we feel the company has a moral responsibility to do so.”
Do you have a moral responsibility to present all your ancestors and loved ones as suspects?
Posted: 4th, April 2019 | In: News, Technology | Comment
Brexit: Hurrah for Corbyn’s “Marxist, antisemite-led government”
Brexit has coughed up all manner of MPs whose names are new to many of us. Meet Caroline Johnson, Tory MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham since the by-election on 8 December 2016. She says Theresa May talking Brexit with Jeremy Corbyn represents “ushering in a Marxist, anti-semite led government”. Just as Rowan Atkinson is always a “rubber-faced comedian” and gauntlets are always tossed down, will Corbyn be forever known as “the anti-semitic Labour leader”? And for how many people will Jew hatred be the hook that finally convinces them Communism is the right way?
The New Statesman says Johnson’s surmising of Corbyn’s politics offers no comment on the man. It simply “reflects just how weak a hold Downing Street has on party discipline”. The magazine considers the comment unworthy of investigation.
May duly explained her current position:
“When we suffered a chemical weapons attack on the streets of Salisbury, it was me as Prime Minister, this government that stood up against the perpetrators of that attack. [Mr Corbyn] said he’d prefer to believe Vladimir Putin than our own security agencies. That is not the place of somebody that should be prime minister… I want to ensure that we deliver Brexit, I want to ensure that we do it in an orderly way, without fighting European elections. But to do that we need to find a way of this House agreeing the Withdrawal Agreement and agreeing the way forward. And it is on that basis that I have been sitting down with members across the House and will continue to do so in order to ensure that we can find a way forward that this House can support.”
The Times quotes one “veteran Tory MP” who says Mrs May is isolated from mainstream party opinion: “She’s like a prisoner on death row, getting another two-week reprieve. The truth is she is no longer in control of events.”
May’s on Death Row, then, although the date of her execution is not yet fixed. Like racing snails, would-be Tory leaders jockey for position. See the person not the MP, goes the message. But whoever commissioned Parliament to be televised, and created entire channels for the purpose, should have known that familiarity breeds contempt. The smart move is to hand the show to Simon Cowell. Cut-away shots of the public galleries, where an emotionally corralling mix of the physically handicapped, telegenic and whooping can direct us at home to which way our sympathies should bend.
“I cried when Boyzone, split up,” says one audience member, before turning to Theresa May and asking “How do you feel?”
Posted: 4th, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment
They’re playing Michael Jackson in Selfridge’s but he’s ‘banned’ on the BBC
They were playing Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall in Selfridge’s department store in London today. BBC radio DJ Craig Charles says there’s no “official ban” on the singer but they’ve not played a single Jackson song on his show since the TV show Leaving Neverland aired last month. The show featured accusations that Jacksons was a paedophile.
The accusations were compelling and convincing. But, then, they can be unchallenged because Jackson remains dead. So it comes down to taking sides: do you believe guilt should be proven or is an accusation enough to try and convict? The lawyer for the two men who detailed the abuse they says Jackson subjected them to said the singer “was running the most sophisticated child sex operation the world has ever known”. If sophistication is a grown man putting on a sing-song, girlie voice and inviting kids over to ride his Ferris Wheel, then a Florida bride in hot-pants is the stuff of monarchy.
Circumspection is overrated.
In 2014, a top copper said said officers had spoken to a man known as “Nick”, who said he was abused by a paedophile ring, and that his account was “credible and true“. This year Nick was charged with 12 counts of perverting the course of justice and one count of fraud. Radio stations have banned his music.
So what of journalistic standards and the BBC not playing Jackson? Radio DJ Paul Gambaccini was falsely accused of sexual abuse. Gambaccini has presented shows on BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4. He accused BBC bosses of persecuting old presenters in the wake of the Jimmy Savile scandal. Last year Gambaccini spoke to the Times. He called the Metropolitan Police “the most dishonest organisation I have ever encountered”, adding:
“The Metropolitan police of Bernard Hogan-Howe was a third-rate Stasi. If the police are allowed to do what they did to me, and to so many other people in the witch hunt, this country is now unliveable.”
If it can happen to one of your own, the BBC should reserve judgment. Presuming guilt is a travesty. If we need to wonder and investigate something, let’s marvel at how a man as rich as Jackson could get away with what he’s accused of and why big media never saw it?
Posted: 3rd, April 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Brexit: tabloids hail detectives May and Corbyn
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn will join forces to solve Brexit, forming the kind of made-for-ITV drama partnership mouth breathers will love. In episode one of Chalk ‘n’ Cheese / Marx and Narks / Remain & Remain we see the intrepid duo meeting for “national unity” talks. The tabloids preview the show:
The Sun (front page): “PM TO CORBYN: HELLLLPP!!” May’s locked in a room with scented Liam Fox and Geoffrey Cox’s Voice of God. Can Corbyn get into Number 10? “After 7 hours of Cabinet lockdown, May’s gone soft over Brexit mess,” says the Sun. May’s “bright idea” is to think Corbyn can help. His face appears superimposed on a screw-in lightbulb, evoking the time the Sun did the same to then Labour leader Neil Kinnock, telling readers to turn the lights off if he got into power. Kinnock lost that time but soon trotted off to a massive salary in Brussels, from where he and his ilk will be soon controlling the UK post-Brexit. Votes, who needs ’em?
But in Brexit terms it’s earth hour, says the Metro. The lightbulbs are about to go out across the UK if a deal with the EU cannot be done. Cabinet secretary Sir Mark Sedwill says a no-deal Brexit will “make the country less safe, cause food prices to rise by ten per cent and lead to a recession”.
Daily Mail (front page): “May delays Brexit AGAIN and kills off No Deal — Boris leads Tory fury as Corbyn invited to ‘compromise’ talks”. The talks have been compromised! If you don’t know which side the Mail is on get a load of the billing: only Boris Johnson is on first-name terms with the paper’s readership. Johnson arrives on page 2 to accuse “Mrs May of betrayal”. But Michael Gove backs May. He backs lots of things and so long as you don’t back into him, all is good.
Johnson is all over page 6: “You’ve handed Brexit deal to Corbyn, bitter Boris tells May.” He’ll vote against any deal with the Labour leader. One page on and Henry Deedes gives his verdict, employing language familiar to anyone who spends afternoons chemically coshed in front of reruns of the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip and howls with laughter at Readers’ Digest ‘Life’s Like That’ anecdotes.
Daily Mirror (front page): “HELP ME JEREMY,” says a “despairing Theresa May”. Jeremy will rescue things. “Jezza says he’ll talk”. But wait a moment. Might it be a trap?
Page 5: Jason Beattie, who writes beneath the marvellous title “head of politics”, says Corbyn is “well aware he’s being lined up for a fall”. “To keep his party together his minimum request should be for a customs union and a second referendum,” he advises. Will May agree to Remain? Will her successor rip-up any agreement? Will Brexit detectives Fudgeit and Snubs get to the bottom of things?
Daily Express (front page): “It’s Time For National Unity…Over To You Mr Corbyn.” Mr.. Not just ‘Corbyn’. By page four the language is back to basics. The Express phone poll asks: “Should Corbyn be entrusted with final Brexit deal?” That’s the Brexit-supporting Express asking its readers to spend 50p on a referendum that may carry less weight than, well, the referendum in which 17.4 millions of voted to leave.
Vote now and vote often.
Posted: 3rd, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians, Tabloids | Comment
Danny Cipriani in a mum’s ‘hallway’ and trailing Caroline Flack’s Love Island
And to think they said it wouldn’t last. Days after “rugby ace” Danny Cirpriani was linked with Stanislavsky-honed Love Island presenter Caroline Flack, the Sun, the paper that broke the news on its front page, says he’s “bedded” a mum of two.
Meet Amy D’Ambrogio, whose kids will be the toast of their school playground as she tells the paper of her alleged shagging. Amy’s fluent in the kind of language that requires no work from the Sun’s busy sub–editor’s, revealing: “After sex he was saying, ‘I feel really bad now. I feel guilty’ and told me he had cheated on someone.” Who? No matter because we get to the maul, tackle and ruck, which according to the scummy mummy (come on, Sun subs) went like this:
- Amy follows Danny on instagram
- Amy asks Danny for a “birthday kiss”
- “To her surprise [he] later arrived at her home”
- They spend 90 minutes “exchanging intimacies” in her “hall”
- His breath was a bit garlicky,” says she
- “I really needed that release,” says he
Another alleged shag is explained: “He stopped outside my bedroom, took all his clothes off and folded them in a neat pile.”
No word from ‘Copping some’ Flack, but after Danny and she were “caught” together at Babington House, a members’ club in Somerset, where spotting a frotting celebrity and their PR is akin to spotting the sky, we look forward to another series of Love Island very soon.
Posted: 3rd, April 2019 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News, Tabloids | Comment
Peta circumvents porn ban with lactating cow filth
Hold the internet. You can ban routine porn but the niche stuff you’ll never catch. Bearskins doffed to Peta, then, for their latest drive to be noticed, which features a cartoon cow breastfeeding a Joe Biden look-alike. CILF porn is proper dark web content, down there with SILF, GILF and for Australians who can find one DBPILF.
Posted: 2nd, April 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Strange But True | Comment
Brexit: Theresa May begs EU for an extension so they can give Remain more chance to win the day
Theresa May is to beg the EU for an extension to the latest Brexit deadline. She wants to “break the logjam” in Parliament. The majority of us have no such troubles having voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU. But MPs know better. So there’s lots of dead wood jostling for position in muddy waters by the Thames.
May wants any extension to be “as short as possible”. We were due to leave the EU last week. But the MPs didn’t like that. So we stayed. She now wants us to decide things before 22 May so the UK does not have to take part in European elections. And we need to get a wiggle on because the current extension expires on April 12. If nothing is sorted and the EU doesn’t grant us an extension, we leave without a deal.
“This is a difficult time for everyone. Passions are running high on all sides of the argument,” says May, “but we can and must find the compromises that will deliver what the British people voted for.”
Leave. We voted to leave. Pretty simple.
She continued: “This is a decisive moment in the story of these islands and it requires national unity to deliver the national interest.”
We voted to Leave. But we won’t get what we want. May says she will talk with Jeremy Corby, a leaver who became a Remainer. This week the Labour leader whipped his MPs to vote for the ‘Common Market 2.0’ option of remaining in the EU Customs Union and Single Market.
So much for Brexit.
Posted: 2nd, April 2019 | In: News, Politicians | Comment
