Reviews Category
We don’t just report off-beat news, breaking news and digest the best and worst of the news media analysis and commentary. We give an original take on what happened and why. We add lols, satire, news photos and original content.
The Mickey Mouse gasmask was utterly terrifying in 1942 – and it still is
WAR is utterly terrifying. It’s ugly. But in 1942, T.W. Smith, Jr., owner of the Sun Rubber Company, and designer, Dietrich Rempel, created something to give children nightmares: the Mickey Mouse gas mask, as approved by Walt Disney.
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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
1936: How to die by electrocution in 30 pictures
AUSTRIAN physician Stefan Jellinek founded The Electro-Pathological Museum in 1936. Hr provided the content in Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern (Electrical Protection in 132 Pictures). DEath and electricity went hand-in-hand. But with this book, you would be forewarned.
If you can identify all the contraptions, let us know.
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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Technology | Comment
Belly laughs: watch men feel the pain of child birth!
SOME men, as we know, are utter arseholes. They mock period pains and child labour and say they could handle it all with ease. This of course, encourages a certain arsehole kind of woman who sneers about ‘man-flu’ and such.
However, child birth clearly tops the lot. Not only do you have the dreadful pain, but also, the hormonal mentalness and the vaginal tearing. And probably the pooing everywhere while you sit naked in a room filled with strangers.
No fun.
And so, to two fellas who gamely decided to experience simulated labour pains. Mercifully, someone was on hand to film it all. Women who have given birth to babies conceived by gittish husbands, now’s your time to laugh.
“I’m telling you right now, I felt like I was having a baby,” stated one volunteer. The other said: “Mom, if anything that I just experienced was anywhere close to what I did to you all those years ago, I’m sorry. You’re like a superhero.”
Have a butchers.
We’ve been here before:
Photo: The pregnant man poster, issued by the Health Education Council. Such posters are being distributed in their thousands to persuade men to seek advice on contraception. Dr Bill Jones, Director General of the Health Education Council said “We want to make any ignorant or unthinking man stop and consider the suffering and problems he can cause through an unplanned pregnancy”. Date: 11/03/1970
Naked John Inman impersonator arrested for ‘striding down South Street in Chichester’
OLD impressionists never die, they just get tired and emotional:
A naked man impersonating a character from Are You Being Served has been arrested by police.
Startled shoppers saw the six-foot-tall nude male striding down South Street in Chichester at around 1:20pm this afternoon.
He went into a shop and yelled “I’m free!” before hugging a worker and trying to touch his face.
He’s not free any longer…
Photo: John Inman sitting in a £2,000 petrol driven scaled down Volkswagen in Regent Street, London, today, as life-sized traffic roars past him. One of these cars, provided by the toy store Hamleys, will be competed for by the audience of “Mother Goose”, which opens at the Victoria Palace theatre on December 21st. The winner will be named by John Inman, the star, at the last performance of the pantomime. Date: 14/12/1981
Homeless man proves Atheists are more generous than Christians and Muslims
RELIGIONS are often the first to point out how good charity is and that we should always reach out to those in need. However, one homeless chap has conducted an experiment which shows religious people aren’t taking their own advice.
The homeless man, as seen in a Reddit thread, bears a sign that says: “Which religion cares the most about the homeless?” There are nine begging bowls in front of him, each with money in them.
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Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Money, Reviews | Comment (1)
Why does the Daily Mail have a sudden and urgent desire to understand transsexuals?
WHEN Richard Littlejohn attacked transsexual Lucy Meadows for working as a female teacher after her gender reassignment, his Daily Mail article was met with howls of protest and calls for his head. A short time after Littlejohn’s piece, Meadows took her own life. Many saw a link between the Mail’s coverage and her suicide. A vigil was held outside the Daily Mail offices in Kensington.
The Mail removed the article from its website.
This month, the Mail changed direction. An article by Jane Fae was entitled:
Prejudice. Abuse. And surgery that needs nerves of steel. A brave and moving account of… The cruel reality of feeling Nature trapped you in the wrong sex
Here, JANE FAE sets out her own experiences of being transgender — as well as the prejudice she’s faced — and challenges misconceptions about the issue…
This is the same Fae, who in reaction to the Littlejohn article wrote in the New Statesman:
“[Meadows] talks of her good luck in having a supportive head. But the stress of her situation is also visible. She complains bitterly of how she must leave her house by the back door, and arrive at school very early, or very late, in order to avoid the press pack. She talks of the press offering other parents money for a picture of her; of how in the end they simply lifted an old picture from the Facebook pages of her brother and sister without permission. A Year 5 drawing removed from the school website was simply recovered through the magic of caching.”
She spoke of Leveson:
Where is the public interest, beyond the pro-family moral agenda, proudly proclaimed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre in front of the Leveson Inquiry? Were this a trans woman stealing money to fund gender re-assignment, there might be a story. Or a trans patient going on the rampage. Though in both cases, the real-and-unlikely-to-be-addressed question might still be: why would an individual act in this way?
And in death, the disrespect, the “monstering”, as some commentators have described it, continues. Ms Meadows broke everything in her life for one desperate reason: to be the woman she knew she was…
Yet it is the same old, same old. In death, the most venial of politicians and press barons are usually airbrushed into almost-sainthood. Not the trans community. For without any possibility of legal retribution, the “tranny freak” is now “fair game”.
Just, I would suggest, as the whining, crocodile tearing lily-livered national press of this country. Maybe they played no great part in this tragedy. But they tried. And for that, they stand guilty as any common thug or thief in the night.
Not fair? No. Nor was Lucy’s death.
Odd, indeed, how the Mail has changed direction so suddenly. And as one voice notes, the paper’s readers are being untypically fair. MandyB writes on the Angels Forum:
The comments are so universally positive and out of step with the usual DM comment that the cynic in me wonders if they are being moderated. Either way, the DM deserves some credit for the long overdue change of approach. I hope it continues.
Further oddness is that neither the article nor any of the published comments mention Meadows. It’s like it never happened…
Posted: 16th, May 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
Idiots pictured carrying unexploded bombs between Worbarrow Bay and Tyneham
JESUS WEPT. Some people are dim aren’t they? Take for example, the two fellas who have been pictured carrying a pair of unexploded bombs in a park.
The Ministry of Defence has launched an urgent appeal to find two men photographed ambling through Dorset with two ‘unexploded bombs’ on their shoulders.
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Hong Kong crushed when Florentijn Hofman’s massive Rubber Duck deflates (in photos)
HONG Kong resident Mirinna Chan looks at the deflated rubber duck and speaks for her people: “The sky looks like it is crying for me – I took time off from work just to see the duck, now it is just a blob.”
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‘How Do I Land?’ LA Comedian asks best ever question posted in the sky
ON March 23, the skies over Los Angeles were lit up with Kurt Braunohler’s question: “HOW DO I LAND”. Skywriting just got better:
Here’s a comp of the actual letters from the Cloud Project! The actual day had a very high winds, and the letters appeared and disappeared quite quickly. But if you watched the sky for 20 minutes you could probably piece it together. BUT STILL WE DID IT!!!
Spotter: Reddit
Oxford sex gang: Yet again police ignored poor white girls who complained of sex abuse
THE Oxford gang who abused girls as young as 11 and no older than 15 are:
Kamar Jamil (27): raped children and arranged child prostitution.
Akhtar Dogar (32): rape children, arranged child prostitution and trafficking a child within the UK for sexual exploitation.
Anjum Dogar (31): as above.
Bassam Karrar (33. as above.
Assad Hussain (32): sexual activity with a child.
Zeeshan Ahmed (27): sexual activity with a child (2).
And:
Mohammed Karrar (38): raped children, arranged child prostitution, trafficked a child within the UK for sexual exploitation, supplied heroin and assaulted a child by penetration, using an instrument to procure a miscarriage, supplying heroin.
Of the seven men, five are of Pakistani origin; two are of North African origin.
The abuse occurred between 2004 and 2011.
Joanna Simons is the head of Oxfordshire County Council. She says members of her staff “take enormous responsibility for what’s happened”. She has refused to resign. She says he asked herself some “very hard questions”. But whatever answers she found, none told her to leave her job:
“There is going to be an independent serious case review which will look at the actions of all the agencies concerned. My gut feeling is that I’m not going to resign because my determination is that we need to do all that we can to take action to stamp this out… This is the worst thing I’ve come across in 30 years of local government. It’s absolutely horrendous. We’re all incredibly sad, all of us, that we weren’t able to stop this any sooner.”
How did the officials fail the victims, all of whom are British?
One child lived at a children’s home. Over a 15 month period she disappeared 126 times in 15 months.
A staff member at an Oxford children’s home branded a 13-year-old victim as “sexualised and dangerous”. No, not in danger. Dangerous.
Of the six girls brave enough to give testimony to the court, five were being looked after by Oxfordshire County Council’s social services department. One girl, who was 12 in 2007, told the court:
“I am here to tell my story and see the people who abused me found guilty. “
The police only began in investigating in May 2011. That same girl added:
“Any self-respecting police officer would have seen something was wrong. If you pick up a child who is covered in cigarette burns and bruises, something is fundamentally wrong. Adults should be doing their jobs, it’s not down to a child.”
Poor white girls get ignored.
One girl told the court:
“The council put out a press release claiming they had offered wraparound care to all the girls and their families, but the first we heard from them in five years was a letter on 13 April from Jim Leivers [director for children, education and families at the council], where he says he’s been ‘closely involved in providing support’ to me. That’s a complete lie. My family have had no support or offers of help at all from Oxfordshire. Nothing. Not at any point. Not even a phone call. The last contact we had with the council was five whole years ago, when my mum was begging them to help her stop me go off the rails. They ignored her then and they’ve ignored us since.”
Detective Chief Superintendent Rob Mason said:
“Thames Valley Police and Oxfordshire County Council social services deeply regret that this activity wasn’t identified sooner and that we were too reliant on victims supporting criminal proceedings, and that they suffered a terrible ordeal.”
It was identified sooner. The police failed to investigate.
The police don’t listen. They never do. They only tell.
Some of the victims reported their treatment at the hands of the men to police, but their complaints were ignored. One was threatened with arrest if she persisted with her claims.
Julie Siddiqi, of the Islamic Society of Britain, notices how many of thee men who form gangs to attack young white girls are of Pakistani origin:
“Child exploitation is a crime which affects all communities but the number of street-grooming convictions in the past few years involving Omars, Ahmeds and Faisals means the time has come for action.”
One victim’s voice rings out:
“She said she’d never been loved and this was the way they showed her she was loved.”
Right now the police are hunting instances of historical sex abuse under Operation Yewtree. They are arresting the rich and famous. It’s a high-profile investigation. It is driven by the police’s PR unit.
Posted: 15th, May 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
How Britain sizzled and froze on the same day in the Daily Express
HOW was the weather for you on the May Bank Holiday?
On April 29, the Express’ Nathan Rao wrote:
Rain and Arctic gales will bring Bank Holiday chaos
Any hopes of a reprieve for the Bank Holiday were dashed as experts warned wind, rain and bitter temperatures will dampen spirits for much of the UK.
On May 4, the Daily Express had news:
More here.
As a Syrian rebel is filmed cutting out a soldier’s heart we wonder who the hell the Free Syrian Army are?
WHO are Syria’s Freedom fighters? And should we back them? The internet is alive with a video of a Syrian rebel cutting out the heart and liver of a Government soldier. Having removed the organs the rebel looks as if he is about to eat them.
The Syrian opposition National Coalition says it is “a horrific and inhumane act”. Who is the National Coalition? Is it the same as the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces? The Syrian National Council? The National Co-ordination Committee? Is it in control of the Free Syrian Army? It’s all a bit murky.
Human Rights Watch says the video appears to have been made by a rebel brigade in Homs. It is alleged that the man in the video is Abu Sakkar, the alleged leader of Omar al-Farouq al-Mustakila brigade. The man says:
“We swear to God we will eat your hearts and livers, you soldiers of Bashar the dog. We are the heroes of Baba Amr.”
You wonder what the purpose of the video is? When Syrian president Bashar al-Assad used some sort of chemical weapon against rebels, the West did nothing. Will a grisly video of one man’s mutilation prick the West into action where 70,000 other deaths in the war have failed? Is the one hideous wrong worse than the big faceless number?
Barack Obama thinks so. He said:
‘There would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical-weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. That would change my calculations significantly.”
Being shot in the face is not as demanding of enormous consequences as being gassed oor chopped up is. We like our murders to be neat.
The Guardian’s editorial agreed:
‘The use of chemical weapons is a war crime. It is a war crime even if it is committed by a state which, like Syria (or North Korea), is not a signatory to the international chemical weapons convention… [B]ut the evidence needs to be examined. There undoubtedly needs to be a proper investigation, authorised by the international community, of the sarin allegations.”
Use chemical weapons and the righteous will get you. Guns. Meh.
Now what? Do we support the rebels, who look a lot like the jihadis the US has been fighting in Iraq? Does the US send in the big guns that would allow the rebels to win? Or does it just allow the rebels to get enough weapons to keep the civil war going?
The West has already taken sides. NATO plonked Patriot anti-missile batteries along its member Turkey’s border with Syria. Then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said this showed that “Turkey is backed by its allies.” No. It showed that the West is against the Syrian Government.
Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan made his views clear:
“The massacres in Syria that gain strength from the international community’s indifference are continuing to increase. The regime in Syria has now become a terrorist state. We do not have the luxury to be indifferent to what is happening there.”
He is demanding intervention. Turkey could do with a more Sunni-slanted Islamist ally in Syria.
CNN say Obama has agreed to supply the Free Syrian Army (FSA). Although the US doesn’t know all that much about the FSA. It’s the latest group the West has decided to back. The people – the Syrians on the ground – had no say in their representatives. The West just told them who was in charge.
William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said Britain was supplying the rebels because it was acting as “the conscience of humanity“. The rebellion is no longer a local affair. The rebels leaders been picked by the West and interested foreigners.
Meanwhile, the rebels are fighting for their place on the world stage. The FT reported on one incident:
A statement posted on the internet in the name of the militant Islamist group the Al-Nasra Front said they carried out Wednesday’s assault, using two waves of suicide attackers. The group has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Damascus but has also denied one claim issued in its name in May. Shortly after explosions rocked the capital on Wednesday, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is trying to act as an umbrella group for the various units fighting on the ground, claimed responsibility for them. A group called Tajamo Ansar al-Islam also claimed responsibility. The group’s relationship with the FSA is not clear.
The West is trying to create the official face of the rebellion. They are the good who will take over when the bad are routed.
And then we see the video of a man having his heart removed, you realise that Syria is complicated. There is no coherent rebellion. There is sectarianism, vengeance, and religionism mixed into that struggle to defeat Assad’s out-of-date regime…
Posted: 14th, May 2013 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)
Stuart Hazell escapes a life sentence for murdering Tia Sharp
STUART Hazell, 37, will very likely die in prison. Tia Sharp’s killer has been sent down for a minimum of 38 years. But he didn’t get a whole life tariff. Why not? Mr Justice Nicol said there was lack of “absolutely conclusive evidence” that the murder was sexually motivated. He said:
“It is an aggravating feature that your victim was so young. So too is your abuse of trust. Tia’s mother allowed her to come and stay with you because she trusted you to look after her. Christine [Bicknell, Tia’s grandmother] was at work that night, she trusted you to look after her. By first sexually assaulting and then killing Tia you betrayed that trust in the most grievous way possible.”
“The records of your internet searching on your mobile phone make abundantly clear that you were looking out for pornographic pictures of pre-teen girls, which Tia was; pornographic pictures of girls who wore glasses, which Tia did; even pictures involving incest. Tia was not your blood relation, but there was the bond between you because of your relationship with Christine, and from time to time you referred to yourself as Tia’s grandfather.
“You took pictures of Tia while she was asleep. In other contexts they would have been of no interest, but your internet activity included searches for pornographic pictures of young girls sleeping.”
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Posted: 14th, May 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
11 photos that explain Ireland to the world
IRELAND: 11 snapshots of life in the Emerald Isle:
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Julian Assange explains why he’s standing for the Australian Senate
JULIAN Assange remins in the Ecuadorean Embassy, London. He’s been speaking with Russia Today:
RT: You are making a bid for the Australian Senate. Why?
Julian Assange: In order to promote our values within Australia. We face a very interesting situation, as an organization and me personally, with the Australian government, in response to pressure by the United States, starting to investigate our organization. It formed what it called a whole of government task force against WikiLeaks. Whole of government involved in the internal security service ASIO, the external security service ASIS, the department of defense, the Australian federal police equivalent of the FBI and the attorney general’s office. Publically announced that the Australian government would try and work out how to cancel my passport. It is an extremely rare procedure, last done to an Australian journalist in the ’60s-’70s – Wilfred Burchett. What was WikiLeaks’ connection to Australia? Was WikiLeaks publishing Australian secrets? No. Was WikiLeaks having its publishing service in Australia? No!
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Things that existed: the Phone Relief Ultimate Hands-Free Headset
IN the early 1990s, the world was in peril. Telephones were falling into pies, to the floor from desks and very possibly being mistaken for carrots. But help was at hand. The Phone Relief Ultimate Hands-Free Headset was here.
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Posted: 13th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
This 1950s safety manual was called It’s Great to Be Alive! (aka: when bicycles attack!)
IN the 1950s, the powers that be created a comic book to tell kids what hideous fates could befall them if they took risks and failed to spot danger signs. The safety manual as called It’s Great to Be Alive! – aka Never Ride A Bike.
In this scene the motorist has run over the armed juvenile delinquent on a shooting spree.
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So, Melanie Philips and Barbara Hewson: what percent of paedophiles read the Daily Mail?
MELANIE Phillips dips her toe into the Barbara Hewson ‘scandal’ (the barrister called for the age of consent to be reduced to 13 and offered non-mainstream views on Operation Yewtree, the Met’s investigation into historical sex abuse sparked by Jimmy Savile post-death revelations). She writes:
…in any event, the age of consent has been progressively eroded. Irresponsible teenage magazines — which are read by much younger children — endlessly promote a bordello menu of sexual activity.
Schools dish out contraception and abortion advice to pubescent children — advice blessed by paediatricians, who claim that if a child is old enough to ask for it, she is old enough to give her meaningful consent.
For photos of “sexy” underage girls who didn’t give their consent see the Daily Mail here , here, here, here and here.
Wonder what per cent of paedophiles read the Mail?
The Daily Mail’s staff meetings must be wonderful…
Stuart Hazell did murder Tia Sharp
FOR nine months Stuart Hazell denied murdering 12-year-old Tia Sharp. Then he changed his mind. He says he did this to save the family any more anguish. Bollocks, of course. The evidence against him is overwhelming. He sexually assaulted Tia and took a picture of her dead body. He then stuffed the body into bin bags and pushed her into the loft of her grandmother’s home in New Addington. It took police four visits to the small home to find the body.
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Hole to another dimension opens up in Brighton – council ignore warnings
“I WAS recently walking my affenpinscher (a toy breed of dog) around the Hanover area of Brighton when I noticed that a wormhole or vortex has opened up on Montreal Road. On closer inspection it seems to be some kind of portal to other times, places and dimensions.
“I would have investigated further but I was concerned my little dog would be sucked into it. Is this meant to be there? At first I believed it might be part of the Brighton Festival but I believe it could be a hazard to the general public. I look forward to your response.
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How can Simon Singh donate to Hacked Off?
DANIEL Boffey tells readers of The Observer, names of wealthy donors to the Hacked Off campaign.
He lists a few of the names: Arpad Busson, Guy Chambers and Simon Singh. Singh donated £1000. He said:
“It is about getting the balance right between free speech and a responsible press.”
Sections of the press behaved badly. They were dealt with by the law. Free Speech has no buts. It is either free or it isn’t. You can’t get to the truth if you’re shackled.
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The Coca Cola Swastika
IN 1925, the Swastika was the symbol of go-ahead, thrusting futurism. Coca Cola tapped into the feel-good factor with its Swastika watch fob bearing the legend: “Drink Coca Cola five cents in bottles.” The fob was 4cm squared and made in brass.
Posted: 12th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comments (2)
October 1985: Morrissey and Pete Burns were ‘The Very Odd Couple’
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Posted: 12th, May 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
In 1981 technology stopped the ‘Arctic region becoming equatorial and the tropics suddenly changed to polar temperature’
IN 1881, the London St James’s Gazette reported on the end of life on Earth. The news was picked up by Australia’s Bendigo Advertiser:
STARTLING THEORY.
The London St James’s Gazette writes :—
” This planet, it seems, is threatened with serious changes by the extension of the telegraphic system. A timely note of warning to this effect is given by one of the American papers. Polarity, it observes, depends upon a current of electricity passing at right angles to the direction of the poles. The polarity of the earth depends upon the electric or heat currents of the sun, and it is highly probable that the earth’s inclination to the ecliptic is governed by its polarity. If, therefore, there were instantly established sufficient electrical connection by wires around the earth, with the earth itself, to instantly equalize the current and produce a complete reduction of all electrical excitement, what would be the effect on the polarity, and secondly on the inclination to the ecliptic ? May there not be a sudden change of polarities — the Arctic region becoming equatorial, and the tropics suddenly changed to polar temperature? The sudden melting of the vast ice fields would produce another glacial flood ; the present race would disappear, and the man of the quaternary would begin life ever again at the antipodes. All this is to be accomplished by the continuation of complete circuits for telegraphing around the globe. Of course tremendous earthquakes would follow, as the polar diameter is twenty-six miles too short and the equatorial twenty-six miles too long. Whether this theory prove correct or not, there cannot be a doubt that something has of late gone wrong with atmospherical arrangements, and perhaps the telegraph wires are not wholly blameless in the matter.”
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Posted: 12th, May 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
