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.
Police taser man outside Buckingham Palace (video)
TO Buckingham Palace, London, where police has tasered a man.
The dramatic incident saw the man brandish two knives in front of hundreds of terrified tourists watching the popular Changing of the Guard event at 11.50am outside the palace in central London.
The scene was cordoned off 30 yards from the palace gates and an ambulance was nearby.
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The US governments Steppenwolf investment in ammo is spoiling it for shooters
JOHN Hinderaker on his lack of shooting opportunities:
I really, really wanted to shoot today, but wasn’t able to. Why, you might ask? Was I backed up with work? Nope. Did I have a long list of chores to do, to stay in my wife’s good graces? Nope. I was free as a bird. But I couldn’t shoot because, with the exception of 100 rounds of 22LR and the loaded 9 mm magazines that I keep at home for purposes of self-defense, I was out out of ammo…
So what is going on? In part, certainly, the perception of a potential shortage due to the policies of the Obama administration has led to the reality of a shortage, as everyone started to stock up. I can understand the mentality: if I wandered into a gun store and found that they had just put 1,000 9 mm rounds on the shelf, I would buy them all. But does that fully explain what is happening? How about the fact that government agencies are buying up billions of rounds? There have been lots of news reports and lots of rumors, but no clear explanation of why the federal government has invested so massively in ammunition–including the most popular civilian calibers–over the last year.
No point in collecting ammo if you don’t clean your gun...
But what about the Government’s ammo piles? Maybe they’re buying it up to blow it up?
Jon Venables: Ralph Bulger’s new book sheds light on James Bulger’s killer
THE murder of James Bulger is still news. Ralph Bulger, father of the two-year-old murdered by twn-year-olds Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, has written a book. My James by Ralph Bulger and Rosie Dunn centres on the events of February 12, 1993. The parts about he and wife Denise Ferguson’s unbearable pain are horrible, like being invited to look at survivors’ slides from a fatal car crash. The parts about the child’s body and wounds are grim. They offer nothing new. What is interesting is the story of the criminal case, particularly how Jon Venables comes across:
…
‘Is that you on that video, son?’ Ann Thompson demanded. ‘Nah, it’s got nothing to do with me,’ he replied. As if to prove his point, Robert went to a makeshift memorial near the railway in Walton and later took some flowers. When he got home he said to his mother: ‘Why would I take flowers to the baby if I had killed him?’ At another home nearby, Jon Venables told his mother, Susan: ‘If I’d seen them kids hurting the baby, I’d have kicked their heads in.’
…
Jon’s father, meanwhile, asked his son about the blue paint that was splattered on his mustard-coloured coat. He said that his friend Robert Thompson had thrown it at him.
I later learned that on the Wednesday evening an anonymous woman went to Marsh Lane Police Station. She said she was a friend of the Venables family and knew that the son, a boy called Jon, had skipped school with a friend called Robert Thompson on the Friday that James went missing. He had returned home with blue paint on his jacket.
…
Jon was having lunch when his mother held her son in a tight embrace and said: ‘I love you, Jon. I want you to tell the truth, whatever it might be.’ He started to cry, and just blurted out: ‘I did kill him.’ The boy looked across the room at the detectives and said: ‘What about his mum? Will you tell her I’m sorry.’ Jon continued to blame everything on Robert. He said they found James outside the butcher’s shop. He said it was his idea to take him, but it was Robert’s idea to kill him. They took him to the canal, where Robert planned to throw him in. James would not kneel down to look at his reflection in the water as they wanted, so Robert picked him up and threw him on the ground. This was how James had first injured his head. He said that James kept crying: ‘I want my mummy.’
…
‘He wanted him dead, probably,’ he responded. ‘Robert was probably doing it for fun because he was laughing his head off.’ For his part, though, Robert refused to admit any involvement in the attack. ‘He never actually told me the truth in the end – far from it,’ said DS Roberts. ‘He lied from the minute we started to interview him.’ ‘When he was charged, he had no problem with it. I suppose he knew that if he was found guilty he would have a better life than he would outside. I thought to myself, “This boy has caused so much misery and evil.” I didn’t look for the three sixes on the back of his head, but at that moment I thought he was the devil.’
…
It may oversimplify the arguments, but that to my mind makes them evil beyond belief.
You never do hear much of Robert Thompson…
Posted: 3rd, February 2013 | In: Books, Reviews | Comments (21)
1925: the Isolator helmet by Hugo Gernsback
FLASHBACK to 1925:
The Isolator is a bizarre helmet invented in 1925 that encourages focus and concentration by rendering the wearer deaf, piping them full of oxygen, and limiting their vision to a tiny horizontal slit. The Isolator was invented by Hugo Gernsback, editor of Science and Invention magazine, member of “The American Physical Society,” and one of the pioneers of science fiction.
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Posted: 2nd, February 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
Flashback to 1981: wearing seat belts becomes compulsory for drivers (photos and videos)
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Posted: 2nd, February 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
There is no point going to war for a multi-racial society
A READER writes on race and culture:
I worked with some of the colossus involved in the front-line of the fight against apartheid. There, at the feet of the mighty, I learned one thing which I meant to pass on. It is this.
There is no point going to war for a multi-racial society.
The only worthwhile achievement is a non-racial one.
During my – for want of a proper description – let’s call it a career, I worked in some very dangerous to be spots and when there were doubts about a reporter’s phrasing I always tried to measure it by the the cardinal rule used by Nato. There it was considered fair to call a colleague a bastard. Just don’t call them a white/black Brit/French or Canadian one.
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Huge fart rocks Grimsby court
LOCAL News: Grimbsy:
Noisy flatulence interrupts court session in Grimsby
THE quiet dignity of a court session was abruptly disturbed when someone loudly broke wind in the public gallery.
Nobody apologised for the noisy interruption – and there were anxious looks from people nearby who feared they might get the blame. Grimsby magistrates pretended they had not heard a thing, and in a seemingly unrelated incident a few minutes later, all the lights went out for a few seconds before flickering back on again.
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Italy and Russia look again at Mussolini and Stalin for go-ahead identity
DO countries get the dictators they deserve? In the Times, Ben Mintyre looks at Italy and Russia’s resurgent love for old dictators:
Two of Mussolini’s granddaughters are running for office, only days after Silvio Berlusconi praised Il Duce for the “good things” he did for Italy.
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Scouting for Boys extracts: Robert Baden-Powell gave Pink Floyd their ‘brick in the wall’?
EXTRACTS from Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. In the Intro, Baden Powell signed off “Chief Scout of the World”. The book was originally published in installments every other Wednesday from January 15, 1908:
You should remember that being one fellow among many others, you are like one brick among many others in the wall of a house. If you are discontented with your place or your neighbors or if you are a rotten brick, you are no good to the wall. You are rather a danger. If the bricks get quarrelling among themselves the wall is liable to split and the whole house to fall.
While Pink Floyd hummed that, boys just hummed:
“The result of ‘self-abuse’ is always—mind you, always—that the boy after a time becomes weak and nervous and shy, he gets headaches and probably palpitation of the heart, and if he still carries it on too far he very often goes out of his mind and becomes an idiot… several awful diseases come from indulgence—one especially that rots away the inside of men’s mouths, their noses, and eyes, etc.”
Etc? Sounds ominous.
“Avoid listening to stories or reading or thinking about dirty subjects”
And then, oddly:
“It is at present a disgrace and a danger to England that from want of self-restraint among men and women thousands upon thousands of children are born every year for whom there is no work and no money.”
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comment
Angry kids love their new cubbyhouse (photo)
YOUR children and their friends will love having their own cubbyhouse:
The Electrical Baths of the early 20th Century
THE Electrical Bath would steam your cares away.
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: Flashback, The Consumer | Comment
Cats order study into effect of humans and dogs on wildlife
CATS order study into effects of dogs and disinfectant on the population of fleas and other native American insects. The NYTimes reports in its science section:
In a report that scaled up local surveys and pilot studies to national dimensions, scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States–both the pet Fluffies that spend part of the day outdoors and the unnamed strays and ferals that never leave it–kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.
The estimated kill rates are two to four times higher than mortality figures previously bandied about, and position the domestic cat as one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation. More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes.
“Any vole that collides with a skyscraper deserves to die” – Chalres Darwin.
1971: Sophia Loren says Eat With Me (and my giant wooden cutlery ears)
SCREEN siren Sophia Loren loves cooking. She;s teh star of such cook books as Sophia Loren’s Recipes and Memories and the 1971 classic Eat With Me (Cucina con Amore). Whatever you, don’t mention the ears. But why should she care. As Loren says in her tome: “Sex appeal is 50 % what you have – and 50% of what others think you have.” And she has rolling pin and giant wooden cutlery…
Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Sandy Hook massacre: How ‘gun nuts’ and a biased media patronised Neil Heslin
CAN the Sandy Hook massacre be used to score political points? Yes. Ken Dixon, reported in the Connecticut Post of Bridgeport on Neil Heslin’s appearance before a state legislative panel in Hartford. Mr Heslin’s son, 6-year-old Jesse Leis, was murdered by Adam Lanza. Dixon wrote:
“The Second Amendment!” was shouted a couple of times by as many as a dozen gun enthusiasts in the meeting room as Neil Heslin, holding a photo of his slain 6-year-old son, Jesse Lewis, asked why Bushmaster assault-style weapons are allowed to be sold in the state.
“There are a lot of things that should be changed to prevent what happened,” said Heslin, who said he grew up using guns and was undisturbed by the interruption of his testimony.
“That wasn’t just a killing, it was a massacre,” said Heslin, who recalled dropping off his son at Sandy Hook Elementary school shortly before Lanza opened fire. “I just hope some good can come out of this.”
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (4)
On guns, rape and Jerome McCorry
THE gun debate rages. Do guns prevent rape? First up, we go to Montgomery County, where Erin was at home with her young son when three masked men broke into her home.
“I threw the cover over my son and I took off running, screaming to the living room to let my dogs out. When I saw three of them, I knew I was in a lot of trouble. I said, ‘The TV is the most expensive thing I own. You could take that through the front door and go with it,’ and they said, ‘No, the money, the money,'” said Erin.
Erin said she had to think fast as the men headed towards her son’s room. The mom said she distracted the men as she rushed to get her gun.
“Somehow the way it happened, as they were going down the hallway, I told them sometimes I keep money under the mattress, which is not true. But I needed to get to where my gun was,” she said.
The men followed her to her bedroom.
The men produced a roll of duct rape. The dogs ran in. The men turned their attention for just long enough:
“They all turned around and looked. I grabbed my gun, cocked it, I turned and shot him right in the stomach,” said Erin.
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (3)
Face of the day: The Momotxorro of Zubieta
California has no money to stop felons and the mentally ill from owning guns
IN California, convicted felons and the diagnosed mentally ill are banned from owning guns. Stephen Lindley, chief of the state’s Bureau of Firearms, says each year around 3,000 people are added to the list. He estimates that people on the list possess around 35,000 guns:
“California authorities are empowered to seize weapons owned by convicted felons and people with mental illness, but staff shortages and funding cuts have left a backlog of more than 19,700 people to disarm, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.”
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Daily Express to launch Polish language edition for lazy foreigners
“MIGRANTS SHUN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE,” states the Daily Express. “4 million spell living here hardly speak it.”
Time for the Express to produce a Polish-language editions, surely.
Sarah O’Grady writes:
MORE than four million migrants in Britain cannot or rarely speak English.
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Posted: 31st, January 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (3)
Claire Squires died at London Marathon with now banned drug in her system
WHY did Claire Squires die on the London Marathon? The tabloids turned her into a hero, cynically using her death to push their own papers as forces of good. But while the papers grandstanded, £1million was raised in her memory for The Samaritans. Claire and her family did that. The papers just piggy-backed.
Now the coroner says the 30-year-old was found to have had traces of 1.3-dimethylamine (DMAA) in her system. The drug can be found in the energy supplement drink Jack3D. Claire Squires had dissolved some into her water bottle.
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1985: LL Cool J plays Colby College in Waterville, Maine
BEFORE he was mega, LL Cool J was a 17-year-old who for $500 could be booked to played Colby College in Waterville, Maine. It was June 1985, when LL Cool J and his co-star DJ Cut Creator rolled into that venue. Were the crowd up for scratching? LL Cool J was cool enough to realise his crowd. He did not play the Birdie Song and invite the kids and mums lolling about the place to clap along. He invited DJ Cut Creator to show them what scratching was.
Says someone who was there:
LL was paid $500 for the show. Since he was the only rap act, he was worried it would a be short performance, so my dad suggested he fill it in with the scratching and beat boxing. LL was signed to Def Jam. My dad tried to get RUN DMC, but could not afford them, so Def Jam told him he should bring up LL Cool J.
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Why a bullet tax is stupid – unless you’re a New York cop
YOU can cut down on gun crime in the US by taxing bullets. Well, so say some experts.
The experts note that hefty taxes on tobacco products have funded anti-smoking campaigns and helped to drastically reduce the prevalence of cigarette smoking in the U.S. in the past few decades. Likewise, they say, a “substantial” national tax on all firearms and ammunition “would provide stable revenue to meaningfully target gun violence prevention.”
If bullets get more expensive, you need to start conserving them. And if your rivals have the same problem, then perhaps the citywide basis of competition can ratchet down to a less-deadly dynamic of melee rather than drive-by.
In California:
Assemblyman Roger Dickenson (D-Sacramento) proposed the nickel-a-bullet tax on the sale of ammunition to go for mental health evaluations and intervention in cases where problems are discovered.
“Screening young children for signs of mental illness and addressing any issues early on is the key to a healthier and more productive adult life,” Dickenson said in a statement. “A limited tax on ammunition is a small price to pay for better mental health care for children in our state.”
Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Alameda) has introduced AB 187, which would impose an ammo tax to provide money to a crime prevention fund for areas with high rates of violent crime.
This is dumb idea. The bullet tax would only hurt sports shooters who vire lots of bullets at targets. Would a tax on bullets prevent mass shootings and other gun crimes? No.
Meanwhile, in New York:
A troubling oversight has been found within New York State’s sweeping new gun laws. The ban on having high-capacity magazines, as it’s written, would also include law enforcement officers. Magazines with more than seven rounds will be illegal under the new law when that part takes effect in March. As the statute is currently written, it does not exempt law enforcement officers. Nearly every law enforcement agency in the state carries hand guns that have a 15 round capacity. A spokesman for the governor’s office called Eyewitness News to say, “We are still working out some details of the law and the exemption will be included, currently no police officer is in violation.”
So. You need 15 bullets to protest yourself if you’re copper. But if you’re a citizen you only need 7. Amadou Bailo Diallo’s family will be delighted…
Posted: 30th, January 2013 | In: Reviews | Comments (3)
Men who do housework get less sex
SEX. It is, unfathomably, still something of a thorny issue despite the fact it is as natural as (and only marginally less satisfying than) sneezing. Yet, people get funny talking about it. How much do you get? How long do you last? What sort of things do you get up to? Are you a swinger?
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These controversial cartoons get you killed: the bravest and most wrong satire
GERALD Scarfe has just achieved the notable achievement of forcing Rupert Murdoch into a public apology, after his Sunday Times cartoon of Israel’s prime minister, with its overtones of blood libel, attracted widespread accusations of anti-semitism.
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Posted: 30th, January 2013 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Reviews | Comment (1)
