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.
Quote of the Year: Mohammad Dib explains Mustapha Dib
QUOTE of the day is supplied by Mohammad Dib:
On Friday, Mustapha Dib [aka Mustapha Dob], known by friends, family and police as ‘Fairy,’ received a 30-year minimum jail sentence for the Lakemba murder of pregnant Anita Vrzina, 20, and wounding her partner, Ahmed Banat, with intent to murder in November 2000.
It was the second person he killed before he was 18 …
Mustapha’s brother Mohammad Dib, 34, who has spent at least eight years in jail for car rebirthing and his role in trying to cover up his brother’s role in the Lee murder, told Fairfax Media they are a ‘’normal family despite a few murders and shit’’.
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Posted: 27th, November 2012 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Anti hunt campaigners rescue fox from Berskshire Hunt in Oxfordshire (video)
ON the Old Berkshire Hunt in, erm, Oxfordshire, where anti-hunt campaigners have filmed themselves rescuing a fox.
Old Berkshire Hunt (led by Lord Astor, stepfather of Samantha Cameron) says of the 14 November footage:
“A fox appeared in a farmyard with five stray hounds and was jumped on by animal rights activists.”
Can it be that this fox is the leader of a gang of wayward hounds?
Posted: 27th, November 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (3)
In photos: Ashoura Day in Nabatiyeh, Lebanon
IN photos: Lebanon Ashoura (Ashura) Day. It’s the day when Shiite Lebanese remember the 680 A.D. battle in which their saint and grandson of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, Hussein, was killed by rivals cementing the split in Islam between Shiites and Sunnis. There will be blood…
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The Anthology album of Rolling Stones secret songs
No Stone Unturned
As the Rolling Stones begin their 50th Anniversary with a tour, TV celebrations and yet another greatest hits compilation, we present our own tribute. Unlike their Sixties rivals the Beatles, they have never received the Anthology treatment, and obscure gems from their heyday remain uncollected and largely overlooked. So here, in the interests of history, is Anorak’s album of Stones secrets…
1965: Ride On, Baby
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Posted: 26th, November 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment (1)
Lord Fisher uses first example of ‘OMG’ in letter to Winston Churchill
IT’S 1917 and Winston Churchill receives a letter from Lord Fisher. It contains the earliest example of OMG |(Oh My God). Did the toffs invent text speak? WTF! (Winston Talks French!):
Spotter: @LettersOfNote
Posted: 26th, November 2012 | In: Flashback, Politicians | Comments (2)
Rotherham council now twinned with Franco’s Spain: the UKIP foster care debacle
ROTHERHAM Metropolitan Borough Council has taken a leaf from General Franco’s book and removed children from “unsuitable” parents. The three children from East European were removed from their home because their foster parents are members of UKIP, the UK Independence Party. Rotherham says UKIP is racist. UKIP says:
UKIP was founded in 1993 to campaign for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. Not because we hate Europe, or foreigners, or anyone at all; but because it is undemocratic, expensive, bossy – and we still haven’t been asked whether we want to be in it. But the EU is only the biggest symptom of the real problem – the theft of our democracy by a powerful, remote political ‘elite’ which has forgotten that it’s here to serve the people.
It’s not the affiliation that matters to Rotherham’s child snatchers, it’s any political affiliation. Rotherham Council is a composite blend of 63 people, of which only 4 are not affiliated to the Labour Party: three Tories and one Independent. Diverse it ain’t.
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Posted: 26th, November 2012 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)
In photos: the tattooed faces of MS-13 and 18th Street gang members
THESE are gang tattoos of inmates in South America prisons. The ornately tattooed Mara Salvatrucha and the 18th Street gang members are many. Time reports that El Salvador has over 55,000 gang members; San Pedro Sula, a city of half a million Hondurans, has over 35,000. These gangs are South American imports from Los Angeles, deported from the US.
Their facial tattoos are familiar. Their fighting is barbaric. Not included in this photo montage are our pictures from Saturday, Nov. 22, 2008 of prisoners at Pavoncito prison in Fraijanes, on the outskirts of Guatemala City holding up the decapitated heads of five alleged Mara Salvatrucha gang members. At least seven inmates were killed during a riot between rival gang members, five of which were decapitated, according to authorities:
In this Sept. 1, 2012 photo, an inmate belonging to the Mara 18 gang gestures inside the prison in Cojutepeque, El Salvador.
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Posted: 25th, November 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (12)
How the Hit Parade moved from phonograph needles, platters and sleaze to MP3s
SIXTY years ago, the first British singles chart – or “Hit Parade” as it was called – was published. It appeared in the New Musical Express, and it was a top twelve that contained fifteen platters, on account of the joint number sevens, joint number eights and joint number elevens. Al Martino was number one with Here In My Heart. Only one of the discs was available in the new-fangled 45-revolutions-per-minute 7-inch vinyl format; the rest came as easily-breakable shellac 78s, for which the term “smash hit” was all too apt.
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Posted: 25th, November 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
The mysterious death of Uwe Sattler – Germany’s Gareth Williams
TO Hamburg, German, where the body of 43-year-old Uwe Sattler has been found. He has been shot in the head. He has been tied-up in a sack. A rucksack is on his back – it’s full of rocks. The sack is in the River Elbe.
The can be only one explanation: suicide! A Hamburg police spokesman tells us:
“We are 99.999 percent certain it was suicide. There is no other explanation; no other motive and no other evidence.”
Face of the day: Shiva sees the Pushkar cattle fair
FACE of the Day: At the Pushkar cattle fair, Rajasthan, India, a man dressed as Hindu God Lord Shiva participates in a procession. (Ru Paul is away.)
Mexico President Felipe Calderó wants Americans to buy drugs from nuns and Scouts
MEXICO’S soon-to-be former President Felipe Calderón gives up fighting the war on drugs. The leader of the United Mexican States (he wants the country’s name changed to just Mexico – emulating your biggest drugs client is more creepy than flattering) tells The Economist:
“Are there still drugs in Juárez [a violent northern border city]? Well of course, but it has never been the objective…of the public-security strategy to end something that it is impossible to end, namely the consumption of drugs or their trafficking…
“Either the United States and its society, its government and its congress decide to drastically reduce their consumption of drugs, or if they are not going to reduce it they at least have the moral responsibility to reduce the flow of money towards Mexico, which goes into the hands of criminals. They have to explore even market mechanisms to see if that can allow the flow of money to reduce.
“If they want to take all the drugs they want, as far as I’m concerned let them take them. I don’t agree with it but it’s their decision, as consumers and as a society. What I do not accept is that they continue passing their money to the hands of killers.”
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On Dublin’s anti-austerity march with The Girl Against Fluoride (photos)
TO Dublin for the March against austerity. We spotted Aisling Fitzgibbon, aka ‘The Girl Against Fluoride’, strip off outside Leinster House to highlight the cost of the addition of chemicals including fluoride to the water supply. She and her associates have beautiful smiles. Well, fluoride does make you stupid. You can read how here…
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Activists supporting Aisling Fitzgibbon aka 'The Girl Against Fluoride' strip off outside Leinster House to highlight the cost of the addition of chemicals including fluoride to the water supply as trade union members march through Dublin City Centre in opposition to Austerity. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday November 24, 2012. Photo credit should read: Niall Carson/PA Wire
Daily Mail writers cause more children to have accidents
SCARE story of the day appear in the Daily Mail, natch., wherein we are told:
“Playground children having more accidents because parents are too busy playing on their smartphones”
Yep. It’s a story about other parents being bad parents. We love ’em.
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Posted: 24th, November 2012 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Fact checking: Qatar bans Piglet from Winnie The Pooh books?
TO Qatar, where Piglet has been purged from Winnie The Pooh books. Well, so one site reports. We are told that Qatar says the scared little pig is offensive to Islam. Really?
We’ve been here before. In 2007, Qatar Living featured a story about the shopper who’d found Piglet erased by black maker pens from a copy of Disney’s “My Very First Encyclopedia with Winnie the Pooh and friends”:
Yes, the cuddly cute pink Piglet had disappeared. First, I have no idea who would buy a book that cost about $30 that was marked up like this. Secondly, what the hell were the censors thinking!? Now as a Muslim, I can venture why they did this. But as a Muslim, I think it is totally ridiculous.
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Posted: 24th, November 2012 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
Police looking for sexual abuse shut down Rochdale takeaway with no evidence nor proof of criminality
TO Rochdale, scene of sexual depravity, paedophilia and Cyril Smith. The Times reports that Tariq’s Pizza Plus, in Milnrow, near Rochdale, Great Manchester, has been closed. There have been allegations made about a man who worked at the premises.
Earlier in the year nine men were jailed for numerous child-sex crimes in and around Rochdale. In November, nine more men appeared in court accused of sex offences allegedly committed against a Rochdale girl between 2008 and 2009.
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Posted: 23rd, November 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (2)
When Hercules the bear was Scotland’s Number 1 star
HERCULES was born in a captivity near Aviemore in 1974. Wrestler Andy Robin paid £50 for the grizzly. The bear was groomed for stardom. Hercules became a big TV and film star, wrestling Andy on ITV’s World of Sport programme, appearing in Octopussy, the James Bond flick, Disney stuff and A Day In The Life Of Hercules The Bear in 1979. In 1981, Hercules was Scottish Personality of the Year.
Maggie said of the bear:
“We travelled the world with him and he really was like a child. When we were living with him, our lives revolved around his – it was wonderful.”
You could say he died on the job – while filming a documentary for Disney Hercules fell over, slipped a disc in his back and was crippled. He died on 4 February 2000.
14/11/1980: At The Cartoonist Pub Shoe Lane, London, Hercules the Bear becomes the first honorary member of the fabled club. With Hercules are (l to r) the Club’s Chairman Ian Scott, his owner Andy Robin of Dunblane and his favourite singer Iris Williams.
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Posted: 23rd, November 2012 | In: Celebrities, Flashback | Comment
Local News in Burnley: ‘I found a maggot in my butty’ (video)
LOCAL news travels to Burnley, where Hafiz Rehman, 27, says he found a maggot in his egg salad sandwich bought from the Greggs opposite Boots.
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Posted: 23rd, November 2012 | In: Reviews, The Consumer | Comment
1965: A film on London’s members’ only clubs
IT’S 1965, and the Rank Organisation has produced a film called Look at Life – Members Only. It’s a look within London’s private members’ clubs. Nothing has changed. The old networks still exist to control and win:
Spotter: DM
New Zealanders are defined as race apart In Australian name calling trial
THAT’S racist! We might yet to find the Rosa Parks of non indigenous Kiwi emancipation, but we’re getting there. Being a New Zealander means being part of a distinct race. As Tim Blair notes:
A certain episode of Flight of the Conchords, in which Australians were described as being “descended from criminals and retarded monkeys”, will never be shown again. A fatwa, or beergutwa, will make sure of it.
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Posted: 23rd, November 2012 | In: Reviews | Comment (1)
Newsreaders quit, live-on-air: Cindy Michaels and Tony Consiglio sign off
EVERYONE in media is so bloody concerned for their careers that they refuse to upset anyone or make any bold moves. So when someone finally does it – and in a very public way – one can’t help but stand and applaud.
And so, to two American newsreaders in Maine who resigned live-on-air at the end of their programme, because they were being leaned on to give a certain political slant to their broadcasts.
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Using MDMA to treat post-traumatic stress disorder
CAN MDMA help with post-traumatic stress disorder?
The NY Times notes:
News that Drs Michael and Ann Mithoefers are beginning to test the drug in veterans is out, in the military press and on veterans’ blogs. “We’ve had more than 250 vets call us,” Dr. Mithoefer said. “There’s a long waiting list, we wish we could enroll them all.” The couple, working with other researchers, will treat no more than 24 veterans with the therapy, following Food and Drug Administration protocols for testing an experimental drug; MDMA is not approved for any medical uses.
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Biased BBC takes The Israel Test: Mishal Husain wonders if attempted murder is any crime at all?
GIL Hoffman, Chief Political Correspondent and Analyst with the Jerusalem Post, has been on the BBC talking with Mishal Husain about the latest fighting in Gaza. As ever, these wars of self-defence and self-assertion ride high on the news cycle. The West sees itself in the conflict.
Brendan O’Neill paraphrases George Gilder in The Israel Test:
Western thinkers, politicians and activists define themselves through their attitude towards Israel. They project on to Israel either their desperate desire to save Western Enlightenment values from being trashed (with some seeing Israel as the No.1 defender of those values), or their aching guilt over the values of Western colonialism (with others seeing Israel as the No.1 embodiment of those archaic values), and then cheer or denounce Israel and its local wars accordingly.
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Posted: 22nd, November 2012 | In: Reviews | Comments (14)
Sexism watch: Daredevil slips into ‘something barely legal’
EVERYDAY sexism looks at this still from a Daredevil comic book. Norman Saunders thought it tame.
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Posted: 22nd, November 2012 | In: Flashback | Comments (2)
