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 New York heat map
WHO’S packing heat in New York City. With his map you can find out. The heat map, by John Keefe at broadcaster WNYC, tells you where people were stopped and frisked the most, and where weapons were found. Two things to note: where you search more you find more; why are there not more searches in the Bronx, where guns are plentiful?
Posted: 22nd, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Daily Express summer weather report
THAT Daily Express summer weather report:
July 7 2012: “Sorry, but there’s no might about it. IT WILL RAIN ‘TIL SEPTEMBER.”
July 20 2012: “95 F – FORGET THE RAIN”
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Posted: 21st, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
James Eagan Holmes shot 71 people, killing 12 – blame the Occupy movement and the Tea Party
JAMES Eagan Holmes, 24, shot 71 peoples in the Denver suburb of Aurora as they watched the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises. Twelve are dead.
What else do we know?
* Ben Leung, 27, lived neat Holmes. He tells the Times: “Nobody really knew him…He wouldn’t acknowledge you when you passed him in the corridor.”
* The Times looks for a pattern: “The Century 16 cinema where Holmes attacked his victims row by row is less than 20 miles from Columbine High School, the scene in 1999 of one of America’s worst mass shootings.”
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Posted: 20th, July 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | 14 Comments
New Manhattan floats off Greenland coast
HOW big is the iceberg that’s broken off the Petermann Glacier in Greenland? How many double-decker buses high? How many football pitches long?
Seattle Pi: “A Manhattan-size iceberg has broken off a Greenland glacier.”
Yahoo!: “A massive iceberg larger than Manhattan has broken away from the floating end of a Greenland glacier this week.”
Planet Save: “A massive ice island in the region, which is almost double the size of Manhattan, is no more joining with the Greenland’s massive Peterman Glacier.”
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Posted: 19th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
New Zealand prostitutes bend poles with their bare hands
TO New Zealand, where keen Olympians are using street furniture to pole dance on. Reports are that “dozens” of traffic sings and poles have been bent out of shape by women using them as dance partners.
Pole dancing, of course, grew out of the 1980s Handbag Movement, in which legions of women would dance about their handbags in clubs with names like Buzbees, Dicey O’Reilly’s and Boogies Brasserie while they waited for men with rhythm or a bag snatcher. The bags went, replaced by, in turn, traffic cones, men called Gary and finally poles.
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St. Bernard saves Keyla McCree, 7, from fall in New York Alps
NOMINATIVE determinism hero of the year is Steve St. Bernard, who – naturally – rescued a 7-year-old girl named Keyla McCree who fell from a third-story window in Brooklyn. St Bernard caught her.
Nominative determinism is the process whereby people’s lives are unconsciously shaped by their names. So. Mr St. Bernard is always more likely than, say, a Mr Slipper to save a child from an accident high up in the urban Alps.
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1972: Bettie Page has her mug shot taken (photos)
BETTIE Page was the hotness who never let her fans down. Until 1972, when the 1950s pin-up was arrested in Hialeah, Florida for a domestic incident with her ex-husband Harry Lear.The Bettie Page Companion tells us:
Bettie was arrested on the 28th October 1972 when Police answered a call placed by Harry, when they arrived on scene that found him and Bettie out on the front yard with Bettie hitting Harry, repeatedly punching and verbally attacking him.
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Posted: 16th, July 2012 | In: Flashback | 0 Comments
Honduran teenager sells baby for bunch of grapes
TO Honduras, where Karina Castro has sold her daughter for $5 and $1 worth of grapes at Belen Market. Karina Castro is 18 and suffers from mental illness.
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Posted: 16th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
EDL, anti-facists and Gay Pride walk through Bristol – photos
TODAY in Bristol, fans of the English Defence League and the anti-fascist We are Bristol marched and took part in rallies in the city. Bristol East Labour MP, Kerry McCarthy, told the BBC: “We don’t have that racial hatred or or conflict in this city. Hopefully after today [Saturday] EDL will be sent a very clear message we don’t want them in Bristol.” As those two side screamed, the gay pride march kicked off. One thing is certain: the British do love a good walk. PS – Anyone end up on the wrong march in error? And how long it it take before you noticed?
Posted: 14th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 2 Comments
Germany’s purge on circumcision enshrines its anti-Semitism in law
IS Germany’s looming ban on child circumcision anti-Semitic? A German court has ruled that circumcision constitutes bodily harm. Those parents who allow it are child abusers. It follows that Jews are child abusers. Their parents are liable to prosecution. And not just in GErmany.
In Norway, Centre Party spokesperson Jenny Klinge, said: “Circumcision on religious grounds should be a criminal offence.” In San Francisco, Foreskin Man is a superhero fighting evildoers (Jews and Muslims).
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Posted: 14th, July 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | 68 Comments
Daily Telegraph blogger Inspector Winter is prisoner Ellis Ward
YOU will be familiar with the work of Inspector Winter, who worked the Twitter beat.
His work featured in the Daily Telegraph. The organ of repute snapped up Winter to produce a “graphic blog on revisiting Tottenham…in plain clothes following the riots.” The “anonymous tweeting police officer” was in the know and on the scene. He would relay to Telegraph readers the “chaos” of trying to keep order during the riots.
He wrote:
“I have worked every night and every day this week. Since last Saturday, when I was on the streets of Tottenham in north London in the early hours as rioting and looting broke out, through to the early hours of yesterday morning. I have clocked up around 125 hours, too many of them being pelted by stones, petrol bombs and, in one case, in the chaos of it all, by a 4ft ornamental palm tree.
“All that has sustained me has been a few hours of snatched sleep between shifts, plenty of tea, the occasional packet of Haribo sweets to provide a much-needed energy burst – and an unshakeable belief, shared with my fellow officers, that I have a responsibility for the safety of my colleagues, and for the decent, law-abiding majority of the community here in London where I live.
“I am in my mid-30s and have been a police officer for 15 years, most recently in plain clothes doing surveillance. I am also in the Territorial Army and have seen service in Iraq. So I thought I’d witnessed most things in the course of my career. I was on duty at the G20 demonstrations in London in 2009, for example. But nothing prepared me for what I experienced on the front line this week.”
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Posted: 13th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Germans celebrate Snuff World Championships (it’s what Hitler would have wanted)
FOLLOWING news of Angela Merkel’s Hitler-like moustache, news of the 18th annual Snuff World Championships in Bavaria, Germany. The publicity shot is suggestive of times past, when Adolf Hitler made more snuff movies than you shake a big stick at.
The contest is not see which local can most look like a famous former local, rather to consume five grams of snuff in 60 seconds.
Says 2011 champion Christian Knauer Junior:
“It’s like being a football player, he also wouldn’t say after 90 minutes that his feet didn’t hurt and it was just a nice walk. Instead you have to get into it. The nasal mucosa suffers a bit, but that goes away after a few minutes, then it’s okay again.”
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Posted: 13th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Eva Rausing’s Belgravia death house soars in value
WHEN EVA Rausing was found dead in her London home, the media did what it usually does and investigated the value of her property.
Just how much is that London pile worthy?
£70m – Daily Mail – July 10, 2012
£70 m – Sydney Morning Herald
$110 – Canada.com
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Posted: 12th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Mr Sikkel names a blood-sucking parasite after Bob Marley
WHAT’S in a name? Paul Sikkel of Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, has named a blood-sucking parasite after Bob Marley. Meet gnathia marleyi, a sea-dwelling tick, a swimming mosquito. Says Sikkel:
“I named this species, which is truly a natural wonder, after Marley because of my respect and admiration for Marley’s music. Plus, this species is as uniquely Caribbean, as was Marley.”
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Posted: 12th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Had Eva Rausing been poor she would have got drugs treatment in prison
EVA Rausing, formerly Eva Kennedy, 48, is dead. Her body was found in her Cadogan Place townhouse. Her husband is Hans Kristian Rausing, 49. He’s the son the Tetra Pak drinks carton tycoon.
Mr Rausing stands to inherit an estimated £5.4 billion fortune from his Swedish father, also named Hans.
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Did Warren Jeffs’ Mormon sect bury a cat alive in concrete?
MORMONISM is big news. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, wants to be President of the USA. Not since Joyce McKinney straddled the tabloids and the Osmonds tinkled the ivories (and more) have Mormons been so prominent. Mindful of this we learn of Isaac Wyler.
Mr Wyler is no longer a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Six weeks ago, he found a live cat cemented into a metal tube in his garden at Colorado City, Arizona.
An Andrew Chatwin, also a former Mormon, claims this was a warning from the group.
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Posted: 11th, July 2012 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | 2 Comments
Mormon bondage, a horse with a false leg, kidnap and cloned dogs: The Joyce McKinney story
WAS this the best tabloid news story ever? Readers of a certain vintage will recall the name Joyce McKinney, a former Miss Wyoming. Errol Morris told her story of Mormons, cloned dogs, sex, a false leg for a horse, The Osmonds and an escape from justice in Tabloid.
Her name came to the fore on September 14, 1977. Kirk Anderson had gone missing close to Epsom, Surrey. He’d been kidnapped at gunpoint.
Enter McKinney. In 1973, having converted to Mormonism, and been romantically linked to Wayne Osmond, McKinney began dating Kirk Anderson soon after they’d met in drama class at Brigham Young University in Utah. McKinney was 25. Anderson was 19.
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Posted: 10th, July 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | 0 Comments
Boxing Brawls: A history of the most famous and infamous
BAD blood, insults, pre-match scraps and warnings of crowd trouble have all helped stoke the flames and shift tickets for Saturday’s showdown between David Haye and Dereck Chisora at Upton Park.
They have already had run-ins outside the ring…
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Posted: 10th, July 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | 0 Comments
Save our libraries: there are no plans to reopen them
SAVE our libraries! They are full of free learning. They are one of the few indoor places you can sit down and enjoy the peace and quiet without having buy something. You can pick a book up and flick though it. Each book was created by someone else. Reading let’s you see into their mind. Books help you to understand life better. Libraries allow people to read books they cannot afford to buy. They are one of the few things taxes pay for that improve us.
But they are closing.
I grew up in Brent, north west London. Kensal Rise library — opened by Mark Twain in 1900 — is being closed. The High Court has agreed that Brent council can shut six of its twelve libraries. Sir Michael Holroyd said: “The wanton destruction of the Kensal Rise Library is a gross act of philistinism which will bring lasting shame to all involved.”
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In photos: the San Fermin cock and bull run 2012
TO Pamplona, Spain, for the San Fermin bull run. Two Londoners have been injured by the bulls. Liam Tarff, 29, was gored in the left thigh. Nick Couchman was gored in the right thigh. Says Tarff (-Luck): “I felt its horn go through my leg. It was like being stabbed with a large knife…If the bull’s horn had gone in a few inches higher through somewhere like my heart, I probably would not have been around to tell the tale.” And you how many times he’s gong to tell the tale, don’t you. If his leg was his heart, he’d be dead. The Cocks and Bulls:
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Posted: 9th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
If a typo is bad journalism we’re all doomed
ANORAK – aka Anorka – makes plenty to typos. But, then, so does bigger media. Still, journalism site HoldTheFrontPage gets pathetically snooty about a local news report headlined: “A dead Boby has been found on Southsea beach.”
Plenty of schadenfreude on the South Coast this week over a hyperlocal news site’s attempts to cover the story of a body – or was it in fact a ‘bobby?’ – washed up on Southsea beach.
Staffers on more established local media outlets are citing it as a perfect example of why ‘citizen journalism’ is not a replacement for trained newspaper staff.
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Posted: 9th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
Media blames marijuana for Rudy Eugene’s cannibal attack
NOW we know. The drug-crazed, Miami zombie cannibal Rudy Eugene was not high on bath salts bath salts when he attacked Ronald Poppo (photos NSFW). The only drug in Eugene’s system was marijuana. Oh, and he had no human flesh in his system.
Was the man shot dead by police suffering a marijuana-induced psychosis when he ripped off much of Poppo’s face?
Or was he ill? You see, what we did not know as that Rudy Eugene had been diagnosed with schizophrenia after a previous arrest.
His ex-wife told Florida TV:
“I wouldn’t say he had mental problems but he always felt like people was against him… No one was for him, everyone was against him.”
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German town gives men harder parking places because they ‘like the challenge’
TO Triberg, Germany, where the town’s mayor, Gallus Strobel, has marked out car park spaces for men or women. The spaces for women are wide, well-lit, and near to the exits. The spaces for men are tight and more remote. Strobel says men will like it because “men are, as a rule, a little better at such challenges“.
That challenge, presumably, being how to pretend to be a woman in one of his car parks.
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Posted: 9th, July 2012 | In: Reviews | 0 Comments
The Blood We Share: Ian Huntley’s brother Wayne investigates Soham murderer’s path to murder
WAYNE Huntley has written a book, published to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, the schoolgirls murdered by his older brother Ian Huntley in Soham, Cambridgeshire. The Blood We Share has been front-page news on the Sun, which yesterday yelled: “FAMILY FURY AT KILLER 10 YEARS ON – I WISH MY EVIL BROTHER HUNTLEY WAS DEAD.”
The Sun detailed elements of Huntley’s “cushy” life in prison. He “DEVOURS steaks” and eats “slap-up meals”. And:
LOVES watching Manchester United games on prison TV — unmoved by the fact that his two victims were wearing the team’s red shirts when he killed them.
That Ian Huntley is a nasty piece of work seems unworthy of additional comment. But rather than wishing him dead, as the headline states, Wayne Huntley suggests his brother has a conscience that does not allow to face the truth:
“I believe he knows the truth is too awful for him to admit — it would mean even more people in prison would want to kill him.”
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Posted: 9th, July 2012 | In: Books, Key Posts, Reviews | 1 Comment
March 21, 1956: The Oscars, as presented by Grave Kelly
FLASHBACK to March 21, 1956: Award presenter Grace Kelly, center, poses with Oscar winners at the 1955 Academy Awards held at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood, Calif., March 21, 1956. From left are, Jo Van Fleet, best supporting actress for “East of Eden”; Jack Lemmon, best supporting actor for “Mister Roberts”; Kelly; Ernest Borgnine, best actor for “Marty”; and Marisa Pavan, accepting the best actress award on behalf of Anna Magnani, who is in Rome, for “The Rose Tattoo.”
Ernest Borgnine – a life in photos:
Posted: 8th, July 2012 | In: Film, Flashback | 0 Comments
