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.
This is one of those drugs bust stories that makes you wonder.
It was 12:30am in Gainesville, USA, when police spotted a car. The driver, one Winfred Alphonso McAllister Jr., 23, had moved his red Mitsubishi Galant into the left turn-only lane and back into his original lane twice, according to a police report.
We wonder why? Why did McAllister swerve? Was it because he was intoxicated? Or was it because he had spotted the police and was rearranging his stash?
The Daily Mirror leads with the terrifying news that the “BOOTS BABY STRANGLER” is at large.
CCTV footage captured the woman leaning into a stranger’s pram in a central London branch of Boots the chemist and, reportedly, saying “That baby would rather be dead”. The woman placed her hand on the one-year-old boy’s throat for around a second.
You can watch the vide on the Mirror’s website – right after an advert for bondage film 50 Shades of Grey has rolled by.
The Guardian merely slaps its logo over the free police tape:
The stranger grabbed hold of the one-year-old and throttled him
You might suppose that after such an unusual and horrible thing, the Boots security would detain the woman and call the police. But no. She was merely walked from the store.
The store manager, who did not want to be named, said: “The woman just came up from behind in the aisle and leant in. The security guard then came and asked what was going on and the woman said something like ‘that baby doesn’t deserve to be alive’. The security guard then kicked her out. She would not make any eye contact.”
A security guard, who had been following the woman inside the store, led her outside before she walked away toward Trafalgar Square.
Can it be that baby throttling is not as high on the list of Boots offences as shoplifting?
Can we talk about Jews? Can we look at who hates them most? It’s a contest between the far-right, the far-left, Church of England vicars, priests and Muslims.
Karen Armstrong, once a nun and the “respected author of bestsellers like A History of God and The Case for God, answers the question whether religion is the principal cause of violence”. A few choice cuts from her interview with Nieuwwij.nl cause eyebrows to be raised:
“Terrorism has nothing to do with Muhammad, any more than the Crusades had anything to do with Jesus. There is nothing in the Islam that is more violent than Christianity. All religions have been violent, including Christianity. There was nothing in the Muslim world like antisemitism.”
And:
“The supermarket attack in Paris was about Palestine, about Isis. It had nothing to do with antisemitism…”
With the General Election looming, the Daily Telegraph waves goodbye to its chief political commentator Peter Oborne. The Telegraph is all about digital balls and listicles.
But @Ned_Donovan wonders if the paper has missed not only its credibility but it’s new raison d’etre:
The Telegraph should probably update whatever list this feed uses:
Mic Wright casts a glance at the Editor-in-Chief ‘s twiter feed:
It’s Death Tuesday in the Daily Mail: let’s get looking for new ways to fall ill and die. Last week the Mail was full of questions and disasters that “may” happen:
Page 36: “Pitfall; of having your eyes LASERED – Long to throw away your glasses? Laser surgery may be riskier than you think”
Page 48: “By the way…Supplements may do more harm than good”
Page 49: “Could Stress give you diabetes?”
Page 50: “Is the NHS accusing agony by telling dentists not to pull out wisdom teeth?”
To Indiana, where David J. Paulson, 35, of Hamlet is under arrest. His crime: being shot.
Paulson is charged with two felony counts of neglect of a dependent, age 4.
Paulson was driving when his young daughter, who wasn’t in a child restraint seat, removed a loaded .40 calibre Smith & Wesson handgun from his pocket and shot him in the arm.
It as an accident, of course. Right, honey? Right..?
News that Islington Council (Labour) “banned” pork from primary schools in the London borough thrilled the media. The story that Muslims and Jews had forced all kids to miss out on pork sausages and any other way you can slice and dice Peppa Pig was an affront to lunch and British values.
The story isn’t true. Islington has not banned pork. If you want it, your school has to ask for it. It is not served as a matter of routine. But nit is not “banned”.
Daily Star readers were quick to latch on to the story that began in the Islington Gazette. The Gazette’s scoop featured not a single word from a Muslim or Jew. And no other papers sought to update that glaring omission.
In the Daily Star, once proud supporters of the EDL, the story contained not one word from an anti-pork Jew or Muslim. And the comments are not exactly reasoned:
Jews will be relieved to hear that they no longer caused World War 2 and now realise that the lack of chopsticks and not guns was the barrier to defeating the Nazis and smashing the ghettoes.
Muslims are sub-human, raw and decaying flesh feeders. They won’t eat pork, but they might eat you.
And it’s all part of a wider problem. First they came for our sausages:.
London Evening Standard readers also respond to the news story – a story that contained not a single word from a Muslim or Jew.
The Islington Gazette airs similar views from its readers:
Happily, over in the Telegraph, there is a voice of reason:
There is no evidence that a Jew or a Muslim asked for this “ban” on pork.
The toy business can be cruel. Moreover, the internet game. Today’s fad is tomorrow’s sad. Not too long ago everyone from spotty onanists to David Cameron was playing Angry Birds. Now these same fans behead for ISIS and ride around on a Battle Bus. As we say, fads.
Madeleine McCann: then story of the misisng child as told by the news media. Today we meet David Brinkman.
The Mirrorintroduces us to “Vile David Brinkman” who says he’s no paedophile and possessed 694 indecent pictures and 88 video clips of children being abused for research purposes.
The paper adds that the “sick pensioner” was looking for Madeleine McCann. He was on a “crusade” to find Madeleine.
At Aberdeen Sheriff Court Brinkman’s lawyer claims:
“He has been on this one man crusade as he is perfectly satisfied that Madeleine McCann was removed from the property in 2007 and has found her way into a paedophile ring. As a result of that he got himself immersed in looking at child pornography.”
The story of Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts, the womn who claims she had sex with him him when she was Jeffrey Epstein’s underage sex slave, has slipped down the news cycle.
Randy Andy seems to have brushed the scare off. Indeed, the London Gazette says Andrew will be made a vice-admiral in the Royal Navy when he turns 55 next week. (And, no, that’s not a pun.)
Over in the Daily Mail, one of Andrew’s former lovers, Koo ‘Starkers’ Stark, is speaking in his defence. The American-born actress was 26 when she dated the Duke of York after his return from the Falklands War in 1982. They dated er for 18 months. The Duke married Sarah Ferguson in 1986. She says:
“I know too much about the media and the law courts to allow the disgrace of an innocent man. That is why I have decided to reveal some details of my relationship with Andrew. My view is clear: I believe him to be a good man and I believe I can help rebut, with authority, the allegations against him. Prince Andrew is a dear friend and godfather to my daughter. I’ve only known him to be honourable and honest, with Christian values. I couldn’t shrug off Virginia Roberts’ assassination of his character any more than he has been able to. He was being accused of the very worst kind of behaviour. The stain on his reputation is spilling across his life like blood from a new wound.”
It all adds up to nothing much at all. But on she goes breaking “32 years of silence” to tell all:
…my experience of being with Andrew on our first date in Bewicks informed me of the effect he has on any gathering, be it a restaurant, a club or a Royal court. Conversation drops. Body language changes. There is a bow wave of deference. But Ms Roberts will have us believe this extraordinary hour in Prince Andrew’s life passed unchronicled.
Well, yeah. Do we know everything he does? And, in any case, men of money power cannot be abusers:
A man has ben shot dead at Copenhagen’s Krudttoenden café, where a debate on free speech was underway.
The talk – called Art, blasphemy and the freedom of expression – featured an address by the French ambassador, the sight of Swedish artist Lars Vilks and the ghost of Salman Rushdie, who, though not there in person, was remembered for this being the anniversary of the fatwa that marked his life.
“I saw a masked man running past. A couple of police officers were injured. I clearly consider this as an attack on Lars Vilks.”
Speaking after the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo last month, in which 12 died, Vilks said: “This will create fear among people on a whole different level than we’re used to. Charlie Hebdo was a small oasis. Not many dared do what they did.”
Two gunmen escaped in a dark Volkswagen Polo and are still at large, according to local reports.
I was invited to Lars Vilks committee in Copenhagen to present Passion for Freedom London Art Festival. The committee is organized annually and happens on the anniversary of Salman Rushdie’s fatwa. The meeting started with a short introduction from one of the organizers followed by François Zimeray, the French ambassador, commemorating Charlie Hebdo and discussing the challenges that we face when it comes to the threats to freedom of speech and democracy in our countries.
After a short introduction, Inna Shevchenko opened the panel and started to talk about Femen and her work. She also discussed her close friendship with Charb, the editor of Charlie Hebdo, and how they both stood strong exercising their right to freedom of expression. A few minutes into her speech we heard separate bangs… It sounded like a machine gun..
After the shooting subdued everyone started to come together. We decided to continue with the presentation…Everyone thanked us that we continued. We will not surrender; they cannot kill all of us.
To Paris, where Combo the artist has been beaten up. Combo is French born. His father is a Lebanese Christian father and his mother a Moroccan Muslim:
It seems like something one would be hard pressed to disagree with: the word “coexist,” written on a wall using a Muslim crescent as the letter “C,” a Star of David as the letter “X,” and a Christian cross as a “T.”
But in Paris, this particular iteration of the popular inscription—here, created by the street artist Combo, who also pasted a life-size photo of himself next to it—didn’t go down well with everybody. Le Monde reports that four young people asked the artist to remove it last weekend, and beat him up severely when he refused to do so.
Combo ended up with a dislocated shoulder and many bruises.
Nasty stuff. Who dunnit, Combo?
Combo declined to discuss the identity of his assailants. “It would only add fuel to the fire,” he told the French newspaper.
“I am deliberately being vague about the description of these cowards and where it all happened. To me, it doesn’t matter where they come from, what colour their skin is, what their religion or their political ideas are. In this context, all they represent is stupidity and ignorance.”
French Graffiti Artist Beaten By #NotAllMuslims For ‘Coexist’ Tag
Why guess? Why assume? When did journalism stop sticking to the facts?
Combo says:
“First I thought I was French, but I quickly understood that I was Arab, then beur(French slang for second and third generation North African), now I’m told I’m Muslim.”
A wedding was found to be sham when the groom failed to recall his beloved’s name.
The Daily Telegraph reports on “Zubair Khan, a 28-year-old Pakistani man, and Beata Szilagyi, a 33-year-old Hungarian woman”, who were both arrested in Hull “minutes before their sham ceremony”.
As the couple tried to use the scam to enable Khan to stay in Britain, Khan had to make a telephone call to marriage fixer Khaliq Dad Khan to ask his bride’s name during a meeting with the registrar before the ceremony… Khan, of Bow, east London, and Szilagyi, of Hull, were sentenced to 20 months and 17 months respectively at Hull Crown Court…
What’s noticeable about this story is the Telegraph’s picture and caption of the “28-year-old” and his good lady:
THE BBC News is here to inform all its viewers. Bounce is on the telly. He’s there to explain how dog’s think. And if he can attract other dogs and toddlers to watch the news, then “WOOF!”
The actual story behind this news item is a study by human researchers at Messerli Research Institute’s Clever Dog Lab in Vienna says dogs can read human expressions. They can tell if you are happy or sad.
Note: the dog is only standing in until Russell Brand returns.
Writing in the Times, Andrew Norfolk lists the names of the 25 men on trial at Calderdale Magistrates Court “accused of dozens of child-sex offences including multiple rapes, all of them allegedly committed against the same girl”.
Aged from 23 to 42, the men are said to have subjected the young victim to 50 sex crimes over a three-year period when she was aged 13 to 15. They appeared before magistrates in Halifax, West Yorkshire, on charges including rape, sexual assault, sexual activity with a child, conspiracy to commit sex crimes and the internal trafficking of a child for sexual exploitation.
Islington Council will no longer serve pork to primary schools because it says it can no longer monitor which pupils don’t want to eat sausages, bacon and pork chops due to their religious beliefs. Monitoring is an “unnecessary cost at a time of tight budgets”.
Pork will still be served in the borough’s secondary schools. Although, vegetarians can still say “no thank you”.
Chris Godfrey, owner of Godfrey’s butchers in Highbury Park, says it’s “disgusting”.
“I think it is disgusting that they do not have pork on the menu. There are so many religions in this country and if listened to all of them then you would not eat anything. We are pandering to other religions too much – kids that don’t eat pork should take packed lunches. It is not up to us to pander to their requirements.”
The Press have been going mad for Corey Savory and Thomas Vernon who “wept in the dock but later left the court grinning with arms aloft and thumbs up”.
Two days ago, the Teeside Gazettereported on a case at Teeside Crown Court. The headline summed things up:
‘Utterly remorseful’ duo walk from court after admitting ‘ferocious’ attack
Savory and Vernon lauched an unprovoked attack on a man minding his own business on Redcar High Street. They they ran away. The victim gave chase. The pair went inside a home. They shut the door. The victim kicked on it. He was then hit from behind by a third person, who has yet to be identified. With their target now on the ground and bleeding, Savory and Vernon opened the front door, stepped out and beat him. The victim says he might have blacked out.
Savory and Vernon are cowards. That much is clear. They are also violent thugs. Cowards often are. But the Press has built their story into a sign that things are falling apart. Before we get to the editorialising, the Gazette report went on:
A pair of violent thugs who attacked a defenceless man on the ground walked free from court laughing and celebrating their freedom. Corey Savory and Thomas Vernon may have wept in the dock, but the 23-year-olds’ mood changed abruptly once they learned their fate. They left Teesside Crown Court grinning with arms aloft and thumbs up, unable to contain their delight at receiving suspended jail terms for a “ferocious” assault… Just minutes earlier, a judge had accepted they showed “genuine remorse” for their crime…
In the courtroom, Savory put his head in his hands and did not watch as CCTV footage of the assault was played…
Joyous: The vicious thug did not have a care in the world when leaving court
Last night, the BBC says “thousands of mourners have gathered for the funeral of three Muslim students killed in North Carolina”.
The father of two of the victims told the crowd they were victims of a hate crime and his pain was indescribable… Police say initial indications suggest there was a parking space dispute but they are investigating whether Craig Hicks was motivated by religious hate…
The BBC’s Rajini Vaidyanathan said many mourners feel the murders were sparked by something far deeper than a parking row.
Chapel Hill police chief, Chris Blue, spoke at the service and promised his officers would investigate every lead, including the possibility of hate crime…
Is feeling it was hate crime enough to make it one?
Sarah, who grew up with all three [vcitims] and says she’s experienced Islamophobia, articulated a view many shared: “You have to have a lot of hate in your heart to kill three people in cold blood, and over a parking spot, it’s ridiculous to say this was just that”.
To the USA of A, where a woman has found the method of catching (a hook) in her fish dinner.
Don’t worry – get a lawyer
To New York, where Italian restaurant Villagio on the Park is accsused of serving a woman a fish hook with a cooked fish attached.
Aliona Russo had already eatan a chunk of her fish supper before she noticed the 2-inch metal hook. She then spat the fish out. Made a commotion. And took a photo.
Apparently, this near-eating experience incurred medical bills. She wants the eatery to pay them. They say they won’t.
And because this is the US of A, she has a lawyer, one Jay Dankner, who says Villagio is “forcing us to sue” for physical and psychological damages.
DNAinfo says the woman did have small cuts to her mouth. But Sanker is deeply concerned for her mental health:
“She still freaks out about this. She definitely doesn’t eat fish anymore.”
The fish remains dead.
And she might consider herself lucky they fish by hooking. Pass the TNT:
British police take 67 return flights to Portugal as cost of Madeleine McCann search nears £9million
Well, the train does take longer…
British police searching for missing Madeleine McCann spent £16,000 on 67 return flights to Portugal last year, helping the cost of the investigation to soar to nearly £9million.
The trips, which cost more than £1,300 per month, came as the Met Police carried out the biggest ever search undertaken by a team of British police overseas, in a bid to find clues about the young girl’s disappearance.
That’s around £240 a trip. And, in truth, that does seem high, given that they are heading to a resort airport. A £480 round-trip to the Portugal costas should surely cost less. But, then, we don’t have all the details, and shipping equipment costs extra.
In June, police flew to the Algarve to carry out forensic searches around Praia da Luz, focusing on scrubland a few hundred metres from the apartment block where Madeleine was last seen alive.
The tabloid story of Devinder Kainth, Sandro Rottman and not Katie Price nor Princess Beatrice in Sotogrande.
By now you’ll be wondering what Katie Price has been up to. How are the kids and her husband-of-the-moment? Today brings new front page of Katie Price news. In “STAR’S LINK TO PERV” (Sun) and “Katie Price link to the German paedo” (Star) the tabloids lead with photos of Price and Sandro Rottman, a 43-year-old who had the misfortune to be killed in a Spanish eatery.
In 2009, the “killed perv” met Price in Sotogrande, the sprawling golfer holding bay on the Costa del Sol. Both newspapers have a photo of Price posing with Rottman, who very soon after the headlines becomes a “suspected paedophile” (Sun) and “peadophile in inverted commas (Star)
Rottman was arrested in January for allegedly possessing child pornography. He never stood trial.
Price only met him a couple of times when she visited Sotogrande.
And if it is the celebrity angle you crave in this story of brutality and allged child abuse then the Telegraph chimes in with:
Sotogrande is an upmarket resort and has been a favourite of Sarah Ferguson and her daughters Beatrice and Eugenie
Like Price and her children, the princesses never met Rottman.
The Star ups Rottman’s notoriety a notch by saying he “allegedly roamed the Costa del Sol taking snaps of children leading him to being banned from bars in Stotgtande”.
Did it. There is no proof that any bar bans were based on his alleged deviant behaviour.
What he definitely is is dead, having been “attacked by Brit dad Devinder Kainth, 40” (Sun), who, reportedly, spotted Rottman taking photos of his three children, found more snapshots on the German’s ipad and, allegedly, punched him hard enough to kill him.
The Daily Mail ignores the Sun’s empathetic “Brit dad” and labels Kaith: “Fitness fanatic with matching Range Rovers and blonde bombshell girlfriend held over killing.” Readers are told:
Yesterday, details emerged of the attack on Saturday night. The owner of the Spinnaker restaurant told the Mail: ‘After an afternoon of friendly chatter, the British man suddenly told his family to leave.
‘Devinder looked at Sandro’s iPad and found pictures of his family which had been taken earlier that evening. He was shouting: “Why have you taken these?” Suddenly he told his family to get out of the bar. Five seconds later he hit Sandro so hard he fell to the floor. I think this knocked him out, or at least dazed him.
‘Then Devinder went crazy and started hitting Sandro. He must have hit him at least 20 times in the face and head. [Sandro] had blood gurgling from his mouth. He was choking and struggling to breathe. He also had a big lump on the side of his head – no other visible cuts – just this big lump. Then he was unconscious like he was in a coma. The waitress started screaming for help. We were all shaking and trembling. When [Devinder] ran out of energy, he calmly got up and walked out the door.’
That is eqiuipped with a photo of Devinder’s lover, the “blonde head turner” Gemma Hawkins and couple’s three children, who appear without faces:
Rottman is said to have once been so drunk he fell into the sea and had to be rescued. He limped and is said to have been treated for a liver problem.
Kainth is a gym fanatic who worked out on most days and did gruelling Crossfit classes. He has a three-bedroom house in the area and once owned a supermarket in nearby Casares, but it has closed, sources said.
A neighbour said: ‘The last time I saw him and his partner here was last August. They had an argument round the pool one day. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but he seemed very aggressive. His girlfriend left in tears and started throwing his clothes out of the window.’
But the Mirror has heard enough. It picks a side, leading with the headline:
Kainth Davinder: Chilling photograph shows suspected paedophile ‘killed by British millionaire dad’ holding young child at pool
We don’t know the identity of the child with Rottman in the July 2013 photo. And because Rottman never was vonvicted of being a paedo, we can conclude that the snapshot is only chilling if you belive he was a danger to the public. You might be more chilled by the thought of having your dinner interrupted by a man being beaten to death at another table.
The Indy sees the same photos taken from Rottman’s twiter account and notes:
Mr Rottman, who was a web designer, recently posted a photo on Twitter of himself at the exclusive resort of El Octogono Beach Club in Sotogrande, holding a young child. He wrote: ‘Just finished a day with the most beautiful girl in the Beach Club of Sotogrande. Hope one day I will have one my own.’
He has other photos, too, like these:
Kermit and the fragrant beauties have yet to tell all.
But Devinder Kainth will go his talking in court. He’s been charged with homicide.
Is the media baised? Is there an agenda? Of course. Which is why we at Anorak look at a variety of news sources. So. Following a triple murder in Chapel Hill, USA, which claimed the lives of three innocent people, all young Muslims, what did the media report?
More on how university is all about being compliant and comfortable. Marquette University are censoring the speakers:
Professor John McAdams is being stripped of tenure by Marquette University for writing a blog post that administrators characterize as inaccurate and irresponsible.
Inaccuaray is bad form. But irresponsible? How? Says who?
McAdams is 69-year-old, a Harvard Ph.D. who taught courses on American politics and public policy.
Marquette University Dean Richard C. Holtz, explains:
The incident that McAdams blogged about happened on October 28, 2014. Cheryl Abbate, a graduate student in philosophy who was leading a class called Theory of Ethics, was teaching undergraduates about John Rawls. She asked for examples of current events to which Rawlsian philosophy could be applied.
“One student offered the example of gay marriage as something that Rawls’ Equal Liberty Principle would allow because it would not restrict the liberty of others and therefore should not be illegal. Ms. Abbate noted that this was a correct way to apply Rawls’ Principle and is said to have asked ‘does anyone not agree with this?’ Ms. Abbate later added that if anyone did not agree that gay marriage was an example of something that fits the Rawls’ Equal Liberty Principle, they should see her after class.”
According to the flow chart there is no scenario where after being accused a man should no longer be presumed guilty. Once the accusation is made the man is presumed guilty, and nothing the accuser does or says should undermine that assumption