Science in the News

How the media twists science (it's also humourous)

Argh! the pirates

For such a serious subject this article has two smirk worthy comments;

US Aircraft and Elite Navy SEALs Defeat Three Somalis in a Lifeboat
[snip]
There is something obscene about a superpower whose media and population find great satisfaction, and some sick form of national catharsis, every time they manage to overcome a weak and desperate opponent.

also

You are being lied to about pirates

Eircom will disconnect Internet users after three unsubstantiated copyright claims

More dispatches from the Banana Republic:

from BoingBoing

Eircom, a major Irish ISP, will now disconnect its users from the Internet if they receive three unsubstantiated copyright infringement claims from the record labels. The record labels are vowing to hold other ISPs to the same deal, wh‎ich is part of a court settlement in a lawsuit against Eircom. The UK has just rejected this measure, and initiatives to spread this across the EU and the US have died as well.

Irish Times.

So much for "innocent until proven guilty".

Fox News: fear & loathing

I really hate these guys;

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Fox News Fear Imbalance

Daily Show Full Episodes
Daily Show Tickets

More Funny Videos
Comedians on Tour

How great is Tony Benn?

As Keyes says, the mans a legend!



Is that fear I hear in the new reads voice as Mr Benn continues to read out the address?

(lifted from John's blog)

Fatwa +20 years

It's 20 years since the fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie and Christopher Hitchens has some thoughts to share;

[on self censureship] So there is now a hidden partner in our cultural and academic and publishing and broadcasting world: a shadowy figure that has, uninvited, drawn up a chair to the table. He never speaks. He doesn’t have to. But he is very well understood.

link Assassins of the Mind

I have to admit I've never read Rushdie, although I have pawed his books a few times while browsing. In the end I've been a little intimidated by the standing of the man - like a modern Joyce. Someday I'll get over myself and pick up The Satanic Verses, could be a good New Years resolution ...

Quality Reporting in the Irish Times

When so many people rely on the both RTE and the Irish Times to "inform" them about the world it's worrying that even the simplest of tasks, i.e writing a profile of a living Irish man, is beyond them;

Just got a long letter from Journalist Brian Boyd, where he details the research that went into his profile of me in the Irish Times. He’s genuinely upset that I don’t like it, and he feels that the story is close enough to the truth to make my many objections to it moot. I disagree, because I believe that a fact is either true or it’s not, just as someone is either pregnant or not.

link

The Irish Banks

Every morning on my way into work I have to listen to some financial 'expert' on the radio deliver the mornings financial news. Without fail they chirp when the markets rise and wail when they fall, we are also treated to various wishful musings on 'house price recovery' (as if this would be a good thing), 'market stabilisation' and currency exchange rates.

How does one become a financial expert? You don't seem to have to know anything about the market at all bar "Up good, Down bad". Every single one of them mocked David McWilliams when he warned of the impending disaster, they smirk when the word 'social' and 'responsible' are used in any way relating to business and genuinely seem to the think the worst is "almost" over.

Mr McWilliams reckons we are about to enter phase two of a three part collapse but you'd never know it from by listening to the 'experts'.

Anyway, looks like the Bank Of Ireland is fucked! I bank with these idiots.

[it] doesn't have anything like the wriggle room. It has almost none. It can sell its life business, which is decent enough. There's also a bit of hedge fund stuff in the States. The BIAM asset management division is a dog, having lost billions in mandates. Nobody will touch it with an asbestos-covered barge pole. There's also a medium-sized British mortgage business. But you'd need Hulk-sized stones to even think of buying that.

This means that unless it can get Banco Santander to buy it lock, stock and barrel, Bank of Ireland is probably going to be owned by you and me.

link

Palins wardrobe

Catching out the right wing hypocrites is like shooting fish in a barrel, still it's always good to see them turn on a dime.

I think this sum's it up

Geogia V Russia

I feel sorry for Georgia, they've got an idiot leader who thought starting a war with Russia would be a good idea and now they have to borrow IMF loans to rebuild their country. It's a real pity their leaders didn't realise they where just pawns in a much bigger game.

The real surprise for me has been the vitriol of the British (both political and media) in condemning Russia - lots of talk suggesting "we" should not stand for it etc etc. I'm used to rank hypocrisy from the western media but this time it really took the biscuit especially when Russia recognised South Ossetia. It really didn't take long for the Kosovan cat to create mayhem.

Interview with Pat Condell

an interesting, if short, interview - also, it should have been videoed.

http://www.freethinker.co.uk/?p=580

FT: Do you still do stand-up?
PC: I haven’t worked the circuit full time for years. I wrote my last show specifically to say something about religion. Confronted first hand by the political correctness at the BBC, I felt the subject was being falsely represented and legitimate opinion was being censored. As a result, religion, and Islam in particular, was getting an inflated idea of its own importance. Stand-up was the medium I knew best, and as I didn’t see anybody else in the comedy world queuing up to address this situation I elected myself.

John Waters "attack" on bloggers

Speaking of wood pegs, I listened with much amusement as John Waters blamed the fall of western civilisation on bloggers while on this mornings breakfast show (Newstalk 106). The root of the problem seems to be that John google'd himself and discovered no one likes him and so he has chosen to lash out at the Internet in general and bloggers in particular.

It really was funny except for the fact Waters is constantly on radio and television here in Ireland which, for me, is a clear symptom of the utter stagnation in the Irish media. At the very least a disclaimer should be broadcast before he opens his mouth so that children and the impressionable can be shuffled out of the room to protect them from the non sequiturs and straw man attacks that form the basis of most of his uttering's.

He employed a new one today though when he equated the word "fact" with "what everyone knows", which is cool by me - "John Waters is a blustering wanker, everyone knows that - FACT!" (I win!). Anyway, have a listen and discover why the plebs (yes, you and me) should not have opinions and blog, instead we should view the world through the prism of the benevolent Irish media

http://83.138.170.50/podcasts/audio/2301Blogging%20debate.mp3

The Pat Kenny "Mystery"

No, not some Enid Blyton'esk adverture where our hero Pat Kenny solves a murder, I'm using the word 'mystery' here in its religious sense. That is, in Roman Catholicism, the word 'mystery' is used to explain away some cockeyed contradiction or paradox where the only way to deal with it is not to think about it very much at all. So the 'mystery' is, how the hell is Pat Kenny the number one broadcaster in Ireland? It just defies belief, the man is a wood peg with a microphone.

I was reading Graham Linehans blogg where Pat is shown "interviewing" Jerry Seinfeld and it is nothing short of embarrassing, the buffoon couldn't even get Seinfelds name right.

Here is Pats opinion of his critics. I'm proud to be in that camp.

http://www.alan-partridge.co.uk/articles-info/patkenny/Pat%20Kenny%20-%20Scum.mp3