Diana Watch

Hello to all of you. I'm trying to make this weekly post a little shorter than it was last year because it did seem to go on a little. I will try and do more post in the week but I make no promise that I can't keep, do I look like Gordon Brown/David Cameron/Nick Clegg/Barack Obama*

 *Delete as applicable, according to your own political standing. Although you are reading this so I have some idea as to your political leanings.

 Something unspeakably terrible happened in Haiti this week. I'm sure you all know what it was and if you haven't already, you can donate here. Or text 'GIVE' to 70077 & donate £5 to the DEC Haiti earthquake appeal

  But whenever genuinely horrible things happen along comes some massive twat saying something so unbelievable obnoxious that you have to wonder how they have managed to get to being an old man without getting punched full in the face.

 Let us hope that this isn't the view of the US right wing, perhaps Rush Limbaugh (Super right wing duffus, radio show host and quite influential person with the Republican movement) has something a little more informed to say.

 The White House has set up a fund so that people can donate easy. In response to this he said “If you do that, you’ll probably just end up on an Obama campaign mailing list – and a big chunk of your donation will get siphoned off by government bureaucrats.” Well, so far so incredibly unpleasant and cynical but it gets worse, “You already give to Haitian relief – it’s called the income tax." What a really lovely, deeply religious (sic) person he is. Let us hope that if something unpleasant happens to him that he is helped by an atheist. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called Limbaugh’s assertions "really stupid".

 As you can imagine many, many people have aired their opinions on how disgusting these two are but I think that the best take down of these two “men” of god came from Keith Olberman.

 I think that that's more than enough about these 2 who shouldn't be given the oxygen of publicity, maybe not even (to steal someone else's joke, I think it might have been the mighty Linda Smith) the oxygen of oxygen.

 Someone else who I’d be quite happy to ignore for the rest of her life is Sarah Palin but I fear that that is going to become increasingly hard. This week it has been announced that she has been signed by Fox News (which describe it’s self as “fair and balanced” on its website) as a “pundit”. Now I have to assume that on the bits of Fox News that aren’t fear mongering, race baiting, lie-athons, that they cover quite a lot of moose hunting and Skidoo racing because they can’t have hired her as a Political pundit. I’m not going to do a she’s-so-stupid-and-uninformed bit because it’s unfair and others have and will do it better than me but I don’t think we will be expecting in-depth analysis of complex political situations from her, do you?

OK, so time for the first awards of the year,

The Award for Least Relevant Mention of a Favoured Subject,

This goes to the Daily Mail. The story is a very sad one indeed. A woman was found dead in Kensington Gardens in London. It is thought she may have fallen though ice on the lake, dragged her self out but then froze to death. This an awful way to die and a waste of a life but what headline did the Mail run? “Body of young woman found 'frozen to death' just yards from Princess Diana's former home”. Beautiful. Well done to all involved.
 The article ends with a brief history lesson and reminder, “Kensington Palace was the official residence of Diana until her death in 1997. It has been a residence used by the Royal Family since the 17th century.”

The Award for Getting Stupid things Banned,

  Under pressure from the right wing press the Government has decided to ban Islam4UK (which is the worst name for a group ever) citing terrorism concerns without offering any evidence at all. Now whilst I agree that their message is nasty and their choice of venue for their protest march was a little poor (let's be honest, we all knew that they weren't going to do it), it was designed to get them publicity and the press duly gave them their wish.

 So have we now started to ban groups that we don't agree with? Is this how we protect our freedoms, by limiting them? If we are going to ban groups that we consider to be offensive may I recommend the Conservative Party.

 The Award for Completely Ignoring Really Important News Because You Actually Agree With the Decision But It Was Made By People You Hate,

 This goes to the Daily Mail (again, sorry but they've had a good week) who have not covered a story at all (well not on the website anyway, I'm not buying that shit to see if they covered it there). They haven't touched it all because a organisation that they hate almost as much as Muslims got involved in UK law but did something that they agree with, can you image the soul searching (if they have souls at the Mail) that went on over whether to cover this or not.

 Over the horizon rode the 4 horsemen of Bureaucracy otherwise known as Europe. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the Stopping and Searching people without reasonable suspicion (which the police are currently allowed to do under section44 of the terrorism act 2000, we've got a War on Terror you know) is “not in accordance with the law”. So if you are in London and a Policeman asks you why you are taking pictures of famous landmarks and points of interest and he/she then asks to search your bag or trys to confiscate your camera, he/she is breaking the law.

 I know you understand this and I understand this but do the right-wing press, The EU is protecting your rights to go about your life without interference from the Government. First a European Constitution and now this, it must hard for you Euro-Sceptic types.

 See how the new shorter version of this still goes on a bit. Sorry about that, but if you have made it this fair, thanks.

 Have a good week, I'm off to wait for some men to deliver a new washing machine and the most exact time they could give us for expected deilivery was “Sunday”. Thanks for that. Although Boiler Servicing man who's coming tomorrow wasn't much more helpful, “We'll be there on Monday”. Sigh.