Hi pore pluggers,
I'm a bit late with this, but the Daily Fail's suing Gawker for its exposé of the fact that gutter press rags like the Fail, don't write their own articles - they just fiddle with press releases. In an Anglican bishop sense.
'Daily Mail insists it isn't a copycat, sues Gawker'
http://boingboing.net/2015/09/08/daily-mail-insists-it-isnt-a.html
The revelation that this is how the tabloids work, is not a revelation to me. It was only partially surprising when i found out from Chris Atkins, through his film Starsuckers, that he'd worked in an office of just three people. It provided a "no way, that's actually true?" explanation for how their standard of journalism is so consistently poor.
I, for example, write all of my blog up on a Sunday morning. Imagine writing an entire newspaper every morning! You'd have no time to really understand the press releases you were being sent, let alone be able to contribute anything useful to them, before publication.
But this is how the British press works.
Rather unsurprisingly, therefore, they are full of errors - both glaring, in their factual inaccuracy (only to those who already know the answers and therefore don't need to read any newspaper) and glaring, in their inept image-editing.
'Photoshop Disasters: The Daily Fail'
http://www.psdisasters.com/category/daily-fail
All of these are real, and taken from the pages of the Daily Fail's online issues. Try not to implode with incredulity, when i remind you that the Daily Fail has a daily readership of 4 million, and its website receives more than 100 million hits every month!
Sometimes, you just want to break down and cry :'D
But don't just yet, because there's this:
'Poor Flora wasn't PC Enough...'
https://twitter.com/RichardDCaine/status/650640177195581440
And now you may cry :-P
Remember that time internationally renowned psychologist and science communicator Richard Wiseman promised that "I will personally thank everyone who tweets me in the next 5 mins" and then got so many hundreds of tweets (including one in which Rob Webb called him an "intellectually effete wanker") that he couldn't possibly respond to them all?
[link for before the promise]
[link for after the responses]
No? But it was only a few weeks ago. You must have short memories :-P
P.S. Rob Webb is a friend of Richard's, so he didn't mean it... probably. And yes, he is that Robert Webb who was on RHLSTP a few months ago.
'bending truth' - theramin trees
https://youtu.be/IaUhR-tRkHY
This video is on the subject of factionalism, indoctrination, and self-deception; but more importantly, the terrifyingly mundane nature of it all.
We are all gullible, stupid, and acquiescent, to some extent; but just because we're not perfectly skeptical, perfectly knowledgeable, and perfectly assertive, that doesn't mean the victim of the lies is evil. Actions can be evil - objects can't.
We are all responsible to each other, to be skeptical of ideas, and to encourage each other into positive habits. Often, inaction/inassertion can be better encouragement than reckless action/assertion.
And, staggeringly well timed, we have these factionalist machinations, in feminism, with it excusing its crimes, and condemning its outsiders, purely to exert control over faction members.
'Feminist arrested for HATESPEECH #KillAllWhiteMen'
https://youtu.be/4gHJoi2hpWw
[coughs] #feministsareuglysarcasm
This is how corrupting an ideology can be, that it can lead to one of the palest-skinned women in the room, with the wealthiest family backgrounds, claiming to be representative of a minority, while a woman of recent-African ancestry holds her microphone for her! "Yessum, ma'am, anything else for ya?" Strike me pink!
"I... can not be sexist or racist toward White men..."
Toward white men...
White... men...
She defines her enemies by race and sex, but she's not racist or sexist? Ministries of Truth are real, and doing all the bending Theramin Trees inadvertently described.
And to demonstrate quite how bad the problem of feminist sexism has become, this woman is employed as a student diversity officer at Goldsmiths, University of London!
The University of Warwick bans ex-Muslims from its campuses; the University of Reading segregates audiences to accommodate Islamic preachers; and the very people at these organisations that you would expect to care about all people as a minimum qualification for the role - a diversity officer - turns out, again and again, not to think that certain races and sexes are worth bothering with!
- Kings College London saw no problem with an Islamic preacher who called Jews “filth” and gay people “sick” in 2010
- London South Bank's torn down posters to the FSM (All Praise Her Noodly Appendage) claiming they're 'offensive' but leaving all the others up.
- Middlesex University happily accommodates a 'Centre for Homeopathic Education'
- the University of Westminster deliberately associates with Quackery companies [link 2]
- the University of Caen has been complicit with the anti-GM nutbags it employs, in proliferating pseudo-scientific propaganda
- the University of Virginia and Duke University have become infamous for the feminist movements on their campuses, campaigning to enact physical violence against young male sportspeople, without any evidence of the claimed rapes having happened. UVA closed down all fraternities (but not sororities), to help them terrorise men and women on campus.
- Brown University decided that debates must be banned, if they hold the mere possibility of someone criticising a term that feminists treat as holy, in their Ministry of Truth lexicon - 'rape culture'
- but Dalhousie University sees nothing wrong with holding a female-only panel of feminist preachers, who declare that women must always be allotted the privilege of speaking first at events, and that men (and only men) should be forced to write apologies to female claimants of crimes, when they have not even been proved to have committed those crimes!
- and then the University of Michigan is perfectly happy to be a harbour for pseudo-academic propaganda, through its professors and 'concentrating on the women' projects, claiming such things as "The average prison sentence for men who kill their intimate partners is 2 to 6 years. Women who kill their partners are sentenced, on average, to 15 years" when the actual fact, is the complete opposite in sentence length! Even Michigan's own researchers know this to be a reverse.
Far from being universally welcoming, many Universities seem to be happy to accommodate divisive sentiment, even amongst its staff, at the expense of valid criticism.
Must do better!
P.S. There's a film about the suffragettes out....
'Simon Mayo interviews Abi Morgan'
https://youtu.be/hKxvRiwR7Go
It's worth remembering that the suffragettes were arrested for crimes that they had actually committed - arson and vandalism being the most famous of their criminal acts. Abi's remarks that they were 'subject to' the police's actions, misses this crucial point - criminals who come noisily do not get treated like criminals who come quietly.
The suffragettes' actions were actually an active problem for the egalitarian movement, and a godsend to those looking to misrepresent suffrage-supporters as hysterical miscreants, who can not be trusted to behave civilly, let alone be rational enough to cast a vote. The serious work that women had to do, during WWI, and did bloody well, was what clinched the deal for non-aristocratic women.
The egalitarianism of universal suffrage was much better embodied by the suffragists, who committed no such violent acts, and were well prepared to work with the men whose concurrence was necessary for the gaining of suffrage. All of the people who voted for it were men, after all! Look at any feminist meeting, and you'd get the impression that men were extraneous to the process of progress.
To this day, the same movement, commonly labelled 'feminism' refuses to accept that compassion for all human beings is better than a boy-girl grudge-match. Feminism willfully pushes women ahead of men, treats its own crimes as inconsequential, and treats the experiences of some humans as more important than those of others. Its symbols are still those of violence (e.g. fists in Aphrodite symbols) and it still plays the martyrdom game by pretending to have been harassed, when really they are the evildoers.
"War's the only language men listen to" - suffragette/feminist in Morgan's eyes // "War's the only language Westerners listen to" - the Islamists of (e.g.) ISIS
Coincidence? No.
Both parties are intolerant of genuine equality - both insist that sexism is a war between men and women, or Muslims and Non-Muslims, and so their own crimes are inconsequential.
Both 'offer' fake resolution, and fake salvation.
Humanity can do better than this.
In other news:
It's nice to know that local Council's can get their priorities right though, isn't it <s>. What an odd world we live in, that they're under more peer pressure to erase drawings of human bodyparts, that cost nothing more than the risk of educating profoundly ignorant people; than they are to fill potholes, which cost large amounts of money in damage to vehicles. "Picture of a nob? We'll be there in 24 hours. Pothole? Ah, we'll be there in a month or more..." This is what prudes would erroneously call a 'value judgement' though: which do you value more - preventing damage to vehicles, or forbidding blasphemous depictions of the
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/cock-lane-offensive-pothole-graffiti.html
In stark contrast, this is the BEST. BIOLOGY. TEACHER. Everrrr. Why? For showing all her bodyparts, LMAO. But seriously, Dutch needs a translation for 'six pack' :-D
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/teacher-praised-for-stripping-off-in.html
Rumours of the week: alligators and pythons are roaming the floodwaters of South Carolina. They're not - the stories are hoaxes. Killer caterpillars are swarming in Pennsylvania. They're not. These are stories that make it difficult for responsible people to tell fact from fiction, in order to inform their safety-making decisions. Also, Rowan Atkinson is still alive. Just sayin'.
http://doubtfulnews.com/2015/10/hoaxing-happening-regarding-south-carolina-flooding/
http://doubtfulnews.com/2015/10/pennsylvania-news-outlets-go-overboard-over-venomous-caterpillar/
Another issue in the ongoing saga of misdeveloped-libel law abuse, by quacks, has come to a close. And this time, in humanity's favour, with the Science Based Medicine blog being deemed innocent of defamation, for correctly describing Edward Tobinick's claims as 'dodgy' (my paraphrase).
http://doubtfulnews.com/2015/10/science-based-medicine-writer-sued-by-threatened-doctor/
Some people in Canada have 'dressed up special' in protest at the permission for people to wear niqabs {Blogger tries to 'correct' this to 'minicabs'} in voting booths. They went to vote while wearing bags, masks, and costumes (anything that hid their face) and were allowed to do so, which doesn't surprise me. Every time i've ever voted, there has been no requirement for visual ID. I, too, assumed there might be some problem in not showing my face, but as long as i give a name and address, that's deemed enough. Prevention of voter fraud doesn't warrant ID, it seems. By the way, my presumption is that the officers thought my wings and headcrest were part of a costume ;-)
http://arbroath.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/protests-in-canada-at-decision-to-allow.html
The USA's Senate Finance Committee has opened an investigation into VW now, over its industrial deception. It seems $50 million in undeserved tax subsidies might have gone to VW, under the impression that it had achieved fuel-efficiency standards, that for obvious reasons, include emissions criteria. It's not a lot, compared to the billions it'll be fined by the EPA, but it could have been a motive for VW to commit the offences in the first place.
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-senate-panel-probing-vw-tax.html
So, do you want to take sides in the Israel v. Palestine conflict, like Bahar Mustafa? If you're an upper-middle-classist yuppy, who doesn't like to think too hard, you'll probably opt to take the side of Palestine, thinking it to be 'the underdog' and therefore 'the victim' but reality doesn't work like that. The 'Free Palestine' movement is contributing to the conflict, because neither side is right. In recent days, attention has shifted from the Jewish atrocities of Israel, to the broiling Islamist factionalism of Palestinians. What makes them newsworthy, is that they're children. "I like throwing stones at the soldiers, like the other youngsters," said Mustafa, aged 10. "I want to die a martyr". The conflict depends on people being willing to take sides - don't be one of those people.
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-young-palestinians-hashtag-intifada.html
Here's an update on Homo naledi. Two new research papers, about the foot and hand of the species, confirm that it was physically capable of both climbing trees and walking on the ground, to get around, but would also have been capable of precise manual manipulation. The wrist bones and thumb show commonality with Neanderthals and Humans, indicating ability to use tools. The curvature of the digits of the hands, however, suggests that they were still suited to arboreal (tree-based) life. For pictures, follow the link:
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-foot-homo-naledi.html
Human conspiracy theorist homophobes, quake with fright! A gene has been found, that causes gayers to emit a pheromone that attracts other men [dun-dun-dun-durrrr] ...except it only works in nematodes (Caenorhabditis elegans). A single gene has been found to encode the production of excretory pores, that in turn result in sexual attentions from other males. Most nematodes are hermaphrodite, which means they have both boyy and girly parts, but a minority are formed without the girly bits, and so are deemed 'male'. Very rarely, these researchers have found, the males can be sexually attracted to other males, and attempt to reproduce with them. This is of course futile, but since when has love cared about futility!? You can read more about the details, in the article, in which you will also find that "male-male excretory pore plugging" is the new euphemism for gaysex :-D
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-sex-male-worms-lab-gene.html
------------------------------------------------------ contemporary stuff
'Dung beetle disperses seed that looks and smells like poo'
They might not have cognition, but they have cross-generational smarts
https://youtu.be/_n_iwpEHeQ8
'Crazy Chernobyl Cyclists - the ghost town of Pripyat by bike'
https://youtu.be/UJZ_nuVduZ8
'Neutrino Nobel Prize - Sixty Symbols'
https://youtu.be/XQHw7qQrpf0
According to McDonald, his research could help develop fusion power, as any physics relating to the Sun can be connected to the nuclear fusion that goes on there, and in labs on Earth.
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-nobel-laureate-pave-fusion-power.html
And how does the winner of the Chemistry Nobel react? With a plastic cup of champagne, of course. These scientists, they're such egomaniacs. Plastic, indeed :-D
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-lindahl-celebrates-nobel-plastic-cup.html
'Battery V Petrol. The Lawnmower Test | Fully Charged'
https://youtu.be/AFPRvfNW-Qs
'Glow in the Dark Peanut Butter'
https://youtu.be/fUnSpEtnDNw
'Image: Pluto's blue sky'
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-blue-sky-red-ice-pluto.html
'Image: Sentinel-1A captures Azore islands'
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-image-sentinel-1a-captures-azore-islands.html
------------------------------------------------------ of the weeks
Expression Of The Week: 'stone the crows' -- a generic and mostly non-literal expression of frustration, which might result in an attempt to dissipate said frustration by throwing stones at birds, especially if they were the source of the annoyance. English idioms with the same meaning are 'i'll go to the foot of our stairs', 'strike me pink', 'i'll be a monkey's uncle' or 'if that don't take the rag off the bush'
Unintentional Headline Of The Week: people should be fined for delivering the Daily Fail :-D
Intentional Headline Of The Week: being tall causes cancer (Daily Diana)
{Here's the NHS Choices' team's competent analysis of the study, from which the claim was derived: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/10October/Pages/too-soon-to-say-being-tall-increases-cancer-risk.aspx }
{This story actually follows on to one about elephants, and an explanation of how they're less likely to get cancers than expected: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2015/10October/Pages/Why-elephants-hardly-ever-get-cancer-and-how-that-can-help-us.aspx }
Unparaphrased And Intentional Headline Of The Week: "Wonder diet to stave off cancer" (Daily Diana)
{For those who are unfamiliar with the quackery-obsessed Diana Express, this kind of headline is not actually rare!}
------------------------------------------------------ non-contemporary stuff
'Te presento a la vaca...' (I present, the cow...)
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/129671875631/vaca
'Pareidolic Iceberg'
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/130942081280
'Firework Under Ice'
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/130236660250/fuegos-artificiales-bajo-el-hielo
'Neither Google Nor God'
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/130382304765
'Psicología de ascensor' (The Psycyhology of Lifts)
https://youtu.be/eMmi2oLN_es
'Cycling Mash'
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/129662259230/internet-justifica-los-nerds
'Pouff - Grocery Trip'
https://youtu.be/DgPaCWJL7XI
'Huella bacteriana de la mano de un niño de 8 años'
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/130585483209/huella-bacteriana-de-la-mano-de-un-ni%C3%B1o-de-8-a%C3%B1os
'Las misiones Apollo'
http://micro.cibermitanios.com.ar/post/130633563080/las-misiones-apollo
This is part of a cache of more than 8400 photographs uploaded to Flickr, recently.
http://phys.org/news/2015-10-thousands-photos-apollo-astronauts-flickr.html
'10 points to anyone who knows why the range of distances'
https://twitter.com/RichardWiseman/status/647759003137802240
"Elliptical orbits" while a true thing, is not the correct answer. Anyone who's seen an orrery in motion has the mental equipment to understand why.
'Arachnophilia'
If anyone meets Sarah, do tell her that she's fucking amazing :o)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/santheo/5678804
Oh, and here's my own spider shot:
'Massive Garden Spider'
http://tapejarascience.tumblr.com/post/130477546300/massive-garden-spider-ive-never-seen-a-garden
'Rowan Atkinson Live In Belfast I Hate The French Sung by Howard Goodall'
https://youtu.be/TXpkttGcG5I
'Room 101 - Bill Bailey - Part 3, The Bill theme tune'
https://youtu.be/6uAo2rqWB08
'The Bill 1988 - Full length theme'
https://youtu.be/wc4Hqde7aDA
'Victory - Darren & Stephen Loveday - RED DWARF Back to Reality song'
https://youtu.be/2aYAaT40L0M
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