It has been embarrassingly (but not unbelievably) revealed that the author of the Harry Potter series of books, J.K. Rowling was allegedly denied a top US honour (Presidential Medal of Freedom) because members of the Bush administration believed she promoted sorcery. Priceless.
Emphasis must be applied to the term ‘Bush administration’ here, which I can safely say explains (though doesn’t excuse) the situation.
It should also be noted that the Presidential Medal of Freedom actually exists which, when you assume that freedom is a liberal ideology and the Bush administration was very conservative, is an interesting observation.
Of course, the Bush administration was so conservative that they apparently had the belief system of the medieval era. I wouldn’t be too amazed if President ‘Let’s-Invade-Iraqistan’ Bush himself, sent a warrant out, requesting the burning of Rowling at the stake for being a witch.
This morning, I was greeted with the not-so-shocking news that the British so-called newspaper, ‘The Sun’, will be backing Conservatives for the next election, rather than Labour.
What a gamble that must be? Talk about being a fair-weather friend.
I think the inditement is on our country, rather than Murdoch’s evil newspaper. The fact that an arguably poor newspaper, whose greatest feature is a tasteless page dedicated to misogynists, can sway the views of the seemingly dim-witted population and change the outcome of a democratic election, no less, is a concept that is still rather alien to me. But alas, it is unfortunately and even unbelievably true (it has happened before).
That was harsh, my Sun-reading friends may not like that. I suppose this time, ‘The Sun’ has a point. Even ‘The Sun’ has started to take the moral ground, Labour must be in the shit.
With the arrest of Roman Polanski and it’s inevitable consumption of the news, people have been pondering the question, should we be informed about paedophilles? Should there be some form of national list or database of sex offenders of this nature?
Facebook groups and ‘pub-talk’ suggest that we should indeed know about them and where they live.
Of course, the government does in-fact keep a long list of sex offenders, but to make it public would be a short sighted and careless move, maybe even barbaric. It’d be like throwing a wounded fish to a shark.
I do not condone sex offenders, so sit down, put the pitch forks away and let me explain.
Say you found out that a paedophille lives on your street and you got the address quite freely from the government. What are you going to do with that information? Chances are you’re either going to abide the law, sit down, drink your coffee like a good model citizen and do nothing; in which case the information has done you no good. If anything, the information would have done you harm emotionally, you may even rip your eyes out of your head in frustration. Or option two, would be to go and commit a crime against this sick individual.
In the eyes of the law, committing a crime is bad, regardless of your reasons or whatever monster of a human being you did it to. “I killed him because he’s a cunt” is never a good defence in court.
The government does not want people to go around committing crimes amongst themselves. Two wrongs undeniably do not make a right and the chances are that if someone is a known paedophille on some sort of list, they have already been punished by the judicial system.
You also have to take into account that not everyone who is found guilty in a court of law, is actually guilty. It’s unfortunate, but some innocent people slip through the net and land into hot, scolding water. Even if you take away that argument, what is the person actually guilty of?
Paedophillia is a broad term, it simply implies the sexual attraction of children by adults. Any form of it is, of course, morally and legally wrong. But the public shouldn’t be able to administer their own ‘justice’, there is an entire official system dedicated to doing that for us.
And even if it is morally okay to administer your own brand of justice, and you attack their house. The ‘person’ could have a family and friends who may or may not be aware of what has happened. The convicted ‘person’ may have moved on, started a fresh, made new friends and formed a new family, whatever you did to them, they would feel it too.
That said, this is a political matter, if the list ever became public then the police would certainly have a busy month.
What do you think? You can debate this issue on the Draglide Topic.
Gordon Brown said that Labour will “change the world again”. When I first glanced at the news article, I thought that maybe the ruthless and powerful British empire was going to make a swift, sweeping and dominant return. Whilst that is impossible, it seems as though our arguably fearless leader, Gordo’ of the Brits, is under the belief that we (Britain) are still a powerful world leader.
An appetising thought, I think you’ll all agree, that this hugely criticised and deteriorating government could have any kind of positive influence on the world. But alas, that notion is nothing more than a dreary farce, it looks feasible in words or on paper, but in practicality, it simply won’t happen. Unless we finally get the EU referendum that is; though I think we are destined to be a member in the EU’s collection of pawns for some time to come. We, as an island, have the political influence of a rotting vegetable.
I’ll try and cease the pessimism for now, however. Maybe Labour are genuine and the policies they are seemingly scrambling to come up with now may actually be put into action (permitting they get into power again)?
In 1997, Labour were the revolutionaries of the time, I’ll agree with Gordon that we “changed the world before”, albeit a bit of a stretch to say that. Brave-faced Tony Blair and his physically deformed wife were ready to take on the world and make some real positive changes at home and even internationally. We all know the Iraq war was an unregrettable triumph.
However, near the end, Labour seemed to become rather conservative and with David Cameron putting on this ridiculous façade of being the peoples man, it seemed as if the parties had switched places.
So, here we are, in the modern day. Gordon Brown and his party put on a good and convincing show, Gordon was practically seeping with self-induced optimism and patriotism seems to be oozing from his every pore. But whilst optimism and patriotism are commendable attributes, it doesn’t compare to actually doing something. We have a little longer to decide anyway.
That’s right, it is one of a few buzz-words created by the fuckwit modern media which has helped breed an economical decline, nay, give it a massive push into oblivion. I’m not Robert Peston but it seems to me that the ‘R-word’ is at least 99% responsible for causing the current financial disaster by exacerbating a small problem with ridiculous sayings which has led every local pub cunt to now use the phrase “Credit Crunch”.
And this lexical mindfuck is intimately linked with the notion of a “Broken Britain”? Now correct me if I’m wrong but the last time I checked the country was still in once piece. The only thing broken being the twisted, corrupt, self perpetuating declining morals of the equally ignorant and contradictory anus holes that squander within their own pool of idiocy (surely not the media).
Journalists are more often than not just repeating the spiel given to them by PR gurus and researchers whilst trying to pass it off as their more “intelligent” take on the news that somehow lifts it out of the banality of pointing at something and shouting “Duuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh”, What this leads to is a repeated irate keyboard mashing session, the only joy of which is that their smug capitalist bangings may hopefully damage their arrogant little faces. However it appears that they haven’t quite mastered the art of keyboard mashing and as a result occasionally resort to copy and paste mouse clicking from ‘Heat’ magazine into a televised format (or whatever format you receive it in).
The fact is, the news isn’t the news anymore it is a cesspit of putrid finger pointing, hypocrisy and public opinion. The media shouldn’t be there to repeat public opinion, it should provide the news with whatever political slant their paper has and not have their views dragged in by the ignorant, uninformed public. Yet now the public are the ones that fuel the media, they are the sheep, they lap up the news and digest it as if it was a cock being fed to Paris Hilton; swallowed whole.
And so we have it; the media caused the recession and we happily went along with it by reading their stories and cramming their new languages down the necks of all of our friends and families in every single passing conversation. Which is why I’ll personally defecate on the bed pillows of anyone who mentions the ‘R-word’ from this day forward.
A fundamental change in musical direction for Pearl Jam which is sure to leave some fans sour, though I think most will embrace this new Pearl Jam.
Catchy, rusty and oh, Eddie’s voice is so very powerful, but the album is a generally very positive album, in spirit (something that it certainly doesn’t lack). That’s right, Pearl Jam are producing ‘happy’ music. Once one of the greatest grunge bands of all time, and now I’m listening to acoustic guitars, piano ballads and Eddie’s voice without it being purposely out of tune or dirty.
The songs are all very catchy and interesting, but I do seem to be missing their old style slightly. I’m sure I will get over it, because Backspacer is a great album and it leaps ahead of their previous self-titled album, not quite up there with Ten though, but it will certainly get its healthy amount of ‘air-time’ in my house.
Electronic meets symphony in an eclectic, energetic, vibrant and stimulating album. Muse finally brings us The Resistance, which I have been listening to extensively.
Heavy beats, gritty riffs, curdling synthesisers and dramatic orchestral pieces help shapes this truly original album, which seem to be laid out into a modern rock opera. From classic elements to even parts of what could have easily be something from Queen.
Not all of the songs are quite as strong as they could have been. I’d say this album is a defining moment of their career, up there with Absolution and Origin of Symmetry.
Arrr, so today is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and whilst I do not generally find it possible t’ speak like a pirate fluently all day, I do find that most o’ my websites and friends succumb t’ the occasion.
Oh and by the way, you can get a Free episode o’ Monkey Island (a popular game) if you click the link below. For today only.
Apologies for not postin’ much recently, Internet was down and is now back.
Ambient/Industrial/Electronic EP (EP 1) from an interesting duo (Sourhaze), it’s a minimum of £1.00 to buy, but so worth it. I may review it or go into more depth soon.
Not really been posting too much because the WordPress update has made a mess of the visual editor and I don’t want to type HTML out when I post to my blog (as well as the tagging system being dead), I’ve been too busy fo that.