Priorities

The awful shooting in Tuscon, Arizona was a horrendous tragedy. The Mail listed the facts at the top of its article:

• Six killed and 13 injured in Tucson shooting
• Federal judge and 9-year-old girl among dead
• Giffords 'able to follow simple commands' after brain surgery
• Heated political climate blamed for tensions 
• Gunman to appear in court charged on five counts
• CCTV image released of 'second suspect'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345413/Gabrielle-Giffords-shot-Jared-Loughner-left-6-dead-Gwyneth-Paltrows-cousin.html#ixzz1AZxwGNtO


Rightly they kept the most important (if that's another word for inane) aspect of the story for the headline:

American politician shot in the head by gunman who left six dead is cousin of Gwyneth Paltrow



Well first cousin once removed, but it's close enough.
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Finding the truth is easy. FACT.

There's a very easy way to determine if something you read is true or not, I'll give you an example from Drew in Nottingham;

"Clearly, not a great deal of intellect in Oldham; They're all crying into they cornflakes because the Coalition going to start making them work for their money...... The average Brit isn't stupid - cities primarily vote Labour and Labour voter on average have a much lower IQ, so are much easier to manipulate as Labour have done for generations while their two-faced politicians live it up. And what is wrong with the truth - the above is yet another unspoken FACT. YES FACT. And is the only explanation for Labour EVER being in power for three terms of Government. The percentage of voters with intelligence who actually still choose to vote Labour in this country is so miniscule they would have a hope of election. And no, I'm not talking about the 'my degree would only get me an O'Level 30 years ago' generation, who vote Labour thanks to their illusions of deceit cast on the naive and inexperienced for 13 years. If ever they get back I hope they face national anarchy...

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345433/Clegg-17-points-Labour-key-Oldham-East-election.html#ixzz1AXqfLWPK"

You see it? It's really frightfully simple and used in many comments on the Daily Mail. FACT.

By typing (Always in Caps, like you're a bit slow) FACT after any statement it becomes the undoubted truth.

This is actually hardwired into the internet by, oh I don't know, NASA. It is impossible to type FACT after something that's not a fact. FACT.

Look:-

The sky is green FACT

Sheffield United are a great football club FACT

The Daily Mail is the best place to get a balanced and informed view on world events FACT

Try it yourself.

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W.W.M.D (What would Maggie do?)

Is it time to bring some Thatcherism to the current recession?

The bankers will not do as the Coalition government promised they'd make them.

Naughty boys

Is there an argument to copy Mrs Thatcher's actions when an industry thumbs its nose at the country?


If we were being held to ransom by a powerful coal mining union, threatening the country with armageddon and financial ruin if they don't get their own way what should the Prime minister do?


Two options:

1) Go along with their demands because the consequences of upsetting them are bad, and so cement the reliance of the county's financial integrity on them more-so.

Or

2) Stand up to them. Call their bluff, ride out and ignore the resulting social breakdown in the areas affected by the resulting shutdown of the industry. Then build the economy on another footing.


Thatcher did number 2 with the miners and built an economy on Finance.

Does anyone think Cameron has the foresight and bravery to do the same with the over-powerful finance industry and rebuild our manufacturing base? Tweet

East Asian country outed as unfunniest place on planet

After seeing off the evil, floppy haired, pensioner hating Jonathan Ross the Daily Mail's moved on to TV Enemy No 2 - Frankie Boyle.

He's very rude

His filthy mouth and tasteless attacks on absolutely everybody (He may be the least prejudiced man in the country. No one is safe...) have been giving the paper chest pains and with his hit and miss Channel four series Tramadol nights, and now to add insult to injury he's had the audacity to bring his potty mouth to the BBC.

This is bad (despite the DM's similar distaste for the publicly funded broadcaster) and to prove it's bad they quoted two Twitter comments saying it is bad.

This was not backed up by the DM's own commentator's though, who appear to actually find his ravings hilarious!

Well most of them anyway. Norman Churcher from Hastings has this opinion;

it's not comedy, mr grumpy. if there's anyone less funny on this planet, i'd like to know who they are. probably from outer mongolia. meanwhile, i object strongly to the beeb spending my licence fee money on hiring boyle

I can only assume Mr Churcher is an avid explorer and has compared and contrasted many humorous anecdotes from far and wide across the globe. His careful assessment of the Yak based humour system used in much of central Asia has left him in no doubt.

Mongolians = not funny Tweet

Tax hikes start to bite

It's not funny now.

Just found out the VAT rise has increased the canteen prices!

The students had the right idea... Tweet

Mixed Messages

The controversial VAT increase comes into force today in the UK. This increase poses a problem for the Daily Mail’s readers as it’s a tax rise and so is fundamentally bad, but on the other hand it’ll sting dirty benefit scroungers more than most, so must be good.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343830/George-Osborne-defends-20-VAT-rise-stores-mask-price-hike.html#ixzz1A4AtV2jz

The newspaper itself seems to be hedging its bets and not predicting the world’s end. Instead the main focus seems to be on the amount of money it could cost businesses.

The reader’s comments, on the other hand, are definitely in favour of the rise. John from Leicester says;

“Bring it on!!!!!! At last a tax that everyone has to pay, not just the hard working middle class taxpayer. Lets hear the feckless benefit scroungers squeal when their flat screen TV's go up.Ah bless, their mobile phone bills will rise, they shouldn't be able to afford mobile phones. Not sure if cigarettes are taxable but you can just hear them sqealing if they are. Is beer subject to VAT. I hope so because the benefit scroungers probably consume more than the average taxpayer. Yeah, bring it on!!!!!”

The logic seems to be that he can afford to pay the tax without having too much of a detrimental effect on his lifestyle, whereas someone with less money (And anyone with less money than him must surely be the world’s laziest / most pathetic person it seems) will notice the pain. This could only be a good thing as it would teach them not to have less money than him?

I wonder if he’d apply the same logic to an increase in income tax at the higher rate.  If you increase the top rate from 50% to say 57% all the payers would still be able to live in the manner to which they are accustomed but would be doing their patriotic duty to help reduce the deficit.  

Of course the downside of this is that it’s a glee-free change. No one really suffers in a meaningful way. Least of all people who earn less money than the thriving John.

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Shopkeepers vs Stockbrokers

I was going to use this opportunity to discuss the rights and wrongs of inheritance tax prompted by the news that David Cameron has just trousered £300k tax free following the unfortunate death of his father.

Daily Mail's take on it

A lot of the comments seem to think this is a none story and according to one contributor;

"£2,696,771 is a nice windfall but it's hardly a fortune these days. It's certainly not a life-changing sum to anyone who has managed to accrue a bit of personal wealth, now is it? - Stu Stu "




I disagree, I think the almost £3m estate is considerable. He earned this money as a stockbroker and this got me thinking about stockbrokers in general.

Stockbrokers buy and sell stuff, much like a corner shopkeeper. Subsequently they can only really work as hard as a shopkeeper. In fact less hard as I imagine their day has considerably less heavy lifting and driving to Cost-co to stock up on cases of Lucozade.

Also they're buying and selling with someone else's money so any losses will hurt someone else much more than themselves.

We often hear of the long hours and pressure that these fellows have to endure for their massive paypacket, but what would a day actually involve for a less scrupulous man than Mr Cameron?

Got into the office at 6am, the Asians have already started trading so I need to know what they're into today. So I spend the first couple of hours reading the internet and MSNing my mates to see what they think.

About 10 o clock (After I've had breakfast delivered) I notice that some stock I bought in Puffin futures in Iceland have plummeted. It may be because people there have recently had their first KFC franchise. This means they have cottoned onto the fact that puffins taste like tyres dipped in putrid fish guts, even compared to a family bucket of the Colonel's finest.

Anyway I need an out as I'm haemorrhaging money. Easy fix though, I ring round the good ole boys and get them to buy into Puffins for me. The sudden interest by so many people in these worried looking birds fires the price back up and I sell as soon as I can, even making a small profit. Close call there.

I buy the boys lunch somewhere expensive to thank them and we celebrate with some of Columbia's finest. Back at the office I buy into Puffin futures as they seem to be going through the roof for some reason and then continue my celebrating by raping one of the cleaners in the toilets...

And it continues like this I imagine until he can't fit any more cash in his bank account... Tweet