According to evidence before a House of Lords committee, reported by the BBC, Rupert Murdoch has admitted telling his red-tops what to write (and making his views clear to the board of the Times, as well). So if you want distortions and half-truths designed to warp your views to fit the personal political agenda of a nationality-hopping billionaire, you should buy the Sun, the paper that sticks up for Australian American British values.
Blog
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Murdoch to public: Obey
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Adam Curtis on the Rise and Fall of the TV Journalist
From Screenwipe, on Youtube here. Adam Curtis is the man behind the ravishing but occasionally dodgy doc, the Power of Nightmares.
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Rise above it, Nigel
Just left St James’ Park after watching Exeter get thumped 4-1 by Burton Albion. Albion looked a pretty good side, to be fair, but their manager, Nigel Clough, was on the edge of his technical area for most of the game, roaring extraordinarily complex instructions at his players like he was playing voice-activated Championship Manager.
This obviously resulted in a fair bit of cat-calling from behind the dugout, and I was amazed by how personally he seemed to take it. A couple of times he even turned around and shouted “shut up” back at the fans, at least until the fourth official told him not to.
You’d think an experienced manager would have a big more sang-froid.
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Swampy (part 94)
So now it’s apparently not OK to deny immigrants their rights.
I get so confused.
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Bad news from Spain
They were not amused, so they damaged freedom of speech.
Here’s the original, which the BBC didn’t want to republish.
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Rotten timber
Democracy knows you as the poisoner of the streams of human intercourse, the fomenter of war, the preacher of hate, the unscrupulous enemy of a peaceful human society
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LOLIZLINGWORDSTREET
I think the LOLinator (link leads to LOLCATS version of this blog) may be a sign of the end times.
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spEak You’re bRanes
Some wonderful person has taken the risk to their sanity that is reading the Jerk Your Knee forums on the BBC and compiled the stupidest and most offensive into a blog called spEak You’re bRanes. Just great.
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European anthem
It’s fairly well known that Beethoven’s Ode to Joy (the 4th movement of the 9th symphony) is the European anthem, but less well known that the European version has no words, to avoid the need to translate it two dozen times.
Billy Bragg has recently retranslated the passages from the symphony, taken from Schiller’s Ode to Joy, for a performance at the Festival Hall, and I think he’s done a great job. Given that English is one of the working languages of the Union, I think the relevant verses are a good candidate for an English set of words:
See now like a phoenix rising
From the rubble of the war
Hope of ages manifested
Peace and freedom evermore!
Brothers, sisters stand together
Raise your voices now as one –
Though by history divided
Reconciled in unisonThrow off now the chains of ancient
Bitterness and enmity
Hand in hand let’s walk together
On the path of liberty
Hark a new dawn now is breaking
Lift your voices now in song!
Though by history divided
Reconciled in unison