A peek behind the curtain

Next time anyone criticises Twitter to you, show them this. Print the fucker out. Link

(pic via Tolerance CA, link via BoingBoing)

Duh Bill

If you’re not on Twitter, you’re been spared me banging on about the Digital Economy Bill, a rushed-through piece of legislation that was introduced not long after Peter Mandelson had dinner with David Geffen at the Rothschilds. In the end, the Bill passed. As Rory Wilson put it “A bill proposed by the unelected, debated by the ignorant and voted on by the absent.”

Let’s just concentrate on the ‘ignorant’. We already know that Stephen Timms thinks that the IP in “IP address” stands for “Intellectual Property“.  Absolutely no crime in that, unless you happen to be The Minister For Digital Britain, which Timms happens to be. Today,  @loveandgarbage sent me this humdinger that arrived through his letterbox, part of an electioneering pamphlet for his local MP, Michael Connarty. Get a load of this.

These people want to lead us!

BNP to open its membership to non-whites?

Looks like a distinct possibility!

The reaction from the man on the street.

Could someone get Sean Connery to speak to Obama?

A quiet week in front of the computer

Well…

..it began like this…

…the response was immediate…

…I explained myself on the news yesterday…

…woke up today to this..

…to sum up.

This all took less than three days.

Now, what was that about Twitter being ‘inconsequential’ and ‘superficial’? Hmm? HMMMMM?

(A quick correction: for some reason, the text of my Channel 4 interview has me saying “you change the NHS at your peril”, when in fact I said “you attack the NHS at your peril.”)

Free ‘speech’

To be fair, this is how the rest of us felt for the previous eight years, so you can sort of sympathise. (Update: Kindly Americans have been writing to tell me that I’m slightly wrong in my assumption here. Andy is a black helicopter type of guy, not a wingnut.)

Songsmith tackles the global financial meltdown

(If you don’t know what Songsmith is, read this first.)

(via David McC)

Why they want to make it a crime to take photographs of the police

Justin McKeating found this interesting picture of a police medic at work: “Now, I’ve never had any medical training so can someone more knowledgeable please tell me what the above procedure is called and what it’s used for in a medical capacity?” Link to post. (Link to Amjamjazz’z original photo)

(Thanks to @loveandgarbage for the tip. Justin is @chickyog )

Of course, everyone’s talking about this. Another thing they would have preferred you hadn’t seen.  I guess if I was a policeman, I too would like some privacy when I’m walking down the road with a stick.)

Bad paintings of Obama

I actually think some of them are quite good! Like this next one…

But this one is just crazy bad.

Link (Thanks @nohiddenpath79!)

Hilarious Fianna Fail yokels have apparently never seen a television camera in their lives

You know the way children crowd around TV news reporters when they’re out and about? This is like that, except with middle-aged men. It’s  really quite odd; it’s like a wedding photo. Maybe the reporter hasn’t seen them. Wouldn’t it be great if he turned around and went “AAARGH!”” and dropped the microphone?

I also love the marvellous pause at the start of the interview. That makes it.

Bonus: follow up video.

(Thanks @AllanCavanagh)

UPDATE: My friend writes….”Saw that clip of FF yokels at the Ard Feis on your blog. I hadn’t seen it before but it made sense of a newspaper snippet the next day that I couldn’t quite fathom.
The cryptic press piece said that the reporter, David Davin Power, was furious about an incident involving slack jawed yokels.
The crowd surrounding him aren’t just a bunch of gombeen zombies. In the glorious tradition of past Ard Fheiseana, they were a crowd of helpful party members squashing up under orders to listen closely to his broadcast and show how much they enjoyed it.
He apparently told colleagues that it worked a dream and he found himself choosing his words carefully so as to maximize their enjoyment of the broadcast.

Look at them there, silently urging the journalist to do an enjoyable report. Good for them!”

(Sections in bold have been changed after legal advice.)