Labour campaigners using FOI laws to dig the dirt on Tory leader Michael Howard

BBC – Labour tries to dig up Tory past: Labour is trying to use new openness laws to dig up electioneering material about Conservative leader Michael Howard’s time in government. Requests for the documents have been put in by a range of Labour politicians and party members, a party spokesman told the BBC News website. They include queries about Mr Howard’s role in the poll tax and claims he fast-tracked a passport application. Ministers are normally barred access to the private files of past governments.

Oh, this is so begging to be flipped on its head. Where shall we begin digging?








Posted in UK General Election 2005 | 3 Comments

The Sun reads Bloggerheads

(Cheers to ScaryDuck for the heads-up on this one…)

Here’s a Sun journalist visiting the site in late December.

Blogstats1

This IP address – 143.252.80.124 – doesn’t bring up any WHOIS info at the moment, but here’s someone from Usenet who tracked this IP address back to News International in Jan 2004. I think you’ll agree that its’ a pretty Sun-centric story (Won’t somebody pleeease think of the children?). Perhaps a Lexis-Nexis user would care to seek out a Sun story based on adoption guidelines in late January or early February 2004. If you wish. No big deal.

The tracking doesn’t reveal which four pages he/she visited, but it’s a pretty sure bet that they included at least one of these pages (perhaps even as an entry-point):
December 29, 2004 :: Murdoch: Fox-watching and Xmas Xtras
December 23, 2004 :: Rupert Murdoch and the ‘War on Christmas’ Campaign
December 22, 2004 :: News Corp declares War on Christmas
December 17, 2004 :: The War on Christmas is global
December 15, 2004 :: The Sun: ‘Tis the season to be sarky
December 14, 2004 :: The Sun: staying on-message
December 13, 2004 :: The Sun: taking Christmas on tour
December 10, 2004 :: The Sun backs Santa Claus backing The Sun
December 9, 2004 :: The Sun: All your Christmas are belong to us

That one’s just to let you know that I’ve been paying attention. Here’s the really fun one…

This is what I suspect to be another Sun journalist viewing this site in early January.

Blogstats2

This IP address – 143.252.80.110 – can be traced directly to News International:

woki1.newsint.co.uk = [ 143.252.80.110 ]
Domain Name:
newsint.co.uk
Registrant:
News International Newspapers Limited
Trading As: News International Newspaper Limited
Registrant’s Agent:
News International Newspapers Limited [Tag = NEWSINT]
Relevant Dates:
Last updated: 01-Jun-2004
Name servers listed in order:
ns0.newsint.co.uk 143.252.80.3
ns1.newsint.co.uk 143.252.80.205
WHOIS database last updated at 10: 30: 02 12-Jan-2005

The logs seem to have missed when the visit took place, but I’m going to take a wild shot in the dark here and suggest that this visit involved a visit to the front page and the page linked below on Jan 5 or Jan 6:

January 5, 2005 :: The Evolution of Crazy Frog – from Deng Deng to Ringtone

The reason for this guess is this Jan 7 article from The Sun by Sean Hamilton about… the origins of the Crazy Frog ringtone.

To: Sean Hamilton
From: Tim Ireland
Sent: Wednesday, January 12, 2005 10:58 AM
Subject: Crazy Frog

Dear Sean,

I’m so glad you found my research useful for your Jan 7 Crazy Frog article:
https://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2005/01/the_sun_reads_b.asp

Perhaps you’d care to chew on this for your next article:
https://www.bloggerheads.com/abu_ghraib/

I have it on good authority that a certain tabloid largely ignored the plight of men, women and children suffering in Abu Ghraib and actually gave more coverage to a puppy that was thrown off an overpass (you’ll have to scroll to the bottom of this page; sorry to put you to so much bother):
https://www.bloggerheads.com/x-archive.asp?viewblog=20040527&date=27/05/04

I think this would make a good story. You might want to mention it to Rebekah Wade. Especially the bit about the children:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/14/193750/666
http://www.boingboing.net/2004/07/15/hersh_children_raped.html
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2004/07/15/hersh/

Cheers

Tim Ireland
www.bloggerheads.com

UPDATE

1. Yes, I’m aware that News International IPs may also indicate visits from other minions of Murdoch, such as those from NOTW and The Times. It’s just that my belief if coincidences has been strained lately.

2. Sean Hamilton was nice enough to return my email, and clever enough to blame a nameless fact-checking sub for the visit I detected (with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, of course). Sean is now on record as saying that his first visit to this site was his visit today. So my headline is true; The Sun does read Bloggerheads. See? I’m lurning…

;o)








Posted in Rupert 'The Evil One' Murdoch | 5 Comments

Christian Voice – Stephen Green

You. Must. Read. This. Now.

Then forward it to everyone you know.

Send them a copy of this as well if you like:
https://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2005/01/tara_conlan_and.asp

If you don’t have a (free) Guardian registration, get one just to read this (it’s worth it) or use BugMeNot.com

Read. This. Now.

Guardian – The moral minority: BBC2’s broadcast of Jerry Springer: the Opera on Saturday met with protest on an unprecedented scale – most of it by a little-known group called Christian Voice. Its director, Stephen Green, tells Stuart Jeffries about his crusade to stop this ‘tidal wave of filth’








Posted in Christ... | 19 Comments

Milk is yummy

Mmmmm, yumyumyumyum.








Posted in Consume! | Comments Off on Milk is yummy

Brown and Blair is best of friends – unleash the election!

Balders has a few thoughts on the Blair/Brown rift – and a bunch of links.

Me, I’m holding my water. But…

You always know when there’s a Big Lie to be sold, because Honest John Prescott appears on Radio 4.

I am keen to see the official ‘pre-election’ posters. Will they be green and blue like they were in my dream?

Oh, and I’m dying to show you my posters… but they must remain under wraps until the entire machine is ready.

UPDATE – The Labour posters are here and they ooooooooze Soho cleveryness. And they’re not green and blue!








Posted in UK General Election 2005 | Comments Off on Brown and Blair is best of friends – unleash the election!

Vote For Me (ITV) goes to air

Perfect.co.uk – Vote For Me

Damn it all, I missed my chance to make a total arse of myself on television. And I was busy blogging and missed the programme’s debut last night. Oh well. I’ll catch up.

Independent – Vote For Me, ITV1: The programme’s gimmick is to put them through a selection process, and the winner will stand for parliament. (i.e. to produce a single candidate)

The Working Title Party was geared to create a fresh crop of candidates: The winning participants can be awarded prize money on a sliding scale. With this funding, the outright winner will have the freedom to begin his own party based on their views and/or the views of their competitors. Recruiting less-successful participants to form a cabinet after the series will be the true test of this individual’s leadership. In fact, the outright winner may not be the person who brings this together – there could very well be a political Darius waiting in the wings (‘I will be the leader of a political party and win an election by the age of 35!’). So they may as a group choose to form an actual party, or they may not. That party may be led by the outright winner of the series, or it may now. Some participants may actually choose to use their funding and fame to begin a political career in existing parties. In short, no political party will be promoted during the series, as it will not – or even may not – exist until well after the series has concluded.

Did anybody watch it? How many parallels are there to my original proposal?








Posted in UK General Election 2005 | 3 Comments

After being held for three years without charge (and without knowing what they are accused of)…

Independent – US ‘close to freeing four Britons held at Guantanamo Bay’
Guardian – US ready to free British terror suspects
BBC – Guantanamo Britons ‘to be freed’

ABC – Few at Guantanamo of intelligence value: US official: A Pentagon spokesman says only about 25 per cent of the 550 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are still of intelligence value, as the controversial jail nears its third year. Major Michael Shavers says the United States is negotiating the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo to other countries even as it plans to build a more permanent prison for those left behind.

So is Blair saving face by claiming that all this time he’s been in negotiations, or are the US saving face by saying they were going to let them go (sort of) because they’d finished with the thumbscrews?








Posted in The War on Stupid | Comments Off on After being held for three years without charge (and without knowing what they are accused of)…

The Sun banned by Lewisham College

Today Page 3 lovely Nikkala (22, from Middlesex) thinks a principal’s decision to ban The Sun from her college is a disgrace. She adds: “I just can’t understand the thinking behind this petty-minded move. Page 3 is just harmless fun and it helps brighten up the day for a lot of blokes. Surely she must have better things to do with her time.”

Harmless fun. I love it when they say that.

The Sun – Sun-sorship at college: A killjoy college boss has angered students and staff by banning them from reading The Sun. Leftie Ruth Silver ordered the Sun-sorship even though not one of her 15,000 students has complained about the paper. Ms Silver claims Britain’s favourite newspaper – read each day by millions of females – is “degrading to women”. One angry student told The Sun that the principal had even ticked off a member of staff for taking the paper to fun-free Lewisham College, South East London.

Leftist killjoys. I love it when they say that.

Here’s the contact page for Lewisham College. I hope you’ll join me in sending a message of support.

UPDATE – Phones are jammed, by the looks of things. Well done The Sun. No email addresses on the site, but I did manage to squeeze through the system and ask for one. If you want it (I don’t want to publish it here) just email me and ask for it.

Hey, and guess what? John Beyer got back to me on this thoughts about a topless woman backing his case. He said: “I think it is a great pity and wrong that young women are enticed by newspapers to pose indecently. I have stated this publicly on numerous occasions.”

John, if you’re reading this, I expect you to send a message of support. Or perhaps run a campaign. That is what you do, isn’t it?

PS – The ‘on hold’ music for Lewisham College is to die for. :o)








Posted in Page 3 - News in Briefs | 1 Comment

Soldier escapes death in miracle of dental surgery

Reported here and elsewhere on Teh Interwebs. The comment that strikes me most in the former link is; “God has a plan for him.”

I assume that plan includes a winning smile.

Snopes has an entry on this, but they’re still trying to determine the authenticity of the story.

(Please note that the story as listed at Snopes.com has a fabbo feelgood opening and the gunman involved isn’t described as an insurgent but an ‘Iraq terrorist’…)








Posted in It's War! It's Legal! It's Lovely! | Comments Off on Soldier escapes death in miracle of dental surgery

Make Love, Not Terror (killyourdogkillyourdogkillyourdog)

I have no idea what this promotional video for www.keta-keta.co.il is trying to say.

Even knowing that a keta is a small salmon of inferior value (which in the autumn runs up all the larger rivers between San Francisco and Kamchatka) is of very little help.

Oh well.

Warning: the following video contains concepts and images that are unsuitable for children and possibly upsetting to some adults…

Posting this means that I hate dogs. It certainly doesn’t mean that I think the show Punk’d is a total waste of space and a negative influence on society. In fact, I think posting this makes me a fan of Punk’d. As well as a hater of dogs.

Is it over yet? I can’t look…








Posted in Video | Comments Off on Make Love, Not Terror (killyourdogkillyourdogkillyourdog)