Category: Bullshit

  • The economics of piracy

    This is fascinating: Internet Regulation & the Economics of Piracy Suppose the CEO of Wal-Mart came to Congress demanding a $50 million program to deploy FBI agents to frisk suspicious-looking teens in towns near Wal-Marts. A lawmaker might, without for one instant doubting that shoplifiting is a bad thing, question whether this is really the optimal…

  • “EU says water is not healthy”, says made-up man

    The Express: EU SAYS WATER IS NOT HEALTHY In a scarcely believable ­ruling, a panel of experts threw out a claim that regular water consumption is the best way to rehydrate the body. The bizarre diktat from Brussels has far-reaching implications for member states, including Britain, as no water sold in the EU can now…

  • When health scares have wider consequences

    The MMR scare strikes again. From the Brighton Argus: Nine children at two Hove schools have been diagnosed with the potentially fatal infectious disease in the past couple of weeks – more than the entire number of cases in the whole of Sussex last year. …In some cases babies too young to be vaccinated have contracted…

  • Arguing with RJ Ellory

    I don’t usually edit or remove posts, no matter how much of an arse they make me look, but I’m making an exception this time: I went off the deep end about a series of tweets by the novelist RJ Ellory, and in doing so I made an arse of myself. The tweets were about…

  • Ryanair’s porn plan is a smokescreen to hide price hikes

    Whenever I see a stupid Ryanair story, I wonder what bit of financial news it’s drawing your attention away from. There’s a good example this week. The real story, in the Irish Times: the average cost of a Ryanair flight increased by 13% over the last year, and it’s about to go up again. At a…

  • “This website, and any page on the website, is based loosely off a true story, but has been modified in multiple ways including, but not limited to: the story, the photos, and the comments.”

    I hate pop-ups in general, but I particularly hate pop-ups that pretend to be real articles in order to flog quackery. we here at The Consumer Reporter London Online News are a little skeptical and aren’t sure that we’ve seen any real proof that these pills work for weight loss. So we decided to put these…

  • A more sober analysis of the WHO/phones/cancer story

    The tabloids are leading with headlines of the MOBILE PHONES WILL EAT YOUR FACE variety, but the WHO/phone/cancer story is something of a non-story. Here’s what Cancer Research has to say. It is understandable that people are concerned about mobile phones, especially because they are so widely used. But so far, the published studies do…

  • “You’re all our bitches now”

    Good news for the BPI: BT and TalkTalk’s appeal against the Digital Economy Act has been rejected. It turns out that the Act is perfectly fair and decent and nothing to worry about whatsoever. Amazingly, I have an opinion about that. “Shareholders and customers of BT and TalkTalk might ask why so much time and…

  • Record labels demand all the money in the world. Literally

    Here’s one for fans of idiocy and greed: in their case against file sharing network LimeWire, record labels are demanding sums of money that could exceed $75 trillion. The entire planet’s gross domestic product is $69 trillion per year. What are they thinking? Let The Register explain. The idea that the industry could ask for…

  • Fair and balanced videogame coverage

    Here’s one for the “and we wonder why people don’t trust journalists” file: Fox News decided to report on a controversial videogame, and completely ignored the experts it spoke to. Rock Paper Shotgun’s John Walker is on the case: part one is here, and part two is here. If it weren’t scaremongering bullshit that will…