Category: Hell in a handcart

  • Keystone cops prevent perfectly legal photography

    Number one, on Boing Boing: Security goons, store-clerks and police officers detained Flickr user “i didn’t mean to go to Stoke” for taking photos in the outdoor, pedestrianized area of Middlesbrough, UK Meanwhile in London, the PCSO (aka Keystone Cops or “not cops at all”) try to stop someone filming (video link). There are places…

  • My eyes! My eyes!

    The Daily Mail website has published a photo of Gillian “Terrahawk” McKeith in a PVC catsuit. Aren’t there laws about that kind of thing? /pours domestos into eyes

  • iPod porn and news that isn’t news

    An interesting article (Salon.com, via Fark) on a rash of iPod-porn stories that appeared on US TV. Now, iPod/iPhone porn does exist – the porn industry isn’t exactly slow to embrace new technology – but what’s interesting is the content of the news reports. Nine stations aired Raskin’s warnings. Her segments had the look and…

  • A great book, but the people who need it won’t read it

    I mentioned this briefly before, but I’d like to mention it again: Suckers, by Rose Shapiro, is a wonderful demolition job of the alternative medicine racket. Like all polemics, it sometimes crushes things that perhaps don’t deserve to be crushed – so it’s very hard on acupuncture, despite some indications that it can be useful…

  • Return of the son of ID cards

    An excellent post by Mr Eugenides: If you want to know what’s really happening… you watch the hands. So never mind the cards; it’s all about the database. It’s always been all about the database. Don’t watch the cards. Watch the hands.

  • There’s something wrong with this swan story

    About 200 years ago, I blogged about a Sun story claiming that asylum seekers were coming over here and eating our swans. The short version? It was bollocks. But it’s back! Back! BACK! From the Daily Mail: Immigrant was cooking swan surrounded by the bodies of slaughtered birds Blimey. In a squalid makeshift campsite by…

  • The war on cheese

    A report commissioned by the Food Standards Agency suggests that cigarette-style warnings on dairy products could prevent all kinds of horrible deaths. The FSA says that reports are “overblown”, but doesn’t actually rule the idea out. So it’s going to happen, then.

  • It’s time for a crackdown on binge drinking… doctors

    I’m sure this will be all over blogland, but I’m posting it anyway because it made me laugh. The BMA, which condemned 24-hour drinking last week and called for higher taxes on alcohol, faces accusations of hypocrisy after complaints of drunken antics at its central London headquarters. It has emerged that while blaming everyone else…

  • Baby food and air travel

    These are the rules on taking baby food in your carry-on luggage, from the Department of Transport: Liquid baby food or sterilised water, sufficient for the journey, can be taken through airport security.  The accompanying adult will be required to verify by tasting. The sensible thing, then, would be to make a parent sample one…

  • Government listens to turkeys, bans Christmas

    Rather than go over the insane anti-file sharing plan the government apparently intends to implement, here’s an extract from this month’s The Word magazine talking about EMI. The average salary across EMI is estimated at £57,328, heavily weighted towards the top. A FTSE 100 company on average has fewer than 20 execs on £500K-plus; EMI…