Future Headline: McCanns Betray British People

From Boatang & Demetriou:

Future Headline: McCanns Betray British People

Now, this is a purely hypothetical headline based upon the events of this weekend. If, IF, Madeleine McCann’s parents did kill her, then this is what every tabloid in the UK would have on their front page. Why? Because they would be made to look stupid.

Being made to look stupid is something the British media can never allow, they are never wrong.

Reproduced without comment (none is necessary). Read the rest.

MPAA says democracy is illegitimate

Dean Garfield, executive vice president and chief strategy officer for the MPAA, was recently interviewed in ZDNet, where he was asked about the Pirate Party. Here’s the question and his answer:

Do you think that the Pirate Party’s attempts to battle you guys at the ballot box is a legitimate way to work out these issues?
Garfield: There’s nothing about what the Pirate Bay does or what the Pirate Party does that is legitimate. There’s nothing philosophically principled about it. They steal copyright content and accept advertising dollars based on taking other people’s work. There’s nothing noble about it.

Let’s be clear about this. Garfield is specifically saying that it is illegitimate to use democratic elections to elect politicians that won’t do what the MPAA wants. Well at least we can commend him for his clarity and honesty on this issue. No doubt the MPAA prefers politicians who can be bribed to do its bidding.

Swedish Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge responded by saying:

“This can only be seen as MPAA calling democracy illegitimate. We are a registered political party finishing in the top ten in a parliamentary democracy. That these people claim it would somehow be illegitimate to change laws through a parliamentary process shows just how corrupt to the core they are. On the other hand, I think the statement may be partly out of fear. There’s one thing that beats all their lawyers, war chests and monopolies. Just one. That one thing is votes in a democratic election, and that’s what we have and they don’t.”

The MPAA are showing their true face here. Yet another reason why everyone should boycott them. Don’t go to the cinema or buy a DVD unless you’ve checked beforehand that no MPAA-affiliated company will be getting a penny of your money. If in doubt, either don’t watch the film, or download it using BitTorrent. Don’t help these scumbags to harm you.

(Link from TorrentFreak)

Release Ronnie Biggs

Bystander thinks Ronnie Biggs, the 78 year old former Great Train Robber, should be released:

It is reported that Ronnie Biggs has applied for compassionate release from his sentence. Am I alone in feeling distaste at the continued incarceration of a shambling old man, more than forty years after the crime that he committed as a young man in his prime?

I must say I agree. According to Biggs’ son Michael (who admittedly is not an impartial observer), he’s very unwell:

“He cannot walk. He cannot talk. He can’t read or write. He can’t even eat or drink. He gets fed by a tube that’s inserted into his stomach.”

There’s no further purpose in imprisoning him: he’s no threat to society and banging him up further is no deterrent to others.

Having said that I don’t think he should have been imprisoned in 2001 in the first place. Biggs escaped from jail in 1965, and later settled in Brazil. In 2001 he publicly said that he would like to return to Britain, because he was in poor health and couldn’t afford his medical bills. He was subsequently brought back to the UK in a private aircraft chartered by The Sun. The British government should not have let him come back — he’d lived as a fugitive from the British state for so many years, so he should have been told he can’t come back now that he wanted Britain to pay for his medical treatment and living expenses. He didn’t have a valid UK passport and Britain should have simply refused to issue him with one, making it difficult for him to travel back. If he did manage to get back, e.g. with the aid of The Sun, then that newspaper should have been billed the full cost of looking after him.

On the death of Anita Roddick

Jamie K has this to say:

Thing is, [Anita Roddick] died due to an excess buildup of virtue in the brain. It used to seep out of her ears and into her products: bottled virtue. But since she sold the Body Shop to that bunch of French nazis it’s had nowhere to go. So BANG. Goodnight Anita.

I understand that David Cameron will lay a wreath at the grave, and perhaps wipe a manly tear from each pop eye. Gordon Brown will blink very slowly and catch a passing bluebottle with his tongue while crushing a begonia between his cold, heavy paws. Thus passes a modern entrepreneur.