I heard the news today, oh boy..

[Brendan]

Tabby?

[lozzyloz]

Lol. I think it's fantastic what the Koreans have done. Just think of all the possibilities if it was transferred to humans. No need for reflective clothing on cyclists.

Save on electricity when reading in bed.

More night football as the crowd lights up the pitch.

New market for de-luminous condoms.

[Huguenot]

Good heavens. I just read this.

I'm wondering if the BBC is now a nominated mouthpiece for this overtly political organisation?

[mockney piers]

My god, just when you think you're inured to all the misery the world has to offer, the world shows it can still shock you to the core.

Will this be part of the Olympic opening ceremony? I think not!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/07/wchina107.xml

[lozzyloz]

It's sickening, but I suppose the fact that her plea is to be heard by the courts can give us some hope.

[Jah Lush]

That is absolutely fucking outrageous.

[Keef]

A lot of what goes on in China really really shocks me, but then compare that to a woman being physically punished for becoming pregnant out of wedlock, as a result of rape, and you start to realise just how nasty a fuc-ed up world we really live in!

[Brendan]

Sickening! At least it was reported and is going to court. I dount it will get reported in the Chinese media though.

Now if only someone made public ever woman that is raped in Africa (this is happening to a number of people as we speak) because the men think it is their right. Every young girl killed in the Middle East for falling pregnant out of wedlock because ?the law? demands it. Every innocent person lynched and burnt as a witch because someone with influence had a grudge and was able to pay a witchdoctor to declare them as one. And the list goes on.

It is indeed a very, very fucked up world we live in Keef.

[barrymarshall]

Blair takes US$1m per year job to advise JP Morgan. Just as ex-PM John Major went to private equity firm Carlyle Group, so Blair joins the ranks of ex-public servants working for the running dogs of world capitalism. If anyone needed any proof of the incestuous relationship between politics and big business, look no further. (In fact, dig a lot deeper, read Private Eye, it's full of this kind of stuff.)

[mockney piers]

Private eye is far and away the best newspaper this country has to offer.

Yeah pretty sickening isn't it. He should be in a jail, not a boardroom.

I have to say, getting him in to advise on the international scene is not unlike hiring a bull to advise on china displays isn't it?

[barrymarshall]

yeah, vile isn't it? But it's the norm *sigh*

bring back the guillotine! orf with all their heads!

[mockney piers]

Regardless of how you may feel about the stance of this op ed, you can't help but be shocked to the core by the dreadful tsunami of metaphor and simile

[Jah Lush]

That could have come straight from the pages of the Daily Heil. Perhaps the writer is moonlighting from there. Still, having said that the original crime that she starts the editorial off with is absolutely appalling and unbelievably vicious and nasty. I hope the little shits who perpetrated such a heinous act on the poor girl get what's coming to them.

[david_carnell]

What do you expect from a restaurant critic who is maquerading as a journalist.

I think DulwichMum put it best in another thread when highlighting the inevitable follow-on from "...I'm not a racist but..."

A couple of the commmentators pinpoint the hypocracy and historical innacuracy of her argument. London in the 70s and 80s was hardly somewhere where one left doors open at night or wandered through back streets without caution. Riots, terrorism and civil unrest were all present then as well and yet some look back on this period with rose-tinted glasses imagining London as some sleepy backwater of the Oxfordshire countryside until Blair came to power at which point in suddenly resembled Beirut populated with packs of marauding savages murdering the innocent.

Another commentator sums up nicely when he/she says "thatcher said 'There is no such thing as society', there certainly wasn't when she'd finished".

Spot on.

[mockney piers]

spot on both of you, but it really was the writing that got to me

"In the eternal cesspit of senseless urban crime...a benchmark of slaked lust and casual, sadistic cruelty."

"could weep an ocean"

"these savages, who hunted in a pack like animals"

"and underlines the fact that some of the rootless delinquents who roam the London streets are now scraping the bottom of the barrel of humanity"

"I'm not racist but..." [ok, paraphrasing here]

"a patchwork of rigidly delineated little pockets of race and religion, knots of unyielding humanity"

"the middle class are fleeing from inner London like pashmina-wrapped lemmings"

"airytale, roses-around-the-door belief in the safety of the countryside"

"a great termite nest of law-breaking and corruption"

'If you have absolutely nothing to say, then cover it up with terrible writing' appears to be the gibbous call to arms of a spittle-flecked fleet st (enough; ED) [cont. p94]

[Brendan]

Agree with you MP except I do feel that "these savages, who hunted in a pack like animals? was a fair description and if used in a level headed article about the same crime would still be a fair description.

[david_carnell]

deleted due to double post

[david_carnell]

Although if I were going to be a terrible pedant the description of hunting in packs is, and always has been, entirely appropriate to apply to humans.

The evolution of language and communication that allowed pack hunting enabled humans to rise to the top of the food chain.

If the rapist(s)/attacker(s) had in fact been a single individual the hyperbole would have been along the lines of "loner"; "outcast"; "misfit" etc etc instead this time it was a group so you get animal metaphors, which as I've just mentioned really apply to humans as well. The journalism is shoddy whatever way you look at it.

[Brendan]

Yeah but in my book it is ok to use emotive language when dealing with emotive issues as long as it is kept in context and not used to appeal to peoples? prejudices or further some type of belief.

You are right though, it is a shoddy piece of writing.

[citizenED]

Muir claims that a huge number of white people moved out of London. I'm a white professional. I moved into London; It's better and safer than where I used to live. Many of the white people I know moved into London from elsewhere. I wonder what the statistics are?

[mockney piers]

I sincerely doubt its based on solid stats. I think it's just a gut feeling rant based on thin air frankly.

[lozzyloz]

They've been carting this headline around for at least the last 5 years. It seems more people moving to areas like Cornwall and Devon added to people being priced out of central London = White flight. Just another twist on the hysterical immigration banter.

[Brendan]

One is inclined to ask. Haven't people been moving in and out of London for 2000 years? I moved to London but I intend on moving out again. This is merely my long term plan and like many people I chose to exploit the city?s resources and hopefully when I leave my impact will have done some good.

[ChavWivaLawDegree]

This might be why you lot are unsatisfied and hate so many things! (and there was me blaming it on lack of sex!)

[mockney piers]

Ha ha, what a bunch of idiots they managed to interview.