I heard the news today, oh boy..

[El Pibe]

i may have to give up on the independent online, when did it become reddit? (yeah yeah, when arseholes like me stopped paying for the print version, i geddit)

http://www.independent.co.uk/ leads with oooh look, a dog dressed up as a spider dressedup as news

*see what i did there?

[????]

All the online versions of newspapers are descending into the same fight for 'clicks' shite - I really can't tell that much difference between the mail/indie/telegraph*/guardian online comments bit. The derrangemnet just swings about a bit politically.

*maybe a bit better as it has a subscription business model

[El Pibe]

All the papers were losing money hand over fist, then the Mail online suddenly becomes the world's most viewed website by essentially being Heat.

So now the rest of them are attempting to get a share of the pie without quiiiiiite stooping to kim kardashian (except when they stoop to kim kardashian)

[El Pibe]

islamism having the sort of week that Alastair Campbell would get annoyed about

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/peshawar-school-attack-taliban-release-images-of-gunmen-who-killed-148-as-they-claim-massacre-was-justified-and-warn-of-further-violence-9930805.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-execute-150-women-for-refusing-to-marry-militants-and-bury-them-in-mass-graves-9930766.html

Week it finally jumps the shark?

Lets fecking hope so!!!

[El Pibe]

Oh christ (no pun intended) I'm not for a second suggesting campbell is this evil...he's WAAAAYYYYY worse!!!

[steveo]

There's not much point restoring the death penalty when the bastids blow themselves apart after the dirty deed. It does make you wonder where the army was. In Homeland last week one of the characetrs said 'Just like the Pakistani army, a day late...'

[Loz]

I can't say I've ever been part of a religious (or any other) cult, but surely, after being given the orders "you are going to storm a school, kill all the children and then commit suicide" your last remaining functional brain cell would kick in and try to revive your lost humanity?

[uncleglen]

It was supposed to be in retliation for something- since it happened in a military compound where was the security? The Sydney one was more of a shock to me though.

[Loz]

Interesting piece in the Indy today. Jasmine Alibi-Brown discussing if political satire is a good thing keeping the politicians feet on the ground, or something that is just causing more people to withdraw from the political process.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/political-satire-is-funny-but-it-also-causes-cynicism-and-apathy-10016819.html

I always considered political satire as a healthy part of democracy, but I can see the point she's making.

[DaveR]

Another article on the same issue(ish) but from a US perspective:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b4e08c58-ae0a-11e4-919e-00144feab7de.html#axzz3RKmHesUo

Worth it just for the quote from H L Mencken:

?Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.?

[Otta]

http://www.britannica.com/topic/374714/supplemental-information

More quotes

[DaveR]

Also today - the GMB found to have unlawfully discriminated against one of their members on the basis of his left wing socialist views.

From the Times:

The bizarre chain of events began on November 30, 2011, when Keith Henderson, 29, a GMB worker, led a picket line outside parliament on the day of prime minister?s questions. He wrote an article that appeared in two national newspapers asking Labour MPs not to cross the picket line and to stand in solidarity with union members in their action against public sector pension cuts.

His comradely call to arms ?embarrassed? Mr Miliband after the Labour leader was mocked by David Cameron in their weekly joust in the Commons. Mr Miliband?s office phoned Paul Kenny, the GMB general secretary, to convey the Labour leader?s ?displeasure?......

?That was the start of the discrimination I received from the union,? he claimed.

Mr Henderson was sacked from the union after a long-running dispute with his superiors. The report that led to his dismissal was compiled by Warren Kenny, son of the GMB chief and a senior organiser at the union.

Mr Henderson lost his claim for unfair dismissal and unjustified discipline by the union. However, the tribunal judge did find that he had been discriminated against because of his left-wing beliefs. Judge Nigel Mahoney found that ?left-wing democratic socialism is a philosophical belief for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010?.

[david_carnell]

I think they probably discriminted against him for being a bit of twat.

[Loz]

Well, if he was a drunken twat then the RMT would have backed him.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-tube-strike-millions-face-disruption-in-latest-walkout-over-driver-who-failed-breath-test-10036316.html

If the RMT think he was unlawfully dismissed, take LU to a tribunal or court. Don't bloody well inconvenience the rest of us.

[david_carnell]

It seems they did, Loz, if you read the whole article. And LU lost. But yet are still sacking the bloke.

"Last year at ACAS (the conciliation service) the RMT offered to call off any strike action if LU agreed to reinstate Alex following an Employment Tribunal ruling that he was dismissed unfairly.

"LU refused even this most reasonable of offers and were unable to give a cogent reason for their refusal."

He said the type of machine used for the alcohol test ?has been known to fail. Indeed a failure was recorded last year at Acton depot when a manager tested positive but the machine was deemed to be faulty.?

So you've got an employer acting unreasonably and with double standards for workers and management.

[Loz]

I can see why you read it that way, DC - it's a terribly written article. But the case has yet to go before a Employment Tribunal and no ruling has yet been made.

If he had won a tribunal case and LU refused to reinstate him, surely that is against the law anyway?

[david_carnell]

Oh I see....it's all a big "IF"?

Lummy - seemingly its one where both sides need to step back from the brink. An all-out strike seems disproportionate in the circumstances.

Interesting to note how low the voting figures were too. Just around 500 members voting on industrial action of this scale.

"Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The wider issues within the RMT post Bob Crow are at play here too. There is an internal power struggle going on for the power within the organisation. It's not widely known outside political circles but Bob was a reasonable negotiator and far less militant than the wider membership. He was well aware of the negative publicity tube strikes brought to the RMT.

And then you have the Boris issue. He despises the RMT and is in a pitched battle to drive them out of existence so they are making his last year as mayor as difficult as possible.

The "issue" for the strike is rarely the real reason for it.

[DaveR]

Reading between the lines, I guess the RMT have been trying to persuade LU to reinstate the guy pending an ET ruling, as its pretty clear there hasn't already been one. The argument about the machine not working for people with diabetes is a weak one though - my understanding is that this issue was recognised with some types of test kits years ago and different technology adopted.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

I take back everything I've said about Harriet Harman.

She is now electioneering in a pink "Woman to Woman" van. Of course I'll vote for her on that basis.

[Loz]

With 'pink kitchen tables' too!

Harman would have been the first to climb all over the Tories if they tried a stunt like this. I can't believe someone of her political experience can't see just how bad an idea this is.

ETA: A comment on the Guardian report made me laugh: "As a woman I am naturally pulled to garish pink hues. Also, if things are pink then i know they are about women - otherwise I get confused and read about politics and science. Pink helps to signpost me to wimmin's things; like if I see a pink screwdriver I know it's one I can use. Thanks Labour."

[Parkdrive]

Peckhamgatecrasher Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I take back everything I've said about Harriet

> Harman.

>

> She is now electioneering in a pink "Woman to

> Woman" van. Of course I'll vote for her on that

> basis.

I nearly voted for the Conservatives on the strength of that clever poster campaign depicting Blair with the Devil eyes. What a wheeze that was.

[david_carnell]

"Alternative" medicine/health/woo advocate dies after ignoring actual medical advice and treatement instead opting for kilos of fruit juice and coffee-enemas. Mother had previously died after following same treatement plan. Darwinism at work.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/mar/01/jessica-ainscough-australia-wellness-warrior-dies-cancer-aged-30

Comment piece:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/03/what-do-doctors-say-to-alternative-therapists-when-a-patient-dies-nothing-we-never-talk

[Loz]

Coffee enemas? That'd make working in Starbucks interesting.

"Drinking it here or takeaway?"

"Just shove it up my a***".

[david_carnell]

The coffee from there tastes like it might have already been used for that in the first place.

[Otta]

That's a really sad story, I wonder whether she convinced herself she could beat the cancer with these nonsense treatments partly because she simply couldn't face up to the thought of losing her arm.