Aunty Bashing

The saga over the Russell Brand-Jonathan Ross prank callgate is another example of Aunty bashing by the reactionary press.

The show was broadcast on 18 October. Between then and 26 October, when the Mail on Sunday published its rant, there were just two complaints. Now there have been 30,000 complaints.

The Mail, and most of its readers, have a pathological hatred of the BBC. They are just using this as an excuse to give the BBC a good kicking.

The show was childish and not funny. Brand and Ross should have been sacked. As should all the editorial staff who listened to this recorded show and thought it was appropriate to broadcast. That should have been the end of it.

But the press have whipped this story into a storm, forcing senior people in the BBC to resign unnecessarily. The story has been all over the papers for days. It is the top item on the news. It has been greater prominence than the recession or the humanitarian disaster in DR Congo.

This has all the hallmarks of the Hutton Report after which Greg Dyke, the then director general of the BBC, was forced to resign even though it was the Bliar government that had fabricated a pack of lies to excuse the invasion of Iraq, not the BBC.

Schadenfreude

Here's something that will give you a warm glow inside.

Hedgefunds that had bet on Volkswagen shares falling lost $30 billion when the shares actually rose by 350% in two days.

It's wrong to take pleasure from the misfortunes of others. But, then again, isn't that what hedgefunds do?

Post Turtle

I love those turtles. You know, they say the difference between a turtle and Sarah Palin: the turtle doesn't think it's qualified to have it's finger on the nuclear button just because it's been governor of a state that's 4,000 miles from Moscow.

A country doctor struck up a conversation with a 75-year-old Texas rancher. Eventually the conversation turned to the US election, and Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy, and the old rancher observed:

“Well, ya know, Palin is a post-turtle.”

The bemused doctor asked what a post-turtle was, and the old man replied:

“When you’re driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that’s a post-turtle.”

The rancher continued:

“You know she didn’t get up there by herself, she doesn’t belong up there, she doesn’t know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with.”

No Average Joe

The McCain campaign must have thought all their dreams had come true.

But this thread was just asking to be pulled.

1. "Joe" isn't his name. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher just doesn't have the same ring.

2. "Joe" isn't a plumber. He doesn't have a Ohio state plumbers licence. In Toledo, his hometown, plumbers need a licence, even if they work for a company and only do residential work.

3. "Joe" owes the state of Ohio nearly $1,200 in unpaid income tax. The Ohio Department of Taxation has filed a claim on his property until he pays his debt.

4. "Joe's" current earnings don't even come close $250,000. He would actually benefit from Obama's tax plans. What kind of a plumber earns $250,000?!

5. And..."Joe's" a registered Republican.

Perhaps John McCain should dismiss all his advisers, rather than joke about it.