Foul, stinking evil man should keep his mouth shut and his nose out fo British broadcasting

Evil media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch has once again stuck the knife into the BBC saying he doesn't think they should have a license fee increase

'Take News 24, it's fine but it's free. We struggled for years and made a small charge and we've also had to go free. In any other country, that is predatory competition.
But when asked whether he feared a fully-funded BBC was a threat to News Corporation he said: "No, but I don't know where it stops..,

But former BBC director general Greg Dyke told Five Live Mr Murdoch would never understand the concept of a state-funded broadcaster.

"Australians and Americans have difficulty understanding the BBC, that we should collect two and a half-billion pounds in a sort of poll tax to fund a broadcasting system," he said.

"They don't understand it and Murdoch will never get it in a million years. He'll never concede that actually what it's produced is a better broadcasting system here that you get in the United States or in Australia."

Actually, he pulled his punch, the truth is that murdoch hates anyone and anything that get in the way of his monopolistic money grabbing ventures.

So Rupert if you're so against the poor British public paying a tax to watch telly, why don't you give away sky for free instead of charging everyone who watches sky for the sports channels even if theydon't like sport

Blogthings - What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Your Birthdate: September 20

You are a virtual roller coaster of emotions, and most people enjoy the ride. Your mood tends to set the tone of the room, and when you're happy, this is a good thing. When you get in a dark mood, watch out - it's very hard to get you out of it. It's sometimes hard for you to cheer up, and your gloom can be contagious. Your strength: Your warm heart Your weakness: Trouble controlling your emotions Your power color: Black Your power symbol: Musical note Your power month: February

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

What would Freud say??

Talk about 'all men want to marry their mother'

Skirt-chasing playboy Daniel Anceneaux spent weeks talking with a sensual woman on the Internet before arranging a romantic rendezvous at a remote beach -- and discovering that his on-line sweetie of six months was his own mother!

'I walked out on that dark beach thinking I was going to hook up with the girl of my dreams,' the rattled bachelor later admitted. 'And there she was, wearing white shorts and a pink tank top, just like she'd said she would.

'But when I got close, she turned around -- and we both got the shock of our lives. I mean, I didn't know what to say. All I could think was, 'Oh my God! it's Mama!' '

Mr and Mrs become Mrs and Mrs

A couple who wed as man and wife in 1967 have remarried as a gay couple

A husband and wife have 'remarried' as a gay couple - 14 years after the groom had a sex swap operation.
Bernard and Joyce Rogers wed in 1967 but have lived "like sisters" since 1991, when Bernadette, as she's now known, underwent gender surgery.

The Sheet Music Archive

Anyone a budding classical musician??

Well now you can downlad lots of free public domain scores - the only restriciton is that you can only download two per day so be careful what you choose

Look kids, this is what we had before we had iPods

Do you remember the days of cassettes? the C60, C90, how they used to get tangled around the tape head or stretch so the sound went all funny - I do

Here's a page that has loads of images of old cassettes for a burst of nostalgia. Which reminds me, somewhere at home I have a great big bag of cassettes that haven't seen the light of day in years- I should find out what's on them

Oooo how vile!

Look at how horrible this toilet is - surely that's designed to give a man a complex

The health benefits of olive oil

It seems that olive oil works in a similar way to ibuprofen as an anti-inflammatory

Now scientists believe they have discovered exactly what it is that makes extra virgin olive oil so good for us.

A study suggests the oil can prevent inflammation in the same way as common headache pills. In doing so, it helps stave off long-term health problems such as cancer and heart disease.

The researchers, based at the University of Pennsylvania, found the main compound in the oil, oleocanthal, contained the same properties as the painkiller ibuprofen.

Ibuprofen has been linked to a lower risk of cancer and heart problems, as has aspirin, which belongs to the same class of antiinflammatory drugs, called COX inhibitors.

The study concluded that extra virgin olive oil - made from the first pressing of the olive - may offer similar long-term advantages.

The extra virgin oil costs around twice as much as the standard version. While the ordinary oil offers some health benefits, these are less pronounced. Now scientists believe they have discovered exactly what it is that makes extra virgin olive oil so good for us.

A study suggests the oil can prevent inflammation in the same way as common headache pills. In doing so, it helps stave off long-term health problems such as cancer and heart disease.

The researchers, based at the University of Pennsylvania, found the main compound in the oil, oleocanthal, contained the same properties as the painkiller ibuprofen.

Ibuprofen has been linked to a lower risk of cancer and heart problems, as has aspirin, which belongs to the same class of antiinflammatory drugs, called COX inhibitors.

The study concluded that extra virgin olive oil - made from the first pressing of the olive - may offer similar long-term advantages.

The extra virgin oil costs around twice as much as the standard version. While the ordinary oil offers some health benefits, these are less pronounced.

Iraq profiteering

Interesting article looking at the wheels within wheels among the warmongerers and consortia profiting from the war in Iraq

The Bush family connection was obvious. The chairman of New Bridge was Joe Allbaugh, George W. Bush’s chief of staff when he was governor of Texas and national campaign manager for the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign. Directors Edward M. Rogers Jr and Lanny Griffith came from one of Washington’s best-connected Republican law firms. Both had been assistants to George Bush Sr in the White House.
A bizarre Bush-Thatcher-Bush-Blair continuum was completed when the company invited an unlikely Englishman to join its ranks. Sir Charles Powell was defence and foreign affairs consultant to Margaret Thatcher and John Major, expending much effort advising PMs that the government needed to invest more in military technology and arms sales. He went on to work for the chairmen of arms firms BAe Systems and Thales, advising them, evidently, that the government needed to invest more in military equipment and arms sales.
As luck would have it, Charles’ brother Jonathan, another Foreign Office diplo-wonk, who used to be Britain’s ambassador in Washington, is now Tony Blair’s chief of staff. He is also said to be the man responsible for single-handedly rubbishing Robin Cook’s ethical foreign policy on the basis that Britain needed to invest more in military equipment and arms sales. It must run in the family.

And then, as if that isn't enough, there's yet another connection to Bin Laden and Al Quaeda

What the press release doesn’t mention is that an al-Bunnia partner is also a founding partner in an organisation identified as helping to fund al-Qaeda. Documents from the Swiss Federal Commercial Registry show Sadoon al-Bunnia to be a founding partner in the Malaysian Swiss Gulf and African Chamber (MIGA), one of 14 businesses controlled by Ahmed Idris Nasreddin and Youssef M. Nada.

In August 2002, US Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill announced that businesses in the Nasreddin-Nada network “appeared to be providing a clandestine line of credit to a close associate of Usama bin Laden and as of late September 2001, Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaida organisation received financial assistance from Youssef M. Nada.”

You would think this record might blot the copybook of businessmen hoping to do deals with the US administration in Iraq, but no; US engineering super-giant, Bechtel has just signed them up to help rebuild the Al Mat bridge, bombed by a stray cruise missile during the war.

Astonishingly, the US government and their contractors seem blithely unconcerned about al-Bunnia’s al-Qaeda connection. According to the US Treasury, its undiplomatically-named Office of Foreign Assets Control keeps a list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, prohibiting trade with the listed persons or organisations. MIGA makes the list. Al-Bunnia does not.

When pushed, the US Treasury said that al-Bunnia’s “association with MIGA should raise some due diligence concerns, but it is not necessarily wrong for a US company to do business with him, and it is certainly not illegal.” Senseless and dangerous, perhaps. But not actually illegal.

And then it discusses Karen Kwiatkowski, a whistleblower who was embroiled in the sexing up of the intelligence.

Interesting and yet angry-making reading

Draw a pig