Yet more #firstworldproblems: The debut of Lego Friends, featuring a more prominent use of pink than your typical Lego fan would be used to, drew criticism from some consumer groups who said it would reinforce gender stereotypes. As well as the usual trucks, policemen and rugged houses, the line now includes “Stephanie’s cool convertible” in distinctive pink and purple, and “Mia’s Puppy House”, accessorised with flowers and full pet grooming…
![Censorship is [REDACTED]](http://angryexile.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/censored.jpg)
The gay marriage debate rumbles and grumbles on, and while I’m not on the side of those who want to continue to use the state’s monopoly on force to maintain their preferred definition in law I have just as big a problem as those who don’t want this ended so much as to be given their turn at the controls. And what really gets my goat about this is their…
The annual competition to be outraged by something that Jeremy Clarkson said is shaping up to be hotter than ever this year, according to both organisers and participants. First out of the blocks has been the Society for People with Lumpy Faces, whose complaint to Ofcom regarding Clarkson’s comment that a car with a bulge on the back looked like John Merrick and would be ignored by other cars at…
Do you remember the end of 2010? I do. My very last blog post of the year was titled “Last effort for the Offence Seeking Twat of the Year Award” and was about the Top Gear Christmas special outraging literally some people, most of whom were white, middle class Graun readers. Oh, and Andy Choudary. Needless to say I haven’t actually seen Top Gear’s “Three Wise Men”, and being a…
From Wikipedia: The Nazi book burnings were a campaign conducted by the authorities of Nazi Germany to ceremonially burn all books in Germany which did not correspond with Nazi ideology. From The Telegraph: Virgin Megastores have been forced to remove a copy of “Mein Kampf” from a recommended reading shelf of one of its stores in the Middle East. [...] “Recently, one of the region’s Virgin Megastores included in its…
A Westcountry lawyer has spoken of his client’s “horror” after he was wrongly convicted of possessing child pornography before later proving the girls in the images were former girlfriends aged over 18. Whoops! Last week Judge Philip Wassall quashed the conviction, ending the 20-month nightmare for Mr Blatch at a cost of about £100,000 to the public purse. Ouch! One of Mr Blatch’s ex-partners, now aged 20, told the judge…
Sarah Ditum (freelance writer) on the recent study of ‘toddler tantrums’: A team of researchers from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg school of public health has recently turned its attention to the phenomenon of the supermarket tantrum – a phenomenon so soul-piercing that, even if you have cannily avoided taking responsibility for a junior member of our species, you’ll still no doubt have been touched by it at some point. Oh, I…
A city councillor could be censured by Labour Party colleagues after backing the restoration of the death penalty. For having an opinion that differs from the party line? How very Soviet… … party officials said they were concerned that she commented on the controversial issue because she is the group whip of the city’s Labour group of councillors. A whip’s role is to make sure that councillors vote in a…
I don’t normally comment on Aussie affairs, as our esteemed colleague Down Under usually handles that so well, but another blogger’s Tweet about this case caught my eye yesterday. Broadcaster Derryn Hinch has been sentenced to five months’ home detention and a wide-ranging media ban for breaching a suppression order that prohibited the naming of two sex offenders. Australia takes disobedience to the rulings of their courts very seriously, it…
The government’s first big attempt at web censorship is an attempt to ban pornography from the internet ‘for the kids’. To be precise: Under the scheme to protect children from extreme images, hardcore sites would be automatically banned from ALL UK homes. Anyone who wanted to access them would have to “opt in” – but first prove they are over 18. In itself this is a massive violation of sexual…
ZOMBIES!! Over there! Quick, kill ‘em, kill ‘em. We’re allowed now, or at least we will be soon. I wasn’t planning to blog much over the next day or two but I’m going to make the time because of a rather unusual event: nothing less than a proposed reduction in the nanny state. Or, since we’re talking about computer games, Australia’s lack of an R18+ classification and the vocal minority…
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