NEWS OF TEN (Things)

In a week when it's been easy to bury other news (good or bad), here are ten things that haven't had the coverage in the UK that perhaps they deserved. It's all here: Romney, Frackers, Tits, Baccalaureates, Useless Philosophers, Eugenics, First Aid, Badgers, Nigel Farage and Jesus

 

International - News from the USA

 

Phew! The rest of thew world can breathe their collective sighs of relief with the news that Mitt Romney is a totally useless, bigoted twat. To be fair, anyone that hadn't buried their head in a sand pit made by the Republican Tea Party knew that anyway. But now even the ultra-conservative, ultra-rich Republicans are having doubts that Romney was a good choice to face down Obama in November. All the US President has to do for the next few weeks is make sure he doesn't shag an intern and he can look forward to another four years believing he is the "Leader of the Free World".

 

The President of the United States of America
Really...he is!

Romney's naivety suggested to him that a private fund-raising dinner couldn't be hacked or infiltrated, so he decided to 'tell it like it is' to an audience of rich funders, explaining that half of americans were spongers that expected something for nothing. It was sort of Norman Tebbit on a massive dose of steroids. Romney then demonstrated a Bush-like grasp of world affairs and geography by opening up a non-existent border between a largely non-existent Palestine and Iran. If we think that the privileged, privately-educated, independently wealthy Cameron and Osborne are out of touch with the reality of living in the UK, then spare a thought for the ordinary american citizen that was faced with the prospect of a Romney presidency. Thankfully for them and the rest of the planet, that looks like it will never happen. It's a worrying old world when we realise that the Republicans would have been better off with Rick Santorum...

 

And in Texas, a shale-gas fracking business lost a seven-inch radioactive rod somewhere in the desert. It was there when the lorry left Pecos, but it wasn't there later on when it got to its destination, several hundred miles away. The rod, made of Americium 241 laced with Beryllium was in a box with a huge warning on it that would leave no-one but the thickest person in any doubt that it might be best to tell the authorities if it was found. However, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission went into overdrive, telling everyone in Texas that the rod could "cause death" to a human being if he or she was in close proximity to it for eight weeks or, if he or she held it for eight hours. In any event, people were told to stay "at least eight meters away". I know that just over half of the american people (and about two-thirds of Texans) voted in George Bush (twice), but just how thick does the NRS think Texans are?

 

Typical Texan Idiot

International - France & Ireland

 

Closer Magazine and the Irish Daily Star published blurry pictures of some posh totty with her tits out. And everyone went mental. And everyone started showing photographs of some other posh totty that got killed in a car crash in Paris, presumably so we could all make the assumption that the French wanted to destroy all royals (again, after more than two hundred years) by either death or shame. Then we learn that the royals (that's the alive ones) were suing the French magazine or something by issuing writs from a pacific island where every woman has her tits out all the time. What the media failed to point out was that the alive royals were having another holiday at my expense. Free-loading bastards.

 

Home News - Education

 

Michael Gove is dumping GCSEs and bringing in the E-Baccalaureate. He is doing this presumably because the under-class have been passing exams in the last few years and are getting ideas above their stations in life, and that just isn't how he wants to do things in Dave's Britain. Gove also agreed (or was told) to take David Laws into his department so that the Liberal Democrat could take the flak and get sacked again, while agreeing with Nick (as everyone used to) that it might not have been wise to promise that university tuition fees would be removed / reduced / not increased - delete as appropriate to manifesto timings.

 

Grayling: If you gave this man £54,000, what would
he give in return - Discuss....

And on the subject of universities, the New College of the Humanities (NCHUM) has failed spectacularly to understand that there would be very very few people attracted to their courses at £54,000 over three years. Well there's a fucking surprise. The philosopher, AC Grayling, set up NCHUM this year in the mistaken belief that he and his elitist colleagues would simply have to put their names to a prospectus and the rich and privileged would send their offspring to his seat of learning in their droves. Well, they didn't...only sixty applicants have taken it up and of the several hundred that applied, most took offers from Oxbridge at half the cost. Of course they did. Having lined up such academic luminaries as Richard Dawkins and Howard Jacobson, Grayling was of the misguided opinion that that would be enough. For a philosopher, he didn't really think it through, did he?

 

Home News - Health

 

It was announced this week that some scientists have been experimenting with "Triple DNA" IVF. Genes from the two parents are being mixed in a soup with some other DNA that might halt congenitive defects being passed on...or something like that. What might appear, on the face of it, as a potentially good idea is, in fact, just Frankenstein eugenics. Stop this madness now!

 

It seems that 140,000 deaths in the UK each year could be prevented if everyone knew basic first aid. Conveniently for the headline writers, 140,000 is about the same number that succumb to cancer annually. It seems that only 18% of us know any life-saving skills. I was suprised it was that many. Knowing how to apply CPR, use a defibralator or do the Heimlich maneouvre is one thing but putting it into practice is another entirely. Doubtless the homeopathy fan and Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt, will introduce compulsory life-saving classes for everyone in the mistaken belief that this will result in massive savings to the NHS when in reality it would add to the bill as health workers repair the havoc wreaked by amateur A&E practitioners.

 

Home News - Environment

 

Former Queen guitarist and astrophysicist, Brian May, has got all angry about DEFRA's authorisation of pilot schemes for a badger cull that started this week. Badgers will be shot by trained marksmen. He has threatened to support animal rights activists in direct action. Presumably this will involve May stalking the marksmen playing "Death on Two Legs" and then "Another One Bites the Dust" when each badger dies. The arguments on each side are so polarised as to make Sarah Palin's objections to Ahmedinajad's policies look close to agreement. How can one lobby be so wrong and the other so right? And we all know that there wouldn't be such a hue and cry if it had been rats that were the alleged culprits in the spreading of Bovine TB. As in all things anthropomorphic, I blame Kenneth Grahame...

 

"Who wants to live forever...?"

Home News - Politics

 

Everyone's favourite Euro-bater Nigel Farage, is hoping to attract millions of pounds to the UKIP coffers from former Tory donors that are pissed off with Cameron. Having successfully persuaded some of the electorate and a good slice of politcial commentators that UKIP is not a far-right loony party, the next and inevitable step in his being taken seriously is the attraction of significant donations. We used to think that Farage and UKIP were shouting from the sidelines and had no chance of getting anywhere near government. But we used to say that about the Liberal Democrats too, didn't we? Watch this space...

 

World News - Religion

 

Some divinity academic called Karen King has unearthed a papyrus from the fourth century CE that refers to Jesus "talking" about his wife. Cue experts giving their opinions on the authenticity of the tract and on the language of the time, that might call the assertion into doubt or confirm it, depending on their own agendas. Among these, was a commentary from  Jim West, a professor and Baptist pastor from Tennessee, who said, “A statement on a papyrus fragment isn’t proof of anything. It’s nothing more than a statement in thin air, without substantial context.”

 

So that's the bible fucked then, Jim....

 

Jesus and his missus:
What happened next?
Answers on a post card, please, to:
Prof. R Dawkins, New College
of the Humanities, London