Thursday, May 01, 2008 

How not to persuade people to vote Ken.

However much you dislike Boris, you can't help but warm to him slightly when the Grauniad of all papers decides to run such a pathetic hatchet job on him as they did today in G2. Perhaps they were intending to level the balance somewhat with the Evening Standard's blatant propagandising for Boris, but it instead comes across as a last ditch, desperate effort to try to prop up Ken's campaign, something that isn't even necessary in the first place. Handing the entire piece to the execrable Zoe Williams, who when she isn't blabbering witlessly about her new baby or editing Wikipedia is writing such bilge as this pointless piece on Miley Cyrus was a bad move, but surely not as bad as one as asking such distinguished Londoners as Vivienne Westwood, Will Self, Bonnie Greer, Arabella Weir, Inayat Bunglawala and Mark Ravenhill why Ken not winning would be unthinkable. Just to top things off, it then lists everything that Boris has ever said or written that might be construed as offensive, including the numerous quotes that have grown so tedious that they'd be enough to almost make you thing Boris might have had a point in the first place.

There's no doubt that Ken is the least worst candidate that can win, but making out it would be the end of the world if Boris won, as well as smearing him as a racist when he is clearly not will have done nothing to help Livingstone whatsoever. Sometimes you have to wonder if the Guardian is so self-loathing that it almost wants everyone else to hate it.

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Thursday, February 14, 2008 

Nepotism? On a newspaper blog?

Max Gogarty, 19, is going on his gap year. Luckily for Max, he's been given the privilege of writing a blog on it for the Grauniad travel site while he jets around the planet getting drunk and chilling the fuck out. Sadly for Max and the Grauniad, within 2 hours of the blog being posted it's discovered that Max is the sprog of Paul Gogarty, who although not employed by the Graun, has written for the paper's err, travel section. Gogarty had even previously treated his offspring to the delights of Thaliand, and had written about it... for the Graun.

Mayhem and comedy ensues.

(via Bloggerheads.)

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Friday, July 27, 2007 

The devil weed returns.

Is it possible to go a whole week without yet another scare story about cannabis causing collective psychosis in the media? The Grauniad, usually more immune than others to over-hyping scientific studies, highlighted the scary figure that smoking the drug can increase the risk of schizophrenia by 40%, which most of the rest of the media have picked up on.

Unity provides a lengthy fisk, but the most important points are thus: firstly, smoking cannabis does not increases the risk of developing schizophrenia by 40%, it increases the risk of developing "any psychotic outcome", not just schizophrenia. Secondly, this quite wonderful figure of 40% needs to be put into context. The figure is taken from the statistic that 1 in 100 of the population have a chance of developing severe schizophrenia; according to the Lancet study, smoking cannabis increases this chance by 0.4%. In other words, an average user of cannabis, if there is such a thing, increases the possibility of developing "a psychotic outcome" by a massive 0.4%. Doesn't look so frightening now, does it? Unity additionally points out that that the 1 in 100 figure comes from the US, while the National Statistics Office puts the chance of developing a psychotic disorder here at 1 in 200, further lowering the risk.

The study really doesn't tell us anything we don't already know. Those under 18 are at greater risk from smoking cannabis, cannabis increases the risk of developing a psychotic illness, and those with a genetic disposition towards mental ill-health increase the risk of developing such a complaint by smoking cannabis. All these things have been known now for years, and have been considered by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs when coming to their conclusion that cannabis should be, and should remain, a Class C drug.

Still, we can at least be slightly sated that the Grauniad didn't jump to the sheer lunacy of the tabloids. The Mail and Sun, who also just happen to both be hysterical campaigners against the downgrading of cannabis to Class C, try to outdo each other with their own misleading articles. While both claim that smoking just one roll-up increases the risk by 41%, the Mail tacks on the sensational tales of 3 murderers, all of which it attempts to claim were in some way influenced by their use of cannabis. The Sun, on the other hand, just went straight for the jugular. Despite Rebekah Wade previously going on a mental health training course after she splashed "BONKERS BRUNO LOCKED UP" on the front page when he was sectioned, the piece is tastefully headlined "'Psycho' risk from one joint".

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