Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Links 27/3/9: Put that bloody light out

I don't know if there's ever been a more bum-clenchingly awful piece of television than the miserably pissweak cock-jousting drivel about blogging that was Derek Draper and Paul Staines on Andrew Neil's truly terrible politics vehicle yesterday afternoon. I can't watch it for more than 20 seconds or so before I get the urgent feeling that I need to shoot myself in the eyeballs with a paper stapler to make everything all right again. Can you? If you can, you're a better human being than me. Beau Beau D'Or has a particularly apt set of closing credits.

In one sense it's depressing that out of all the decent, intelligent, insightful bloggers out there, that it's the likes of Staines and Draper who manage to represent the medium. As I said yesterday, they represent blogging like John Wayne Gacy represents children's entertainers. Justin has a particularly withering attack on the self-important pair of preening boys - and has also threatened to quit blogging if Iain Dale wins the Orwell Prize. Which is highly understandable, given that Dale isn't very good either. Another reason out of the many million that already exist to hope Dale doesn't win.

Tim Ireland, meanwhile, wonders why Guido's promised document that proves that Downing Street have a 'get Iain Dale' policy hasn't materialised. I mean, you'd think the most self important blogger in the entire world, if he had such a document, would make it a available. Wouldn't he? And if not, why not?

Dale, Staines, Draper. Good god. Is that really what British political blogging's all about? Well thankfully not. I'm a bit more sanguine about things. That trio of turds is only what the MSM think blogging is all about. And they're entirely wrong. But then that's because they don't understand, they don't want to understand and they're never going to understand. And that's pretty much fine by me. They can carry on with their illiterate reading of new media as much as they want; I can find good blogs and other sources without having to ask their permission first. So let's have a look at some good stuff on the internet that (a) doesn't link to anything by John "different kinds of rape" Redwood and (b) doesn't have a picture of Alaistair Campbell's face anywhere near it.

First up is Adam Bienkov with a wonderful story about our old friend Andrew Gilligan preparing a hatchet job on a youth community organisation, only then to discover his plans completely and utterly blown out of the water when he went to see it himself. At least I hope they were blown out of the water - if he actually went on to try and slate the organisation, he'd be onto a hiding for nothing. Not that that's stopped him before, naturally.

Blogging the Mail looks at Stephen Glover, who writes such a slurry of execrable pish about the "I predict a riot" meme heading towards G20 and an expected "summer of discontent" that it's hard to believe he even agrees himself with what he's writing. Bonus points for Glover for claiming that chucking a stone at someone's window is the same as a Jihad. Oh yes, he actually says that. Can we try and shoehorn in some "anti-capitalist Taliban" references before the G20 kicks off? Please? I'm looking forward to it.

On the same subject, blogger Dungeekin also looks ahead to what might or might not happen this summer, and what it means. It's a fairly bleak analysis and I hope that it's wrong, though whether it is or not we'll just have to wait and see. I think it's probably true that ordinary folk who are fed up with the Government, or greed, or the destruction of civil liberties, and who want to protest about it, will simply be lumped in with 'anti-capitalism' and 'anarchy' just become part of some evil leftist plot.

The Quail has a good slant on the press's attitude towards rape, and how women are automatically assumed to be making it up or on the lookout for a compo payout. Because going through the ordeal of court testimony - under anonymity or not - is a right old picnic, isn't it? It's worth making the additional point that there are dozens of rape cases that take place all over the country every week, which are never covered by the papers (except the Daily Sport, and unfortunately that's for rather more sinister reasons that crime reportage). "Man rapes woman" isn't seen as being news. "Woman falsely cries rape" is a better story, and taps into an agenda that lurks not far below the surface. And remember Peter Hitchens, John Redwood and chums, and how they're not convinced that all rapes are necessarily as bad as each other. They're the voices in the media you hear about rape, not those of victim, or even women, come to think about it.

Here's an interesting blog. It's a guy who's decided to abandon the mainstream media, having seen so many cuts at the newspaper where he worked, and who's now setting up a nonprofit media organisation to serve the community. I really hope he manages to succeed in the venture and I think it'll be worth monitoring progress to see how he and his colleagues get on with it. It could be something you see coming to this country soon.

The Daily Mash has a nice feature on GCSEs and thick kids - sometimes it's hard to see where the tabloids stop and the satire begins. I'm reminded of the time a US commenter on Photoshop Disasters thought that the Daily Mail was "a bit like The Onion". Ah, if only.

Have a look at Norman Strike's blog, now we're in the 25th anniversary of the miners' strike. Plenty to enjoy there for a real bit of history.

The Lancet has slagged off Il Papa, which can only be a good thing, given that the mad old fool was talking utter lying shit.

Chris Dillow on whether the market really has given a damning verdict on Gordon Brown or not.

Nelson Valdes on how, when it comes to Cuba, any sort of nonsense can be put out by the media. And how it gets recycled, unchecked, by thousands of other news organisations as soon as it's out there.

Finally, if you haven't seen anything on it already, have a look at the WWF's Earth Hour event - and why not put that bloody light out tomorrow evening? Go on, you can watch Casualty in the dark.

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