Daily Blog 10/17/2011


  • Poe’s Law is an axiom suggesting that it’s difficult to distinguish between parodies of religious fundamentalism (or, more generally, parodies of any crackpot or extremist belief) and its genuine proponents, since they both seem equally insane. For example, some conservatives consider noted homophobe Fred Phelps to be so over-the-top that they argue he’s a “deep cover liberal” trying to discredit more mainstream homophobes.

    tags: internet

  • Vodafone paid just £1,400 tax on profits of £3,500,000,000 accounts filed last week showed. HMRC Tax Officials have described Vodafone’s holding company in Luxembourg as an elaborate tax avoidance structure. Vodafone pay knock down taxes in havens around the world and avoid liability for tax due to share write-downs. This is the murky world of corporate greed at its worst. Ordinary families struggle with a tax burden while Vodafone escape.

    tags: tax vodafone

  • The Daily Mail has always struggled to cover climate change in a competent manner, particularly as its opinion columns have acted as havens for ludicrous ideological outbursts by the likes of Melanie Phillips, who last month ranted against “the faddish fixation with man-made global warming, for which no shred of reputable scientific evidence exists”.

    But there has been a step-change over the past few months in the newspaper’s anti-science campaign on climate change, thanks to a plan allegedly stitched up at a lunch between Dacre and Lord Lawson of Blaby, who heads the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

    tags: environment DailyMail climate

  • Thirty five years ago the Cold war was on it highest speed. There was a Western plan “Drop Shot”. According to the plan, twelve nuclear bombs could be thrown to the region of the Black sea, in order to destroy Balaklava, Sevastopol and other objects on the Black Sea. Russian commandment decided to avoid these circumstances and to build an underground fort, the second commandment point for the army forces.

    tags: underground russia

  • Adult content covers a lot of ground. While the media of the day kept mentioning pornography in this context, existing “adult” filters often block gambling sites and dating sites (both subjects that are generally considered “adult” but aren’t anything like pornography), while others block information about reproductive health and counselling services aimed at GBLT teens (gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender).

    tags: internet

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