A press secretary for the Romney campaign had some choice words for the press today in Warsaw, Poland.
At one point he tells reporters to “kiss my ass” and “shove it”.
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Monthly Archives: July 2012
Jon Stewart ridicules NBC for cutting 7/7 segment
Brilliant, brilliant.
Last night the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart viciously mocked NBC for editing out the 7/7 segment from the Olympic opening ceremony.
NBC, the network that to commemorate 9/11 actually reruns 9/11, wouldn’t air a six minute tribute to the rest of the world’s terrorist victims?
He also ridicules #RomneyShambles, and asks him how could screw up the trip.
Tough love or tough luck: two programmes on assessing disability benefits
contribution by Maeve McClenaghan
Last night there aired not one, but two documentaries about Atos and the Work Capability Assessment. Dispatches and Panorama, which were screened consecutively, used hidden cameras to explore two sides of this emotive story.
Around £13bn is spent in the UK each year on disability benefits, but stories about able-bodied individuals claiming benefits fraudulently have lead some to worry that this money is being wasted. And so plans were made to tackle, what David Cameron called Britain’s ‘sick note culture.’
The answer, it was proposed, was a new test to weed out the fraudsters and encourage those able to do some form of work back into the system. Thus, the Work Capability Test was introduced, first by Labour and later developed under the coalition government.
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Politicians and footballers: stop putting ethnic minorities into blocks
contribution by Karan Chadda
Footballers and politicians have all done their best to keep race and multiculturalism in the news. I don’t seek to provide commentary on what this means about the state of our country or our society, my issue is this: at a time when people move across the globe more than ever before, when our capital is one of the most diverse places on earth, those with the loudest voices are still obsessed by, and trading in, blocks.
John Terry’s trial showed us how common obscene language is on the football pitch. But Rio Ferdinand took it one step further by throwing the term choc ice via Twitter in the direction of Ashley Cole.
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Does Tom Daley’s Twitter troll deserve arrest?
Before we get into a discussion of the implications, its first worth recording what happened. If you’ve already followed it then skip down.
It all started with the diver Tom Daley sending out this Tweet after his Olympics performance yesterday.
After giving it my all…you get idiot’s sending me this…RT
@rileyy_69:@tomdaley1994 you let your dad down i hope you know that— Tom Daley (@TomDaley1994) July 30, 2012
Naturally, his fans exploded in anger.
@tomdaley1994#GetRileyy_69Banned#GetRileyy_69Banned#GetRileyy_69Banned#GetRileyy_69Banned#GetRileyy_69Banned— bethany hickman (@bethhhickman) July 30, 2012
Inevitably, people started abusing the ‘Rileyy’, who typically retaliated with his own threats.
@tomdaley1994 why don’t you respond to me you prick stop getting me hate alright I’ve said I’m sorry now fuck off— ?I?SY J??I?? (@Rileyy_69) July 30, 2012
@_ollyriley come on then you cunt i’ll stick a knife down your fuckin throat now comeback and stop hiding from me— ?I?SY J??I?? (@Rileyy_69) July 30, 2012
@theroycropper do you want me to come to your fucking house now with a rope and strangle you with it— ?I?SY J??I?? (@Rileyy_69) July 30, 2012
I’m in the fucking newspapers omfg
— ?I?SY J??I?? (@Rileyy_69) July 30, 2012
@skynews you fucking report me on the news again i’ll have you done for harrassment and a lawsuit you get me final chance you cunts— ?I?SY J??I?? (@Rileyy_69) July 30, 2012
night everyone and im genuinely sorry for what’s happened today just know that im actually a really nice person and i regret what I’ve said
— ?I?SY J??I?? (@Rileyy_69) July 31, 2012
The Daily Mirror has also put this on its front page today.
And now the police is involved.
Regarding tweets to
@tomdaley1994 – We are aware of the issue and we are actively looking into it.— Dorset Police (@dorsetpolice) July 30, 2012
But should the police get involved so readily? Should he be suspended from Twitter? I suppose he made threats against people – both of which go against Twitter policy.
But wasn’t all of this inevitable after Tom Daley re-tweeted him? Which youngster wouldn’t go a bit crazed under the weight of people swearing at him?
Is it really worth arresting and charging him?
Indy hack banned from Twitter over Olympics
The story was first broken by Matthew Garrahan at the FT
Ominous: Twitter has shut down @guyadams‘ account after #NBC complained about tweets he wrote that criticised its #Olympics coverage.
— Matthew Garrahan (@MattGarrahan) July 30, 2012
Others soon picked it up
My colleague @guyadams‘ Twitter account was suspended after @NBC complained about his tweets criticising the network’s #Olympics coverage
— Kevin Rawlinson (@KevinJRawlinson) July 30, 2012
There were words of caution
Just to be clear – @guyadams account has been suspended. He has been savagely critical of NBC. Whether the two are linked – can’t be sure
— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) July 30, 2012
And some confirmation
Hear all about @guyadams‘ Twitter ban from the man himself in tomorrow’s @independent. #nbc #london2012
— Richard Hall (@_RichardHall) July 30, 2012
So what got Guy Adams suspended from Twitter?
It seems to be this tweet
This has now been confirmed by the Independent’s deputy editor Archie Bland, who added:
Reasonable to ask whether it also had to do with his criticism of NBC’s coverage of the games and whether they’d usually take the same step.
— Archie Bland (@archiebland) July 30, 2012
UPDATE 1 Guy Adams did break Twitter rules, which forbid publishing private information such as email addresses. But to suspend the account still seems outrageous. It is hardly a huge crime.
He was quite relentlessly critical though.
UPDATE 2 Website Deadspin has posted email discussions he had with Twitter over this.
This is the reply Guy Adams got from Twitter
Hello,
Your account has been suspended for posting an individual’s private information such as private email address, physical address, telephone number, or financial documents.
Tweet link: https://twitter.com/guyadams/status/228973760785547264 Tweet content: The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com
It is a violation of the Twitter Rules to post the private and confidential information of others. For more information on this policy, please see the following policy page:
http://support.twitter.com/entries/18368
If you would like to request your account to be restored, please respond to this email and confirm that you’ve read and understood our rules: http://twitter.com/rules
Please note that future Twitter Rules violations may result in permanent account suspension. We appreciate your cooperation going forward. Thanks,@cbellarun Twitter Trust and Safety
Guy Adams disputed Twitter’s interpretation of events and shot back this reply:
Hi Rachel
They’ve dealt with this (see below). Would you mind if I give you a quick call to discuss? I’m of course happy to abide by Twitter’s rules, now and forever. But I don’t see how I broke them in this case: I didn’t publish a private email address. Just a corporate one, which is widely available to anyone with access to Google, and is identical to one that all of the tens of thousands of NBC Universal employees share.
It’s no more “private” than the address I’m emailing you from right now.
Either way, quite worrying that NBC, whose parent company are an Olympic sponsor, are apparently trying (and, in this case, succeeding) in shutting down the Twitter accounts of journliasts who are critical of their Olympic coverage.Am I to presume, for example, that they decided to complain about me because of my recent article in the Indy’s news page about their various failures? (see link)
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/as-america-succeeds-at-the-games-back-home-all-the-talk-is-about-nbcfail-7986147.html
And if so, isn’t it a bit rum that they succeed in shutting down my account?
Either way, thanks for expediting all of this.Yours &c
Guy
A good point by a Reuters journalist
The Guy Adams/Twitter/NBC debate wages on – would Twitter suspend someone for posting an easily Google-able corporate email address?
— Piya Sinha-Roy (@PiyaSRoy) July 30, 2012
UPDATE 3 Confirmation NBC did complain
NBC Sports confirms to me they filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted personal information about one of its executives.
— Matthew Keys (@ProducerMatthew) July 30, 2012
Polls: Britons reject idea of more cuts
A YouGov survey for the Sunday Times has found the British public is decisively moving against the government narrative on the economy.
They key findings:
1. Just 25% think the government is handling the economy well. This is the lowest figure we have yet recorded
2. Only 19% now think Osborne should remain chancellor. As many as 52% want Cameron to replace him. More than one in four Conservative voters hold this view
3. 45% now think ‘the government should change its strategy to concentrate on growth, even if this means the deficit stays longer or gets worse’.
Just 28% want ‘the government to stick to its current strategy of reducing the deficit, even if this means growth remains slow’. This 17 point lead for Plan B over Plan A is the largest we have found.
But by far the emphatic rejection of govt policy was that of reducing the deficit faster by cutting government spending faster.
Lib Dem voters broadly agree with Labour voters in rejecting deeper spending cuts, but are even keener than the Tories in opposing tax cuts that add top borrowing. In fact the only Plan B policy that Lib Dem voters like, and then only by a narrow margin, is borrowing more to spend on infrastructure.
When asked whom people trust more to run the economy, Cameron and Osborne, or Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, the Tory duo remain fractionally ahead, by 34% to 31%. The Tory 3-point lead is their lowest yet, said YouGov.
Tory donors’ firms landed lucrative government contracts
contribution by Alice Ross
Two separate stories over the weekend link prominent Conservative Party donors and government contracts worth millions of pounds.
The Guardian reports that an investment firm set up by two donors has seen a training company it owned awarded contracts with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) worth £73m, for helping get the unemployed back into work.
Until it was sold last Monday the training company, Employment and Skills Group (ESG), belonged to Sovereign Capital, an investment company set up in 2001 by John Nash and Ryan Robson, among others.
Are English children less able to read than years ago? No
In Saturday’s Guardian (Letters, 28th Jan), Schools Minister Nick Gibb defends the government’s view that phonics are the only way to reach children to read.
His central justification is that something must be done because, “International studies rank England 25th for reading – down from seventh nine years ago.”
In the very literal sense Gibb is correct. In 2000, the OECD placed England in 7th position in its table (p.53). In 2009, it was in the 25th row of a similar table (p. 56). In any other sense you care to mention, Gibb is entirely wrong.
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Dow is the least disgraceful Olympic sponsor
Mr Boyle’s Olympic kick-off was bloody amazing. I was cynical about the whole scenario, but it was one of the actual best things ever. Celebrating the things that make the UK worthy of having, not the Michael Gove crap. Culturally, beautifully excellent.
The Olympics, being sponsored by people with money, are sponsored by a wide variety of organisations who do terrible things. McDonald’s and Coca-Cola do, well, come on, you’re human and capable of reading. Visa have barred people with Mastercards from using their cards in the vicinity of the arena. This shit is disgraceful.