The all new NEWSWORTHY thread

[Pista]

[DeWinter]

Heartlanders mightily cheesed off as W***e is passed over yet again...

...but with this choice it must have been close.

Not even trying anymore, are we? Still, stick a dance beat to it and the Eastern Europeans will lap it up.

[Pista]

Pro tip
If you're intent on trolling a professional boxer on Twitter, make sure your followers don't sell you out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/ma ... tter-troll

[Quiff Boy]

Pro tip
If you're intent on trolling a professional boxer on Twitter, make sure your followers don't sell you out.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/ma ... tter-troll

i love curtis

he was always a favourite if mine when he first turned pro footballer with sheff utd - sam him loads of timre playing for the blades. he was a proper nippy little forward iirc. it was a loss to football when he decide to concentrate on his boxing instead - he really bulked up too

[Silver_Owl]

Cock Worm

[Gripper]

Cock Worm

Sometimes I wonder if they just make this stuff up.


"Quiet day at the lab, dear?"

"Usual stuff. Looked at snot under a microscope, synthesized some drugs, drew some cock-shaped creatures on the prof's diary. That sort of thing."

[Pista]

That bloke in Hot Fuzz may have had a point

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/1 ... weird-news

[Pista]

When the Google streets car, with it's 15 lens camera on the roof, comes down the road, what are you gonna do?

Welcome to Handchester

[Pista]

Life imitates Red Dwarf.
Still no news on whether the toaster's been repaired yet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21827924

[Pista]

Giant rat accused of "a felony against the peace and dignity of the state of Ohio".

Could face the death penalty.
Bill Murray unavailable to comment.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21901544

(& yes. The word dignity is there)

[Pista]

Anyone else find this a bit ridiculous?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 55610.html

The game, which is aimed at children aged from nine to 14, features Jabba the Hutt in his intergalactic lair. Jabba, the slug-like villain who first appeared in the 1983 film Return of the Jedi, lives in a domed, oriental-looking building equipped with rockets and machine guns. He also smokes a water pipe and keeps Princess Leia in chains for use as his personal slave.

Since when did ANYONE in Star Wars use rockets & machine guns?
I don't recall Lucas getting an earful when the film came out.

[million voices]

My goodness. I had a quick read of some of the comments that went with that Lego story.

All the hatred going back centuries and who started this or that and how many people have been killed and by whom and they haven't even got on to how crap the prequels were.

[EvilBastard]

For the record, I don't believe that it's ok to beat people up (or beat them to death) because they're wearing something you don't like, or because you believe that what they're wearing identifies them as a member of a group you don't like.

That said, I'm really not very comfortable with GMP recording offences against members of alternative subcultures in the same way they do attacks based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

Who decides what an "alternative subculture" is? Can I start my own, Gay Black Feminist Nazi Flower-Arranging Rivetheads, and claim that the guy in the chippy who gave me fewer chips than the person ahead of me in the queue did so because he hates people like me?
I appreciate that this is an emotive issue for emo-goff-shoe-gazing weirdoes [TiC] but I am concerned that we're going down the road of singling people and groups out - "we'll record it as a hate crime when this person is beaten up, we'll prosecute under different legislation, but if that person gets lamped that's just a lamping, we're not so bothered by it."

[emilystrange]

given that the Sophie Lancaster Foundation has put years into this, including hours of training with the police, i think that there's something in it.

[lazarus corporation]

For the record, I don't believe that it's ok to beat people up (or beat them to death) because they're wearing something you don't like, or because you believe that what they're wearing identifies them as a member of a group you don't like.

That said, I'm really not very comfortable with GMP recording offences against members of alternative subcultures in the same way they do attacks based on race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

Who decides what an "alternative subculture" is? Can I start my own, Gay Black Feminist Nazi Flower-Arranging Rivetheads, and claim that the guy in the chippy who gave me fewer chips than the person ahead of me in the queue did so because he hates people like me?
I appreciate that this is an emotive issue for emo-goff-shoe-gazing weirdoes [TiC] but I am concerned that we're going down the road of singling people and groups out - "we'll record it as a hate crime when this person is beaten up, we'll prosecute under different legislation, but if that person gets lamped that's just a lamping, we're not so bothered by it."

Well, the article makes it clear that recording the crime as a hate crime (and being short-changed in the chippy is not a hate crime - these are violent assaults and murders) would not necessarily affect the sentence, but would rather affect how the police and other authorities could offer support to victims of violent crime.

Support for victims of violent crime could and should take into account the victim and the reason for the attack. For example, support for female victims of domestic violence should have greater emphasis on providing a place of safety for the victim away from their attacker, and arranging support from female officers where possible. Victims of religious violence, racist violence, anti-transgender violence, etc will all have different support needs again. As do people who are attacked because of what they look like.

By recording these crimes as hate crimes (and so being forced to think about appropriate types of victim support) the police learn to understand better how to support victims of violent crime. And it also forces the police to take these victims seriously. The police have never been particularly sympathetic to any alternative subcultures - over the years I've heard police mocking victims of violence because they look a bit different, sometimes to their (bleeding) faces. In the 80s I heard cops "suggest" to a goth guy that with his make up and clothes, he shouldn't be surprised to get punched by a "normal person".

If recording these violent assaults and murders as hate crimes will make the police take them seriously, investigate them properly, and offer the appropriate levels and types of victim support (rather than sniggering at victims) then I fail to see how it can be a bad thing. It might even save a life or two.

[million voices]

I don't really understand the terminology

If I get beaten up that is unlikely to be an expression of affection. It is more likely to be one of hate - therefore it is a hate crime.

If someone steals my money and beats me up the above applies.

People can dislike me for any number of reasons

We can all be minority groups - sounds like a line from Monty Python but true.

[EvilBastard]

Support for victims of violent crime could and should take into account the victim and the reason for the attack. For example, support for female victims of domestic violence should have greater emphasis on providing a place of safety for the victim away from their attacker, and arranging support from female officers where possible. Victims of religious violence, racist violence, anti-transgender violence, etc will all have different support needs again. As do people who are attacked because of what they look like.

By recording these crimes as hate crimes (and so being forced to think about appropriate types of victim support) the police learn to understand better how to support victims of violent crime. And it also forces the police to take these victims seriously. The police have never been particularly sympathetic to any alternative subcultures - over the years I've heard police mocking victims of violence because they look a bit different, sometimes to their (bleeding) faces. In the 80s I heard cops "suggest" to a goth guy that with his make up and clothes, he shouldn't be surprised to get punched by a "normal person".

If recording these violent assaults and murders as hate crimes will make the police take them seriously, investigate them properly, and offer the appropriate levels and types of victim support (rather than sniggering at victims) then I fail to see how it can be a bad thing. It might even save a life or two.

I'm not opposed to moves that would result in better victim support, more sympathetic policing, or more assiduous investigation and prosecution of the crime. All violence is abhorrent. My concern is that limit of the law - right now hate crime legislation applies to crimes perpetrated against defined and identifiable groups - women, homosexuals, people of particular skin tones, ethnicities, and religions. By and large these are attributes which cannot be easily changed. But if we are willing to say "you murdered this person because they had long hair and wore a lot of leather, and you identified them as a member of an alternative sub-culture, therefore it is a hatecrime and we will investigate and prosecute with more rigour," without narrowly defining what an alternative subculture is, then in theory anyone could be found guilty of a hatecrime regardless of the victim of their violence. Without this definition the law becomes rather meaningless - and once you start defining what is and isn't an alternative subculture then you're really up the creek. The devil is in the details, and I'm not sure I'd want to be the one to start defining the attributes of what constitutes an alternative subculture.

I'm absolutely supportive of better policing, and better understanding when it comes to supporting and counselling the victims of crime, violent or otherwise. Likewise, if the police get their heads around the idea that crimes of violence should be investigated and prosecuted with equal enthusiasm regardless of the victim, that would be a good thing also. I'm just not convinced of the wisdom of putting crimes against members of an "alternative subculture" under the hate crimes umbrella, simply because there doesn't appear to be a definition of who benefits from it.

[markfiend]

Like lazcorp says, all too often "gothbashing" is treated as a bit of a laugh by the police, and their response is frequently little better than victim-blaming. That the GMP are finally taking this seriously is a good thing.

It's been 5 years since Sophie Lancaster was killed. How many other goths, moshers, and other assorted weirdos have been beaten up in Greater Manchester since? We don't know. But now that it has to be recorded as a hate crime, we will know.

[Pista]

How many other goths, moshers, and other assorted weirdos have been beaten up in Greater Manchester since? We don't know. But now that it has to be recorded as a hate crime, we will know.

It's not just in Manchester & by no means a new phenomena.
My friends & I regularly took beatings on the streets of Worthing at night when I was a mere goth-let.

[markfiend]

How many other goths, moshers, and other assorted weirdos have been beaten up in Greater Manchester since? We don't know. But now that it has to be recorded as a hate crime, we will know.

It's not just in Manchester & by no means a new phenomena.
My friends & I regularly took beatings on the streets of Worthing at night when I was a mere goth-let.

No I know it's not just Manchester but it's the Greater Manchester Police that are including goth/alternative people in their hate-crime classification.

[paint it black]

charlie does surf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21941069

[Quiff Boy]

charlie does surf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21941069

[Silver_Owl]

charlie does surf

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21941069

Interesting stuff. Thanks.

[Pista]

As it turns out, bringing something called “The Bomb� to an airport isn’t the best idea.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/entertai ... bomb-plane

[iesus]

As it turns out, bringing something called “The Bomb� to an airport isn’t the best idea.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/entertai ... bomb-plane