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The News Thread v. Your Penises Are Too Large And It's All Our Fault

^^^^^^
This is fucked, shoot the dutty bitch I say.
FFS, humans make me sick at times :(
 
more awesome commentary from Russell Brand

Russell Brand rages at the Sun and Rupert Murdoch

Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but it's still the same fecund bone-yard of gossip, poison and lies. Have they learned nothing?

The Sun on Sunday, which is of course the News of the World with a different hat on, lied about me last week.

In the general scheme of things, the crumbling economy, the savaged environment, the treacherous, inept, deceitful politicians that govern us, the corrupt corporations that exploit us, it might not seem like a big deal. That's because it isn't to anyone, except me or my girlfriend. The pain, disruption and distress, that the Sun inflicted by falsely claiming that I cheated on my girlfriend, in the context of such awesome corruption, is a pale liver-spot on the back of Murdoch's glabrous claw. Still though, it's a tiny part of the demon's dermatology and as such, connected to all the other pestilence. Here's how.

Storytelling is important, whether it's a ruddy and robust town crier or Homer (I mean the Greek one but the other one counts too). The manner in which we receive information can affect us as much as the information itself. There is a certain duty that comes with being the anointed purveyor of truth. Can we trust that our media is fulfilling that duty? Who do they really serve? Everyone knows papers like the Daily Mail and the Sun can't be trusted, we've come to accept their duplicity as part of their charm, and their defence, that it's only really celebrities and people that deserve intrusion who are affected, while superficially true in this case, is actually the biggest lie of them all.

We all remember the worst lies, the ones where the red tops are caught red-handed, like Hillsborough, where the Sun enthusiastically heaped more pain on the grieving people of Liverpool by claiming that innocent fans had pissed on police and rifled through the possessions of their dead fellows under the front-page headline "The Truth". We remember the disgust we shared on learning that the News of the World hacked into the voicemail of a missing child who turned out to have been murdered. We all know too that they were said to have hacked the phones of dead British soldiers, victims of 7/7 and murdered Sarah Payne's mum. These people are not celebrities, they are only known through grave misfortune and then through calculated desecration.

Do any of us really think that these transgressions would have been freely admitted if not unwittingly revealed? No we do not. I wonder then what abominations lie uncovered beneath the tit and glitter lacquered grime and scum they serve up daily? We will never know the true extent of their dishonesty. We are dealing with experts in propaganda who will stop at nothing to see their version of events prevail, and on the rare occasions when the truth emerges, like a hernia popping through gorged corpse, they apologise discreetly for their ignoble flatulence in a mouse-sized font for hippo-sized lies. They dispose of the truth as expertly as Pulp Fiction's "Wolf" disposed of Marvin's body, these wolves of pulp fiction.

Rupert Murdoch, an animatronic al-Qaida recruitment poster, in his private letter to Sun staff, after the News of the World was briefly closed for a makeover (not through remorse, or shame, no, because they couldn't sell advertising space and because he wanted to launch the Sun on Sunday anyway because it's cheaper to run one title than two – some guys get all the luck) referred consistently to his pride in the Sun as "a trusted news source". Trusted is the word he used, not trustworthy. We know the Sun is not trustworthy and so does he. He uses the word "trusted" deliberately. Hitler was trusted, it transpired he was not trustworthy. He also said of the arrested journalists, "everyone is innocent until proven guilty". Well, yes, that is the law of our country, not however a nicety often afforded to the victims of his titles, and here I refer not only to hacking but the vituperative portrayal of weak and vulnerable members of our society, relentlessly attacked by Murdoch's ink jackals. Immigrants, folk with non-straight sexual identities, anyone in fact living in the margins of the Sun's cleansed utopia.

How this stuff works can be quite subtle. I remember a few years ago they ran a front-page story headlined "Immigrants are eating the Queen's swans".

I chuckled at the gleeful vilification of the alleged perpetrators and the jingoistic reference to the swan's royal owner. More sinister though was the information not included; that if people are eating swans from a park, it's not an act of antisocial defiance, it's because they're bloody starving.

What is the implicit agenda of an institution that highlights this aspect of the narrative? It is significant too (cygnet-nificant? They love a pun) that adjacent to the copy they placed a photograph of some "eastern" looking men and beneath it, the caption "Asylum seekers, like these pictured, are eating the Queen's swans" – LIKE these pictured!! It wasn't actually the culprits, merely, the Sun supposed, asylum seekers "like" them.

The reason for this irresponsible approximation is that when we next see an "eastern" looking person out and about we will have a visceral, visual association with an act of antisocial barbarism. This is how the Sun wants us to see immigrants, through their lens of vindictive condemnation. They want us looking suspiciously and disdainfully in the direction of marginalised individuals; "chavs", "immigrants" and "gays," not in the direction of the institutions who actually damage our society – banks, corporations and the media.

They forever print tabloid tales of benefit cheats on the swindle, which is bad – I used to do it – but the reality that we lose £1bn a year on all benefit fraud combined, and £25bn on tax avoidance and evasion by big companies and the super rich is seldom reported. Why don't we read that story in the Sun? Perhaps it's because, as Rupert said in his private email, the Sun would "continue to fight for its beliefs". Of course, the Sun believes in an easy ride for big corporations – it is a big corporation, Newscorp is one of the biggest there is. Plus they get £35,000 per page for the corporate ads they carry for Tescos, Vodafone, British Gas, O2, corporations within the incestuous family of business, media and government that grow corpulent together. It is common slither from parliament to a position on the board of a big company, or to creep from a tabloid role into a position advising leaders of a sleazy government. All operate within the cosy, loophole-laden system that advances their feudal interests and penalises the rest of us, at a time of ardently imposed austerity.

More importantly these corporations, whether they're selling information or consumer goods, collude in a pervasive myth and toil to keep us uninformed on important matters such as the environment, economic inequality, and distracted by vapid celebrity claptrap. The Sun don't want an informed populace rejecting their bigoted dogma and daily objectification of women. Tescos don't want engaged and educated consumers recognising the damage that their corporate marauding does to communities, agriculture and local businesses. Their agenda is the same.

These organisations want us dumb and full of junk, in our bellies and our brains. The Sun boast on their website that they give advertisers unique access to their "market", that's you and your family, because as Murdoch says, they are trusted.

They gloat about their power "one in every seven quid spent on groceries in the UK is spent by a Sun reader". Actually they don't say quid, they say pounds. On the Sun's marketing site, where they address the people who really matter to them, their corporate partners, they eschew the colloquial jocundity, where stars romp in love-nests and drop tots, here the silvery nomenclature of commerce reigns, the Sun's true tongue.

Should we all boycott the Sun as the people of Liverpool devoutly do to this day? Are other newspapers any better? We all enjoy a bit of gossip, it's hard to look away from kiss'n'tells or tittle-tattle whether it's about a doped-up soap star or Murdoch himself. I admit I read the story about his wife Wendi and Tony Blair in the Mail on Sunday last weekend and how they slept in the same house on numerous occasions, without ol' Digger knowing.

There's no way we would be reading such a tale, even in its anodyne, sanitised form, without a tacit nod from Aussie-Skeletor. This being a story about powerful, litigious people, it was composed in befittingly genteel terms; the pair are described as having a "friendship". Imagine the pejorative bilge that they'd stir up and slap on, if it'd been a yarn not about tycoons and warlords but about people outside of the mainstream; an out-of-favour celeb, an immigrant or a gypsy.

Then we'd be reading about "suspicious, nocturnal trysts" or sleazy secret liaisons. However, you want to describe it, the affair (by which I mean "matter", I've been advised by a lawyer, these words are all filtered and combed before you are allowed to see them) supposed to have caused Murdoch to give his former blood-brother the cold shoulder, hardly surprising after he got Blair elected and supported his unpopular, illegal war so vociferously.

You can bet more kids of Sun readers were sent to Baghdad than of any other paper. Some friends of mine thought it dubious that the Sun's deceitful story appeared just days after I'd spoken out against the media, corporations and the government. It could be a coincidence. Or it could be that the Sun loves me when I'm a prattling, giggling, Essex boy "Shagger of the Year", when I'm in my proper place, beneath vacuous headlines, herding their flock towards dumb lingo and crap bingo, when I'm being cheeky on MTV or even unwisely invading answerphones, in a way that many would argue, is less offensive than the manner that they are alleged to have done. In my place I'm fine, but if I use my glistening podium, to talk to the people I grew up with, or signed on with or used drugs with, vulnerable overlooked, underserved, ordinary people, people that can't sue them as I am, then out come the fangs.

We know they're all pals, who head up governments, newspapers and big businesses, who hobnob together and horse-ride together. Who can say what Murdoch meant in his letter to despondent and soiled Sun journalists when he ominously intoned that his empire would "emerge stronger". Certainly these are not words of contrition and the Sun on Sunday so swiftly returning to the fecund bone-yard of gossip, poison and lies indicates that they've learned nothing from the outrage they provoked with their desecration of the dead children of ordinary people.

I wonder what punishment would be severe enough to make them recognise the wrong they've done to us? Maybe we should show solidarity with the people of Liverpool and the Sun's other victims. Or at least next time we skim these rags remember what they really think of us and what they really care about. Observe the companies that advertise on their tainted pages and let them know that we notice their allegiances. When they start to lose enough money, when enough of us come together and confront our real enemies, not the imaginary ones that they select, then perhaps the sun will go down and tomorrow we might see clearly, in the light of a new dawn.

Russell Brand is donating his fee for this article to the Justice for the 96 campaign
 


US TV presenter Melissa Bachman blasted over smiling photo with lion she 'stalked and killed'
Ms Bachman said she killed the lion on a hunt in South Africa, where a petition has now been started to have her barred from the country
[/

__________________________________________
marmalade said:
Why not try and get yer thrills from base jumping from a fucking mountain top and breaking your skull and do the world a fucking favour. Such a beautiful creature. What fucking ego/status needs must one possess to need to pursue getting their kicks out of doing it? So fucking tragic.

^^^^^^
This is fucked, shoot the dutty bitch I say.
FFS, humans make me sick at times :(

Shocking. Evil-hearted woman with a sickening addiction to killing animals, for whatever sad kicks. Obviously after some kind of attention with all the infamous hunter pics. Sad, sad.

EDIT -
Seems she was bought up to hunt as a young child. I'm sure that changes a person. How can you be empathetic towards animals with so much guilt on your hands? She's become cold and heartless... towards animals, and the humans that care for them. She needs to be stopped. Amazed this stuff is televised.
 
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^ loads of rich blokes go big game hunting raas. My nephew's boss from my home town does. It's pretty 'popular' among those with too much money and no compassion. Sad but true.

anyways ...



Male and female brains wired differently, scans reveal
Maps of neural circuitry show women's brains are designed for social skills and memory, men's for perception and co-ordination

Men-women-brains-008.jpg
^Neural map of a typical man's brain. Photograph: National Academy of Sciences/PA

Scientists have drawn on nearly 1,000 brain scans to confirm what many had surely concluded long ago: that stark differences exist in the wiring of male and female brains.

Maps of neural circuitry showed that on average women's brains were highly connected across the left and right hemispheres, in contrast to men's brains, where the connections were typically stronger between the front and back regions.

Ragini Verma, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, said the greatest surprise was how much the findings supported old stereotypes, with men's brains apparently wired more for perception and co-ordinated actions, and women's for social skills and memory, making them better equipped for multitasking.

"If you look at functional studies, the left of the brain is more for logical thinking, the right of the brain is for more intuitive thinking. So if there's a task that involves doing both of those things, it would seem that women are hardwired to do those better," Verma said. "Women are better at intuitive thinking. Women are better at remembering things. When you talk, women are more emotionally involved – they will listen more."

She added: "I was surprised that it matched a lot of the stereotypes that we think we have in our heads. If I wanted to go to a chef or a hairstylist, they are mainly men."

Female-brain-008.jpg
^ Neural map of a typical woman's brain. Photograph: National Academy of Sciences/PA

The findings come from one of the largest studies to look at how brains are wired in healthy males and females. The maps give scientists a more complete picture of what counts as normal for each sex at various ages. Armed with the maps, they hope to learn more about whether abnormalities in brain connectivity affect brain disorders such as schizophrenia and depression.

Verma's team used a technique called diffusion tensor imaging to map neural connections in the brains of 428 males and 521 females aged eight to 22. The neural connections are much like a road system over which the brain's traffic travels.

The scans showed greater connectivity between the left and right sides of the brain in women, while the connections in men were mostly confined to individual hemispheres. The only region where men had more connections between the left and right sides of the brain was in the cerebellum, which plays a vital role in motor control. "If you want to learn how to ski, it's the cerebellum that has to be strong," Verma said. Details of the study are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds.

"It's quite striking how complementary the brains of women and men really are," Ruben Gur, a co-author on the study, said in a statement. "Detailed connectome maps of the brain will not only help us better understand the differences between how men and women think, but it will also give us more insight into the roots of neurological disorders, which are often sex-related."
 
Let's not forget that children are treated differently by the universe according to their biological gender from the get go (dress her in pink, give her a doll, dress him in blue, give him lego) and the brain develops over our infancy, childhood and adolescence.
 
I try to reign in getting too sentimental about animals. I'm a veggie, but not a sensitive one. Humans first always, I get it. But seeing this just really fucking rattled me. I think it was because I'd seen this pic the day previously and thought it was fucking beautiful. (the guy looks like you Bodda, weirdly)
I dunno. Big game hunters suck. Why not try and get yer thrills from base jumping from a fucking mountain top and breaking your skull and do the world a fucking favour. Such a beautiful creature. What fucking ego/status needs must one possess to need to pursue getting their kicks out of doing it? So fucking tragic.
Those pictures are shocking, Marmz, hadn't seen them before. So sad, and just the tip of the iceberg.
Such beautiful creatures (I mean the late four-legged ones of course), killed just for fun :( :?
 
Let's not forget that children are treated differently by the universe according to their biological gender from the get go (dress her in pink, give her a doll, dress him in blue, give him lego) and the brain develops over our infancy, childhood and adolescence.

Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds.

From the above quote it would seem more like gender rolls in practice has more of an impact
 
LOL, ... I thought he'd plumped for bi or summat halfway?

need to read the article instead of just the headlines I guess
 
From the above quote it would seem more like gender rolls in practice has more of an impact

yes sorry I didn't notice that bit! I was too busy angrily explaining to PTCH how computers work, and angrily explaining to everyone else how brains work :D =D

Of course, what happens at age 13 is hormones go all fucking berserk too, and cocks get bigger and tits get bigger. And everything gets smellier.

But yes,. there is a biological fact which sets us (so sadly) apart at adolescence, but society compounds and multiplies the differences by segregating the sexes and expecting different things of them.

I love you marmalade.

I also love Julie. I was thinking the other night how I would quite like to get naughty with Julie! I hope she isn't blushing.
 
LOL, ... I thought he'd plumped for bi or summat halfway?

need to read the article instead of just the headlines I guess

Hah, I think he he is dating a man, but leaving his options open for women, possibly. The fact I seem to have read it about 12 times today compelled me to put it in here as major news.
 
Raging queer discrace to our country. Shouldn't be allowed to go to Rio. What is the world coming to.
 
On my other favourite site there is a thread "Cop Watch". Name says it all really. Not sure we want to just copy ideas off other sites, but cops really do need watched!


Fail said:
Police use 50,000-volt Taser on 15-year-old schoolboy with learning difficulties after being called in over 'scuffle'
Officers were called to Chelfham Senior School near Plymouth
Police units found three boys allegedly holding two knives
The victim was treated at the scene by paramedics and taken to hospital
By REBECCA CAMBER
PUBLISHED: 20:33, 6 December 2013 | UPDATED: 20:33, 6 December 2013
352 shares
A schoolboy with learning difficulties was hit with a 50,000-volt Taser by police at a special school.
Officers were called to Chelfham Senior School near Plymouth, a special needs school owned by the exclusive Priory Group following an alleged assault on a teacher in a 'scuffle' with pupils.
A 15-year-old was shot with the electric stun gun after several police units arrived at the school grounds to find three boys allegedly holding two knives.
Tasers: Armed officers threatened, targeted or discharged the 50,000-volt weapons against youngsters more than 320 times a year
Tasers: Armed officers threatened, targeted or discharged the 50,000-volt weapons against youngsters more than 320 times a year - an 11-fold increase from first year they were cleared for use against under-18s
Police confirmed last night that no officers were injured.
The male teacher in his late 40s suffered chest and facial injuries, which were not thought to be knife related.
The victim was treated at the scene by paramedics before being taken to Derriford Hospital.
Campaigners reacted with fury yesterday, saying the use of Taser on a vulnerable boy with a complex learning difficulty flouts the guidelines and may have been excessive.
The incident at the school, which specialises in children with learning difficulties including behavioural, emotional and social difficulties and autism, happened at 9.20pm on December 1, but police did not release any details at the time.

More...
'Cruel' policewoman who HUGGED rape victim as she lied about the reason for her case being dropped is jailed
Burglars broke into Olympic rower James Cracknell's home and stole £20,000 of possessions while he was in hospital
The day and residential school for boys and girls aged seven to 19 in the village of Bere Alston in the Devon countryside, is owned by the Priory Group, a private company known for its addiction clinics favoured by celebrities.
Yesterday Sophie Khan, a solicitor-advocate and legal director at Police Action Centre called for an inquiry. She said: 'The use of a Taser on this occasion has to be called into question. The police action may have been excessive.
'The use on children is only allowed if it is the only feasible method of restraining the child.
'It's only there if there are no other alternatives to restrain the child.
'Often officers can say they weren't aware of behaviour issues, but in this case they must have been aware.
'Using a Taser on someone suffering some kind of behavioural difficulty or disability is something the policy or guidance doesn't allow.' Yesterday Devon and Cornwall Police refused to comment on the case.
Campaigners reacted with fury yesterday, saying the use of Taser on a vulnerable boy with a complex learning difficulty flouts the guidelines and may have been excessive
Fury: Campaigners reacted with fury yesterday, saying the use of Taser on a vulnerable boy with a complex learning difficulty flouts the guidelines and may have been excessive
The three boys involved, two 14-year-olds and the 15-year-old have since been charged with affray.
The shocking incident comes after new figures revealed that Tasers are being used by police against children as young as 11 almost every day.
Armed officers threatened, targeted or discharged the 50,000-volt weapons against youngsters more than 320 times a year - an 11-fold increase from the first year they were cleared for use against under-18s in 2007.
In the first year of officers being cleared to Taser children, they were used just 29 times in England.
By 2011 - the latest year that figures are available - the total stood at 323.
It was not specified whether the guns were fired, or whether officers aimed them at children.
Experts say that even targeting a person using the weapon's laser red dot is threatening.
There have been a number of alarming cases involving the US-made weapons.
In July, Jordan Begley, 23, who had a suspected heart condition, died after being Tasered by police in Manchester.
Devon and Cornwall Police are being investigated by the police watchdog after Andrew Pimlott, 32, died from burns when he was Tasered after dousing himself in fuel in March this year.
Last October, blind Colin Farmer, 63, was Tasered in Chorley, Lancashire, when an officer mistook his white stick for a sword.
Eight other people have died after being Tasered since the weapons were introduced a decade ago.
The Police Federation wants all officers to have a Taser.
Yesterday a spokesperson for the school said: 'People responded to an isolated incident on the school grounds and as legal proceedings are ongoing it would be inappropriate to comment further.'
The three boys will appear at Plymouth Magistrates' Court on December 20.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ifficulties-called-scuffle.html#ixzz2moi3Cq8y
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
 
Read this while ironically, I waiting in the hospital eye clinic this morning. What utter cunts. It's bad enough the DVLA do it, but the NHS? FUCK OFF. Jebus


NHS patient data to be made available for sale to drug and insurance firms
Privacy experts warn there will be no way for public to work out who has their medical records or how they are using it

Drug and insurance companies will from later this year be able to buy information on patients – including mental health conditions and diseases such as cancer, as well as smoking and drinking habits – once a single English database of medical data has been created.

Harvested from GP and hospital records, medical data covering the entire population will be uploaded to the repository controlled by a new arms-length NHS information centre, starting in March. Never before has the entire medical history of the nation been digitised and stored in one place.

Advocates say that sharing data will make medical advances easier and ultimately save lives because it will allow researchers to investigate drug side effects or the performance of hospital surgical units by tracking the impact on patients.

But privacy experts warn there will be no way for the public to work out who has their medical records or to what use their data will be put. The extracted information will contain NHS numbers, date of birth, postcode, ethnicity and gender.

Once live, organisations such as university research departments – but also insurers and drug companies – will be able to apply to the new Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) to gain access to the database, called care.data.

If an application is approved then firms will have to pay to extract this information, which will be scrubbed of some personal identifiers but not enough to make the information completely anonymous – a process known as "pseudonymisation".

However, Mark Davies, the centre's public assurance director, told the Guardian there was a "small risk" certain patients could be "re-identified" because insurers, pharmaceutical groups and other health sector companies had their own medical data that could be matched against the "pseudonymised" records. "You may be able to identify people if you had a lot of data. It depends on how people will use the data once they have it. But I think it is a small, theoretical risk," he said.

Once the scheme is formally approved by the HSCIC and patient data can be downloaded from this summer, Davies said that in the eyes of the law one could not distinguish between "a government department, university researcher, pharmaceutical company or insurance company" in a request to access the database.

In an attempt to ease public concern, this month NHS England is sending a leaflet entitled Better Information Means Better Care to 26m households, to say parts of the care.data database will be shared with "researchers and organisations outside the NHS" – unless people choose to opt out via their family doctor.

However, a leading academic and government adviser on health privacy said pursuing a policy that opened up data to charities and companies without clearly spelling out privacy safeguards left serious unanswered questions about patient confidentiality.

Julia Hippisley-Cox, a professor of general practice at Nottingham University who sits on the NHS's confidentiality advisory group – the high-level body that advises the health secretary on accessing confidential patient data without consent – said that while there may be "benefits" from the scheme "if extraction [sale] of identifiable data is to go ahead, then patients must be able find out who has their identifiable data and for what purpose".

Hippisley-Cox added that "there should be a clear audit trail which the patient can access and there needs to be a simple method for recording data sharing preferences and for these to be respected".

Davies, who is a GP, defended the database, saying there was "an absolute commitment to transparency" and rejecting calls for an "independent review and scrutiny of requests for access to data". "I am tempted to say that we will have 50 million auditors [referring to England's population] looking over our shoulder."

He said it was necessary to open up medical data to commercial companies especially as private firms take over NHS services to "improve patient care". Davies said: "We have private hospitals and companies like Virgin who are purchasing NHS patient care now. This is a trend that will continue. As long as they can show patient care is benefiting then they can apply."

But Davies accepted there was now a "need to open a debate on this".

He pointed out that a number of private companies – such as Bupa – already had access to some sensitive hospital data, although none had been able to link to GP records until now. He added: "I am not sure how helpful in the NHS the distinction between public and private is these days. Look at Dr Foster [which] is a private company that used data to show significantly how things can be improved in the NHS and revealed what was going wrong at Mid Staffs. The key test is whether the data will be used to improve patient care."

Campaigners warned many members of the public would be uneasy about private companies benefiting from their health data – especially when the spread of data will not be routinely audited. Phil Booth, co-ordinator at patient pressure group medConfidential, said: "One of people's commonest concerns about their medical records is that they'll be used for commercial purposes, or mean they are discriminated against by insurers or in the workplace.

"Rather than prevent this, the care.data scheme is deliberately designed so that 'pseudonymised' data – information that can be re-identified by anyone who already holds information about you – can be passed on to 'customers' of the information centre, with no independent scrutiny and without even notifying patients. It's a disaster just waiting to happen."

Booth said the five listed reasons data can be released for are exceptionally broad: health intelligence, health improvement, audit, health service research and service planning. He said: "Officials would have you believe they're doing this all for research or improving care but the number of non-medical, non-research uses is ballooning before even the first upload has taken place. And though you won't read it in their junk mail leaflet, the people in charge now admit the range of potential customers for this giant centralised database of all our medical records is effectively limitless."

NHS England said it would publish its own assessment of privacy risks this week and pointed out that one of the key aims of care.data was to "drive economic growth by making England the default location for world-class health services research".

A spokesperson said: "A phased rollout of care.data is being readied over a three month period with first extractions from March allowing time for the HSCIC to assess the quality of the data and the linkage before making the data available. We think it would be wrong to exclude private companies simply on ideological grounds; instead, the test should be how the company wants to use the data to improve NHS care."

[edit]

same story from The Independent
Patients will be identifiable when firms are given access to confidential NHS data, experts warn

Mark Thomas was following the NHS database opt in scheme really closely, and the fineprint involved with opting out. I wanna hear what he's got to say on this story.
 
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I remember when it was 80/20 and Blair was promising to lessen the gap between rich and poor.

Oxfam warns Davos of ‘pernicious impact’ of the widening wealth gap
The 85 richest people on the planet have accumulated as much wealth between them as half of the world’s population, political and financial leaders have been warned ahead of their annual gathering in the Swiss resort of Davos.

The 85 richest people on the planet have accumulated as much wealth between them as half of the world’s population, political and financial leaders have been warned ahead of their annual gathering in the Swiss resort of Davos.

The tiny elite of multibillionaires, who could fit into a double-decker bus, have piled up fortunes equivalent to the wealth of the world’s poorest 3.5bn people, according to a new analysis by Oxfam. The charity condemned the “pernicious” impact of the steadily growing gap between a small group of the super-rich and hundreds of millions of their fellow citizens, arguing it could trigger social unrest.

It released the research on the eve of the World Economic Forum, starting on Wednesday, which brings together many of the most influential figures in international trade, business, finance and politics including David Cameron and George Osborne. Disparities in income and wealth will be high on its agenda, along with driving up international health standards and mitigating the impact of climate change.

Oxfam said the world’s richest 85 people boast a collective worth of $1.7trn (£1trn). Top of the pile is Carlos Slim Helu, the Mexican telecommunications mogul, whose family’s net wealth is estimated by Forbes business magazine at $73bn. He is followed by Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and philanthropist, whose worth is put at $67bn and is one of 31 Americans on the list.

Other well known names include the business magnate Warren Buffett, whose estimated worth is $53.5bn, and Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, with $23bn.

The world’s richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt, sits on a family fortune of $30bn derived from L’Oréal, the cosmetics company. According to Forbes, the richest person in the UK (and 89th in the world) is the Duke of Westminster, whose property empire has boosted his wealth to $11.4bn.

Oxfam calculated that almost half the world’s wealth – $110trn – is owned by just 1 per cent of its population. It said that 70 per cent of people live in countries where the gap between the rich and poor has widened in the last 30 years.

“This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems,” the charity said. “People are increasingly separated by economic and political power, inevitably heightening social tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown.”

Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam’s executive director, who will attend Davos, described the gulf between sectors of society as staggering. “We cannot hope to win the fight against poverty without tackling inequality. Widening inequality is creating a vicious circle where wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, leaving the rest of us to fight over crumbs from the top table,” she said.
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Oxfam is calling on the business chiefs gathering at Davos to promise to support progressive taxation and not dodge their own taxes, refrain from using their wealth to seek political favours and demand that companies they own or control pay a living wage. In a report last week the forum warned that income disparity leading to social unrest could have a significant impact on the world economy over the next 12 months.

There was a “lost” generation of young people coming of age who lacked jobs and the skills for work, the report said. This could easily boil over into protests over inequality and corruption. Jennifer Blanke, the forum’s chief economist, said: “Disgruntlement can lead to the dissolution of the fabric of society, especially if young people feel they don’t have a future. This is something that affects everybody.”

‘Ogre’ of deflation threatens eurozone


Stagnation, jobless growth and deflation will be among topics debated at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos this week. Elites from politics, business and academia will gather with the international economic backdrop looking rosier than in many years.

Nevertheless, Christine Lagarde, right, head of the International Monetary Fund, is expected to repeat her warning that advanced countries are flirting with deflation. “If inflation is the genie, then deflation is the ogre that must be fought decisively,” she said in Washington, referring to a recent dip in eurozone annual inflation to just 0.8 per cent.

The response from the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, with whom she will share a panel at Davos, will be watched closely. Ben Chu
 
Captivating Penis News

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In 1372, Geoffrey de La Tour-Landry related how a voluptuary named Pers Lenard "delt fleshely with a woman" on top of an altar of a church, and God "tyed hem faste togedre dat night". The following day the whole town saw the couple still entwined "fast like a dogge and biche togedre". Finally prayers were spoken and the couple's prolonged intercourse came to an end (although they were obliged to return to the church on three Sundays, strip naked and beat themselves in front of the congregation).

"When I was a student at Leyden there was a young Bridegroom in that Town that being overwanton with his Bride had so hamper'd himself in her Privities, that he could not draw his Yard forth, till Delmehorst the Physician unty'd the knot by casting cold Water on the Part."

Isbrand van Diemerbroeck17th Century Dutch physician

Not the newsiest of news articles but was news to me and raised a titter or three =D
 
Ha! I noticed that too - some great ye olde langwidge in some of those snippets =D
 
till Delmehorst the Physician unty'd the knot by casting cold Water on the Part."

Tangled Knots. Happens all the time with my yard long penis.


Oh, and news just in: Shambles has far too much spare time on his hands.
 
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