Actually, I think we can measure this more objectively.
At the last UK election, the readership of Sunday papers that advised their readers to vote Tory was 19M. The readership of the Daily papers that advised their readers to vote Tory was about the same. Now some people buy two newspapers on the same day, but to counter that, some people don't buy both Daily and Sunday papers. Overall, we can say that the media advised approx 19M different to vote Tory, compared to about 3M for Labour and 1M for the Lib Dems.
However, this media advice ratio of 19 : 3 : 1 compares to a UK Election voting ratio of 10.7 : 8.6 : 6.8. So we can safely say that the UK media is far to the right of the electorate, and that a viewpoint that which is neutral with respect to the electorate will look left-wing compared to most media.
What we can't say from this data is how more left wing the electorate would be if the media didn't attempt to pull the electorate to the right.
Now, being less objective, this bias really ought to have been obvious, since most of the UK media is owned by extreme far-right tax-dodging billionaires who are not representative of the ordinary electorate.
I got readership figures from: http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html
Eh? The Transfomers DVD went straight to movie without commercials? Fantastic! Or perhaps that's because the entire movie is a product commercial. Perhaps you're the perfect consumer!
Perfect. (I wish you weren't AC.) It's worth quoting Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials, when he was told that it was only easy for a dictatorship to push an unwilling population towards war: "Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Without this enemy, we'd have had to invent another.
They even have a picture of a lion with the head of a goat and the tail as a serpant.
This is all wrong. A Chimera is indeed a real creature composed of goat and lion but in fact the two halves are joined lengthwise. It's a completely ineffective creature.
I will tell you what scares me, and it is not arbitrary imprisonment (I figure that is so unconstitutional that they won't dare do that one again without at a minimum Congressional authorization or better yet a full suspension of Habeus but if that happens, we might as well leave the country).
Actually, arbitrary imprisonment is now simple and convenient - you just need to be declared a "material witness":
I agree, there is a ridiculous amount of gun crime in the UK. In fact right now we're only between 27 and 35 times less likely (depending on what stats you believe) to be shot and killed in the UK compared to the US. And it's rising FAST. Within a couple of decades we could have say one tenth of the per-capita murder rate of the US...
I use windows to write software compatible with the compiler I use at work... and to surf... and quite simply the hassle of using gcc under windows is a lot less than the hassle of getting a modem and ISP set up under linux.
It's a legal obligation for anyone making unsolicited sales calls in the UK to avoid those
on the Telephone Preference Service list. It
takes 2 minutes to register online and actually works.
Mmmm... no one tries harder to influence google search than scientologists, they have countless different web sites and front groups all linking to each other to boost Google ratings. However shortly after the cult tried to censor Xenu (Operation Clambake) a Google search on scientology ranked Xenu top. Now it comes second rated, although you'd be hard pushed ot find it at all among the 2-million Scientology sponsored links on the results page... (so be sure to add Xenu to your links page if you have one, you could save the life and wallet of some naive soul)...
The UK's crazy RIP laws have never been tested in court, and since they breach European Human Rights law which supercedes them they will never have any effect.
Incidently, neither the UK or the US is a particularly 'free' place, by neutral standards.
Re:You Believe This??
on
The Drone War
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Even when the media get information they probably won't give it to you - a staggering 80% of Americans think that censorship of news from Afganistan is good. People actually wanting basic freedoms (like free information) taken away is terrifying, this is the sort of attitude that can lead to Bush's 'anti-terror' proposals sounding acceptable: detainment without charges, evidence against being kept secret from defendents, no right to choose an attorney, no right to a jury, secret trials behind closed doors (of course if you complain about these proposals that makes you dangerous too - "if you're not with us you're against us")... remember where and when the last western 'civilized' country did that? People died to ensure freedoms that are currently being cast aside... I find that pretty depressing.
Re:There's only one solution.
on
Monsanto and PCBs
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Unfortunately, writing to government officials
about Monsanto's crimes is likely to be particularly ineffective - a list of people involved in regulation shows how close Government links are with Monsanto: to quote one example (out of 12):
Linda J. Fisher... former Assistant Administrator of the
United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of
Pollution Prevention, Pesticides, and Toxic Substances,... then
became Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for
Monsanto Corporation and now (2001) is Deputy Director
of the Environmental Protection Agency.
I'm sure writing will have some influence, but not as much as a stack of stock options. The best
way to make progress is to reduce the amount of apathy and ignorance on these matters - if you care about corporate crime then be sure to tell your friends, family and colleagues why.
Of course I do agree with the original post, if I understand the intent correctly - if an individual caused the same degree of harm then
prosecution would be a certainty. So why then, in
a civilised country, should criminal corporations be allowed to do business?
This is great for Open Source, since it circumvents that ingenious patent (see the patent here) on lossless compression of any data (including random data). The patent is brilliant because by applying it recursively you can "shrink any file down to a few bits". Fantastic! (I especially like the Lzip FAQ - if you haven't read it yet check it out!)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I think we can measure this more objectively.
At the last UK election, the readership of Sunday papers that advised their readers to vote Tory was 19M. The readership of the Daily papers that advised their readers to vote Tory was about the same. Now some people buy two newspapers on the same day, but to counter that, some people don't buy both Daily and Sunday papers. Overall, we can say that the media advised approx 19M different to vote Tory, compared to about 3M for Labour and 1M for the Lib Dems.
However, this media advice ratio of 19 : 3 : 1 compares to a UK Election voting ratio of 10.7 : 8.6 : 6.8. So we can safely say that the UK media is far to the right of the electorate, and that a viewpoint that which is neutral with respect to the electorate will look left-wing compared to most media.
What we can't say from this data is how more left wing the electorate would be if the media didn't attempt to pull the electorate to the right.
Now, being less objective, this bias really ought to have been obvious, since most of the UK media is owned by extreme far-right tax-dodging billionaires who are not representative of the ordinary electorate.
I got readership figures from: http://www.nrs.co.uk/toplinereadership.html
Eh? The Transfomers DVD went straight to movie without commercials? Fantastic!
Or perhaps that's because the entire movie is a product commercial. Perhaps you're the perfect consumer!
Perfect. (I wish you weren't AC.) It's worth quoting Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials, when he was told that it was only easy for a dictatorship to push an unwilling population towards war: "Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Without this enemy, we'd have had to invent another.
A great way to invent new threats is to torture someone until they invent a new plot to please their interrogators - that's how the 'Dirty Bomb' - useless in practice, was invented.
I suspect we'll get some equally bogus threats to instill popular fear through this new exercise.
... images is that they can find out when their goverment is telling lies to start a war ...
Actually, arbitrary imprisonment is now simple and convenient - you just need to be declared a "material witness":
I agree, there is a ridiculous amount of gun crime in the UK. In fact right now we're only between 27 and 35 times less likely (depending on what stats you believe) to be shot and killed in the UK compared to the US. And it's rising FAST. Within a couple of decades we could have say one tenth of the per-capita murder rate of the US ...
I use windows to write software compatible with ... and to surf ... and quite simply the hassle of using gcc under windows is a lot less than the hassle of getting a modem and ISP set up under linux.
the compiler I use at work
It's a legal obligation for anyone making unsolicited sales calls in the UK to avoid those on the Telephone Preference Service list. It takes 2 minutes to register online and actually works.
Mmmm ... no one tries harder to influence google search than scientologists, they have countless different web sites and front groups all linking to each other to boost Google ratings. However shortly after the cult tried to censor Xenu (Operation Clambake) a Google search on scientology ranked Xenu top. Now it comes second rated, although you'd be hard pushed ot find it at all among the 2-million Scientology sponsored links on the results page ... (so be sure to add Xenu to your links page if you have one, you could save the life and wallet of some naive soul) ...
Incidently, neither the UK or the US is a particularly 'free' place, by neutral standards.
Even when the media get information they probably won't give it to you - a staggering 80% of Americans think that censorship of news from Afganistan is good. People actually wanting basic freedoms (like free information) taken away is terrifying, this is the sort of attitude that can lead to Bush's 'anti-terror' proposals sounding acceptable: detainment without charges, evidence against being kept secret from defendents, no right to choose an attorney, no right to a jury, secret trials behind closed doors (of course if you complain about these proposals that makes you dangerous too - "if you're not with us you're against us") ... remember where and when the last western 'civilized' country did that? People died to ensure freedoms that are currently being cast aside ... I find that pretty depressing.
Of course I do agree with the original post, if I understand the intent correctly - if an individual caused the same degree of harm then prosecution would be a certainty. So why then, in a civilised country, should criminal corporations be allowed to do business?
This is great for Open Source, since it circumvents that ingenious patent (see the patent here) on lossless compression of any data (including random data). The patent is brilliant because by applying it recursively you can "shrink any file down to a few bits". Fantastic! (I especially like the Lzip FAQ - if you haven't read it yet check it out!)