Amazing news stories that don't quite deserve a thread

[Zephro]

OK tenuous title and everyone feel free to add your own absolutely hilarious news stories.

However this is the single best news story that has ever happened. David Cameron put his dick in a dead pig, says a Tory peer. The amount of pig based puns today has been a wonder to behold.

[Grizzly]

Dear god, this is turning into a real mudbath.

[Zephro]

#piggate on twitter.

He’s a threat to our national security as he’s a friend of ham-ass.

[Sarfrin]

I was coming to put that in here. As the future prime minister said to the dead pig.

[Fumarole]

Deez Nuts 2016

'Deez Nuts' 2016? The 15-year-old who fooled America

America has been fooled by independent presidential candidate “Deez Nuts,” who was revealed this week as 15-year-old Brady Olson, a boy from Iowa.

[Grizzly]

And, for people who don’t understand why it’s so important that David Cameron came out of the furry-closet, here’s a nice readup on the thing.

[Zephro]

And, for people who don’t understand why it’s so important that David Cameron came out of the furry-closet, here’s a nice readup on the thing.

That’s pretty spot on and sums up most of the vehemence I feel about the class system. Though minor point George Osborne went to St Paul’s. Just to rub salt in the wound though it should be noted that Boris Johnson’s younger brother Jo Johnson (also of Eton, Oxford, Bullingdon) is now Minister of Universities and Skills so has the key job for our supposed meritocracy. Also his sister is a journalist who as on the radio this morning defending the class system to questions put to her by a public school boy.

I fucking hate this place some days. So yeah if for the rest of his career Cameron is followed around by people going “Oink, oink, oink” in the background or wearing pig masks just at the edge of a crowd until he goes crazy, I will be happy.

[Skalpadda]

I re-watched the first episode of Black Mirror in honour of this last night.

Anyway, not particularly funny but I am quite amazed; could someone perhaps explain why all the British press, including the supposedly lefty ones like The Grauniad, are having a collective fit of hysteria over Jeremy Corbyn’s election? From the media coverage I got the impression that Labour had elected some hardcore communist, but looking at his actual ideas and proposals he seems like a fairly standard social democrat. Is the idea of someone wanting to be a bit nicer to poor people and not supporting nuclear holocaust really that terrifying?

[Serenegoose]

They’ve decided on a narrative and they’re sticking to it.

[Lethe]

And, for people who don’t understand why it’s so important that David Cameron came out of the furry-closet, here’s a nice readup on the thing.

Good article, but it’s difficult to credit the ostensibly widespread nature of such sentiments towards the Old Boy’s Club in the context of repeat electoral victories for the Conservative Party.

[Grizzly]

Good article, but it’s difficult to credit the ostensibly widespread nature of such sentiments towards the Old Boy’s Club in the context of repeat electoral victories for the Conservative Party.

The UK has an awfull first-past-the-post voting system which majorly skews electoral victories. Take a look at the elections of this year and note: The labour party gains more votes then the conservative party, yet they lose seats. The conservative party gets 37% of the votes yet gets more then 50% of the seats. The SNP has 1 million votes less then the LibDems yet it has one more seat then them in the parliament.
It’s not an accurate barometer of popular opinion.

[Serenegoose]

There’s a lot of shitty people in the UK. But even so, there’s also not a functioning democracy. the two combined…

[Serenegoose]

The UK has an awfull first-past-the-post voting system which majorly skews electoral victories. Take a look at the elections of this year and note: The labour party gains more votes then the conservative party, yet they lose seats. The conservative party gets 37% of the votes yet gets more then 50% of the seats. The SNP has 1 million votes less then the LibDems yet it has one more seat then them in the parliament.
It’s not an accurate barometer of popular opinion.

Minor point, but FYI, you’ve read the ‘seats won’ bit wrong. the SNP have 48 more seats than the lib dems.

[Grizzly]

That actually makes the system sound even worse (With all due respect to the SNP).

[Serenegoose]

That actually makes the system sound even worse (With all due respect to the SNP).

True. An important point, however, is to remember for all people like to hold up the SNP as some sort of disproportionate result, it also only ran in 59 seats, compared to parties like labour, lib dems, UKIP, tories, greens, etc, which ran in 650 of them or thereabouts. Now, it’s still a disproportionate result, but they did get 1.4 million votes in a country with a population of 4.2 million eligible voters.

Which got them, y’know. near enough 99% of the seats it contested, so it’s a disproportionate result all of its own. I just think people do need to keep in mind that it is distinct from the other big UK parties in only running - naturally enough - in scotland.

But yes, as I said a few posts above, the UK doesn’t have an actual functioning democracy, so I won’t dispute that the results and reality itself don’t really match up very well!

[Zephro]

I re-watched the first episode of Black Mirror in honour of this last night.

Anyway, not particularly funny but I am quite amazed; could someone perhaps explain why all the British press, including the supposedly lefty ones like The Grauniad, are having a collective fit of hysteria over Jeremy Corbyn’s election? From the media coverage I got the impression that Labour had elected some hardcore communist, but looking at his actual ideas and proposals he seems like a fairly standard social democrat. Is the idea of someone wanting to be a bit nicer to poor people and not supporting nuclear holocaust really that terrifying?

It’s kind of a matter of see above. Jeremy Corbyn isn’t part of any of the elites. He’s neither part of the Old Boy’s Network of wealthy tits that run the Tories or part of the technocratic clique that has run Labour for the last 20 years. The left has a functionally similar system going on, though one with radically different values. So most the Labour front bench went to normal state schools (comprehensives), though there are places like Haverstock School (which is nice, where I used to live) which provided a set of key people. The people tend to be from cosey middle class areas like Highgate, Hampstead, Kentish Town, Primrose Hill, Islington, all within a few miles of each other in North London. They went to the same universities (though weren’t in elite clubs), went to the LSE or Harvard for Masters degrees. The Millibands spent their childhoods hanging out with Marxist academics, rather than miners. These people all went to the same Think Tanks, became special advisors to politicians also from these backgrounds etc. You’ll find the same pattern amongst the left wing journalists, with a lot of the politicians also working as left wing journalists, amongst policy advisors, amongst campaign managers, amongst the boards of charities, etc. etc. They’re all mates and know each other. They’re also really technocratic and think they know better than actual party members.

Jeremy Corbyn is none of those things, his campaign people aren’t those things and the people helping him think up policy aren’t in those think tanks. So frankly the left elite (which includes the Guardian journalists) are losing their fucking shit. Their friends are going to be out of jobs and their family are going to be out of jobs. So they are throwing any shit they can Corbyn’s way.

Good article, but it’s difficult to credit the ostensibly widespread nature of such sentiments towards the Old Boy’s Club in the context of repeat electoral victories for the Conservative Party.

Well there’s a lot of people who are quite bought into that system. Also the Tories spend a fortune on mitigating that image as much as possible. Then there’s a big group in the middle who don’t really give a shit. What it explains neatly is that there’s always going to be large groups of people, say all of Scotland, who detest that old boys network so much they will never vote Tory.

EDIT: Also all the stuff about a non functioning democracy. Which is something I’m really hoping Jeremy Corbyn is going to put on the fucking map (by staking a flag through Boris Johnson’s still beating heart).

[karaquazian]

There’s a lot of shitty people in the UK. But even so, there’s also not a functioning democracy. the two combined…

Government by Rupert Murdoch isn’t functioning democracy

Also while Jeremy Corbyn isn’t posh, he isn’t working class either. He went to a grammar school, his father was an electrical engineer and his mother a teacher. His parents met in the Spanish civil war. That’s a pretty similar background to the milibands.

[karaquazian]

Not to be outdone…
I’m expecting some story about Boris wanking off a giraffe or something at the same party

[Barberetti]

Ha ha as soon as I saw the thread title I knew it was going to be about this.

[karaquazian]

It’s interesting that people weren’t as outraged about the bullingdon club initiation. One of the rites of passage involves burning a £50 note in front of a homeless person. So our prime minister,chancellor and the major of London have all done this sneery despicable act.

Further more, the skulls and bones is based on bullingdon so dubya probably did something similar too.