pointless – The Daily Opinion

News in Briefs 25/03/12

This week’s News in Briefs is reporting on a very eventful week of news as the Government’s annual budget was released and something just seemed to be happening on all fronts. But does this necessarily mean that it was interesting news? Well that’s completely up to you to judge.

Political Oops of the Week

George Osborne must have thought that he had pulled a fast one when he announced his budget as most things were relatively positive with the increase of the personal allowance and the announcement that the country’s borrowing had been cut drastically, but then he announced his attack on the pensioners.

Within 24 hours his face was pasted on the front page of every major newspaper in the country with various combinations of the words “Granny Tax”, “Muggers”, and “You Bastard” (Ok, I may have made that last one up, but the sentiments remain the same). But why did Mr. Osborne make such a catastrophic political error?

If history has taught us anything there are two things you don’t touch in British politics. One of these is the NHS and the other is the pensioners. This is for two reasons: firstly, pensioners are old and have no shame so they will attack you mercilessly, and secondly, we all have a special place in our hearts for the pensioners who are now trying to enjoy a quiet retirement.

Angry old man — Wanna throw down, rich boy?

You can touch the single mothers, you can kick the poor, you can even kiss the behinds of the richest people in the country, but you never touch the pensioners. In my personal opinion, the chancellor presented a fairly good budget this year, but his mistake was amateurish and it practically wiped out all of his good work. So whatever possessed him to do this only he can know for sure.

The Painful…

Although I didn’t really delve into this subject last week, Fabrice Muamba has to appear on this list due to the sheer manner in which the incident occurred.

For those of you who don’t know, Fabrice Muamba collapsed in the middle of the game against Tottenham Hotspur last weekend and was practically dead for 80 minutes as he was unresponsive to CPR and the use of electric shocks. The good news is that he’s recovering well and will surely survive now, but the bad news is the impact it would have had on people around the country.

What we have to remember is that children will have been watching at that time and the cameras did capture Muamba having a cardiac arrest as he went into a type of fit. Judging from the reaction of the crowd and the deathly silence in the stadium, I believe that many people must have thought that they had just witnessed a 23-year-old man die in front of their eyes.

It was certainly quite painful to watch, but at least he’s recovering well. Get well soon, Fabrice.

…And the Pointless

As we can all imagine, Team GB have been training hard and working with more fire in their bellies than ever before for the summer Olympics in London. Wait, what? They haven’t? Well what have they been doing then? Oh, yes, I remember now, they’ve been spending their time modelling one of the worst outfits ever created by the hands of humanity.

Team GB really managed to embarrass themselves this week as they unveiled an ugly smudge of blue, indigo, sapphire, and whatever else was in there with a splodge of white stuck in the middle of it. Apparently the white is supposed to symbolise the flag of Great Britain in some parallel universe, but I’ll be damned if I can see it.

My question is what was wrong with the other outfits? And shouldn’t Team GB be getting someone else to mess around for the media when they are this close to the Olympics? I’m not going to argue over why they shouldn’t be wasting time on this, but I’ll leave the criticism to the entire nation who will no doubt be baying for blood when they fail to win a medal.

The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

This golden nugget of news appeared in the dying embers of this week as the shooting championships in Kuwait ended and the winners were honoured with their medals and national anthems, at least that’s how it should have happened.

All the athletes were honoured, and now it was time for the winner from Kazakhstan to be honoured with her national anthem. But Maria Dmitrienko stood dumbfounded as the anthem of her native country was actually that which the film Borat used during their mockumentary produced a few years ago.

But give the girl some credit because the Borat anthem didn’t stop Maria Dmitrienko from standing there with her hand on her heart without moving a muscle. The athlete didn’t seem to mind the Borat anthem too much, but her team were furious as they demanded an apology. Luckily, all was well as the medal ceremony was rerun and the organisers apologised.

However, from a personal point of view, I think they should have played the Borat anthem again for a second time just because it would have been utterly hilarious. What are they going to do shoot….ah never mind, they did the right thing. Rule #1 of real life trolling, never troll the winner of the international shooting championships more than once.

A Positive Outlook for the Week

This week’s positive outlook for the week is a little sparse because I’m not feeling all that positive at the moment. However, I will provide a couple of predictions for next week. The Labour Party will attack every single thing the Coalition has done in the last few weeks than more venom than ever before. And I’m going to be bold and say that Ed Miliband may come out of his shell and elevate himself in the eyes of many with his upcoming performance this week.

One area of world affairs I’m enjoying at the moment is North Korea and there rocket-powered satellite they intend on firing in honour of their Eternal President. As the launch date grows closer tensions are rising and it makes for very interesting reading as the most powerful nations in the world are essentially fighting with nothing more than an overweight child.

So maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…

News in Briefs 18/03/12

Today was a pretty dull week until Saturday as we all got to watch Bolton player Fabrice Muamba have a heart attack in the middle of the football pitch. This was about the most exciting thing which happened this week for this News in Briefs writer as all was pretty quiet on the foreign front. But at least North Korea is attempting to make things mildly interesting again.

Political Oops of the Week

This is more of an imminent political oops as the Labour Party offices in Westminster were mysteriously broken into. Clearly this will bring back memories of the Watergate scandal which brought down a president (it was Nixon). But, then again, it also shows how crap we really are at scandals because in America we experience a presidential scandal with the most powerful man in the Western world at the centre of it all. In Britain, though, we experience the opposition to the most powerful man on this tiny island having his offices broken into; the most uninspiring, most uncharismatic, and the most uninteresting man in the Western world, I might add.

Ed Miliband — See, I can be interesting!

Obviously nothing has happened as of yet because nobody has been arrested for it. But what random burglar decides to break into the Labour Party offices? The only burglar which would even think of doing anything like that is one which has some sort of political motive. Is it to do with the Conservatives? I highly doubt it, but one of the smaller fringe parties, or even Labour dissidents could be at the centre of all this.

Don’t expect to hear anything about this for a long time, but when it eventually comes back to the surface again expect it to cause shockwaves which will be felt for a very long time to come. The clock is ticking.

The Painful…

Normally in this News in Briefs section we pick something incredibly painful which makes one cringe, but this time it’s more of a mix between literal and metaphorical pain. All of us will have heard about Sergeant Robert Bales who left his base to go massacre 16 innocent Afghan civilians, and I think all of us will have felt some sense of pain when it comes to this.

However, I’m not merely talking about the fact that 16 innocent people were killed because, let’s be honest, this happens every day in Afghanistan at the hands of foreign forces and it never gets reported. But the fact that this has been reported just after the problems caused by the burning of the Koran just makes you cringe.

The fact that the Americans have not allowed the soldier to stand trial in Afghanistan is only going to mean that the Taliban gain even more support and even more people are going to die because of it. Furthermore, look at the general fact that all of these problems are surfacing now; it just goes to show how ineffective the foreign powers truly have been in Afghanistan.

I guarantee that the moment all foreign troops leave the country Afghanistan will descend into open civil war between the puppet government of the Western nations and the deposed Taliban government. The fact that the media constantly touts Britain and the Western powers as being victorious makes me laugh every time.

…And the Pointless

But away from more sombre news, let’s move to something incredibly pointless yet so so hilarious. The Italian village, Falciano del Massico, situated just south of Naples, has now made it illegal to die in their village. Yes, you read that right, it’s an offense to die in that village.

The row came about as a result of a feud with a neighbouring village. Everybody loves a good row with their neighbours every so often, but, unfortunately, their neighbours also hold the only graveyard in the area. So in a beautiful tactical manoeuvre they are now refusing to bury Falciano del Massico’s dead.

What’s even more hilarious is the fact that the mayor of the village decided to do some real life trolling by creating this law. Then mayor, Giulio Cesare Fava, was found telling the newspaper that the law had brought happiness to the village, before finishing on a more disappointing note: “Unfortunately, two elderly citizens disobeyed.”

Best throw their asses in jail, Giulio!

The so Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

This week, today actually, I read that the Government had made the decision to get rid of the Sunday trading laws for the Olympics. Now, you must all be wondering exactly why this seemingly innocuous news story has appeared in this section. Well, I’ll tell you why. Exactly why do we still have Sunday trading laws?

Last time I checked we live in the year 2012 not 1812, so the fact that we even have laws which dictate how trade works on this day of the week due to a silly thing like religion is quite frankly embarrassing. Unless you are an ardent advocate of religion, you must be irritated by the fact that if you want to go and buy something early in the morning then you can’t because everything opens at a later time than normal.

Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not a rant against religion in general. It’s not like that at all. What it’s a rant against is the inclusion of religion within politics, economics, and anything to do with life outside of religion. In the 21^st century religion has no place in the running of a country and should remain a private practice.

And, no, I don’t care whether David Cameron is trying to pretend that we are a Christian country or not because we’re not a Christian country. British people have this nasty habit of claiming that they’re Christian, but how many times do they really go to church or pray? The answer is that they just say they’re religious out of habit based on the traditions of their ancestors.

In reality, we are a secular country and religion is on the decline within this country. This abandoning of the Sunday trading laws will have a massive impact on the future of Sunday trading because I expect that we may see a permanent relaxing of these laws when they find out how well it works during the Olympics.

A Positive Outlook for the Week Ahead

With any luck Fabrice Muamba will pull through from his illness and he won’t die. Even if you don’t like Bolton Wanderers, and I don’t particularly, you have to be hoping that the boy pulls through and gets playing again as soon as possible.

The budget from Chancellor Osborne is going to appear this week. Many of you will be asking exactly why this is a positive thing, though. Well the main benefit is that the stream of writers who keep producing speculation pieces based on what the chancellor may or may not say in his budget report will disperse.

Apart from that there’s not a lot else to look forward to, which is a blessing in itself because next week will certainly bring up a few surprises that we haven’t considered yet.

So maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…

News in Briefs 11/03/12

This has been a pretty boring week for the news if you were just watching the mainstream news feeds. But that doesn’t mean that we have nothing for you this week because even if politicians and morons (those two are pretty much the same thing) are not in the public eye it doesn’t mean that they haven’t been humiliating and embarrassing themselves just as much as usual.

Political Oops of the Week

It’s never nice when a few Islamic militants have you at gun point in a hostage situation. But this situation was made much more uncomfortable this week when British Special Forces attempted to rescue two hostages, one British and one Italian, in Nigeria. The problem was that they didn’t bother to tell their Italian allies about the rescue operation.

Surely this should have all been forgotten about, though, because the point is that the hostages are alive? Oh, wait. They’re not alive. They’re not alive because when the firing started the militants killed the hostages. If everything had gone well then this political embarrassment could have been forgotten about, but the fact that Britain attempted to demonstrate the size of its figurative balls by doing it all on its own just makes it even worse.

Rightly, the Italians are upset about all of this. But Foreign Secretary William Hague just made things worse when he was quoted as saying: the short amount of time we had to act “constrained how much we were able to consult others.”

So things were that urgent that you couldn’t have given the Italians a quick phone call? Exactly how long does it take to enter a simple phone number into your mobile phone? About ten seconds, twenty seconds if you’re Eric Joyce, and maybe even thirty seconds if you’re Boris Johnson. You didn’t necessarily have to coordinate with the Italians, but you could have at least given them a heads up about it.

It’s a good thing Berlusconi isn’t there anymore because he may have just slept with all your wives in retaliation!

David Cameron — So you say you didn't manage to dial the right number?

The Painful…

Everybody loves a news story they can relate to. This is another one of those stories as Richard Dale Fox killed his girlfriend in his California trailer home with a homemade cannon. Don’t worry, Richard, because we’ve all been there where we’ve accidently set off our homemade cannons and almost killed our loved ones, haven’t we?

His girlfriend died of shrapnel wounds as the projectile came through the window. Sadly, the authorities wouldn’t reveal exactly what the projectile was, or even how the cannon was made, but they did reveal that it was fired by using the same powder found in fireworks. Richard Fox was also taken to hospital with severe leg wounds as the cannon exploded when he fired it. This sounds very similar to the guy who tried to blow up a plane a few years ago but only succeeded in burning his own bollocks off. Maybe they are friends?

Cannon — What a perfect way to surprise my girlfriend!

…And the Pointless

David Cameron revealed something monumental this week. Ready for it? That’s right, David Cameron likes to play the game Angry Birds in his spare time. And, yes, this was reported on BBC News. It just makes this writer wonder exactly what the point of anything is anymore.

In most cases, it would be a case of me thinking that “Hey, it doesn’t matter to have a bit of light-hearted talk sometimes.” But what was particularly irritating was the fact that this was in the middle of a Government meeting. After a bit of digging, this was actually a part of some initiative where it gets children to report the news on the BBC website next week.

What a complete and utter waste of time and money. Why is this going to be of any use whatsoever? The children are going to be reporting on news that they really don’t know anything about. Do the BBC still think that people are attracted to the prospect of having some snotty-nosed bundle of irritation reporting on the news? The people I know who visit news websites are there for one reason: they are there to get the news quickly, simply, and easily. Not to have to wade through all the childish dribble which the BBC are going to be spreading all over their website.

News should be the news, children’s channels should be for children. It really is that simple.

The so Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

Vladimir Putin is Russia’s new president, for the third time. Whether you’re a fan of Putin or not, though, you have to admit that the results of the election were a tad dubious when looking at some of Putin’s tactics this time round.

The exit poll predicted that Putin would win the election with at least a 60% majority vote, which he did, but the fact that some of his supporters were caught ferrying his supporters to vote at multiple polling stations does make it seem like it was a little rigged. And the fact that international overseers even admitted that the election favoured Putin doesn’t seem to have bothered any world leaders at all.

To date, all world leaders have acknowledged Putin’s victory, and Obama even phoned him personally from Air Force One to congratulate him. It does make one wonder exactly why nobody seems to be up in arms about this. But there’s no denying that the only reason Putin was out of the presidential office to begin with was because of the Russian constitution stipulating that you can only have two consecutive terms in office.

But, then again, when you look at the fact the Communist Party finished 2^nd, you start to see exactly why a little bit of corruption has perhaps done at least some good on this occasion.

A Positive Outlook for the Week

One item on the agenda which does look like it’s coming to an end is the Rangers FC administration case. The administrator stipulated on Friday that there was a Friday deadline for all buyers to put forward their bid to buy the club. This means that it looks like we will be seeing an end to this sorry saga quite soon. What’s more, the fact that the senior players all decided to take massive pay cuts means that Ranger won’t be going anywhere, so now Scottish Football won’t be made completely meaningless and pointless next season. Although, this writer still won’t be paying any attention to it.

As for everything else, the fact that there was very little going on this week leads to speculation that next week should be awash with lots of interesting news.

So maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…