6 Degrees of Smear

Miliband's Russian cousin admits she was close to Stalin's daughter | Mail Online

You can't fault them for effort, can you? Expect more in this series, as required:

Cable's wife's uncle's barber admits shaving Oswald Moseley's grandson

Balls defends gardener's stepson's "wimps" slur on our heroes

Harman college chum's brother starves cat for 4 hours

Mum! When's the shooting bit?

Found amongst the slopbucketloads of the Raoul Moat crim-porn saga:

What future for Raoul Moat? | Rothbury | Raoul_Moat | Life of Crime | Sky News Blogs: "That future is likely to be spent in jail and what kind of future is that for a violent and angry 37-year-old man who is mourning the loss of his family and business?"

Yeah... so, all you people trying to put the Murdochs out of business; take a look at yourselves! Do you really want to be responsible for another tragedy?

Perhaps you shouldn't answer that.

Unedifying though this whole spectacle is, there is nonetheless something refreshing - in a World Cup summer - about watching the English press salivate over the prospect of a shoot-out...

Infernal Contraptions!

No Rock And Roll Fun: Sunday Express makes a Twit of itself

"Unbelievably, it appears to have taken two Sunday Express typists, David Jarvis and David Stephenson, to pull together an inept wannabe-expose into the BBC's use of Twitter..."

I really have nothing to add to this; but I can try to get it three or four more readers.

If only I could somehow get "David & David" a few million less...

Offended By Verbatim Reporting? Go F--- Yourself!

Fox 5 anchor Ernie Anastos stuns viewers with four-letter 'chicken' gaffe - Telegraph

It's not the story, or the reporting of it. They're fine.

It's the"f---ing".

Even at the end, right next to "plucking".

The Telegraph fears - no doubt rightly - that some readers will be offended by the word "fucking", even in a story about a man saying the word "fucking".

It believes - wrongly - that these people should be protected from the profound psychological consequences of choosing to read a story with the phrase "four-letter" in the headline.

So, who's chicken now?

You Couldn't Make Littlejohn Up

It's been covered better elsewhere, but I can't ignore Richard Littlejohn's Mail Online piece that takes a snide pop at a black single mother.

"There’s no mention of a Mr Pong, or any father’s name for that matter. "
- Richard Littlejohn

Note the oh-so-clever plausibly deniable racism.

The punchline? Oh yes. The mother is a labrador!

Yes, the country is being overrun by a tide of workshy immigrant puppies. What? Littlejohn shot first and asked questions later? Surely not?

Well, no - as usual, he just shot. The only development is that he shot this particular load over the wrong species.

All together now; "You Couldn't Make It Up!"

The A Files

UFOs photographed over London - Telegraph ( Sarah Knapton )

Yeah, nice one, Sarah. Real scoop, that. I mean, they don't look anything like reflections of the light fitting behind the photographer, do they?

Oh, and a special mention for the caption, "...shows four UFO's (sic.)" Don't worry about it, guys; it's only the Daily Bloody Telegraph, right?

The "Get Paula Murray Fired" Campaign

Can't really cover this one any better... so I won't bother.

Bloggerheads (UK) - Paula Murray, drunken hack, mocks dead and makes light of underage drinking

Glinner - Express wins race to the bottom

Strictly this isn't a net story, but the reaction to it certainly is. As a clued-up 2.0 citizen, you've no doubt read loads about it all by now, so all I'll add is; please just pop along and sign the online petition, blog or tweet the stories, and do anything else you can think of to help get this odious bitch fired.