New Manager for Wolves

New manager, Keith Johnson is preparing to take over Wolves, with a grizzly beginning. Promising to bring in curfews and an alcohol ban, will this club stay in the Premier League or will players rebel against this new regime?

Johnson wants to give the entire team a new lease of life and work them hard.  Johnson believes that the harder they work the more points they can steal from their rivals, Birmingham and Aston Villa. The fans are loving this new attitude, taking away the "champagne charlies" and replacing them with good, hard working footballers. All Johnson aims to accomplish for his first season is to keep the team from falling into the Championship League.  Johnson aims to keep the team in the Premiership for this season and work harder next year to achieve a higher status in the league.

With his footballers not falling out of pubs drunk and his vice captain, Gary Wilkins, Wolverhampton may prove to be a formidable team this year.  On the teams best strengths, Johnson added, that they are all a team, there is an amazing atmosphere between them all. They are at there best when they are together.

There are no promises to whom will be bought and whom shall be sitting on the bench, one thing is for sure however and that is that the players are going to have to work hard for what they want. Johnson, "no one has it (the captains arm band) by right". Watch out George Johnson,  your armband may be on someone else's arm quicker then you can say, "Wolverhampton Wanderers". 

Precision English Practice Press Conference

Trends in UK National Newspapers Now

When looking at the main trends in UK national newspapers, the first, very important, trend is to discover whether they follow the right or left wings which determines who they follow in government, what views they have and the stories they will follow.

For example, The Daily Telegraph is a right wing newspaper. Which follows and supports the Conservatives, following David Cameron and his policies. During elections, politics and policies will feature heavily. The Telegraph will also make remarks about the opposing party, Labour, headed by Gordon Brown. It is mostly broadsheet newspapers that follow the Conservatives. These newspapers are for serious-minded people, whereas a tabloid newspaper is more for the “working man.”

Tabloids, such as The Daily Mirror and The Daily Star, are far more left wing. They support Labour and Gordon Brown. The trend between the left wing newspapers is that they will support Labour and their policies and criticise the Conservatives. The left wing newspapers are the opposite of the right wing newspapers. They can write two completely different stories, based on the same event. The difference will be their view point and their stance on who has what policies. For example, The Daily Mirror may write positively about Gordon Brown but criticise David Cameron and vice versa with The Daily Telegraph.

However there are a few newspapers that change their stance on politics when one political party is not doing so well and when one is doing very well. An example of this kind of newspaper is The Sun. In 1997 The Sun supported Labour but has now changed its stance to the Conservatives. This happened after Gordon Brown’s speech at the 2009 Labour Party Conference in Brighton. They wrote, “The Sun believes – and prays – that the Conservative leadership can put the great back into Great Britain.”

Depending on the politics of the newspaper, it depends on what trends they will follow writing their articles and their viewpoints. Three different newspapers can have three different opinions or views on the same speech.

Another point that dictates what each newspaper will write about is who owns it and their opinions and views. Rupert Murdoch owns 32 newspapers around the world, nine of which are distributed in the UK, meaning that he controls a very large readership and sets many trends throughout his newspapers.

The main newspapers Murdoch owns are The Times, The Sun and The Sunday Times. Murdoch owns a variation of broadsheet and tabloid newspapers. Most of the newspapers that he owns support the Conservatives which means that the support for the Conservatives is ever growing. Recently The Sun switched to Conservative from Labour.

One man having power over many newspapers also creates trends between national newspapers so that any newspaper is either Labour or Conservative. Normally the company that owns the newspaper imposes their opinion, such as Rupert Murdoch. However Rupert Murdoch owns a very large portion of the national newspapers and thus making his newspapers’ trends the most followed and used trends of now.
Sources –

Quoted:

The Sun
www.wikipedia.com
Rupert Murdoch
Left and Right Wing newspapers
The Sun
The Daily Mail
The Times

Not Quoted, background knowledge:

www.world-newspapers.com
The Times
http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=516244
http://www.woopidoo.com/biography/rupert-murdoch.htm

Vegetarians - Saving the World!

It was announced today in The Times, that becoming a vegetarian will eventually help to save planet Earth from becoming a desert wasteland. Being a vegetarian myself, I am greatly pleased to say that I am finally doing my part in saving the planet. I must admit that I dont always turn the light off when leaving the room, I boil way more water than I need to when making tea and I do run a petrol car that is not a hybrid. So you can imagine my pleasure when I read the headline, "Climate Chief: give up meat to save the planet." I am finally doing something positive towards the climate and green house gases.

The report claimed that, "direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. methane is 23 times more powerful than carvon dioxide as a global warming gas." Lord Stern, a former chief economist of the World Bank and now I.G. Patel Professor of Economics at the London School of Economics. He said that, "meat is a wasteful use o water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the worlds resources. A vegetarian diet is better." Ofcourse I completely agree with this but my meat eating source thinks that, "Is it fair for the UN to ask us to stop eating meat when it's happy to encourage the industries of countries such as China (the world's biggest emitter of CO2 from power generation) without making serious efforts to control their greenhouse gas production. And let's not forget the USA (the biggest CO2 producer per capita) who still have not ratified the Kyoto agreement." This is yet another argument, the government are starting off small, and starting with restricting the UK's populations dietary habits but isn't concentrating or trying to change the larger picture and massive corporations. should the restrictions start with the entire population or with large companies distributing more green house gases than individual people?

After talking this over with a few people I have found that the main question is that, "what happens to the cows we are not eating?" I don't have the answer to this but some possibilities could be: phase them out, simply don't impregnate cows anymore, thus when they die of old age after a few years we will have none left, another possibility is that they simply have a mass murder of the 1.4 billion cows on the planet. Another little note that doesn't make this idea logical is that we still need cows to produce milk. The government won't be asking the whole of the UK to become vegetarians but vegans instead. Milk from cows produces pasta, yoghurts, creams, cheese and ice-cream! a world without ice-cream? What are we going to eat when it becomes 5 degrees hotter each year due to the greenhouse gases?

Another advantage for cutting out the meat is that it takes 20.9 square meters of land to produce 1kg or beef whereas it is only 1.3 square meters for vegetables. This massive land reduction would mean there being a LOT more food for everyone. Livestock takes up 67% of agricultural land, if replaced with vegetables, not only would every bit of the land be used but there would be over double the amount of vegetables, the UK would become healthier and obesity wouldnt be as much a problem as it is now.

Another question to be asked is, becoming vegetarian buts out chicken, duck, game, fish etc, does this mean that the population wouldn't be able to eat this either or if they would be allowed and not strictly vegetarians. we would get a build up of the animals not being eaten. Would there be a mass slaughter of them too?

For countries such as India, becoming vegetarian wouldn't be too much of a problem. India's vegetarian population is 399 millions, 40 % of the country whereas the UK's population is 3.7 million, 6% of the population. This leaves 94% of the population as meat eaters, people that the government would have to stop letting eat meat. Other countries such as France have even more of the population to turn vegetarians, with only a vegetarian population of 1.2 million, less than 2%.

My personal reason for becoming a vegetarian is that the way that the animals are looked after and killed. My reason is within the top 38% of peoples reasons. Other reasons include: don't morally or spiritually approve of killing animals for food, 35%, concern over the environment, 11%, health reasons, 8%, religion, 5% and other reasons stand at 3% of the populations reasoning. When I first saw pictures and youtube videos as to how animals were looked after, is what made me more aware and made me become completely certain that I don't want any part in the inhumane lives of animals.

I leave it up you, my reader to have your own opinion on this matter, myself however, shall wait and see what the government chooses to do next; and if it will actually work, or if it is too simple an answer to a very large problem.

A strong advert for becoming a vegetarian, a youtube video for KFC chicken abuse - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVxv7PPGZqg

Happy 40th Birthday Internet

Happy Birthday Internet, 40 years is a long time.  A lot can happen in 40 years.  We have been ruled under a woman, had a princess die and entered a war. 

If the Internet ever stops working or I'm offline for a couple of days I panic about my email or just general missing out on the latest gossip from my friends or around the world. I don't have a clue what I would do without the usual suspects: Facebook, Twitter, Hotmail etc. Even the people that were around before the Internet wonder what they'd do without it now.  The oldest tweeter has been named, by the Guardian as Ivy Bean at 104.

When it was first invented it was only meant for Academic Researchers.  Nobody knew how many people would use it world-wide, or how useful it would be to Academic Researchers and school pupils alike.  Since I can remember there was a computer in my living room or going to play round a friends and playing weird games on the Internet.

Now, as I have got older I use the Internet for more useful, educational reasons.  Such as: blogging, tweeting, reading, finding information and shopping. The Guardian says, "the first blogger may never be identified for sure, but the most likely candidate is American freelance journalist Justin Hall, who began blogging in 1994." Visit his basic blog at - www.links.net 

As time goes by and the Internet has more and more websites, Facebook has more and more followers and there are becoming more and more tweets on Twitter, I wonder what it will look like in the next 40 years.  I'll be 59 and entering my retirement years, but will I still be tweeting or will there be a new form of communication between people. Roaring, barking or cooing for example? Or will I even be writing on a keyboard anymore? Will I simply say something into a microphone and it will get sent to whomever I choose? Time moves fast in the way of technology, but how much further can it change the way we live our lives?

Journalism Law; Points to Consider ...

I really enjoyed today's class on Qualified Privilege. It was an insight into the world of Journalism and what one can get away with and what one cannot. I found particularly interesting the actual cases which bought about change in the law system and the cases that normally, you would think would win but actually didn't.

I am going to start with a little dictionary of words and definitions. I think that these will come in handy for future reference when revising.

Affidavit = A sworn statement that is prepared to be said in court and may be cross examined. It can be done by a solicitor for about £30 or free by a magistrate. The magistrates call it a witness statement form. An affidavit can be reported on, word for word but cannot be sued for defamation or malice.

Subterfuge = Used in investigative journalism. This can only be done in a public area; no spying on people in their bedrooms. You also have to have permission from Ofcom and your editor, however newspapers don’t need any permission.

Trawling = listening in on people to try and catch a good story. Not allowed to do this, it's very bad! The News of the World were accused of doing this I think.

The cases mentioned that I found interesting were: Toogood vs Spyring, the Clegg Case and Albert Reynolds vs The Sunday Times.

These are all cases that when they got to court, the defamed didn't win. This site was quite interesting to skim read for a bit. It's about Nineteenth Century defamation and if it was a law of press. It's not too related to the class we had this morning but is quite interesting to read. Some good points on defamation too.

http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/10065/1785/1/amicus75_mitchell.pdf.pdf

My Last point that I found very interesting and of which I am going to try and make sure I accomplish before I finish any article is the ten point list that came about after the case; Albert Reynolds vs The Sunday Times.

The Ten Point List

1) It must be a serious matter. The more serious the matter, the more protection.

2) The nature of the information. If it is likely to have been said in court but not malicious. It can, however be defamatory.

3) The source of the information has to be solid. Not any friends or drunken pub goers.

4) It must be shown that you have taken independent steps to check and disprove your statement.

5) The status of the information. It cannot be an old allegation that had previously been denied.

6) The urgency of the matter. It should be printed straight away. Not kept for a slow news day, if it is that important and urgent it should be printed straight away.

7) Whether the article shows the summary of the final phone call. Whether the defendant has had their chance to refute the points.

8)Whether the article contains the points refuted from the defendant.

9) The tone of the article.

10) The circumstances of the publication. It should be printed as soon as possible if the circumstances are in the interest of the public. They should know straight away.

This is just an overview of the ten points, Chris Horrie goes into further detail on the core site. http://journalism.winchester.ac.uk/?page=228

I also look forward to looking through the cases of the people in jail for life. I very much like the idea of being able to get someone out of prison due to faked evidence or the police using them as a scapegoat. Even though I think this sounds awesome and would love to be able to do it, I have no doubt that I will probably just be going over evidence and cases of people that deserve to be in prison and for good reason. Maybe one day I'll save someone from a lethal injection ...

Site recommended by Chris,
Transparency International. http://www.transparency.org.uk/

Rape: Is She to Blame?

After reading last months Cosmopolitan I became very angry over one article I read. It was titled, 'The police didnt believe I was raped - because I was drunk.'

It later went on to say that in many cases, victim vs attacker, they almost always told the victim that there was no point in going to court because there was nothing they could do. It was her word against his. I am very strong on the view point that as soon as a person calls it rape, it is in fact rape. There are no ums-and-ers, it is a fact, she has been raped. One account from a 32 year old woman, Danielle discovered that she had been raped after a night out with her friends. The doctors and police agreed that she had been drug-raped which accounted for her blackouts and her occasional flash backs of the night. She remembered, "someone touching me , while I said, 'No', sobbing uncontrollably."

Because Danielle couldnt remember consenting, and the fact that her attacker had told an officer working on her case that it was her idea to have sex, and that she said that she did that kind of thing all time; was what caused the officers working on her case to dismiss it as consented sex and now rape, and believed the rapist over the victim. This made me feel ill. In my opinion, if Danielle said she had been raped, she had been raped.

It doesnt matter whether she was drunk, or flirted or wore provocative clothing. A woman has the choice to wear what she wants and talk to whomever she wants. A woman also has the choice to decide whether or not to have sex and if she doesn't consent and the man takes action anyway, this is rape. Plain and simple. There have been other stories in news papers with headlines such as, "Juries reject rape claims if the woman was drunk," and "Why a drunk woman may not be able to claim rape." These headlines are unjust, Danielle's case shows that she was drugged to be raped, others have their drinks spiked with any concoction of drugs to then become raped. Whether she was drinking or not shouldn't matter. This also makes the case that should a woman not drink on a night out encase she gets raped but can't claim it if she had been drinking? When womens rights are starting to become more and more equal with mens should we take a stepback and say never drink on a night out encase you are raped? When men can drink as much as they like?

Other news papers have also said that if the woman is wearing tight jeans that it cannot be rape as she would have to have pulled her jeans down and thus causing her to consent. This is completely wrong and sending out all the wrong messages to judges and juries. If a rapist can take the time to push a woman to the floor, overpower her and rape her, then in my opinion he can be bothered to spend an extra 30 seconds pulling down her tight jeans; or just ripping them.

One case near to where I live had a man rape a girl, take her clothes and left her hiding, crying, freezing cold over night in a bush to be found the next day. If this man can do this to another human being im sure he isnt going to think twice about what she was wearing.

Other reports are that if a woman flirts or wears provocative clothing that she is more likely to be raped. That she deserves it and is just seducing the men with her clothing. Again I completely disagree. Women can and should wear whatever they like. It is a way of expressing who she is and what she is about. If a woman went out without a bra and a tank top, does that automatically mean that she is wearing a sandwich board crying out, 'come rape me'? No ofcourse it doesn't so why should this stand up in court as a reason the man raped her? These are all reasons, that papers have fuelled, that are keeping rapsits out of prison and free to commit more crimes, get away with it once, more than likely to do it again in my view.

They say that more often than not is someone that you know who rapes you. Not a stranger at all, however it is only these cases that really only ever get heard. In the News of the World on the 11th October the front page headline was, 'Sheryl Gazza forced me to have sex.' The story then continued to pages 4 and 5, where another headline read, 'Gazza wanted sex 10 times a day...even if i said NO.' Sheryl said in the report that she wouldnt call it rape, as she consented at other times to sex but looking back it was a form of sexual abuse. This is another point that stands up in court and gets the rapist off of jail time.

If a person is in a long term relationship with someone, if they don't consent to sex, is it rape? My opinion flickers on this point. With the Story from the News of the World I would have to say that i do think that it is rape as she didnt consent. I would also say that if a woman doesn't consent in a short term relationship it is still rape. However I know that there are some women out there that will have a relationship with a man for who-knows how long but if it finished sourly, they cry rape, thus getting revenge upon their ex. It is for this reason that juries, judges, news papers even doubt the victim in the first place. These very few women that cry rape just as the little boy called wolf, is the reason that make people doubt victims and that helping rapists get-off scott free.

At the end of the day I will always be on the side of the woman. There is no reason for a woman to be raped, none at all. There are accusations that pose the woman as a liar and that she is just trying to bring down the man but I believe that this is in no way true, until completely proven with major evidence, I will always side with the woman. I will always believe the woman over the man and not ever will I blame the woman.

Eillen Maitland of Rape Crisis Scotland created some eye-catching posters, and an awesome website, check it out, www.thisisnotaninvitationtorapeme.co.uk

Seminar Speech, 6/10/09

Hey guys, I let my seminar group know, but for everyone else, here is my seminar speech. It's just my interesting points about Bertrand Russell's book, book 3, chapters 1 - 9.

Before reading Bertrand Russell’s book, the ‘History of Western Philosophy’ I only really knew of Plato, Galileo and Newton. However after reading I’ve found that there are many other philosophers and scientists that contributed just as much to science and the Renaissance as the philosophers I had heard of.

Today I am going to talk about the scientists and philosophers from the book that I found the most interesting and that I think contributed the most to the knowledge of science and philosophy.

I thought that I would start at the beginning with Copernicus. Many theories Russell wrote about in the book are based upon Copernicus’s theory. Russell also puts Copernicus in with the list of his opinion of ‘the four great men in the creation of Science’ the list also included; Kepler, Galileo and Newton.

Copernicus was Polish but had visited Italy in his youth. Russell says that the renaissance in Italy managed to ‘rub off’ on him. He studied mathematics in Rome for three years, this would eventually pay off when he started to study Astronomy. Russell says that ‘Like Copernicus’s great successors he possessed both merits.’ The merits were, one, immense patience in observation and two, great boldness in framing hypothesis.

Copernicus believed that the sun was in the centre of our universe and that the earth had two motions. A diurnal rotation, which is the rotation of the earth on its axis causing us to experience one day. The other motion was an annual revolution about the sun. This causes us to experience one year. Russell says that the reason for Copernicus deferring his publication of his book, De Revoloutionibus Orbium Coelestium to after his death was because of his fear of ecclesiastical censure. Copernicus dedicated his book to the Pope which could have been one reason for it escaping Catholic condemnation until the time of Galileo.

Many astronomers rejected this theory. Luther and Calvin also rejected his theory and accused Copernicus of going against God. The book was published in 1954, during this time people still believed vehemently that the Bible was fact and that anyone who believed Copernicus’s theory then chose to believe it over the Holy Spirit. However we know now that Copernicus’s theory was true and that the earth does rotate on it axis and round the sun. It is for this reason that I chose to include him in my interesting points about Bertrand Russell’s book. Not only was he completely right in his findings but he also wanted to make sure that it got read and that it wasn’t condemned by the church.

Galileo was an Italian physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher. Many hail him as the father of science. Stephen Hawking also says that, ‘Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science.’

Galileo was also a supporter of Copernicanism, showing that he didn’t follow the crowd and was ready to accept ideas and theories that didn’t base God at the power of everything. Galileo had many theories but I found the most interesting one to be the theory off acceleration or the law of inertia. Newton also enunciated it as ‘the first law of motion.’ Not only did it prove Copernicus’s theory of the earth rotating on its axis as well as around the sun but it also explained the law of falling bodies.

This law says that, ‘when a body is falling freely, its acceleration is constant, except in so far as the resistance of the air may interfere. Galileo also explains that the acceleration is the same for all bodies, whether heavy or light.’ Galileo couldn’t prove this however until 1654 when the air pump was invented. Galileo’s second law was that of the parallelogram law. This law was applied to forces, to discover the separate laws of the several forces to which moving bodies are subject. This was fundamental to science and later led Newton to his theory of universal gravitation. Both these laws presented by Galileo were Newton’s starting point.

Newton also used Kepler’s findings that every planet, at every moment, has acceleration towards the sun, which varies inversely as the square distance from the sun. Newton proved Kepler’s three laws of motion after the telescope was invented. Newton enunciated his law of universal gravitation: ‘Everybody attracts every other with a force directly proportional to the square of the distance between them.’ I have included Newton because I believe he is not only interesting in Bertrand Russell’s book, but also because I believe that he is a very important man of science. Newton’s theory of universal gravitation allowed many scientists to discover a lot more about the world we live in and the universe we are situated in.

Francis Bacon's aphorism, ‘for also knowledge itself is power,’ now commonly known as ‘Knowledge is power’ led me to include Bacon into my interesting points of Russell’s book. It is a saying that I have heard many times but have not known who said it or why. Bacon wrote the book, The Advancement of Learning, where the statement originated from. I find that this statement is very true and believe that it very useful in modern times as well as when Bacon published it in 1597. I interpret the saying as being that the more you know about literature, people, media, etc, the more power you have over all. Rupert Murdoch, for example, being all knowledgeable of news, media and knowing what his audience wants he has more and more power, and money. He bought Myspace in July 2005 for 580 million dollars, a year later in June; it was announced as the most popular social networking site. Thus meaning that Rupert Murdoch knows what will earn him money and takes it giving him more power.

Lastly I found Rene Descartes interesting too. His whole theory and experiment about who he is and what controls him led him to say, ‘I think, therefore I am.’ This is very conclusive to his experiment and very matter-of-fact. Russell states that the saying is known as Descartes’ cogito, and the process by which it is reached is called ‘Cartesian doubt.’ I agree with the statement. I think with my brain, my brain makes my hand move, makes my mouth speak and allows me to remember memories, thoughts and opinions. I do believe that therefore I am alive and that I control myself.

I hope that you liked my points of interest on Bertrand Russell’s, ‘History of Western Philosophy’.

Tsunami's and Tectonic Plates

On Tuesday 29th September a tsunami hit Samoa, home to 65,000 people. 

The magnitude of the earthquake that resulted in the Samoan tsunami was between 8 and 8.3, the Telegraph reported. The epicentre was just off of Samoa and Tonga, both very small islands. The Sun reported that after 3 and half hours it would hit Hawaii, after 6 hours the East coast of Australia and after 9 hours the West Coast of America. This was one tsunami that to this moment I am writing has killed 145 people and is still on the rise as they pull 'bloated corpses' from the ocean. There have been nearly 20 villages completely flattened, the Telegraph reported.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/samoa/6253376/Samoa-tsunami-rescue-workers-begin-to-give-up-hope-of-finding-more-survivors.html

On the same day Sumatra felt the huge tremors of the earthquake that caused the Samoa tsunami. On Wednesday the 1st October another earthquake hit an all ready devastated Sumatra. Hitting the richter scale at 6.9. At the moment it is confirmed that 1,300 people have died in Sumatra. About 3,000 more people have been confirmed as missing in the rubble too.

After these quakes, are we to expect more? The countries affected don't have much in way of possessions and buildings, their homes have been completely flattened by the huge change in the tectonic plates below them; and now many of them are homeless and without family members.

All together there are just under 1,500 people dead, more to be expected as they are pulled from the rubble and the sea. This also reminds me of the boxing day disaster that hit Thailand in 2004. It killed 230,000 people, some of which were in Africa, 5,000 miles away from the epicentre. It reached a 9.3 on the richter scale and was recorded as the 'single most devastating tsunami in history.'

We live in this world where there are constant worries of tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes, the fear is however that they are getting worse and proving to be happening a lot more. The two earthquakes in Samoa and Sumatra were within 28 hours of each other, for example. No one had any warning either. The weather systems in America are trying to improve to give their people more of a chance or survival, but the LEDC's don't have any warning at all. One person who gave a first hand report said only that they heard on the radio only an hour before the tsunami was due to strike, how far could anyone get in an hour from a tsunami racing towards them at a rate miles an hour?