Obviously I need to step carefully with this post given that the parents of Madeline McCann find plenty of time in their search of their missing daughter to sue the pants off of anyone that can help fund their mortgage repayments, but I'm surprised at myself for not having yet made a posting about this couple. The reason for the posting is news that a set of papers are giving the McCann's over £500,000 in a libel settlement and apologising to them for what they've reported.

Now I would usually be the first to say that firstly the tabloids deserve all that they get on this sort of issue and that secondly it serves them right for being speculative rumour mills rather than reporters of the news. However, I have to wonder what exactly it is they are apologising for?

Luckily for now it's only in one newspaper, but the story is that some of the victims' families are doing what is only to be expected and calling for Steve Wright to be murdered by the state. I don't begrudge the families of murdered people the freedom to lose all sense of proportion and reason but I do wish that people wouldn't buy in to it so much.

I still will never understand, however, the hypocrisy of individuals that will watch a man be convicted of choosing to kill people without remorse, and then ask the state to do this to that man for them by proxy. Quite aside from insisting that "Government look at returning the death penalty", we should be insisting that any kind of lapse on the part of individuals to revert to more primal tendencies should be discouraged and not glorified, lest they give more people like Steve Wright the idea that they somehow have the right to do with another what they deem to be right.

OK, well there's no punchline, the story is an unbelievable enough tale of knee-jerk reactionism as it is. As it stands, I'm backing the bishop on this one. I don't totally agree with what The Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) said, but I do think that to claim he needs to resign, or that he was out of order for making such comments are ridiculous on two counts. The first is that this is thankfully a free country where a man can make a learned case for a new idea in intellectual company and shouldn't be criticised for doing so. The second is that the outrage largely seems to come from members of his Church that completely misunderstand how much of a subtle nudge this was for Christianity to be given more of it's own weight in deciding legal matters.

With it being talked about in the commons it is of course to be expected that video games and the massive corrupting influence they supposedly have on us all would start to be talked about more over the next few weeks and months, unfortunately it is a Liberal Democrat that appears to be the first to miss the point. It's not that I necessarily disagree with Andy's main sentiments that completely putting video games under the purview of the BBFC is necessarily a step in the wrong direction, but I can't actually see any evidence that it is a step in any direction at all.

Dave Hill, over at his blog, has written a very insightful piece that delves into the heart of the ambiguity over what we define as "patriotism". Stemming from the news that academics suggest we start taking a critical approach to the subject when taught in History lessons. The idea is, simply, that you have to show that Britains past is at times morally corrupt and therefore why simply teaching kids to "love Britain" is wrong. Dave ends his very personal thoughts by suggesting that because there is a complexity in the debate that it should be discussed at schools. I don't disagree, but I don't think that is where the academics are really coming from.

While I am on the theme already tonight of BBC shoddy reporting (seems to occur like buses) I also would like to highlight this article about birth rates in the UK and the contribution of immigrants to this. The BBC reports there has been a 77% increase in the birthrate of children to foreign born mothers. It is a shame that amongst all of this reporting, however, has been on the level of impact this increase has rather than why the impact is so much of a problem.

I have to ask though what the big deal is. Higher birth rate has to in turn convey some benefits to long term economy. It has long been said that younger populations help maintain a growth economy and higher birthrates are the only way to achieve this, in fact without migrants having babies we would be falling in to a predicted slump economically as our population grows older.

It was only three days ago that I discussed the recent news about electoral reform, the BBC's woefully inaccurate reporting of a document, and Michael Wills' statement to the effect of saying "we are happy to stay as we are". Now curiously there has been a separate news story surfacing today on the BBC website that pretty much breaks the same news again, but changes the way it is presented. Where has this come from?

My feelings on this remain the same, Michael Wills is a minister that doesn't bother to vote on parliamentary transparency yet has too loud a voice on this particular issue of the public/parliament relationship, and the whole statement is geared towards not implementing or properly discussing the necessary systems until after the next election. This is democracy at it's worst because the people are being denied a referendum on the issues on the basis of the current situation with the House of Lords, despite a referendum on the public's wishes not needing to be a promise to change straight away. What does the government have to lose by simply asking the people of Britain what they want, once and for all, to fully inform this debate they're supposedly so happy to have?

I'm trying something new here, not sure if it's going to work as well as intended but here it is. Read more for the transcript of this movie.

Over at "Obsolete" Septicisle makes a point that I hope more would make in the future about the syndrome of the "weeping widow" in the media.

now we have the widow of the brave have-a-go hero setting out a list of everything that she thinks is wrong with society, and everyone is expected to ably nod along, wring their hands, comment that it really is appalling, or demand instant ever more draconian crackdowns, usually for their own short-term political gain.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm not impugning on the right of those dealt the harshest blow that life can throw at them from pouring out their hearts at the injustice of it all; in fact, I'd encourage it. Better to let it out than to bottle it up.

Today (Friday) ended what will probably, or hopefully, be the biggest thing to happen on the politics of food since Jamies School Dinners finished airing the first time around. This time he wasn't the sole orchestrator but once again had his hands in, literally at times, making this issue of food quality apparent for all to see. Jamie's Fowl Dinners aired for an hour and a half and focused completely on the lives of chicken for both meat and egg production. Most of us watching had no doubt seen all the facts before about meat production but to add the facts about egg production was enlightening and essential to round off the picture about welfare of chicken in this country. Channel 4 also, surreptitiously, managed to kick start the next half of their "food fight" season with a short documentary that was, perhaps unintentionally, hilariously covering the lifestyles of "raw" diet eaters.