[dimtimjim]

Been looking through the current controversy regarding the Daily Mail online. I can't believe some of the photos they are posting of very young girls wearing next to nothing. How do they get away with it?

He says, with a hand full of Kleenex...

[The Deadly]

I'm not a pedophile thanks. Are you suggesting I masturbate to photos of 12 year old girls in swimwear? I don't care if you're trying to be funny either so don't try the "I was only joking" line. I don't joke about pedophilia nor do most normal people.

[Chris]

I'm sure he meant to wipe away the tears, as you were obviously upset by it.

Right?

[The Deadly]

Whatever.

[Topher]

Been looking through the current controversy regarding the Daily Mail online. I can't believe some of the photos they are posting of very young girls wearing next to nothing. How do they get away with it?

Because they are a large and powerful organisation who can smear anyone who tries to point out their flaws.

This is not a new thing Deadly, it's just that people like Billy Bragg are using their platform to highlight this particular hypocrisy (gawd knows there are so many more). There's also a Change.org petition created by Owen Jones (who I WISH would go into politics) here.

Deadly - I know you're a Tory, so you probably have a particular aversion to publications like The New Statesman, but you (and others) should really read this, written in 2012 by Martin Robbins.

[chrysostom]

Owen Jones (who I WISH would go into politics)

Sorry to spew negativity your way twice in successive posts, but this would be the worst thing ever. His rhetoric is so aggressive, manipulative and at times devoid of fact in order to push his extremist agenda while failing to find common ground that...wait, he probably would be good in politics then.

p.s. In an unrelated grump, this is the kind of thing that makes me hate online petitions. Large groups of well meaning people, ultimately subscribing their support to poorly thought out initiatives, which usually are worded/presented in such ways that they could never happen.

p.p.s. sorry, I'm hungover and grumpy.

[Topher]

I see you've added another couple of links since I last read this... I'll try to do some proper research on this later, but my initial assessment of that Adam Smith think tank is that it claims to be non-partisan, but is clearly quite right-leaning and therefore not going to like him very much.

[chrysostom]

Hah, I sneakily changed that one to a link to the BackBencher (one that's better written and much less aggressive).

[R94N]

There's such a massive awareness online of how evil the Daily Mail is and how it constantly lies (including claims of interviewing people and using quotes when they didn't even contact them) sensationalises and takes things out of context, and it is all of course justified, but I can't understand how despite this the paper remains so influential. I suppose most of their readers must be 50+ and not particularly online much. Although there are a lot of people my age that I have seen reading the online site at school etc for their fantastic hard-hitting celebrity pieces which are mostly photos and three lines of text, so I suppose they have some influence there with the celebrity distractions. Maybe the constant furore and outrage actually continues to make them popular and well-read? I don't know.

[chrysostom]

I think you're projecting your social experiences onto your expectation of the population.

The site is hugely popular with all ages, internationally and especially with females (who are the key demographic) - just perhaps not the type you may interact with.

They have so much influence because their strategy is bang on target for what they want to do, provide the passive majority with what they want to read, and profit from it. A LOT of people only want to read someone reaffirming their own views.

[dimtimjim]

people only want to read someone reaffirming their own views.

I agree with Andy.

[JayE]

My apple earphones I got for Christmas just stopped working in one of the earpieces!

This really annoys me when this happens but this time I'm even more annoyed because these earphones are not cheap!!!!!!

Useless pieces of crap. Have to listen to stuff on my through speakers now till I get a new pair of earphones

[Topher]

Why do you need Apple branded ones?

[JayE]

I never said I did.

[bmstinton93]

I actually detest Apple's headphones. You can get much better for much cheaper.

[Bruvva]

I actually detest Apple's products. You can get much better for much cheaper.

Fixed that for you.

[bmstinton93]

I would agree, although I do much prefer the Ipad to any other tablet out there, simply for ease of use for what I need it for.

Edit: And iTunes can't be beaten for me either actually.

[JayE]

Apple products are great, besides their crappy earphones of course.

[Topher]

Edit: And iTunes can't be beaten for me either actually.

For what? In terms of storing music, why do you need anything other than your favourite OS shell? For playing, I find VLC far better than most things including iTunes, which is a huge memory hog (or was last time I used it on Windows).

[bmstinton93]

Ease of use mainly, easy to sort all the info out, easy to sort album art and make it all look really good, and handles most types of files.

[JayE]

We've reached the "each to their own" territory.

[bmstinton93]

Copyright JayE. 2013

[The Deadly]

We've reached the "each to their own" territory.

Is there any other territory?

[Nicola_Red]

MediaMonkey all the way for me. I do only use one certain type of earphones though, but only cos they're the only ones that fit in my strangely shaped ears. I have to order them from amazon.

[dimtimjim]

I always use Sony bass-xpand in-ear 'bud' earphones... top quality sound and comfy to wear.