Are we all really as dim as the media seems to think?
My opinions in Attitudes & Opinions.

www.kingofhits.co.uk/content/view/713/37/

What was your response to the moronic "Bacon causes cancer" headline?

A more trivial issue but a symptomatic response.

I ate some more bacon - and a few days later, a sausage.
I automatically go the other way to the news headlines.

You are totally right JK. Prisons have never been the answer to crime. They are only useful for protecting the public from those who pose a genuine threat. Nobody really benefits from their time inside, and consequently neither do the public.

I'm very disappointed with David Cameron who has jumped on totally the wrong wagon, demanding we build more prisons and making such a fuss about the early release of "sex offenders" and "terrorists", each of who were to be released soon anyway. To be classed as a 'sex offender' you only need to have a photo of your own baby in the bath. Not all are serial rapsists, and apparently these two in the headlines were in for very monor offences. The 'terrorist' was jailed for posession of a blueprint which could aid terrorist - not for actually being a terrorist. The headlines, and politicians, are totally misleading.

As for sausage and bacon. I love them both and shall continue to eat them heartily - as did generations of healthy, long living, people before me.

On the misleading media subject ... I saw a report on a large chunk of the antartic breaking off as a sign of the seriousness of global warming. Other scientists point to the fact that the volume of ice in the antartic has increased as temperatures are lower than they've been for many years - but the media ignore that story. Scaring the populace is much more fun.

JK2006 wrote:
I ate some more bacon - and a few days later, a sausage.
I automatically go the other way to the news headlines.
Why is automatically going the other way any less moronic than automatically going with the headlines?

On the misleading media subject ... I saw a report on a large chunk of the antartic breaking off as a sign of the seriousness of global warming. Other scientists point to the fact that the volume of ice in the antartic has increased as temperatures are lower than they've been for many years - but the media ignore that story. Scaring the populace is much more fun.
The thicker ice fits into the global warming model due to increased precipitation and had been expected/predicted.

The misleading element has come from people like the Heartland Institute (Global Warming is a conspiracy by the socialist UN to tax rich people apparently).

The climate change issue is an interesting case in point. Very often the media reports a "headline" with no depth or perspective.

The issue cannot be reduced to single sentence slogans and when it is all we get is misleading information.

Although how the average person could be able to keep reliably informed on several complex issues (Economics, prisons, nuclear power, etc) seems to me an impossibility.

Most certainly at our current level of education informed opinion for the average person simply isn't happening.

All too often the opinion is simple, plausible and wrong.

Considering people who believe nonsense like distant planets having an effect on their personality are given the vote it's no wonder we have the government and media we do.

Like everyone, when it really doesn't matter (media silly stories) I ignore and simply go with my instincts; when there seems solid medical or technical proof (less sugar) I obey (less fat) unless my taste buds say "Ignore" (less salt)...

JC wrote:
As for sausage and bacon. I love them both and shall continue to eat them heartily - as did generations of healthy, long living, people before me.

My granny had a diet which would make most nutritionalists have a heart attack !

Favourites included dripping sandwiches (sprinkled with salt), and pigs trotters, but her absolute fave was tripe !

zooloo wrote:
Considering people who believe nonsense like distant planets having an effect on their personality are given the vote it's no wonder we have the government and media we do.

Are you suggesting that the vote should only be given to people depending on their beliefs?
Or are you suggesting that the proportion of people who believe in planets having an effect on personality is large enough to decide which way an election swings?

Society's obsession with punishment clouds the reality of what prisons are supposed to do. These institutions are full of people from all walks of society and for a number of reasons. Yet only one system is used to supposedly rehabilitate every individual.

Is 22 year old mother-of-three, Candice, who hasn't paid her council tax, really on a par with 20 year old Jason who kicked and stamped on somebody for looking a bit different ?


Locking somebody up for a crime based on supposition and the chance of who the jury believes is foolhardy (and usually linked directly to how much emotional sympathy can be gathered)

"We haven't cured you but you've done your time"

You are correct in that there is a certain number of the population with a moran mentality and a former Aussie media baron ( now American) has made a fortune out of them.

I 've just finished reading Geoffrey Robertson QC's book about a lot of famous cases he worked on and in the days during dury challenges ( which has now changed) he always watched to see what newspaper a prospective jury member had under their arm, and sure enough, if they had that tabloid, he objected as he knew they always went into the jury room and said 'the blighter's guilty now let's get out of here and go home".

The disturbing thing is that government's are now actually taking notice of this small percentage of the nation who are not representative of the whole country and are continually bulied by a few newspapers who at most have readerships combined of-what-under 10 million at the most. Yet they make laws that seem to confirm to the Moran Morality !!

JC wrote:

Are you suggesting that the vote should only be given to people depending on their beliefs?
Or are you suggesting that the proportion of people who believe in planets having an effect on personality is large enough to decide which way an election swings?
To the first question, no... but only for the want of a reliable test.

Regarding people who insist on the Truth of horoscopes, that is an indicator of an inability to reason. To such a degree if the individual were capable of being aware they would be ashamed of themselves.