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Jacqui Smith banned radio talker, he sued, now she's stepping down

Posted: June 02, 2009
12:46 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

In the wake of scandal over personal use of taxpayer funds and her controversial ban of talk-radio host Michael Savage, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will resign, according to the London Telegraph.

Smith has indicated she will step down when Prime Minister Gordon Brown reshuffles his Cabinet after this week's local and European elections, the British paper said today.

The Telegraph noted Smith faced humiliation over her husband's submission of a receipt to the House of Commons for watching adult films. She also claimed her family home as a second home under the Parliament members' allowances plan while staying with her sister in London. In addition, she allegedly charged a number of personal items as office expenses.

But on a BBC radio program today featuring Savage, a barrage of callers reflected public anger over Smith's surprising decision last month to ban the popular American talk host from entry into the United Kingdom along with murderers and terrorists.

Savage said the morning show had planned to take callers for only five minutes, but the segment went on for 30 minutes as phone lines lit up. Callers included a Muslim who said he was opposed to Smith's ban of Savage.

Don't be silent! Sign the petition to block government attacks on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.

As WND reported, the talk host hired lawyers in London last month to issue a defamation complaint against Smith.

The official complaint arrived at the home secretary's office yesterday.

A spokesman said Smith would not back down.

"As the home secretary has already said, [Savage] was excluded for engaging in unacceptable behaviour by making comments that might provoke others to serious criminal acts and foster hatred that might lead to inter-community violence," he said.

Any legal proceedings "would be robustly defended," the spokesman asserted.

"We stand by our decision to exclude this individual," he said. "Coming to the U.K. is a privilege that we refuse to extend to those who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life."

Smith is one of numerous Parliament members embroiled in the expense scandal. Three other MPs in her Labour Party also announced today they will resign at the next election.

Smith contended upon announcing the ban of Savage May 5 that the talk host was "someone who has fallen into the category of fomenting hatred, of such extreme views and expressing them in such a way that it is actually likely to cause inter-community tension or even violence if that person were allowed into the country."

Savage also has sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, asking that she call on the British government to withdraw the ban.

The complaint against Smith notes the home secretary's office said in a press release that the "controversial daily radio host" is "considered to be engaging in unacceptable behavior by seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred which might lead to inter-community violence."

The allegations are "entirely false," the complaint asserts.

"At no time has our client provoked or sought to provoke others to commit crimes or serious criminal acts."

Savage hosts the nation's third most popular radio talk show in the U.S., with an estimated 8 million listeners a week on about 400 stations, according to his syndicator, the Talk Radio Network.

Savage told WND after the ban was announced last month that his message for Smith and the people of the U.K. was, "Shame on you. Shame that you've fallen to such a low level."

"It's interesting to me that here I am a talk show host, who does not advocate violence, who advocates patriotic traditional values – borders, language, culture – who is now on a list banned in England," Savage said. "What does that say about the government of England? It says more about them than it says about me."

The U.K. list also includes Hamas leader Yunis Al-Astal, former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard Stephen Donald Black, neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe and radical American pastor Fred Phelps, known for his virulent anti-gay protests at funerals. Phelps' daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper also is on the list.

On his website, Savage is appealing to his listeners to contribute his legal fund, which he has used for various efforts, including a lawsuit last year against the Council on American-Islamic Relations for waging a boycott using excerpts of his copyrighted remarks. In the case of Savage's U.K. ban, however, CAIR has sided with Savage, arguing "freedom of speech is a two-way street."

news source:worldnetdaily

By Claire Bates
Last updated at 1:38 PM on 25th May 2009

Medieval fishermen first went to sea 1,000 years ago because of a steep decline in freshwater fish, according to scientists.

Researchers from Cambridge and York University studied and dated fish bones found in archaeological sites around the north-western part of Europe and compared historical records.

They found there were fewer species of freshwater fish, which became smaller over time. Both over-fishing and pollution are thought to be to blame for the decline which caused a major change in the diet of our ancestors.

One of the earliest depictions of trawling from the 5th century, Tunisia. Historical records reveal how fishing has changed over time

'At the end of the first millennium AD there is this wholesale shift in emphasis from reliance on freshwater fish towards marine species,' study co-author Dr Barrett told the BBC.

'It is not rocket science, it is just literally looking at the proportion of species that are obligatory freshwater ones, such as pike... and which ones are obligatory sea fish, such as cod and herring.'

The study forms just one part of a huge international project that will be discussed at the Census of Marine Life (CoML) conference in Canada this week.The project called 'History of Marine Animal Populations', aims to look at the diversity and distribution of marine animals in the past and present and the implications this could have in the future.
Trophy fish caught in 1958 (above) are far bigger than those caught in 2007 (below)

Another paper from the University of Bologna has revealed that new fishing boats and equipment invented in the 1500s then allowed Europeans to venture from coastal to deep sea fishing.

However study author Maria Lucia De Nicolo said that the biggest fishing revolution happened in the mid-1600s when pairs of boats began dragging a net.

Diverse sources have been used by census researchers including old ship logs, tax accounts and literary texts.

They reveal that large pods of blue whales and orcas, blue sharks and thresher sharks darkened the waters off Cornwall in the 1800s, while herds of harbour porpoise pursued fish upriver.

Processing of a right whale in 1887. There were 30 times as many whales off New Zealand in the 1800s than today

At the same time oil hunters in New Zealand decimated the southern right whales off its coast which once teemed with 27,000 creatures - 30 times as many as today.

One novel technique used by American researchers compared mounted trophies from sport fishermen between 1956 to 2007 in the Key West area of Florida.

They found the average fish size shrank from 20kg to 2.3kg and sharks and predatory fish were replaced by small snappers.

Chair of the Census Scientific Steering Committee Ian Poiner said: 'When it comes to marine life, we're only just starting to realise what the planet once had.

'The insights emerging from this research of the past provide a new context for contemporary ocean management. Understanding the magnitude and drivers of change long ago is essential to accurately interpret today's trends and to make future projections.'

News source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Britain's Got Talent runner-up Susan Boyle is paying the price for instant fame - and we should look to ourselves for the culprits

Who feels ashamed? Who wants a de-tox? Who's ready for a Campaign for Real Life?

When Susan Boyle first took part in Britain's Got Talent, she became an international sensation overnight. Tens of millions of people have watched her on YouTube (apparently more than watched Obama's inauguration). She has been invited on to the Larry King and the Oprah Winfrey shows. Paparazzi have camped outside her door. There are thousands of articles, tens of thousands of blogs about her. There's a Susan Boyle fan site. You can buy a Susan Boyle T-shirt.

She's now known as SuBo (every celebrity has to have a logo). She seemed a symbol of authenticity – in a world obsessed with appearance, here was a 47-year-old woman who wasn't pretty, wasn't skinny, wasn't groomed and glossed and highlighted and buffed and plucked and tweaked and manicured and waxed and styled, but who seemed ''real''. She walked out on stage, opened her mouth and – my God, how astonishing – this woman had a nice voice. The judges looked taken aback and moved, the audience became hushed.

I watched Susan Boyle on YouTube and afterwards I dearly wished I hadn't – not just because of the sheer humiliating ugliness of a spectacle where celebrity judges patronised a dumpy, unmarried, middle-aged woman, where the audience tittered and gave derisive wolf-whistles and where she compliantly wiggled her hips while everyone seemed shocked and delighted and a bit embarrassed that even the unbeautiful can have talent, but because from the very start it was so obviously a fake, a set up. The ''surprise'' – that someone looking like her – could win was just another clever construct. Those gasps of theatrical delight and surprise and those crocodile tears were just part of the show. This is not real life, this is a drama – a nasty, demeaning drama, with a vulnerable, unprepared, star-struck woman at its centre and media-savvy judges licking their lips on the sidelines.

People call reality television and the cult of celebrity just good harmless fun. This wasn't harmless. I never saw anything else of Susan Boyle, though I did manage by some mysterious osmosis to pick up several facts about her. She was deprived of oxygen at birth and so suffered from learning difficulties, she was bullied at school, she was a virgin who had never been kissed, she had looked after her mother for most of her life, she had a cat. All of these facts served the narrative that we were being spoon-fed and were gobbling up: that she was Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty; that the poor may inherit the earth, and that dreams may come true.

And because we live in an age of extreme volatility, sentimentality and instant gratification, it was no surprise that the hapless woman who was one day an inspiration to all of us ordinary people had to be taken down a peg or hundreds. Sentimentality can quickly turn to viciousness and anger. So, she swore! She wasn't the greatest singer in the world after all! In the weeks between her initial triumph and coming second place in Saturday's final, she was praised, pilloried, mocked, adored, demeaned, dismissed and never left alone. She had what so many crave: fame. Beware what you wish for.

It probably wasn't in the script that she should come second – although even that made a kind of sense, because she had already had the world-wide celebrity after her first victory. In the public mind, there was nothing else to be got from her and her story was over. And it wasn't in the script either that, after she had left the show, graciously praising the winners, she returned to her hotel where she was found suffering from what is being called ''exhaustion'' and was admitted to hospital where you can be fairly sure that she will not be left in peace.

However, even this small human tragedy can be easily turned by those so adept in the manipulation of individual stories to fit the required narrative. In fact, it makes it even more gripping. Yes, she collapsed under the pressure, an ordinary woman battling her way heroically in an extraordinary world, but you can be pretty sure that soon, brave Susan will be back – and just in time for her album and autobiography (released before Christmas).

And after that, we will all forget about her. Our attention will move elsewhere. She will be yesterday's story – a barely remembered casualty devoured and spat out by our celebrity-addicted age.

However, it is not just Susan Boyle (and all the Susan Boyles who have been before her and all of those who will follow after) who are damaged by such ugly episodes, but all of us. Freud should be alive now, to see us living in this pseudo-therapeutic nightmare, where reason, politics and old-fashioned privacy have been drowned out by a poisoned language of feeling, instinct, empathy and pity.

On a show like Britain's Got Talent, it's actually nowhere near enough to have talent; you have to have a story. You have to be on a journey. You have to have suffered (suffering makes you heroic) and you have to be redeemed (redemption gives you that essential happy ending). You have to be able to cry and to make others cry. Oh that lovely, lovely feeling of woolly, hazy, weepy emotion, of happy-sadness, when you don't actually have to do anything to feel good about yourself – you just have to watch a frumpy spinster with imperfect teeth and wild hair singing ''I Dreamed a Dream'' and all those warm feelings will well up in you.

It is not just reality television that feeds our narcissism and sentimentality. Even documentaries have to have a journey now: you can't just explore a country, you have to explore yourself as well. You have to arrive somewhere. Self-esteem. Growth. Heartbreak. Hope. Redemption. Faith. Courage. Closure.

When Gordon Brown heard about Susan Boyle's collapse, he phoned the judges of Britain's Got Talent and spoke to Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell to make sure that she was all right (''she is a really nice person and I think she will do well'').

That's very reassuring. But he would have been attacked for being unfeeling if he hadn't. It seems impossible for politicians not to get sucked in to the mob hysteria of a cultural event. William Hague's defining political failure came with his inadequately emotional response to the death of Diana, which showed that he lacked the common touch, whereas Blair leapt ahead in popularity by talking in a quavering voice about the ''people's princess''. Politics – which should be about reason, ethics, debate and results – has been dragged into the swamp of emotions.

These dreams that come true on our television screens are false dreams which feed unreal hopes. Achievement is not a gift bestowed on us by the fairy godmother of celebrity. It is the eventual, partial reaping of what you have painstakingly sowed and nurtured. It requires hard work, patience, endurance, the ability to fail and keep on going.

Happiness doesn't come in the slip-stream of instant fame. There are no magic wands in life, and the story of Susan Boyle, which was sold to us as a fairytale come true, now reads like a lesson in sadness and shame. Her sadness and our shame.

news source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/