Blogger Humiliates Town Councillors Into Resigning 227
Dr_Barnowl writes "In an occurrence first postulated in sci-fi and later lampooned by stick figures, it seems that a blogger has actually been responsible for the mass resignation of elected officials — a British town council — largely by calling them 'jack***es' and Nazis. What's next? The deposition of a president with 'your mom' smacktalk?"
It finally happened! (Score:2)
Bloggers are taking over the world!
Let's just hope xkcd will be the new president.
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I'm going to kill Cory Doctorow right now. I know his chances of making it as Polemarch (or Archon or whatever, I can't be assed reading Ender's Game because I know the plot twist) are minimal but I can't take that chance.
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If you strike him down now he will just become more powerful.
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Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:5, Interesting)
You speculate incorrectly (Score:2)
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:4, Informative)
To be fair, looking at his blog (see here [blogspot.com]) he's not exactly clear about his allegations. Having read his droolings, I firmly believe that people would quit working for a council to avoid having to deal with that paranoid mental case.
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:5, Informative)
His concerns seem valid. There looks to be manipulation of the planning system for personal profit by a councillor who is also a property developer.
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Doesn't that happen on every council?
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because something is common doesn't mean it's right.
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree entirely. There's this meme going around that holds that if newspapers die, investigative journalism will vanish from the face of the earth. I think this case could well serve as a counter example.
Incidentally, is it me or is there a a strong subtext of "don't try this at home, kids!" to many of the posts on this topic? You'd almost think some people were worried in case this sort of grass roots political activism should catch on....
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Personally, I'd have thought that investigative journalism was where someone investigated something, and then wrote about it. I don't really see where international espionage like activities form a necessary part of that.
I take it you mean "there's no overlap at all with Reuters and AP, because they don't d
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Oh seriously, that's what they should expect when they are in government! Something tells me that they made the right move in resigning if they were all so thin-skinned...
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Having watched small town politics for a while, I think many people get elected filled with idealism and then quickly get disillusioned by how petty and nasty the politics can get. Imagine being put under a microscope where saying hello to a couple fellow board members at the only grocery store in town can become an illegal non-public session?
I'm not saying that local government is pure as driven snow. There's certainly plenty of sweetheart deals and backroom stuff. But from what I've seen, being in loca
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:5, Interesting)
The associated blog itself only hints at the underlying cause - it *appears* that a direct enquiry as to why the said council was not responding to requests under the Freedom of Information Act let to a mass "spontaneous" resignation. It all appeared to be quite an orchestrated circus, the mass walk-out that is, and so was probably foreseen by the said council members. Funny how they all had letters of resignation ready to submit.
Methinks they doth protest too much, and one anticipates exposure of earlier ill-deeds by some of the outgoing council, perhaps even legal actions.
Overall, kudos to the blogger for speaking truth to power - more evidence that the current "blogger's revolution" referenced recently here on slashdot will see our modern media overturned in short shrift.
And from the comments to the blog, it looks like it's riled up the peasants somewhat, and we'll see more citizen action in the near future. It's so heartening to see grass-roots action affecting real change.
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Funny how they all had letters of resignation ready to submit.
Yes, because it takes *weeks* to draft a resignation letter...
That said, if you are a public figure, making decisions on behalf of the public, you should expect criticism.
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Yes, because it takes *weeks* to draft a resignation letter...
It does take several minutes, at least, and requires a word processor and a printer. Again, it is funny how they all showed up to the meeting with resignation letters in their pockets.
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Yeah, before the C64, it was impossible for anyone to quit their job!
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:5, Informative)
You are correct, they resigned because of sustained pressure not just from this blogger but from local press and constituents (voters). They are just blaming the blogger to elect sympathy (no pun intended).
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to elect sympathy (no pun intended).
If you'd said 'elicit' there would've been no pun anyway...
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Oh, but if only the Australian New South Wales State government would do the same thing and resign as one in protest! Currently we have to wait for just under 2 years before they will be voted out.
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An answer to your title: Of course we can't; they're too hooked on the money they get from lobbyists and "special" interests. The money and congressional aids make it easier to ignore the citizens of the USA.
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Civil servants in the mother country have developed a disturbing sense of over entitlement to their positions and status. So no it wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear that a single blogger has been enough of pain for a couple of them enough to throw a hissy fit. In "nu england" where 1 in 4 workers are employed by the government a new class of individual has arisen: the over entitled, all powerful, low level, vindictive, civil servant.
The movie Brazil would have been better named "UK" because as the
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+1 Troll - classic mix of truth and rampant hyperbole.
Local councils have been given way more power than they need allowing them to spend money on total nonsense - but;
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I've heard of no councils that have reduced bin collection to every 2 weeks - only certain 'luxury pickups' like garden waste (leaves, hedge trimmings etc.) and certain recycling pickups; so definite citation needed here
Our bins (somewhere up north) alternate black one week, garden/bottles/cardboard the next. This is the standard for most of the City.
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:4, Informative)
I've heard of no councils that have reduced bin collection to every 2 weeks - only certain 'luxury pickups' like garden waste (leaves, hedge trimmings etc.) and certain recycling pickups; so definite citation needed here
Credibility fail. Literally five seconds with Google would show you that this practice has become commonplace across the UK in recent years, usually against public opinion. The details of which recycling is collected vary by local council, but reducing general rubbish collections to biweekly is almost always involved.
This does make things somewhat unpleasant in terms of smells and pests at certain times of year. IME, the worse problem is that it means if a council miss your collection one week, you wind up with an entire month of rubbish to go in the (typically small) bin, which just doesn't fit. Then the council may refuse to collect excess waste (or you get fined via the legal system), and often there is no useful process of appeal: if the bin men say your bin wasn't out, that's it, even if it clearly was and they've made the same mistake several times already. I'm writing from personal experience, but I'm hardly the only one who's mentioned this problem on local forums around where I live.
The man wasn't arrested for leaving his bin open - he was fined, for over-filling his bin. It was a bit specific to the letter of the law, but its not outrageous to draw the line where they did
That rather depends on whether the council are doing a decent job otherwise, doesn't it? As I noted above, they frequently don't, but now instead of it being their problem, it has legally become yours.
There are numerous other minor abuses going on, e.g., if you get home from work on collection day and find one of your recycling bins/boxes hasn't come back, you can get another one free, but some places charge a lot of money to replace the general waste bin under the same circumstances. Once again, containers not being put back outside your home after collection is a common problem—we've had four or five instances in the past couple of years—and to a household on a low income, the cost of replacement just so they can use the bin service they're already paying through the nose for via Council Tax, is a lot of money.
Defenders of such policies usually seem to mumble something about not having hypothecated taxation, so just because we have a dedicated Council Tax that goes to our local authorities and just because those local authorities are legally responsible for providing waste collection services, that doesn't mean you're entitled to actually get a working service or any minimum standards just because you pay them thousands of pounds a year in tax. Seriously, I've been told this many times, and it seems to be the best they've got. What happened to no taxation without representation? Why aren't our representatives up in arms over this sort of failure to provide essential basic services?
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:4, Informative)
I've not spent 5 seconds with Google
Perhaps you should. In the time it took you to write those words, you could instead have typed "bi-weekly bin collection UK", clicked the search button, and found numerous articles immediately, from all over the country, showing the current situation. (I'd find you some summary statistics, but strangely, neither local councils nor the central government people promoting this arrangement are going out of their way to acknowledge how widespread it has become and the level of dissatisfaction it has caused.)
I have spent almost 30 years living in the UK. I have friends in virtually every region of the country and can tell you that I know no-one who has bi-weekly general waste collection
You have friends within virtually every local council area in the country? Is that like having 600 Facebook "friends" or something?
Or are you trying to generalise from one person's limited experience—your own—and assuming that just because you haven't experienced this at all, no-one else has either?
I wouldn't call 4 or 5 instances a common problem in, at least, over 100 collections.
You might if each of those occasions meant that for the corresponding type of waste you had no collection for a month, and possibly for another 2–4 weeks more depending on how long it took for a replacement to be delivered since the collection people won't accept any non-standard containers for "health and safety" reasons. Put another way, someone with that failure rate has sub-standard waste collection for approximately 50% of the year.
Also, please give evidence of low income families being required to pay for a replacement for a bin that the council lost.
In my city, as far as I've been told by the council, everyone has to pay to get their black (general waste) bin replaced if it goes missing for any reason. The low income part is only relevant because if you've got around £50 to spare it's an irritation while if you've got around £50 to buy food this week it's a bit more than that.
However, if any of the various kinds of recycling bin or box used in our area go missing, the council replaces them free of charge, albeit often with a delay before the new one is delivered.
Council Tax (really, more than £2,000 a year? Where do you live?)
In a detached house in East Anglia. Ours isn't quite that much (though it's not far off these days), but I think one or two bands further and you're past that mark, and last time I checked we were actually a little below the national average rates for each band.
I'm not saying bin collection is perfect, but you seem to have gone way over the top in your post.
I'm biased, but then again, I've also been repeatedly screwed. Our Council Tax has gone up while the level of service has gone down. We've had so many missed collections that formal complaints resulted in the collection people having to call a supervisor every time they wanted to mark one of our bins as not being put out. And while we personally have never lost the one bin you'd have to pay for, we've had the other one not come back on collection day twice, and as I write this we have neither of the two boxes we should have any more and the Council won't replace them because they're moving to a new system with a third bin instead in a few weeks, so basically for about two months we are missing half of our collections.
This sort of mess is precisely the kind of thing normal people with real lives and time-consuming jobs shouldn't have to worry about, yet here I am, so annoyed by it that I'm debating the subject with a stranger on Slashdot. I shudder to think how much time I've used chasing up the council each time something has gone wrong. This is the sort of stuff that should Just Work, and it's what local councils are for. If they're
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is always an alternative choice, though it may not be the most pleasant of things to think about. Us American's kicked your government to the curb over a few tax disputes (and a few other issues). Placing cameras in private citizens' homes seem to me like a much bigger issue.
You guys could at least throw a few riots or something. And no, angry postings on slashdot do not count. By excusing this sort of behaviour all you are doing is shifting blame from your government to yourself.
Three big flaws in your argument here even at a casual glance:-
1) The proto-Americans had the advantage of an ocean between them and the people they were rebelling against, and the advantage of being on home territory against an enemy who had generally never even been to the rebels' continent. The situation would have been radically different if the American rebels were living in Clapham.
2) It's not "Us Americans" who rebelled at all - you personally had nothing at all to do with it - so it's rather precious of you to advocate that others risk their lives to do something that I suspect you have never done yourself.
3) The modern USA is exactly the sort of imperialist superpower that England was back then.
Overall, the pretense that modern Americans are some kind of ninja rebel outfit who would overthrow their government at the first sign of totalitarianism isn't helping anyone, especially when you sit in your comfy chair behind your (no doubt very rebellious) warrior keyboard and advocate that others risk their lives.
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Binmen inspect what you put in the recycling bin. One bin full of badly sorted waste can contaminate an entire truck of recyclable material. If you don't sort properly, your recycled bin gets put in the landfill.
Started placing cameras *in* families homes - 20000 of them over the next few years.
Bullshit typical of the Daily Mail
Reduced bin
Holy Hot Fuzz, Batmam (Score:2)
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The movie Brazil would have been better named "UK" because as they say, nobody does bureaucracy like the English
Huh? The name "Brazil" represents the fantasy land Sam Lowry escapes to in his dreams, not the society he lives in. It's no secret that the society is based on the UK. I think a UK address is clearly given at one point.
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You don't know you are born unless you've experienced the bureaucracy in France. In fact in general, compared with other countries, Britons have relatively little to complain about. The only reason most of them THINK they have it so bad is because of their little Britain ignorance of other countries politics.
(Disclaimer: I'm British,
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I think all rational people realize that when someone whips out the Nazi comparison that they're just behaving irrationally and will most likely be ignored
And I think that people who without exceptions ignore any Nazi comparison, even when it fits (I'm not saying this is the case here), are just as irrational, as those who use irrational comparisons, and with them in the same mindset of one-dimensional black/white thinking as... well... you know who. ^^
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...and perhaps a few loud townhall meetings were involved (both of which, incidentally, you can't do at either the US House or Senate).
Ahem..., kept up on recent events in the House much? Let's just say that for certain factions, those feeling a little "challenged", decorum ain't what it used to be.
As for TFA, it is indeed startlingly short on detail and context that might have made the story more meaningful. If the elected officials actually suffered from harassment, as opposed to civil discourse that legitimately challenged their actions, it is a shame that they quit. If that's what happens it means the system is more broken than if
Re:Can we get rid of the US Congress so easily? (Score:5, Funny)
I think all rational people realize that when someone whips out the Nazi comparison that they're just behaving irrationally
Normally you'd be right, but you know, when the council voted to invade Poland, someone had to dare to speak the truth!
Revealed as feeble... (Score:4, Interesting)
Clearly they had no real response to this blogger, and so just folded.
Leaves me wondering whether they were guilty or merely incompetent.
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And what prevented those councillors from telling their side of the story?.
Probably the fact that they're not intersted in blogging or using the internet. That doesn't make them web-illiterate, just as not having in interest in racing cars means you're a bad driver: just that they have neither the eloquence, nor ability, time or maybe even the low standards needed to engage in a war of words with someone who obviously has his own personal issues with these guys.
After all, they're only volunteers, standing for a town council, why should that require blogging or P.R. skills?
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And they do get paid - this is a town council, not a parish council. Quote from a Mail Online story (yes I know) [dailymail.co.uk] "Local councillors pocketed pay rises of double the level of inflation last year, a study has revealed. Nearly 20,000 picked up an average of £9,300 in 'allowances', the basic pay they get from town halls. In some local authorities, the sum was more than £20,000 a year."
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Having said that, I agree with your overall point--they should've been able to respond to what was said, it's not like you can't issue a press release.
They've had the chance (Score:2)
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Can I suggest sacrificing some virgins to the local dragon? It has often worked in the past!
After all, our beloved government has just demonstrated their opposition to the concept of science, so logical responses are clearly politically unacceptable.
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Councillors simply can't respond to random militant bloggers on a level playing field. For one they can't use the language bloggers use (if they like being employed that is). Even if the councillor does use civil language, getting in a public debate with someone that hostile not only will look bad (regardless of if they win it or not) , it will add legitimacy to th
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Seems to me more like... (Score:3, Insightful)
An organized walk-out in order to sabotage the council.
They can't or won't fix the things they are responsible for - so they stage a walkout and blame it all on the opposition coming from a vocal minority.
Being called "clowns" and "nazis" is hardly a cause for "Businessman Mr Canvin, 61" to storm out cause he is "not going to tolerate it when [he's] working for the town."
CounCILLors! (Score:5, Informative)
They're councillors. As in, people on a council.
Counsellors are a different breed of people altogether, like Troi.
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I dunno, standing up in front of everyone and stating the bleeding obvious like it's some sort of startling revelation sounds like a councillor too.
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---Counsellors are a different breed of people altogether, like Troi.---
I think you misspelled "prostitute."
How DARE you insult my lovely large-breasted empath. Just because she is a people person with lots of cleavage and not a geek like you doesn't give you the right to call her and her bosom names. LEAVE TROI ALONE!
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Don't feed the Trois!
On the other hand, it's Somerton (Score:5, Insightful)
Now someone thinks they have the right to comment on Council decisions - and the toys get thrown out of the pram.
This is not about bloggers. It's about rural Conservatives finding their views called into question. It would be exactly the same if it was a campaigning newspaper, or if the people in subsidised housing started a resident's group and sent someone to see what happened in Council meetings.
Re: Thats so not what its about (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, I live in Somerton, and its not a backwards place like Kupfernigk is trying to make out.
We are just a normal town, and from the sounds of things Kupfernigk has probably hardly ever been to Somerton and thinks the have the right to criticise what they no NOTHING about!!
This isnt about blogging. A lot of people here think that some members of the council were out to make money, and there are strong rumours that local people were trying to get them kicked off the council, so they ran instead.
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That sounds right to me. How anyone (BBC included) can reduce the interests and actions of 100+ locals down to the words of one blogger is an odd bit of misinterpretation. At best M&B is a lightning rod, an articulation of sentiment that is apparently shared by a significant number of others. So any assignment of responsibility is about like blaming the messenger.
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Really...because from what I read (rather than what you postulate) of the story it appears that the council members were trying to push through various commercial and industrial ventures that would benefit themselves privately (wow very "21st century"!) and the blogger was calling them out on it.
So it would be the blogger who was the "rural conservative" (apparently just about the worst person in the world in some areas of the Internet it would seem) and the council members who where in the "21st" century
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This blogger was lucky (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably the traditional British tolerance for ecentricity is the only thing preventing the targets of his jibes from crucifying him in a civil court...
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They are only risks if what he said is materially untrue. Given the orchestrated resignations of most of the council, I suspect they aren't.
Re:This blogger was lucky (Score:5, Insightful)
I refer you to the case of Simon Singh v. Assorted Lunatics [wikipedia.org]. What he said was materially true, but he will most likely lose the court case.
Mr Justice Eady [wikipedia.org] has a lot to answer for.
There's more details on the Singh case in the current Private Eye, for any Brits out there.
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It's a difficult case. But I doubt he'll lose.
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I would have said that that meaning of "bogus" is also a popular UK usage (conceivably due to American influence but still...).
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The right to sue (Score:2)
even when in the right it is an unfortunate situation to be the defendant in a civil court case.
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You're wrong. Truth is an absolute defence against being sued for libel in England and Wales.
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You're wrong. Truth is an absolute defence against being sued for libel in England and Wales.
In the US truth is an absolute defense. But I'm not aware of any location in the UK, including England or Wales where this is true.
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Sounds like someone's created an urban myth. Of course truth is an absolute defence in the law of England and Wales.
English law allows actions for libel to be brought in the High Court for any published statements which are alleged to defame a named or identifiable individual (or individuals) in a manner which causes them loss in their trade or profession, or causes a reasonable person to think worse of him, her or them. Allowable defenses are justification (i.e. the truth of the statement), fair comment (i.e. whether the statement was a view that a reasonable person could have held), and privilege (i.e. whether the statements were made in Parliament or in court, or whether they were fair reports of allegations in the public interest).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law [wikipedia.org]
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Re:This blogger was lucky (Score:4, Insightful)
I've provided evidence. You have not. IF you had a case, you be explicit about which "examples" and why.
Meanwhile here's more absolute proof that I'm right. A case summary by the Law Lords.
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:3u0QFtSeHFsJ:oxcheps.new.ox.ac.uk/new/casebook/cases/Cases%2520Chapter%252026/Spring%2520v%2520Guardian%2520Assurance%2520plc%2520and%2520others.doc+england+truth+%22absolute+defence%22&cd=49&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari [74.125.77.132]
It can't get much more clearly stated than that, or by anyone with more authority on what the law in England is. You have swallowed an internet meme that's a myth. You're wrong.
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Truth is an absolute defence against being sued for libel in England and Wales.
Just to clarify this statement: truth is an absolute defense against libel, it is not for defamation. Libel is a subset of defamation--thus a defamatory statement can be proved true (which would mean it is not a libel) but still be defamatory.
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From another post of mine:
Meanwhile here's more absolute proof that I'm right. A case summary by the Law Lords.
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:3u0QFtSeHFsJ:oxcheps.new.ox.ac.uk/new/casebook/cases/Cases%2520Chapter%252026/Spring%2520v%2520Guardian%2520Assurance%2520plc%2520and%2520others.doc+england+truth+%22absolute+defence%22&cd=49&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari [74.125.77.132] [74.125.77.132]
Gotta love self-censorship (Score:2)
I love how "ass" is bleeped out and Nazi is an OK word.
Also, both bleeps and asterisks just emphasize that there is something to "hide", making it's effect stronger as it forces the brain out of normal cruise into attention.
Strong arming a politician? (Score:2)
Nah, there was other reasons, no real politician would resign just because he was called names. Name calling is part of the business.
Need more information (Score:2)
The article was scant on details, unfortunately, but it seems the blogger was pointing out extreme irregularities going on in the council. In the U.S., such reports led to the FBI investigating the council of Dallas, Texas. One important difference in Dallas was that the players were too arrogant to realize that there was potential for felony conviction and jail time for their activities and refused to resign or otherwise remove themselves.
I have to wonder if the situation in Somerton was anything like th
Funny thing about the Truth. (Score:2)
"...largely by calling them 'jack***es' and Nazis. What's next? The deposition of a president with 'your mom' smacktalk?"
Bloggers, news reporters, CNN, Wall Street Journal...Funny thing about when the Truth comes out. Really doesn't matter who reports it. If it's valid and bad enough, people will be affected by it. Chances are they resigned not because the accusations were false and therefore they could have fought it with a valid counterargument.
I know it's pretty sad to realize that we're going to be
Hopefully.... (Score:2)
Godwin's Law (Score:2)
Niall Connolly (Score:2)
On behalf of the people of Ottawa,CA, I would like you to come here and continue your fine work. I"m sure we can make it worth your while, possibly with incentives for each resignation.
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In all seriousness... from the scant details in the real article (which barely provides any information) it seems the blog functioned as a newspaper would. Other than the fact that this was a blog I don't see how this is different from ... say "The Colonist's Advocate" used by Benjamin Franklin... or their modern analogs such as Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" or their "Covert Report" ... or (on the right) the "comedians" such as Rush Limbaugh or the comedy players on Fox News. There's a fine tradition of
Read the blog itself (Score:5, Insightful)
Just reading a few of the last entries of the blog:
So no, I don't think it's exactly a newspaper. It's more focused and more dangerous, like being an opposition leader in an only semi-democratic country.
Re:Read the blog itself (Score:5, Insightful)
The blogger's car was torched and his house vandalized.
Another good example of why the net should be as anonymous as possible
Re:Read the blog itself (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you need to read up on the historical role of newspapers. Pedro Chamorro Cardenal was the editor of La Prensa in Nicaragua, and he was a powerful opposition leader in his own right. His murder effectively started the Sandinista revolution.
You've just become accustomed to "newspaper" meaning "establishment drivel."
Re:A link to the blog please.. (Score:4, Informative)
from the article [blogspot.com]
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What would be good would be if news organisations like the BBC didn't censor URLs from their reports. "A damning government report has been leaked to 'the world wide web'" is not useful information. They might as well say "A street in the city has been cordoned off." Gee, thanks.
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But its just like Watergate, on a slightly smaller scale.
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This is just a modern day local newspaper. The idea that the media can bring down corrupt local or national officials is nothing new.
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The dillusion that bloggers have the power to tease elected officials into resigning is laughable.
I think you're wrong. At least on this side of the pond the name-calling, and relentlessly negative smear tactics and outright lies that have become the new norm in politics keeps a lot good people out of public office.
So, yeah, in a small town environment where people are volunteering or have other options about where to spend their time could quite possibly get fed up and quit. If the locals here were m
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Better be careful - the nazis will sue you for defamation for comparing them to Bush.
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The dillusion that bloggers have the power to tease elected officials into resigning is laughable. This isn't news. This isn't even fit for idle.
Fortunately for the rest of us, you're the one that is delusional. Political blogging definitely has a place in making things happen, especially at the hyperlocal level. While this particular article is a bit more than I would expect, I have watched local policy change--on a dime--due to what is said to the public about local government on the Internet.
It used to b
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Much as I appreciate your concern, I think I can set your mind at rest here. Such abuses of the the system are rare and usually confined to the level of local politics. In this day and age, no one at a national level would consider resigning over something so trivial as criticism from the media or public. In fact even such one-time misdemeanors such a
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One person's actions manages to unseat several elected officials
Disagree. The blogger's actions didn't unseat them. Their resignation did. There's a world of difference. If the blogger had been able to unseat them despite their wishes and the wishes of their constituents, that would be a break in democracy. Instead the blogger was able to convince them and/or their constituents that their tenure should end. That's as democratic as can be. If the blog entries were based on lies and nobody discovered that it's an entirely different issue.
My point is there's a vast
Completely wrong (Score:3, Informative)
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When this item hit the TV news (some days ago) the overwhelming view from the resigning councilors was not that they had any skeletons in their cupboards, or had been corrupt or done anything wrong
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It is a bad thing - an extremely bad thing. There are processes for removing councilors who are doing a bad job, acting illegally or who lose the trust of the people who voted for them.
According to the blog [blogspot.com] they resigned to "rapturous applause" from the citizens. It was one man blogging, apparently leading to lots of face to face discussions. If they could refute the things being said about them I'm sure they could have done so instead of resigning.
So it would seem that they didn't resign because of one man, they resigned because of what many people found out from one man. It was the many that caused them to resign.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, if they resigned over one persons so called ravings, then they didn't have much authority to start with, not to mention cahones. I know that if I found financial irregularities in a councils spending and could reliably document it, it would be my duty to inform the electorate. I have no interest in being a councillor, but that doesn't mean they can get away with it. Why should I invest time and money in making myself electable merely to point out the illegal activities of others ?
I repeat, if the whole council resigns over 1 persons unsubstantiated rant, then either they have got skeletons to hide or they are worthless as politicians. Politicians argue all the time, that's what they do. But one non elected person can force their resignation ? Please
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What town councillors get varies per county but it's not a wage you can live on. Lots of councils only pay expenses but a typical 'wage' for a regular councillor is £5500 a year. That's only about £1000 more than if they did no work at all and claimed benefits. Council leaders get a proper wage of around £12,000 but that's still only comparable to a McDonalds worker.
These are not jobs done for a living, these are largely volunteers who are getting just enough mo
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Exactly. I'm sure they have nothing to hide.
*rolls eyes*
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How on earth do you satisfy the local politicians' lust for pocket-lining?
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Haha, so wrong on all fronts.
"The rise in allowances comes at a time of rapidly growing pay for town hall officials, the most senior of whom now earn more than £200,000."
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23394395-councillors-pay-up-by-twice-the-inflation-rate.do [thisislondon.co.uk]
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There are around 22,000 councillors in the UK. Based on the figure the Evening Standard gives, that's an average of around £8,000 per councillor. However considering more important council members such as council leaders and members for large cities (which are far more involved positions and involve much more responsiblity), the typical councillor wage is £4-5K. That's 1/3rd of what is cla
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