A Thinking Man's shared items
Dr. and St. Vince Cable has said he made “an honest mistake” over his VAT avoidance and that it was “embarrassing and I should have spotted it sooner”. He’s attempting to make this look like a one-off piece of financial mismanagement in order to minimise the obvious “if he can’t run his own business affairs, why should anyone else listen to him” line of questioning. But is this case really a one-off?
A look at Vince’s parliamentary expenses claims from the last few years show a trail of financial mismanagement. His claims are littered with with late fees, reminder letters and overdue notices. His electricity supplier, British Gas and BT have all sent letters stating their intention to disconnect him for non-payment. It appears he also thought it appropriate to charge the taxpayer for £240 of fines for not paying his fees on time. By Guido’s count there were nineteen late notices or threats in 05-06, thirteen in 06-07, and eight in 07-08. Were these honest mistakes too, or complete incompetence?
Tagged: Cash, Vince Cable
The fate of the 12 remaining contestants on the U.S. version of The X Factor will be in the hands of the viewers starting Nov. 2., and they’ll now have a new way to support their favorite performer: Twitter direct message-enabled voting.
Though other shows have used Twitter to create buzz, The X Factor will become the first TV competition to tally DM votes to help determine a winner.
“The X Factor has raised the bar for innovative television with its use of Twitter,” says Chloe Sladden, Twitter’s director of content and programming. “We’re thrilled to see the creators of The X Factor push the envelope further by being the first television show to formalize this phenomenon through Twitter voting.”
Social media and technology continue to change the public’s TV-watching experience, but the evolution of social TV has affected competition shows the most.
For example, American Idol let viewers vote on the show’s Facebook Page during season 10. The Voice — a new singing competition that became a 24/7 social media conversation earlier this year — allowed viewers to vote by buying the contestants’ songs on iTunes. And design competition Project Runway let fans use Twitter hashtags to vote for a “Fan Favorite” every episode
The shows hope the new voting methods spark social buzz that will lead to better ratings.
The X Factor offers four other voting methods: Viewers can call, text, go to the show’s website or — if you’re a Verizon subscriber with an Android device — use The Xtra Factor App.
“Launching touch screen voting on Verizon’s The Xtra Factor App and the new voting on Twitter is really exciting,” says the show’s star judge Simon Cowell. “I love that the audience has more and more choice in the way that they can vote.”
To vote on Twitter, viewers must follow @TheXFactorUSA and DM their votes to that handle. Regular tweets will not be tallied. The X Factor has set a limit of 50 votes for viewers voting on the show’s website and on Twitter, while voting via SMS, SMS in-app and telephone is unlimited.
For a full list of contestants’ Twitter handles, click here.
More About: Social Media, social tv, television, Twitter, verizon, x factor
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After suffering their biggest home defeat since 1955, Sir Alex Ferguson has blamed his side’s humiliating 6-1 defeat by Man City on the Premier League’s inability to field a referee who is a Man Utd fan.
Speaking after the match, he blasted “They outplayed us in all areas of the pitch when the referee didn’t intervene.”
“There were times when they made us look stupid and yet the referee’s done nothing to protect us.”
“Their lad David Silva was a different class, but the ref’s blatantly allowed him to stay on the pitch.”
“It’s an absolute disgrace.”
Referee issues
Ferguson highlighted the absence of their talismanic decision maker, Howard Webb as a key factor in the outcome of the game.
“If Webbsy had been playing then Balotelli would have been sent off for blatantly getting into numerous goal-scoring positions,” Ferguson insisted.
Man City manager Roberto Mancini disagreed with Ferguson’s assessment of the referee’s performance and insisted that the scoreline didn’t flatter his team.
He told reporters, “It looks like Colonel Gaddafi isn’t the only dictator of a hated regime who’s been murdered in his own back yard in front of the world’s cameras during the last week.”
I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night. Link. Hat Tip: James McGrath
The genitals of Portsmouth South’s Liberal Democrat MP Mike Hancock have insisted that they had no reason to believe that Katia Zatuliveter did anything but act honourably when she worked on them.
The MP, who resembles someone you’d try and avoid eye contact with if they got on your bus, had an an affair with Miss Zatuliveter over a four year period while he was part of the defence select committee.
Despite Mr Hancock’s brain having no comment, his genitals have been hard to suppress.
Speaking from Mr Hancock’s underpants, they insisted, “Any suggestion Katia was manipulating us in order to gain access to secret information is ridiculous and unfounded.”
“Okay, Mike is 65 and she is 26, but we don’t feel any different to the way we did 40 years ago – I mean emotionally, not to the touch.”
Russian spy
Colleagues of Mr Hancock have revealed how passionately Mr Hancock’s genitals feel about Miss Zatuliveter’s innocence.
“They’re are adamant that there was nothing dodgy going on and they get very animated if you even so much as mention Katia Zatuliveter,” revealed Mid Dorset and North Poole MP Annette Brookes.
“To say that Mike’s genitals are always in our faces wouldn’t be an understatement.”
“Well, when I say ‘our’ I mean any woman within a 25 yard radius.”
What is it with big beasts of the Tory right and controversal trips with their advisers? The issue of Adam Werritty has been circling Liam Fox for months, after it emerged the unvetted and unemployed best-man of the Defence Secretary was swanning around Westminster with House of Commons business cards that said he was Fox’s “personal adviser”. Fox previously denied he was involved in any MOD activity, yet now it emerges his former flatmate came on an official MOD trip to Sri Lanka.
In that classic trick, Fox has triggered an inquiry himself, finally seeing how fishy this all looks. You would have thought after Hague got the taxpayer to pick up the bill for his trip to Afghanistan with Christopher Myers that the Tories would be a little more careful about this sort of thing. Where Hague spent an extra weekend in Bahrain with his adviser, Fox is only thought to have attended “private events” in Sri Lanka with Werritty. All werry odd…
Tagged: SpAd, Tories
Ken Clarke looks set to face ‘enforced retirement’ from the cabinet, after publicly revealing that there are morons like Theresa May currently serving in the government.
Clarke is to be punished after telling reporters that May’s conference speech claim about an illegal immigrant who avoided deportation due to his ownership of a cat was, “so utterly moronic that it actually made my face hurt.”
An Whitehall insider told us, “We simply can’t have our own cabinet members going around pointing out how stupid the rest of the cabinet is – we’d never get anything done.”
“You have to learn to embrace the idiocy when you’re in government, much like we did in making Theresa May Home Secretary.”
“No, it’s much better to nip this in the bud and get rid of the man who pointed out that her utterly ridiculous claims, rather than the woman who falsely perpetuated them.”
Ken Clarke reprimanded
It is expected that Clarke’s punishment will go beyond banishment from the cabinet, with a newly-created position as George Osbornes economics tutor.
A Downing Street source confirmed, “It’s part punishment, part ongoing education about the modern Conservative party.”
“Expectations on us amongst the public are incredibly low right now, and we need to ensure they’re equally low inside the party.”
“We want him to spend so long with our party’s morons that when he sees a ridiculous faux pas like Theresa’s in public, he’s simply delighted that the damage done was so slight.”
If the universe had to have a First Cause… then everything religious people believe must be true.
Makes perfect sense.
(vía Jesus and Mo)
The features of the upcoming (Oct. 12 officially) operating system for Apple devices have been floating around the internet for some time having been announced at Apple’s WWDC back in June. These very exciting updates were re-announced at Apple’s iPhone event today and even included a couple of new surprises.
So what will change on October 12th? New apps, better camera functionality, Twitter integration, and oh yeah that whole iCloud thing.
There are so many improvements to the already great operating system running on Apple’s industry changing devices I can hardly contain myself. In addition to the features we’re already aware of, there was a new app announced at the event.
The Find My Friends app, new in iOS 5, will allow users to share their locations with designated friends. This has the potential to be helpful for parents tracking kids or someone giving driving directions real-time. Another new announcement is the start date for Cards, which will be available the same day as iOS 5 (Oct. 12).
I’m sure that many of you reading this have more than one Apple device but even if you don’t, iCloud is something to be excited about. All of your media, that is music, pictures, videos, and even offline websites, will be synchronized between your devices to create an interconnected Apple experience.
Another app making use of iCloud style mechanics is iMessage; a free messaging service between iOS users. The messages will be sent to all of your devices, so you will be able to read one on your iPad and then reply from your iPhone (4S!).
The feature I’m most excited about is Twitter integration, which I’ve been waiting for. Many of my friends use Twitter non-stop and I find it to be quite a hassle to switch between Safari and Twitter apps to communicate. Now, users can tweet from within several of the built in apps.
Camera apps have been popular for some time, but starting next Wednesday they may start to decline. The built in Camera app will be receiving some serious help with the addition of grid lines, pinch to zoom, and finally being able to shoot from the lock screen.
Here are some of the other notable features coming soon:
- Reminders- Includes location-based reminders
- Newsstand- Apple has stopped threatening magazines and started partnering with them
- Notification Center- More notifications will be visible from the lock screen
- Safari- Tabbed browsing, reading list, and reader mode
- Multi Touch gestures- Using more fingers to navigate faster
- Siri – Personal Assistant
Which are you looking forward to most?
Alert Note: Stay tuned for more iPhone and iPod coverage on our new sister site, TapCentral (coming soon)!
» Related posts:
- iOS 5 to be Released on October 12th, iPhone 5 Available in Stores October 14th?
- A Few iOS 5 Features Missing After WWDC’s Keynote
- New OSX 10.7.2 Shows Upcoming iCloud Features
