The Daily Mail: first with the news that matters
On Big Lorry blog, May 2009: http://www.roadtransport.com/blogs/big-lorry-blog/2009/05/biglorryblog-has-cam-mcfadyen.html
Makes it to the Daily Mail, Jan 2011: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1344262/Lorry-flips-bridge-held-upside-200ft-drop-China.html
You know things are bad when you're reporting on a lorry crashing in China 2 years after the event.
A failure of advertising
Seen in today's "Eureka" science supplement, in The Times.
A BMW advert, proudly proclaiming "drinks like a camel"; intended to describe good/low fuel consumption
...and directly over the page from this double-page spread; an article which explains that camels actually drink quite a lot...
Whoops.
This post was going to be entitled "truth in advertising", but the claimed 50mpg is actually quite good.
Now, before any beemer-haters start coming out of the woodwork, here is das FNS-wagen relaxing outside in the snow. It's actually very good on fuel 
Daily Fail
Sometimes you see something so unbelieveably stupid that it instantly gives you a headache for the rest of the day. This is an example of such a thing.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-1323610/Natures-Lucozade-How-A-lists-favourite-coconut-water-effective-sports-drink.html
My eye of course was drawn by the word 'Lucozade' in the headline, we at FNS towers are long-standing fans of the incredible healing powers of the revered orange beverage. Reading the said article however had effects wildly different to healing;
Coconut water has become the latest celebrity craze after studies showed that fluid extracted from young green coconuts is naturally full of isotones – the kind of electolytes which are added to sports drinks to aid hydration. [emphasis mine]
Let's have a look at the Wikipedia article for 'isotone' - "Two nuclides are isotones if they have the same neutron number N, but different proton number Z."
Somehow I doubt that is what this article refers to.
Probably it is either some kind of moronic misunderstanding or charlatanesque misrepresentation of the word 'isotonic', a word commonly used to market sport drinks and meaning that two solutions have the same osmotic concentration when compared. This is important for example when something is going to be administered by a drip; if the drip is too watery or too concentrated (i.e. not isotonic) compared to your blood, then bad things will happen (your blood cells for example will either shrivel or explode). For a sport drink this is somewhat less important. As for containing 'isotones', this makes about as much sense as saying that a warm coat contains particles of warm.
Methinks the Mail is printing bloody adverts as 'news' again.
Anyway, if we're talking sport drinks or electrolytes, Brawndo can't be beat. It's got what plants crave.
Astroturfing
Found via David Thompson
Now here's an intriguiging one; accusations of astroturfing in the form of 'counter protests' outside a Tea Party event. I'll let the video speak for itself.
I would bet money that a very large proportion of 'protests' around the developed world (or in the US/UK certainly) from all corners of the political spectrum are in fact orchestrated by one body or another somewhere, to push some kind of other agenda. It's a shame, because repeated 'fake' protest dilutes the value of genuine protest on the occasion that it happens, making it very hard for genuine groups and causes to make themselves heard. it also makes very easy that a genuine and/or independent person putting forth ideas or arguments be accused of 'astroturfing'. No one can trust anyone or anything. Is there any way for this ever to be resolved, or it it something that in this age of instant media will only worsen? I fear the latter.
This post was brought to you by Sinister Inc. 
” £20 Elgar note withdrawal ‘a national disgrace’ “
As seen in The Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/7861063/20-Elgar-note-withdrawal-a-national-disgrace.html
Once again the Telegraph deems the opinion of some bloke as worthy of printing in their newspaper, whereas we all know that such drivel is the stomping ground of blogs like this.
Professor Jeremy Dibble, from Durham University's music department, says that the replacement of the £20 notes featuring Edward Elgar with notes featuring Adam Smith is a "national disgrace" that "tells us much about the way in which the arts is now viewed in England. Bank notes should applaud the greatest aspects of England and English culture".
Sorry Dibble, but for one we are talking about BANKNOTES here. Items of money. Economists are far more at home on money than musicians are. Furthermore, I would rank Adam Smith's contribution to the modern world as approximately 6,000x more important than that of Elgar. The old notes look like something a 4 year old knocked up in an elderly version of Paintshop Pro before printing on a decrepit inkjet printer with a dirty, clogged 'refil' cartridge anyway.
In conclusion: STFU, Dibble.
Bullshit of the week: “Oil shortages by 2020 due to Western ‘profligacy’”
As seen in The Daily Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/oilprices/7206410/Oil-shortages-by-2020-due-to-Western-profligacy-says-energy-boss.html
"Drivers need to start treating oil as a scarce commodity and switch to green transport to avoid shortages by 2020, according to the chief executive of Scottish & Southern."
So; we need to stop using oil now, to prevent us from having to stop using oil in the future..
""It's GCSE economics that if production is constrained and demand increases from emerging countries, the price will go up and up and up," Mr Marchant said."
It's also GCSE economics that the price rise itself will curb the rise in demand
"One car in China adds far more value than a second car sitting in the driveway of some house in the UK."
Newsflash: An unused car uses no fuel
"Mr Souter, the transport boss, has proposed more radical solutions than incentives to buy green vehicles. He called for the abolition of the lowest bands of tax that hit those with problems paying their energy bills and the establishment of a tax on carbon emissions. "This would help redistribute wealth and the people using carbon would be paying for it," he added."
So now he wants to increase taxes on energy (increasing the price) to make energy more affordable? Is this the same logic that says we should deal with rising oil prices by artificially inflating the retail price of fuel using fuel duty?
The industry group [the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security] wants the government to explore electrification of the railways and overhaul the transmission and distribution network.
Does it now? Would this be the 'industry group' that consists of Ian Marchant, head of Scottish and Sourthern Energy; Sir Richard Branson, head of amongst other things Virgin Trains; Brian Souter, the chief executive of Stagecoach, and Philip Dilley, chairman of engineering group Arup? Are they trying to say that rail magnates, electricity companies and civil engineers want government investment in civil engineering projects to benefit railways and electricity companies? Whatever next!
As a forklift dealer and part-time radio DJ I think that the government should invest billions of pounds in buying lots of new forklifts and subsidising internet radio stations, paid for with a new "not using forklifts or listening to internet radio" tax. If they don't do that they are condemning the UK to certain economic and environmental doom.
Something may increase risk of Bad Things
A study published yesterday shows a possible link between Something and Bad Things. Researchers at the Institute of Somewhere found that Something is often associated with Something Else, which shows a correlation with Bad Things.
Bad Things are considered undesireable by most of the population. Death, cancer, obesity, pollution, ugliness and boredom have all been considered Bad Things by many people. Over 80% of the population do Something each year.
Steve Smith, 14, died last year in an incident that can only be described as a Bad Thing. He had recently been doing Something. His mother, Janet Smith, said last week "Our Steve was a loving, popular boy; with his whole future ahead of him. His life was snatched away from him horribly. I had heard of him doing Something, and I tried to tell him to stop. he wouldn't listen.." [Mrs. Smith weeps] "I worry for all the other mothers out there, how many children have to die?"
Bob Fluster, of Action Against Bad Things said "this study is just another in a torrent of evidence against Something. When will people wake up and realise that Something causes Bad Things?"
Many previous studies also show the correlation. A report by SomethingWatch found that over 75% of people who will eventually experience Bad Things have done Something, or been near someone who has done Something.
Jack De'Ladd has a different view. He claimed "everybody does Something at least every day- banning Something could end up with banning everything". A SomethingWatch spokesman said "Jack De'Ladd is proven to financially benefit from industries that produce Something. His wild claims are discredited by every scientist working to prove the danger of Something".
It is estimated that last year 839 million people suffered from Bad Things, including constipation, blindness and not being able to find a seat on the train. MegaCorp PLC made profits of £49 Billion last year from the sale of Something. The Chairman of MegaCorp refused to comment.