Verbal

Points 1 to 4 are just listed facts. They convey the awfulness of the event, certainly, but I'm not sure what point you're making with them. Why am I being 'UK centric'? I have never proposed the idiotic idea that only British crews are there. Are you slipping back to your 'there are so many they MUST be disrupting the relief work' supposition? If so, what's the evidence? You have to distinguish between the way news is reported and the way editors package it. The best reports can be given the crassest wrap-arounds. But the tsunami aftermath is a rolling news story by definition. I haven't leapt to defend the 'dear old Brit stuff'. I have got clearer reporting from the New York Times than many of the British newspapers. The BBC News website, though, is hard to beat. Having just watched Channel Four News and ITV News, the threat of 'nuclear meltdown' was NOT reported in the way you say it was. You seem to be making this up to have a bit of a peeve. Both reported that a Chernobyl-scale meltdown was extremely unlikely, and used independent expert voices to express this. How is this 'slanted'? Please find an example of the 'we're doomed' agenda. I can't find it anywhere except your favoured Daily Mail. Just my opinion, but some of the best reporting on the tragedy was done tonight by C4 News, and by Alex Thompson and John Snow in particular. Both eschewed the annoying 'I've been there and now I'll tell you about it live' approach. Their reports were considered, beautifully written and moving.

If you're saying there is good and bad reporting, then no **** sherlock - although I am at a loss to understand how you think the google images added much beyond some pretty basic information about the scale of the disaster. You seem though to have simply changed tack in your argument, moving away from unsubstantiated claims about news crews using up valuable resources. And what on earth does your last sentence mean? I detect in that a typical ex-pat reaction I heard too depressingly often in Indonesia under the failing Suharto regime. They too were fearful of uprisings - fearful because they threatened their comfortable, parasitic and hugely exploitative existence. If this is not the case, how exactly does Rupert Murdoch demand that the tsunami is reported substantially differently to, say, Channel Four News? If, as you say, news journalists only report this story according to the strict limits laid down by their 'publisher', give me one good, concrete example in the reporting of the tsunami. Really - I'm interested to know exactly what you mean.

I doubt Deppo has gone quietly. There's a phenomenon known as post-mortem screaming, which probably explains a few posts still to come.

I wonder how this epic tragedy has been turned, in classic Saintsweb fashion, into a rant about biased or obstructive news crews - all based on supposition and clearly considerable lack of knowledge of how news crews operate. With the death of an Al Jazeera crew in Libya and the disappearance of the remarkable Guardian journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, it's clear journalists don't take the easy option when reporting tragedy. Most also recognise that news is a means of mobilising support - which is why many authorities go to extra lengths to allow international crews access. This is one of those 'bigger picture' arguments - whatever perceived grumble you may have (from your La-Z-boy recliner in Dubai?), you have to allow for the distinct probability that news coverage mobilises help. Even a technologically advanced country like Japan needs the world to focus on its pressing problems, in the face of a recovery and reconstruction effort that is only surpassed by that needed after the second world war. Oh, and it's one L in Pulitzer, and the prize is only open to Americans.

None of this rings true. I notice that the writer claims to have had lunch in LA recently with 'Anna Kreisling', which means she must have been about 15-20 years old when she flew this supposed mission.

Your ears don't open?

He's probably doing a PhD at LSE. If he pays £1.5m there's no way he'll fail.

Interesting. It seems some spammers have realised that the old stuff about relatives in government with millions to get out of the country is wearing thin, and are trying a slightly new approach. Why don't you email them back and then post their response up on here. Curious to see how quickly they ask for your bank details.

That's a word.

Okay, let's set you a test. Do you always have to have the last word?

Anecdotes do not make a social trend - ie not everyone is that dim.

Once a gunner, always a gunner.

Yes, for you are our Oracle. Or one of your personas is. How many have you got by the way? And do they fall out with each other? Or split?

As one of hypo's personas, I'm quite happy about this.

Like the Guns of Camerone. Anthony Quinn IS William Hague.

It's the one where the bald git comes on and says: My name is Hague. William Hague. (Or was that Bellend and Thunderballs?)

We on the revolutionary Left do not offer crumbs of supportive comfort to the running dogs of the 'New' Labour. Are you the ONLY one not to have seen Life of Brian?

Deadpo

You may have hit upon something here.

An original what, mon ami?

I'm confused. How many hypos are there? I find it hard to believe there's more than one of them out there. Darwinian principles would exclude it as a possibility, surely.

Let's see. Lisp (allegedly). Vs Cameron's serial blundering incompetence. As you say, in hypoworld, there are no mistakes.

What is the positive context of bald? Or are you follically challenged?

Is that what you took from that?

And the bellend balls-ups keep coming from Cameron. After Libya, India - which he manages to insult in a patronising 'we once ruled you' sort of way. http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/03/08/david-cameron’s-‘diplomatic’-gunboats-misfire-in-india-and-libya/ I suspect part of the problem is that appalling bald git Hague, who trails around with him on overseas jollies - once an annoyingly precocious 14 year old with wet dreams of Thatch, and now an immature 50-something prone to dumbass gaffs like announcing, two weeks ago, that Gadaffi is in Venezuela. God only knows, they're useless.