The BMI Calculator

I've noticed that the Sun now has a body-mass index calculator (BMI) on its Health & Diet page.

If you're not aware, BMI is used as a guide to whether someone should be classed as overweight, by taking the ratio of their mass to the square of their height.

The problem is that the Sun simply advertises it as follows:

Overweight? See our BMI calculator

It implies that it an absolute measurement, but Wikipedia shows that it isn't what it's designed for:

BMI has become controversial because many people, including physicians, have come to rely on its apparent numerical authority for medical diagnosis, but that was never the BMI's purpose. It is meant to be used as a simple means of classifying sedentary (physically inactive) individuals with an average body composition.

The Sun doesn't bother to say that if, for example, you're a body builder then it would be a waste of time using it (because muscle has a greater mass than fat, which would warp the results), nor does it state that it is simply a guide for an average person. In any event, the Sun doesn't give any explanation as to what BMI does until you type in your details:

For Adults:

Underweight = <18.5
Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
Overweight = 25-29.9
Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

For children, see BMI charts

For the record, my BMI is 21.6, which is in the middle of the "Average" range.

What is odd is the way the Sun goes about calculating BMI: they ask for your height in feet and inches - no metric option is available - and it asks for your weight in lbs. Does anyone actually weigh themselves in lbs in the UK? I was expecting stones and possibly kg.

While I appreciate the Sun's attempts, it could have done a lot better with a minimal amount of effort.

Alfie Patten: the PCC is shown to be useless yet again.

To get an idea of just how useless the Press Complaints Commission is, you only have to look at its non-investigation into the Alfie Patten disaster. You would have thought that they might just have something to say about how the Sun, the People and the Sunday Mail had almost certainly paid his family for personal interviews which led to some of the most invasive and potentially damaging intrusion into the private lives of children for some years, only for it to subsequently turn out that, oops, Alfie wasn't the father after all.

Today the Commission announced that it is to do, well, nothing. To be fair, that isn't quite what it's done. Because of the restrictions imposed by the High Court, which prevent the families of both Patten and Chantelle Steadman from being approached, the PCC supposedly has been unable to determine exactly what was paid, what was expected in return for that payment, how the families intended to use the money, how concerned the newspapers were about the children's welfare and the circumstances surrounding the original mistaken identification of Alfie as the father. It has instead elaborated on its guidelines on payments to parents for material about their children, which while welcome, is not for a moment going to stop this happening again.

While it's unfortunate that the families themselves cannot tell their side of the story, this is letting the opposite side completely off the hook. Is the PCC a regulator or is it not? A regulator with any teeth would have demanded that the newspapers themselves reveal what was promised, and just how, if the reports of the Sun setting up a trust fund for the child are accurate, it was intending to deliver the payment. It isn't clear that this information was sought at all; instead, it seems the PCC was relying purely on the families to inform them of what deals were made.

What the papers did provide the PCC with, predictably, was their arguments on how it certainly was in the public interest for them to claim that a 13-year-old who looked more like 8 had fathered a child:

The newspapers argued that the articles involved the important issue of the prevalence, and impact, of teenage pregnancy within British society. By identifying the principals involved and presenting them in a particular way, the story dramatised and personalised these issues in a way that stimulated a wide-ranging public debate, involving contributions from senior politicians (which included the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition). The newspapers said that they were fulfilling an important duty in publicising to a large audience a social problem that is perceived to be widespread. Their position was that the case was, on the evidence available at the time of publication, an exceptional example of the problem.

This is all true. This however doesn't take into account the fact that it was not in either Patten or Steadman's best interests for the entire world to know intimate details about their lives, with their parents making the decision for them based presumably on the fact that there was money offered in exchanged. There was only a story because of how Patten looked; 13-year-olds being fathers is rare, but not that rare. 15-year-olds being fathers and mothers however, is not a story at all, as in this case it subsequently turned out to be. Some might think it should be a story, and that it's a sad reflection on society at large when it isn't, on which they might have something approaching a point, but that isn't the issue here. Most damningly, the newspapers don't seem to have taken any real interest in how their stories would affect the children, and in the case of the People, doesn't seem to have decided that how Patten had to be begged, almost forced to come and speak to them might have suggested that they shouldn't be running such reports.

The Sun especially must be laughing at the weakness of the PCC. To say they profited from the story would be an understatement: almost purely down to the Patten report, which went around the world at the social horror of a baby himself becoming a father, they sky-rocketed to the top of the ABCe tables, becoming the most popular UK newspaper website for Feburary, with over 27 million unique visitors. However much they promised to pay the Patten family, they must have surely more than made their money back. For a newspaper editor who has dedicated herself to campaigning for child protection, either for Sarah's law or for "justice" for Baby P, Rebekah Wade seems to have completely lost her moral compass over Patten, and the only organisation which could have punished her has spurned its opportunity.

"Totally false".

Yesterday's Sun ran "sensational" claims about the autopsy of Michael Jackson, claiming that he was a virtual skeleton when he died, had four puncture wounds near to his heart from attempts to revive him, broken ribs, covered in bruises and was totally bald.

The response from the those who actually carried out the autopsy, the Los Angeles coroner? Ed Winter said:

"I don't know where that information came from, or who that information came from. It is not accurate. Some of it is totally false."

Tonight's big story on the Sun's website? Photographs from the rehearsals for Jackson's shows in London, showing the singer in what looks to be good health, if thin. As a former hack on the paper said, you couldn't make it up.

P.S.

The paper seems to be in a similarly confused mood over the royal family. Says the paper's leader column:

THE Government could learn a lesson or two about economy from the Royal Family.

The 83-year-old Queen is hardworking, devoted to public service - and notoriously thrifty with taxpayers' money.

The monarchy raises more in tourist revenue than we spend keeping them in castles, cars and corgis.

And they cost just 69p a head, less than half the price of a lemonade shandy all round.

Now that's what we call value for money.

While meanwhile the paper rages against the costs of, err, the royal family:

TAXPAYERS forked out £250,000 to do up Princess Beatrice’s university digs, The Sun can reveal.

...

Two tours by Prince Charles — to South America last March and Japan, Brunei and Indonesia last November — cost taxpayers almost £700,000 EACH in travel bills alone.

That, fact fans, is over 100% more than the BBC executives claimed in expenses over 5 years, and which the paper was furious about last week.

Irrational and unpredictable.

When the Sun isn't doing its best to link Iran to the Taliban, it instead uses the kind of logic which would disgrace an 8-year-old. From today's leader column:

HOW dare Iran arrest nine workers from the British embassy in Tehran.

The claim that our diplomats were behind violent street demonstrations over the rigged Iranian presidential election is ludicrous.

Iran's irrational and unpredictable behaviour shows why it would be such a danger if it had nukes.

Diplomats can be ordered back. But you can't order back a nuclear missile once it's been launched.

Yes, because arresting diplomats is just like launching a nuclear missile, isn't it? It also isn't irrational or unpredictable when you note that the regime is blaming those that it has repeatedly in the past, and that this was just a step up from last week's reciprocal expelling of diplomats.

Despite numerous attempts down the years to paint those in power in Iran as "mad mullahs", they're not suicidal. The real reason why Iran must be stopped from becoming a nuclear power is because it will transform the balance of power in the Middle East, putting Iran on the same level as Israel and ahead of Saudi Arabia. This has always been about preventing a re-run of mutually assured destruction; only Israel can be allowed to have weapons which can decimate an entire region in minutes. You can be certain that were we to somehow go back to a time when war against Iran was potentially the next stop on the grand Bush regional tour, the Sun would back it to the hilt.

Columnists.

Is it just me, or have the columnists pages mysteriously disappeared from the Sun's website? I've noted over the last couple of days that the links on the Sun's main news page have gone, but the link to them entirely now also seems to have gone. The page still exists, but the last update was Saturday's columns. Is this the first phase of Murdoch's supposed charging for content plan, or just that no one really gives a stuff what the Sun's monkeys with typewriters churn out?

Goodbye so soon...

Good riddance then to Rebekah Wade (or, according to the Graun, Rebekah Brooks, as she is now apparently calling herself since her recent wedding), who will be moving "upstairs" in News International in a long mooted move and one that she herself has long been lobbying for.

This isn't the place as yet for a long consideration of her time as editor of the biggest selling newspaper in the country, but it remains the case that for the most part Wade proved to be a less controversial editor than her time at the News of the World suggested she would be. The main bungles which did happen during her watch, which included her "BONKERS BRUNO LOCKED UP" front page splash, to say nothing of the time she was arrested after drunkenly slapping her former husband are not much to write home about when you consider the Sun's history, especially while Kelvin MacKenzie was editor.

That's not to say that Wade was a non-entity as editor, far from it. She kept up her campaign for "Sarah's law", legislation which children's charities themselves oppose as either unproved or potentially putting them further at risk as paedophiles head even further underground. Other campaigns have included almost yearly rages against the Human Rights Act, which it has repeatedly lied about and slandered, repeated demands that the detention limit for "terrorist suspects" be extended, whether to 90 or 42 days, with the paper the first time round denouncing those who voted against as "traitors", constant moaning that sentences are not long enough and that more prison places are essential, even when Labour has vastly lengthed and expanded both, and more recently, hysterical scaremongering, both about knife crime and Britain being "broken", as well as a horrendous campaign "for" Baby P, which resulted in two of those involved in his case considering suicide. That isn't to mention other quite wonderful journalistic successes, such as the claim back in January that "radical Muslims" were targeting Jews such as Alan Sugar, which led to legal action being taken, or last year's "IVF twins were dumped because they're girls", which was untrue on almost every count.

All this said, the Sun has certainly become to an extent more liberal during Wade's tenure. Whether this is down to her or because in general society is becoming more tolerant is unclear, but the paper which not so long back was leading campaigns against the possibility of Julian Clary becoming host of the Generation Game because of his sexuality, or which asked on its front page whether the country was being run by a "gay mafia" has moved on. During the Big Brother racism scandal it ran a front page, which although somewhat hypocritical, was the sort of thing it would have never done only a few years ago. It still loathes asylum seekers, failed or otherwise, but that's hardly unique in the tabloid world. Both the Daily Mail and Express are far more reactionary than the Sun on almost all of these matters.

The Sun still matters most though because of its sale and its influence. While the Mail may be catching up, or even caught up, the Sun is still courted by politicians looking for the nod of approval from Rupert Murdoch. He is, after all, the real power behind the throne, and any editor of any of his papers is only following the rules put down by him. His recent comments about David Cameron, that he has to be a second Thatcher if he's to gain his full approval, showed just how politicians have to portray and present themselves to get support. It should be remembered that this is a man who has no vote in this country, who has in the past made it his task to pay as little tax in this country as possible, and who is fundamentally unaccountable to anyone other than himself. Whoever becomes the next editor of the paper, and no one seems to have any idea who it's likely to be, the real power will not lie with he or she.

Update: Stan in the comments at my place reminded me that I forgot about the Alfie Patten debacle, which indeed should be among Wade's worst moments.

Weddings and Iranian funerals.

This tells you just how important the Sun remains, despite the arrival of the Twatter generation, in the estimation of politicians:

When Rebekah Wade, Sun newspaper editor and one of Britain's most powerful women, married horse trainer Charlie Brooks this weekend, she didn't so much invite a guest list to the reception as a power list.

Gordon Brown, David Cameron, and Wade's boss Rupert Murdoch attended a Saturday afternoon reception at Brooks' family estate near Chipping Norton.

Of course, they might have just turned up so they could chat to the actual boss, knowing he'd be in attendance, and while the Sun remains undecided about who it will support at the next election, despite it seeming more than likely that it will back the Tories, there is as they say everything to play for. Can you imagine both leaders of the main political parties being invited to say, the wedding of the Guardian editor, or the BBC director general, or even the Telegraph editor's do?

Stephen Brook also provides us with some apparent information as to when Wade herself might be moved upstairs:

But Murdoch has extracted a promise from her that she will continue to edit the Sun until the general election, before handing over the reins.

Not that the editor makes much difference: it's the master that sets the tone.

P.S. The Sun's editorial today deliberately conflates two completely unrelated issues:

THE dodgy "election" of hardline fanatic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to another term as Iran's President is bad for his country - and terrible for the rest of the world.

With the backing of the ruling Ayatollahs he is likely to continue with Iran's nuclear build-up and keep backing terror groups throughout the Middle East.

But just as important to us is the evidence that growing numbers of young British men are fighting with the terrorists in Afghanistan.

Our soldiers have already told of hearing Birmingham and Manchester accents among Taliban fighters.

And yesterday it was reported that a dead insurgent had an Aston Villa tattoo on his body.

You have to hand it to the writer of this leader column - that's a good connection, and one specifically designed to make the reader believe that Iran and the "terrorists in Afghanistan" are either one and the same thing or being funded by them. Iran might well support and fund Hizbullah, and to a lesser extent Hamas, which is a Sunni Muslim group, but the idea that Iran is doing the same with the Taliban is ridiculous, and not just because Iran originally co-operated with the overthrow of the Talibs in 2001. Iran might well sponsor Sunni jihadism in the form of Hamas, but it does so only because that group has no world view, and is instead dedicated only to the liberation of Palestine. Getting into bed with the Taliban, even the sections of it which are more moderate than the al-Qaida supporters which it also contains and connives with is similar to communists working with fascists (and before someone says Molotov-Ribbentrop, that was cynicism on both sides, knowing that war was inevitable but had to be delayed); they want to destroy each other, not work together.

Equally, the idea that there are "growing" numbers of Brits fighting in Afghanistan is plausible, but not especially likely. The fact that one "insurgent" had an Aston Villa tattoo is neither here nor there; in case the Sun hasn't noticed, the Premier League is global. In any case, I might be in the minority here, but that a tiny number of British Muslims might be fighting those they could have gone to school with, while a cause for concern, is not terribly terrible. Far better that they become insurgents and usually find themselves getting killed in the process than carry out attacks back here. The real problem, much more troubling than Brit Muslims fighting in Afghanistan is them coming back having been trained and graduated from the real "universities of terrorism" which are the camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan; security might be lax in some prisons, but they're not going to learn how to make TATP in there.

If we don't, we are simply playing into the hands of men like Ahmadinejad - who jabbers about democracy while locking up his opponents and supporting our enemies.

If the Sun wanted to do something useful rather than scaremongeringly bleat about terrorists, it would be supporting the young of Iran in what looks increasingly like a potential uprising against the Ayatollahs, but then you rather suspect that the Sun, like Israel and others in both Washington and London secretly wanted Ahmadinejad to stay in power so that the status quo ante, so important to all, stays unchanged.