The news in brief 26th November 2014

 A blog post from the archives:

Man am I sick of this one. Just to be clear:

"A controversy emerged over changing the language of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' in Britain from 1986, because, it was alleged in the popular press, it was seen as racially dubious. This was based only on a rewriting of the rhyme in one private nursery as an exercise for the children there and not on any local government policy. A similar controversy emerged in 1999 when reservations about the rhyme were submitted to Birmingham City Council by a working group on racism in children's resources, which were never approved or implemented. Two private nurseries in Oxfordshire in 2006 altered the song to "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep", with black being replaced with a variety of other adjectives, like "happy, sad, hopping" and "pink". Commentators have asserted that these controversies have been exaggerated or distorted by some elements of the press as part of a more general campaign against political correctness."

And before anyone points out its from Wikipedia, here's the source material. Check it for yourselves.

Curran, J.; Petley, J.; Gaber, I. (2005). Culture wars: the media and the British left. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. pp. 85–107. ISBN 0748619178.
Cashmore, E. (2004). Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Studies. London: Taylor & Francis. p. 321. ISBN 0415286743.
"Nursery opts for 'rainbow sheep'". BBC News Education. 2006-03-07. Retrieved 2008-02-04.

Seriously. I'd appreciate greatly if petty hatemongers on the Internet got their facts straight before they made arguments that made them sound like dangerous fucktards.