Ever slept in a Hilton?

Paris Hilton's 45 days jail sentence for breaking her probation for a drink-driving conviction has resulted in the following open petition to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger:

Paris Whitney Hilton is an American celebrity and socialite. She is an heiress to a share of the Hilton Hotel fortune, as well as to the real estate fortune of her father Richard Hilton. She provides hope for young people all over the U.S. and the world. She provides beauty and excitement to (most of) our otherwise mundane lives.

Just to clarify, if your life is so mundane that the antics of some talentless little rich girl whose celebrity status stems from footage leaked on t'interweb of her sucking dick is enough to excite and entertain you then you deserve nothing less than the utmost contempt and scorn from all sentient beings upon this planet and to rot in the same prison cell as that empty-headed blonde piece of spoilt trash for all eternity .

Britain delivers damning verdict on Blair's 10 years

So says The Observer newspaper this Easter Sunday morning. And how do they know how the entire British public feels about Blair's reign? Because they ran an exhaustive nationwide poll... of 2,034 people.

Hmm, right. 2,034? I see. In July 2006 the population of the United Kingdom was 60,609,153. So that means that the poll canvassed approximately 0.0034% of the nation

From the opinions of 0.0034% of the nation one can extrapolate the result across the entire nation and conclude that "Britain delivers damning verdict on Blair's 10 years"? Am I the only one who thinks that such a leap is totally absurd and and nothing more than an exercise in sensationalising an insignificant poll result into big, important news?

And this is what passes for broadsheet journalism in this country.