Premature conclusions

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Speeding through life could land us in a meltdown, say psychologists
Millions of us are in danger of "meltdown" because we race through life at break-neck speed, psychologists have warned. They fear we could do serious damage to our health and relationships unless we slow down. A study revealed that scores of us are bolting down our evening meal in less than ten minutes. Others are hurrying through love-making in just two minutes.
The 1948 Kinsey Report found that "for perhaps three-quarters of all males, orgasm is reached within two minutes" of intercourse. It doesn't tell how long it took a man to eat his dinner, but at least he had something to do while his kippers were grilling.


Rock on

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Northern Rock to be nationalised
The UK Treasury is to announce on Sunday that it is to nationalise Northern Rock, the troubled British bank, the Financial Times understands.

The decision ends months of efforts to find a private sector rescuer for the stricken mortgage lender, which ran into trouble as a result of the international credit squeeze.  It means that neither of the two bids for the bank, from Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin consortium and Northern Rock’s management team, have been successful.


William Kristol: "A propagandist straight out of Pravda's archives"

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Tomgram: Jonathan Schwarz, Bill Kristol's Obscure Masterpiece
Imagine that there were a Beatles record only a few people knew existed. And imagine you got the chance to listen to it, and as you did, your excitement grew, note by note. You realized it wasn't merely as good as Rubber Soul, or Revolver, or Sgt. Pepper's. It was much, much better. And now, imagine how badly you'd want to tell other Beatles fans all about it.

That's how I feel for my fellow William Kristol fans. You loved it when Bill said invading Iraq was going to have "terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East"? You have the original recording of him explaining the war would make us "respected around the world" and his classic statement that there's "almost no evidence" of Iraq experiencing Sunni-Shia conflict? Well, I've got something that will blow your mind!


Not my fault, chum!

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We must end teen booze culture says mother of fatal "happy slapping" kid
The mum of a 15-year-old girl locked up for drunkenly filming a "happy-slapping" killing last night said her daughter was ensnared by Britain's terrifying culture of teenage boozing. The divorced 33-year-old, speaking after the girl admitted aiding and abetting the manslaughter of Gavin Waterhouse by two teenagers, said: "The whole country must fight this violent and horrific problem. She said: "I suspected my daughter was in with the wrong crowd but you can't keep a teenager locked up. "You can scream and shout for help but little notice is taken until something terrible happens. "Now the whole country is watching and pointing the finger - but what use is that? A man is dead and my daughter is in custody. Surely prevention is better than knee-jerk reactions? "I can't criticise the individual social worker who has been assigned to my daughter but it's the system that has failed."


The court heard the girl was handed a mobile phone by Masters, who was not a friend, and was told: "Video this."
She approached Mr Waterhouse and asked him for money before recording the attack. Afterwards, the attackers showed friends the video footage - even though they were aware their victim had died.

So there you have it. Everyone's fault except the parent. The 'system', the 'culture', the 'social', the supermarkets, alcohol. 'You can't lock them up', says 'student' mum. Really? Well, I've already warned my son that if he get's involved with the 'wrong crowd' and starts any old nonsense two things will happen. Members of the 'wrong crowd' will get a 'visit' from me and he will be chained up in the cellar until he agrees to behave! And he knows I'm not (completely) joking. Ah, Dr Spock, eat ya heart out!

Britney Spears's Minge*

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GumGum Launches New Image Licensing Platform
GumGum launches an ambitious new project today - a new platform and business model for licensing content on the Internet, beginning with images. Image piracy runs rampant on the Internet, of course. Blogger Perez Hilton was sued for stealing images of celebrities...Attributor, a Silicon Valley startup, helps content owners track their intellectual property to find examples of infringement. But until now, no one has really thought about a better way to license content on the Internet, so that both large and tiny publishers have an incentive to avoid simply stealing stuff.
I don't believe that using small, low resolution copies of images on a non-commercial blog constitutes theft. The interesting thing is that many of the people who rail against record companies for pursuing music downloaders and who, themselves, are happy to rip free music are the same people that get all righteous about the 'theft' of images or so-called 'creative content'. Here are some comments from the Techcrunch post which reflect my own feelings on the subject. Yes, that's right! I've 'stolen' the comments (ie. the creative efforts of others) to save me the bother of working out my own response thereby allowing me more time to enjoy my mug of tea and bourbon biscuits.

Ooooh, arrest me!

(Comment 3) When people speak about licensing content on the internet...I always want to say think about how internet was born and what it was made for:academic information exchange! Now the information is not quite academic but its still exchange, almost no production cost information share. Today that information is software, video, music, ebooks, etc. You cant stop it, learn to live with it.

(Comment 5) I still don’t see the difference between “downloading music” and “using a photo”. Music is much more labour intensive than taking a photo, but people seem to think its worth protecting. WTF? Set up the pirate bay for images already.

(Comment 20) @5 brings up the best point…how is this any different than music? TechCrunch says that the record labels just need to deal with it and accept the inevitable. Why not the same message for photographers?
So, why does downloading an image of Britney Spears's minge* amount to 'theft' but downloading one of her dire ditties is considered fair game? More to the point, why would anyone do either?!

*Cynical search engine attention grabber. Watch my stats grow today!

Forget the schoolboard man, welcome waterboard man.

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'Retrain ex-soldiers' as teachers
Former soldiers should be retrained as teachers and used to bring military style discipline to tough inner city schools, a think tank has said. The government is being urged to adopt a US-style programme which brings ex-servicemen and women back to school.

The Centre for Policy Studies says ex-soldiers could have a profound effect on discipline and learning. The Conservatives are backing the idea, saying children need order and role models for self-discipline.
The report says the fact that ex-soldiers had a macho image could help engender respect - particularly among boys.
Update: See Justin's brilliant take on this:
Instead of responding to, and trying to outdo, the machismo of Johnny Knobhead and his spotty mates, we should be preying on it. Put pussification on the national curriculum. Recruit former drag artists as teachers. Make the boys in the class wear filly aprons in Home Economics, take photos of them and put the pictures on the school website.

Get ‘Four Poofs and a Piano’ to teach music. Make So Macho by Sinita the official school song and enforce its singing before registration every day. Don’t chase truants, instead start disgusting but plausible rumours about them in their absence. Put a truant’s mobile number along with a promise of lewd acts on the boys’ toilet wall. No one will dare skip school again.