So now we know

1:48pm

Forget air travel, cars or coal. The real culprit behind global warming is the Scandinavian moose.

This must be one of the strangest headlines ever:

Norway's Moose Population in Trouble for Belching

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I can beat that...

1:25pm

...Clive. My second form biology report - the last science lessons I had before dropping them for O Level: D for quality, E for effort. "Simply not interested".

Now, of course, I realise that science is the sine qua non of a proper education. Not when I was 13, though.

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Here we go again

10:01am

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Sorry

6:25pm

Apologies for the lack of posts today. I'm stuck in meetings but will try to catch up overnight.

This BBC headline did catch my eye:

Sex is prime cause of China's HIV 

I think that falls in the 'well I never' category. (And yes, I know it's more complicated than that.)

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The Twofer

3:37pm

Here's a first.

Earlier today I took part in Comment Central's new feature, the Twofer, in which I was interviewed by Daniel Finkelstein. As he puts it:

We're now able to bring you two-way webcam interviews, allowing me to talk to bloggers and Times correspondents all over the world.

 

It crackles a bit, but that's the price of being a pioneer. 

 

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Wikipedia's not so devastating riposte

2:38pm

Oliver Kamm had a very sensible piece in the Times yesterday, about Wikipedia:

There is no necessary reason that Wikipedia’s continual revisions enhance knowledge. It is quite as conceivable that an early version of an entry in Wikipedia will be written by someone who knows the subject, and later editors will dissipate whatever value is there. Wikipedia seeks not truth but consensus, and like an interminable political meeting the end result will be dominated by the loudest and most persistent voices.

This is an inherent flaw. The problem is not that there are too few voices in the editorial process, who can skew the result, but the opposite. Participation is prized more than competence.  

Regular readers will know that I share Oliver's view of Wikipedia, which he rightly labels "a pernicious influence on our intellectual life".

As for the intellectual life of the founder of Wikipedia...I wish you luck in seaching for it, if his reponse to Oliver is anything to go by:

> "The notion that a false claim to knowledge is wrong is not part of> Wikipedia's culture."
This is preposterous.

> "It combines the free-market dogmatism of the libertarian Right with> the anti-intellectualism of the populist Left. "
Nonsense.

It is hard to know how to coherently respond to ignorant ranting which
appears to make no attempt to even connect at any point with the facts
of reality.

--Jimbo

And, er, that's it. Not exactly a devastating riposte. Not, in fact, any kind of riposte.

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Who'da thunk it? Of the BBC, nokh?

12:09pm

This comes as a huge surprise:

LGF reader Wicksy points out some more telling edits at Wikipedia, this time by someone using an IP address belonging to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). First, in the entry for George W. Bush:

 

And in the entry for D-9 Caterpillars, a BBC employee changed the word “terrorists” to:

 

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Record A-levels! Hurrah!

11:52am

It's a generation of geniuses!

And tractor production is at record levels!

Rejoice, I say! Rejoice!

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Kids

11:17am

There's a very sensible post at Harry's Place on 'killer kids'.

So, it's now a huge social problem. The nation's children are out of control and killing each other and killing adults who give them a mouthful. 

...This is puzzling to most. After all, we have banned smacking, so this generation of children haven't learned that violence is a valid means of settling disputes, and teachers now run the classroom by consensus rather than authority, which demonstrates - well something fuzzy and warm too.

At the risk of sounding like a tabloid journalist - but I want to throw the idea out there - is the net result that kids no longer understand the consequences of violence, are frankly out of control, and teachers are too afraid to run the school and parents practically impotent at home.

But fear not. The Home Office has found the answer.

According to The Times, junior Home Officer minister Meg Hillier has said that drunken pop stars and discounted booze at supermarkets is to blame.

Really? If my generation had emulated our poster boys (like Jim Morrison, Lou Reed, Sid Vicious and the like) instead of just wearing their T-shirts we'd never have made our 30s. And are we supposed to believe that previous generations of kids didn't binge drink? Haven't they watched Woodstock, or Quadrophenia, or Rude Boy...

And cheap supermarket cider? Supermarkets can't sell to the underage, so if underage drinkers are getting their hands on the stuff, who is buying it for them?

...Perhaps the kids are out of control because we refuse to control them. Instead we seek to manipulate them through dubious means like 'pop star role models' and price fixing of beer.

Quite. There are a variety of causes behind such behaviour. Children without a resident father. Parents unwilling or afraid to discipline their children properly. Teachers unwilling or afraid to discipline their children properly. Police behaving as a branch of social work. And police and CPS refusal to back those who stand up to thugs, rather than prosecuting them.

Supermarket drink prices have nothing to with it. As Brett says, 'Supermarkets can't sell to the underage, so if underage drinkers are getting their hands on the stuff, who is buying it for them?'.

You'll have to wait until September 2008 for my full thoughts on this, in my next book...

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Oh dear - Spurs are Spurs after all

2:10pm

I went to the first Spurs' home game of the season last night. Oh dear. Truly awful stuff. Everton thoroughly deserved their win. 

That said, as a commenter put it on a Spurs site I look at:

We watched our 3rd choice Centre Back limp off after the 17th minute leaving our 4th and 5th choice Centre Backs. We had our 4th choice Left Back (who in reality is our 2nd choice Right Back) and our 2nd choice Right Winger.

Stalteri and Gardner are shockingly bad defenders, who would struggle in the Championship. They are now the best we have, given the injuries to King, Dawson, Lee, Kaboul, Bale and Assou-Ekotto. Without some of them back, we are stuffed. With them, things should get back on track.

Then again, Spurs wouldn't be Spurs if we didn't miss our expectations by a country mile.

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