I was rather startled to hear on the Joy FM news about a person dying of being bashed in Yarraville, with one of those charged with murder being a resident of Seddon (my suburb ( Read more... )

Residents of a council housing block told to remove welcome mats and pot plants as health and safety risks. The Brits are being encouraged to report neighbours who have "too much" money as potentially living off the proceeds of crime.

The text of one of Gordon Brown’s quitting minister’s resignation letter.

A new Eurosceptic group is being formed ( Read more... )

About all the non-Germans who were willing to help with the Holocaust.

Apparent attack on the Dutch royal family kills driver of the car involved.

President Sarkozy and his wife finding flirting on-air generates lots of hits.

Economic and immigration pressures are moving European voters to the Right, but will authoritarians or libertarians win ( Read more... )

EU regulators ban selling or giving away a large batch of kiwi fruit for being very slightly “too small”.

Apparently, calling Scientology “a cult” is illegal in the UK.

Apparently, it is a bad idea for a father to photograph his own children in public.

An older piece on the reversal, from the 1950s onwards, of five centuries of decreasing ( Read more... )

Forensic psychologist Nigel Latta’s book Into the Darklands and Beyond: Unveiling the Predators Amongst Us is about working with sexual predators and other criminals as well as troubled adolescents (many of whom are well down that same path). Reading about the evil, sad and depraved I found a distinct relief after The Al Qaeda Reader because- ( Read more... )

Who wrote: The TV business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs?

Former CBS newsman Bernard Goldberg regards gonzo journalist Hunter S Thompson’s jeremiad as a bad example for it’s not good when someone who has abused his mind and body as much as Hunter Thompson ( Read more... )

Saying it in pictures.

The poor effects of planning laws.

How expenditure on food has shrunk as a proportion of income.

Tort law reform has done wonders for the Mississippi economy: About 60,000 new jobs have arrived in four years - not a small number in a workforce of about 1.3 million - and a sharp improvement from the 30,000 jobs lost in the ( Read more... )

Really cute promotional video from the BBC.

Pictures from the Balkans.

The Swiss are worried about plant rights: We live in a time of cornucopian abundance and plenty, yet countless human beings are malnourished, even starving. In the face of this cruel paradox, worry about the purported rights of plants is the true immorality. What this really ( Read more... )

The victims.

How many danger signs about a trouble student are enough? Yes but. The failure of predictive profiling: "There is no accurate or useful profile of the 'the school shooter.'" Unlike workplace shooters, who tend to be fairly well educated middle aged failures with a history of mental problems, the only true common denominator of ( Read more... )

I have ambivalent feelings about the current Commonwealth government ad campaign about violence against women. I am not all that keen on compulsorily taking people’s money to preach at them. I am also sceptical about whenever such campaigns have useful effects. A few years ago, the EU ran an anti-racism campaign. The follow-up surveys indicated ( Read more... )