1. World Cup.  Alright, everyone’s got their vuvuzula stuff out of their system by now right?  I mean, this thing has been underway for a while and the competition is heating up.  There are bad ref calls and whatever.  What I just learned is that the United States wants to host the Cup in the future.  Why?  While the US Team is doing fine and dandy, people don’t really care.  They may pretend to care just like they pretend to like classic films like Casablanca when they haven’t ever really seen it.  I’m more than okay letting the world enjoy their World Cup without America feeling like she has to get all into it.

2. Oil Spill. OMFG, is that shit still going on? You know, when I made my first Facebook post about that, it was already two weeks old. Now it’s more than two MONTHS old. Beaches are getting trashed, lives are being devastated, and it’s become quite the nightmare environmental scenario. Worse, the relief wells are still not due to be complete for over another month and you know, I am not all that confident that’ll fix things either. This situation cannot be minimized. It really is THE most important thing in America right now. It practically screams what’s wrong with our government, our industry, and our energy policy what with all the corruption and inaction across the board.

3. Afghan War. A big time general got kicked out because he said lots of negative things about those in charge in an article published in Rolling Stone. First, Rolling Stone still exists? Secondly, I want to know why we’re still in Afghanistan. It ain’t to fight Al Qeada like was originally planned. They’ve moved on to Pakistan. Is it to fight the Taliban? Is it to fight people that only fight us because we’re there fighting them fighting us? I thought I elected Obama to get us out of these wars. Wait, that brings me to…

4. President Obama. He hasn’t closed down Gitmo. He hasn’t brought home our troops. He hasn’t really done a very good job at bringing our economy back. He kept many of the Bush era policies of warrant-less wiretapping and secret prisons. He’s half-assed the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He’s half-assed nominated liberalish people to the Supreme Court. I’m going to say what many of my liberal friends won’t… he’s not been an effective leader. Yes, I know it’s only been such and such many months. Yes, I know he inherited many problems. But he’s had plenty of time to suck on his own. He completely has bungled the Oil Spill. He continues to not be a good leader in economic policies that reform the way things are done. Handing out cash isn’t a solution. His one big win of Health Care isn’t even really that impressive considering it lacks a Public Option and the implementation of the effects are all way diluted with time. He has squandered a majority in the house and senate and now with mid-term elections looming, under his leadership or lack thereof, there are overwhelming predictions that Republicans (and even more terrifying Tea Party members) are going to be roaring back. Son, I am disappoint.

5. “Later, Skater: On Tour!” Buy your copy for summer reading today. Sales haven’t been great, which is confusing me. I mean, I sold and gave away lots and lots of copies of the original “Later, Skater” The sequel is bigger and better and downloadable for instant gratification for only 5 dollars. FIVE DOLLARS! Get it today to help keep me encouraged about my writing.

Actor Sir Patrick Stewart paid tribute to a former teacher as he was knighted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace.

The 69-year-old said he owed “literally everything” to the English teacher who first encouraged him to perform.

“Although many people in my life have had great influence on me, without this man none of it would have happened,” he said following Wednesday’s investiture.

The classically-trained actor is best known for his roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the X-Men films.

He was recently seen on the London stage appearing alongside fellow actor knight Sir Ian McKellen in Waiting for Godot.

Sir Patrick said his knighthood – announced in the New Year Honours List – had been “an unlooked-for honour”.

“But as I grew up as a child, falling in love with the theatre and Shakespeare, my heroes were Sir Laurence Olivier [and] Sir John Gielgud,” he continued.

“The knights of the theatre represented to me not only the pinnacle of the profession but the esteem in which the profession was held.

“To find myself, to my astonishment, in that company is the grandest thing that has professionally happened to me.”

The Yorkshire-born star said he would be celebrating his knighthood with Cecil Dormand, the teacher who first encouraged him to consider acting as a profession.

“He was the one that put a copy of Shakespeare in my hand [and] said, ‘Now get up on your feet and perform’.”

Earlier this week it was announced that Sir Patrick would chair a jury and deliver a talk at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.

The actor was recently seen at the Minerva Theatre in Chichester playing William Skakespeare in the Edward Bond play Bingo.

A mother has warned of the risk of children spending hundreds of pounds on “free” online games available through Facebook after her 12-year-old son ran up bills of more than £900 without her knowledge.

The woman, who prefers to remain anonymous, discovered last month that her son had spent more than £900 on FarmVille. He had emptied his own savings account of £288 and had used her credit card to the tune of £625 to pay the bills.

FarmVille, one of the most popular games on Facebook, allows members to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting crops, trees and livestock. New users are given virtual coins to set up their farm, and the revenue from matured crops can be used to maintain it. But those who are desperate to progress more quickly can buy extra virtual coins using real cash.

The mother said: “The first use of my card was on 14 March. I discovered it on the 29th and the card was stopped at that point. Any transactions after that date were already in the system, so what I thought was a £427 spend turned into £625 over the next few days.

“The total spend is about £905, but the credits are still rolling in. Facebook and [game creator] Zynga will not refund anything as [the son] lives in my house. Facebook has disabled his account and Zynga has unhelpfully suggested I use password protection on computers in the future.”

She contacted her credit card company, HSBC, but was told she would only qualify for a refund if she reported her son to the police and obtained a crime number. “He would be cautioned and I have been told that this caution would stay with him. Obviously the idea of a stupid farm simulation jeopardising his future earnings is not something that I want to consider,” she said.

She added that her son was “very shocked” when confronted with the amount he had spent, but it was clear he knew what he was doing. “When I asked him why he did it he said that they had brought out ‘good stuff that I wanted’.”

She does not blame Facebook, Zynga or HSBC, saying that her son was the one using the card and is entirely at fault. But she added: “I do think they need to shoulder some responsibility in this business and put systems in place to stop this happening again. The fact that he was using a card in a different name should bring up some sort of security and the online secure payment filter seems to be bypassed for Facebook payments.”

A spokeswoman for HSBC said that had the credit card been used on a gambling site it would have started alarm bells ringing for “unusual usage”. But because the card had been used to buy Facebook credits HSBC did not consider the transactions to be suspicious, even though £625 was spent in just two weeks.

Michael Arrington, founder of the Techcrunch blog, criticised Zynga last year for “monetising” the game, and warned that people who didn’t have access to a credit card to buy extra virtual money could use “pay by mobile” companies instead.

The indebted 12-year-old has not used his mobile to pay for virtual money, his mother said, but only because his older brother lost all his credit buying a ringtone a couple of years ago.

“We sound terribly technologically unaware don’t we? I wouldn’t mind but I am always explaining that all of these online offers, ringtones and games are a scam designed to take money off stupid people. Kids know best though.”

(update to this story)

LONDON — A judge has sentenced a cast member of the “Harry Potter” films to 120 hours of community service for growing marijuana.

Twenty-year-old Jamie Waylett, who plays school bully Vincent Crabbe in the magical movie franchise, pleaded guilty to producing the drug at a court hearing last week.

Prosecutors say police found 10 marijuana plants growing in a bedroom at Waylett’s mother’s London house.

Producing cannabis carries a maximum 14-year sentence. Judge Timothy Workman said Tuesday that he accepted the cultivation was on a small scale and for Waylett’s own use.

He said the actor had been, “until now, a man of good character.”

LONDON — Britain’s National Health Service has a message for teens: Sex can be fun.

Health officials are trying to change the tone of sex education by urging teachers to emphasize that sexual relations can be healthy and pleasurable instead of simply explaining the mechanics of sex and warning about diseases.

The new pamphlet, called “Pleasure,” has sparked some opposition from those who believe it encourages promiscuity among teens in a country that already has high rates of teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

The National Health Service in the city of Sheffield produced the booklet, which has a section called “an orgasm a day” that encourages educators to tell teens about the positive physical and emotional effects of sex and masturbation, which is described as an easy way for people to explore their bodies and feel good. Like more traditional sex education guides, it encourages demonstrations about how to use condoms and other contraceptives.

Some professionals have hailed the new approach as a welcome antidote to traditional sex education, which they say can be long on biological facts but short on information about the complexity of human relationships.

The booklet suggests ways in which teachers can encourage sexual awareness and responsibility while teaching young people that sex is something that is meant to be enjoyed.

Steve Slack, who helped produce the leaflet as Director of the Center for HIV&Sexual Health in Sheffield, said one goal is to help young people learn to resist peer pressure and delay having sex until they are emotionally ready.

“Far from promoting teenage sex, it is designed to encourage young people to delay losing their virginity until they are sure they will enjoy the experience,” he said.

Slack said some of the ideas in the booklet came from the Netherlands, which is well known in Europe for its liberal attitude toward sexual behavior.

But the pamphlet is condemned by some educators who believe it will lead to more casual sex among teens.

“Some of it is good sense, but I think it’s wrong is to suggest that 16-year-olds should wantonly enter into having sexual intercourse for pleasure,” said Anthony Seldon, headmaster of Wellington College, a school for teens.”I think this is medically wrong and emotionally wrong and will increase teenage pregnancy and impact negatively on the formation of a long-term loving relationship.”

He said teens should be taught about the value of a long-term commitment, not simply about the pleasures of sexual intercourse.

Ruth Smith, news editor of Children&Young People Now magazine, said one goal of the new booklet is to help young people become more comfortable with their sexuality and to let them know they can speak out if they are abused or forced into a situation they don’t like.

“Research shows young people feel pressured to have sex before they’re ready,” she said.”This booklet is intended to give them the skills to discuss it. It’s not a license to go out and have sex, it’s saying if you do, do it, wait until you’re ready and enjoy it. It makes them more confident and more able to say no.”

She said the instruction guide will not be given to students but is intended to suggest ways in which teachers can start a conversation about sex.

“It’s trying to find what works with young people,” she said.

LONDON — “Titanic” stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet have pledged to help the last survivor of the sinking of the ocean liner. The stars say they have thrown their support behind a fund that would subsidize Millvina Dean’s nursing home fees.

Dean was 2 months old when the Titanic sank beneath the waves on the night of April 14, 1912. She has been living at a nursing home in the English city of Southampton since she broke her hip about three years ago but has struggled to pay the fees.

In October she sold several Titanic mementoes to raise cash.

DiCaprio and Winslet said in a statement that they hoped Dean could rest easier knowing that her future was secure. The Millvina Fund was launched Monday in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

A new exhibition featuring preserved dead bodies having sex opened in Berlin on Thursday with critics saying a maverick German anatomist dubbed “Doctor Death” has gone too far this time.

The couple, part of Gunther von Hagens’s exhibition “The Cycle of Life”, is the “low point in his tastelessness”, Michael Braun, culture expert from the conservative CDU party, told AFP.

Von Hagens said his copulating couples show the sexual act in “bracing clarity”.

The exhibits, of four “consenting donors”, are in a separate room accessible only to over-16s.

One couple, because of the process used, “is reminiscent of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as Leonardo da Vinci’s anatomical drawing, ‘Coition of a Hemisected Man and Woman (1492)’,” he said in a statement.

The exhibition “offers a deep understanding of the human body, the biology of reproduction, and the nature of sexuality”.

The dead bodies are plasticised, a process invented by Von Hagens involving skinning bodies to display the naked muscles, nerves and tendons underneath, and preserving them with a synthetic resin.

Van Hagens is no stranger to controversy and his many critics accuse him of deliberately shocking people in order to gain publicity, rather than furthering science as he claims.

In 2002 he conducted Britain’s first public autopsy in 170 years despite the risk of arrest.

Three years ago he opened a factory-cum-museum in eastern Germany manufacturing “plastinated” sections of cadavers to supply researchers and medical students and charging visitors to watch the process.

“I am firmly convinced that he just breaks taboos again and again in order to make money,” Kai Wegner, another CDU lawmaker, told AFP. “It is not about medicine or scientific progress. It is marketing and money-making pure and simple.”

It appears to work, with Von Hagens’s touring “Body Worlds” exhibition drawing millions of visitors around the world.

* 2,000+ cases in Mexico City.

* Closing US/Mexico Border “bends to politics, not science.”

* European Union warns against travel to both United States and Mexico

* UK may have seventeen cases itself.

* Russia to inspect planes coming from The Americas.

* 28 confirmed cases in NYC, 17 more are “probable”

* Deaths however have been extremely limited to Mexico.

(previous post)

A DNA test showed a 13-year-old boy in Britain is not the father of a baby born to a 15-year-old he had unprotected sex with once.

Chantelle Stedman told Alfie Patten, who was 12 when he slept with her, he was her newborn daughter Maisie’s father.

The story caused a worldwide media frenzy after it was first reported by Britain’s Sun newspaper, while politicians criticised what they called Britain’s declining morals.

At first Stedman said Patten was the only boy she had ever slept with, but soon after other teens came forward saying they too could be the baby’s father, because they claimed to have had sex with the girl.

It is still not clear who the baby’s father is.

Last month a friend of the Stedman family claimed Patten was scammed by the girl’s parents who wanted to cash in on the sensational story.

The Sun reported last month that Alfie had been seen wearing a hoodie emblazoned with the message: “I’m the daddy, if not fuck you all I’ll still be there”.

Eight is the average age at which children are given their first mobile phone, according to a survey in the UK.

More than a third of children (35 per cent) own a mobile by the time they are that age, the charity Personal Finance Education Group (pfeg) discovered.
Its survey also found that three-quarters of all children aged seven to 15 owned “at least” one mobile.

The charity’s survey highlighted how early children now become financially aware – with peer pressure forcing them to get to grips with money to afford mobile phone ringtones, call costs and computer games.

It found that children as young as seven were offering to do chores in exchange for cash to buy ringtones.

But researchers were also told that by the age of 10, children were shopping online using their parents’ debit or credit cards.

A third of children (32 per cent) have used the internet to buy computer games.

A quarter of the 546 children surveyed have voted in television competitions, which can often cost £1 or more to enter.

But only 18 per cent have bought a book online.

Wendy van den Hende, chief executive of the charity, said: “Children today face a kind of ‘technological tipping point’ forcing them to develop financial awareness at an earlier age.

“It is therefore, vital, that they are equipped with the skills and judgment to make sound decisions about money management from an early age.”

The research also found that average weekly pocket money now stands at £6.32.

The online survey carried out by Populus questioned 1,435 people including 546 children aged seven to 15, 676 parents and 759 grandparents between January 16 and 26.

BOY dad Alfie Patten has said he WILL take a DNA test to prove he is the father of his teen girlfriend’s child.
Alfie, 13, was shockingly revealed as Britain’s youngest dad by The Sun last week after Chantelle Steadman gave birth to baby girl Maisie.

But it has emerged today that THREE other local youths are claiming to be the father of the child.

And Alfie has said he is happy to take a paternity test to prove he is the father and protect 15-year-old Chantelle’s reputation.

Speaking from his home in Essex yesterday Alfie said: “Other stupid boys are lying, saying bad things, like they have slept with Chantelle too.

“But I am the only boyfriend she has had and we’ve been together for two years, so I must be the dad.

“When she found out she was having a baby, I asked her ‘Am I the dad?’ and she went ‘Yeah’ so I believe her.

“I didn’t know about DNA tests before, but Mum explained it’s when they do a swab in your mouth and it tells you if you’re the dad.

“So, if I have that, they can all shut up. But I don’t really care what people say. And I don’t like them being bad about Chantelle.”

Alfie’s dad Dennis – who dumped wife Nicola, 43, for a teenage friend of her eldest daughter – is clearly pushing for the test. “A DNA test is the only way to settle this once and for all.

“When Nicola told me Alfie was going to be a dad, I said ‘How do you know it’s his?’ “I kept asking if she was sure because I thought a boy of his age wasn’t capable of conceiving.

“And Alfie looks so much younger than 13. That’s the point of all this. He looks a little kid himself and it’s so shocking.

The vehicle fitter walked out on Alfie and his mum for a 19-year-old friend of his teen-mum stepdaughter.

But Dennis defended his decisions and refused to take the blame for Alfie’s predicament saying: “I’ve been the best dad I could.

“But we all make mistakes.”

(Ed note: facepalm.jpg)

A PC game that allows players to gang rape virtual women – and then force them to have an abortion – has been banned from Amazon.

In Rapelay, gamers direct a character to sexually assault a mother and her two young daughters at an underground station, before raping any of a selection female characters.

The game was intended for release just in Japan, but was on offer to British buyers through Amazon Marketplace, the section of the online store’s website open to third-party sellers.

But Amazon has now withdrawn the game after complaints from users, deeming it to be inappropriate. “We determined that we did not want to be selling this particular item,” a spokeswoman said.

Rapelay was developed by the Japanese production house Illusion, which makes a number of sexually violent games for the domestic market. Their other titles include “Battle Raper” and “Artificial Girl”.

A spokesman for the company said: “We believe there is no problem with the software, which has cleared the domestic ratings of an ethics watchdog body.”

Keith Vaz, the Labour MP for Leicester East who has previously spoken out against computer games that promote violence, condemned the game.

“It is intolerable that anyone would purchase a game that simulates the criminal offence of rape,” he told the Belfast Telegraph.

Rapelay, which was released in 2006, encourages players to force the virtual woman they rape to have an abortion. If they are allowed to give birth the woman throws the player’s character under a train, according to reviews of the game. It also has a feature allowing several players to team up against individual women.

Videos that he recorded during 2006 while away at war have surfaced. They were labeled as offensive and racist and people were quick to admonish the young royal. Personally, I think those people suck and should remember he was a soldier at war. In fact, the videos are really rather funny. I’m especially glad to hear that Prince Harry’s carpet does indeed match the drapes.

Sadly they haven’t released the entire video that includes him play-smooching a fellow soldier.

LONDON (AP) — A British teenage actor playing a minor role in the upcoming “Harry Potter” film was stabbed to death during a brawl in London on Saturday, police said.

Rob Knox, 18, was stabbed after he got caught up in a fight outside a bar in southwest London early Saturday, London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement.

Knox plays Ravenclaw student Marcus Belby in the upcoming film “Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince,” the sixth installment of the popular series set for release in November.

Warner Bros., the studio that is producing the film, said it was shocked by the news.

Knox was one of five young men taken to various hospitals after the brawl, police said. Among them was a 21-year-old who has since been arrested on suspicion of murder.

The fight did not appear to be gang-related, police added, but it puts the number of violent teenage deaths in London at 14 so far this year.

PARIS (AP) — Police say the last section of the Olympic torch relay through Paris will not be run because of chaotic protests.

Security officials snuffed out the torch and rushed it onto a bus at least five times because of the raucous protests against China’s human rights record.

A police spokeswoman says a vehicle now will carry the torch for the entire last part of the route, to a sports stadium in the south of Paris. The French Olympic Committee says it hopes that runners still might be able to carry the torch at the very end.

A Paris police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media, says at least 28 people have been taken into custody at the protests.

Despite massive security, at least two activists got within almost an arm’s length of the flame before they were grabbed by police. Officers tackled many protesters and carried off some of them. A protester threw water at the torch but failed to extinguish it and was also taken away.

At the start of the relay, a man identified as a Green Party activist was grabbed by security officers as he headed for 1997 400-meter world champion Stephane Diagana, the president of France’s national athletics league, who was carrying the torch from the first floor of the Eiffel Tower. The man was tackled before he got close to Diagana.

The procession continued but, soon after, a crowd of activists waving Tibetan flags interrupted it for the first time by confronting the torchbearer on a road along the Seine River. The demonstrators did not appear to get close to the torch, but its flame was put out by security officers and brought on board a bus to continue along the route.

Less than an hour later, the flame was being carried out of a Paris traffic tunnel by an athlete in a wheelchair when the procession was halted by activists who booed and chanted “Tibet.” Once again, the torch was temporarily extinguished and put on a bus despite protesters’ apparent failure to get close.

Some 3,000 officers were deployed on motorcycles, in jogging gear and using inline roller skates. Still, police barely stopped the second rush at the torch, and the attempt to extinguish it with water. Other demonstrators scaled the Eiffel Tower and hung a banner depicting the Olympic rings as handcuffs.

The torch was extinguished for the third time when police interrupted the procession as a precaution because they spotted a crowd of demonstrators on a bridge they were approaching.

Police said they did not immediately have a count of the number of arrests. Mireille Ferri, a Green Party official, said she was held by police for two hours because she approached the Eiffel Tower area with a fire extinguisher. In various locations throughout the city, activists angry about China’s human rights record and repression Tibet carried Tibetan flags and waved signs reading “the flame of shame.”

Riot police squirted tear gas to break up a sit-in protest by about 300 pro-Tibet demonstrators who blocked the torch route.

France’s former sports minister, Jean-Francois Lamour, said that though the torch had been put out, the Olympic flame itself still burned in the lantern where it is kept overnight and on airplane flights.

“The torch has been extinguished but the flame is still there,” he told France Info radio.

Police had hoped to prevent the chaos that marred the relay in London a day earlier. There, police had repeatedly scuffled with activists angry about China’s human rights record leading up to the Beijing Olympics Aug. 8-24. One protester tried to grab the torch; another tried to snuff out the flame with what appeared to be a fire extinguisher. Thirty-seven people were arrested.

In Paris, police had drawn up an elaborate plan to try to keep the torch in a safe “bubble.” Torchbearers were encircled by several hundred officers, some in riot police vehicles and on motorcycles, others on skates or on foot. Boats patrolled the Seine River that slices through the French capital, and a helicopter flew overhead.

About 80 athletes had been slated to carry the torch over the 17.4-mile route that started at the Eiffel Tower, heading down the Champs-Elysees avenue toward City Hall, then crosses over the Seine before ending at the Charlety track and field stadium.

Across town, City Hall draped its building with a banner reading, “Paris defends human rights around the world.”

One torch bearer, two-time French judo gold medalist David Douillet, told RTL radio that he regretted the choice of China, “because it isn’t up to snuff on freedom of expression, on total liberty, and of course, on Olympic values.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has left open the possibility of boycotting the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing depending on how the situation evolves in Tibet. Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday that was still the case.

Activists have been protesting along the torch route since the flame embarked on its 85,000-mile journey from Ancient Olympia in Greece to Beijing.

The torch’s round-the-world trip is the longest in Olympic history, and it is meant to shine a spotlight on China’s economic and political power. Activists have seized upon it as a backdrop for their causes, angering Beijing.

Beijing organizers criticized London’s protesters, saying their actions were a “disgusting” form of sabotage by Tibetan separatists.

“The act of defiance from this small group of people is not popular,” said Sun Weide, a spokesman for the Beijing Olympic organizing committee. “It will definitely be criticized by people who love peace and adore the Olympic spirit. Their attempt is doomed to failure.”

The torch relay also is expected to face demonstrations in San Francisco, New Delhi and possibly elsewhere on its 21-stop, six-continent tour before arriving in mainland China May 4.

(Ed note: I’m all for people having an opinion on Tibet and Human Rights in China. They should protest and protest loudly. But to continue to dog the Olympic Torch as it tours through the world is a pathetic display in and of itself. The fact that it turns violent is counter-productive at best and downright shameful and hypocritical at worst. The Olympics is about World Unity. There are much better ways for governments and their people to show disdain for China, like via trade policy. The most peculiar part of all this is, do they really think the Dahli Lama would approve of such actions. Of course not.)

Video games will be forced to carry cigarette-style health warnings under proposals to protect children from unsuitable digital material.

The report, commissioned by the Prime Minister in response to a growing moral panic about video games, will conclude that they can harm the development of children’s beliefs and value systems and desensitise them to violence. It will also recommend that retailers who sell video games to anyone under the age rating on the box should face a hefty fine or up to five years in prison, The Times has learnt.

The report, written by Tanya Byron, the clinical psychologist and television parenting guru, is also expected to address the dangers of children’s use of the internet.

“Parents are afraid to let their children out,” she said. “So they keep them at home, but allow them to take risks online.”

She will call for a massive campaign to educate parents, teachers and childcarers about how to ensure that children get maximum benefit from the digital world without being exposed to its dangers.

This will include a drive for greater awareness of inappropriate content such as pornography. Parents will be encouraged to monitor children’s online use and keep computers in living rooms rather than bedrooms. Dr Byron, a Times columnist who has two children aged 9 and 12, said that video and online games could have enormous benefits “in terms of learning and development”, but that there was too little awareness among parents about the associated risks they posed and how to manage those risks.

“You would not send your child to the pool without teaching them to swim, so why would you let them online without teaching them to manage the risks?” she said.

Dr Byron said that the current classification system for video games was confusing and not tough enough. At present only games showing sex or gross violence require an age rating from the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) and fewer than 2 per cent of titles carry an 18-certificate.

The alternative Pan-European Game Information system is considered to be ineffective because it uses symbols that are confusing and distributors effectively chose their own ratings by filling in a form about their product.

Dr Byron wants a single statutory classification system. Ratings would have to be displayed prominently on all packaging materials, like health warnings on cigarettes, as well as on shop display cases.

“We have to make child digital safety a priority. If you are under 18, you should not be able to buy an ‘18’ game and if you are under 12, you should not be able to buy a ‘12’ game,” she said. She also wants all games consoles to contain blocking mechanisms that would enable parents to prevent children playing unsuitable games on them.

(Ed note: There already are mechanisms on video games that can be used to prevent younglings from playing unsuitable games. There are already labels on all packaging and on displays. And while the ratings system is a bit screwy, of course the developers don’t get to choose their own ratings. But jackoffs who don’t actually understand the industry wouldn’t know that would they?

Sounds fair, no?)

LONDON, Feb. 28 — Prince Harry has been fighting on the front lines in Afghanistan for 10 weeks, his presence there kept secret until Thursday in a remarkable deal between the British military and news media.

British military officials confirmed that Harry, 23, third in line to the British throne, deployed to Afghanistan on Dec. 14 and has been fighting Taliban forces from a forward operating base in southern Helmand province.

News of Harry’s deployment immediately became sensational news here and rekindled an emotional debate about whether the red-haired second son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana should be risking his life in war.

When the news was posted Thursday on the Drudge Report Web site, British newspapers and television stations instantly rolled out extensive special reports on the first British royal to see combat since the Falklands War more than 25 years ago.

Those reports included lengthy taped interviews with Harry just before his deployment in December and last week at his Afghan base. Photos and video showed Harry firing a machine gun, patrolling on foot in full combat gear in an Afghan village and washing his socks in a camp sink.

“All my wishes have come true,” Harry told reporters in last week’s camp interview, wearing a brown military T-shirt and camouflage pants and noting that he had not showered in four days.

“It’s very nice to be sort of a normal person for once; I think it’s about as normal as I’m going to get,” said Harry, now addressed with his rank as Cornet Wales. “It’s much better being here experiencing it rather than hearing all the stories of people coming back.”

LONDON (AP) – England’s commissioner for children and a civil liberties group joined in on a campaign Tuesday to ban high-frequency devices intended to drive misbehaving children away from shops and other areas.

The so-called “Mosquito” device emits high-frequency noise which is audible – and annoying – to young ears, but generally not heard by people over 20.

“This device is a quick fix that does not tackle the root cause of the problem and it is indiscriminate,” English Children’s Commissioner Al Aynsley-Green said.

The campaigners claim that about 3,500 of the devices, made by a Welsh company, are in use.

Aynsley-Green said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio that the devices do not tackle the real problem, which is that children have no place to gather other than on the streets.

“I think it is a powerful symptom of what I call the malaise at the heart of our society,” he said.

“I’m very concerned about what I see to be an emerging gap between the young and the old, the fears, the intolerance, even the hatred, of the older generation toward the young.”

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, supported the campaign.

“Imagine the outcry if a device was introduced that caused blanket discomfort to people of one race or gender, rather than to our kids,” Chakrabarti said. “The ‘Mosquito’ has no place in a country that values its children and seeks to instill them with dignity and respect.”

The Mosquito’s inventor, Howard Stapleton, has called for agreement about guidelines for using the devices.

“We tell shopkeepers to use it when they have a problem and I would be more than happy to introduce a contract which stipulates to shopkeepers how it can be used,” Stapleton was quoted as telling the Western Mail newspaper.

“People talk about infringing human rights but what about the human rights of the shopkeeper who is seeing his business collapse because groups of unruly teenagers are driving away his customers?”

LONDON (Reuters) – A chain of retail stores in Britain has withdrawn the sale of beds named Lolita and designed for six-year-old girls after furious parents pointed out that the name was synonymous with sexually active pre-teens.

Woolworths said staff who administer the web site selling the beds were not aware of the connection.

In “Lolita,” a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov, the narrator becomes sexually involved with his 12-year-old stepdaughter — but Woolworths staff had not heard of the classic novel or two subsequent films based on it.

Hence they saw nothing wrong with advertising the Lolita Midsleeper Combi, a whitewashed wooden bed with pull-out desk and cupboard intended for girls aged about six until a concerned mother raised the alarm on a parenting website.

“What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either,” a spokesman told British newspapers.

“We had to look it up on (online encyclopedia) Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now.”

Woolworths said the product had now been dropped.

“Now this has been brought to our attention, the product has been removed from sale with immediate effect,” the chain said.

“We will be talking to the supplier with regard to how the branding came about.”

A pair of twins who were adopted by separate families as babies got married without knowing they were brother and sister, a peer told the House of Lords.

A court annulled the British couple’s union after they discovered their true relationship, Lord Alton said.

The peer – who was told of the case by a High Court judge involved – said the twins felt an “inevitable attraction”.

He said the case showed how important it was for children to be able to find out about their biological parents.

Details of the identities of the twins involved have been kept secret, but Lord Alton said the pair did not realise they were related until after their marriage.

The former Liberal Democrat MP raised the couple’s case during a House of Lords debate on the Human Fertility and Embryology Bill in December.

“They were never told that they were twins,” he told the Lords.

“They met later in life and felt an inevitable attraction, and the judge had to deal with the consequences of the marriage that they entered into and all the issues of their separation.”

He told the BBC News website that their story raises the wider issue of the importance of strengthening the rights of children to know the identities of their biological parents.

“If you start trying to conceal someone’s identity, sooner or later the truth will out,” he said.

“And if you don’t know you are biologically related to someone, you may become attracted to them and tragedies like this may occur.”

Pam Hodgkins, chief executive officer of the charity Adults Affected by Adoption (NORCAP) said there had been previous cases of separated siblings being attracted to each other.

“We have a resistance, a very strong incest taboo where we are aware that someone is a biological relative,” she said.

“But when we are unaware of that relationship, we are naturally drawn to people who are quite similar to ourselves.

“And of course there is unlikely to be anyone more similar to any individual than their sibling.”

Mo O’Reilly, director of child placement for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, said the situation was traumatic for the people involved, but incredibly rare.

“Thirty or 40 years ago it would have been more likely that twins be separated and, brought up without knowledge of each other,” she said.

Today, however, adopted children grow up with a greater knowledge of their birth families – and organisations try to place brothers and sisters together.

If that were not possible, the siblings would still have some form of contact with each other.

“This sad case illustrates why, over the last 20-30 years, the shift to openness in adoption was so important,” Ms O’Reilly added.

LONDON — The Sex Pistols are reuniting for a concert to mark the 30th anniversary of their only album, “Never Mind the Bollocks.”

All four original members — John Lydon, Steve Jones, Paul Cook and Glen Matlock — will play a one-time concert at London’s Brixton Academy on Nov. 8, the band announced Tuesday.

The punk pioneers, who once sang there was “No Future,” split in 1978 but reformed in 1996 and played together again in 2003. Last year they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Led by sneering frontman Lydon — then known as Johnny Rotten — the Pistols shocked many Britons with raucous singles including “God Save the Queen,” “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “Pretty Vacant.”

Released in 1977, “Never Mind the Bollocks” is now regarded as one of the most influential albums in rock history. It will be rereleased to mark the anniversary.

Bassist Sid Vicious, who replaced Matlock during the band’s period of greatest notoriety and became a punk icon, died of a drug overdose in 1979.

Hybrid embryos containing both human and animal material could be created in British laboratories within months.

The controversial research was given a green light yesterday by the UK’s fertility regulator.

A shortage of human eggs led scientists to seek permission to make hybrid embryos from human skin cells and animal eggs such as those from cows, which are plentiful in slaughterhouses.

Two teams of scientists are poised to start making cow-human hybrids for research into incurable diseases, with at least one project expected to start by the end of the year.

Stem cell expert Dr Stephen Minger, who wants to use the embryos to study conditions such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease, said the work could “revolutionise drug discovery”.

But the decision by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is likely to be subject to a High Court challenge, with opponents claiming the watchdog is not entitled to rule on the issue.

Josephine Quintavalle, of the campaign group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said last night: “There is a sense from some people that scientists should never be stopped in their tracks.

“Reproduction with animals has been taboo since the beginning of recorded time and that taboo has remained with us for a reason.

“This is tampering at a very basic level.”

Britain is one of the first Western countries to approve such research.

Thanks to Steph for the following fantastic link to a line of Euro-Naked Skin Care products from Elave.

You’ve got nothing to hide!

A transsexual is seeking thousands of pounds in damages after claiming he was forced out of his job as a truck driver when he starting dressing as a woman.

Vikki-Marie Gaynor, 37, who was born a man, claims bosses started cancelling his shifts when he dropped his old name, Mike, and started wearing women’s clothes, earrings and make-up to work.

The former soldier, who has been married twice and has a teenage daughter, was taunted by other drivers who made rude gestures towards him, it is alleged.

Now Mr Gaynor has launched a sexual discrimination claim against the haulage firm and the recruitment agency which employed him. He could receive a five-figure sum if the employment tribunal finds in his favour.

‘I have been treated in an horrendous manner by my employers,’ Mr Gaynor said last night.

‘When I first started I was a respected driver, I turned up for work on time and did my job very professionally. My bosses knew me as Mike and had no idea I was a transsexual.

‘But almost as soon as I told them I was changing my name to Vikki-Marie and entering the transition stage of my gender reassignment things changed. I started getting hurtful comments and my shifts started being cancelled without warning.

‘In the end I realised I could no longer go into work, it was too painful.

‘It is not right that I should be forced out of my job simply because I want to live as a woman and wear the clothes I was born to wear.’

(more at the Daily Mail)

Bleary-eyed Tony Wright is tomorrow set to beat the world record for sleep deprivation – after staying awake for more than 11 days.

The 43-year-old has gone without kip since 6am on May 14, and will break the existing record of 264 hours at 6.01am tomorrow.

Tony, a father-of-three, has held his entire record-waking attempt in the Studio Bar in Penzance, Cornwall.

Carefully monitored by six CCTV cameras and a live web cam, he has spent his time playing pool, listening to music, drinking tea and talking to his supporters.

If he is still awake at 6.01am he will have been awake for 264 hours 1 mins – breaking the existing world record set in 1964 by 17-year-old Randy Gardner.

But Tony, of Penzance, will try and stay up until 8am – setting a new record of 266 hours. He said: “I do feel very strange – everything around me has become more intense and after a while and colours seem brighter.

“My eyes have become very sensitive. I had to start wearing sunglasses after 70 hours because looking at a laptop was sending me into a trance.

“There were a couple of tricky moments where I could feel my body wanting to shut down and I had to act quickly to stimulate it.

“I’ve played so much pool that I actually hurt my back and my arm. My playing has definitely improved.”

He added: “I’ve had to be careful of ‘sleep ambushes’ which happen when you’re not on guard and get yourself into a comfortable position.

“Suddenly I would realise I was relaxing and the urge to sleep was dragging me down – I had to jump up, eat or drink something and occupy myself.

“It was tricky striking a balance between being active but not wearing myself out. My voice is very hoarse and I’m sure I look a right state.”

Tony, a writer and researcher, launched his bizarre record attempt in order to study the effects of a lack of sleep has on the human brain.

He believes that each side of the brain requires a different amount of sleep and with preparation it is possible to stay awake and remain functional for long periods.

To prepare for his bid he ate a strict diet of raw vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds and took regular exercise.

Although the Guinness Book of Records officially recognised Randy Gardner’s record in 1964, the organisation has since withdrawn its backing of a sleep deprivation class because of the associated health risks.

But Tony plans to keep a full video record of the entire 11 days as proof he is a world beater. He said: “I might not make it into Guinness but I have set a world record and it is there to be beaten by anyone who wants to try.

“This is my life project and I’m very happy to prove you can stay awake for long periods of time without suffering adverse reactions.

“I am now looking forward to getting under a duvet.”

Scientists say depriving the body of sleep for long periods can result in depression, dizziness, hallucinations, irritability, nausea and loss of memory.

Dr Robin Rodd, a lecturer in anthropology at the James Cook University in Australia, said Tony’s record-breaking project was an “exciting new breakthrough” for sleep studies.

He said: “His sleep deprivation research project, which combines a long-term raw foods diet replicating that of early modern humans with the collection of data on cognition and physiological functioning, promises to yield exciting new breakthroughs in our understanding of the limits of human consciousness.”

Randy Gardner stayed awake for 264 hours in San Diego, USA, as part of or a high school science project into sleep patterns.

Here’s a letter I got.

I just found your site for the first time, it’s amazing! However, I was a bit shocked by Pico/Chico. I live in the UK and wonder whether I could
actually be arrested for downloading that kind of thing? I know they’re not
real, but I don’t know how it works. Have you any idea?

My reply:

Thanks for visiting the site and for taking the time to write me.

Finally, I’m sorry that you were shocked by the video. I put proper warning yanno!