The young and the feckless

'Despite all the hoopla about young voters -- the great hope of the future! -- only one news story in 2001 drew the attention of a majority of them: 9/11. Some 60 percent of young voters told Pew researchers that they were following news about the attack closely. (Er -- 40 percent weren't?) But none of the other stories that year seemed particularly interesting to them. Only 32 percent said that they followed the news about the anthrax attacks or the economy, then in recession. The capture of Kabul from the Taliban? Just 20 percent.

Six years later, Pew again measured public knowledge of current events and found that the young (aged 18 to 29) "know the least." A majority of young respondents scored in the "low knowledge" category -- the only demographic group to do so.

And some other statistics are even more alarming. How many young people read newspapers? Just 20 percent. (Worse, studies consistently show that people who do not pick up the newspaper-reading habit in their 20s rarely do so later.) But surely today's youth are getting their news from the Internet? Sorry. Only 11 percent of the young report that they regularly surf the Internet for news. Maybe Obama shouldn't be relying on savvy young voters after all'

- Rick Shenkman, '5 Myths About Those Civic-Minded, Deeply Informed Voters', Washington Post, 7 September 2008

Tasmanian net browsing habits

Even in our own homes, you go home, turn on your home computer and bingo - out come the p0rnographic sites. You are hit again and again.
~ Senator Guy Barnett, Lib, Tas

You have only got to press P on the Internet and all this stuff appears free of charge in front of you
~ Senator Paul Calvert, Lib, Tas

I can only hope I never work out how to 'press P on the internet' so I can avoid getting punched in the face by bingo-p0rn.

 

For an interesting discussion of seemingly ham-fisted moves towards net censorship in Australia, see the link to Emma's article below.

- Emma Hart, 'Young and sort of free', Publicaddress.net

Throw Me

Kate Russell, the BBC's Click website-hunter, included this game in her latest roundup, and she's right about it being *addictive*...  Swing the little guy round and round in big long loops to build up momentum at the start, then fling him into the sky and see how long you can keep him flying.  Clouds give him a boost, particularly the coloured ones, as do the construction cranes at ground level; you also have a set of balloons you can use for a certain length of time to give yourself a boost (spacebar).  For the record, my best effort so far is 5120 7748 feet (max altitude) and 35,978 59,969 80,128 154,895 feet (max distance).  Right, I'm stopping playing now, else I'll not get anything done. 

 

Throw Me

New York in black and white

A lovely selection of 19th and 20th century archive photography from the greatest city on earth...

NYC in B/W

[Courtesy of Netguide]

Driving tests

Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us), discusses the bizarre alternate reality of the driving test:

 

It is a strange world, marked by an aching pedantry, Talmudic parsings of fine-printed traffic tomes, and ridiculously hypothetical scenarios that tend to have nothing at all to do with the traffic environment in which we will spend our lives.

 

Any driver, anywhere, can recall the darker moments of these tests. I was told of a nettlesome question from the UK test that has taken on a near-mythological status; namely, what to do when approaching a horse and rider on a roundabout. The correct answer is something of a national refrain, gaily sung from Bournemouth to Blyth: you should expect the rider to go in any direction! On the French test, I had read, lurked this query: "If you are driving down the road and a woman with a pram steps out from the pavement, should you stop or keep going?" The answer, which seems part of some covert Gallic population-reduction scheme, is: "Keep going. This will discourage pedestrians from behaving recklessly."

 

- Guardian, 3 September 2008 

When flowers just don't cut it

A 40-year-old man from Stratford appeared in the Hawera District Court yesterday and was fined $500 and given a final warning for his offence.  The crime?  Wanting to give the gift that just keeps on giving, he posted two grammes of cannabis to his ex-wife in Whangarei, apparently 'helping his former wife financially and did not want her to pay for things she did not have to'.  Unfortunately the postal address was incorrect and the mail centre staff noticed the strong smell coming from the package!

 

- Source: Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 2008

 

 

Not rocket science

The key to the train departures listings on Livedepartureboards.co.uk is particularly helpful and illuminating:

 

Delayed = This service is delayed
No report = There is no report on the progress of this service yet
On time = This service is on time
Starts here = The service has not yet started the journey
Cancelled = The service has been cancelled

 

Any questions?  I didn't think so.

 

- Source: Livedepartureboards.co.uk

The Republican Convention

'Political conventions are supposed to be celebrations, where you consume complimentary food and beverages and brag about how great your party is and note roughly 125 times per hour that your opponents are tapeworm slime. That's what the Democrats did in Denver, and it's what the Republicans planned to do here.

But now they can't. They don't want to be seen celebrating during Hurricane Gustav. And the Democrats don't want to be seen celebrating about the fact the Republicans can't celebrate during Hurricane Gustav.

So at the moment everybody on both sides is being sensitive; nobody is engaging in the hyper-partisan cheap-shot dung-flinging that is the life blood of American politics. Yes, incredible as it seems, both major parties have managed to set aside their sleazy attack-ad gamesmanship to focus on what is actually best for the nation. We can only pray, as Americans and as members of the news media, that this does not last'

- Dave Barry, Miami Herald, 1 September 2008

Alert the IOC

Noting the ongoing devotion to mandatory skimpy costumes for womens beach volleyball at the Olympics, perhaps the International Olympic Committee should pay heed to another girly sporting endeavour held recently in Sydney. In the largest stiletto heel running race ever held, 265 competitors donned three-inch heels and competed in a free-for-all dash along an 80 metre course in Circular Quay. Perhaps London could attempt to break the record with a similar race at Canary Wharf in 2012? Or if you want to make it interesting, what about running on the cobblestones at Covent Garden? You might need a few ambulances and a battalion of cobblers on hand, mind.

- Brisbane Times, 2 September 2008

Offshore oil drilling

Stephen Colbert explains with the aid of a two-headed debate with his very special guest (himself) the logic behind high oil prices and the need for offshore oil drilling. More non-Tim Allen-related comedy sketches should involve power-tools, I think.