What confuses me is why the Mail proposes this as hard fact - it wouldn't really be any detriment to them to call it a rumour, so why do they set themselves up for a fail?

I'd actually love a pay-as-you-go iPhone - I only use WiFi to surf the web on my current (Win Mobile) phone and am wary of getting a contract phone.

Having a nice looking, small cheap phone, maybe 16-32gb if Apple have stopped taking the piss with how much memory they'll put in their ipods, would be great.

Cory, can you please get on the BBC some time? Present yourself as an expert on the situation (as you arguably are) and get this viewpoint out.

Because every time this type of story is covered on Radio 1 or the wider BBC news, it's always presented as a two sided argument between 'expert' record industry executives and aggrieved, whingy file-sharing criminals.

There never seems to be a suggestion that the record industry might have done something wrong, that this is an invasion of our privacy by our ISPs (though thankfully I'm on AOL and they haven't signed up to this yet) or any kind of proper rebuttal to the record industry's claims other than from random file-sharers on the street that aren't given proper time to come up with a decent argument.

I don't think this is any kind of conspiracy, the BBC is simply too lazy to find people to argue both sides on an equal footing.

if this is the society they have chosen for themselves...

Looking at the picture again, that kids got a massive hand.

@48

I agree with your point regarding things that are genuinely interesting/factual, which is why I said 'with the exception of things like celebrity/tech news' in my original point.

However, this is the second post (that I can remember off the top of my head) linking a story that from the off, regardless of which paper it was published in, smacks of embellishment and poor journalism. The fact that it's in the Mail makes this case even stronger.

The other story BB linked the Mail in was the secondary school 'drunken orgy', which turned out to be a few kids drinking in a park and some couples making out.

As someone else has pointed out, the PCSO did not say that photographing the kids was assault, the kids did. This is an example of the Mail stretching the story to fit its anti-'hoodies' and 'political correctness gone mad' (which can apply to nearly anything apparently) agendas.

@37

Why? It doesn't censor them, it merely doesn't give them the attention they desire. BB doesn't link neo-Nazi studies about Jewish world dominance, maybe it should give them some exposure too? Just to be fair.

Just because I'd defend to the death the Mail's right to publish/say what it wants, doesn't mean I actually have to read or look at its drivel.

Nearly every story Boing Boing has quoted from the Daily Mail (with the exception of things like celebrity/tech news) has turned out to be exaggerated or completely falsified.

This is unsurprising to any British readers, but please, in every thread there are comments like mine and several of the above condemning the journalistic standards of the Mail (regardless of it's poisonous world view, even if it was uber-liberal, it would still be a shit newspaper), and yet a couple weeks later here's another Mail story on BB.

As John Coulthart, please stop giving the Daily Mail page views and ad-revenue - I doubt BB would have linked this story were it just on someone's blog, the Daily Mail may be a national newspaper, but it has about as much credibility as a 12 year old on 4chan.

Vaguely proud/annoyed not to be the first Welsh speaker to point out that Y is a vowel in the Welsh language.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jFkzENiQwKU

@17

Because of the Army, Naval and Air Force bases Britain has on the island. Somehow I don't think Forvik has the same resources to defend its independence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Gibraltar_Regiment

I think they require more education about dealing with an autistic child.

Or maybe just more education generally? If they're inclined to believe fucking psychics.

Seriously, I hope this woman sues the school and the psychic - there's got to be some kind of case you can make for defamation/libelous accusations, trauma etc.

Via Warren Ellis:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2305/2536986515_6a25519bba.jpg

Not that I'm particularly on the side of contacting them, but...

As a (albeit extremely diluted by now) ethnic Briton, my ancestors were invaded by an extremely advanced civilization (for the era) the Romans. The Romans brought a multitude of advances to my ancestor's little island - though I doubt the Britons being invaded would have particularly felt this way, I think we can all agree that the Roman invasions of many tribes was, on the whole, a good thing.

I kind of agree with Dinesh D'Souza's thoughts on the matter; colonialism may have created a lot of problems, but it also improved the quality of life for many human beings. And if it's imperialistic and ethnocentric to feel that a 70+ life span, access to free universal healthcare and more food than I could possibly is advanced, then fine.

Yeah but, these guys were white right? Why would they be stopped?

@77

Probably people would be less critical, but really, it doesn't fucking MATTER if Scientology is a cult or not. Who cares?

The important thing here is that someone was prosecuted for being part of a peaceful protest on public property by a police force with very sketchy links with one of the parties in question.

SCIENTOLOGY BEING A CULT OR NOT IS NOT THE ISSUE.

(Also, this Dispatches episode - http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/dispatches/in+gods+name/2206647 - shows a group of Christian's protesting the construction of a mosque in their area, they call Islam a religion of hate and a false religion, I didn't see any prosecutions handed out).

@45

No, I thought it was because you didn't want to pay your fucking taxes.

@46

There's a chance here (we should learn from the anti-choice lobbyists this week and jump on every chance, even if it results in a loss) to attack the Public Order act itself.

Because it might be a reasonable interpretation of the act to order a neo-nazi to remove an antisemitic sign, but, in a free society, he shouldn't have to.

Neither should someone protesting Scientology, on a public street, have to control what they call it (outside already established public decency laws - swearing, pornography etc.)

I reckon he's got a pretty decent case going with the fact that the last ruling on Scientology resulted in a high court judge calling it a cult. If they can, we can.

@13

I agree with LUDWIGTHE2ND, this feels like a case of a 'newspaper' (it is the Daily Mail after all) assuming that because Wii Fit is a game, it must be for kids.

Not only do games encourage your kids to sleep with prostitutes and then murder them, but they call them fat while they're doing it!

@44 Arkizzle

It's actually 18 to buy smokes now too, got raised last October.

Though this is a massive invasion of privacy, I don't feel it was that unexpected that a supermarket would propose such a system eventually.

This is because of the ridiculous, hugely over-the-top fines slapped on anyone involved in a transaction selling alcohol to under eighteens. Both the store and the purchaser can be fined, as will the store clerk in question, who can also be JAILED, for up to 3 months. For selling fucking alcohol to some kids.

This is an overreaction from a relatively small supermarket chain to an extremely poor set of legislation. Stores are terrified of losing their alcohol licenses, as you are only allowed three mis-sales per year and the police regularly pay underage kids to attempt to buy alcohol. In that kind of situation, just reminding your staff to double-check id's isn't enough.

That said, I still think this is a huge invasion of privacy, and wouldn't shop in these stores even if I could (I've never seen any in my area), but I can understand how they would come around to this point of view.

Just got through installing and uninstalling Ubuntu, still doesn't work with my wireless card, though it made a better show of trying to than the previous release.

Maybe when I get a laptop...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7240180.stm

Government ministers are calling for it to be banned in the UK.

I haven't been aware of any of these being used in my area (I'm of the age when I can still hear them, but not of the age to be still hanging around outside), but I would have thought these devices would pretty much guarantee your shop/property getting vandalised/egged/graffitied.

@69

To be fair, that argument is only really valid in the US, and only in certain states, since most other Western countries have little to no penalty for the kind of possession we are talking about here.

@64

As a point of interest, my parents talked to me openly and gave me permission to experiment with cannabis (and began a don't ask, don't tell policy on harder drugs) when I was 13. When I told them I was smoking pot aged 14, they simply told me not to do it in school. I now don't smoke cannabis because I've never enjoyed smoking anything and, as South Park put it, I don't like that it makes it okay to be bored.

@57

There's definitely a danger to MDMA, but the way it was taught in my school was basically that you'd be lucky if it didn't kill you, rather than the other way round. I've yet to meet anyone who dehydrated to the point of collapse, or over-hydrated themselves, which were the favoured scare stories in my school.

It was a big shock to learn how much of what I was taught in school was completely untrue.

My first posted was aimed at 45 by the way.

@33

Do they still teach that MDMA/Ecstasy can kill you? Because they rammed that down our throats at school, I think mainly because they were aware that trying to stop us smoking pot was moot, I actually can't even remember what arguments they gave for not smoking cannabis that weren't centred around it being illegal.

@Takuan

Great posts, but dude, they used to think that smoking tobacco cleared out the lungs and made the heart more efficient.

Yeah we've read High Times too.

@70

It was deliberately sarcastic, so Godwin's Law doesn't really apply there.

And torture, I mean waterboard ya.

@48

Excuse my non-American ignorance, but that's a joke right? Please tell me that wouldn't actually be possible?

@27

The police are allowed to break certain laws, however, there are very specific guidelines around them.

For example (based on British law, but I'm assuming US law is similar or the same):

Police cars are allowed to exceed the speed limit, but only when pursuing other vehicles or en route to an emergency and only with the flashing lights on. A police car speeding without lights is the same as anyone else.

Police officers are allowed to be more aggressive in taking people into custody than citizens, but there are all sorts of laws regarding just cause, as well as the officer being uniformed / otherwise identifiable as a police officer.

As has been stated above, this woman was a traffic officer, therefore not required to respond to an emergency, therefore she could have easily parked legally and walked to her destination.

But anyway, as many people have said, the guy completely ruined his case by being such a dick. He should have been polite to the officer at the beginning of the video and there was no need to respond to the 'retired' police officer, who didn't really cuss him out that bad.

@12

It's difficult for the UK to do anything productive in Zimbabwe. Being vocally supportive of pro-democracy parties only furthers Mugabe's attempts to paint them as British/colonial parties, as he's tried to do to the MDC and turns public favour away from them.

The only thing our government can really do is quietly put pressure on South Africa and other commonwealth nations in the area, which we must hope they are doing.

@48/49

Remind me when a camera was the same as a bomb?

Even if the photographer wasn't allowed to take photos were he was (which is fucking ridiculous, but if it's legal, whatever), that doesn't give the staff members, including the security guard, the right to manhandle or even touch him.

@1

I stopped reading Walking Dead a while ago when it passed the point from realistic broken down society type violence and zombie thriller into gratuitous torture porn full of vile characters that I had no emotional connection with and didn't care whether they lived or died.

@7/8 Brit/Eli

I wouldn't say that the Telegraph is a tabloid, it's a broadsheet paper that provides a wide range of serious reporting.

Where it does fall down however, is in its conservative, white, religious bent and its deliberate plays to this audience - see the sensationalist story of the school orgy that was on Boing Boing a while ago, or this faintly racist story.

This story plays to white, middle class, 'small c' conservative views of what African tribesmen are like.

I love that BMW would even sponsor a silly April Fools video, is the Boing Boing audience really that huge?

If it is someone from the *chans then this is the best example of why Anonymous needs to find a way of distancing themselves from them - as from reading some of the Project Chanology related message boards the core of Anonymous (as in the most proactive people) seem to be pretty dedicated to the cause, I'd imagine that most of the channers purely in it for lulz have drifted away by now.

@34

Saw your post after I'd replied, you got a link?

@31

Though not her fault (and this is way more deplorable than just posting stuff to upset/annoy people) I do agree that it is quite irresponsible of the admins of an epilepsy board to be allowing images to be posted, it's a simple yes/no tick-box in the control panel of every forum software I've seen. Especially if, as someone has posted above, this isn't the first time such an attack has occurred.

I wouldn't expect the majority of epilepsy sufferers to have protected themselves from this, most people aren't that computer-savvy, but you'd think someone running a forum would have enough experience.

I agree with the people that have pointed out that the best proof that it isn't related to the *chans is not that they're 'above' that or anything, but that there aren't any gloating victory threads related to it, as with every other major griefing.

@79

British secondary schools are sorted into three sections (though within the same school, with an exception sometimes of sixth form):

Years 7-9 (following on from primary school which was years 0-6), which is basically the same as American middle school.

Years 10 and 11, which is where we take our first mandatory exams, GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education).

After Year 11, pupils may leave school to seek employment, go to a technical college to take practical courses (plumbing, carpentry etc.) or move on to Sixth form (years 12 and 13), in my school this was in the same building/institution I had taken my GCSEs at, but there are also separate Sixth Form Colleges.

In Sixth Form you take your AS (in Year 12) and A2 (in Year 13) Levels (Advanced Subsidiary and Advanced Levels), you then either seek work with slightly more qualifications than those two years before you, or move on to further education.

(You may also see these years written as Forms 1-6, with form 1 being year seven and form 6-2 being year 13).

Hope that answers your question.

@ Taylor 32

In my experience, you barely have to cause any damage to get banned from places nowadays, just the presence of underage drinking is enough (even though it is completely legal within a private, ticketed event so long as its not sold to them).

I organised my Sixth form dinner dance in my last year (like a prom), I have since found out from friends in the year below that we are no longer welcome at that venue, despite their being not a single fight, nothing broken more than a glass (and I'm just assuming at least a glass was broken) and very happy and satisfied security staff.

So this party might have been a bit out of control, but you'd probably have trouble booking venues anyway. Just go to the pub mate.

http://pressthebuttons.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/lovejoy.jpg

Year 11 is 16, so whoever came up with 14 was way off, not that, as I said above, there would be anything wrong with that (consensually), but in this story it appears that the vast majority of participants (if there even were any) were over the age of consent.

I agree with whoever pointed out that to act as if the girls are immediately the victims because they were drunk (and the boys weren't? yeah right), not a single girl has said that she felt she was raped, just drunk, as was I expect the person she was having sex with.

And yeah, no youtube, corroborating reports, all the signs point to this being either made up or hugely exaggerated.

@58

You mean this?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/4554769.stm

@15 ALLTHEGOODNAMESARETAKEN

I'm pretty sure that gets you arrested, they're pretty hardcore on filming any part of the immigration/security process.

Man STDs sure ruined orgies.

Wow, can anyone say Moral Panic?

I'm assuming the above comments are all from non-Brits, because guys? It's the TELEGRAPH.

The Telegraph is the most consistently right wing Christian main stream newspaper (the Daily Mail doesn't count because it's not a newspaper) in the UK. It thrives on these types of stories.

And really, fourteen isn't that young to be having sex, like, with other fourteen year olds I mean.

But yeah, condoms, condoms are good.

First they came for the Emo's, and I did not speak out - because I was not an Emo.

Then they came for the gays, and I did not speak out - because I was not homosexual.

Then they came for the liberals, and I did not speak out - because I was of a vaguely central, wishy washy political disposition.

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.

@90 GATO

Brilliant, thanks.

Now feel more disturbed about it than I did before hand however.

The intervention of 'some young people' is the only vaguely positive note I can draw out of it, I'm always impressed when people stand up to a group that size (or that openly dangerous).

@78 GATO

That video's pretty disturbing, I know I had (and I can see in the comments that quite a few people did as well) a 'haha that's pretty funny ... no ... wait ... that's pretty terrible ... no it's really terrible ... the world is pretty fucked up' moment, this second video represents the zenith of this, as did the article I posted.

Any chance of a full translation of the video?

Or just paged comments, I feel lazy for saying this, but having to press END and then scroll up to the last comment I read is really annoying - it'd be better if I could think.. well I was reading pg6, like in a forum.

Ignore me if this isn't possible on the software cus then it's totally not your fault/problem!

Disemboweling is satisfying to say anyway, the letter V just adds extra sexiness.

@73

Tolerance, what a wonderful thing!

Did I miss some entertaining flame thread that led to this being posted on the main page, as opposed to being buried somewhere on the site for malefactors to be pointed at if/when they complain about being censored (or whatever you want to call it)?

This is an ongoing story, but sickeningly relevant -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/27/goth.murder

@28

I agree that this news story does kind of scream slow news day / moral panic.

As did the original mods/rockers news story.

From my own (limited) personal experience, I have noticed the 'emo' culture being a lot more encompassing than any youth movements when I was in school.

When I was in secondary school (pre-6th form, start of high school in American terms I think?), we had punks, grunge kids, skaters, goths, jocks (though we didn't call them that), chavs and everything in between.

I'm 19, this was only 3 years ago.

And yet now, when I see kids (and I have friends still in sixth form at my old school), apart from very few exceptions, they're either emo kids or chavs. It really is that cut and dry.

Anyone in the UK, go to Crewe (I've seen from first hand experience) or Mold (I've been told by friends) and you will see huge groups of chavs and emos wandering around town, all huddled together in their separate tribes.

Kids these days eh?

These are so despicable that the happiest song in the world (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2A2Jt4WOxN8) can only just counter them. Now that's fucking horrible (though I do agree that there are probably worse ones we aren't seeing).

While I'm no where near interested in dressing up as any kind of animal, I love the extra-sensory stuff you're putting into your masks.

I'm assuming the documentary maker isn't a furry right? Is there an estimated release date?