SON DECLINES TO RISE

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of homework.

How it encourages good work habits and all that.

What a wonderful op-shop for essay-challenged student the internet is, with all those lovely essays just sitting there out in the electronic ether, waiting to be Googled, cut, pasted and called the student's own work.

PSYCHOLOGIST Michael Carr-Grieg found that of a study of almost 1200 students, one in five routinely cuts and pastes from the internet.

Asked about Bob Dylan, who came to see him play on an early trip to England, he replied politely: "I'm not familiar with his work."

AUSTRALIA has reportedly signed a secret pact with the US, China, India and South Korea on greenhouse gas emissions (GGE).

The revelation of the greenhouse strategy comes as federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell conceded Australia would have to do more to reduce GGE.

"The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state.
-Kenneth Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth"
concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982

"Everything we have developed over the last 100 years should be destroyed.
-Pentti Linkola

"I suspect that eradicating smallpox was wrong. It played an important part in balancing ecosystems.
-John Davis, editor of Earth First! Journal

“If I were reincarnated, I would wish to be returned to Earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.
—Prince Phillip, World Wildlife Fund

“To feed a starving child is to exacerbate the world population problem.
—Lamont Col

Hooker Cameron Smith kicked downfield and the NSW representative was able to toe-poke the ball around Roosters winger Amos Roberts and regather before touching down.

...a 12-year-old girl was prescribed the Pill after a referral from her Dromana Secondary College nurse.
Her parents were not consulted by the nurse or doctor because she demanded confidentiality.

The generally accepted theory has been that his fits of insanity -- the best documented lasting from October 1788 to February 1789 and triggering a constitutional crisis -- were due to a genetic disorder that caused variegate porphyria.

now the buses here dont have timetables because they come all the time, and they hardly stop to let you off. its great- none of that public liability s**t like in australia that takes all the fun out of life. you actually have a chance of dying in your day to day life, which i think is great. and as the bus took us home for $1 at 5 in the morning, i thought back to melbourne, and about how a city in the west can have a significantly worse public transport system than Santiago. (please submit answers to this puzzle, if you please)

• Labour costs
• Costs of ridiculous degrees of risk aversion
• The need for a new and more expensive ticketing system every decade or so
• Our predilection for spreading out geographically
• The requirement of "equal access" for all (which ultimately leads to less access for most)
• The chattering classes' idiotic demand for quality over quantity
• The obvious failing of not recouping costs by having bars (or liquor dispensing concessions) on trams and trains (at least on PM runs when we "all" need a drink)

Consumer Reports called the hybrid portion of the Accord a "green turbocharger." The main benefit is in getting from zero to 60 miles per hour in 6.9 seconds, compared with 9.0 seconds for the basic four-cylinder model.

For six months, federal and WA police declined to investigate the case, each claiming it was the other's responsibility. But after report in The Age in January 2003, both forces began investigations.

She said some staff had also cancelled classes all week and others were holding VSU discussion classes instead.

We are currently making arrangements to have him transferred to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. The move should be affected tonight."

"Well, we're not," Scrimgeour cut in. "It'll be a poor lookout for the Muggles if their Prime Minister gets put under the Imperius Curse. The new secretary in your outer office--"

Warming to Melbourne's waterworld
THIS is how Melbourne will look if all the world's ice melts.

The tale of the hypothetical map, drawn by Australia's Bureau of Rural Sciences, is unlikely to come true -- all the Earth's major ice masses would need to melt.
Scientists predict the planet's average temperature would have to increase by more than 20C, and even then the process would take at least 10,000 years.

CSIRO research scientist John Church said experts found that for the biggest ice mass, the East Antarctic ice sheet, to melt, global warming "far more than thought possible under any scenario of climate change currently under consideration" would have to occur.

A recent report in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology says that girls as young as five years old are beginning to have problems with body image. The authors concluded that the girls "felt 'paranoid' about their weight -- partly because of the Government's anti-obesity message," according to the London Telegraph. Girls as young as eight are being diagnosed with eating disorders.

I thought it was pretty impressive for Dick to be there at all -- considering he's been dead since 1982.

The BBC's guidelines state that its credibility is undermined by the "careless use of words which carry emotional or value judgments".
Consequently, "the word 'terrorist' itself can be a barrier rather than an aid to understanding" and its use should be "avoided", the guidelines say.

You are the President of the United States on September 11, 2001. How do you respond to the attacks of that day, and to the wider issues of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq?

Answers received via email will be published straight, without mockery, as will any comments if they’re subsequently included in a post. One condition: please don’t write “Well, what I wouldn’t do is alienate the global community with my oil-hungry cowboy antics! I also wouldn’t read some book to children while we were under attack, or bomb Abu Ghraib with poison Jews! That’s what I wouldn’t do, Mr Smart Man!”

First, become a sociologist and discover the root causes of terrorism. Then, when the world’s governments really start to take notice of you, you can jolly well show them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there will never be terrorists ever again.

Be sure to tune in next week, when we show you how to use rock concerts to eliminate poverty in Africa. Till then, cheerio.

Between the BBC documentary, other news stories, and the Live Aid concerts, nearly a billion dollars flowed into Ethiopia during the '80s. Most of it came from various foreign governments; Geldof's efforts represented nearly a quarter of total.
Along with the cash, thousands of western workers and journalists began to enter Ethiopia. Mengistu knew a good thing when he saw it and used the combined tidal wave of money and sympathy to prop up his regime. He required that relief workers convert their western tender to the local currency at a rate favorable to his junta, which tripled its foreign currency reserves, allowing it to buy arms and materiel. Mengistu's troops also commandeered aid vehicles and fed themselves on the incoming foodstuffs. As Wolf notes, "it became clear that a significant proportion of the relief food in Tigray--the epicenter of the famine--was consigned to the militia. The militias were known locally as 'wheat militias'."
The money allowed Mengistu to string out his war efforts for six more years. Between starvation and outright murder, the war cost more than 100,000 Ethiopian lives.

"It's kids' health versus corporate wealth," Prof Swinburn said. "Companies are undermining a parent's ability to provide a healthy choice for their children."

Mother Kate Hulusi said misleading ads made it hard for parents to encourage healthy eating. "I feel sorry for the parents who aren't aware of it and just believe what they see," she said.

"Young children don't understand the concepts of fat and sugar and carbohydrates and they see these ads and think it looks good so they want it."

PINT-sized pester power is winning over parents to buy unhealthy foods for their children and advertisers are to blame, a parents group warns.

Dinner from a toilet bowl