Axing The BBC?

Apparently, the idea of getting rid of the BBC or seriously scaling it back has been suggested by the Torries, and could actually happen if they win the next election.  Nevermind that the BBC makes double what it costs; nevermind one of the main proponent of it is US based Rupert Murdoch, who has a lot to gain if the BBC goes offline, owning the Sky network and all that. 

Cameron’s policy is sanctioned by US-based media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who wants the BBC dismantled to further his TV interests, which include Sky.

The Tory leader wants to freeze the BBC’s £3.6billion-a-year licence fee, creating fears, voiced by Doctor Who writer Russell T Davies, that a Tory government would dramatically downsize the corporation.

Deloitte describes the British independent production sector as “one of the crown jewels of the UK creative economy” and says it would shrink by two-thirds – a drop of £1.4billion – if it wasn’t for the BBC .

Director general Mark Thompson is thought to be preparing for a Tory onslaught if they win the election.

He has not ruled out closing channels. He may also scale back the BBC’s extensive website, which commercial rivals claim ruins the market for paid-for online news.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a terrible idea – no BBC means no Doctor Who!

Fattism Strikes Again!

While fattism is primarily a big issue in the UK (with American obesity rates, it’s hard to be a fattist), it is striking closer and closer to home.  The dating site BeautifulPeople.com, a site that only allows “attractive” people to be members, just kicked some 5,000 people out of its club because they posted pictures of them that appeared to show they were getting, well, fat, after packing on the holiday pounds.

The site allows entry to new members only if existing members vote them as sufficiently attractive to warrant it.

The US, the UK, and Canada topped the list of excluded members.

The site has always been unrepentant about its selection process, calling itself “the largest network of attractive people in the world”.

The move was reportedly prompted by members themselves, who police the membership of the site to maintain a high – if highly subjective – standard of attractiveness.

“As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld,” said site founder Robert Hintze.

“Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”

The last line is the best line.  Letting fatties roam the site … it makes me giggle.

I Know, I Know …

I haven’t said anything in two and a half days.  In my defense, it’s because BBCA was running a three-day-long marathon of the entire new series of Doctor Who leading up to The End of Time Part II, in which we say farewell to David Tennant, and ever so briefly say hello to Matt Smith.  If you’re a Who fan, I hope you watched it tonight, because it was terrific.  It was tragic and beautiful and uplifting and heartbreaking and everything I expect from the Doctor – from this Doctor, anyway.  Damned exciting, too.  The final bits, the goodbyes, were heartbreaking.  I cried from the moment he knocked to the moment that the new Doctor realized he had legs.

So, anyway.  I’m back from nerdland, and will be back up to full capacity tomorrow.  Until then, internets, be good!

Happy New Year.

Hopefully, it will be better than the last!  Good wishes for all of you in 2010!

Booze, New Years, and the NHS

The NHS is facing a problem of “epidemic proportions”.  Is it the dreaded swine flu pandemic?  No.  Obesity?  No, obseity is the problem of the Worst Health Care In The World™ here in America.  Cancer?  Guess again.

The answer?  Alcoholism, an issue that costs the healthcare-to-every-Briton-for-free NHS system an estimated £3 billion a year.  That’s around $4.85 billion US, in case you were wondering.  In fact, New Year’s Eve alone may cost up to £23 million, prompting leaders to propose that any citizen hospitalized for intoxication pay £500, more than $800 US per individual. 

This stunning proposal comes on the heels of this study, which finds that the average Brit drinking at home overpours – no shit, Sherlock; isn’t that the point of drinking at home and not going to the bar?

Research has found that women who pour wine often give themselves their recommended daily amount in just one glass.

They are far worse than men at judging how much wine they can safely drink, the Department of Health study found.

But men are much worse when it comes to pouring spirits – regularly giving themselves much more than a double shot.

When people were asked to pour a single 25ml shot, the average amount poured was 38ml, with the highest a staggering 182ml.

The findings demonstrate the extent to which people may have overindulged at Christmas – putting their health at risk.

Guidelines say women should drink no more than two or three units of alcohol in a day, while men should stick to three or four.

The poll of households across England, showed that women were the most lavish pourers of wine.

Experiments found that the average amount of wine poured at home is 186ml, equivalent to 2.4 units of 13 per cent volume wine.This is the recommended daily limit for women in just one glass.

The survey, carried out for the Government’s Know Your Limits campaign, found that people drinking spirits at home give themselves more than double (128 per cent extra) what they would get in a pub if they ordered a single shot.

The average ‘home barman’ pours 57ml, compared to the 25ml in a single shot.

Meanwhile, they’re getting shorted up to 12% on pints in bars:

Trading standards officers conducting tests of 88 pints bought at 30 bars, pubs and restaurants in Birmingham found the average drink was three-quarters of a fluid ounce (22ml) short of full – 3.94 per cent of a pint.

One ‘pint’ the officers bought was almost 12 per cent short of full.

The Weights and Measures Act 1985 says a pint of beer should be exactly a pint – 20 fluid ounces or 568ml – but froth is considered ‘an integral part’ of a beer and can account for up to 5 per cent of a pint under British Beer and Pub Association guidelines.

Let’s connect the dots here.  First: Brits drink so much that it costs them billions of dollars a year in NHS costs.  Second: Brits who drink at home pour too much booze, just like anyone else who drinks at home.  Third: Brits who go to bars to drink get screwed.  Fourth: there is actually an Act that says how much you have to pour in a pint. 

And they wonder why so many of them are alchoholics.

Fun With Science at the End of 2009.

Russia is apparently looking into somehow nudging an asteroid off course, to avoid the astronomical 1-in-250,000 chance that it might hit earth in 2036.  Well, I guess that does mean the odds of Apophis hitting us are much, much higher than your odds of winning the lottery, so take those odds with a grain of salt.  Someone wins the lottery eventually, after all. 

But wait – there’s more science!  This science is prompted by animal rights activists who say that disecting innocent frogs and starfish and worms and stuff is evil, and there should be a more humane way to do it.  Enter the Japanese, who, doubtlessly smelling a business deal they can make with their awesome technology, have developed a few see-through animals so that, instead of disecting them, you can just look at them and see tiny brains and hearts and such.  They had all ready created see-through frogs; the new breakthrough are see-through goldfish, which would potentially be much, much easier to keep and maintain over time in biology classrooms, especially since they predict they could live up to 20 years and could grow to be up to 10 inches long.

Ladies, Forget Your Boyfriends!

Those crazy Japanese have created the perfect replacement for a man – a pillow with an arm (you can’t make this shit up) to cuddle with.  It doesn’t talk back or snore or cheat on you or anything!  Unless, of course, someone else sleeps in your bed without permission.  Dirty, nasty, cheating pillow.

Japan’s single women are being offered the ultimate sleeping partner – a comfort to cuddle up to, but one which does not snore or make demands.The Boyfriend’s Arm Pillow, shaped like a man’s torso with one sturdy arm, has been on sale since December and has so far been snapped up by 1,000 singles.

Manufacturer Kameo said the pillow’s shape also keeps the body balanced.

One woman, Junko Suzuki, told AP: “It makes me relaxed… I can hold the arm and feel something warm at my side”.

The pillow is only available in Japan, where it costs about 8,500 Yen (£40, $80), and is available in blue, pink or green.

Ms Suzuki, who is separated from her husband, says the pillow has other advantages.

“It keeps holding me all the way through. I think this is great because this does not betray me,” she told AP.

I Don’t Get It.

It might be that I’m not from the South – culturally, the South is very different from the West Coast, and sometimes, that traditional ol’ Southern hospitality kind of weirds me out.  This, for example, is weird to me. 

A South Carolina family passing through Jennings on their way to Texas was pulled over, hauled off to a church, “tried” for not stopping to enjoy local hospitality and “sentenced” to gumbo, presents and a tour.”We do this every year at Christmastime to some unsuspecting out-of-town person,” said Gayle Jones, a member of the Jennings Optimist Club, which has made it part of a more than 30-year holiday tradition.

Neither Leonard nor Lori Pavia of Greer, S.C., could figure out why the deputy had pulled them over as they headed to see friends in McAllen, Texas.

“I couldn’t think of anything that I did wrong. I knew I wasn’t speeding,” Leonard Pavia said. Lori Pavia said her first reaction was to make sure that Sienna, 10, and Dakota, 12, had their seat belts on. They did.

Deputy Terry Guillory, who pulled the family over, said he spent several hours Monday morning on Interstate 10, waiting to find the perfect family to stop.

“I asked them if they’d like to be the guests of our town,” Guillory said.

Leonard Pavia said the family left South Carolina on Sunday morning and had spent the night in Baton Rouge before continuing on their trip to Texas.

Assistant District Attorney Stacey Naquin was prosecutor in a mock trial at Immanuel Lutheran Church and local attorney David Marcantel was the defense attorney. Judge Daniel Stretcher sentenced the family to enjoy bowls of chicken-and-sausage gumbo, gift baskets from area merchants and a tour of Jennings.

I would not be pleased if I were the guy pulled over, but, again, maybe it’s just a cultural thing.  However, free gumbo would be a step towards making me less displeased. 

A small step.

Being A Weatherman Sucks In Every Country.

No matter what country you’re in, you just can’t rely on a weatherman to give you good advice. 

Japan’s official weather agency is to stop giving forecasts for the start of the cherry-blossom season, one of the country’s most enduring annual rituals.

The agency has been trying for more than half a century to predict where and when the trees will bloom.

Towns and businesses plan parties for cherry-blossom season, and forecasters have been made to apologise in the past for getting the dates wrong.

Avid flower-viewers will now have to consult private-sector services.

“The agency has given out such information in early March every year but we will no longer do so from next year,” said Yoshitoshi Sakai, an official from the agency’s observation division.

The agency would continue observing cherry trees throughout the nation to declare the official opening of the flower season and aid studies of climate change, he added.

Like I Wasn’t Going To Be Online Today. Hah.

So, Merry Christmas to all!  I hope everyone has a great day and some good food with good friends and family.  Ember Jr. actually opened all of her presents this year (last year, she got bored less than halfway through and kept playing with her first gift), Mr. Ember added a terrific piece to my cheap trash-art collection, and new science fiction books are now stacked on our way-too-full bookshelf.

As the end of the decade draws nigh (who actually uses that phrase?), I want to make sure I tell you all thanks for reading, commenting, enjoying, or hating! Thanks for being here, FIFs.