Guess WTF???!

Ahoy, ya sonic bastards

Hard to believe, but Shakira is actually cooler than Lily Allen. Allen famously had a brain spasm and announced that she was going to quit music (which would suck because she’s choice) because of money lost to illegal downloaders. Shakira, however, believes that downloading – of any kind – brings her closer to her fans.

Meanwhile, British media is reporting on a study that has found that people who illegally download some music actually spend more money on music than people who don’t – £77 annually for industry-wreckers, as opposed to £33 by industry-supporters.

Which points toward the conclusion that further crackdowns on file-sharing will further disenfranchise music fans and do more damage to artists that an industry already claims are near-extinct.

Which is what most of us thought. Glad someone proved it.

Because it’s the same ‘industry’ (ie. handful of self-interested big companies) that wanted to put a sharing tax on blank tapes in the ‘80s.

Don’t read this climate change bit

Bill McKibben, co-founder of carbon reductionists 350.org, has clarified that while we all have a right to free speech, we don’t have a right to use that to deliberately mislead the public. Thank god somebody told me he’s wrong.

On the subject of successful deceptions, recent studies of public opinion in Australia found that we are less keen to act on climate change than we were two years ago.

Just like a spontaneous one-liner from Tony Abbott, this is a by-product of US-based think tanks. Barely a week after the Australian study was reported, American media report that a similar study of the US population has found that 65% of their general public consider climate change to be either a ‘very serious’ or ‘somewhat serious’ problem.

This is down on a figure of 77% in 2007.

So put down that solar panel and cancel your weapons training: it’s all going to be okay.