Next up — iron chastity belts become all the rage. But why must the girls be the ones who take on this burden? What about ‘temporary’ vasectomies for the boys? At least this idea understands the inability of governments to stop kids from having sex with unrealistic, bound to fail things like abstinence programs.

Why we should sterilise teenage girls … temporarily at least

Last week, an intriguing proposition was mooted by Government minister Dawn Primarolo.

Teenage girls, she said, could be steered towards what is described as “long-term contraception”.

This is now possible thanks to the development of contraceptive jabs and implants which can last up to five years.

In other words, there is a way of effectively sterilising girls for a lengthy period of time.

At what age? Well, doesn’t 12 until 17 sound rather sensible?

A group of Canadian sex trade workers hoping to set up a legal “co-op” brothel in time for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver said they have won approval to incorporate themselves.

The provincial government’s designation of the group as a business co-operative is the first step in what organizers say will create a safer working environment for sex trade workers in the Pacific Coast city.

“It defines a structure for us to work together as a community,” said Susan Davis, a development co-ordinator for what will be called the West Coast Co-operative of Sex Industry Professionals.

Brothels are illegal in Canada, but the country’s prostitution laws have recently been challenged in the court as unconstitutional. Prostitution itself is legal, however solicitation, procuring or living off the avails of prostitution can land you in jail.

My, how times have changed.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc has decided to exclusively sell high-definition DVDs in the Blu-Ray format, dealing what could be a crippling blow to the rival HD DVD technology…

The move by the world’s largest retailer…caps a disappointing week for HD DVD supporters, who also saw consumer electronics chain Best Buy Co Inc and online video rental company Netflix Inc defect to the Blu-ray camp.

In a statement on its Web site, Wal-Mart said that over the next few months it will phase out sales of HD DVD systems and discs. By June, it will sell only products in the Blu-ray format…

The move affects 4,000 Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores in the United States, as well as related online sites. The stores will continue to sell traditional DVD players and movies.

Uh, I think that’s that.

Baby held in locked room at airport dies – The Honolulu Advertiser Cripes. When will this end? My guess: the baby was on the no-fly list.

A 14-day-old infant traveling here for heart surgery died at Honolulu International Airport on Friday after he, his mother and a nurse were detained by immigration officials in a locked room, a lawyer for the boy’s family said.

The Honolulu medical examiner’s office yesterday identified the infant as Michael Futi of Tafuna, American Samoa’s largest village, which is located on the east coast of Tutuila Island. Autopsy findings have been deferred.

According to police, the child died at 5:50 a.m. It is unknown why immigration officials detained the mother, the nurse and the child.

Scott Ishikawa, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, said the child went into respiratory failure while in the customs office, which is located near the baggage claims area of the overseas terminal. Airport paramedics were called about 6:10 a.m., he said.

The group arrived on a Hawaiian Airlines flight that landed at 5:30 a.m.

“We were later told the baby was coming here for heart surgery,” Ishikawa said.

Found by Tom Lothian

As if from nowhere the police helicopter roared into the skies over the Morro da Pedreira shantytown, darting erratically from side to side with two snipers leaning out from either side.

Seconds later the unmistakable sound of gunfire rang out above the conflict-ridden area of suburban Rio de Janeiro. First, the hollow thud of four shots. Then another five. Then a rattle of six, in quick succession.

At the foot of the hill, Severino Silva, a 48-year-old photographer from the Rio newspaper O Dia, thrust his gaze skywards and raised his camera. For Silva, one of the city’s most respected conflict photographers, it was another day at work in an increasingly violent home city.

Life as a crime correspondent in Rio de Janeiro is probably more dangerous now than ever before.

Click and watch the video. Reflect upon living somewhere we can have “objective” discussions about guns and crime.

Newspapers band together in advertising effort – Feb. 15, 2008 — Yeah, this will do the trick. Har.

Four major newspaper publishers have created an online advertising sales network in the latest industry attempt to claw back ad dollars that are increasingly migrating to the Internet.

Gannett Co. (GCI, Fortune 500) and Tribune Co., the largest and second-largest publishers in the country, are joining Hearst Corp. and The New York Times Co (NYT). to form a company that will sell online ad space across a network of newspapers in many large cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The joint venture, which launched on Friday, will be based in Chicago and operate under the name QuadrantOne. It won’t include USA Today or The New York Times itself, which already have significant online ad sales operations of their own. It will include The Boston Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Co.

Sydney’s premier zoo is celebrating the news that its 9-year-old Asian elephant is pregnant, but animal rights groups are shocked that the zoo has let a juvenile elephant fall pregnant.

Allowing such a young elephant to fall pregnant was “the equivalent of allowing your 12-year-old daughter to become pregnant”, said Erica Martin, Asia Pacific Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare…

Ultra sound images show the elephant Thong Dee is 5 months into her 22 month pregnancy. The images identify a 10cm fetus with the beginnings of a spine, front and hind legs. However it is too early to determine whether the fetus is male or female…

The zoo said the earliest Asian Elephant pregnancy in a European zoo was five and a half years.

I’m certain her dad in the wild would never have allowed this. Right?

Google has seen 50 times more searches on Apple‘s iPhone than any other mobile handset, adding weight to the group’s confidence at being able to generate significant revenues from the mobile internet.

“We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again,” Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations…

If the trend continues and other handset manufacturers follow Apple’s lead in making web access easy, the number of mobile searches will overtake fixed internet searches “within the next several years”, Mr Gundotra said.

More searches mean increased revenues for Google, which makes its money from advertising attached to search results. Google has never separated out its mobile revenues but Mr Gundotra said the business was growing “above expectations”, both in terms of usage and revenues…

“The world is changing. Users want an internet without fences. They know how to type in Google.com if they want to get to it. Two years ago the operators were still playing the role of gate keepers but that is no longer the role for them,” Mr Gundotra said.

The silly buggers are the corporations who leave user interface, end-user, choices in the hands of people wholly divorced from the needs of consumers.

Who’s left in the wonderful world of handset design who doesn’t know that people want easy access to the Web?