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Software-giant Adobe will not have a booth on the show floor of the upcoming Macworld Expo 2009, according to Macworld. The company has not dismissed the whole gathering, but has chosen to dedicated its resources to demonstration and education sessions. "Adobe has decided to shift its focus at the Macworld trade show this year," a company statement said. Representatives will be on-hand for a full ...


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pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/redepic.jpg" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="2" width="600" height="504" style="display:block;" /Jarred Land, Fire Chief at Red, has announced a price reduction on their Scarlet and EPIC cameras, their latest a href="http://gizmodo.com/5085242/red-unloads-modular-cameras-a-dslr-3d-and-28k"modular systems for still and motion photography/a. Plus, now there are multiple trade-in upgrade paths:/p blockquote p1. Keep your RED ONE and shoot great images. Get continual free firmware upgrades./p p2. Keep your RED ONE and upgrade your sensor to Mysterium-X for $4,500./p p3. Trade your RED ONE in, and receive $17,500 credit, towards the purchase of an EPIC-X S35 Private Reserve package, which is only available to RED ONE customers./p p4. Trade your RED ONE in, and receive $17,500 credit, towards the purchase of an EPIC FF35 Pro Cinema "Brain"./p p5. Trade your RED ONE in, and receive $17,500 credit, towards the purchase of an EPIC 645 Pro "Brain"./p p6. Trade your RED ONE in, and receive $17,500 credit, towards the purchase of an EPIC 617 Pro "Brain"./p p7. Keep your RED ONE and purchase a Scarlet System (one time only) with a 12% discount./p /blockquote pRemember that, if you have a Red One, a) you can only use one upgrade per camera—once you use it, the serial number is done; and b) we hate you./p pHere is the price list:/p pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/12/red-scarlet-epic-specs.jpg" class="center" width="804" height="959" style="display:block;float:none;" //p pUntil we get our own, I will be playing with a href="http://gizmodo.com/5093557/at-gizmodo-gallery-the-red-one-camera"the one on loan at the Gizmodo Gallery/a. Come and check it out too. [a href="http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23112"Red User/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=1f228b4a300cc332d289df69823394a5p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=1f228b4a300cc332d289df69823394a5p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=1f228b4a300cc332d289df69823394a5" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=hdhj00gy"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=YuJPtxXH"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=QCLQ7GN2"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=QCLQ7GN2" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=UdBXohjg"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=UdBXohjg" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/wP9tKL1qXA0" height="1" width="1"/

Jarred Land, Fire Chief at Red, has announced a price reduction on their Scarlet and EPIC cameras, their latest modular systems for still and motion photography. Plus, now there are multiple trade-in...

Software-giant Adobe will not have a booth on the show floor of the upcoming Macworld Expo 2009, according to Macworld. The company has not dismissed the whole gathering, but has chosen to dedicated its resources to demonstration and education sessions. "Adobe has decided to shift its focus at the Macworld trade show this year," a company statement said. Representatives will be on-hand for a full ...

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/80822?ns=guardianpageName=Environment%3A+%27Super+ants%27+threaten+UK+gardens%2C+scientists+warnch=Environmentc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Wildlife+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment%2CUK+news%2CGardens+%28Life+and+style%29%2CScience%2CZoologyc5=Environment+Conservation%2CHomes+and+Gardens%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CEthical+Livingc6=James+Randersonc7=2008_12_03c8=1127551c9=articlec10=GUc11=Environmentc12=Wildlifec13=c14=h2=GU%2FEnvironment%2FWildlife" width="1" height="1" //divpAn ant species that forms huge supercolonies and infests gardens and parks is marching rapidly across Europe and will soon invade the UK, according to entomologists who are monitoring its spread./ppThe colonies can swell to 10 or 100 times the size of those of common garden ants and scientists warn that they can cause significant damage to plants. /pp"When I saw this ant for the first time, I simply could not believe there could be so many garden ants in the same lawn," says Prof Jacobus Boomsma at the University of Copenhagen, one of its co-discoverers almost 20 years ago./pp"We reckon it's only a matter of time before [it invades the UK]."/ppThe invasive garden ant or ema href="http://www.antweb.org/description.do?name=neglectusgenus=lasiusrank=speciesproject=macaronesiaants"Lasius neglectus/a/em was first identified in 1990 when it was found infesting an entire neighbourhood in Budapest, Hungary./pp"This ant basically looks like the garden ant that everybody knows, so you don't really become suspicious if you see a few of those crawling around because they are everywhere," he said. It has since become a major pest in central Europe and has spread as far as Jena in Germany, Ghent in Belgium and Warsaw in Poland./ppBoomsma and his team think it is moved around by the horticultural trade because it hides inside plant pots. "That is the most reasonable hypothesis for how these ants get transported because the ants themselves have lost the ability to fly so they are very poor disbursers," he said./ppIn research published today in the journal PLoS One, the team used genetic techniques to work out where the ants originated and what makes them so successful at taking over new regions. One reason is that they are able to form super-colonies. /ppThe ants occupy many interconnected nests with many queens. Because they are related, the ants in these nests do not show territorial aggression. When they reach new locations the parasites that usually keep the ants in check are no longer there, so they are able to expand their colonies rapidly./pp"We found that invasive garden ants developed from species in the Black Sea region that have natural populations with small networks of interconnected nests with many queens that mate underground and don't fly. /pp"It is now becoming clear that rather many ant species share this lifestyle, so it is no surprise that a number of them have become invasive pests with giant super-colonies based on the same principles," said Dr Sylvia Cremer, at the University of Regensburg./ppDr Jes Pedersen, a co-author at the University of Copenhagen, said: "The future will therefore see many more ants become invasive, so it is about time we understand their biology. This study is a major step in that direction."/ppMuch of the damage that the invasive garden ant causes is connected with the herds of aphids that it tends. The ants have a symbiotic relationship with the aphids in which the aphids provide sugary food while the ants provide protection from predators. /ppWith the ants around, aphid populations expand to large numbers causing damage to plants and releasing sticky secretions that create a mess on parked cars. Because the ant colonies are so large they can cause a nuisance by invading homes and spoiling food./ppInvasive ants have caused much more significant damage in other countries. The imported red fire ant, which has a nasty sting, causes $750m (£500m) of damage in the US each year to crops and livestock. The Argentine ant has spread along 6,000km of coastline in southern Europe, exterminating many local insects./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/wildlife"Wildlife/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gardens"Gardens/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/zoology"Zoology/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/o3WUv1Oe4LJ5LdDrZqSllcEf89k/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/o3WUv1Oe4LJ5LdDrZqSllcEf89k/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/43908?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+Forty+years+on%2C+Laos+reaps+bitter+harvest+of+the+secret+warch=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=World+newsc5=Not+commercially+usefulc6=Ian+MacKinnonc7=2008_12_03c8=1127780c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=c13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2F" width="1" height="1" //divpThe entrance to Craters restaurant is guarded by a phalanx of bombshells, each as big as a man. Opposite, the Dokkhoune hotel boasts an even finer warhead collection. For tourists who have not cottoned on, the Lao town of Phonsavanh lies at the heart of the most cluster-bombed province of the most bombed country on earth./ppThe haul of unexploded ordnance (UXO) is just a taster of that littering the countryside, or sitting in vast piles around homes and scrapyards. The deadly harvest from the US bombing of this landlocked country 30 years ago in the so-called "secret war" as the real battle raged in next-door Vietnam has become big business. Steel prices that surged on the back of soaring demand from China's go-go economy drove up scrap prices five-fold in eight years in impoverished Laos. It sent subsistence rice farmers, struggling make to ends meet amid spiralling food and fuel prices, scurrying into their fields in search of the new "cash crop"./ppBut it comes at a high price. At least 13,000 people have been killed or maimed, either digging in fields contaminated with live bombs or, increasingly, in their quest for lucrative scrap metal. Half the casualties are young boys, most killed by exploding tennis-ball-sized cluster bomblets - christened "bombies" locally - that are everywhere./ppThe scale of the contamination is mind-boggling. Laos was hit by an average of one B-52 bomb-load every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973. US bombers dropped more ordnance on Laos in this period than was dropped during the whole of the second world war. Of the 260m "bombies" that rained down, particularly on Xieng Khouang province, 80m failed to explode, leaving a deadly legacy./ppOverwhelmed by the immensity of the clear-up, Laos - which has dealt with just 400,000 unexploded munitions - had resisted the signing today in Oslo of a treaty banning cluster bombs and demanding that remnants be cleared within 10 years. But the country has had a rethink and will now be a key player in the ceremony./ppFor Laos it could be a godsend, focusing world attention on its plight and bringing international resources to tackle the problem. With 37% of agricultural ground made unsafe by unexploded munitions in a nation where four-fifths of people farm the land, the scourge has stifled development./ppYet farmers eking out a living below the dollar-a-day poverty line have no choice. Bombs unearthed as they gingerly peck at the soil are planted around, or moved to the side of the field./pp"In the end the Lao people regard lack of food as much greater threat than unexploded bombs," said David Hayter, the Lao country director of British-based Mines Advisory Group (MAG). "It's just that each UXO death is marked by a big bang, but deaths from lack of food or poor water are less noticeable."/ppFatalistic acceptance of the danger is fostered by familiarity. Bomb remains are fashioned into everyday items: cluster-bomb casings become fencing; houses perch on stilts crafted from 500lb bombs; mortars with fins are used as table lamps. "People's familiarity is the most striking thing for me," said Jo Pereira, an occupational therapist with the Lao charity Cope, which fits UXO victims with prosthetic limbs. "They've lived with it for so long. Much of it is in their houses. Children think 'we've got those at home' and don't see the risks."/ppSo when scrap metal prices rocketed many saw it as a heaven-sent opportunity to boost meagre incomes. For those unable to grow enough rice to feed their families throughout the year, there is little choice but to collect UXO scrap despite the dangers./pp"People have lived with this for two generations," said Gregory Cathcart, an MAG programme officer. "They don't view it as risky. It's simply a cash crop. The problem is the main scrap on the surface is gone, so they've to dig it up which is extremely dangerous."/ppCheap Vietnamese metal detectors costing as little as pound;7.36 boost the business. Landless families have turned full-time scrap collectors, earning up to pound;2.70 a day if they unearth six or seven kilos. Stumble on half a cluster bomb casing of "best Detroit steel" and they hit pay-dirt, worth pound;20 to pound;27./ppNo such luck for Sher Ya, 25. He plonks a plastic bag of bullet casings on the scrap dealer's scales and anxiously eyes the needle. His teenage brother dredged the shells from their village rice field. It earns a welcome 40p. "My family grows only enough rice for six months," he said. "So when we're not planting or harvesting we collect bomb scraps. It's scary, but we've no choice."/ppThe trade is so lucrative that scrap dealers ferry collectors by truck to virgin forests every day. Sypha Phommachan, 45, need not to go to such lengths. Farmers around Thajok village beat a path to the scrap dealer's door. A pile of fragments, casings, and mortars is all she had left after the foundry took away nearly eight tonnes a few days before./pp"That took me about three weeks to collect," she said. "That's quite slow because it's the rice harvest season and people are busy farming. In a couple of months they'll be out furiously collecting to raise cash for the Hmong festival." Yet she carefully inspects the bomb harvest, rejecting live munitions. She knows the risks. In the six years she has lived in the village, 10 people have been killed collecting scrap. One 50-year-old man died three months ago when he tossed half a "bombie" he believed safe into the wicker basket on his back. It exploded and the ball-bearings it threw out went clean through his chest, killing him instantly./ppToday's treaty banning the stockpile and use of cluster munitions is due to be signed by 107 countries - including the UK, which has been the third biggest user. Those holding out include the US, China, Russia and Israel. /ppBut Richard Moyes, co-chair of the Cluster Munition Coalition, is confident that the convention will change the climate. "We sense we'll see a dramatic decline in cluster munitions use even among states that don't sign."/pa href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/0isZpde_2gKB0VQVLsihe6OOssY/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/0isZpde_2gKB0VQVLsihe6OOssY/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/68851?ns=guardianpageName=Politics%3A+TUC+in+%27sweatshop+labour%27+row+over+firm+hiring+congress+hallch=Politicsc3=The+Guardianc4=Unions%2CPrimark+%28Business%29%2CLabour%2CPolitics%2CBusiness%2CUK+newsc5=Business+Markets%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Tony+Benn%2CDavid+Henckec7=2008_12_03c8=1127813c9=articlec10=GUc11=Politicsc12=Trade+unionsc13=c14=h2=GU%2FPolitics%2FTrade+unions" width="1" height="1" //divpThe TUC general secretary, Brendan Barber, is refusing to back down over a decision to let out its congress hall this Friday to a British company whose suppliers are alleged to use sweatshop labour in Bangladesh to manufacture cheap T shirts./ppThis is despite pressure from two general secretaries and Labour MPs who want him to cancel the event. A letter published in today's Guardian attacks the TUC for allowing Associated British Foods, owners of the clothing group Primark, to hold its annual meeting on Friday. The letter has been organised by No Sweat, a campaigning organisation against sweated labour and the exploitation of migrant workers./ppSome 106 people, including two general secretaries, five Labour MPs, former minister Tony Benn and comedian Mark Thomas, have signed the letter. It says: "It is embarrassing for trade unionists in the UK to see the supreme body of British trade unionism benefit from Primark's profits, particularly as the AGM coincides with the No Sweat speaker tour, which features a delegation from National Garment Workers Federation of Bangladesh./pp"This time last year, Primark was believed to be sourcing clothes from a factory chain in Bangladesh, which forced its workers to work 14-hour shifts for as little as 4p an hour. When workers have organised against these appalling conditions, they were met with severe state repression. Trade unionism in Bangladesh remains illegal. In this sense, a portion of ABF's profits come as a direct result of the merciless violence with which the Bangladeshi state enforces its anti-trade union laws and at the direct expense of our brothers and sisters in the NGWF. We hope that you will do all you can to stop the forthcoming AGM in the spirit of international workers' solidarity. If it continues to go ahead then No Sweat will be calling on trade unionists in London to picket the TUC building on December 5."/ppLast night the TUC stood by its decision. A spokesman said: "Associated British Foods has made a commercial booking to hold its AGM in the TUC's conference facilities. This is not a Primark event. ABF is a unionised company with good relations with UK unions. The TUC has a proud record of campaigning for vulnerable workers in the UK and developing countries. We believe in constructive engagement with companies. We welcome ABF's membership of the Ethical Trading Initiative and have used that opportunity to press concerns about supply chain issues - including in Bangladesh."/ppPaul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said yesterday: "We need to raise the bar on what are acceptable standards. Just because a company recognises trades unions in the UK does not mean we should pass over exploitation and abuse of labour standards in China or other overseas territories. Primark has a very poor reputation on labour standards at overseas suppliers'" he claimed. "The TUC's rental policy needs to be changed to exclude the likes of Primark."/ppIf the meeting goes ahead the GMB and the National Union of Journalists are likely to ask for change in the rules governing the letting of TUC premises./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/tradeunions"Trade unions/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/primark"Primark/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/labour"Labour/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/VsC63Y9dlHmGiWIo4JeY09WsiBo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/VsC63Y9dlHmGiWIo4JeY09WsiBo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/30491?ns=guardianpageName=Comment+is+free%3A+In+this+recession%2C+we+want+comfort+culture+to+go+with+our+comfort+foodch=Comment+is+freec3=The+Guardianc4=Recession+%28UK%29%2CEconomic+growth+and+recession+US%2CCredit+crunch+%28Business%29%2CTesco+%28Business%29%2CSupermarkets+%28business%29%2CRetail+industry+%28Business%29%2CFilm%2CStage%2CCulture+section%2CBusinessc5=Credit+Crunch%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CTheatrec6=Jonathan+Freedlandc7=2008_12_03c8=1127725c9=articlec10=GUc11=Comment+is+freec12=blogc13=c14=Comment+is+freeh2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" //divpMan cannot live by bread alone - he also needs some shepherd's pie and a dollop of rice pudding. That, at least, is the word from Tesco, reporting an extraordinary surge in sales of comfort food. As we feel the first chill of the recession, and as American economists declare that the downturn in the United States began a full year ago, making the current slump already longer than the average recession since the second world war, the supermarket chain has noticed a run on its cosiest products./ppSales of lamb hotpot are up 615% on this time last year, while beef casserole and dumplings have leapt by 279%. Deep-filled pies are selling at more than double the usual rate, as is cheesecake. Hot cakes are selling like hot cakes. /ppCould that be down to the wintry weather rather than the frozen economy? No. Tesco saw the boom in reassuring ready meals and cosy grub during the period from May to October. This isn't about staying warm, says the store, along with other retailers who've noticed a similar pattern on their shelves. It's about Britons cheering themselves up, padding their tummies as they tighten their belts. And notice the dishes in demand: traditional British fare, as if we're fleeing scary global economic forces, seeking refuge in the familiar smells of mum's kitchen and school dinners./ppSo much for what we're putting into our stomachs as the economy plunges downward, with most forecasters expecting the thud to come once the fleeting lift of Christmas is over. What will happen to our other appetites, those located not in our mouths but between our ears? What is the brainfood we'll be seeking out as times get tougher? Put simply, what's likely to be the culture of this recession?/ppNot so different from the food, as it happens. While Waitrose reports an 80% increase in sales of loaf cakes, ITV is cheering a rise in the television equivalent: viewing figures for I'm A Celebrity are up on last year. The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing are doing a roaring trade too. And what has just become Britain's fastest-ever selling DVD? Mamma Mia!./ppThink of it as comfort culture to accompany the comfort food. We want to be eased through the freeze, and Ant and Dec can be relied on to do that just as effectively as a slice of steak and kidney pie./ppOf course, this habit has a long history. Cinema audiences developed the desire to be transported into mindless escapism, watching Busby Berkeley's synchronised swimmers make pretty shapes in the depths of the Great Depression. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers made their top-hatted and ballgowned debut in 1933, the same year unemployment in the US hit 25%. If today's audiences are blocking out all thoughts of the credit crunch in favour of watching Meryl Streep play the Dancing Queen on a sun-kissed Greek island where the skies are permanently blue, they are doing no more than honouring a tradition started by their grandparents. /ppBut it's not all mindless. Brucie and Cheryl Cole are far from the only cultural providers experiencing a boom during the bust. In a declining newspaper market, the Financial Times and the Guardian both saw their sales rise as the financial crisis hit. (The number crunchers on the Guardian's website have seen big increases - led by serious news, with massive leaps in interest in business stories.) Richard Reeves, director of the thinktank Demos, says he has spotted three different people reading JK Galbraith's The Great Crash on his morning train to work. "People want more entertainment," he says, "but they also want more enlightenment."/ppIt seems we either want to escape the current turmoil or understand it. The latter might not always mean digesting dense economic tracts. Nicholas Hytner, artistic director of the National Theatre, has noticed the spectacular response the musical Billy Elliot has just received on Broadway. A tale of declining industry, hardship and the threat of joblessness, "It acknowledges pain, individual achievement in overcoming that pain and collective solidarity in the face of it," Hytner told me yesterday, suggesting that Billy Elliot had come at just the right moment for New York theatregoers. He has no plans to stage either a feelgood musical at the National - there will be no "sugar rush of escapism" - or an instant play about the recession. That kind of second-guessing of the audience never works, he says./ppStill, artworks that offer neither escapism nor explanation might struggle in the great freeze. There will surely be a diminished appetite for miserable stories that don't even offer the consolation of enhanced understanding of the upheaval. I'm told there were an unusually high number of empty seats at the Oxford Playhouse when the touring production of Liberty, set in the France of 1793, arrived this autumn. Apparently people weren't in the mood to spend an evening contemplating Robespierre's Terror. (Users of guardian.co.uk were similarly reluctant to wallow in the details of the Baby P case.)/ppTwo big movies were released last week: Four Christmases, a light comedy with Reese Witherspoon, went straight to number one. Trailing behind it was The Changeling, Angelina Jolie's grim tale of a mother's search for a missing child. Similarly, it will be fascinating to see if the publishing subgenre known as "misery lit" continues to enjoy its past dominance of the bestsellers list. Right now, the hardback non-fiction top 10 is entirely made up of the comfort food of celebrity biography, topped by Dawn French's Dear Fatty - surely the literary equivalent of a sticky toffee pudding./ppThere are other clues to the cultural future besides the twin paths marked escape or understand. Price is one. Just as local pizzerias are holding up while posh restaurants expect to struggle, so culture that comes cheap has better prospects for survival. Sky subscriptions and DVD sales are so far weathering the recession. When you're counting the pennies, a ready meal and a film on the telly suddenly looks like a good bet./ppParadoxically, that could tilt the landscape towards high culture. If government subsidies get cut, many in the arts predict it will be smaller, grassroots projects that feel the knife: they're easier to slice than the heavy-hitting opera companies and art galleries. And while commercial theatre might take a pounding, the major subsidised institutions will still be left standing. /ppBut what if things get really severe? Reading could make a comeback, predicts John Carey, former Merton Professor of English at Oxford. In the 1930s, he says, some of the poorest turned to books for diversion. "Reading is astoundingly cheap," he says. "Libraries must be the cheapest form of entertainment possible." Classics were especially popular: they were inexpensive and available. "Social histories of the time are full of references to Dickens," says Carey./ppStill, the biggest cultural impact of the recession may be unseen for decades to come. Hytner notes that the great plays of the depression era - by Arthur Miller or Clifford Odets - came years later. It is the children of the slump, those witnessing their parents losing their jobs or businesses, who we should be watching. The seed of their future work is being planted right now. /ppa href="mailto:freedland@guardian.co.uk"br /freedland@guardian.co.uk/a/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/recession"Recession/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/useconomicgrowth"US economic growth and recession/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/creditcrunch"Credit crunch/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/tesco"Tesco/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/supermarkets"Supermarkets/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/retail"Retail industry/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YJLdrZRupLEbqAyvMC8RCxJtgGk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/YJLdrZRupLEbqAyvMC8RCxJtgGk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/88495?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+BA+in+talks+with+Qantas+to+create+%27global+airline%27ch=Businessc3=The+Guardianc4=British+Airways+%28Business%29%2CAirline+industry+%28business%29%2CBusinessc5=Business+Marketsc6=Dan+Milmoc7=2008_12_03c8=1127757c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=British+Airwaysc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FBritish+Airways" width="1" height="1" //divpBritish Airways chief executive Willie Walsh signalled the creation of a "truly global" airline yesterday as the carrier announced pound;3.5bn merger talks with Australian rival Qantas./ppBA is already in talks to combine its services with American Airlines and Spain's Iberia but it took shareholders unawares yesterday with the bold announcement that it had also turned its attention to the Asia-Pacific market as industry consolidation gathers pace. A combined BA and Qantas would create a unique business with 71 million passengers a year, 474 aircraft flying to more than 230 destinations in two continents. /pp"It is an exciting step towards a truly global airline," said Walsh. Consolidation in the airline industry has been confined to intracontinental deals so far, with Air France joining Dutch competitor KLM and Delta Airlines merging with Northwest in the US. Shares in BA rose 12% to 157.10p on the news./ppThe BA boss said he was confident that the Iberia deal, which has been slowed down by concerns over BA's pension fund deficit, would not be derailed by another round of talks. "We can do both at the same time. I expect both deals to progress," said Walsh, who added that the Iberia and Qantas discussions were being conducted by separate teams within BA. Sources close to the talks said BA hoped that news of the Qantas proposal, which Iberia only learned of yesterday, would encourage the Spanish carrier to inject more urgency into discussions./ppBA and Qantas are exploring a dual listing structure similar to the model employed by Anglo-Dutch groups Reed Elsevier and Shell, which would bypass airline ownership restrictions in the UK and Australia. If BA's merger with Iberia goes ahead, the business created by that deal will become one half of the dual listing with Qantas. BA/Iberia and Qantas would have a combined balance sheet, overlapping boards and an integrated management team - but remain separate legal entities with two groups of shareholders. Walsh described the deal as a "merger of equals" but Qantas is the slightly larger business by market capitalisation, with a value of A$4.45bn (pound;1.9bn) compared with BA's pound;1.6bn at yesterday's closing prices./ppIn Australia the ownership limit for foreign airlines is 35%, though the government is proposing to raise that to 49% - in line with UK limits for non-EU carriers./ppAnalysts said a BA and Qantas merger could transform the industry. "If someone can find a way to structure a cross-border airline we can move towards a properly consolidated industry. But the question is can they do it?" said Andrew Lobbenberg, analyst at Royal Bank of Scotland./ppBA and American Airlines are applying for regulatory clearance to collude over fares and schedules in the lucrative Transatlantic market. However, it would stop short of a full-blown merger because of ownership restrictions./ppDouglas McNeill, analyst at Blue Oar Securities, said the AA deal had the biggest cost-saving potential for BA because it already co-operates with Qantas on Heathrow-Australia routes and with Iberia on Heathrow-Madrid services./ppThe flurry of merger and acquisition activity in the airline market is being driven by financial necessity. The International Air Transport Association, the industry trade body, expects the world's airlines to show a collective loss of $9.3bn in 2008 and 2009./ppBA expects a Qantas deal to benefit shareholders because it will combine two separate networks. Qantas has a strong position in an Asian market that, until recently, was growing strongly. Virgin Atlantic, which is urging US authorities to block the BA/AA alliance, also urged regulators in the UK and Australia to investigate the impact of the Qantas deal on passengers./pp"Regulators need to scrutinise these merger attempts like never before and ensure that consumers aren't disadvantaged by BA's attempts to become even more dominant, to the detriment of true competition." /ppThe combined businesses would generate revenues of pound;15.7bn, with BA the bigger earner with turnover of pound;8.7bn last year. Shares in BA are trading more than 50% below the year-high as a result of concerns over the impact of the economic downturn on its profits. The airline is anticipating making a "small" profit this year, after achieving record pre-tax profits of pound;883m in the year to March 2008./ph3Head to head/h3h2Qantas/h2pstrongDestinations /strong145 cities/ppstrongFleet /strong224/ppstrongStaff/strong 37,000/ppstrongPre-tax profit/strong pound;575m /ppstrongMarket cap/strong pound;1.77bn (A$4.3bn)/ppstrongSlogan/strong The Spirit of Australia/ph2British Airways/h2pstrongDestinations/strong 300/ppstrongFleet /strong245/ppstrongStaff /strong65,000/ppstrongPre-tax profit/strong pound;883m /ppstrongMarket cap/strong pound;1.8bn/ppstrongSlogan /strongWorld's favourite airline/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/britishairways"British Airways/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/theairlineindustry"Airline industry/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/UUSPE3z-2JBSn0PD0pNBWTcZ8zE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/UUSPE3z-2JBSn0PD0pNBWTcZ8zE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Ed. Note: The following is Boing Boing guestblogger Clay Shirky's first post. Clay's traveling today, so I'm posting this one on his behalf. Image above: "Don't believe the Devil, don't beLIEve his book," a CC-licensed photo by Celeste, a Flickr user in Buenos Aires - Argentina. --XJ Every now and again, there is an essay that is so well written, so cleanly expressed, and so spectacularly wrong that it clarifies something you previously understood only dimly. James Gleick's recent advice to the publishing industry, How to Publish Without Perishing, was that for me. Gleick's thesis is that publishers are people who sell objects, and he means this not just as a description of their past, but as strategy for their future as well. He makes much of the book as a thing, noting that we talk about "book lovers", but never "CD lovers", he writes of books in terms of possessing them, and his advice to publishers is to cede speed, relevance, and even popularity to digital businesses, and to shift publishing into reverse: Go back to an old-fashioned idea: that a book, printed in ink on durable paper, acid-free for longevity, is a thing of beauty. Make it as well as you can. People want to cherish it. This proposed Ye Olde-ing the industry makes the choices faced by publishers suddenly seem more urgent. There are book lovers, yes, but there are also readers, a much larger group. By Gleick's logic, all of us who are just readers, everyone who buys paperbacks or trades books after we've read them, everyone who prints PDFs or owns a Kindle, falls out of his imagined future market. Publishers should forsake mere readers, and become purveyors of Commemorative Text Objects. It's the Franklin Mint business model, now with 1000% more words! In the same way the internet has forced newspapers into a 'news vs. paper' moment, the publishing world is in a 'readers vs. book lovers' moment. In this environment, the single most important choice anyone in publishing has to make is this: "How many generations do I want to be in business?" Because hawking Ye Olde Codices to aging connoisseurs is a one-generation business. Businesses don't survive in the long term because old people persist in old behaviors; they survive because young people renew old behaviors, and all the behaviors young people are renewing cluster around reading, while they are adopting almost none of the behaviors tied to cherishing physical containers, whether for the written word or anything else. Can you imagine a 25-year-old telling a publisher "To get my business, you should stick to a single, analog format? Oh, and could you make it heavy, bulky, and unsearchable? Thanks." From Aldus Manutius until recently, book lovers have been the most passionate readers. Now they are mostly just the oldest readers. Thanks to digital data, there is a fateful choice to be made between serving lovers of the text and lovers of the page; I think even Manutius would have sided with the readers over the collectors. I hope today's publishers do as well. Previously: Here Comes Clay Shirky (The Changing of the Guestbloggers)...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=1453de22556064e7a74ac0c73c7a4a5cp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=1453de22556064e7a74ac0c73c7a4a5cp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=1453de22556064e7a74ac0c73c7a4a5c" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

Last month, in writing about the financial crisis, I tried walking through the root causes of how the financial crisis happened and how to prevent it from happening again -- and the point I kept coming back to was the a href="http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20081113/0321092822.shtml"lack of transparency/a. It wasn't (as some people want to claim) "greed" or a "lack of regulation" that caused the problem, but bad information (though, some might blame that on greed and a lack of regulation). Aaron deOliveira points out that some folks are noticing the same thing, suggesting that the real problem these days isn't a lack of liquidity in the markets, but a a href="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/11/the-need-for-re.html" target="_new"significant lack in reliable information/a. People just don't know how much things are worth, and that's a huge problem. br /br / Last week, on the always excellent Planet Money podcast, there was a discussion about what money really is. Many people think that it's a hard representation of value, but it's not. As the podcast noted, a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2008/11/hear_money_is_a_relationship.html"money is a relationship/a. Take a listen to fully understand what this means, but it's exactly right. Money is merely a relationship of trust between certain parties that enables trade. If I trust this piece of paper is worth a certain amount, I can do business with you. If I don't trust that the paper or trinket you hand me is actually worth anything, then I will not do business with you, and your "money" is not money at all. br /br / The problem that we're experiencing today is that, due to a lack of clear and itrustworthy/i information out there, no one is quite sure what anything is worth, and that makes any sort of trade difficult. Money only works when there's a trusting relationship, and you only get that sort of trusting relationship when there is a reasonable flow of information to the parties involved, such that they're confident that what they have (or what they're trading for) has value. The problem over the last few months (or, for some, years) is this realization that the information they had was bad, and they could not trust it, and thus, the "relationship" that made thing valuable disappeared. Without this trust, plenty of things that ido/i have value are being severely undervalued, because there's no (or very little) credible information, and that's leading to panic, because no one is sure what anything might actually be worth. br /br / So, once again, we're back to the situation where we were before: the answer should be imore/i information, imore/i widely distributed in a much imore/i open fashion. We should all be demanding significantly more transparency both from corporations on any sort of investment they put forth as well as from the government who is shoveling dollars -- but not information -- into the market to try to deal with the problem. But, until it gets imore information/i into the market, then the trust will not be regained, and the dollars they throw into the market will merely decrease in value, because there are not enough relationships built on trustworthy information.br /br /a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081130/2031042973.shtml"Permalink/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/articles/20081130/2031042973.shtml#comments"Comments/a | a href="http://techdirt.com/article.php?sid=20081130/2031042973op=sharethis"Email This Story/abr / br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=0ad7c88f2e2603fb4c173c561ec667e4p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=0ad7c88f2e2603fb4c173c561ec667e4p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=0ad7c88f2e2603fb4c173c561ec667e4" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?a=DWaHo"img src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~f/techdirt/feed?i=DWaHo" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.techdirt.com/~r/techdirt/feed/~4/472813745" height="1" width="1"/

psmallemPhotos by stronga href="http://www.avisiblesignofmyown.com/" target="_blank"Elena Morelli/a/strong/em/smallbr /br /stronga href="http://www.myspace.com/jarvspace" target="_blank"Jarvis Cocker/a/strong? Funny guy. Beards? Also funny. Jarvis + beards?? Simply too hot to handle. So it was as the stronga href="/article/news/145407-jarvis-cocker-heads-up-rough-trade-anniversary-tour" target="_blank"Rough Trade 30th Anniversary Tour/a/strong rolled through London's stronga href="http://www.shepherds-bush-empire.co.uk/" target="_blank"Shepherds Bush Empire/a/strong last week, with Jarvis and his newfound facial hair headlining, and relatively recent stronga href="http://www.roughtraderecords.com/" target="_blank"Rough Trade/a/strong roster addition stronga href="http://www.thejeffreylewissite.com/" target="_blank"Jeffrey Lewis/a/strong opening.br /br /Mr. Cocker also treated folks to a brief slideshow-assisted lecture on the history of Shepherds Bush Empire and, for some reason, a local shopping center, while Lewis entertained with an animated video telling Rough Trade's story. The short but sweet celebratory tour concludes tonight (December 2) at Birmingham's Academy, and Jarvis has one festival date this weekend.br /br /Oh hey, and speaking of Rough Trade, the illustrious label wants your demos! Yes, yours! Look for the demo drop box at tonight's gig, or head stronga href="http://www.roughtraderecords.com/news/1032/demos" target="_blank"here/a/strong to learn how to do things the old fashioned way. I think we speak for everyone when we say, please, no demos that suck. kthxbyebr /br /strongJarvis Cocker/strongbr /img src="/sites/default/files/jarvis12.jpg" border="0" /br /br /img src="/sites/default/files/jarvissplit1.jpg" border="0" /br /br /img src="/sites/default/files/jarvis04.jpg" border="0" /br /br /img src="/sites/default/files/jarvissplit2.jpg" border="0" /br /br /img src="/sites/default/files/jarvis15.jpg" border="0" /br /br /img src="/sites/default/files/jarvissplit3.jpg" border="0" /br //ppa href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/node/147847" target="_blank"read more/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/VKKOjHVfFMVfA-bKAfw13jOTNWw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/VKKOjHVfFMVfA-bKAfw13jOTNWw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/FKgYvbJGJ_8" height="1" width="1"/

a href="http://adage.com/globalideanetwork/post.php?article_id=132948"/aBlogger Mark Aink remembers the 2007 Dutch TV program, quot;The Big Donor Show,quot; a hoax reality show that ginned up awareness around organ donations. pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/KO3_pRi2iQm-TSnKvbOASk6K9Xo/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/KO3_pRi2iQm-TSnKvbOASk6K9Xo/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/adage/complete/~4/U71X_dnDkZs" height="1" width="1"/

Believe it or not, in the old days here, and before at the EDD and a printshop, I overlooked resumes and gave out advice. This was in the days of the typewriter and the one page resume rule. Now resumes are slightly larger and often emailed so over one page is not an automatic dismissal.

I was thinking of getting a PT job while I was building my business and going to school. I put my regular experience down, the accredited education, objective, etc.

But I was thinking of putting in trade school, unaccredited info into my resumes. Good Idea? I went to the Microsoft technician's school to get my Microsoft Certification training (places like that would be New Horizons, Microsoft Silicon Valley Campus, and Full Sail).

All Microsoft schools are required, then by Bill Gates, to only go for the lowest possible standard, sound familar?, and are only accredited by the US Department of Education. But that's the lowest form of accredidation and used for business license purposes mostly.

The real and only accredidation for the education section of a resume are the regional accrediting bodies, like the Western Association of Schools and Colleges which covers K-12, junior colleges, and senior colleges like Stanford, Cal, and San Jose State, for instance.

Do any of you put in trade schools into your education section or is that a strict no-no?

Thanks in advance.

p style="text-align: center;"a href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126933/gamebanner_qjpreviewth.png?193406" rel="lightbox[article126933]" title="Timothy 20Plan 27s 20Inside 20Look 20into 20Video 20Games 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp 3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126933/gamebanner.png 3F193406 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open 20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img style="margin-bottom: 3px;" alt="Timothy Plan's Inside Look into Video Games - Image 1" title="Timothy Plan's Inside Look into Video Games - Image 1" src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126933/gamebanner_qjpreviewth.png?193406" align="" border="0"/abr/pbrIf the Gay-dar rings, don't buy it. This is what the conservative Christian investment firm, The Timothy Plan, warns for parents planning to get games for their kids. Apart from the usual gaming no-no's, such as sex, violence, and substance abuse, the investment firm also flags games with homosexual content as inappropriate and unsafe for minors.brbrFor this, The Timothy Plan hands out a list of the 30 "most offensive" games on the market. They maintain a "Do Not Buy List" for morally responsible consumers, against publishers that trade in abortion, porno, anti-family entertainment, and vices. They evaluate games on these eight categories: Sex, Nudity, Gay amp; Lesbian, Violence, Language, Drugs, Alcohol, and Game Addiction. They also specified if games have "demonic" content.brbrThe usual suspects are all here: span style="font-style: italic;"Grand Theft Auto IV /spanspan span span id="iTxt"span id="iTxt"(a title="Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 4 Xbox 360" href="http://xbox360.qj.net/category/Grand-Theft-Auto-4/cid/1748"Xbox 360/a, a title="Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 4 PS3" href="http://ps3.qj.net/category/Grand-Theft-Auto-4/cid/1747"PlayStation 3/a) /span/span/span/spanand span style="font-style: italic;"Saint's Row 2/span span span span id="iTxt"(a href="http://xbox360.qj.net/category/Saints-Row-2/cid/4407" title="Saints Row 2 for the Xbox 360"Xbox 360/a and a href="http://ps3.qj.net/category/Saints-Row-2/cid/4408" title="Saints Row 2 for the PlayStation 3"PlayStation 3/a) /span/span/span(both of which have a check mark on seven of eight categories - even gay content), span style="font-style: italic;"Fallout 3 /spanspan span span id="iTxt"(a href="http://ps3.qj.net/category/Fallout-3/cid/3986" title="Fallout 3 for the PlayStation 3"PS3/a, a href="http://xbox360.qj.net/category/Fallout-3/cid/3985" title="Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360"Xbox 360/a, PC)/span/span/span, and span style="font-style: italic;"Age of Conan/span and span style="font-style: italic;"World of Warcraft /spanto name a few. If they're such phobes about gay content, I'm surprised they didn't tag span style="font-style: italic;"Manhunt 2/span with a gay title.brbrThey made a lot of comments that made me laugh, here are a few of my favorites:brullispan style="font-weight: bold;"God of War II: /span"This game has a sex mini-game. During the "game," you press one of the four main a href="http://ps3.qj.net/tags/ps2/2464" id="tag" title="PlayStation 2, second console in the PlayStation series by Sony."PS2/a buttons when indicated, which causes the women to moan louder, helping them reach climax." Now that's a detailed review!/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Saints Row 2: /span"Homosexual Encounters: ...Characters like Randy the Tranny were used in marketing the game."/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"BioShock: /span"Strong Language: Strong profanity including the f-word , as well as numerous others we prefer to not include in this report." Wow, that's some hardcore swearing! Not to self: Get span style="font-style: italic;"BioShock./span/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Manhunt 2/span: "Strong Language: Strong Language: The game's first two words are "Holy F k."/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Blitz: The League II/span: "Suggestive Themes: Females appear in miniskirts with thong underwear only to be spanked by players during touchdown celebrations."/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Bully: Scholarship Edition/span: "Homosexual Encounters: Gay achievements such as over the rainbow can be reached on the Xbox 360 when you kiss 20 boys."/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Army of Two/span: Homosexual Encounters: (not mentioned): Somewhat homo-erotic undertones between the two main characters are present./li/ulbrWell, I guess they're not looking forward to joining FLAG, but hey, this was worth a few laughs. If you wanna see the full pdf, just click on the source link belowbrbrhr style="width: 100 ; height: 2px;"brspan style="font-weight: bold;"More on censorship and game ratings:a title="Porn game company will make adult game industry" href="http://www.qj.net/Porn-game-company-to-bypass-ESRB-Sony-Ninty-MS-to-create-own-adult-game-industry/pg/49/aid/126825"br/a/spanullia href="http://www.qj.net/Porn-game-company-to-bypass-ESRB-Sony-Ninty-MS-to-create-own-adult-game-industry/pg/49/aid/126825"Pspan style="font-style: italic;"orn game company to bypass ESRB, Sony, Ninty, MS; to create own adult game industry/span/a/lili style="font-style: italic;"a title="5 Best Kid-friendly games '08" href="http://www.qj.net/Parental-Advisory-5-Best-Kid-Friendly-Games-08/pg/49/aid/126677"Parental advisory: 5 Best Kid Friendly Games '08/a/lilia style="font-style: italic;" title="MK vs. DC is family-friendly" href="http://www.qj.net/Parental-Advisory-Group-MK-vs-DC-is-family-friendly/pg/49/aid/126564"Parental Advisory Group: MK vs. DC is family-friendly/abr/li/ulbrbrimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/qj/ps3/~4/G5s9j9OG5lY" height="1" width="1"/

p style="text-align: center;"a href="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126933/gamebanner_qjpreviewth.png?193406" rel="lightbox[article126933]" title="Timothy 20Plan 27s 20Inside 20Look 20into 20Video 20Games 20- 20Image 201 20 26nbsp 3B 20 20 26nbsp 3B 20 3Ca 20href 3D 22http 3A//img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126933/gamebanner.png 3F193406 22 20target 3D 22_blank 22 3E 3Cimg 20src 3D 22/img/newwindow.png 22 20title 3D 22Open 20in 20new 20window 22 20border 3D 220 22 3E 3C/a 3E"img style="margin-bottom: 3px;" alt="Timothy Plan's Inside Look into Video Games - Image 1" title="Timothy Plan's Inside Look into Video Games - Image 1" src="http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module/126933/gamebanner_qjpreviewth.png?193406" align="" border="0"/abr/pbrIf the Gay-dar rings, don't buy it. This is what the conservative Christian investment firm, The Timothy Plan, warns for parents planning to get games for their kids. Apart from the usual gaming no-no's, such as sex, violence, and substance abuse, the investment firm also flags games with homosexual content as inappropriate and unsafe for minors.brbrFor this, The Timothy Plan hands out a list of the 30 "most offensive" games on the market. They maintain a "Do Not Buy List" for morally responsible consumers, against publishers that trade in abortion, porno, anti-family entertainment, and vices. They evaluate games on these eight categories: Sex, Nudity, Gay amp; Lesbian, Violence, Language, Drugs, Alcohol, and Game Addiction. They also specified if games have "demonic" content.brbrThe usual suspects are all here: span style="font-style: italic;"Grand Theft Auto IV /spanspan span span id="iTxt"span id="iTxt"(a title="Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 4 Xbox 360" href="http://xbox360.qj.net/category/Grand-Theft-Auto-4/cid/1748"Xbox 360/a, a title="Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto 4 PS3" href="http://ps3.qj.net/category/Grand-Theft-Auto-4/cid/1747"PlayStation 3/a) /span/span/span/spanand span style="font-style: italic;"Saint's Row 2/span span span span id="iTxt"(a href="http://xbox360.qj.net/category/Saints-Row-2/cid/4407" title="Saints Row 2 for the Xbox 360"Xbox 360/a and a href="http://ps3.qj.net/category/Saints-Row-2/cid/4408" title="Saints Row 2 for the PlayStation 3"PlayStation 3/a) /span/span/span(both of which have a check mark on seven of eight categories - even gay content), span style="font-style: italic;"Fallout 3 /spanspan span span id="iTxt"(a href="http://ps3.qj.net/category/Fallout-3/cid/3986" title="Fallout 3 for the PlayStation 3"PS3/a, a href="http://xbox360.qj.net/category/Fallout-3/cid/3985" title="Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360"Xbox 360/a, PC)/span/span/span, and span style="font-style: italic;"Age of Conan/span and span style="font-style: italic;"World of Warcraft /spanto name a few. If they're such phobes about gay content, I'm surprised they didn't tag span style="font-style: italic;"Manhunt 2/span with a gay title.brbrThey made a lot of comments that made me laugh, here are a few of my favorites:brullispan style="font-weight: bold;"God of War II: /span"This game has a sex mini-game. During the "game," you press one of the four main a href="http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/ps2/2464" id="tag" title="PlayStation 2, second console in the PlayStation series by Sony."PS2/a buttons when indicated, which causes the women to moan louder, helping them reach climax." Now that's a detailed review!/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Saints Row 2: /span"Homosexual Encounters: ...Characters like Randy the Tranny were used in marketing the game."/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"BioShock: /span"Strong Language: Strong profanity including the f-word , as well as numerous others we prefer to not include in this report." Wow, that's some hardcore swearing! Not to self: Get span style="font-style: italic;"BioShock./span/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Manhunt 2/span: "Strong Language: Strong Language: The game's first two words are "Holy F k."/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Blitz: The League II/span: "Suggestive Themes: Females appear in miniskirts with thong underwear only to be spanked by players during touchdown celebrations."/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Bully: Scholarship Edition/span: "Homosexual Encounters: Gay achievements such as over the rainbow can be reached on the Xbox 360 when you kiss 20 boys."/lilispan style="font-weight: bold;"Army of Two/span: Homosexual Encounters: (not mentioned): Somewhat homo-erotic undertones between