Delicious LiveJournal Links for 10-12-2009

[andrewducker]

• Consciousness is there to mediate between your instincts
  (tags: consciousness science scifi psychology)
• Positive results from autism Patients treated with stem cells.
  Seems like magic to me - I can't see why the brain would magically "fix" itself.
  (tags: stem_cells autism psychology science)
• How the iPod became an instrument of war
  On soldiers, and their tastes (and use) of music.
  (tags: music war psychology brain)
• Musical taste acts as a reasonable predictor for personality
  On 4 of the Big 5.
  (tags: music psychology personality)
• The health effects of discrimination against fat people.
  (tags: health obesity fat society)
• Mother is refused wine at Morrisons â“ in case daughter, 17, drinks it
  Oh, for fuck's sake. The fuckers can fuck off. Really.
  (tags: alcohol UK EpicFail)
• What happened to global warming?
  The next 30 years should be fascinating.
  (tags: climate environment science)
• Oklahoma Abortion Law: Bloggers get it Wrong (thank fuck)
  Not nearly as bad as I heard.
  (tags: abortion law blogging)

Comments

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

On the Morrisons story - Becca got carded when *I* was buying wine. This is absurd.

[andrewducker]

Yup. I was trying to track down what the law actually says earlier - but I haven't managed yet, possibly because I'm ill today.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

There's a summary in this PDF, which also gives you the names of the statutes with the relevant section numbers, should you want to look up the actual text. As far as I can see, to be guilty of an offence the supermarket would have to know that the parent was going to supply the alcohol to a child and that they were going to do so outside their own home - mere suspicion is not enough. I think the whole thing is a ludicrious over-reaction by the supermarkets.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

http://miss-s-b.dreamwidth.org/973973.html

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Directing abuse at people you've never met, don't know, and haven't even made the point you appear to think they're making - nice. You're supporting your cause, whatever it is you believe that to be, no end.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I didn't link to the posts I was quoting from for a reason. A+ for reading comprehension, though.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Let me just check I've not missed something.

I make a comment complaining about someone getting carded when I was buying wine.

You leave a comment containing nothing but a link to a load of abuse directed at people making comments complaining about someine getting carded when they were buying wine.

It seems, therefore, that you intend to direct a load of abuse at me. Comments above applying.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

I wasn't directing the post at you, I was directing you at the post. I thought you might be interested to read it; perhaps I should have been a bit more explanatory rather than just posting a bare link but I was in a rush.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

Abi (now just at the beginning of her fourth decade) got asked for ID while buying a bottle of wine in Tesco a few months back. The assistant said it was store policy, because "some of these Muslim lads have beards and you can't tell how old they are". Abi pointed out that she was clearly over 18, is female, doesn't have a beard, and also suggested that the underage drinkers they're seeking to block would probably be trying to buy something a bit cheaper than the rather nice bottle of red wine she'd chosen, but they insisted on seeing her driving licence nonetheless.

Anyway, I thought there wasn't a legal restriction on parents giving children (over the age of 5?) alcohol in the privacy of their own home. If that's correct (I have at most a vague, theoretical interest in alcohol myself, so I haven't kept up with the legal situation) then Morrisons' behaviour is even more stupid.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about the "at home" bit. Contrarily though, it's still illegal to buy alcohol for a minor. So you can't buy a bottle of cider for the kids hanging around outside the corner store but you can buy a bottle (for yourself), take it home and give your kids some of "yours". The licensing laws really are gloriously screwed up in this country :)

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Not sure I agree. In essence, the law is allowing parents to give their children alcohol in their own homes, hopefully with some degree of supervision. That seems perfectly sensible to me.

[bracknellexile.livejournal.com]

The result is sensible, but having two contradictory halves of the same law is screwed up, specially when it falls on a shop assistant to try to interpret the situation.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

They're not contradictory - alcohol supplied to the minor where the minor lives, or where the buyer lives, is specifically exempt from the section of the Licensing Act 2003 that makes it illegal to give alcohol to children. The shop is only breaking the law if it knows (not merely suspects) the adult is going to give the alcohol to the child outside the home. I do feel sorry for the shop assistants, but the problem is with the instructions they are being given by their employers, not with the law.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

It is still the case that children can be given alcohol by their parents if they are over the age of 5. The fact the girl in this case was with her mother is not really the point.

The law also says it is illegal to buy alcohol to supply to those who are underage, which is more relevant in this case. Bearing in mind not only the store, but the individual on the till can be fined/prosecuted if they are found to have supplied alcohol in such circumstances, I can see how those in management could have come up with such a policy. Requiring to see ID from every person present at the checkout may seem rather heavy-handed, and it probably is, but the question here is how much leeway do you give staff to make their own judgement in such situations.

The answer it seems for Morrisons is none.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

At least it should now be clear to boozy teenagers who manage to talk adults in to buying them alcohol (despite the substantial criminal penalty for the adult) that they really do need to wait out of sight well outside the shop.

Though this is hardly a new finding - I can attest that more than 20 years ago it was ... err ... a well established part of the common modus operandi employed by ... err ... certain teenagers.

I'm a regular if rather light drinker (these days), and often buy wine from supermarkets, but I really don't think this news story is a big deal. Honestly - you can manage without a bottle of wine for a couple of days. (If you can't you need to get help.) There are other more outrageous things going on (the 'Terror' laws are one). I don't think this sort of approach to alcohol sales is likely to be of huge help in addressing the serious alcohol problem we have as a society - but I do think that a blanket no-exceptions policy on this sort of thing is a lot easier to get to work at all than the sort of nuanced discretion-for-the-cashier system you'd need to avoid inconveniencing any legal customers.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

Stem cell therapies effectiveness being measured on self report scales?

Dodgy...

I mean have the researchers never heard of expectation effects? It's so close to the rationale behind "forced holding" working it's scary...

I think I may look into this x-cell clinic thing further (If only because it strikes me odd that a clinic in Germany would be called X-cell) surely we'd have heard something about this and it would be mainstream medical research being carried out on multiple sites as oppossed to one private clinic?

[andrewducker]

Julie and I both said this last night :-> It sounds terribly dodgy.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have a bit of a google later and maybe blog about it.

Autism woo is both fascinating and pernicious.

[endless-psych.livejournal.com]

http://andyourelectronmicroscope.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/are-stem-cells-the-latest-autism-woo/

[supergee.livejournal.com]

In Illinois if the grocery store clerk who sells wine is underage, the customer has to push the button on the cash register.

[tanyad.livejournal.com]

Really? I've always had clerks call for a "21" or someone who's of age to come ring it up. When I was in high school we could do it, but now they won't even let me scan it after I prove that I'm old enough to buy.

Maybe bigger chains are more paranoid about such things and smaller stores are more easy going?

[the-gardener.livejournal.com]

What happened to global warming?
The next 30 years should be fascinating.

I see that the report you link to mentions Piers Corbyn and his claim that the weather is driven by the sun, and who "is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month".

That would be a first. He's been advancing his solar argument for years, but has consistently refused to explain it either because (he says) it would reveal the secret exploited by his weather forecasting company or because of copyright issues around his theory. Copyright? In science? How does that work, exactly?

This is why he is simply not taken seriously by other climatologists.

[dapperscavenger.livejournal.com]

Music affecting moods is not exactly a new thing, surely? You listen to bouncy, upbeat tracks when you're getting ready to go out on a night. You listen to something a bit slower and more melodious to relax. Before my Class 1 driving test I listened to Galvanise to get me in the right frame of mind.

[kurosau.livejournal.com]

There's a reason why the current term is climate change, not global warming. Sounds like another 'journalist writes a bad article on something he knows nothing about and won't research properly' article to me.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

I agree on the Morrisons front - trying to get my parents to get me alcohol when I was 17 was really difficult for exactly that reason. :(