Spontaneous Monotony

I just read this on BBC News:

Teenagers are to be offered financial incentives not to behave badly – as the government puts forward plans for modernising youth services.

Teenagers from low-income families could receive £12 per month on an “opportunity card”, to spend on activities such as sport and music.

Yes, you read that right. The government is to offer teenagers in England and Wales (who qualify for free school meals, remember this is the Means Test Party) a £12 per month bribe (called an ‘opportunity card’ to satisfy the PC brigade) to spend on [more or less] whatever the hell they like- provided they avoid ‘antisocial behaviour’ (funny, I thought the incentive to avoid crime was not going to jail).

Apart from the fact that it is Old Labour class warfare again (why does a child with parents on a moderate income not deserve the same reward for good behaviour as a child with parents on a lower income?), the principle of bribing people not to commit crime is a very dangerous one indeed.

[EDIT] Hey, two in one day:

Youngsters in a north east town are to be rewarded if they are seen putting litter in bins.

Those spotted disposing of their rubbish the right way in Fraserburgh will receive gift vouchers as part of the Bin It ‘n Win It campaign.

This one hasn’t even had any democratic oversight. Surely quangos (the Fraserburgh Future Partnership is responsible for this tripe) should be required to spend our money in more worthwhile ways than this? [/EDIT]

SixApart have released the beta version of Movable Type 3.2 recently (dumping the nearly year-old 3.1.x codebase), and from reading the beta announcement I am so glad that I am using Wordpress. Here’s a short excerpt from their ’32 favourite features in Movable Type 3.2’

TrackBacks are finally equal citizens in the Movable Type platform: Just like comments, they can be directed to go into moderation, and any TrackBack that’s been received can be edited

Er… hate to burst your bubble SA, but since the 1.5 ‘Strayhorn’ release (in February) Wordpress has let me do that with two clicks. If this is one of your ‘favourite features’ then the ones that didn’t make it in must really suck.

After a few hours of tweaking the code (and some frantic searches through the Wordpress Codex and PHP tutorial sites) I have finally been able to get the Rin theme fully working on the blog. It looks much more blog-like, and just plain nicer than Ocadia, which was a good theme in itself. Enjoy the new look!

I’m currently testing a couple of new themes, so don’t be surprised by any strangeness, or the site suddenly not working at all (the latter of which will last the time it takes to delete the offending theme from the server via FTP)

I’ve finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and suffice to say that it’s better than the crap that was the previous one. I’m not about to spoil it for people who haven’t already read it, but if you want a plot synopsis, the one on Wikipedia is quite good.