Why I love the Daily Mail, as distilled into one story.

100 men seems like a very small sample size. I'm a bit more worried about the oestrogen/health stuff and this idea the writer seems to have about autism being similar to brain damage and something that crops up randomly when parents have bad health or put bad things into their kids bodies, it's the same logic they use when they reckon autism is caused by MMR and mercury, and that stuff was all bollocks.

xpost

Ok, read it now.

Dr Mark Brosnan and Dr Ian Walker from the university's Department of Psychology found that as a group the fathers of autistic children didn't all go for the same figure as their most attractive choice.

Hmmm. I really think we may to read the whole thing. It doesn't seem to be quite as clear cut as the DM is making it.

OH REALLY, you say.

http://i44.tinypic.com/jfev6u.jpg

100 men seems like a very small sample size

It's probably (sadly?) about average for such a study.

this idea the writer seems to have about autism being similar to brain damage

Plenty of studies link autism to brain "damage" of some kind; hellfire, one of the most convincing new theories on unipolar depression suggests that's actually linked in some way to a structurally abnormal brain. Plenty of studies link it to all sorts of things. That's the point: there isn't a pathology of autism yet. This is why research exists.

something that crops up randomly when parents have bad health or put bad things into their kids bodies

What evidence are you using for this, anyway? Can you quote the actual text that states this, or are you basing this reading on your own assumptions about how the Daily Mail often presents such stories? (Which, I'll admit, are usually fucking shocking.)

It doesn't seem to be quite as clear cut as the DM is making it

Well, of course it isn't -- this is a very short newspaper article, while (I'd hope!) that what Brosnan and Walker are doing is a tightly controlled experiment. My point, though, is that going "TUT DAILY MAIL HEADLINES WHATEVER NEXT" without actually reading the piece isn't constructive.

Although why I'm wasting time defending the Daily Mail, I really don't know.

one of the most convincing new theories on unipolar depression suggests that's actually linked in some way to a structurally abnormal brain

Actually, I wish I'd not written that because it'll be misconstrued, and I'm falling into my own trap of trying to explain something staggeringly complex using very few words. My fundamental point still stands, though: autism could well be linked (NB: correlation, not causality!) to structural "defects" in the brain.

My. I went off and made some soup there (very nice, since you ask: fennel and potato with lemon, and a gremolata topping) and expected to come back to a minor clusterfuck. Anyway, I should be toiling over an essay, but because I am the KING OF PROCRASTINATION ...

Autism could well be linked (NB: correlation, not causality!) to structural "defects" in the brain

... a little light reading on that subject for anyone who's interested, in no particular order.

Carper, R A Carper and Courchesne, E (2000). Inverse correlation between frontal lobe and cerebellum sizes in children with autism. Brain, 123 (4), 836-844. (Various other Courchesne papers consider a similar hypothesis.)

Dawson G, Webb SJ, Wijsman E, Schellenberg G, Estes A, Munson J, Faja S (2005). Neurocognitive and electrophysiological evidence of altered face processing in parents of children with autism: implications for a model of abnormal development of social brain circuitry in autism. Dev Psychopathol, 17, 679–697.

Wicker, B (2008). New Insights from Neuroimaging into the Emotional Brain in Autism. In E McGregor, M Núñez, K Cebula and J Carlos Gómez (Eds). Autism: An Integrated View from Neurocognitive, Clinical and Intervention Research. Malden, Mass; Oxford: Blackwell. (Actually: if you want to criticise the Brosnan and Walker study for being "quite o_O", I'd suggest you read that entire book first.)

Sparks, B F, and a fucking shitload of others (2002). Brain structural abnormalities in young children with autism spectrum disorder. Neurology, 59, 184-192.

Haas, R, and, again, more others than I can be arsed rearranging into author/initial format (1996). Neurologic abnormalities in infantile autism. Journal of Child Neurology, 11 (2), 84-92.

Now, shall we look at some studies considering autism and genetic predisposition/hormonal influences? Is that a resounding "no, shut the fuck up, Grimly?" Suits me fine.

Has he gone?

OK, back to the Mail and it's crazy URLs.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1109882/Man-created-Barbie-Ken-dolls-kinky-swinger-manic-need-sexual-gratification.html

‘When Jack talked about creating Barbie it was like listening to somebody talk about a sexual episode, almost like listening to a sexual pervert,’ Ryan’s friend, Stephen Gnass told the author.

Almost.

Quite, em, compulsive level of detail there, grimly. I prefer my scaremongering lower on facts, higher on sheer panic, please. Here's Warning over 'third-hand smoke'. Not from the Mail, but it might as well be

Has he gone?

I AM BACK. Actually, no, I'm still looking for innovative new ways to not start writing. Drinking BEER has helped. Shit.

As always, the URL is WAY more interesting than the story, which is desperately dull. Filling in the blanks myself, I was hoping for something like: "Man created Barbie and Ken dolls to amuse friends at kinky swinger parties for manic depressives in need of plastic toys to achieve sexual gratification". Which would have been so much better.

I really want to know if those are being generated automatically or not. I shall endeavour to find out.

Quite, em, compulsive level of detail there, grimly

Heheheh. I think it's served its purpose.

Back on the light bulb tip, it's quite funny being reminded in the Guardian that twelve months ago, the Daily Mail were giving away free energy-saving bulbs and encouraging people to change.

lol i thought it was a myth that people in the all 'respect' the mail for its vaunted professionalism

A bitter, disillusioned sub writes: while knocking a story into shape last night, I needed to check when a particular dude was knighted, and chanced upon a relevant article from the Mail. Said article spelled said dude's name two different ways in the space of 100 words ...

... neither of which was actually correct.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1129978/How-faceless-amoral-world-cyberspace-created-deeply-disturbing--generation-SEX.html

I would srsly buy a drink - maybe two - for whoever came up w/ the idea of having the URLs read like this

that mother & daughter pic is quite something

How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

Marcello?

It's 1954 in my house!

- mrs B, cleveland, usa, 28/1/2009 3:15 Click to rate Rating 27

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/01/28/article-1130015-0337DB90000005DC-374_468x532.jpg
England coach Fabio Capello checks out a new kind of strip on Italian TV

who's that being Obamafied in the background?

Looks like Gianlucca Vialli to me.

Remember that Hilaire Belloc cautionary tale - Matilda told such dreadful lies, it made one gasp and stretch one’s eyes? I used to love it as a child when telling lies was one of the naughtiest things you could do: Matilda ended up getting burned to death.

Good of the Daily Mail to include a clip from Skins, despite it not being mentioned anywhere in the article, for anyone wondering what 'teenage promiscuity' might look like, without having to search for it online themselves.

12-year-olds today have seen raunchier stuff on the internet today than most 40-year-olds have seen in their entire lives.

Chew on that for awhile. Your 12-year-old has seen "Two Girls, One Cup" - and that ain't getting erased.

Chew on 2G1C for a while

Pretty sure our boy hasn't seen 2 Girls, 1 Cup. He thought the posters for Sex Drive were too rude to be on the side of a bus.

Prudle Vague Jr. more like

Shameful Lawless Internet is full of raunchy XXX rated child-endangering pictures like these: (pic) (pic) (pic) (pic) (pic) (pic)

First 12 comments all from the US there.

If morality is subjective then why not live it up? If God is dead all things are lawful. If there is no God why not let sex be your god and use as many other humans as possible to fulfill ones personal pleasures. Darwin taught us the survival of the fittest right?

Workplace harrassment: 12 women's sizzling hot tales!

too shit; didn't read

You were right not to do so.
DM comments always full of Americans and ex-pats.

It turns out that it was the Walkman that has broken Britain, according to not-at-all-crazy AN Wilson.

Exposing your ear drums to badly mixed rock music

Scik Mouthy?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1183011/AMANDA-PLATELL-Insults-betray-bigotry-gay-zealots.html

I really don't want to look at the comments section there, but it's so tempting. Can someone confirm that it's as bad as you'd imagine? (Poor little girl, staring wistfully into the distance, wishing for a real mummy and daddy.)

The gay rights lobby should remember that not everyone who opposes gay adoption is a narrow-minded redneck

Pictures or it didn't happen

adam and eve not adam and steve

The plugs that go into the ears are a wonderful source of bacteria so unless they are sterilised before each use they are a germ playground.

I really don't want to look at the comments section there, but it's so tempting. Can someone confirm that it's as bad as you'd imagine? (

First comment.

don't know the research and I am not homophobic but it is only common sense that tells me children must surely have a better chance in life with a married heterosexual couple and that is who they should be put with.

- Expat Andi, Dubai UAE,

http://blogs.theage.com.au/lifestyle/trashtalk//archives/_peter_andre_jordan_wedding.jpg

A heterosexual couple yesterday.

Hang on, this bunch would have been a better example...
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/03_02/shanfamilyDM1403_468x325.jpg

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/05_02/MccannsPA_468x293.jpg

don't know the research and I am not homophobic but it is only common sense that tells me children must surely have a better chance in life with a married heterosexual couple and that is who they should be put with.

- Expat Andi, Dubai UAE,

That's got to be a full house on DM reader bingo.

Nah, doesn't mention house prices or Gordon Brown. Still, not far off.

BTW, this line in the Wislon piece cracked me up:

By the time they are 35, this generation will have experienced serious hearing loss. Of that, medical research is in no doubt whatsoever

Such meaningless nonsense, on so many levels. You've almost got to admire it.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/03_02/shanfamilyDM1403_468x325.jpg

wow the Manics really let themselves go

"libraries bring us power"

Much as AN Wilson lurches inevitably into egregious excess and shrieking hysteria, the following, early, and crucially understated, paragraph is OTM:

For those of us who liked getting on a bus or a train and overhearing, or even taking part in, conversations, there is something a bit bleak about the dozens of private solitudes which nowadays clamber aboard.

...so much so, that my entry into the ILX poetry competition is basically about this very trend.

every time i'm on public transport and have to talk to a stranger it's inevitably a drug addict or someone just out of jail who wants me to give them a pound and has some sob story about having to go somewhere to beat up their father/girlfriend/big brother or whatever so i say bring on more people minding their own fucking business.

*lazy scotland zing*