The Rosemont Loving

Ever wanted to find out what the Conservatives are planning instead of ID cards? Today, David Cameron has outlined the Tories’ plan for a border police force. This is a great idea as it will consolidate the six different agencies that are currently not working - Revenue and Customs, the Immigration Service, the security services, harbour police, Soca (Serious and Organised Crime Agency), and the Metropolitan Police. After the decade of building government bureaucracy it makes sense to get the control back, and in the process reduce crime.

1. BBC - Milli Vanilli film ‘in pipeline’. Girl you know it’s true that this film will be pants

2. BBC - Is sex on a plane legal? Debate into the mile high club

3. Iain Dale’s Diary - Who do so Few Candidates Have Blogs?

4. Micro Persuasion - 200 Reasons to Love YouTube. Another great YouTube video

5. VNUNet - YouTube ‘close’ to content filtering deal. I find this fascinating that this is only just now happening

6. The Inquirer - Yahoo! claims! it! invented! Web! 2! Yahoo claims that it invented 2.0, could be big news

7. Daily Telegraph - Slavery still thriving in Britain. Shocking news

Ex-colleague Jonathan Hopkins has now started blogging. A fascinating fellow, this should make a fascinating blog.

I’ve become a massive fan of Facebook in recent weeks, and it is becoming a slight obsession. This video is hilarious, check it out…

I’ve been known to be both a film fan and a betting man, so Oscar time has always been a pleasure. Helen Mirren looks like a dead cert this year for best actress for The Queen but other categories are more open. Here are my choices…

Performance by an actor in a leading role:
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” - want to win
Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson”
Peter O’Toole in “Venus”
Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness”
Forest Whitaker in “The Last King of Scotland” - will win

Performance by an actor in a supporting role:
Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” - will win
Jackie Earle Haley in “Little Children”
Djimon Hounsou in “Blood Diamond” - want to win
Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls”
Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed”

Performance by an actress in a leading role:
Penélope Cruz in “Volver”
Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal”
Helen Mirren in “The Queen” - want to and will win
Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada”
Kate Winslet in “Little Children”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role:
Adriana Barraza in “Babel” - want to win
Cate Blanchett in “Notes on a Scandal”
Abigail Breslin in “Little Miss Sunshine”
Jennifer Hudson in “Dreamgirls” - will win
Rinko Kikuchi in “Babel”

Achievement in directing:
“Babel” Alejandro González Iñárritu
“The Departed” Martin Scorsese
“Letters from Iwo Jima” Clint Eastwood - will win
“The Queen” Stephen Frears
“United 93” Paul Greengrass - want to win

Best motion picture of the year:
“Babel”
“The Departed” - want to win
“Letters from Iwo Jima” - will win
“Little Miss Sunshine”
“The Queen”

UPDATE 26/02: Overall my betting was reasonably successful with 4 out of 6 correct. Marty Scorsese, what a legend.

1. Web User - Top British blogs to be honoured. Once again another year goes by with no recognition

2. Daily Telegraph - Women shed unwanted hair through mint tea. Not very popular with the French then?

3. Reuters - Estonia set for world’s first Internet election. Good for them

4. PR Week - CIPR launches Social Media Guidelines ‘to educate and lead’. Essential reading for me

5. Digit - Web is reflection of society, says Google

6. Reuters - PM says road pricing not “stealth tax”. Another “honest” statement from a dishonest PM.

David Cameron smoked cannibis at school, what is the big deal? The pope smokes dope too, what’s good enough for him should be good enough for the rest of us.

Here is another take.

There is an increasing trend in employers searching for details of interview candidates on social media. I can, in part, thank my blog for securing my new job but it can also work the other way and discourage. In this new world of transparency it probably makes sense to be less transparent at times, especially if you have view points like this guy.

1. BBC - Rise in abortions after Christmas. Shall we rename Christmas as the time of lack of will?

2. Reuters - Violence fears shut glitzy London nightclubs. What is the world coming to?

3. Reuters - Jeans, PJs, shirts — it’s love for women. Guys, we can no longer be called ’shallow’ by women, whahoo!

4. BBC - ‘Yellow box’ plan to beat muggers. If you cross the line you will be electrocuted.

5. R Kelly’s Hip Hop Opera. I can’t believe I’ve only just found out about this…genius.

“I bet in a year’s time people will be calling for Tony Blair to come back and people will be booing Gordon Brown.”

David Miliband, Question Time, 11.30pm, 8 February 2007

Out of context but hilarious nonetheless.

For a long time I’ve been of the opinion that Hotmail doesn’t cut it and now that Gmail is open to all it would be very foolish of people not to join. Techcrunch has done a great blog post on comparing Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. Migrate you fools!

1. Reuters - Apple’s Jobs calls on music industry to drop DRM. Sorry for being cynical but doesn’t iTunes have the most silly DRM situation out there?

2. Telegraph - Minister urges foie gras boycott. Another pointless initiative from the Labour party, the banning of eggs will be next.

3. BBC - Pilot projects target extremism. Are you, like me, slightly worried that this is only just happening now?

4. Reuters - Study says video games are good for eyes. Great news for any gamers out there.

5. Blogging Me Blogging You - Introduction about Web 2.0

6. Iain Dale’s Diary - Tories to axe ID cards. I’m interested to find out how much money is spent on Government schemes that never make it to launch.

The Guardian comments on the political spin wars. I think someone should create a spin index, which outlines how successful a political party’s spin is competing against the forces against…

Something like this…

Labour -3.85
Conservative +2.47
Lib Dem +0.21

Any thoughts welcome