The savants told us there was little to choose between Gore, a Clintonite New Democrat, and Bush, a self-styled "compassionate conservative". Both were huddling in the soft centre: Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Whoever won, little would change.

Well, no one's saying that now. For the promise that this would be a Republican Lite administration has proved naive, if not positively deceitful. Instead, in 100 short days, we have seen the Bush regime establish itself as the most brazenly rightwing of modern times.

Fuck Ralph Nader.

One thing to understand is some of the positive sides, especially for parents, of understanding the importance of genetic inheritance and individual differences—now toy manufacturers and purveyors of educational materials are doing a very good job of convincing parents that they have to give their kids the optimal environment for intellectual growth, and that if they don't spend the money to do that, on—the money spent on toys, on the right child care, on the right private schools, the right universities, then the child's going to be a failure. And that if they don't push their child and motivate them, and be worried for the entire time that they're growing up about what they're going to become, then they're going to be failures. That's completely the wrong attitude, and Robert Plomin has been very good at pointing out that the more you understand about genetics, the more you can just relax and love your kids for who they are, and who they turn out to be, and the interests that they show, and you can abandon this idea that the kids are born as formless blobs and you have to shape all of their desires and their capacities yourself. It removes some of the burden and anxiety from parents.

Maybe it's all crap. There's a good chance that it is.

AN Australian bush walker who survived after vanishing for five weeks in a Tasmanian wilderness described yesterday how he had kept going on water, wild mushrooms and willpower.

Wow. How many pounds is a 'stone' again?

Masturbation while online was reported by 15% of the students, and 12% said they had ``cyber sex with an online partner.'' Although males were more likely to masturbate, slightly more women (5.3%) reported having had cyber sex than men (3.1%).

Among the 23 students who reported having cyber sex, eight reported drinking while doing so and three reported using drugs.