A FIVE-hour rampage by young Muslim prisoners armed with hammers and chisels was broken up by a riot squad yesterday.

Dozens of inmates barricaded themselves into a workshop and grabbed tools including saws.

Riot police and 100 specially-trained prison officers — kitted out with body armour, shields and helmets — were called in.

When negotiations failed, the officers moved in and overpowered the prisoners — many of whom were teenagers.

No injuries to staff were reported but there was said to be “considerable damage” to the workshop.

Some of the rioters suffered minor bruises.

It is believed the rampage at Aylesbury Young Offenders’ Institution started after inmates celebrated the Muslim festival of Eid which marks the end of Ramadan.

When are they going to stop calling this the "Religion of peace"?

A lecturer has criticised students for relying on websites like Google and Wikipedia to do their thinking for them.

Professor Tara Brabazon, from the University of Brighton, said too many young people around the world were taking the easy option when asked to do research and simply repeating the first things they found on internet searches.

[ Lecturer Bans Students From Using Google And Wikipedia (from The Argus) ]

I certainly hope she doesn't stop at this point and also bans them from using the computer to find books in the library. Card Catalog was good enough for her, why can't these kids just prepare for their future in the past, after all once they leave the university they won't have Google and Wikipedia to use as resources.

And ban copy machines and typewriters too, if 14th century monks could write out dozens of bibles in their lifetime, seems a student shouldn't rely on these modern crutches and just pick up a quill and vellum as we did before that accursed Gutenberg invented his devil contraption.

Props to Mak.

Like the mythical half-horse, half-man of Greek lore, Concept Centaur combines the best of several technologies to create an innovative whole. The result of exploration by Segway Inc.'s product development team, Concept Centaur will challenge the way you think about four-wheeled transportation.

[ Segway | Concept Centaur ]

It just looks like a great time. Sure I guess you could use it to get across town too, or herd animals, or deliver goods, or I don't know what, but it's clearly designed for just having a great time. Nice maneuverability in tight spaces too. I hope that the redesigned city of the future left room for something like this.

Still looks cool, though.

In the United States, Spanish is permeating the country more and more. One cannot ride a city bus without seeing ads and bus safety instructions in English and Spanish. One cannot enter chain stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot without seeing ads and signs in both languages. One cannot call a major credit card company, airline or other large business without first hearing an automated menu that often starts in Spanish – or at least offers to proceed in Spanish.

[ American Observer - April 5, 2006 - For Spanish, Press One ]

Check your facts, English is the language of the foreigner.

We decided that we wanted the lower 1/3 of the lower 48 when it still belonged to Mexico. We got Texas to come on over and then fought a little war with Mexico to grab the rest. I guess at the time we should have shipped all current inhabidents to Mexico, and force all new immigrants to learn English. Then we could just equate Spanish to Bad Person from Another Country or a B-PAC. Perhaps we could then hunt down B-PACs for sport, or sell their babies as a food source. So many things that we can't do now because we accidentally allowed some Spanish speakers to become actual US Citizens. Of course since the world Spanish speaking population is so darn small, I can see why so many are against anyone in the US even knowing it.

If only we knew what that was...

The United States is home to approximately 336 languages (spoken or signed) of which 176 are indigenous to the area. 52 languages formerly spoken in the US territory are now extinct...

The United States does not have an official language...

Several states ... are officially bilingual:

• Louisiana (English and French),
• New Mexico (English and Spanish),
• Hawaii (Hawaiian English and Hawaiian),

In 2000, the census bureau printed the standard census questionnaires in six languages: English, Spanish, Korean, Chinese (in traditional characters), Vietnamese, and Tagalog.

[ Languages in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ]

And, of course, the official languages or most often heard languages in many sections of the US when we "acquired" them was not English. German, French, Spanish were all spoken in large sections of the US for many many years, and for much of that before they were "American".

Now I am sure I understand the issue. It is a common known fact that multiple language countries are at a big disadvantage in the world, and will always be second rate countries. I mean I've never even heard of some of these places:

• Norway (Bokmål Norwegian, Nynorsk Norwegian; small Sami- and Finnish-speaking minorities)
• Iceland (Icelandic, English, Nordic languages, German widely spoken)
• Luxembourg (Luxermbourgish (national) French, German)
• Canada (English & French)
• Sweden (Swedish, small Sami- and Finnish-speaking minorities)
• Switzerland (German, French, Italian, Romansch)
• Ireland (English, Irish)
• Belgium (Dutch, Flemish, French, German)

Oh, wait, those are all countries that the UN ranks higher than the US as most livable. I've got it, multi-lingual is a hindrance to our economic might. So we'll check the World Economic Forum's Growth Competitiveness rankings to see who threatens our might and how they will have an unfair advantage by being uni-lingual:

• Finland - even if they aren't multi-lingual, they're in the EU and have to deal with it
• Sweden - see above
• Denmark - see above
• Taiwan - Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka dialects (See CIA)
• Singapore - Mandarin, English, Malay, Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew, Tamil, other Chinese dialects, other (Says the CIA)
• Iceland - see above
• Switzerland - see above
• Norway - see above
• Australia - well... I think some of the aboriginals might not speak English...

So it's not that. It must be that supporting more than one language is a burden on the government and their spending resources. That would mean all of the largest economies in the world would have to have one language, or they'd have spent all their money supporting their masses that don't fall in line with the rest of their nation. According to AustralianPolitics.com the top 15 (minus the US and Australia, 'cause I wanted to) are:

• Japan - Aha! Here's one.
• Germany - EU country, see above
• United Kingdom - EU country, see above (though not sharing a currency. 'course that doesn't matter they still have the regional languages to deal with - Scottish, Welsh, Norman French)
• France - EU country, see above
• China (exc.HK) - Standard Chinese or Mandarin (Putonghua, based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghaiese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages (see Ethnic groups entry)
• Italy - EU country, see above
• Canada - Still English and French
• Mexico - Spanish, various Mayan, Nahuatl, and other regional indigenous languages
• Spain - EU country, see above
• Brazil - Portuguese, Spanish, English, French
• India - English, Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit
• Korea - Korean, English
• Netherlands - EU country, see above

(All language info for that bunch also from the CIA) OK, so far we are threatened by the Australians and the Japanese and want to level the playing field by exporting millions of foreign speaking, most likely illegal, aliens from the US. And, of course, any lands that we (as a country) purchased or won in war are expected to fall in line with our un-official official language of English in 1 generation or less. Plus we'd rather not spend any money on those language classes, so bring a check book (though we're happy to pay for hunting down the "illegals").

I'm glad that I've done a bit of research and thought this out. Next up: lets close all of these foreign food establishments, I think they are attracting fer'ners too...