Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

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Journalists and Blogging

An interesting article that shows reading blogs is more popular with journalists than the public “Interestingly it is the journalists—not their readers—that are turning to blogs in record numbers. While the Euro RSCG Magnet study shows that more than half (51%) of journalists use Weblogs regularly—with 28% relying on them for day-to-day reporting, a recent study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project Survey showed that just 11% of the U.S. population reads blogs”. I like this ” the majority of journalists are using blogs to do their work, despite the fact that only 1% believe blogs are credible” I guess before they read blogs their stories were simply made up!

Article discovered by www.Fark.com from http://pocketplanetradio.typepad.com/pocket_planet_radio/2005/09/53_journalists_.html

Cross-National Correlations of Quantifiable Societal Health with Popular Religiosity and Secularism in the Prosperous Democracies

A first look at the rate of religiosity in a country and its crime rate, those bible thumpers are not going to like this at all.

“the United States is the only prosperous first world nation to retain rates of religiosity otherwise limited to the second and third worlds” and “the U.S. is the only prosperous democracy that retains high homicide rates,”

Also “A few hundred years ago rates of homicide were astronomical in Christian Europe and the American colonies. In all secular developing democracies a centuries long-term trend has seen homicide rates drop to historical lows”

And on the sex front “The two main curable STDs have been nearly eliminated in strongly secular Scandinavia” wheras in USA “rates of adolescent gonorrhea infection remain six to three hundred times higher”

First saw article mentioned here http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1798944,00.html

Dignified Final ride

Whilst returning in a taxi from the Radio5 blogging event last night (Blimey: £21 from Fulham to Kings Cross!)

The taxi driver and I couldnt resist a smile at this:-

Dignified Final ride

Its a motorcycle sidecar made into a hearst operated by Motorcycle Funerals A cool idea for a niche market (The motorcycle registration had the letters RUT in it).

I notice from the official UK statistics site that 693 motorcyclists were killed in road accidents in 2003 out of 3508 total road related deaths. So I guess they could be busy.