When I was in high school, I had a part-time job in the children's wear department of a certain well-known department store that shall remain nameless.

I can remember being truly disgusted one Saturday morning, when I opened up a new box of stock and was faced with mountains of diamonte-studded padded-bra and brief sets for the girls 12-and-under section. Seriously, it was lingerie for preschoolers. I can't say I was surprised by how totally inappropriate this was - we had also recently started stocking those vile Bratz dolls and I had ranted at my manager about that too (why is it that the boys' toys are things like science kits, Meccano and sports equipment while the girls are encouraged to play with tarted-up bimbos who promote inanity, blue eyeshadow and skanky clothes?).

Anyway, I know it's an issue that has been brought up on YEN before, but hey, you know, maintain the rage and all. I think Phillip Adams was the first to call it "corporate paedophilia" - he wrote an interesting article a few years ago which you can find here. There's also the 2006 TAI report "Letting Children Be Children: Stopping the sexualisation of children in Australia" by Emma Rush and Andrea La Nauze. And there's a more recent article here for those of you who are bothered by this sort of thing.

The one thing that still had me logging on to MySpace was the ability to listen to some free tunes when I'm not on my own computer (I'm sure we all agree that Facebook is by far the superior platform from which to carefully monitor the daily minutiae of our friends/colleagues/distant acquaintances). But I've just discovered an alternative that wipes the floor with it (apologies if I've been slow on the uptake and am preaching to the converted here...):

Deezer was set up by two French dudes who wanted "to offer, free of charge and legally, all kinds of music... while at the same time, artists and rights owners receive a share of advertising revenue."

OK, they don't have a super-full catalogue yet (no Pnau!?), but it's early days (the site was only launched in August last year) and the general consensus that it's gonna be a roaring success. Sony BMG, Universal Music and a whole bunch of other "leading major and independent record companies" are already on board, with more joining the party every day.

The good bits:
- "smart radios" tailored specifically to your tastes, that 'learns' from what you add or remove from playlists (kinda like iTunes "For You" section)
- "blind lists" that let you make or take music quizzes where you have to guess a song or artist from a brief sample of a track
- themed radio stations according to genre
- the interface

Yes, I've been taking a political dilettante's interest in the upcoming US Presidential Election. (Yes, I stayed in last Friday night to watch the Obama-McCain debate... and was sorely disappointed - nowhere near as much bite as there should have been. Reckon I was sharper as third speaker for the affirmative "Tazos should be banned from school" in my Grade 7 inter-house championship).

Yes, this really is John McCain's running mate, and if the Republicans win, she will be (as Jack Cafferty so harrowingly puts it) "one 72-year-old's heart beat away from being President of the United States".

I'd read plenty about Sarah Palin's encounters with the media, and honestly didn't believe it could possibly be as bad as it sounded. But then I watched her interviews.

I actually want to cry. Now surely, no matter what your political persuasion or level of interest in world affairs might be, you will be equally disturbed to see (a) that somebody so far out of their intellectual depth could actually be a serious contender for one of the most powerful positions in the world, and (b) this shower of verbal diarrhea being sprayed in the face of a journalist who asked a highly relevant question about the US economic crisis.

Sadly, these aren't one-off gaffes. No wonder they're now only letting her out in public under the strict supervision of McCain or teleprompters.

At the moment she's at "debate bootcamp" in preparation for Thursday's Vice-Presidential debate with Joe Biden (Obama's guy). If they can turn her into something semi-coherent by then I'll eat my hat, but me thinks we're all about to be treated to a good ol' fashioned trainwreck.

It's here, and praise be to the deity that is The Internet and her right-hand man iTunes for delivering to my sugar-starved ears Ladyhawke's (self-titled) debut album this week - it would have been super-expensive to have had to fly home for it.

I've got my girls on the ground in Oz securing me a hard copy for all those pretty pictures in the liner, but in the mean time am making do with closing my eyes, tapping my toes and un-stifling the grin she and all that synth conjures.

Sing along.

Photographer Cody Daley arrived here from Melbourne a little while ago and has been busy snapping everything quintessentially BA ever since - from classy ladies on black and white tiles, to dulce de leche smeared dudes and the ubiquitous footpath hazard of doggy-doo. He recently exhibited at Espacio 10 Arte Gallery and blogs his concepts here.

For those of you in need of a healthy dose of optimism, there is a man who can help: he is an American architect and his name is William McDonough. With the help of German chemist Michael Braungart, he has come up with this crazy theory that industrial design should factor in ecological and social consequences along with economic concerns. I.e.: let's run factories / businesses / infrastructure that not only make money but are also 100% environmentally sustainable and good for society!

They call the concept "Cradle-to-Cradle" and stamp that certification on "products, industrial systems, buildings, even regional plans that allow nature and commerce to fruitfully co-exist". One of the coolest examples? A textile mill in Switzerland that produces waste water as clean as the water that goes in (i.e.: Swiss drinking water).

Learn more here.

I realise that there may seem to be far more important things to rant about than despicable taste in shoes, but as someone with first-hand experience of a boss who wore Crocs - with socks, no less - this article is a justified call to arms against what is evidently becoming a global scourge on society, if for this line only: "wearing sweaty bright purple clown shoes in public is not OK". Never a truer word written.