Welcome to the second half of the 2010 Boing Boing Gift Guide, where we pick out some of our favorite books from the last year (and beyond) to help you find inexpensive holiday gifts for friends and family. Can you guess who chose a Sarah Palin book?

The Brits have tripled school fees, to the outrage of those whose prospects of receiving higher education become ever more distant. Upon finding Prince Charles painting the town red, protesters painted his car a different color. Ben Goldacre suggests the opening of "imaginary gold mines" as an alternative investment in the nation's future.

Dr Ben Goldacre is the woo-fighting science writer for The Guardian, and in that capacity he has dogged the heels of "Doctor" Gillian McKeith, a "nutritionist" whose explanations for the way that nutrition works defy science and delve into bizarre areas of Being Wrong, such as her claims about the way that chlorophyll operates in your pitch-black gut. — Read the rest

British nutritionist Gillian McKeith, often criticized for claims that run contra to scientific consensus, is engaged in an entertaining catfight on twitter with Ben Goldacre of Bad Science fame.

British bug-killing company Rentokil recently put out a press release containing made-up numbers about the prevalance of bug infestations on public transport. The missive — "2,000 bugs taking a ride in every train compartment," parsed one quality daily — resulted in widespread condemnation. — Read the rest

The British government reportedly offered the job of public health minister to Fiona Phillips, a television presenter and an outspoken defender of anti-vaccine junk science. She claims to have turned the job offer down. [via Ben Goldacre]

Baroness Greenfield is one of Britain's most well-known scientists and was, until recently, the head of the Royal Institution. The RI just fired her, after a £22m modernization plan left its finances in ruins. Greenfield plans to sue it, accusing the institute of sexual discrimination. — Read the rest

Skeptics who believe that a university is actually a diploma mill often prove their point by enrolling their cats in the university's program and seeing whether the cat can get a degree. Some enterprising Wikipedians have assembled a list of several such cats. — Read the rest

A film that denies the link between HIV and AIDS is being screened in the UK by the Spectator, in the name of "spurring debate." The Spectator's editor, Fraser Nelson, describes his motivation: "It's one of these hugely emotive subjects, with a fairly strong and vociferous lobby saying that any open discussion is deplorable and tantamount to Aids denialism. — Read the rest

When a British girl — who had an undiagnosed tumor — died shortly after receiving the HPV (cervical cancer) vaccine, the British tabloids jumped on the story as proof that vaccines are evil and pad and deadly and dangerous. They even quoted respected scientists who agreed with them. — Read the rest

Building a bit off the "conflusion" (Bravo, btw, insert) post from yesterday, I'm going to launch right into something near and dear to my heart: The way biased and badly done health journalism can really mess up the people who read it. — Read the rest

The Open Rights Group is hosting a public forum in London on Oct 2 to discuss the new proposal to disconnect Brits from the Internet if anyone in their household is accused of violating copyright:

Peter Mandelson is convinced that disconnecting filesharers will help the music and film industries.

Glyn sez, "The UK government is now considering laws that would allow individuals to be cut off from the internet. If Lord Mandelson's plan becomes law, disconnection may start for alleged copyright infringement, with no guarantee it would not be extended for other things. — Read the rest

The British Home Office want to keep a huge DNA database of people who've been acquitted of crimes (or arrested and then released with charges dropped), saying that "innocent people who have been arrested are as likely to commit crimes in the future as guilty people." — Read the rest

Today in his weekly column on junk science, Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre challenges the War on Drugs and Britain's latest obsession with fighting cocaine:

In the case of cocaine, there is an even more striking precedent for evidence being ignored: during the early 1990s the World Health Organisation conducted what is probably the largest ever study of global cocaine use.

Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre tries to get to the bottom of the insane piracy numbers the British entertainment industry likes to throw around — and concludes that they're bunkum (what's more, the spin doctors from the entertainment industry tried at the end of their unsuccessful call to declare the whole thing off the record!). — Read the rest

Dr Ben Goldacre, who writes the Guardian's "Bad Science" column, blogged about a UK radio DJ's irresponsible reporting on vaccination, including the 44 minute radio show in audio form (he could have edited down, but he didn't want to be accused of selective editing). — Read the rest

The first sentence of this actual news story from the Daily Mail would make HG Wells proud:

The human race will one day split into two separate species, an attractive, intelligent ruling elite and an underclass of dim-witted, ugly goblin-like creatures, according to a top scientist.

Snip from a New York Times piece by John Schwartz about blog controversy over a study that sought to determine why some sheep prefer to bonk others of their own gender:

Charles Roselli set out to discover what makes some sheep gay.