!!!

Detained children freed in policy flip

Check out Senator Bartlett's comments at the end of the article - I think he's got it right, this is an election strategy. For an overview of the severe effects on children of indefinite detention, see the summary of HREOC's findings.

(no subject)

Fess up. Who else out there is having weird dreams about the new series of Who?

Unspeakable cuteness

I stumbled across these snaps of akita puppies.

The Blue and the Green on DVD

OMG! Crystal clear video instead of ratty old telecine! The clothes! The *hair*! The poles up John and Elizabeth's bottoms! John's sideburns and his faintly sleazy interest in Elizabeth! Stephen's resemblance to Tim from The Goodies! Stephen identically shouting all his lines! CSO galore! Specialpowers (one word)! I'M IN HEAVEN!!!

ETA: The commentary, with Nicholas Young and Peter Vaughn Clark mightily taking the piss out of themselves and the story, is priceless.

Another LAX horror story

Coffee, Tea or Handcuffs? An Australian journalist gets a taste of Department of Homeland Security hospitality

I am so flying in thru SFO next time.

Readinge

I finally finished Paul Cornell's first original SF novel, Something More. I confess it took me three tries to get into it, but the slow beginning is deceptive - the novel's pace and head-exploding-ness increase the longer you stick with it, so persistence paid off in the end. Looking forward to British Summertime now.

I've also been reading The Birth of Time by John Gribbin. The topic is fascinating - how scientists over the last 500 years have realised the universe was bigger and bigger and older and older - but the book itself is too dry for my taste and badly needs diagrams. My favourite bit is where early thinkers realise that fossilised snails on mountaintops wouldn't have had time to crawl that far from the sea during the Flood. It must've been another of those head-exploding moments.

Wee little puppet author #3

Donate to Amnesty and I'll write you Doctor Who. Details here. Here's my latest effort:

( 1000 words of the Second Doctor, Jamie, and Victoria )

... Good on you megthelegend!

(no subject)

Found written on a bit of paper in my desk:

"I think my real objection here is that you seem to be raising mere continuity quibbles to the status of violations of Mathematics, or Logic - almost giving them the significance of blasphemy."
- Bettelheim, on the banning of fairy tales