Natural History

Today's phylum is the PLACOZOA. There are only two known species of these microscopic blobs and they're only known from aquarium gunge - they've never been found in the wild, and nobody knows what they eat. They have only four kinds of cells (humans have over 200 different kinds). I had never heard of them before this morning.

From the ANNELIDS we have the newly discovered genus Osedax, worms which live on the bones of dead whales.

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Via lornelover, The Insanity Test. I lasted five seconds.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the new Who and the Daleks, complete with a desperately relevant photo of Trevor Martin.

"And watch out for Snapes"

Via katmaxwell, a comic strip which actually has nothing do with with Snape, but might as well. This could be a glimpse of his university days.

junediamanti's excellent essay In Defence of "Snape the Hero".

Via babb_chronicles, Super Model Snape. You *have* to visit this LJ. Part of me feels mean for making fun of overexcited kids, but it tends to get drowned out by the howls of hilarity. When I read this:

"I, foolish mortal," the soldier said, "am an Elf. Glorfiniell beith my name."

I laughed until tears ran down my face.

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I dreamed that the Earth was going to be destroyed, and that shellshear had built a spaceship for his friends so we could escape. How cool is that? Five minutes before the Earth blew up I realised I had packed all my books to bring, but forgotten to preserve any Yes CDs for posterity. As in most dreams I switched POVs a lot, and found myself experiencing the destruction of the world by an intense golden light, at one stage clutching a small lost child and reciting the Our Father.

Separately, I dreamed I was playing Lynda Bellingham's role in the Blakes Seven episode Headhunter, possibly as part of a stage play. This is your fault, Todd.

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This week's foodie challenges! How many dinners can Kate make without buying any new ingredients? (Crockpot baked beans and spoonbread, two stirfries, tuna pasta salad, and tonight's leftover omelette - but I've run out of eggs, dammit. I can still do chickpea patties and a sweet potato salad with what I've got.) And how many meals-per-person can she squeeze out of one $AUD35 Chinese takeaway? (Looks like it'll be five dinners and a lunch.) Plus: how long can a human being survive on leftover cheesy grits and vegetarian chili? Reality TV dreams about being this exciting!

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Right, that's all the whacky stuff out of the way, here's the depressing stuff.

From Gitmo: Hicks and Habib abused, allege ex-inmates

From Abu Ghraib: Abu Ghraib guards just having fun, court told. I can't help but suspect this outrageous statement was made to further demonise the soldiers involved and thus cover the arse of the chain of command. Unfortunately for that effort, there's this: Abu Ghraib jailer tells of hidden inmates

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Press releases from the Australian Democrats:

High Court Grants Govt Absolute Powers to Detain People. This specifically refers to an asylum seeker the government would love to get rid of, but can't, so he's been permanently filed.

Minster Wont Deny Existence Of Punishment Compound. Indefinite detention of already traumatised people is a formula for prison unrest. People who are so depressed they hurt themselves belong in hospital, not prison. (Why is it even necessary for me to say these obvious things!)

ALP Panic and Backflip on Gay Marriage. The opposition joins forces with the government to legally snuff out the possibility of gay marriage, before an inquiry can report and before a real debate can take place. (The Dems' long-standing support for gay rights is one of the reasons I joined them.)

Slash -?

Just read:

Larbalestier, Justine. "Buffy's Mary Sue is Jonathan: Buffy acknowledges the fans". In Wilcox, Rhonda V. and David Lavery. Fighting the Forces: What's at Stake in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham MD, 2002.

It's a great essay, accessible and entertaining. But one thing threw me - the author uses "slash" to mean any romantic pairing not seen on screen, het or gay. I don't think I've ever actually seen the term used that way, even though a slash is used to denote het couples (J/C, H/Hr, etc). Has she just misunderstood, or is this my spotty interaction with fandom showing?

Genesis 30

Text here. Notes to self:

Here's the handmaid's tale again - more explicit about the physical connection between the wife and the concubine this time, with Bilhah presumably giving birth while lying between Rachel's legs. (Is that what the "wrestlings" in verse 8 refer to?)

While the story of the mandrakes (mandrakes?!) is presumably there to explain Issachar's name, I can just see Leah delivering her line about hiring Jacob with a sexy look. :-)

The metaphor (or possibly literal idea) of the womb opening to allow conception, implying that before that it was closed and impenetrable to semen, is beautiful in a way. Oddly, I think it crops up in The Also People. It vaguely reminds me of the Egyptian ceremony performed on mummies, the Opening of the Mouth - you can't have life without opening up the body in some way.

Joseph applies a little herbal medicine, either as an aphrodisiac, a fertility drug, or possibly to create more spotted sheep. Presumably human beings tried something similar. (I get the impression that "cattle" here means "sheep and goats", in the way that "corn" means "any grain".)

This is such a different world. Infant mortality must have been horrendous. Mind you, parts of the book are presumably family trees, explaining names and recording relationships, but it's all about the pregnancies. [ETA: That was gibberish. What I was trying to say was that, if Genesis is partly a sort of geneaological record, then obviously it's going to talk about kids, family etc a lot; but even so this seems to be a massive concern of the time.]

(When I get to the end of the book, I must go back through all my notes-to-self and see how many questions still need answers.)