Complete randomness

Varieties of insanity known to writers

The Conference of Nobel Laureates: Rani bait?

Floating cities, from the camera of the mighty flyingsauce

The brilliance that is the Starbucks time loop.

dinosaurcostume's poem about elephants reminds me of the time I was trying to describe a Punch cartoon to my mum. "There's a hallway with an elephant's foot umbrella stand, and at the door is an umbrella with only one foot, and the guy is answering the door and saying, 'Yes'?" Mum: "... at the door is an umbrella?"

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Huge piles of writing-related stuff to do today. I've just now sent off a new issue of The Butterfly Room, the exciting occasional email newsletter of Kate and Jon scribble news. I need to have a peek at Jon's War of the Worlds article, email some belated film script feedback to shellshear, apply for an ABN, and most importantly do some solid slog on the Inside the TARDIS stuff. Plus I really ought to hit the library and the supermarket. And ye gods, the laundry! it's gonna be a long one.

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Frankasaurus is boinging all over the house like a kitten the size of a small steam train, attacking bits of string, balls of crumpled paper, his Cat in the Hat head, Tim, and something on the wall which only he can see.

Refugees

Today's SMH has a useful overview of the proposed backbencher bills, which would place limits on mandatory detention. Howard has ruled out a conscience vote on the bill for Liberal MPs, but the Labor party may support them. If about a dozen Liberal MPs break ranks, the bills could pass.

The Herald also has photos of some of the 70 children in immigration detention.

More randomness

Mooch gets that wild look. Gives you an idea of Frank's kitten behaviour this morning.

Shakespeare meets Doctor Who in some fab ikons by q_m_n. At the other end of the cultural spectrum, iPod Doctors by david_macgowan. (Techno-alert: the last three are BMPs.)

What happened at the pizza parlour. A splendid and very probably true story of the sort of vengeance on a racist which I wish I had to moxie to pull off.

How to hide trains from your wife

matthewwolff's very funny review of Tosca at the Met.

Hoom, hom

I'm just researching the missing episodes of Doctor Who online, and came across a useful page which explains that film copies of some episodes have been "recovered from Ents".

ETA: Good gods, ashamel - look what I found.

Pollie Tix

A law lecturer outlines why legalising torture would suck, such as the potential for the abuse and the not entirely irrelevant fact that it doesn't actually work.

Speaking of which, the alleged torture of an Australian citizen in Kuwait seems to have been crowded out of the news by the Schapelle Corby case.
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The two-year sentence of a gay Australian in Fiji has also failed to make the news splash that the Corby case has. The Australian Democrats have called for travel warnings for gay and lesbian travellers, who should be warned about countries with laws against private, consensual gay sex. At about the same time, the govt's travel advisory for Fiji was updated, although not as strongly as the British equivalent.

The American Psychological Association provides an overview of research on gay and lesbian parenting and its effects on children. ( And I quote... )

jvowles recently posted the text of Texas Representative Senfronia Thompson's magnificent speech opposing the ban on gay parents adopting. ( And I quote... )

After one year and six thousand gay weddings, the sky hasn't fallen in Massachusetts.
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James Lovelock reckons the greenhouse crisis so severe that nuclear waste would be the lesser of two evils. Let's pray this is just a terrific way of promoting his new book.

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Finished watching The Second Coming. Superb all round in performances and production. Not convinced by the ending, though... ( my SPOILERiffic thoughts... )

Also watched the very funny X-Files War of the Coprophages, which provided a much-needed cheering up after TSC. :-) You know, I'll never forget the shock of seeing the first comedy X-Files, Humbug - I just about perished at that shot of ubermensch Mulder. "How would you like to go through life looking like that?"

I used to flange something rotten for Duchovny, but now realise that Gillian is much sexier.