Book book! Readit readit!

Well! Don't Buy Any Books Month was a bit of a flop.

Out of the four books I managed to read in January, YOU MUST READ Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, an account of life in a Soviet labour camp. It's very short, very readable, and there's very little actual brutality or violence - and yet it's a nightmare. The last lines nearly did away with me.

Meanwhile, Down Under

Our new PM has ordered up a White Paper on the 100,000 homeless Australians, emphasising prevention. Insufficient crisis accomodation an urgent problem: more than half of those who seek it are turned away, including families with children; the guvmint has pledged $150m for additional accomodation.

Yay for democracy: the Police Commissioner proposed media blackouts during terrorism trials and was swiftly rebuked by all and sundry, including the PM. The President of the Law Council of Australia said: "The price the police must pay for assuming greater powers is an increased level of public scrutiny." The SMH drily noted: "Mr Keelty's call to ban media comes after the well-publicised bungling of the Mohamed Haneef case."

Folks in a nearby Sydney suburb have discovered they're living next to an unmarked radioactive waste dump. (Hilariously, the contaminated land is owned by the Department of Health.)

Oh, and Australian strawberries are contaminated with pesticides and fungicides. (I feel less foolish for spending the extra $ on organic now.)

More crap

Choose Your Own Adventure book icons. You will never think of the books the same way again.

Early incursion by the evil Pomeranian Empire.

21 year old Australian chess grandmaster!

A survey on young Australians' religious beliefs (about a third don't have any).

Torchwood

Quick - go watch the first minute or so of 2.4 Meat before it gets taken down!

ETA: Moar stuph

Did I leave the sub-etheric resonator on?

Via qthewetsprocket: Neil Gaiman demolishes "Captain Jack Harkness". With chocolate.

afterellen.com puts the boot into teh Wood for its portrayal of lesbianism last season. Let's hope that's rectified this year.

Barrowman on Jack/Ianto

Sorry

Apology to stolen generations – questions and answers (PDF file) from Reconciliation Australia. Handy!

wts?!

Students in a Nevada county have been forbidden to speak Spanish on the school bus.