Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:42 PM

Juan Cole, blogger and professor of Modern Middle East History, has just written How Bush Created a Theocracy in Iraq. It's an excellent read, a history lesson I never knew.

Very quickly, here's the article's opening and closer:

The Bush administration naively believed that Iraq was a blank slate on which it could inscribe its vision for a remake of the Arab world. Iraq, however, was a witches’ brew of dynamic social and religious movements, a veritable pressure cooker. When George W. Bush invaded, he blew off the lid.

[...]

Far from weakening or overthrowing the ayatollahs, Bush has ensconced and strengthened them. Indeed, by chasing after imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he may have lost any real opportunity to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon should it decide to do so.

How did we get from here to there? Read the whole article.

Posted by Lis Riba at 4:30 PM

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master -- that's all.’

The question is not what Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito's words mean, but whether he puts any stock into his words at all.

It seems to be an ongoing theme in recent news stories about his past writings:

In 1990, when Alito was seeking a seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, he wrote the following in response to a Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire (which, according to several sources, are considered under oath):

I would, however, disqualify myself from any cases involving the Vanguard companies, the brokerage firm of Smith Barney or the First Federal Savings & Loan of Rochester, N.Y.

Yet, when cases arose involving Vanguard and Smith Barney, Alito broke that oath and did not recuse himself. According to a Boston Globe article, he also pledged to recuse himself from cases involving his sister's law firm, and later took such a case.

More recently, the Reagan library released Alito's 1985 application for a Justice Department position, including comments like this:

[I]t has been an honor and source of personal satisfaction for me to serve in the office of the Solicitor General during President Reagan's administration and to help to advance legal positions in which I personally believe very strongly. I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.

That was then, this is now.

According to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Alito's now distancing himself from those remarks, claiming as his defense, "First of all, it was different then. I was an advocate seeking a job. It was a political job."

That makes twice that Alito has said that he does not consider himself beholden to anything he says or writes while jobseeking. He's a proven unrepentant serial liar. The nominee who cried jobhunting.

So why should we believe anything he says or writes now in pursuit of this job?

For this reason, I don't believe Alito can be trusted and don't want him on the Supreme Court.

This isn't about ideology. It's the accountability, stupid.

Alito's "lack of integrity is so flagrant" in the [Vanguard] case that he should be disqualified as a Supreme Court nominee.

That comes from the plaintiff's lawyer, a retired Northeastern law professor, who didn't even find out about Alito's financial conflicts until after Alito ruled in Vanguard's favor. [Source: Boston Globe]

Bush was elected with a promise to restore honor and integrity to our government.

This nominee is yet another step *cough*FEMA*cough* in the wrong direction.

Posted by Lis Riba at 2:50 PM

Busy-ness prevented me from getting something out there for Blog Against Racism Day, but (un)fortunately, new topical outrages keep emerging.

CNN is headlining their story about Jon Corzine's possible successor: Black woman may be appointed to Senate. Yet somehow, aside from her race and gender, they largely neglect to mention any of her actual qualifications, thus making her look like little more than a token.

More on this from Magpie and Glenn. [First seen on Suburban Guerrilla]

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:15 PM

It's been a busy time at work. After needing Wednesday off, I think I put in two twelve-hour days. I really don't want to go into a lengthy explanation, but it was both grueling and, perversely, kinda fun, appealing to my detail-oriented nitpicky side. And even though I worked late on a Friday, the bulk of it is done. A bit of cleanup work on Monday, but I think I can finally put this behind me.

At any rate, the cryptic details of work that I refuse to blog about wasn't the reason for this post.

Last night, coming home exhausted from work, I got it into my head that I wanted to reread Tanya Huff's Fire's stone, a book I've read countless times before. I consider it one my favorites^*, and that's what I needed -- a comfortable old friend with whom I could curl up and forget my troubles.

Earlier this week, when I checked my reading list for the year I recalled that I began the year by rereading most of Tamora Pierce's Tortall novels. I was going through some major stresses, so wanted to surround myself with familiar friends in those uncertain times.

So how about you? Surely I can't be the only one with such habits.

Anybody else have books like these that they turn to again and again? Care to share the details of which or when?

What are your comfort books?

^* Favorite books (current list, copied from February 2004, as enumerated in November 2002; an August 2002 list included comments on why these titles and what they have in common ):

• Emma Bull, War for the oaks
• Orson Scott Card, Enchantment
• Colleen Doran, A Distant soil: The Gathering (Vol. 1), The Ascendant (Vol. 2), The Aria (Vol. 3), Coda (Vol. 4)
• Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Good omens
• Tanya Huff, The Fire's stone
• Tanith Lee, The Silver metal lover
• Melissa Scott & Lisa Barnett, The Armor of light

PS: I do strongly recommend all these titles. And, no, don't bother asking; I won't loan my copies. Most are cheap beat-up mass-market paperbacks, but I'm not letting them out of my house. Heck, I don't even shelve them in the general fiction collection any more, to keep them together. :)

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:00 PM

Someone named Malacandra has been posting this in comments on Daily Kos:

Dick Cheney is one persian cat short of being a James Bond villain.

Heh. There's a photoshopping waiting to happen (if it hasn't been done already).

In a similar vein, get a load of this photo of the current pope.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:56 PM

One of the reasons I like reading Riverbend is the frequent reminder that people are people, no matter how many religious/linguistic/cultural blinders attempt to obscure that fact.

For example, I couldn't help but laugh at the familiarity in this recent post describing a temporary bout of laryngitis:

Four things you should know about illnesses in Iraq. When you describe your malady to any Iraqi, there are some general guidelines you can take for granted:-

1. Short of cancer and terminal illness, any Iraqi has had your malady before you,
2. Even in cases of cancer or other serious conditions- SOMEONE the abovementioned Iraqi knows *almost* personally has had the condition before you (the neighbor’s sister’s cousin’s nephew)…
3. Every Iraqi you talk to knows the cure for whatever you’re suffering from, and
4. Refusing to attempt abovementioned cure is both a personal insult to the well-intentioned curer and further affirmation of your foolhardiness which got you sick in the first place.
   

I’ve been no exception- everyone has had a cure for me to try.

My mother attempted various soup recipes. My father suggested gargling with a mixture of salt and water (which had me gagging). The cousin swore he cured his own voiceless state last week with a tablespoonful of olive oil three times daily and supervised my dosage (which made the salt and water mixture actually seem quite good). Umm Ala´a, from three houses down, claimed that my voice wouldn’t return unless my whole neck was wrapped snugly in a wool scarf. Finally, the aunt concocted an interesting mixture of baybun (chamomile, which all Iraqis swear by), crushed dry mint leaves and lemon. This was all boiled together, strained and I was ordered to “INHALE” the steam rising from the greenish-yellow liquid and then drink the horrid stuff.

The only person who didn’t have a cure for me was [Riverbend's brother] E. “Why would I want you to get your voice back?!” He asked incredulously.

I mean, isn't that just a near-universal experience?

When people talk of Iraqis as if they were backwards backwater primitives, I want to shove a copy of Riverbend's book in their faces and make them read. Most Iraqis are just everyday people, trying to go about their everyday lives, same as we are. That was true under Saddam's regime and remains the case today.

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:25 AM

Ian wrote up the eagle story I hinted at yesterday.

Go read it and laugh at the silly birds.

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:45 PM

Well, I slept off my cramps for another four weeks. I hate this, I really do.

That's why I went on the Pill in the first place as a teen: to mitigate the dysmenorrhea. And, to its credit, that worked. Unfortunately, it unbalanced all the rest of the hormones in my system. So now I'm off the Pill and suffer to varying degrees once a month. And if I don't catch it in time to medicate early on (such as, say, when the pain hits in the wee hours of the morning) it can just knock me out. Fortunately, generally, I only have problems on the first day of my period, although last month I noticed a few twinges the second day that have me concerned that things could get worse.

Anyway, got a bit of reading done during my waking hours. Finished Elizabeth Bear's Worldwired (after Ian starts&finishes it, you and your neighbor's dog can borrow it, Judy). And a few items online worth mentioning:

Avedon Carol wrote this better (and more succinctly) than I could:

America-hating scum

If it had been known at the time, it would have been a scandal that someone working for the White House even thought this way, and now they want to put him on the US Supreme Court:

As a senior lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, Samuel A. Alito Jr. argued that immigrants who enter the United States illegally and foreigners living outside their countries are not entitled to the constitutional rights afforded to Americans.

God, these people really hate America. Our rights are inalienable. They aren't merely conferred by law - everyone is born with them. It's the duty of the US government to make sure that everyone in our reach gets them, that our government does not violate those inalienable rights. I'm tired of hearing about the fine legal minds of these people who just hate the idea of having a free country.

And on a more humorous note, courtesy of Teresa Nielsen Hayden, Barron wrote worse. “Oh yes. Eagles are known around the world around for their reflexes.” With that in mind, pester Ian to share his (friend's) eagle story.

Finally, have you heard the latest on Padilla?

Whether, if the government's motion is granted, the mandate should be recalled and our opinion of Sept. 9, 2005, vacated as a consequence of the transfer and in light of the different facts that were alleged by the President to warrant Padilla's military detention and held by this court to justify the detention, on the one hand, and the alleged facts on which Padilla has been indicted, on the other.

Whoa! I think somebody in the administration screwed the pooch on this one.

And that's all I can write for now. Thank heavens for laptops and wifi that allow me to blog from bed.

Goodnight, Gracie!

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:00 AM

Sometimes, I hate my body.

You might think that hormone deficiencies would spare me this kind of pain, but, no. It hurts from my midriff to my knees once a month like clockwork.

And anything else I write is probably too gross for public consumption.

Pleasant anecdotes and favorite home remedies welcome.

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:25 PM

All the discussion of rape still swirling around the blogosphere (largely inspired by the UK poll that I blogged last week) puts me in mind of a Golda Meir anecdote that bears repeating:

“Once in the Cabinet we had to deal with the fact that there had been an outbreak of assaults on women at night. One minister suggested a curfew. Women should stay at home after dark.

“I said: ‘But it's the men who are attacking the women. If there's to be a curfew, let the men stay home, not the women.’”

No curfew was ever imposed.

Posted by Lis Riba at 11:50 PM

Google Blog Search proves it:

Number of blog posts in the last day mentioning "dalek and (porn OR lesbian OR abducted OR pr0n)": 41*

Number of blog posts in the last day mentioning "dalek" and either "jo grant" or "katy manning": mine

*There are more blog posts mentioning daleks, but none of the rest relate to this story.

We'll have to see whether this trend continues as the story spreads (and how many people who do mention the historic dalek porn recalled it independently).

PS: My London trip report currently paginates to over 10 pages, and I still haven't written out everything on the second day, though I have skipped ahead and started about a half-page worth of Day Three.

Also, I've got a whole lot of placemarks plotted in Google Earth that I haven't quite figured out how to share. [Pictures with the posts? Just share the KMZ file?]

While trying to decide, I discovered And Digitally Distributed Environments, a blog with other pretty pictures of London, including 360° panoramas of various locations, plus several buildings importable into Google Earth (including the London Eye and St. Paul's)

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:01 PM

“Now, Casane, where's the Turkish Alcoran
And all the heaps of superstitious books
Found in the temples of that Mahomet
Whom I have thought a god? They shall be burnt.”

That's a line from The Second Part of The Bloody Conquests of mighty Tamburlaine written by Christopher Marlowe sometime in the late 1580s. [The original play was such a smash hit, he penned a sequel.]

Recently, a condensed version of both plays was performed onstage in Bristol and London.

And rather unsurprisingly, among their edits, they removed the burning of the Koran and eliminated other lines offensive to Islam.

These changes were so dramatic, that news of them only hit the papers this week, after both runs had concluded. I guess nobody who actually saw the show cared enough to comment at the time. Must've been a slow newsday.

But now there's an uproar, Marlowe scholars are being asked for comment left and right (with their complaints repeated ad infinitum by the usual crowd that derides political correctness).

The Times provides a typical quote, by biographer Park Honan: "It is wrong to tamper with the play, wrong to shorten it and wrong to leave out the burning of the Koran because that is involved with the exposition of Tamburlaine's character."

I don't know Honan's background (though I've heard nothing but rave reviews for his biographies of Shakespeare and Marlowe) but here he's the one in the wrong.

As somebody who enjoys Shakespeare (and Marlowe) in performance, I've become quite cognizant of how often and how much Elizabethan plays are edited for modern audiences.

It's perfectly normal practice to tamper with plays and to shorten them.

Were this a production intended primarily for academic or scholarly audicences, preserve it as a period piece. That's a crowd that would appreciate an unexpurgated performance.

But in a show intended as popular entertainment? I'm fine with a bit of nip and tuck if it gets people to see the classics. I'm sure some members of the audience will be inspired to go on and explore the unedited version. And even those who don't will still be exposed to the ideas and language...

Heck, IMDB lists over 50 different recordings of Hamlet and Branagh's 1996 version was the first and only to be filmed uncut.

Uncomfortable politics were excised? Heavens forfend. What do they think of Olivier's Henry V, the English patriotic feel-good hit of World War II? Mark Dujsik compares Olivier to Branagh:

In the middle of the Battle of Agincourt, there is a scene in the play in which Harry orders the French prisoners of war to be killed. Neither film version contains this scene, which only stands to reason on a dramatic level considering the fact that it happens during the height of the point when the audience's sympathies must lie entirely with Harry and the English. There is another borderline scene that Olivier excised and Branagh kept. In it, Harry stands outside of the gates to the French town of Harfleur and threatens that, if he continues with his assault, he will not be responsible for the potentially brutal actions of his soldiers. The speech is graphic in describing the atrocities of war, so it stands to reason that it would not exist in a piece of propaganda.

Back to the modern Marlowe.

I'll accept this kind of criticism from equal opportunity purists who denounce every edit of every play. I don't agree, but at least they'd be consistent.

But to denounce this -- putting further obstacles before productions of a play that's rarely produced anyway -- without acknowledging it's common practice?

To steal another playwright's line, much ado about nothing...

Posted by Lis Riba at 7:14 PM

Am I the only one who remembers that after completing her tenure on Doctor Who as companion Jo Grant, Katy Manning posed with a Dalek in a girlie magazine?

Well, that was then, this is now.

On my LJ friends list, people are gleefully pointing out a Register story: "BBC pulls plug on Dalek lesbian romp flick."

That article includes an image of the DVD cover, which (while "naughty bits" have been obscured) is probably not safe viewing at most workplaces.

The Register also links to The Sun's coverage -- "BBC says: Sexterminate!" -- which includes several still images from the flick and is almost definitely not worksafe.

[Director of Dalek-creator Terry Nation's estate] Tim Hancock said: "The reason the Daleks are still the most sinister thing in the universe is because they do not make things like porn. They weren't ever intended to be sexual creatures. It's simple, Daleks do not do porn."

Besides the Katy Manning precedent, I'm also reminded of Curse of the Fatal Death, which not only made lesbian jokes, but included suggestive comments regarding the sonic screwdriver and dalek bumps...

[Title quote from "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," said by the Doctor to Leela, according to this site.]

Posted by Lis Riba at 6:12 PM

Responding to yet another iteration of the Internet/Google undermines traditional book publishing, Kevin Drum observes:

Jeanne d'Arc writes today:

I find that the more I read online, the less I read off. I don't think it's even a matter of using up my reading time. It actually destroys brain cells or something, because if I've been doing too much online reading, I lose the patience for following a sustained or subtle argument, or reading a complex novel.

The same is true of me. It's not just that I spend less time reading books, it's that I find my mind wandering when I do read. After a few paragraphs, or maybe a page or two, I'll run into a sentence that suddenly reminds me of something - and then spend the next minute staring into space thinking of something entirely unrelated to the book at hand. Eventually I snap back, but obviously this behavior reduces both my reading rate and my reading comprehension.

Is this really because of blogging? I don't know for sure, but it feels like it's related to blogging, and it's a real problem. As wonderful as blogs, magazines, and newspapers are, there's simply no way to really learn about a subject except by reading a book - and the less I do that, the less I understand about the broader, deeper issues that go beyond merely the outrage of the day.

Then again, maybe it's just Jeanne and me. Anyone else feel this way?

I do find that I have only so much reading/writing time per day, and blogs definitely cut into books (or books cut into my blogging), but nonetheless... well, you can judge my reading habits for yourselves. [Reminder for those new to my Books Read lists -- I only include books (or novel-length online works) which I have finished. This doesn't include all the works I started but drifted away from, a list which would easily be quadruple this size.]

List-keeping does change behavior. Because I only record books I've completed, I've sometimes gone on a forced slog through the latter-half of uninspiring books just because I've put in so much effort that I think it should count for something.

I haven't yet aggregated this years stats, but I think I'm doing reasonably well, neither unhealthily fast nor unengagedly slow.

 -- Just providing a datapoint...

Posted by Lis Riba at 5:51 PM

A woman is suing Dunkin Donuts for burns received from spilled coffee.

Naturally, people are making comparisons to the decade-old McDonalds case.

Years ago, tired of the myths and misstatements, I wrote up this summary of the Liebeck-McDonalds lawsuit. [Oh look, Wikipedia also has a writeup!] I post these links as a request that people acquaint themselves with the facts of the case before spouting off the "common knowledge" which is commonly false.

In short: McDonalds served their coffee hotter than was humanly safe, it was a chainwide policy, they knew of hundreds of other customers burned by their coffee, and they refused an initial request to cover Ms. Liebeck's medical expenses before the suit was filed. Also, despite all the talk of the exorbitant jury award, (a) that was the equivalent of two days worth of coffee sales, and (b) the judge reduced that amount to under a million before both parties reached a confidential settlement.

Given the injuries involved and the facts of the case, it was neither as silly nor frivolous as people make it out to be.

As for this case, the Staten Island Advance has the most detailed account:

Sharon Shea [...] has spent more than a week in the Burn Unit at Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze.

She said she was scalded by coffee purchased at a West Brighton [(New York)] Dunkin' Donuts that spilled on her leg Nov. 12.

"My whole skin was completely peeled off my whole leg," Ms. Shea, 60, said on Friday. "It's a very deep wound. I have to look at it and I get sick. When I go to stand up, I'm in tears."

Ms. Shea filed a $10 million lawsuit against Dunkin' Donuts last week.

The coffee that "had to be a million degrees" was too hot, Ms. Shea alleges in the suit. The lids weren't fastened tight enough, she charges.

And not only was the cardboard tray handed through the drive-through window at Dunkin' Donuts near Broadway and Forest Avenue allegedly too flimsy -- "like egg containers" -- two piping-hot cups of coffee were placed side-by-side instead of catty-corner, an upset waiting to happen, the woman claims.

"Whatever this girl did, she didn't put those lids on," Ms. Shea said as she recalled riding in a car, the tray next to her. She was wearing a brand-new pair of jeans -- plenty thick, she said -- black socks and sneakers.

When her driver pulled into a strip-mall and stopped, the cups spilled and the lids popped off, she said.

The coffee doused her leg, inflicting second- and third-degree burns from the calf to the upper half of her foot.

They make the McDonalds comparison too, though if you read my summary, you'll know that Liebeck didn't actually get $2.7 million.

In 1994, a woman won more than $2.7 million in damages in a lawsuit against McDonald's after coffee that was 180-190 degrees spilled onto her lap and caused third-degree burns.

But Jonathan D'Agostino, Ms. Shea's attorney, said her case is significantly different.

"In the McDonald's case, the [woman] opened her coffee and placed sugar in it," D'Agostino said.

"[Ms. Shea] never even had a chance to touch the coffee," he added. "It wasn't placed properly in the cup -- the lid wasn't secure. And it wasn't placed properly in the tray."

While some deemed the McDonald's case frivolous, lawyers here said each suit must be judged on its own merits.

John G. O'Leary, a personal-injury attorney, said the key issues will be Ms. Shea's actions before the accident and whether the store had prior complaints with lids popping off.

"I don't think any restaurant owner can be a guarantor that those lids will stay secure in all circumstances, but a consumer could expect they should stay secure under reasonable circumstances," said O'Leary, a partner in the West Brighton firm of O'Leary, McMahon & Spero.

Clifton lawyer Bruce G. Behrins agreed.

He also said that in the McDonald's suit, franchise owners were instructed by company memoranda to overheat coffee, so customers would linger on premises -- and hopefully buy more food -- while waiting for the beverage to cool down.

"If [Ms. Shea's case] falls within the facts of the McDonald's case, there's precedent for it," he said.

The New York Daily News adds:

A [Dunkin Donuts] spokesman said the company had launched its own probe of the incident.

"The safety of Dunkin' Donuts customers is extremely important to us," said spokesman Andrew Mastrangelo. "Upon learning of this report, we immediately began an investigation to obtain the facts and evidence of this case in the hopes of determining what happened."

I don't drink coffee, so can't speak for how hot Dunkin Donuts normally serve their drinks.

I'll confess a bit of concern that they're turning to a lawsuit first, though that is how liability tends to be handled in this country, forced upon companies by litigation after problems occur, rather than beforehand by effective government regulation.

I'm not a lawyer, but if I were Dunkin Donuts, I'd offer to pay the patient's medical costs, just as a goodwill gesture, assuming that won't be taken as an admission of negligence that would damage their defense. [Remember, that was all Stella Liebeck originally wanted. It was McDonalds' snub of that reasonable request that spurred her to the courts.] Then see if that plus an investigation to prevent future mishaps will be sufficient to get the lawsuit dropped.

After all, as the Staten Island Advance article concludes:

D'Agostino said his client is in too much pain to contemplate the prospect of millions of dollars in damages.

"She is miserable," D'Agostino said. "She really is not even thinking about money. Honestly, we haven't even talked money. She just wishes that this had never happened."

[Quoth Ms. Shea:]

"I have to learn to walk again. Money? That's the last thing on my mind."

[Credit to Bostonist for the initial links and giving me the bug to blog this]

Posted by Lis Riba at 12:25 PM

Since Librarian.net doesn't support comments (as far as I can tell), I'm posting a public response and assuming Jessamyn's netsavvy enough to find this through trackback.

Jessamyn writes:

Hi. I went to the Somerville Public Library on Buy Nothing Day (this past Friday) and it was closed up tight. As I sat outside enjoying the sunshine, I must have seen fifteen people go up to the front door and try to open it. I understand why the library is closed on Thanksgiving, I would have been concerned if it hadn’t been. But, except as an extreme cost-cutting maneuver, being closed the day after Thanksgiving seems to be a bad customer service move. People are home from work, kids are home from school. Everyone is out and about. Balancing a happy staff with a happy patron base I’m sure is always a challenge, but I was still sad to not be able to go to the library on Friday.

This seems particularly odd to me because the library was open on Saturday. I know this, because Ian finally paid for the book he lost.

I would think that if the library was going to close Thursday and Friday, that they'd also be shut on Saturday. Make it a four-day weekend, rather than two days off, one day on, and then regular Sunday closure.

Weird.

Posted by Lis Riba at 10:08 PM

For no good reason, I've been reading through my archives and came across this post of Ian's.

I love a man who can make me laugh...

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:30 PM

I can't help it; I still like the shiny...

   

Posted by Lis Riba at 9:01 PM

Since I got such a favorable reaction to my earlier Firefly fanfic bunny, a few other ideas that I'd love to read but don't feel capable of writing.

[Note: this post contains script excerpts and possible spoilers for Firefly episodes; revelations from the Serenity movie on a separate page.]

1) "Out of Gas" missing scene between Simon and Wash

( Read more... )

2) Post-TV-show, regarding Simon and guns

( Read more... )

3) Focus on the Tam parents

( Read more... )

Why yes, I am a Simon fangirl. Does it show?

And now for... Three Post-Serenity Ideas, behind this link (includes spoilers for the movie's ending):

I thought I had some other story seeds, but these are all I can recall right now.

Also, one fanvid idea: I'd love to see "Every Breath You Take" by the Police illustrated with clips from "Objects in Space." I heard that song on the radio recently, and thought it would be appropriate for the battle of wits between River and Early.

Once again, I remind y'all that all these ideas are free for the taking. All I ask is that if somebody does (or already has) developed any of these scenarios, send me a link so I can enjoy them myself.

Posted by Lis Riba at 1:55 PM

As an aside, Londonist is turning into one of my favorite blogs. A buncha people talking (and ranting and reviewing) about what's going on in London.

Keeps me feeling connected.

I love it.

Just now I read the past two months on London Underground Tube Diary.

Any other good London blogs I should know about?