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PlanetLA (mostly) posts roundup

A few interesting ones on LA’s Planet today (including too many of mine, so here’s just one simple summary back) — but posts from interesting others, such as:

Pascal Klein linking to Mr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s letter to George Bush, which unlike so much “western”-style polliflage, steps aside from trends, promises and vague fears to a straighforward “this [is] happen[ing|ed]” style, for example:

At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women – as occupation troops – put in harms way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of ailments; while some are killed and their bodies handed to their families.

While it’s not as totally comprehensive as it might be (Yanks are far from the only Iran-based suicides or sickies, for example), such a direct stance is at least understandable and effective, and does bring some definite and important events and consequences into question which may have been tactfully elided or glossed over in one of [insert Western ruler name here]’s literary works.

My littlest girl’s namesake munchosaurus is getting classified via AP and so CNN, this time in packs of seven-to-nine (which vague tally by itself says something about the quality of the recovered fossils) tens-of-m-long beasties. Elsewhere, a randomish bunch of beasties together would have been “caught together in a catastrophe” but here the reporters are eager for a phrase like “hunted in packs”, so mapusaurus roseae is somewhat... er... packed today.

Mind you, lunch in sections 30-odd m long (e.g. argentinosaurus) would take quite a bit of packing, even en masse. Thinking about “en masse” as a concept, I note that the rebuilt MR skull show with the article is several times as large as the entire real-life daughter.

Kristy Bennett is also discovering cysterhood and childrens’ senses of humour. Except for the obvious damage, my own kinder would have enthusiastically barracked for a re-run of the cycle-into-car-door fiasco, had they been there. The little ones (this seems to apply to them all, not only mine and/or Kristy’s) like any non-threatening (and occasionally also some — ahem — minor scarey) splendour for entertainment.

It was also nice to see someone (Cameron) actually stop at and photograph Wave Rock instead of word-shotgunning it and posting brochure-scans.

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