*wearily* Either all crime is hate crime or none is.

I'm not heterosexual. I'm just as angry if someone gets beaten up for supporting Liverpool or having an expensive mobile phone (I hate football and mobile phones) as I am when they're beaten up for not being heterosexual.

Just because you can tack a -phobia or an -ism on the end of something does not make it worse than any other violent crime, all of which is unacceptable.

To imply gay people need extra protection is to imply that the law as it stands does not protect anyone adequately.

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Silverstone [British GP racing circuit] plans to be revealed

Haven't been there in several years, but as I recall it, the general facilities could be improved.

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Newt colony's £70,000 relocation

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Town prepares for annual mop fair. Pratchett readers, if you were interested in the 'hiring fair' in Mort, this is rooted in a similar thing.

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Interesting cases, these. In two unrelated cases, mothers of severely disabled girls are asking for the girls to be given hysterectomies.

In the first case it's to prevent the girl, who has cerebral palsy, "the mood swings, the tears, the stomach cramps, the pain, the discomfort, the embarrassment" (quote from video) of menstruation. In the second case it's because the pain may cause the epileptic girl to have more serious seizures.

Ambivalent about this myself because of a number of factors, but having had a family member go through a hysto, I can tell you it's not a trivial operation.

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Orphan kidnapped from foster parents. Nation-wide manhunt? Well, a spot on the local news, because the orphan is 'only' a horse.

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Bees to make elephants 'buzz off'

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A man has been jailed for two years after he kidnapped two members of a woman's family and slit the throat of one on her doorstep, threatening to do the same to her husband.

The culprit seems to have been jailed for theft and "making a threat to kill", not for the murder and kidnap. This is because the kidnapped family members were goats.

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Woman admits making hoax calls pretending to be a teenage girl in labour. The sad lives of some people that make this sort of hobby seem appealing...

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Inventor wins speed camera battle

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Rubik's Cube World Championships winner!

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A radio station has been criticised by Ofcom after a prize trip to "Athens" turned out to be to a restaurant.

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Nigerian Sharia court bans play

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University opens genocide centre - for studying it in theory, that is.

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Key gene work scoops Nobel Prize

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I am developing a reflexive hatred of every new bureaucrat created and named a 'tsar'.

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Vulture on the run! Heehee.

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Lion King leaps onto French stage. Half-serious article about musical trend and cultural creep.

"I don't think the entire future of France is going to be changed by people dressing up in animal costumes and singing Hakuna Matata," [Tim Rice] said.

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Ministers have rejected calls to force parents who have children via egg or sperm donation to register the fact on the birth certificate.

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[video] Women vent about men online.

Is the loo seat thing really such an issue? I thought that was the realm of the hackneyed stand-up comedian. The dishwasher thing, though, grrr. Both my cohabitees (one male, one female) do that.

(If I had the energy, I'd register whingeaboutwomen.com and see if anyone offers me some cash for it.)

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God supports Arsenal!1!!

It's looking like I'm going abroad for this dental work, to a dentist acquaintance of my mother's in Poland. Likely dates are the week around the end of October. I'm sure there'll be internet cafes there and such.

Apart from getting rid of some amalgam and getting this cracked tooth fixed and crowned, I don't know what I'm going to do over there. I'm no tourist and don't like sitting by pools, whatever the time of year. (This is why I end up every year with spare leave days. I just don't like holidays.)

Write, then? Slen has been angling to get me started on the next Skyler book, and the end of October is the beginning of November...

I should take a notebook along, of course, because you never know when Galia¹ may strike, but I wonder if I should even buy and equip a laptop. I've thought that one of the new £100 ones might be worth risking on travel - not to mention being the sort of fashion accessory I would actually pay to support. (Edit: ok, only available to North Amerka and not yet.)

There's a discussion about NaNoWriMo on one of the techie mailing lists I read. Dammit, events, stop conspiring. I hear you whispering behind my back. I won't have it, you hear me?

(And Zenbie - not a word from you, young goth, or I'll be making sketches of Greenway and the elven quarter by tonight, I just know it. Aargh. ;)

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¹ Galia's my muse, a green-skinned human(oid) woman. My other type of muse is a red panda named The Effulgent Bede. Neither exists, but Bede is cuddlier.