[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Australia and the US have agreed that Australian detainees at Guantanamo Bay will be tried by US military tribunals. There are a number of points in the agreement, including a promise that the US will not seek the death penalty for any Australians. Also, the media will be allowed to observe the tribunal and the accused may have a cleared attorney as an advisor to his defense team.

The press release makes it really clear that these are case specific assurances which do not apply to Guantanamo Bay detainees in general. Pity.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

There is a certain irony in the fact that the Crank Dot Net weblog is maintained using m4, make, and perl. What kind of a crank uses UNIX macro languages and makefiles to produce a weblog? But never mind that; it’s a very useful weblog if you’re searching for crankery.

[Population: One] <A HREF="http://popone.innocence.com/ar

Many, many, many, many, many people have expressed their displeasure with the rules of Quidditch. “Bah,” I have always said to myself. “Games don’t always make sense. Games evolve. The other players are important if the golden snitch isn’t caught.”

After having learned about Eton’s The Wall Game, which has been played at Eton for over three hundred years, I no longer feel any need to defend the existence of strange and nonsensical British schoolboy games. The Wall Game even has a method of scoring points which essentially ends the game in one fell swoop: scoring a goal is worth ten points, as opposed to the more common shys (worth one point), and games are generally scoreless ties anyhow. So if you score a goal, you’re going to win.

And the method of scoring goals is not symmetric between the teams. So quit picking on Qudditch.