What You Can Get Away With

The election’s not over for John McCain. His website is still urging people to go and vote…(image here for when they get round to updating it)

I remember Kurt Vonnegut, who didn’t make it this far. So it goes.

“You were sick, but now you’re well again, and there’s work to do.”

I just wanted to tell you all good luck. We’re all counting on you.

…as weeping fangirls and fanboys mourn the departure of David Tennant from Doctor Who. Meanwhile, tabloid journalists rejoice as they can fill pages with speculation over who’ll replace him, having been denied that opportunity when Eccleston left because the BBC announced Tennant was getting the job almost immediately.

James is quick off the mark to champion Simon Russell Beale, who would be an interesting choice for the role, as would current bookies’ favourite Paterson Joseph, though that has been the sort of market where a £50 bet would likely make someone odds-on favourite. Of course, rampant press speculation is rarely correct in picking the next Doctor, as Bill Nighy and Brian Blessed can attest to, so we should have some interesting months of speculation before Steven Moffat gets to start his tenure as Official Who Head Cheese by announcing his pick. As yet, there’s no confirmation to the rumours I’ve just made up that the decision will be heralded by a plume of white smoke rising from Upper Boat.

Eccleston and Tennant have made the role one that high-profile talented actors will be interested in, so it should be interesting to see how many of them use interviews in the coming months to confirm or deny interest in the job. If it was up to me, as well as Joseph and Beale, my shortlist would include Rory Kinnear, Adrian Lester, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rupert Penry-Jones and Damian Lewis, but that’s likely put the kiss of death on all of them…

Back in the mid-1980s, young comics genius Frank Miller used a unique sort of mental alchemy to tell a story that would become legend.

The story of an aging warrior, dragging himself from a restful retirement to fight once more: possibly senile, definitely psychotic, obsessed with reclaiming past glories with no thought to the consequences.

Due to political pressure, Miller was forced to subvert his own dream, applying his astonishing sense of realpolitik to the debased literature of comic books.

We are proud to at last bring his staggering vision to full and revolutionary life.

McCain: The Mavericking Maverick Mavericks More (and yes, you may not get the joke if you haven’t read this)

I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks “The Flintstones” was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.

Barack Obama gets some advice from President Bartlett.

I’ve been playing Civilization 4 a lot recently, so my first reaction on seeing this story was to worry that Tokugawa was going to build a Wonder before me…

More seriously, it’s interesting that someone appears to be taking steps to make a space elevator happen, but we could be waiting a while for physics and engineering capabilities to catch up with imagination. Even then, the resources and the will needed to build it might not be around.

Dear David Clark,

No. Now stop being silly and hand in your real article.

Via Charlie Stross:

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