Linkdump

First and most importantly, if you're interested in giving money to support relief organizations in Asia after the earthquake and tsunami, here are some links:
Command Post has an updated list of organizations seeking help

Oxfam America's Asian Earthquake Fund (you can find other regions' Oxfam sites from here)

Unicef

Doctors Without Borders

American Red Cross and British Red Cross

Boing Boing is keeping a list of Southeast Asian bloggers who are posting news about the effects of the disaster

They also point to tsunamihelp.blogspot.com, which, Xeni Jardin says, "is shaping up to be something of a central clearinghouse on the aftermath, and relief efforts."
It seems odd to switch topics from something so important, but that's the nature of this medium, so here are some links on other subjects:
Carl Zimmer's excellent science weblog The Loom links to a detailed look at the science in Michael Crichton's new book by Real Climate, a group weblog put together by nine climatologists.

Nalo Hopkinson picks up where Ken MacLeod left off regarding The Lord of the Rings, creating my favorite blog post title in recent memory: "Massa Sauron, I don' know nothin' bout birthin' no orcs." (And in case you want to accuse me of being nothing but a LotR basher, I'll say here and forevermore that I found the films to be fascinating and entrancing and wondrous, and that I own all three of the extended DVDs, etc. etc. etc. But that doesn't mean they shouldn't be thought about, critiqued, parodied, and questioned. And, by the way, I thought the extended version of the third film to be the most homoerotic of them all.)

The Little Professor looks at connections between The Finishing School and Finding Neverland

Dan Green defends It's a Wonderful Life (and again).

A fine post at CultureSpace about time, memory, and experience in Blade Runner

Czech Book Covers of the 1920s and 1930s from The Smithsonian. Search by style (Constructivism, Poetism, Surrealism, Socialist Realism), author, date, or, from the main page, artist. There's a 1935 cover for R.U.R., the play from which the word robot came to us. (via Languor Management)

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