Its just a little Dalek...

Eight O’Clock in the Morning

He had to kill several more before he got into the studio itself, including all the engineers on duty. There were a lot of police sirens outside, excited shouts, and running footsteps on the stairs. The alien was sitting before the the TV camera saying, "We are your friends. We are your friends," and didn't see George come in. When George shot him with the needle gun he simply stopped in mid-sentence and sat there, dead. George stood near him and said, imitating the alien croak, "Wake up. Wake up. See us as we are and kill us!"

It was George's voice the city heard that morning, but it was the Fascinator's image, and the city did awake for the very first time and the war began.

George did not live to see the victory that finally came. He died of a heart attack at exactly eight o'clock.

From Eight O'clock in the Morning, the inspiration for the film They Live.

Clarke on Human Affairs

Arthur C Clarke, from Childhood's End, on the state of human affairs:

"I do not necessarily quarrel with Federation as an ultimate objective-though many of my supporters might not agree. But it must come from within-not be superimposed from without. We must work out our own destiny. There must be no more interference in human affairs!"

Sometimes, a chunk of tangible enlightenment jumps off the pages at me, and is a reassuring encouragement in such unstable times. Clarke is quite observant with an astute view that individuals must be left to make their own choices in life, for only by experiencing the consequences of our actions do we gain the knowledge to progress in life toward achievement, while intervention and prohibition prevents those learning experiences, and society suffers. Those who oppose intervention and actions by the state, like Clarke, are seeking progress from within. The state is simply unfit to exist. 

The Economics of Time Travel

Watching the sci-fi movie Looper, I find myself analyzing it from multiple perspectives, so needless to say I will have to watch it again soon. I enjoyed the film, along with the level at which it addressed the science involved in time travel; enough to attract viewers with a new twist, but not so much that it overwhelms the audience in it's complexity. This is good because it makes the film a fun ride without feeling like you've just prepared for a quiz. 

In a future in which government has given way to corruption and violence, "loopers" are assasins, with their targets being delivered from a future in which time travel is prohibited by law. As with government prohibition, the typical effect is that the market moves into the black, ignoring the law entirely. 

The guns are also varied and unique themselves, with much creativity on the part of the production crew. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276104/

Quantum Vibe

An interesting online comic with a variety of important themes: http://www.quantumvibe.com/strip?page=507

From A Princess of Mars

A wonderfully-written section of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars, which details the appearance of the pseudo-bipedal Martains:

"Five or six had already hatched and the grotesque caricatures which sat blinking in the sunlight were enough to cause me to doubt my sanity. They seemed mostly head, with little scrawny bodies, long necks and six legs, or, as I afterward learned, two legs and two arms, with an intermediary pair of limbs which could be used at will either as arms or legs. Their eyes were set at the extreme sides of their heads a trifle above the center and protruded in such a manner that they could be directed either forward or back and also independently of each other, thus permitting this queer animal to look in any direction, or in two directions at once, without the necessity of turning the head.
The ears, which were slightly above the eyes and closer together, were small, cup-shaped antennae, protruding not more than an inch on these young specimens. Their noses were but longitudinal slits in the center of their faces, midway between their mouths and ears.
There was no hair on their bodies, which were of a very light yellowish-green color. In the adults, as I was to learn quite soon, this color deepens to an olive green and is darker in the male than in the female. Further, the heads of the adults are not so out of proportion to their bodies as in the case of the young.
The iris of the eyes is blood red, as in Albinos, while the pupil is dark. The eyeball itself is very white, as are the teeth. These latter add a most ferocious appearance to an otherwise fearsome and terrible countenance, as the lower tusks curve upward to sharp points which end about where the eyes of earthly human beings are located. The whiteness of the teeth is not that of ivory, but of the snowiest and most gleaming of china. Against the dark background of their olive skins their tusks stand out in a most striking manner, making these weapons present a singularly formidable appearance."

Doctor Who Ketchup

"What respectable man doesn't carry a trowel?"

From the BBC: An unmanned spaceship hurtles towards certain destruction - unless the Doctor can save it, and its impossible cargo... of dinosaurs! By his side a ragtag gang of adventurers; a big game hunter, an Egyptian Queen and a surprised member of the Pond family. But little does the Doctor know there is someone else onboard who will stop at nothing to keep hold of his precious, prehistoric cargo:

I've let the Doctor slip ahead of me a bit, so now I'm having to try to catch up. And what better way to play catch-up?

An unmanned spaceship hurtles towards certain destruction, unless the Doctor can save it, along with its impossible cargo... of dinosaurs! By his side are a ragtag gang of adventurers: a big game hunter, an Egyptian queen and a surprised member of the Pond family. But little does the Doctor know that there is someone else onboard who will stop at nothing to keep hold of his precious, prehistoric cargo.