Random Thoughts

Leonardo Da Vinci invented plastic. Via the Girl Genius mailing list.

Over at Ninth Art, Greg McElhatton combs through Previews. Go, look. Good stuff mentioned there. Via Thought Balloons.

A new Smithsonian Comic Book book is coming out. Must... get... Many thanks to Flat Earth for pointing this out.

Comics writer has a close encounter with a small tornado. Ouch.

Everyone else is linking to it, so I'll give it a mention also. Comic Book Idol 2 is on at Comic Book Resources. They've narrowed it down to the top ten contestants from the open call that over 200 artists answered. It ought to start getting interesting now.

For an amazing look at modern reporting, read this article by Alexandra Polier, the woman who was falsely accused of having an affair with John Kerry. It's an amazing look at Alexandra's search for the source of the lie as well as her discovery of how such stories get started and spread. Very, very worth reading. Via Mark Evanier.

A pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for a birth control pill because of his religious beliefs. He then refused to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy, and refused again to fill the prescription when the woman returned with the police. In my opinion, the fellow should be fired. If you want to be a pharmacist, you accept the whole job. Firemen can't say, "I don't want to put out a fire at this place because it's a church I don't believe in." This woman was given no choice to go to another pharmacy. The guy should be fired and never allowed to work as a pharmacist again. What really burns me up about it, as if the sheer gall of refusing to do his job isn't enough, is that birth control pills are used for other conditions besides just birth control. How did the pharmacist know that it was only for birth control? Did he have her medical records there so he knew what was best for her? The self-important insistence that your beliefs override another person's health is morally wrong. This rant subject courtesy of Metafilter.