Delicious LiveJournal Links for 9-4-2008

• Google's comic capers: what they really meant to say
  Some great spoofs of the Google Chrome Comic
  (tags: parody comic funny google)
• Giant Spider attacks Liverpool!
  Great pic. Didn't scare me, and I'm arachnophobe.
  (tags: spiders art uk)
• SNP announce plans to replace Council Tax with local Income Tax
  I'm vaguely in favour - largely because I know so many people who get caught by problems with council tax. But I suspect there'll be horrible teething problems.
  (tags: tax society scotland)
• HarperCollins' opens up its slushpile
  In which everyone gets to vote on which books are worth publishing. Welcome to the democratisation of everything. We hope you enjoy your stay.
  (tags: writing publishing)
• Monogamy gene found in people
  Hasse Walum at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues looked at the various forms of the gene coding for a vasopressin receptor in 552 Swedish people, who were all in heterosexual partnerships. The researchers also investigated the quality of their relationships.
  They found that variation in a section of the gene called RS3 334 was linked to how men bond with their partners. Men can have none, one or two copies of the RS3 334 section, and the higher the number of copies, the worse men scored on a measure of pair bonding.
  Not only that, men with two copies of RS3 334 were more likely to be unmarried than men with one or none, and if they were married, they were twice as likely to have a marital crisis.
  (tags: sex monogamy genetics)

Local Income Tax - request for information

Can anyone point me at information about the Local Income Tax proposals?  Specifically I'd like to know if it only applies to income that is currently affected by income tax - i.e. does it affect the first few thousand pounds of income?

Thoughts on Hellboy 2 and The Hobbit (spoiler free)

I am very happy that Guillermo Del Toro is directing The Hobbit.  His direction, art and cinematography are astounding and gorgeous.

I am equally happy that he is not writing the plot or the dialogue for it.  Because he does not seem to have grasped that a bunch of scenes is not the same thing as a movie, nor that trite and cliched dialogie is a bad thing.