Grand Rounds 3.08 is absolutely hysterical.  The theme is Monty Python’s Holy Grail.  This has to be the best way to present the medical blogosphere’s most worthy writing.  One thing I especially like about Topher’s presentation, aside from the Python theme, is that he exercised editorial control and did not just throw together all of the submissions.  He chose the best from 60 and only posted 26 of them, and even then he selected those that fit well with his view of this edition.  Very good work!

I always hate to see this kind of thing.  “Forty beached pilot whales were refloated by volunteers in northern New Zealand on Friday — but another 38 of the whale pod died on the sandy beach, a Department of Conservation spokeswoman said. By early afternoon the rescued whales were off the shore and “starting to swim strongly” out to sea, spokeswoman Sioux Campbell told The Associated Press from the North Island city of Whangarei, near the stranding site.”  I think it’s very important to note the 40 who were saved would not leave the area until the last lone whale died.  Only then did they move out to sea.  Like elephants, I believe we do not give whales enough credit for their vast intelligence and emotional lives.  I’m thrilled also to see so many volunteers who came out to help when the pod of nearly 80 whales first became beached.

I SO want one of these robots from the original Lost in Space series.  I’ve always loved that robot and he ran a close second to Robby from The Forbidden Planet (who also made a cameo in the series).

I guess things haven’t changed much.  “Immigrants arrested in the United States may be held indefinitely on suspicion of terrorism and may not challenge their imprisonment in civilian courts, the Bush administration said Monday, opening a new legal front in the fight over the rights of detainees. In court documents filed with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., the Justice Department said a new anti-terrorism law being used to hold detainees in Guantanamo Bay also applies to foreigners captured and held in the United States.”  So let me see if I understand this correctly.  We won’t let them stay here because they entered the country illegally, but now we’ll detain them indefinitely—meaning we the taxpayers will be providing room and board at no cost—simply because the preznit feels it’s his right to violate every tenet of basic human rights and dignity, not to mention our own country’s founding belief that all people should be granted protection from despotic régimes.  Obviously that only applies to dictatorships besides our own.

Thankfully they’re not following America’s example.  “South Africa’s parliament has voted in favour of plans to legalise same-sex weddings – the first African country to approve such unions.”

More indication of how well things are going in Iraq.  “Gunmen wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms kidnapped as many as 150 staff members from a government research institute in downtown Baghdad on Tuesday, the head of the parliamentary education committee said. Alaa Makki interrupted a parliamentary session to say between 100 and 150 people, both Shiites and Sunnis, had been abducted in the morning raid. He urged the prime minister and ministers of interior and defense to rapidly respond to what he called a ‘national catastrophe.'”