Once upon a time, as bards used to begin their histories, saying that a movie reminded you of a comic book was a grave insult. It meant the film wasn't just simplistic or exciting at the expense of its story: It was aimed at Q1. lecherous lowbrows vulgar fibrous who couldn't enjoy anything more deep or challenging.

That changed almost 20 years ago, when "Batman" caught the vision of Frank Miller's "Dark Knight" series. Now a whole school of filmmaking Q2. replicates originates emulates spartans the visual dazzlement of graphic novels while telling stripped-down, adrenaline-rush stories.

Until this week, "Sin City" was held up as the model Q3. scotopia defiance fixity adaptation of a graphic novel, with real actors playing out stories against a Q4. phantasmagoric chimeric surreal squeal background. Like "Sin City," the pulse-pounding "300" filmed humans against a green screen, then inserted settings and effects via computer. But "300" is a huge step forward in visually sophisticated storytelling.

Director Zack Snyder, who Q5. slashed steeped mended healed to prominence three years ago with a gory overhaul of "Dawn of the Dead," is back in remake territory: "300" follows in the sandals of "The 300 Spartans," a 1962 drama about Greek warriors who held off a Persian army at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.

This version is to the last one what an H-bomb is to a Q6. stucco mortar unfix mucilage : louder, scarier, grander, more mind-blowing in every way. You couldn't say the script by Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Michael Gordon is Q7. profound cavernous obvious fathomable or historically true, but it provides a Q8. ramshackle sturdy ailing frail skeleton for the archetypal story and extraordinary special effects.

Snyder and his team build patiently toward the Q9. clangor wingding dustup drone of sword on shield. We meet Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), shaped 30 years before by his ancestors into a patriotic fighting machine; his queen (Lena Headey), who tries to rouse the city in support after Leonidas and his 300 dig in; and Theron (Dominic West), the senator who Q10. espouse divorce yoke vows support in exchange for her body. (The movie identifies him early on as a traitor, thus throwing away potential suspense.)

Two months ago, the United Nations Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change gave us chapter and verse on the science of global warming. And now the new IPCC report spells out the effect this heating of the Earth will have on the planet's Q1. terrains inhabitantsillahies proletariats

This Q2. amalgams dissolution coalescence synthesis of the work of 2,500 scientists tells us that climate change already is having a significant effect on our environment. Animals, plants and water systems are under pressure now. The IPCC also highlights a Q3. veiled discernible perceivable palpable impact on human societies. But it is in its predictions that the report is most worrying. It argues that about a third of Earth's species face a greater risk of vanishing if global temperatures rise 3.6 degrees above the average of the 1990s. Ecosystems in areas of Q4. titian chimeric rubicund coral reef, sea ice, tundra and boreal forests are under serious threat.

The IPCC also argues that Q5. abrogation desertificationannulment scourge drought and rising sea levels will affect billions of people. Africa, home to the poorest people on the planet, will be hardest hit. Some 75 million to 200 million more people there will be exposed to water shortages and crop failure. It estimates that some African nations might have to spend 5 percent to 10 percent of their gross domestic product on adapting to climate change. Small island communities will also be at severe risk. A sea-level rise is expected to Q6. exacerbate ruffle rave mitigate flooding, storm surges, coastal erosion and other hazards faced by such communities.

But all human societies will be affected. A runaway thaw of the Himalayan glaciers that feed rivers throughout Asia is likely to cause massive flooding and Q7. copiousness chutes avalanchesscarcity . Higher temperatures will mean heat waves, more severe storms and droughts in North America. Europe will suffer the same. And there also will be a greater risk of flooding as the Alpine glaciers disappear. In Latin America, eastern parts of the Amazon rainforest will turn to Q8. cinnamon sturdy bagatelle savannah .

The politics of the IPCC is complicated because every nation has to sign off on the report. Negotiations in Brussels on the wording of the document have been Q9. encumbered fraught unglued corybantic Scientists have accused certain governments of watering down some of their findings. Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and the United States have been the principal objectors.

Yet it is remarkable that despite such political Q10. meddlinginterfering nebby alecky , the final report is so unequivocal. The IPCC finds that climate change presents one of the most serious threats ever faced by human life on the planet.

Radio in its most Q1. radical unaccustomed conventional c provocative form is dying around the world and more rapidly in US. It’s due in part to more strict FCC rules regarding what can and can’t be said on American airwaves, but the medium is also a victim of expanding technology, and death due to Q2. withering evolvement deterioration evolution d is a good thing. Despite the added costs, people are Q3. flocking a assembling coalescing clustering to the various satellite radio broadcasts—in part to hear personalities like Stern, but also in order to get a clear signal with minimal advertisements, a selection many times greater than conventional radio, and more niche-market stations for people with more defined tastes.

Stations are no longer as worried about playing to the masses, thereby diluting their content in an attempt to Q4. conciliate quench appease C antagonize everyone. The content, then, is better, the listeners are happier, and people get less worked up by Imus-like personalities whose soapboxes aren’t as high as they are on regular radio.

Broadcast stations have other sources to thank for their Q5. unwieldy perilous b rugged jeopardous , place in the media, too. As the Q6. prevalence A prepotence disuse sway of the iPod has increased, people have become ever-so dependent on their personal music-playing devices. The ability to carry one’s personal collection around, accessing old favorites and recently downloaded hits at the slight shift of a thumb, has replaced the frustration of waiting for your favorite radio station to play your song of choice.

It’s a bit sad to see the radio go—countless memorable historical moments were Q7. transmitted humped lugged conveyed d . via the little box with the silver antenna—and it will surely have a place with other Q8. redolent gushing nostalgic c bathetic .

But change is a good thing. And when our Q9. partakes tastes b abstains nibbles as a society change—when we begin to expect more from the Q10. avenues A egress promenades gangway , in which we hear our news or our music—the transformation is wholeheartedly welcomed.

Australia's treatment of asylum seekers has long been shockingly inhumane. But Prime Minister John Howard's latest policy twist is truly Q1. laudable despicable virtuous fiendish : he plans to "swap" would-be refugees held in the country's illegal offshore detention centres with Cuban and Haitian Q2. detainees liberates enslaves exculpates the US is holding in Guantanamo Bay

Q3. People are to be treated as skivvy slack captive chattel , shipped off half-way across the world at the whim of a desperately unpopular politician who will seemingly go to any lengths to Q4. bolster undermine cripple palsy his chances of re-election later this year. The first asylum seekers to be exchanged are likely to be the 83 Sri Lankans and eight Burmese held on the Pacific island of Nauru, according to the BBC.

Howard's rationale is simple: treat 'em mean and hope they'll be less keen to try to come to Australia in the first place. No matter that people fleeing persecution have already suffered enough in their home country; no matter that the UN's refugee convention, which the Australian government has signed up to, legally commits Australia (and other signatories) to give refuge to those fearing for their lives at home.

Deterring people who dare - how Q5. presumptuous timid unconceited modest , of them! - To cross the world in search of a better life from heading Down Under is everything

Each element of this policy is Q6. commendable wretched abhorrent adorable Even if one presumes, as Howard does, that some (or even most) of the people detained on Nauru do not have legitimate claims for asylum, how can it be right to treat them all - including those, such as torture victims, who are genuine refugees - inhumanely? Even people with Q7. tarnish wallop embellish disfiguring . scars elicit Q8. piety Pyrrhonism scepticism heresy rather than sympathy from hard-hearted immigration officials - after all, they reason, the wounds might be self-inflicted.

In truth, of course, one cannot neatly distinguish refugees from "economic migrants" - most people move for a variety of motives - any more than the Victorians could separate the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. And in any case, given that there is no other legal route for most people from poor countries to go work in Australia, is pretending to be a refugee really such an Q9. scurvy ignoble vile sleazy crime that it warrants ever more elaborate mistreatment by the Australian government?

Immigrants from Sri Lanka or Burma are not an Q10. invading rapacious abnegating assailing , army; they are mostly people seeking a better life for themselves and their family, just like the millions of Britons who have moved to Australia in recent decades.

In terms of effortless star power, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie have nothing on Northern California's new resident divas - a pair of Q1. wayward obedient obstinate incorrigible whales whose paparazzi-like following is growing bigger by the day.

As one Q2. snare snide snarky irascible spectator on Saturday at the Port of Sacramento remarked to her female companion, perhaps the Q3. People are to be treated as dolphins Flipper stance cetaceans dubbed "Delta"and "Dawn" should have been named after the two celebrity socialites instead.

Who else but Paris and Nicole can Q4. deter foil elicit forgo so many oohs and aahs just by looking beautiful and surfacing every once in awhile with some splashy new stunts? Six days after the injured 45-foot, 50-ton Q5. hunch protrusion tumescence humpback , whale and her calf took a wrong turn on their trek up north, swam 70 miles inland and became stranded in a shipping channel near the state capital, the crowds are still coming.

Scientists have been hoping the whales - which both appear to have been wounded by a ship's Q6. propeller hurler tosser ballista - would begin swimming westward toward the Pacific Ocean on their own.

But Carrie Wilson, a biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game, said experts are content with the animals remaining in the isolated port area for the weekend since heavy boat traffic in the delta could complicate rescue efforts.

The whales Q7. drench swam swamp underwhelm .in peace with the help of a Coast Guard escort on Saturday. The Coast Guard enforced a 500-yard safety zone around the whales and authorities closed the north port channel and a nearby public boat ramp for the weekend.

The scene around the basin is looking more and more like a giant Q8. vapid banal banjo bluegrass concert, complete with portable toilets and Q9. souvenir forfeiture penalty pittance stands. About the only thing missing on Saturday was the actual music and beer.

"I got the idea a few days ago," said Holly Hogan, holding up a black baseball cap Q10. embroidered understated schmaltzy extravagant

If I were only a little Q1. repulsion puppy mongrel dodger , not your baby, mother dear,
would you say "No" to me if I tried to eat from your dish?

        Would you drive me off, saying to me,
        "Go away, you naughty little puppy"?

Then go, mother, go! I will never come to you when you call me,
        and I will never let you Q2. bolster crave feed thwart me any more.

        If I were only a little green parrot, and not your baby,
mother dear, would you keep me chained Q3. least zest lest jest I should fly away?

        Would you shake your finger at me and say,
        "What an ungrateful Q4. dejected wrertch noble virtuous of a bird!
        It is Q5. gratifying chomping besetting gnawing at its chain day and night"?

    Then go, mother, go! I will run away into the woods;
      I will never let you take me in your arms again.

FIB B

I dated the love of my life for five months when she tearfully told me that we were through. I was Q6. devastated bygone demolished blithe and am still baffled. Was it her? Is it me? What did I miss in choosing her? What did I do to Q7. endear rebuff repel captivate .her? Two days before, I'd told her of an intuition I'd had about trouble Q8. backwoods standoffish portending brewing ; she said I was sensing distortions. Later, she Q9. apologized defied confessed reconciled for the comment. This relationship was one of the most significant in my life. I have been fairly unlucky, it seems, and have a few personal Q10. rupture chink hurdles palisade to overcome.

Bald eagles, whose numbers Q1. dwindled extended enhanced dilated to historic lows in the early 1960s, are again flourishing and no longer need the protections of the Endangered Species Act, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne announced Thursday.

Here in Florida, bald eagles have Q2. burgeon bristled languished thrived for a decade, multiplying to a statewide population of 1,150 breeding pairs and giving this state, with Minnesota, bragging rights as the top eagle haven in the country.

Q3. Bald eagles, bragging aloof serene pococurante centurions of the wild, seem to have discovered their inner Updike and moved to Florida’s ever-expanding suburbs. They can be found nesting in cellphone towers and raising Q4. hatch scions chicks clutch near landfills and airport runways, along highways and high up in the pine trees of the state’s upscale developments.

Howard's rationale is simple: treat 'em mean and hope they'll be less keen to try to come to Australia in the first place. No matter that people fleeing persecution have already suffered enough in their home country; no matter that the UN's refugee convention, which the Australian government has signed up to, legally commits Australia (and other signatories) to give refuge to those fearing for their lives at home.

Here, some people see the birds as part Q5. amulet mascot repulsion fetish , , part amenity — and a thorough blessing.

“We’ll be in our backyard, floating in the pool, and see these beautiful winged creatures flying over us,” said Anne Lubner, an interior decorator who lives in the Grey Oaks subdivision, a gated community in Tarpon Springs

A neighbor, Patti Schuman, said she returned home from dinner with her husband 15 months ago to find a frightened Q6. fledgling buckwheater turkey tyro , with a seven-foot wingspan, cowering by the front door after falling — or being pushed — from its nest. “It Q7. postured perched hunkered cringed . down in a corner next to a plant” until experts took it back near the nest, Ms. Schuman said.

Property-rights advocates have argued in court that restrictions on the use of eagle-occupied land should be loosened; conservationists have countered that eagles still need buffers against the Q8. trepidation hubbub dormancy somnolence of humanity. Mr. Kempthorne’s announcement was timed to meet a deadline stemming from a lawsuit by a Minnesota property owner.

Mr. Kempthorne, speaking in Washington at the Jefferson Memorial with a Q9. jarring squawking stertorous brusque bald eagle tethered nearby, promised that “from this point forward, we will work to ensure that the eagle never again needs the protection of the Endangered Species Act.”

Ms. White said she believed that some developers, usually Q10. invading resentfu abnegating resentful , of the land-use limitations that accompany an eagle’s nest, now see the bird as a marketing tool. "If that gets the birds more of a conservation area, that’s great," she said.

Ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, hopeful Western observers have seized on Q1. incessant fitful desultory intermittent d signs of revolt as foreshadowing a possible collapse of the regime. Last week, again, it seemed Q2. fret tantalizingly b badger flout possible that Iran might become the latest country to re-enact the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine, or the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. Angry drivers set fire to at least at dozen gas stations after the government announced gasoline rationing.

The rationing has been accompanied by a crackdown, including the arrest of some American-Iranian scholars and opposition figures, and the reappearance of harsh morality police in the streets. Surely, logic would dictate that Iranians won't stand for such Q3. pinions bridle repression C aplomb indefinitely. Many are well-educated, young and westernized, facing a Q4. primitive adorned bleak C spare future in an economy run by religious zealots.

Regime change isn't likely any time soon. The government's reaction, after all, is also a measure of its ability to crush protest through Q5. brutality a benevolence savageness cruelness , But, as the U.S. and its allies struggle to counter Iran's nuclear ambitions, the moment is a reminder of two important considerations.

        1.First, if military options for eliminating Iran's nuclear program are Q6. trifling feeble scarce C destitute , options for affecting its economy are not. That OPEC's second leading oil exporter had to ration gasoline speaks Q7. eloquently a sumptuously cogently unimpressively of its vulnerability.

2. Second, if Iran's discontented factions aren't pushed into the regime's arms by outside threats, there's a reasonable chance that given the means, they eventually will dispose of the ayatollahs. If so, Iranian nuclear weapons would look less Q8. appalling imperative spooky menacing d Thirty years ago, Iran was a U.S. ally, and absent religious leadership, it would have many reasons to be one again.

With bombing looking Q9. problematic a toilsome operose mootable how best to push those levers is increasingly a source of debate.

The obvious tool is rigid international trade sanctions, but Russia and China, whose cooperation is essential, have steadily resisted U.S. and European efforts to impose them.

That failure has given birth to efforts to stir the Iranian opposition, as well as other proposals for an aggressive response short of bombing. Former senator Fred Thompson, the undeclared Republican presidential contender, got some attention recently by urging a blockade.

But blockades or Q10. wantonly flagrantly b unabashedly brazenly , funding opposition groups can backfire. Like families, no nation likes to be threatened from the outside, no matter how unpleasant its leaders, and every measure shows Iranians reflecting those sentiments.