1. Mean Girl: The Bionic Woman has the best villain on television? Troy Patterson at Slate thinks so.

["Her name is Sarah Corvus—who's actually the first bionic woman, an uncontrollable prototype returned to bedevil Jaime and her superior—and, as played by Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff, she's the most thrilling villain network TV has seen in some time."]

[The other day, an admiring profile of Cate Blanchett revealed that, in order to give her new mansion as small an environmental footprint as possible, she requested that the plumbing be constructed to "allow them to drink their own waste water."]

[I know, I can hear you already: "No, Shamus, no! Not the Oscars! Don't talk about the Oscars yet: It's only September!" But just in case the Academy's board of governors is reading this blog (which is about as likely as me replacing Clive Owen as the new Philip Marlowe), The Shamus needs to offer some advice on one category I feel rather strongly about: the honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement In Film."]

["Story [The Human Factor]is set right after the fall of apartheid, and after Mandela was released from a long imprisonment and became South African president. Mandela recognized the significance when South Africa was selected host of the 1995 Rugby World Cup after the team had been barred from even competing since the 1980s because of apartheid."]

["In a cinema-crazy nation like India, how many films from India do people remember as truly greats? Or masterpieces that have stood the test of time? Globally? Few and far between really. But history has it that a few of the rare Indian films have been bestowed with rare honor too—that of international recognition and awards."]

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"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.