By Chris Bell

Aardvark points out that Time Magazine has declared you to be its "Person of the Year", squeezing out Pope Benedict XVI, George Bush and Kim Jong Il: "Don't bother preparing an acceptance speech though, you're just one of hundreds of millions of Net-users who share this award, so we'd never get to the shrimp cocktails if everyone thanked their mother, their agent and their hairdresser on the night."This week, we showcase some valuable writer resources. Spicy Green Iguana designed for writers of Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy, includes an impressive range of professional, semi-professional and small press markets for authors of short stories and poems, as does, albeit on a smaller scale, The Write Market. Kevin Walzer's blog Public Poetry is a collection of meditations on poetry, publishing, business and other creative pursuits. Dave's Somewhat Complete SF/F Writers' Internet Resources is a good place to start to look for potential markets if your field is speculative fiction.

Closer to home, Leaf Salon has a discussion about the cornucopia of information available on the internet and includes a series of useful links for New Zealand writers.

In what ought to be a cautionary tale for Kiwi kids and teachers: the Observer points to research saying millions of Brits have problems reading even the karaoke lyrics at their Christmas parties. Classic songs require the reading skills of an 11-year-old, yet more than 5.2 million adults struggle to read them. The highbrow rag also asks if Ferran Adrià the ultimate culinary genius and its books of the year take us all around the globe.

Boing Boing has a fascinating seasonal item linking to a piece in this month's Journal of Applied Ecology which reports that over-production of frankincense is affecting the viability of resin-producing trees in Eritrea. Also via Boing Boing, yet another disturbing copyright-gone-mad story, this time from Australia. The lovely Xeni Jardin wants to know whether Mel Gibson's new film Apocalypto is racist....?

Arts & Letters Daily says Plato's Symposium is useful for revealing that vulgarity and philosophy can coexist, linking to a column that asks us not to dismiss South Park. And another article interviews the show's creators on the subjects of liberals, conservatives, censorship and religion.

The Daily Mail discusses an academic's suggestion that the obese should have health warnings on their clothes, which would mean comedian Dawn French (who runs her own clothes shop catering for women up to a size 47) would have to re-label her collection.

ABC News has a story about a human smell study that sniffs out some surprising discoveries from a group of college students who found their way across a field by sniffing out a chocolate-scented trail.

And Fairfax's local site Stuff looks at Babel, the film about the cultural gaps between people around the world, and which, in an uncharacteristic show of good taste, has managed seven Golden Globe nominations.

A campaign by Spain's Zapping agency consists of three child faces from different ethnic backgrounds strategically placed on supermarket trolleys. The Coolhunter looks at its effectiveness and asks if you work in a creative environment.