but the whole thing about Klingons having the technology to change their physiology to human enough to fool surface tests is ridiculous.

Your point about the Dollhouse technology is spot on, but regarding the above - this has already been seen to some extent, as far back as The Trouble With Tribbles in TOS.

The former, as is the UK standard.

So as I begin my thirtieth (28th, in terms of the “official” count) Discworld book

Slight miscount here; this is the 29th Discworld book you have covered in total and the 28th official entry in the series, as The Last Hero is included in the latter list.

There are a smattering of tuatara in zoological collections outside New Zealand - about a dozen collections in the USA (including San Diego Zoo, which is the only non-NZ collection to hold the Brothers Island race) and two in Europe. One of these European collections - Chester Zoo here in the United Kingdom - is the first and only place to have bred the species outside New Zealand, and due to this fact has quite a lot of them!

Bloodraven actually came off as not so bad, which surprised me.

Well, bear in mind that so far the vast majority of information you have read about Bloodraven has come from characters who are either former Blackfyre supporters, or actively trying to revive the Blackfyre cause...... ;)

Indeed - this therefore means that statistically you'd need to be testing 100 million people in order to turn up a single false negative. In the same sample there would be 999,999 false positives.

"Noenzf jnf tvira gur wbo bs erobbgvat n fgnefuvc-onfrq frevrf, cerfhznoyl jvgu gur tbny bs perngvat n arj frevrf bs zbivrf, naq evtug bhg bs gur tngr ur perngrf n zntvp genafcbegre gung RYVZVANGRF GUR ARRQ SBE FGNEFUVCF fbyryl sbe gur fnxr bs fubrubeavat n zbafgre punfr vagb gur zbivr???"

Naq sbyybjf vg hc va gur arkg svyz ol perngvat n PHER SBE QRNGU juvpu jvyy arire or ersreraprq ntnva, cheryl fb ur pna fubrubea va n arne yvar-sbe-yvar ersrerapr gb n sne-orggre zbivr.

Too many Kirks, with the GIF alluding to the Adult Swim surreal short film (best way I can put it without spoilers) Too Many Cooks which I attach below.

[youtube QrGrOK8oZG8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrGrOK8oZG8 youtube]

"I really think it's time people got over the Civil War. It was over 200 years ago! Move on! "

Well, 152 years ago at any rate :p

Fun fact - the start of the Second World War is closer to the end of the American Civil War than it is to the present day. The precise mid-point between the Civil War and the present day is currently sometime around the attack on Pearl Harbor.