Is all politics really local?

Reading around the blogs today I came across a picture at ThinkProgress of Representative Henry A. Waxman. He's the Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is holding a hearing on "political interference in the work of government climate change scientists".

But I also wonder if Waxman might have family in England...

A Proper Two and Eight of a Union*

I've watched every State of the Union address given by B*sh. That's right, I said it. I think tonight's might be slightly less than the usual travesty, although I really hope we get to hear about Mars again - Mars, bitches! (please go to that link, I just did and I laughed so much I needed to walk it off). Anyway, the reason for this post is this pretty funny pre-emptive pisstake from the Upright Citizens Brigade that I picked up at Atrios:



*"Two and eight" = "state" in Cockney rhyming slang

Babysitting tips

For those who need such things.


Go here for a whole page of people duct-taped to walls and ceilings.

iWant (even though the screen will be scratched 0.5 seconds after opening)

This list at McSweeney's is a larf. Edited for personal taste below, but the whole thing is worth your 60 seconds..

The iPhone: A User's Guide.
Congratulations on your purchase of the 8-gigabyte iPhone from Apple Inc.! For the first time, you will be able to engage in all the varieties of human interaction through a single device. Please consult the table of contents below for an in-depth look at your iPhone experience.

I. Introduction
II. Turning on the iPhone
III. Making a call using the iPhone
...
VII. Using the iPhone to catalog your contacts
VIII. Using the iPhone to manage your calendar
IX. Using the iPhone to solve disputes between Moqtada al-Sadr and certain Sunni elements within Iraq without causing an escalation of hostilities, or the development of closer ties between Iran and Shiite militias
...
XIV. Using the iPhone to become governor of an oil-rich former Soviet republic where the temperature often drops to 76 degrees below zero (Fahrenheit), and then buy an English Premier League soccer team
...
XVIII. Using the iPhone to learn whether superstring theory's positing of 10 dimensions (or 11 in M-theory) is viable in light of recent discoveries relating to dark matter
...etc

pic from here.

Spaced

Nyx and I paid a visit to the Rose Center For Earth And Space on Sunday - doing a little research for an upcoming mission. We saw a film inside the sphere called 'Cosmic Collisions' that made me jump like Kris Kross. I did not know that the moon was created by orbiting debris from a rear-ender Earth took from another planet roughly squidzilmarillion years ago. What a mess that made. And that's waaaay before the meteor that completely arse'oled the dinosaurs. Makes one feel a bit... insignificant, doesn't it?







...and what's a visit to a planetarium without a Beavis-chortle or two over this old chestnut?

Generally filthy, but scrubs up nice

A building Suffolk Street gets a power-hosing. From a handful of other nice NYC images from this photog's site.

How's this for a comeback?

But you don't call it a comeback, coz i been here for years.

I saw this tonight and there was just something about the timing. It's the trailer for a film apparently made by Mel Gibson's production company... about mutant killer sheep. Fo realz. It's even called Black Sheep.



It happens that I went to see Apocalypto last week, only a week or so after catching The Passion on cable tv over the xmas hols. The former is pretty good, although we get totally gypped on the city scenes -- how the hell do you make a 2.5 hour movie about the Maya and only spend about 20 of them at or near a feckin' pyramid? And for all the hype about the violence, either I'm getting truly immune to movie gore or too many knickers are getting twisted.

Still, as the trailer says, I might yet be impressed by the 'violence of the lambs'. Ho ho ho.

Happy new year to all, but especially to Georgie and Rorzinho for caring, and to Rolf in the farfaraway. Watch out for the wily woolly bastards.