... is elegantly explained by Amused Cynicism here. Go, read.

1, mle292 has a prediction for how the Veep debates will go and I think she's dead on. And while I am on Palin: are there really vast swathes of American women shallow enough to vote for McCain because they hope he might die and then we can have a female pres, despite the fact that Palin stands against everything any rational woman could want? Because the only people I seem to see suggesting this are male bloggers, and, of course, McCain himself in selecting her.

2, How likely are you to be a terrorist? cabalamat2 has the poster with the checklist. I have to say that I'm disappointed to miss out on one of the criteria by having a contract mobile, but the others I am bang to rights, especially being vague about where I am going when I travel. Of course, because I'm a white atheist (rather than being a muslim, or brown) it doesn't matter. Cos, you know, Timothy McVeigh was a brown muslim...

3, Anybody feeling incredibly generous and rich? Cos, you know, can never have TOO much scenery for Shrubby's train set, and this would be perfect....

4, In blogging drama news: the storm has moved on to someone else's teacup today. Big hugs for Charlotte, because it's never pretty when you get in the way of boys willy-waving at each other. All you ever get in that situation is a faceful of rank cock.

Cassilis discusses exam grades, and why letting everyone succeed leads to less social mobility, rather than more.

Transform eviscerate Ian Oliver's position on drugs. Just imagine if all the money that goes on prohibition went on treatment instead... Brilliant comment on these issues here.

Jo Christie-Smith wants you (assuming you're a Lib Dem) to put yourself in th Who's Who. Even if (especially if) you're a lowly blogger. BEWARE, though. The help file is a .pdf. *makes the sign of the evil eye at Adobe*

This is why I LOVE Chicken Yoghurt.

What? Poverty and shitty, unfulfilling employment should take some of the blame [for the rise of terrorism]? Say it ain’t so. It’s the capitalist miracle we’re talking about here, isn’t it? Rising tides float all boats, don’t they? Free markets never made anyone bad, did they? Who knew MI5 would turn out to be a nest of goddamn pinkos.

That's weapons grade sarcasm, right there.

drjon has an illustrated religious schism which is doubtless very serious for those involved, but is bloody hilarious for the rest of us.

And finally, terrible news: they're cancelling SGA! This is my fault for getting into it. If I hadn't, it'd be going on and on...

I was supposed to be at the Wendy House right now, dancing the night away with my lovely fiancé. Because of my trick back, he has ended up going on his own. He seems to be having a good time, though, judging by his texts. Meanwhile, I have sorted through all my BPAL (and will be doing a HUGE sales/swaps post soon) and dyed my hair...

Anyway, this entry does have substance, I swear!

Firstly, nominations for my Very Prestigious Blog of the Year Awards are now closed, and you guys voted for shortlists of five, so that's what you will get in the morning. Each category will be whittled down to a shortlist of five, and presented in handy poll format. Then the voting can commence! I'll leave the poll open for a week, and after that the winner of each category will be put into a new poll to see who gets the overall title.

And, of course, there will be shiny new graphics for each stage ;)

Secondly, Amused Cynicism has taken the ball I threw earlier and run with it. I do love the way he words things:

this is the same British government that is talking about severing the Internet connections of people who break copyright law by downloading files on P2P networks. Because the government are not hypocrites, I’m sure they will now either drop these plans, or disconnect themselves from the Internet.

Tee Hee Hee.

Thirdly, another excellent post on The Curvature, eviscerating a columnist in the Daily Fail.

Fourthly and Finally, Jonathan Calder reports on some gossip in the Murdoch Rag about who is going to be running for Lib Dem Party President. Apparently there are rumours of champagne Charlie and Paddy Pantsdown throwing their glasses/undies into the ring.

I have many comments I might possibly make on this bit of scuttlebutt, but like Jonathan, I shall restrict myself to the very restrained: this blog supports Ros Scott. Knowing what Ros is standing for, and having met her, I honestly cannot see another candidate coming forward who will do the job as well or as diligently as she, however old a parliamentary warhorse they might be.

If you're a pagan or an atheist (or both, as the case may be)? Birmingham doesn't want you.

(hat tip: cabalamat2, here)

... I link you to cabalamat2, who has stolen the thoughts out of my brain, again.

Stuart Weir has a post on LC about the real public view on 42 Days.

Amused Cynicism gives the lie to the idea of Britain as a broken society.

Dr Beren has rewritten the end of the most recent series of Who. Can someone get her a job as showrunner, please? She's WASTED on Brain Doctorin'.

Feminism is good for men too, and they ought to remember that. The man in my icon certainly knew it :D

They've found the deleted scenes from Metropolis! Sci-fi geeks rejoice! And pray Cthulhu we get a showing of it at the FFW next year...

matgb has a highly amusing post about the hypocrisy of the guy who sued the BBC for showing Jerry Springer: The Opera and upsetting his delicate religious sensibilities (related Facebook group).

Don't watch anything on YouTube which isn't allowed to be there, else you'll get got.

Creationism hits science classrooms in the UK. and we are funding it via the state school mechanism. *I* am paying for some poor kids to be taught complete bollocks as though it is fact. Amused Cynicism makes comment more eloquently than I ever could.

The Torygraph have picked their top ten ever Doctor Who episodes. No surprises that it's Ten-heavy, but perhaps surprising that it contains no Trout. And, obvs, Caves of Androzani should be #1.

James May is amazed that the BBC are upset with him for drinking a G&T, when really, they should be upset with him for putting slices of lemon in it. LIME, James, LIME!

Jeremy Thorpe says Robert Mugabe must die. I guess there's a limit to everyone's Liberalism, eh?

David Davies shows just how pro-liberty he really is. Hey ho. Is anyone actually surprised by this?

Chicky Yog imagines Gordon as a barman and finds him wanting.

The turkeys HAVE voted for Christmas: Mike at PB is right. Any PPC opposing any of the lot who voted for this is going to have a field day.

Mitch Benn would like your help. The poor fella has the same problem I do: without a pressing deadline, I just can't make myself do ANYTHING. He wants us all to nag him, and become deadline enforcers. If you want to add his blog to your f-list, btw, LJ folks, it's syndicated along with updates to his website at mitchbenn_site

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Two from my lovely fiancé. Firstly, The Twat-o-tron. It automatically generates letters by taking quotes from actual contributions to the the BBC Have Your Say forums, complete with typos. Keep clicking new and you get a real flavour of the sort of contribution that makes me not read HYS any more, and keep in mind the oft-repeated mantra that the BBC has a liberal bias as you read.

Secondly, 25 Skills Every Mother Should Learn. Like matgb, I think this should be parent, rather than mother, but that's just nitpicking; it's a great post.

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Via strangefrontier, The Usbourne Book of the Future! Who else is disappointed that we don't actually live in a world like this, post 2000? Still, at least we're not in Mega City One/BritCit (yet), either...

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My my, I tried to hold you back but you were stronger... Mike Smithson wants us all to sing Abba to Nick Clegg.. Er, sorry. Mike Smithson thinks that if there's a Winchester by election (which there may well be, apparently) it could prove to be the Lib Dems' Waterloo. I have become a big fan of the posts on politicalbet_fd (although a lot of the comments could usefully be syndicated to the Twat-o-tron above) and find that Mike's poll analysis is usually second to none.

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Via cabalamat2 and chickenyoghurt, Labour's plan to lose any remaining voters it might have. Depressingly, this is probably very close to what they'd have to do to lose any more support than they already have.

... recovering from the Hen party to end all hen parties. Recovery involved much lying down in dark room and being "nursed" by Mister Mat and watching copious amounts of telly because reading would have been too difficult.
... watching Old Who with my lovely fiancé - who enjoyed Arc of Infinity very much, and was amused by Colin's Five-Nippled Breastplate.
... watching Crotchw00t (the most recent episode with all the origins stories) and trying to work out exactly what it is about Chris Chibnall's writing that winds me up so much. Possibly it's something to do with the way characters behave under his pen. There's just no emotional truth to his stories whatsoever, and even characters I like, I find irritatng in his hands. I really, honestly, think he has some serious IRL issues, because the way he makes people behave is just... Not right.
... reading the next chapter of George to my little one and talking about Jupiter. I love that she geeks so much about astronomy stuff.

Am currently watching The Dalek Invasion of Earth with Mat, mostly because a bit of One will scrub the horrible Chibnallness from my brain, and being very amused by One threatening Susan with a smacked bottom. I've already had one of those today. Because my brain is still a bit fuzzy, I'm going to just drop in some links to stuff that's come to my attention for various reasons today:

- Sophie Lancaster's mum is taken advantage of in her grief by the Daily Hate. Yes, it's all the fault of video games and nasty films and not that these children (and many others) are never taught by their parents or anyone else that they're not the centre of the universe and their actions have consequences. My little one is FOUR and she knows the difference between fantasy and reality. FFS. The comments are especially terrifying. Yes, it's all the fault of lefty liberal dogooders, and not anybody who actually had any influence on these boys at all. *headdesk*

- Amusing billboard shocks oversensitive religious types. Maybe it hit a nerve because it's true.

- Another amusing entry from Amused Cynicism. Really, if you're not reading him yet, you should. He's cabalamat2.

- Imaginary Al Quaeda recruitment meetings. Very very very funny.

... really, REALLY happy...

It's watching the BNP implode up it's own arsehole. Everybody point and laugh now, please. (with thanks to the lovely burkesworks for pointing the hilarity out)

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Vince Cable Watch

Vince maintains a dignified silence over which candidate he's voting for, unlike some * coughcoughSimonHughescough *

Of course, the knowledge that Simon is voting Nick could be as off-putting to some segments of the party as it is attractive to others...

I'm being very blonde today and keep getting distracted by shiny things, so depth is not about to happen. Have a random series of unconnected paragraphs instead:

Do you know any Swiss people? Direct them to this petition. Sadly I, as a Brit, can't sign it. But I'm passing the link on in case you know anyone who can.

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In the light of this article, in which the US government blithely states that it would be quite happy to commit what I would call an act of war against us, when we are supposedly it's closest allies, Davide Simonetti has a convincing argument that American Imperialism isn't on the horizon, but is actually with us and has been for some time (thanks to Amused Cynicism for the link).

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qi_quote is... well... Quite Interesting today.

Sir Richard Burton, the Victorian explorer and translator of The Arabian Nights spoke 40 languages and dialects. At 19, he could already speak seven of them. Born an Anglican, he converted to Roman Catholicism, then Hinduism, then Sikhism, then Sufism, then Islam, before finally reverting back to Sufism. He also wrote A History of Farting and spent the latter years of his life measuring the cocks of African tribesmen.

I wonder if he'd be able to tell matgb and I why we have both been doing incredibly stinky farts (that smell the same, too) since Sunday night...? It's not like we've had the same diet... [/tmi]

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I have a friend, raven_oreilly. This friend is American, and was brought up in a household where she was taught to believe certain things. She has been going through the process of questioning those beliefs for a while now; reading lots of books, researching, finding things out and evaluating what she's found. She might decide that the beliefs she was brought up with are entirely correct, she might not. But watching her emerge, butterfly-like, from the restrictive cocoon of received wisdom and into the freedom and daylight of thinking for yourself is a beautiful thing, and it will remain beautiful whatever colour her wings turn out to be.

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Speaking of beautiful: Sam West. He's beautiful, obviously, but so are his words.

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Vince Cable Watch Special!

Millennium Elephant (well, his daddies) organised yet another Lib-Dem-Bloggers-meet-top-Lib-Dems thingie, and apparently last night was the turn of the lovely Mr Cable (the previous ones being Ming, Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg). alixmortimer is the first to get her report in (with a fabulous punning title), but others are bound to follow in due course

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And finally, Vote for Mister Splashy Pants!

I'm pimping today: Amused Cynicism (syndicated at cabalamat2) is a great blog for people who want quick sharp bites at politics. Witness these recent entries. I read a lot of blogs these days, but Amused Cynicism is one of the few that's on my default filter. The reason I'm pimping today? I really love his^# commentary on Chris Dillow's recent piece at Liberal Conspiracy. In a couple of short paragraphs he:

- acknowledges that there are intelligent Tories (I know at least one *winks at puddingcat*)
- postulates that Cameron isn't one, and gives reasons
- concludes with a pithy little jab at Cameron

There is rarely a huge amount of depth in the posts themselves at Amused Cynicism, but the tone fits with me, and there are always links to further and better particulars.

In other news, once I have parcelled up my old phones and sent them off, I will be getting over sixty quid from envirofone. Well-recommended website, especially since bloody YouGov still haven't got me to the magic fifty quid figure for sending a cheque (still, if you all fancy signing up to YouGov and participating in polls that get mentioned on the big blogs, national newspapers and tellynews - and earning me some money in the process - CLICK THIS LINK HERE).

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^# I make the assumption that he is a he because he somehow reads like a he. If, as is entirely possible given the complete lack of gender identifiers in the user info, he turns out to be a she, I have a large humble pie downstairs and am quite happy to cut myself a slice.