Peter Mandelson's new look

Hattip to Guido.

On Dollhouse

Compare it not to the best episodes of Buffy, Angel and Firefly. Compare it to the first few episodes of Buffy or Angel. Are they about on par? I think they are.

It took me until episode seven before I really got hooked on Buffy. It took an entire season of Angel before I felt that got going at all smoothly. Firefly is the exception but Firefly was an exceptional programme to begin with (and who's to say that wouldn't have turned South had it continued longer?).

Of course you're not going to see "Passion" in the first three episodes. You have good reason to give it more time.

Apparently this is racist.

If that's racist (because the monkey supposedly depicts President Obama - it's actually just a combination of the idiotic stimulus bill, which could really be described as "borrowing your way out of indebtedness", and the intelligent chimpanzee that went on a rampage and got shot) then what were all those depictions of George W. Bush as a chimp?

If Democrats are going to wheel out the "racist" accusation (usually the last refuge of a lefty scoundrel) like this every time anyone even vaguely criticises or mocks Obama or any of his policies then American democracy is in serious trouble.

Or perhaps the Democrats missed the hilarious yet tragic chimp story because they were too busy reading the 1500 page bill they voted through this week. Because they read every page before voting for it, don't they?

And now my British political compass

The Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: 0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.59


This one doesn't surprise me at all. The questions I found a lot more relevant to me and therefore easier to answer decisively; hardly surprising given that this was the British test. I am pleased to find myself firmly in the libertarian axis (especially given how conservative some of my answers were) but I'm a little bit worried that my only historical counterpart on the left-right axis is Adolf Hitler!

Took this American political spectrum quiz...

My Political Views
I am a center-right social moderate
Right: 2.56, Authoritarian: 0.22

Political Spectrum Quiz


My Foreign Policy Views
Score: 2.43


My Culture War Stance
Score: 0.08


It says "Your political spectrum result is a great conversation starter on forums, on your blog or your social network of choice." What a load of rubbish!

A Few Bad Men

I enjoyed watching the film A Few Good Men (written by Aaron Sorkin, starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson and Jack Bauer) for the first time last night. Quite an excellent film. The crucial juncture comes towards the end where Cruise's lawyer character cross-examines the Colonel (Nicholson) in charge at Guantanamo Bay at the time when a timid soldier was killed in his room by two other soldiers (accused of murder, they claim they were hazing him under orders). He traps the Colonel within his own contradiction, that both the timid soldier was considered to be "in danger" from his fellow soldiers - and yet, all the soldiers at the camp are steadfastly loyal to the Colonel and would never disobey an order no matter their conscience on it.

And so I turn to today's headlines. Gordon Brown and Labour have for months been claiming that the recession is a global problem started in America and has nothing to do with what's going on here. But now they're attacking the bankers of this country for landing us in this mess. Well steady on there, it's either one or the other, isn't it? Or maybe it's the fault of the government and the Chancellor who was apparently sleeping on the job. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!

Newsarama has an interesting article on the rights and wrongs of comic book publishers (such as Marvel) putting out material involving a public figure (in this case, Barack Obama).

My question to Marvel would be why they permitted an sequence involving Gordon Brown to appear in Captain Britain and MI13 #1 (which generated a lot of positive coverage for him over here) and blocked a similar sequence in a future issue involving David Cameron.

Now I doubt that anyone at the publisher seriously favours one over the other (I would not presume anyone at Marvel knows anything about UK politics, why would they?) but this lack of equality in coverage essentially boils down to political interference over here. - especially given that it's added to Gordon Brown's personal delusion that he's some sort of superhero, "saving the world" he says, which is doing serious damage to the way he runs the country.