I could do just the inner planets with the Sun being 25cm across and still fit Mars in the yard. The Earth would be about 2 mm across. Small, but doable.

I think you should just nail Pluto onto a neighboring house down the block.

I'm totally voting for Ludacris now.

Like you needed an excuse.

New rule: Anybody who uses the phrase "blame game" gets punched in the head instantly by the nearest reporter.

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Dang, Hec, another reason to be sad about mainstream media's failure to embrace me.

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Dang, Hec, another reason to be sad about mainstream media's failure to embrace me.

Honey, you don't want them to embrace you. You know where they've been.

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Honey, you don't want them to embrace you. You know where they've been.

I think she just wants to punch the Bush administration in the head, one politico at a time.

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New rule: Anybody who uses the phrase "blame game" gets punched in the head instantly by the nearest reporter.

I can't figure it out - is this sound-bite an especially egregious talking point, or am I just suffering from Republican talking point sound-bite fatigue?

Because it really pisses me off that they're using this in an attempt to deflect all criticism of the administration's (and FEMA's) response.

"When people don't want to play the 'blame game' ... they're to blame." - Jon Stewart.

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I have a MI-5 quesiton. I'm sure the answer is "tom quinn is the world's worst spy" or "Handwave!" or both.

I just finished watching the episode with ASH (great episode) and Tom tells Ellie and Maisey that he's not Matthew, but really Tom, the spy. Maisey happily tells her Mum that they can call him Tom now.

Do they actually switch to call him Tom out places like the restaurant or is this just glossed over? I'm trying to figure out why Tom would say to call him Tom and not continue being called Matthew since he's been introduced to Ellie's friends that way.

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I like that the reporter persists in trying to get a yes/no answer, in that excerpt. It just makes the press guy look more and more like a complete idiot.

We need to see whole long 10-minute excerpts of this on the evening news. Preferably, with a picture-in-picture window with closeups of what the Superdome looks like on the inside. Ted Koppel, I am counting on you!!

In other news, I read David Brooks's op-ed piece today, against my own wisdom. How do people with that poor a grasp of rhetoric get to be editorialists?? And why don't republican apparatchiks read recent history? (He's proposing that poor people not be allowed back into New Orleans, ever, and that they be forcibly "integrated" into middle-class housing tracts in other cities/states, to "teach them" how not to be poor. Not only does it all come off as coded racism, it's also a blurry photocopy of early Great Society programs, which were miserable failures.)

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I think she just wants to punch the Bush administration in the head, one politico at a time.

(edited to add above context)

They're only going to have success if they keep their heads out of his ass, and their own, for good.

I was glad to read the McLellan press conference transcript, but am tempted to wager I could hold my breath for about as long as it's going to last.

Also? They boil things down to the simplest form, and give McLellan et al the out they need. In the case of this hurricane, the city *did* screw up, and so did the state, on the front end. But that's not the issue now, and those aren't issues so much for a national audience. Those are issues for Louisianans, and New Orleanders. My concern as a non-Louisianan (political that is, humanitarian-wise, it's all my concern) -- my concern is how the Federal government did their job, because their job is the job they're supposed to be doing for me.

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If I were a member of Bush & Co. I wouldn't want to play the blame game either, because I would be the all-time winner and champion.

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Like you needed an excuse.

It just hadn't occured to me before now. All our mayoral candidates are boring.

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