From today’s LAT, in an article headlined Unscripted Moment Over "Brokeback":

That’s the sort of thing you do for a baby making its first words, not the President of the United States.

Then again, things are pretty far gone if the Chimpalissimo even having one unscripted public moment is itself a headline.

UPDATE: Ten minutes later, still enjoying it.  Man, what a revealing sentence, about pretty much everything in the last few years.

If I were a teenager forming a band, that would be my band’s new name.  I think that’ll have to be the site’s new slogan when I get time.  Maybe some T-shirts, too.  Man.

I won’t have time for the next week or so — book frenzy, third draft, has arrived — so things will be a little thin here again for a bit.  But

is gonna make me smile every time I think about it for a good while.

Colin reminds me that our neighbours to the north are holding national elections today.  It says something about how self-obsessed the U.S. media is that any of us needs reminding.

Your major options
include the Liberals, the New Democrats, the Conservatives, the Greens,
et pour ceux de vous qui veulent cesser ce non-sens entier du Canada, le Bloc Quebecois.

Your less-likely options
include the Libertarians, the Western Block party, the Communists, the
Canadian Action Party, the Christian Heritage Party, the Marijuana
Party, the Progressive Canadians, the Marxist-Leninists, the First
Peoples National Party, and the Animal Alliance Environment Voters
Party of Canada.

If you’re not quite sure why the Animal
Alliance Environment people might think the Greens don’t quite get the
point, the CBC has prepared a handy Cheat Sheet.  Fun highlights:

• The Bloc Quebecois wants to field their own sporting teams at international events.
• The Conservative leader has been making a fresh big announcement every morning.  So much for Rovian staying on message.
• The Greens have everybody a little confused.  So they’re definitely Greens.
• The Liberal slogan is "Choose Your Canada."  I’ll take that big one in the middle, please.
• The
  New Democrats will probably only get about 20 percent of the vote. 
  Which means they’ll actually be the ones holding the balance of power
  in the House of Commons.

If you’re not quite sure how this last bit is possible, check out this cool examination of different voting systems, including the Nobel prize-winning realization that even without Diebold, no voting system can ever actually work completely, which leads to this nifty example
of how equally-valid voting systems might play out the same election
among four candidates with four logical yet different
results.

Fun, watching a relatively healthy democracy, so different and yet familiar.  Me, I’m hoping the Marijuana Party and the Christian Heritage people wind up in 50-50 control, if only for the entertainment value.

Sometimes I think Vancouver wouldn’t be a bad place to wind up…

So, Team Chimpy wants to see everything you and I have been searching for in Google?

Fine.

This is the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights:

I’ve typed that into a Google search box, bookmarked the resulting URL, and made it my browser’s home page.

So now, anytime I open a new window, I leave the government a little
reminder of how someone feels about this whole new era of rigged
elections, warrantless searches, torture, detention without trial, and
smearing of critics as traitors.

All this really does right now is make me feel better.  But if millions of people decide to make this link a constant habit, we’d make our point right in the data itself.

Just a thought.

So, Team Chimpy wants to see everything you and I have been searching for in Google?

Fine.

This is the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights:

I’ve typed that into a Google search box, bookmarked the resulting URL, and made it my browser’s home page.

So now, anytime I open a new window, I leave the government a little
reminder of how someone feels about this whole new era of rigged
elections, warrantless searches, torture, detention without trial, and
smearing of critics as traitors.

All this really does right now is make me feel better.  But if millions of people decide to make this link a constant habit, we’d make our point right in the data itself.

Just a thought.

{mosimage width=400}

Not a pudu, but competitively adorable. In Port Macquarie, there’s an animal hospital that cares for koalas which have been hit by cars, attacked by dogs, caught in wildfires, or otherwise made to suffer for being a nearly-motionless puffball with questionable motor skills.
Sweet retired ladies with a lot of patience spend their days helping the little guys back to health, providing them with medications and dressings for their wounds and even feeding them by hand. I could have watched this for days.

You shouldn’t drive for a while after seeing this, because you’ll be groggy from the cuteness.

And with it being mating season and all, bringing horny little koalas down from the trees to scramble around the neighborhood looking for partners… inattentive driving would just create a vicious circle.

PS — none of the koalas I met actually hate Qantas. I asked.