Palin's great grasp of geopolitics

When first announced as the Reptile Party's Vice Presidential candidate one of the first criticisms about Palin - apart from most everyone outside Alaska (which is most everyone, not the most populous state) - was who the hell is she? The second was that she had bugger all foreign policy experience and has only been out of the country once and that was to a meet-the-troops special. Her spin doctors replied, unbelievably, by saying she was governor of Alaska, with Canada on one side and Russia across the sea on the other, so obviously she did know a lot about foreign relations. Understandably anyone with a brain found this hilarious and it did no end of harm to the perception of Americans abroad where most of the rest of the world assumes most Yanks no nothing about anything outside their own borders and are culturally ignorant. Which I know from personal experience isn't the case, but it is a general stereotype which she just confirmed to many.

Even more unbelievably she is still spouting this crap line (and bear in mind the Reptiles have been sniping at Obama for his supposed lack of foreign policy experience, compared to McCain, who has experience dating back to a diplomatic mission during the Boer War). This was her on US TV last night - nice to see the Reptiles following up the Chimp's presidency by continuing to draw on candidates who are sharp, intelligent, well informed and erudite...


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Cashing in on the Credit Crunch

Watching Channel 4 News this evening and their financial reporter in the States talking to an expert about how the greedy bastards in trading and banking got themselves into a mess which tax payers are expected to bail them out from (while the directors of said banks walk off with huge bonuses). The expert they are talking to had the glorious name of Art Cashin. I kid yet not.

Anniversary

Not being overly taken with monarchy I wasn't paying much attention to the coverage of the Queen and Prince Philip's diamond wedding anniversary this week, until this evening when I saw a segment of a report from Malta where the pair have gone (as they did after their wedding in 1947) on ITN this evening. There's Romilly Weeks and her amazing cheekbones reporting from Malta; she says something I'm not really listening to as I'm deciding what to make for dinner, something like how this is an unusually public display for a normally private couple and how romantic it was. Unaware that behind her Prince Philip has walked past, stopped right behind her listening, big grin on his face, she finishes, turns and sees him laughing and he says "is it really?", laughs and walks off. I'm not normally a fan of Phil the Greek but that was funny.