h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We have a new addition to the family - a small puppy named 'Bear'. He's a black, white and brown bundle of teeth and curiosity at the moment. We have no idea what breed he is, though. We've been told he's got some Australian Shepherd and he's got the tenacity of a Jack Russell, which makes for an interesting combination.
Thus far, he chews things and sleeps in the laundry (which is a great excuse for not doing it).

He's called Bear because he looks like one - he doesn't have a tail (born without one as far as we can tell).

We're begining to see the shape of the 2004 Presidential race now, and John Kerry has been caught with a live microphone telling collegues that the Republicans are a bunch of crooks.
Not only has he refused to withdraw the comment, it appears he cannot back it up. The first rule of any good debate is when you make a comment like this you have to have evidence. Clearly Senator Kerry feels that George W's less than stellar performance at displaying evidence frees him from this burden. Senator Kerry is wrong. So far, he looks like an ill-prepared candidate in a year when the Democrats desperately need a good one.

It's an interesting time to be in America - I'm under no obligation to have a political opinion, because I'm not allowed to vote, so I can sit back and watch the race and debate the sides as I wish.

Same here.

Last I heard regarding the Kerry quote however, was that it wasn't clear whether he was talking about the Bush administration or the Bush-loving press.

It's funny, but when the Republicans are talking about the press, it's Liberal and Democrat loving, and when it's the Democrats talking, it's a Republican press.

I wish they'd make up their minds!

There's a rather good radio station here - K-FYI - that is staunchly Republican, gives a lot of airtime to Sean Hannerty and does a good talk radio job of going over the issues (with a blunt instrument).

It's the same with the BBC. Whichever party is in power will claim that the BBC is for the opposition, which of course is not true - they're against the government, but purely on a professional basis

And that's a good thing, because it's the job of the press to highlight the government's shortcomings. Sometimes they go at it a bit too vehemently though

I mostly listen to the BBC and NPR myself, and whilst public service broadcasting is supposed to be impartial, I'm certain that both organisations have a lean to the left because of the nature of the beast and the kind of people who are drawn to work for it.

Fox News, I've found, is pretty impartial. The local news team is more interested in being amusing than putting any kind of political spin on a story.

The Beeb are still my primary resource for 'real' (international) news. During the last Gulf War I was in the UK, watching Sky for the latest pictures and flipping to BBC News 24 for sane and sensible commentary a few minutes later.

I was VERY annoyed when the DG quit over the whole 'Iraq Intelligence' thing. The Prime Minister should have gone instead.

I don't know if you have cable, and if so what kind of cable you have. We get a news channel from Canada called News World International. It's very, very good http://www.nwitv.com

This is strange; Kerry says "the Republicans are a bunch of crooks" and "not only has he refused to withdraw the comment, it appears he cannot back it up" -- can't he just list the major donors to the Bush campaign? Enron, Halliburton . . . I get my American politics from Doonesbury. Are you suggesting Trudeau is biased? Dear me.

I have the feeling that Kerry may not want to go there because he has a few skeletons in his closet too.

For example...
on his return from 'Nam, John Kerry led protests against the war. Fair enough - who better to protest the war than someone who had won medals fighting it?
John Kerry called his fellow soldiers 'baby murderers' and 'rapists'.
Fair enough. Some of them probably were.
John Kerry threw his medals over the whitehouse fence in protest.
Fair enough, they were his medals.
Except, of course, that they weren't. They belonged to someone else. John Kerry still has the medals he was awarded, keeps them proudly.

This is probably the least of his worries right now, but one assumes that if you're in politics you have things to hide and funding that perhaps you aren't so proud of, especially when you have called your opponent a crook. It probably bears researching into.

It's so distracting, this beauty competition. It's the economy stupid, as a guy once said.