Today is likely to be a pivotal day in Tony Blair’s tenure as PM. He’s under pressure on two fronts: not only is he facing rebellion from his own backbenchers around a bill to introduce additional fees to university education to aid that cripplingly underfunded sector, but also the Hutton report into the suicide of David Kelly is likely to reveal the extent to which Blair understood the reliability of the evidence surrounding WMDs at the outset of the Iraq War (2003).

This one news article illustrates the two most striking differences between UK and US politics. Firstly, Blair has an absolutely commanding majority — 161 seats — in the House of Commons, but still is having difficulty getting an unpopular measure passed. The Republican advantage over the Democrats is slim by comparison, yet we never hear of a pet Bush initiative faltering. Secondly, Bush appears to be paying no political price over the failed promise of WMDs as justification for the war, yet it may well cost Blair his job.

We finally relented to the lure of technology on the weekend by buying a TiVo. We don’t watch a lot of TV, really, so I’d been lukewarm about the idea. Leisure time is in short supply, and between Netflix and our own DVDs, CDs and the iPod, the Gamecube and the Internet I’ve got more than enough to keep me busy. On the other hand, the prospect of getting an appliance that would watch TV so I wouldn’t have to seemed appealing.

We’ve got a DirectTV system, so that means that we get a special kind of TiVo configured specially for the satellite. Ours is a Hughes DirectTV DVR, and it’s replaced one of our two DirectTV receivers (for an additional charge of $5 a month, on top of the $99 for the DVR itself). Unlike other TiVos, this one downloads the digital signal directly from the satellite, so there’s no need to encode the image – it just saves it to disk. This means the recorded programming has no loss in quality, which is nice. The interface is also great – we can now pause and rewind live TV and record shows with the touch of a button. In theory, we should be able to record one show while watching another, but that would mean running another cable down from the satellite dish, so it might be a while before we can get that set up.

The one snag is in hooking up the DirectTV DVR to the phone. We don’t have a phone socket anywhere near the TV, so I had to run a 50-foot extension through 3 rooms to hook it up. When researching TiVos it seemed like it might be possible to hook a WiFi receiver to the USB port of the TiVo and hook it up via our wireless internet network, but it turns out that’s not possible with the DirectTV TiVos which use an older version of the TiVo OS. (I’ll have to return the Wireless UBC adapter back to Circuit City, where we purchased the TiVo.) On the other hand, it seems like the TiVo is getting all of its program info from the satellite anyway (we get our local programming from the satellite, too), so I wonder if it really needs to be hooked up to the phone at all. I think we’ll see how it goes for a while, and maybe just run the extension out to let it dial in once a week or so.

Now, we just have to find our if our TiVo thinks we’re gay or not.

Dick Cheney, who’s out in the world for his second time ever as VP, is justifying the use of force where diplomacy fails. Thing is, if you’ve been abroad only twice as VP, I’m not sure you’re a credible source for this argument.

Cheney’s first trip abroad was to the Middle East to drum up support for the Iraq war , and we know how that went. Okay, a diplomatic mission to Afghanistan would have been in vain, but we’re ignoring Korea, we’re bullying Iran, we alienated the UN, we’re annoying the Brazilians, anti-American sentiment runs high in the EU…

“Force where diplomacy fails.” Or is it just force where there’s a disagreement with our plans for your oil – I mean government – I mean participation in the world community. Yeah, that’s what I mean.

Update: They’re on the move! John Ashcroft has left the bunker TOO and is right here in my back yard! (Sorry, it’s in German, I can’t find it in the English press, yet.)

You couldn’t throw the commodity of your choice into a distant trashbin without hitting someone who’d like air time during the Super Bowl. This crop of buyers includes MoveOn, which wants to run an ad that points out who’s going to pay for the deficit in the federal budget. (CBS has also refused to air an ad from PETA.)
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If you ever wondered how your parents kept their weight down when the dexadrine prescription ran out, check out this collection of Weight Watchers recipes and you won’t wonder ever again. Aside from the liberal use of mackerel and toast, it is the desire to “jelly” everything in sight that I find most disturbing. No need to count calories as these won’t be staying down long.

We love our neighbor to the south for his sheer nerve, his chutzpah. his machismo. After all, who else almost got away with writing his own immunity in to law? We adore his whole “not only am I the man in charge, but I’m the man in charge of the news about the man in charge!” attitude.

And now, we can’t keep our eyes off him. Silvio! So handsome! Is that a new haircut? Are you sporting a tan? Have you been on vacation? You look different!

I can’t wait for this episode of Extreme Makeovers to air.

Interesting article at Overlawyered.com about John Edward’s past as a trial lawyer. Seems he made much of his fortune bilking insurance companies our of millions in lawsuits following children born with cerebral palsy. Many of the argumements used in the trial were apparently of dubious scientific medicine.

Most people know I’m against medical litigation generally. Certainly, true cases of malpractice need to be punished but I think they form a minority of the malpractice claims tried or settled. Walter Olsen captures my feelings perfectly: “I don’t assert that every lawsuit blaming obstetricians for infant brain damage is unfounded. The problem is that our system gives wide leeway for cases of debatable scientific merit to be filed and then, after a battle of the hired experts, decided by appeals to jury emotion.”

I heard a fantastic interview with Joe Simpson on NPR yesterday. Joe Simpson is the author of Touching the Void, one of the most amazing books about survival ever written. Joe and his mountaineering partner Simon were climbing in the Andes when disaster struck. I don’t want to give away the details — it’s a truly amazing story — but Joe was left for dead before crawling out of the mountain alone.

Listening to Joe on the radio gave me a real sense of his character. Touching the Void was the first book he’d ever written, but you can see how his sense of majesty, and of humility, is part of his character that comes through in the book. He doesn’t think of himself as a hero for having survived, and he’s quite candid in discussing how the experience has changed him.

Touching the Void has now been made into a film, and Joe talks about making it in the interview, and how certain scenes were too painful for him to watch after blocking certain events in his mind. I can’t wait to see it. It’s playing at the Egyptian in Seattle from Friday.

George W. Bush? Nope.

“…perceptions that he was a consummate liar, that he presided over the use of poison gas by his troops and that his chaotic leadership contributed to a fiasco when hundreds of thousands of his soldiers were taken prisoner in the war’s last days.”

Saddam Hussein? Nope. Guess again.

Pope to beatify ‘buffoon’ who was Austria’s last emperor

A very small cute eatery has opened on 12th, the second to open on 12th recently. Crave is a darling little eatery with a small menu of really good food. For some reason by the name I thought it would be comfort food with the likes of meatloaf and mash potatoes, but I was fooled. Crave can be found in the Capitol Hill Arts Center, 1621 12th Avenue, across the street from the Police refill and parking lot. The atmosphere is minimal and don’t let the non-lit sign out front fool you into thinking it’s closed…they’re thinking, “if it is good, they will come!” It’s Good! We started the dinner with a watercress salad, with grapefruit and glazed almonds…(is there any polite way of eating whole watercress?)… in light vinaigrette. I followed with hand rolled gnocchi, which was tossed with sweet potatoes and cream sauce. Can I tell you how much I love this gnocchi!!! Mike had curried lamb with roasted sweet potatoes and sautéed escarole…amazing. The kicker of the whole thing is that they have only been opened for 10 days, if the food is this good to start, I can’t wait for them to get going!
The wine list is small, but nice, as is the menu. The desserts looked great, but we were too tired to try one….it was Sunday night after all. Go to Crave, it’s nice to support new food in Seattle