The Greatest Show On Earth

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Philippine politics is crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy. I’m trying to come up with a summary of recent events in Philippine politics, and the unfolding plot and cast of characters sounds like a bad, drawn-out telenovela. I don’t know where to begin.

Okay, another movie star, FPJ, runs for president. He’s a close friend of the last movie star who became president: Erap, who was suspected of massive corruption four years ago, went through an impeachment trial lopsided in his favor, and was subsequently ousted in a dramatic extraconstitutional revolt. Now, FPJ takes another showbiz personality for his running mate: TV broadcaster Loren, one of the most vocal advocates against Erap’s continued presidency during the impeachment trial. Incensed by this, Miriam, one of FPJ’s supposed political allies and a fiery-but-unstable senator who stubbornly supported Erap, jumps parties, joining forces with Gloria and her K-4 squad. Such a move would have been unthinkable just over three years ago, when Miriam helped stoke the flames of the violent, abortive “Edsa 3” riot against Gloria. Now, with the old issue of FPJ’s nationality being called into question, his backers are ready to throw his wife, Susan, into the fray, simply on the basis of her immense silver-screen superstar popularity.

It’s just so bizarre. The story never gets so weird that it can’t get any weirder, nor does it ever get so bad that it can’t get worse. I’m still on the edge of my seat, wondering what happens next.

Update: Apparently it was a really bad joke.

Sssss…

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The elusive source of the Space Station’s air pressure drop — a leaking window hose — appears to have been found and fixed, or at least temporarily plugged up. (Was it the big window, perhaps?)

If this were the starship Enterprise, the ship’s automated Damage Control would have registered a minor hull breach and activated localized force fields. We have a long way to go.

Saddam in the House

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LGF recently linked a firsthand photo of Saddam’s capture from Military.com, which I figured was of doubtful authenticity; but now, Radley Balko has received a whole bunch of “Candid Captured Saddam” pics showing not only Saddam Hussein’s capture, but the scenes immediately afterward. The Formula 409 shot is especially striking, if only for its anachronistic domesticity. And cool hairstyling.

(I really think I’m turning into a conservative. Must be my apartment’s close proximity to Fox News’ DC office.)

Brrr.

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Low of 11 degrees fahrenheit. Low of 11° tomorrow. And just so we’re clear, that’s in fahrenheit. New York is getting it even worse.

Going Up?

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So the latest buzz is that Bush is about to announce a return to space. (Isn’t that the funniest possible photo to accompany that headline?) I was just reading a Wired article on NASA emergency escape systems, which mentions on page 2 that the Apollo spacecraft computers ran on “just 5,000 integrated circuits and … a feeble 74 KB of hard-wired memory and 4 KB of what might be called pre-RAM.”

Hey, if we got to the moon on slide rules and scotch tape (of course I exaggerate), I think we could try and shoot someone to Mars on what we have today. Except human astronauts might not bounce so well.

Over on Transterrestrial Musings (a mostly-astro weblog which I must add to my link list), Rand Simberg has some sobering thoughts.

Set Boundaries

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Childcare with Wyclif. Beautiful. I can’t remember where I first read that you should never “negotiate” with kids, but it’s good advice: you can give the child choices, you can train the child towards freedom, but don’t give the child the idea that he has bargaining power over you. (Of course, I say this never having been a parent myself. Things could be different in the future, when I’m desperately trying to juggle screaming toddler triplets on a crowded subway train while everyone stares.)

Future Friendly Design

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Peter Merholz on the National Park Service’s brochure design. I’m currently working on an NPS-related project, and was a bit annoyed at a recent redesign which broke a bunch of URLs. Now I see why the new look came about: to match consistency with their excellent print work. Living just steps away from NPS jurisdiction, those brochures catch my attention pretty often, and I was surprised to find that they’ve been using the same design system since 1977. They certainly look newer than that — or perhaps retro trends in modern design are just now harking back to that time. In any case, it’s a great example of versatile, strategic, forward-looking design. I brim with envy.