Ice cubes in the fire

Put the funeral on hold...

Blair is here to stay. It's official. Hutton has cleared him, he's lived through top-up fees, and he's now in a strong enough position to demand apologies from Michael Howard and the BBC. He's either a political genius, or unbelievably lucky.

Blair isn't packing his suitcases just yet, I guarantee.

Now that's rebellion...

If you have to blame any rebel, blame Nick Brown. Until this morning, his opposition to top-up fees was based on principle, or so he said. This afternoon, his friend the Chancellor (another Brown) asks him to jump, and all he can do is plaintively ask 'How high?'

But Nick Brown is an honourable man...

Pyrrhic?

So. Blair has his bill. Fees for UK universities will be raised in 2006. And Blair has held on to his job. I'm not quite sure what to make of the government's majority-of-five victory today. People left, right and centre seem to be predicting that this will seriously weaken our Prime Minister, perhaps even fatally. I'm not convinced. I've lost track of the number of times we've been told that this latest setback, this latest humiliation could spell the end of the Labour leader. My gut impression is that Blair's job is secure for the time being. He'll have to make some changes to the way he treats Parliament, but his own job is safe.

Plus, according to The Sun, the Hutton Report will come down on the government's side, condemning the BBC and clearing Tony Blair of 'duplicitous wrongdoing'. We'll know for sure tomorrow, but things are looking up for the PM.

Lord of the Gongs

After the film's magnificent showing at this year's Golden Globes, it looks like Lord of the Rings - Return of the King has a good chance of sweeping the board at the Oscars. Look out for gongs for Best Film, Director, Score, and things of that sort...

Lords in Bed

This made me laugh. After I got over the urge to kill the person who wrote it.

Schadenfreude Alert!

You know how funny it can be when someone tries to screw over someone else, but ends up getting completely screwed themselves? It's even funnier when it happens to a whole lot of nasty Christian evangelicals. Wired News has the story:

When the American Family Association posted an online poll last month asking its constituents their position on gay marriage, it thought it was engaging in a straightforward exercise.

The conservative organization supports a constitutional amendment defining marriage as strictly between a man and a woman, and it planned to forward to Congress the results of the poll, which it expected would support its position, as evidence of Americans' opposition to gay marriage.

But the AFA never counted on the power of the Internet. And once the URL to the poll escaped its intended audience, everything went haywire. As of Jan. 19, 60 percent of respondents -- more than 508,000 voters -- said, "I favor legalization of homosexual marriage." With an additional 7.89 percent -- or 66,732 voters -- replying, "I favor a 'civil union' with the full benefits of marriage except for the name," the AFA's chosen position, "I oppose legalization of homosexual marriage and 'civil unions,'" was being defeated by a 2-1 ratio.

I don't indulge in schadenfreude, as a rule, but today I am most willing to make an exception. And if you want to know what schadenfreude means, please look here.

The King is Dead

Bookslut pronounces the New York Times Review of Books dead. Sadly, I think she may be right.

This is what happens when people who don't read control book reviews. Nonfiction is easy to review. Books that are all plot are easy to review. It's just laziness mixed with an obvious contempt for literature.

Firebird

Mozilla's new (still in development) Firebird browser is absolutely marvellous. I've only been using it for a few days and am already addicted to it. Then again, I am very sad.

Just words!

In this week's Observer magazine, an interview with Will Self:

A word I like at the moment is calenture. It was a condition where sailors who had been at sea for a long time would get the delusion that the waves were countryside and covered with grass and would try and get off the ship and wander around. Nice word, beautiful sound to it and expressing rather a devastating concept.

Now, I say interview, but perhaps random load of disconnected thoughts (much like his writing) would be more appropriate. No, I'm not his biggest fan, but he's a clever chap and this is worth reading.

Not again...

"NASA team loses contact with Mars rover."

Damn. However, it'll be interesting to see how this affects Bush's proposed space program.

Still. Damn.