World metros

This gadget was tailor-made to attract me. I think I've ridden on all these systems:

Got at b3co.com!

Technically speaking I shouldn't include the Denver RTD there because the last time I was in Denver they hadn't built the light-rail system yet. But I spent so much time riding around on RTD buses in Denver and Boulder that it seemed wrong to leave it out.

(If you put this on your LJ, either post preformatted or take out the newlines, because otherwise they'll make your post very tall.)

"It was to be announced at the Party congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises."

I have heard it said in several places in the blogocommentosphere that the Mark Foley scandal is actually yet another boon, intentional or unintentional, for the Republicans (often Karl Rove is imagined to be off somewhere laughing), because it serves as a distraction from the recent offenses against the Constitution and the looming attack on Iran.

This analysis makes no sense to me. As far as I can tell, Republicans are trying to do what they did successfully in 2002 and 2004, which is to run on national security and terrorism. Since Bush and the deepening fiasco of the Iraq war have lost popularity, the way to get some of that post-Nine-Eleven terrorized buzz back is to dial up fear and anxiety, hype external threats such as the Iranian nuke program, and pass provocative security laws that principled Democrats can't vote for, so you can then portray the Democrats as "soft on terror". Ideally, none of this should be a secret; it should be as public as possible! The Military Commissions Act wasn't supposed to be some sort of subterfuge; it was supposed to be popular.

Much as we'd like people to care more about proper governance of the country, a distraction from these things because of a sex scandal actually derails the Republicans' grand strategy. It still might not be enough to lose them a house of Congress, but we can hope.

Distraction really is an important tool in politics—sometimes obvious examples present themselves, such as the president announcing an initiative to land people on Mars when the war is going badly—but I am usually hesitant to explain things that happen as engineered distractions because the explanation explains too much. Given any two moderately current news stories or political controversies, A and B, you can claim that A is a distraction from B or vice versa and it will sound sort of plausible.