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I love American politics. It’s my form of WWE — all the cheers and jeers with all the spectacle to go along with it. One day, I think the American presidency will go the way of the President of the Galaxy from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and be little more than a distraction from the real power.

Heck, it could be like that already, for all we know.

Today, it was announced that Hillary Clinton would be willing to consider a Vice-Presidency with Barak Obama as top billing. But here’s a thought: Are Americans ready for this?

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Maybe it’s just me, but running keynotes every single day of a conference seems really silly, and waters down the value of the concept of a keynote. But I digress. Either way, this morning features Tim O’Reilly (again), Jonathan Schwartz (Sun Microsystems), Fake Steve Jobs (aka Daniel Lyons), Matt Cutts (Google), and Matt Mullinweg (WordPress).
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Well, the annual Oscars show has come and gone again. And I almost missed it this time! It was by mere fluke that I happened to come across the E-Talk Red Carpet pre-show tonight. If I hadn’t caught it during a brief pause in my harried running around, I might have missed the show.

Not that I really would have missed much, admittedly. I have to admit, it was one of the more boring years.

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Everything thinks their job sucks. It can be for any number of reasons. But there’s one guy out there who looks for the dirty jobs. The ones that no-one really wants to do, but does anyway. The ones where if the job wasn’t done, the world would (in many cases) come to a halt. They’re dangerous, often nauseating, and usually done by people far more interesting than we’d ever believe.

That’s what Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs is all about. If you haven’t watched it, you really should check it out. It’s one of the few decent things on television, and one of only three shows that I’ll go out of my way to watch (the other two being Dirty Jobs’ sibling, Mythbusters, and ABC’s Pushing Daisies).

But there’s something about Dirty Jobs’ host, Mike Rowe, and the way he handles the content of the show, that really adds another layer. Namely, poo.

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Okay, yes, everyone’s heard about Stephen Colbert’s run for the presidency. Those of you who watch his show regularly (sadly, I do not; though Alex is becoming a massive fan) know what Colbert is like. Perhaps not the most serious — or informed — person to be on the ballot.

And let’s be sure we’re talking here — he was aiming to be on the ballot in South Carolina. But the Democrats down there decided to throw him off.

Big mistake.

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Lois Maxwell, the actress who first played original long-suffering admirer of super spy James Bond, passed away yesterday at 80.

In my world, this is pretty significant news. But then, I am a movie geek.

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My coworker Martin sent around a link to an article that paints Google as being a great big source of evil, tantamount to being the core of a near-police state. To say that it’s a little alarmist is putting it mildly.

I have one fundamental issue with the spin this article (which is more a work of fiction than journalism): Just because people use Google data for malicious intent does not make Google itself evil.

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