A good summary of dates and candidates

As expected, the wikipedia community have pulled off a great one pager about the US elections, key dates, candidates announced so far. It's a bit nuts and bolts, but the facts are all there.

Liz Taylor loves Clinton

My friend Nigel has suggested I start colating, on this blog, the best non-stories about the US election. Given there's more than 18months still to come, I think there's a strong likelihood there'll be plenty that fall into this category. Thanks to Nigel, here's story number one... Elizabeth Taylor loves Hilary Clinton. While Jeffrey Katzenberg loves Obama. Go Hollywood.

John Kerry's not running

Ted Danson lookylikey John Kerry, who managed to screw up beating George W Bush in 2004, despite Dubya only having an approval rating of something like 35%, has thankfully announced he won't be running in the 2008 election. He announced it during a speech to the senate a couple of days ago. Thank god for that....

Sleepy Senator McCain

A leading contender for the Republican nomination for President is Senator John McCain. But, here's a clip of him in the house for last night's State of the Union address, not really showing himself to be presidential material....

Democratic Governor from New Mexico declares interest

Governor Bill Richardson from New Mexico has declared he's setting up a presidential exploratory committee. So that's a white woman, a black man, and an hispanic man for the Democrats. Go diversity!

American Presidential Election 2008

I'm planning on following the two-year US election campaigns in as much detail as I can. From watching the West Wing I've started to find US politics and its history really fascinating. Season 6 covered the primary election process, and season 7 covered the general election process - knowing the process, and having seen it played out with fictional characters, I'm really interested to see it play out for real. So, to start with, here's the BBC's piece on each party's top 6 contenders. For my money, I'd love to see a Clinton/Obama democratic ticket fight a Giuliani/Gingrich republican ticket. Barack Obama, has announced he's running, and I find him a fascinating character. Meanwhile, Hilary Clinton's an obvious candidate, not as charismatic. But both would be a first for US politics, and they've definately had enough of "the usual" I think.

Hold your wee for a wii - audio

You probably heard of this.

A woman who competed in a radio station's contest to see how much water she could drink without going to the toilet, died of water intoxication. Ten people have been sacked from the radio station since. Here's the audio of them promoting the competition: it really needs a listen.

"Can't you get water poisoning and like die?"
"Yeah, we're aware of that," one of them says.
Another DJ laughs: "Yeah, they signed releases, so we're not responsible. We're OK."

Fact of the Day (8 Jan 2007)

David Bowie and Elvis Presley were both born on the same day. Today! (though, twelve years apart).

Fact of the Day (5 Jan 2007)

Shocking fourth Christopher Reeve installment Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was filmed on location in.... Milton Keynes. There were a series of budget and logistics problems, including apparently some dodgy lawyers running off with a bunch of money. So, the Argos headquarters was the UN building, the Winter Gardens was the Metropolis Museum, and what is now the LivingWell Health Club was the Daily Planet building. Read more here, and also here