Yo, what happened to the news?

In the run-up to the US mid-term elections, it appears that every minor news item was blown up into political theater: First, Kerry made a jab at the White House, which in turn demanded an apology because Kerry (according to the White House) had insulted the armed forces. OK.

Then, there was the ‘uncloseting’ of an American pastor, who (naturally) vehemently denied accusations he had sex with a male prostitute. A couple of days after, Haggard eventually confessed of having a ‘lifelong problem’. Since he was known for his anti-gay stance and with his ‘lifelong problem’ in the back of his mind, that makes him, let me say this appropriately, ‘not really a credible person’¹. What would Dawkins say?

Oh, and then today, Hussein was sentenced to death by hanging, which caused a little distraction (and relief) for the Bush administration. If this news will help the GOP, that remains the question. As of today, the Electoral Vote site predicts that the US congress is going to be a tad blue-ish.

But the best news item (saved for the last paragraph, of course) was that photo of Saturn made by spacecraft Cassini. It shows the pretty Saturn rings and a tiny dot in space called Earth (direct link to image). I mean, it’s not as pretty as that image of Earth and moon shot by Voyager 1 in 1977, but it surely puts the US ‘political scenery’ in perspective. On a scale from 1 to 10, US politics is as interesting as 10^-29.

¹ I was thinking of another word, but I leave that to the readers. For some kind of reason, I do feel sorry for his family.