Hurrah for "big beasts"

We at the Station heartily commend Ken Clarke to the house. It's not through any diehard attachment to the same political banner; it's rather because he is, or at least projects the idea that he is, a rational politician rather than a career one. Rationality in politics has taken a kicking over the latter Blair/Bush years. Clarke oozes it, and his appointment now has a feel of damned good common sense about it, Tory or not . After all, there aren't many bigger beasts (cliche alert!) than Peter Mandelson, but there are none bigger than the original Ken. Business, enterprise and regulatory reform just went from stultifyingly dull to greatest show in town; if only they could go head to head across the despatch box. Lord Clarke of Rushcliffe, perhaps? Surely a grand idea.

Histrionics = success!

There's some seriously weird nitpicking going on in America. Is that really an effective way to get a message about abortion across?

Perhaps if you believe that all publicity is good publicity, then we, and The Stranger, are dancing to the American Life League's very tune. But surely, hopefully, it still requires more than a high profile to win an argument, more than histrionics in a press release to be persuasive...doesn't it?

How extraordinary.

I visited CNN's website today, a habit I picked up during US election season and see no reason to crack just yet. As is the way with websites from time to time, upon my arrival I was exhorted to answer a survey, during which I was confronted with a bizarre question which gave me a ten-point scale and an option at each end: "I like to form my own opinion" at one, and at the other, "I want to be told the facts."

It seems vaguely worrying to me that a serious news outlet either produced, or failed to veto, a question which seems to suggest that forming one's own opinion is the opposite of getting the facts. What market researchers can deduce from the responses to such a question is anybody's guess. Weird.