No. 2 in Tehran - In Iran's presidential election, the race to watch is for second place

Which is right? Between him and... ? Or between he and...?

In the United States, we sometimes use the phrase "short bus" to indicate somebody who doesn't have all their faculties intact, as in, "He obviously rode the short bus." I'll let somebody else explain why.

In Britain, it seems a new generation will grow up using the phrase "pink bus" to connote an obstreperous nature.

This just in from Northeast Wales:

Plans for a pink 'bus of shame' to ferry unruly school children in Denbighshire to and from school have been rejected.

Councillors decided that the idea, already taken up in other areas of the UK, was not practical.

Members meeting on Thursday decided that some children would enjoy being seen on the 'punishment' bus.

On the Isle of Wight, troublemakers already enjoy a taste of the "Pink Peril," the nickname for bus number 283.

Comments are back!

Funniest one of the week, by far (to Monday's post):

"You do not include the whole name of the establishment. It is called the "Cafe Bar Paris Hilton" and each table comes with photographic and recording equipment so that diners' conversations can be immediately posted to the internet."

I've been locked inside most of this week, and I was just thinking I should something personal-like on me blog, and I was thinking and thinking and thinking and I couldn't come up with anything remotely appropriate, when all of a sudden I found this. (I don't see any permalinks so scroll down to the first culinary depication.) That made me think of Saturday.

By the way that blog (Pabulum) is written by a good friend of a good friend, and it amuses me to no end whenever she mentions our mutual good friend.

Anyway, on Saturday, I ate lamb off a lamb. I mean the kind that spins around, ever so slowly, over hot coals for eight hours. The head was missing when it arrived from the butcher, so alas, we didn't get the tongue or brains.

As you might know, I was a vegetarian for 15 years until about five months ago, so this whole meaty thing is still a novelty for me.

There wasn't much of anything to do for eight hours while the lamb cooked, except drink beer, put wood on the fire and watch the lamb go round and round on the spit. Ever. So. Slowly.

The best part was by far the stuffing. At about the six hour mark, it began bursting forth from the lamb's stomach like one of the spawn in Aliens. I believe my comment at the time was, "Wow. That's so wrong."

With each rotation a clump of stuffing would fall out of the stomach, all too obviously turd-like, and if you couldn't manage to catch it, it would splatter onto the hot coals.

Then I tried the stuffing. It was so truly indescribably good -- much better, I dare say, than the lamb itself -- and much worth the wait. Yum, yum, sheep's bum. I don't know what it was that made it taste so good. It was just rice, mixed with peppers and mushrooms, but it had been stuffed inside the stomach of a little baby sheep (which had itself been soaked in marinade for two days, on both the inside and outside) and then roasted on a spit all day.

It was so good, eventually I began catching as much stuffing as I could using a paper plate on a shovel with a long handle. Otherwise it was impossible to save the precious stuff, because the coals were too hot to keep your hand there for very long.

Michael Ledeen writing in National Review Online:

"You will not have read about [Iranian political prisonor Akbar Ganji] in your daily newspaper, or seen his face on your evening news broadcast, nor will you have heard about him from the Department of State — which has a considerable bureaucracy devoted to the advancement of human rights — nor from the White House, nor from the self-promoting entrepreneurs of the likes of Human Rights Watch ..."

Did he try Googling "Human Rights Watch" and "Akbar Ganji"?

The Associated Press has the best story I've read so far about the Jackson verdict, and I find it odd it hasn't been published more widely.

I thought it was going badly when they introduced regular pornographic magazines as evidence, as if that suggested child molestation. Later, when past allegations of abuse were admitted, I thought things were going badly for the defense. When the jury took so long to decide, I assumed there would at least be some guilty verdicts in there. Given the way the trial was conducted -- in no way favorable to M.J. -- I now suspect he might actually have been innocent.

Not that you asked. Carry on now.

New witness in Koristka case confirms bribe attempt

I wish somebody would explain this to me. Ladislav Sommer, a former journalist and author, testified that two guys, one of them a top ODS aide, met in Ostrava's Cafe Bar Paris last year to discuss bribing an MP with CZK 10 million to bring down the government.

Alas, those newshounds at Czech Press Agency have neglected to tell us how Sommer could have possibly known this. Was he waiting tables at the Cafe Bar Paris? Did he just happen to be sitting nearby and he eavesdropped on the conversation?

Details, details.