Watched the Amazing Race premiere this morning.  It was, indeed, amazing.  Some surprising twists and turns, based pretty much on people making stupid choices (like filling a diesel car up with gasoline, then having to have the tank drained).  It'll be rerun Saturday night, and I recommend jumping on from the beginning.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Woman 'blessed by the holy toast': "A half-eaten slice of elderly cheese on toast purportedly showing the image of the Virgin Mary has attracted 100,000 hits on the eBay auction website. "

Sorry Everybody

Dear World: Sorry About Bush / No, seriously. Very, very sorry. How sorry? Well, let America show you ... in pictures

So the new Amazing Race started last night on CBS.  I got home late, and only watched part of it--although I DVRed the whole thing--so I don't know who got eliminated, who's in the lead, none of that.  I did see that they went from Chicago to Iceland in this first installment, where I don't believe they went in the last one.

 

Of course, it's the international scenery that sets this show apart from other so-called "reality" shows.  That, and the fact that the premise puts those of most other shows to shame.  Let's face it; it's the difference between the "how much will you give me to eat this bug" mentality of shows like Fear Factor or Survivor, and "Okay, when I say go, run from one end of the world to the other."  The difference in scale just makes you want to sit up and take notice.

 

Obviously, not having seen the whole episode, it's too soon for me to really judge, but the teams don't seem quite as strong as in the last Amazing Race (which is the only other one I've seen).  Not that they won't be interesting to watch, but from what I saw last night, too many of the teams are already not working together very smoothly.  First leg of the race, and they're already bitching and sniping at each other.  That's a express-ticket towards elimination...

 

And, in other news, ABC has apparently announced that when Alias comes back in January, it'll be on Wednesday nights, right after Lost.  Hopefully, it'll do better at finding an audience there, not only with a successful, equally-offbeat drama as a lead-in, but also both shows are created by JJ Abrams.  (Plus, by all accounts, Abrams and the writers are working to make the new season both more accessible for new viewers, and an improvement over last season.)  In a perfect world, this would be a match made in heaven, and I can't think of any stumbling blocks.

MSNBC - Ashcroft denounces judges who question Bush

“Courts are not equipped to execute the law. They are not accountable to the people,” Ashcroft said.

I swear, it's like we're living on some other, more surreal world...

Newsday.com - National News: "The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources."

And if this were happening in any other country, there'd be this outrage at what an affront to democracy this is...