You’ll note that I’ve joined the bloggers’ grass-roots movement to include the phrase “Fair and Balanced” on as many sites as possible. You should know that this is a reaction to the lawsuit that Fox News has brought against Al Franken’s book Lies and the Lying Liars That Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, so I won’t bore you with another link.

This week the Carnival of the Vanities #47 is over at this site: Right We Are! – a conservative, pro-US, Republican blog by two chicks on the Right side! Check it out.

For some strange reason, several blogs have had links the past few days to unique toilets, so I’d like to share my ‘Swiss Toilets’ Story. Several years ago, my wife and I did a European Vacation that started in London and eventually took us through France, Switzerland, and Italy. When we checked into the Hotel Opera in Zurich, we were fascinated by the strange toilet in our room called a Closomat, which name we learned from the thoughtfully provided owners manual. These things have the exhaust fan in the bowl, which makes a lot of sense to me. They also have a bidet style rinse cycle with warm water, and a warm air dry.

So then we go out to dinner, and when I go into the men’s room, the toilet seat has a little squeegee on it and the whole seat turns around under the blade so that it wipes away all the overspray – as the oval of the seat rotates over the stationary oval of the toilet bowl, it’s quite an interesting spectacle, so much so, that when Janet checked and there wasn’t one in the ladies room (which makes sense), I snuck her into the mens room for a peek.

Bottom line: the Swiss are thinking too much about their toilets.