You'll be safe with the journalists

As what remains of humanity is whittled down further and further in Battlestar Galactica (39 thousand odd last I saw, and that was before what happens in the most recent episode started happening), one thing keeps weirding me out - the continually massive press corps. There are only 39,000 people left all up and yet for some reason this community has produced what seems to be about 50 plus journalists who turn up to every statement the President / Adama / Apollo care to make. How many media organisations do they have in their ragtag fleet, serving the news needs of the 39,000? Maybe it's some kind of deal where there is one newspaper and that paper sends 50 journalists to the same event who then compete to write the best story on it? Or perhaps they just cover exactly the same story from 50 slightly different angles? Forget about wanting them, can a society struggling to survive at subsistence level afford to support 50 journalists? Do the journalists all live on the same ship, which through a combination of flukes has never suffered the casualties inflicted on just about everyone else at some point? Will the show finish with 50 journalists drifting alone through space, writing up their exclusive interviews with each other for an audience of ghosts?

Ooo, poignant.

And now, the Kremlin:



And scenically by night:


Great, isn't it? Except wait a minute, this isn't the Kremlin. It is instead St Basil's Cathedral, just across the road from the Kremlin. (Where the road is Red Square.) And who knew? Not I. Quickly, make me feel better, Wikipedia:

It is very often mistaken by Westerners for the Kremlin, whose buildings are in fact situated across the square from the cathedral. Arguably the most recognised building in Russia, it is an international symbol for the nation and for the city of Moscow.

Just call me a mistaken Westerner then, I suppose. But now I know. See, isn't learning good? Thanks, job, for requiring me to fact-check things in books. At least I was correct in my suspicions that the Kremlin is NOT the government building of Russia. That is in fact this thing. To which I gave to say to Russia: the Cold War was on, you built a new government building, and you named it the White House? Seriously? Talk about your latent inferiority complexes. Or perhaps just your penis government building envy.

But how 'bout that St Basil's Cathedral? Let's take a look at it again:

(Also making me feel better: an easy way to find photos of it is to type "Kremlin" into a Google image search.) It really is a fantastically awesome building, I'd love to go check it out in person someday (damn it Google, how is Red Square not on Street View yet? Stop wasting time running over deer and get onto it). Perhaps one day I can visit with my son:

"Check it out, boy, your old man used to think this was the Kremlin. What a thickie, eh - it's clearly St Basil's Cathedral."

"That's the Taj Mahal, Dad."

"Oh, where are we again? Oh that's right, India. I always confuse the countries ending in -ia."

Going to attempt to blog more regularly than once every geological time period. I guess we'll see how that turns out.