We went to see Avatar last night. Visually beautiful, technically very impressive and about twice as long as it should have been. Cardboard characters, acting and plot: the setting was not cardboard and was the star of the movie.

The 3-D was a lot more subtle than the first time round. Not a roller coaster in sight and a spear hurled at you only a couple of times. The effect was more an increased depth of perception than an in-your-face assault from the screen. Floating seed pods and flying creatures were marvelous. There were great huge land animals as well. The Evil Humans were really evil and really stupid. But they had great military hardware, with the Evil Colonel predicting the first assault would 'shock and awe'.

There's a major downside to the 3-D if you wear vari-focal lenses, as I do. I spent the overlong movie with my head cricked at an awkward angle to find the band on the glasses to see the screen. If I could have experimented with my seat, I could probably have found some distance from the screen that matched the middle band of the vari-focals. About two-thirds of the way back from the screen might have worked. I might try 3-D again to check, but I'll make sure I've got ibuprofin in my handbag for the neck and shoulder strain if it doesn't.

That influenced my impression of the movie. My husband loved it. I thought it was OK.

The fluffy, whispy schnauzer undercoat look a lot like the floating seed pods from the magical trees. That's an observation; no pretense of it being a graceful lead-in sentence to changing the topic. The Evil Military had a certain terrier like obsession with pursuing and slaughtering vermin. Except it was more a Candy bull dog obsession combined with stupidity and paying no attention to cost than Belle's more clever schnauzer approach. (An awkward linking paragraph joins the equally awkward lead-in sentence.)

Belle and Candy, for the first time in a couple of weeks, got to go the fields this week. It's been too wet and too cold. It was still wet and cold but the sun was out. When we got to the fields, the footpaths were mud in the sun and ice in the shade. Candy and I trudged. Belle went mad running through the ankle high ground cover crop in the fields.  Belle was so pleased Candy and I spent an hour slogging along, about 45 minutes longer than we would have liked.

When we got home, I took my shoes off at the door - my good ECCO walking shoes, crusted in mud. Candy's little feet were wipe-able. But Belle was solid mud from the shoulders down. I wrapped her in the wiping-rag and carried her to the shower in the loft room. I spent thirty minutes shampooing and conditioning her coat one-handedly. The other hand was occupied in keeping her from leaping out of the shower. Legs, feet, belly and beard were a combination of ice and mud. When the water finally ran more or less clear as it swirled down the drain, I wrapped her in a towel and carried her out. Towel, towel towel, release, dog shake to get rid of the water. Another towel, plopped her on the bed and started combing.

I spent over an hour combing out the tangles. Terriers have a soft undercoat and a wiry outer coat. This means Belle ignores cold weather, has to be clipped regularly and is a pain to comb or brush - especially if she needs a cut.

Belle lay on a towel on the bed on her side. I combed. She wasn't pleased but only tried to escape when I combed the beard. I wonder if the elegant show dog schnauzers with their long beards ever run through muddy fields. Belle is not a show dog. At best, in the week or so after a clip, she looks tidy. Scruffiness encroaches.

I combed for about an hour, teasing out each tangle. Rat's nests, those hair tangles are called if they're on a human head. I remember my daughter, when she was three or four, complaining about my brushing her long blonde hair. I remember myself, at three or four, with my mother brushing my long blonde hair. Once I stole the hairbrush so she couldn't do it. I think I was a slight improvement over my mother. I cut out the tangles. My daughter does even better; my three year old granddaughter has a mass of short curly blonde hair.  The generations get wiser.

Belle would have stolen the comb if she could. When it approached her beard, she tried to seize it with her teeth while pushing it away with her paws. It was almost zen-like, combing Belle's hair. When I finished, it was tangle free except for the beard, which was almost tangle free. Then I changed the bed linen, mopped the floor and cleaned the shower These were not planned activities.

Candy lay on the bed, watching, inscrutable. She didn't want the bath but she did expect the brushing. Dogs have a peculiar sense of justice. It's not the same as humans, but it's more faithfully followed. My dogs expect the last bite. It's a quid pro quo: they sit expectantly, quietly, and get the last bite.

Neither dogs nor humans are much interested in the quality of mercy. We're better than dogs, though.

This is not one of my political blogs because politics is entirely too depressing. The UK just spent 1.2 million pounds to investigate 1.1 expenses claims from MPs. First: stupidity factor. The 1.2 million could have been much better spent. Second,  Justice: most of the claims were within the rules. They might have been stupid rules, but you change the rules, you do not damage the reputations of those following them.

Justice: many complaints about the assorted terrorists being tried in courts. Civilized countries have trials. Barbarians have Guantanamo Bay and water boarding.

Then there's Haiti. The charities involved seemed more concerned with preventing theft of goods than getting them to starving people.Objectively, stolen goods on the black market might actually have been a more effective distribution mechanism, reaching more people, than what appeared to be on offer.

Continuing with Haiti, on the one hand, there was an outpouring of charitable donations. On the other hand, my junk mailbox is full of fake charities asking for donations.

More handedness. On the one hand, a lot of effective agencies: Médicine sans Frontiers, S.O.S. On the other hand, the Baptist missionaries attempting to take 33 non-orphans back to the US for adoption. Some of the parents of the children thought they were being taken to school in the Dominican Republic. Some parents gave permission to the adoption, wanting their children to have a better life. Others were just children, parents and relatives not found. The Baptist missionaries were probably well-intentioned. The arrogance was a bit much, but they weren’t evil people.

The Haitian border patrols arrested the Baptist missionaries at the border. They had no documentation and could have been sex traffickers, a very realistic possibility the Government of Haiti is trying to prevent. The basic narrative from the Western media seems to be that Haiti is part of the Undeserving Poor (similar to many of the Katrina victims). Corrupt government, violent population, incompetent, uneducated, Voodoo satanists. Years ago, after the revolution that got rid of Baby Doc, a newsman asked the State Department representative if the Soviets would attempt to take over. She said, contemptuously, that Haiti was a basket case and nobody had any interest in a basket case.

I’m sure some of this is true. But I’m equally sure that there is much more to the country than corruption and violence. It’s a one-sided and self-serving narrative we are presented; and thus untrustworthy. (No handedness there.)

I watched President Obama on CSPAN, talking to the Republicans. One of the things he said: "You say X, that's not true, and you know it's not true." Heartening.

Disheartening:  I watched TV pundit discussions of Obama's address to the Democrats in Congress. Obama said there should be less concern with politicking - Fox's pundits went on and on about how Obama did not want the people to be concerned with politics. That wasn't what Obama said, and they knew it. Obama told the Democratic Members of Congress that they, not the voters, should be concerned with legislation, not with political stands to help their next election challenges.

Then there's global warming. Everyone can have an opinion. All opinions are not equal. There is scientific consensus that the planet is warming and that human activity has influenced this. Physics provides a model looking at the effect of an atmosphere, and the gases composing that atmosphere, on sunlight hitting the surface of a planet. An increase in carbon dioxide should result in a raising planetary temperature and it does. Theoretically, we know what ought to happen and collected data confirms the theoretical mode.

Local conditions are subject to local variables. This winter was colder than last winter. The Alps snow cover is less impacted by global warming than would be expected. This does not disprove global warming. A couple of sentences in a 2000 page UN Report on global warming did not accurately reflect some local conditions. (And they were just a couple of sentences...) This does not discredit the report. Thousands of emails were checked in emails exchanged at East Angia were examined. There was some intemperate language between colleagues. So what? Being 'tempted to beat the crap out of X" shows exasperation, not an attempt to stifle the opposition.

There were discussions about data sets; should some be used? I understand the discussion involved how to deal with temperatures reported by the Chinese which included cities (normally about 2 degrees higher than countryside) and rural areas without distinguishing between them. They ultimately decided to include the complete set.

All of the data sets were analyzed by assorted bodies after the scandal and the conclusions are pretty much those of East Anglia scientists. There is no Climategate. Global warming was not put in doubt.

Channel 4 news had a climatologist and Lord Lawson, an economist, ex-Chancellor under Thatcher to answer questions about "climategate." Lord Lawson does not believe in global warming. Lard Lawson can hold this opinion, but why should anyone pay any attention to the opinion of an economist? Particularly one that is tied to the oil industries. This is not even handedness.

Jon Stewart was on Fox's O'Reilly Factor. O'Reilly has, amazingly, become the rational Fox opinion spouter. O'Reilly quoted a survey: Fox News is the most trusted TV news. (It could be most trusted cable - I don't know.)

Stewart responded by saying that he, Stewart, was the most trusted journalist.Sound about right: a comedian is the most trusted journalist on television and the most trusted tv news agency is a joke. Like I said, all opinions are not equal. While admitting this is only my opinion, after this week's news my most trusted journalist is, indeed, Jon Stewart.No wonder I’ve decided to concentrate on trashy movies that hurt my eyes and walking the dogs.