Does Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi have the best hair of any politician living or dead, or what? I predict in the future politicians' hair will be measured on the Koizumi scale. "Oh, he'll go a long way as a politician, but he'll never be president with that 0.6 Koizumi hair."

More naycha. After a visit to our neighborhood grocery on Saturday we spotted a flock of long-tailed parakeets, which was cool. Then on the way home we spotted four or five of these sulpher-crested cockatoos, which aren't even listed in our bird books as residents. Marjorie says they've been hanging out a block from our house over for a while now.

Sunday we went to the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve to see some more stuff. We got up too late, as usual, so missed most of the bird action, but did see some sort of storks which we couldn't identify, as well as sunbirds, egrets, and sandpipers. Along the path we spotted this snake, as well as turtles and giant mudskippers. The mudskippers were interesting -- they blink by rolling their eyes back into their head, and do it one eye at a time, presumably for safety's sake. They had several signs up warning of crocodiles (or caimans, maybe). At the end we climbed their aerie and spotted not a crocodile, but rather this giant water monitor lizard, lazily swimming up the canal. He was a good 5 ft / 1.5 meters long.

We recommend the place -- there's a whole ton of blinds and such built just to make your nature spotting easier. But go at dawn or dusk.

Once again I have been passed over for a MacArthur genius grant. Once again, they gave them out willy-nilly to people who actually accomplished things. If I don't get one next year, I am going to write a very sternly worded letter.