Friday, January 21, 2011

The Morning Blog

Yesterday, the Girlfriend and I finally got around to watching "South of the Border". It was terrible. Oliver Stone should be ashamed of himself.

On that note, Chavez announced that he has no intention of giving up his decree powers.

Folks are beginning to seriously consider what steps to take in the event that states start going bankrupt. On of the thorny issues is that states are considered sovereign. As such, there are constitutional issues at stake for them accepting any sort of bail-out money. I hadn't thought about that previously but it's pretty thorny.

Well, this explain a lot: Duvaliers return to Haiti isn't merely an attempt to boost the ranks of his zombie minions. It was a legal ninja move to attempt to get the Swiss to unfreeze his assets. He had until February 1st, when a new law goes into affect, to attempt to show that the Haitians weren't pursuing legal action against him. Sneaky Baby Doc...Sneaky! Hasn't worked out that hot for him but you have to give a guy credit for trying to be evil one last time!

Obama is looking to weed out dumb regulations. Not a bad thing to do per se. But as Peter Van Doren (who works for the Cato Institute no less, certainly no fan of stupid regulation), notes: “The history of these kinds of efforts is that they don’t matter very much.” They rarely affect anyone positively or negatively. So...I'd say don't waste time hunting them down unless they prove egregious. Rather, AVOID PASSING ANY MORE OF THEM.

Putting things in perspective: Much as I hate flying and dealing with the idiotic rules and general thuggery of the TSA, I could certainly have it worse. I think that this is the sort of situation where the FBI really should be compelled to explain why this kid was subjected to this ordeal. If there's more to it than his travel plans and ethnicity, then they need to disclose it.

Strange way to make a living: there are people that are actually paid to coach pandas on having sex. Personally, I loath the filthy beasts. Even pandas don't like pandas as evidenced by their famed unwillingness to get down and dirty with the horizontal-slap-and-tickle.

Didn't expect to write something like this...well, this century to be honest. But here is the state of the art for rickshaws. I presume that having mastered this artifact of 18th century technology, they will now turn their attention to a solar powered anvil.

Nobody likes your kid.

Scientists are developing a vaccine against cocaine. It seems to be showing progress in mice, who are doubtlessly pissed to now be denied the one perk of being a lab rat. Just to be an alarmist, but I'm alarmed at the thought of vaccines to stop people from doing things that are considered socially inappropriate. Shall we create vaccines against smoking? Drinking? Watching reality television? Well, maybe that last one...

Meanwhile, The Economist runs down the costs of drug prohibition.

I am shocked! SHOCKED...to see evidence of voter fraud in Zimbabwe! Pretty harrowing statistic from the article: Mugabe has lived more than twice as long as the average Zimbabwean can expect.

Animals! Animals! Animals! Um...also two trees, a shrub and some fishing lures. But mostly ANIMALS! ANIMALS! ANIMALS!

Death of a language.

Sigh... More fun with Berlusconi. Honestly, I think the worst thing of it is that Fellini isn't around to document it all. At least Silvio hasn't had problems like this guy.

Take a deep breath and...
pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism


Pirates! Is it just me, or is that a mini-sub in the picture? Very sneaky, South Korea!

I was waiting for something like this to come along in the wake of the massive mafia round-up yesterday. Vote for your favorite mobster moniker! Personally, I'm rooting for Tony Bagels.

I don't think any of these are necessarily stranger than a burning, talking shrubbery. It's hard to beat that sort of thing.

1 comment:

  1. um, speaking of animals, did you read about the kid in norway who chased away a pack of wolves by turning up his ipod really loud so they could hear what he was listeing to? it was CREED. Duh.

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