The Chinese get the joke...

...even if Obamabots don't.

US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was laughed at by an audience of Chinese students after insisting that China's US assets are safe.

H/T: Human Advancement.

Stupid is as stupid does....

Mont. jury awards $850,000 in aluminum bat lawsuit

HELENA, Mont.—A jury on Wednesday found that the maker of Louisville Slugger baseball bats failed to adequately warn about the dangers the product can pose, awarding a family $850,000 for the 2003 death of their son in a baseball game.

The family of Brandon Patch argued that aluminum baseball bats are dangerous because they cause the baseball to travel at a greater speed. They contended that their 18-year-old son did not have enough time to react to the ball being struck before it hit him in the head while he was pitching in an American Legion baseball game in Helena in 2003.

Someone will poke their eye out...

Coffee can be really hot. People will try to hit things fast with good bats. Sticks can have pointy ends. Rocks can hurt you...DHMO can kill..(don't believe me about DHMO?)

The Borg Raising the Borg...

Council bans parents from play areas

The edict:

Due to Ofsted regulations we have a responsibility to ensure that every authorised adult who enters our site is properly vetted and given a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check by Watford Borough Council.

Council Mayor Dorothy Thornhill:

Sadly, in today's climate, you can't have adults walking around unchecked in a children's playground and the adventure playground is not a meeting place for adults.

...but it's for the children...

Sir.

What do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach

Billy...

...again putting the description right down, in one sentence.

An entire culture sunk in delusion and mendacity, eating itself one bite at a time from neighbor to neighbor, now pitched against each other in competing visions of mutual slavery -- where the plain-day principle of freedom once guided the best of our aspirations.

2nd good laugh of the day...

kts2 at The Agitator

I just survived a college economics 101 class taught by an admitted Keynesian.

It was simple really, just answer almost all the questions exactly wrong and get an A.

heh.

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH......

**snork***...almost coffee through my nose...

Saudis want aid if world cuts oil dependence.

NOW blasts Letterman...

...or so it says here at CNN

That's a big change from their supportive and oh-so-understanding position when it came to Bill Clinton.

Remember? Clinton's affair, according to NOW's president at the time, was "such a distraction from the key issues that are facing us, questions of public policy and foreign policy" and "On balance, women have had an ally in the White House..."

And this from Ireland, regarding the Clinton affair, on Lehrer: "We did speak up about Lewinsky, and, in particular, if we were looking at who she needed defense against it, it was Ken Starr and the FBI....She, nor anyone else, has ever alleged that President Clinton coerced her to do anything. And she and President Clinton have both denied that there was a relationship."

So...you belong to NOW? How cute.

Duh.

California Assemblyman Joel Anderson asking: "[S]ince when do you have a First Amendment right to yell fire?"

Well, for starters, any time there's a fire.

And that's just for starters when it comes to that argument.

Clarity from Kyle Bennett

Kyle Bennett wrote this, and I hope he doesn't mind my re-post here, but it's succinct and it is exactly correct.

A Note to the Uninformed

Blaming the current financial crisis on the failure of markets is like blaming an airplane crash on the failure of gravity.

The markets didn't fail, you demanded they do something impossible. This crash is the predictable and correct result of the inputs you provided. If you let an airplane turn into an ice-covered flying brick, gravity continues to do exactly what it will do - your flight plan might as well be a parabola - and people die. The NTSB never, in its investigations, asks "What went wrong with gravity?" What makes you think markets are any different? [emphasis mine-Ron]

You might think that we can find an alternative to markets, that markets are a political tool that can be chosen or rejected. They're not. They operate at all times and in all places, and always by the same laws. They are the given that your political positions are tested against.

You have failed.

Asking/telling the government to do anything to fix the problem is just more of the same error.

Been away, sorta...

Just a quick note to say hi to folks that drop by. I'm busy with other interests for a bit but I'll be back.

Civility, trust and honour.

A “POW Rolex” Recalls the Great Escape by Alan Downing

Underlined in Wilsdorf’s letter to Nutting are the words, “…but you must not even think of settlement during the war.” The news that Rolex was offering watches on a buy-now- pay-whenever” basis must have spread through the camps like wildfire. More than 3,000 Rolex watches were reportedly ordered by British officers in the Oflag VII B POW camp in Bavaria alone...Wilsdorf hedged his bet further by making this offer available to British officers only, in the belief that their word was their bond.[emphasis mine]

Great story.

I had such high hopes...

I saw this headline: 24 die as bus falls into ravine, Israelis say.

I hit the link.

...and it's just another PLUNGE.

Gimme a break, Olivia...

From Olivia Chow's website:

The poll-rigging behaviour sometimes known as “freeping” is a common tactic used by right-wing groups to get public opinion in their favour. “If you have to rig polls in favour of your opinion” said the administrator, “it says more about your core ethics and the weakness of your position, than it does the issue.” [emphasis mine--ed]

Olivia, rigging online polls has been done by zealots on both sides of the spectrum. Trying to spin that behaviour as solely owned by right-wing folks is just stoopid. Or dishonest. Or both. Additionally (given internet history), the tactic is only known as "freeping" if right-wing folks do it. Otherwise, it's just plain garden-variety vote/ballot stacking.

But let's keep this straight: an online poll is just a poll of site visitors: it's not scientific in the slightest. If a site happens to get more lefty visitors, the poll will generally reflect that. If it gets more righty visits--same-same. And sometimes [gasp!!! who'da thunk it??] folks from one side or the other will suggest visits to a site they don't usually frequent, just to influence the poll.

In other words, online polls are as true a reflection of reality as your outrage.

I couldn't be more impressed...

"Please pray for him not to suffer from this accident," a distraught Dong Yun Yoon told reporters gathered near the site of Monday's crash of an F/A-18D jet in San Diego's University City community.

"He is one of our treasures for the country," Yoon said in accented English punctuated by long pauses while he tried to maintain his composure.

"I don't blame him. I don't have any hard feelings. I know he did everything he could," said Yoon, flanked by members of San Diego's Korean community, relatives and members from the family's church.

Man who lost family when jet hit house: I don't blame pilot.

My sincerest condolences and respect.

There is an eloquence that comes naturally from honesty, from who you are:

"I know there are many people who have experienced more terrible things," Yoon said. "But, please, tell me how to do it. I don't know what to do."

December 6th

Woman in Chains/Tears for Fears

• Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student.
• Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student.
• Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student.
• Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student.
• Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique's finance department.
• Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student.
• Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student.
• Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student.
• Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student.
• Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student.
• Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student.
• Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student.

Well, I feel deep in your heart there are wounds time can't heal
And I feel somebody somewhere is trying to breathe
Well, you know what I mean, It's a world gone crazy keeps woman in chains

H/T Mike at Rational Reasons

A couple of quick jots...

This one time...at caucus:

One of the Caucus members said that the Taliban were able to put out better videos than Dion's staff. (Western Standard)

Ooooh. That's gotta hurt ;-)

Me at SDA:

Lesson: Bailouts support identifiable voting blocs is all. They're bribes.

People who support the bailouts don't give a rat's ass about the at least equivalent number of jobs scattered throughout the economy that will be lost, caused by the dollars consumers don't have to spend because they're funding the bailout.

And an interesting tactical thing:

Let's say there's an election in the next while, and you're still thinking wrongly enough about economics and philosophy to want what the coalition wants. Two way split, anyone? The best communicator? The most experienced governing party? I mean, who do you vote for...it's not like there's a huge ideological difference. And the Bloc? Lotsa Quebec folks kinda like them, even knowing they won't govern.

Fun times.

Oh. And this:

Evidently Oprah was talking to some reporters about a gathering some time after the election,

"I said I would be happy to talk to Sarah Palin when the election was over… I went and tried to talk to Sarah Palin and instead she talked to Greta [Van Susteren]. She talked to Matt [Lauer]. She talked to Larry [King]. But she didn't talk to me.”

Winfrey’s comments came in response to rumors she refused to invite the former vice presidential candidate on her popular daytime show.

But why would a daytime talk show host not want a vice-presidential candidate on the show before an election? Fear of poor ratings?

Just askin'...

They may be right...

Harper put it to the other parties that they should stand on their own two feet when it came to raising funds and operating as parties.

Without exception, the other three parties screamed "we'd die".

OK. Maybe they're right.

But that's not Harper's fault.

If the conservatives went broke today, they'd have money by Monday; they're used to raising their own.

Time for an Election

If the Coalition is as great a deal as its supporters say it is, then I'm sure they'll also trust Canadian voters to recognize that fact.

If the Harper Conservatives are as great a deal as their supporters state, then I'm sure they'll trust Canadian voters to recognize that fact.

It's really quite simple: the folks who don't want to, or won't, put their preference up to a vote don't trust Canadian voters to make the right decision.

All else is just puffery, grandstanding and self-serving rationalization.

Not beyond me...

The Prairie Wrangler poses this question (probably rhetorically) over at his blog:

how the opposition can play the “the Conservatives haven’t spent enough” card not a week after the “the Conservatives have spent us into a deficit” card is beyond me

Easy. Politics Without Principles.