Sitting Bull South of Siberia

Last night I was at some disco/bar, and while Mongolian babes gyrated on the dance floor, and while American pop songs pumped through the Chinese sound system, and while the Tiger beers from Singapore and the Mongolian Chinggis Khan vodka was flowing, I looked up on the wall and saw a framed picture of Sitting Bull. My eyes lit up, and I leaned over and told my friend Andrew to translate to the other Mongols at our table that me and my friends are acquaintences and friends with Sitting Bull's descendants. The Mongolians smiled, nodded in approval, and said so are we. We all laughed, tipped back another shot of vodka, and then I lost the feeling in my feet.

I thought it an interesting, long duration sort of connectivity with that whole Bering Straight thesis.

Joys of Canuckistan

Ann Coulter: Hillary > McCain

More here: John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth.

Peas in a pod

Must be something in the water in Chicago.

Cry a river, Pepe

A JJ kind of guy

At the Academy, aside being known as a "rowdy, raunchy, underachiever" who resented authority, Cadet McCain became infamous as a leader among his fellow midshipmen for organizing "off-Yard activities" and hard drinking parties. [..] While a pilot trainee, McCain continued to party hard. He drove a Corvette and dated an exotic dancer named "Marie the Flame of Florida." [..] McCain, the "below par" pilot, eventually lost 5 military aircraft, the first during a training flight in 1958 when he plunged into Corpus Christi Bay while trying to land.

Duck, JJ, duck!

Antidote to McCain-bashing AI and NROtards

Here NRO geriatric keeps digging for Romney. I had forgotten McCain's tearing Rumsfeld a new rump so found the article above. Look at the date.

Semester Kickoff

Is it also time for change here?

Snowball barrage

Tx Gov, Nancy Reagan, Arnoltt all endorse Mac. Obama raises a ton of money.
Fascinating election, boys

Seethe, AA, Seethe

Your prettyboy's been slapped.

Finally a serious student

Snowball McCain in NY

Karl Rove, you evil genius

New Education policy in Britain

The guidance - produced for the Government by gay rights group Stonewall - will be formally launched today by Schools Secretary Ed Balls [sic].
[P]rimary pupils as young as four should be familiarised with the idea of same-sex couples to help combat homophobic attitudes.

OK, fellas. Seems you have the three choices in the UK. It's the madrassah, emigration, or this.

Physical comedy

Clearheaded NRO writer

Texans bash canucks

Tsk, tsk, tsk, JJ.

Dick Morris says, "x=x."

McCain=Dole?

And Rudy=Forbes, Huck=Pat, Mitt=Gramm, etc. But then, Hill=Bill, and we know where that ended before. A rather depressing scenario...

Honorable to the last

Classical Educations are the anti-Nazi

Or, what the f%ck happened to Liberalism post-WWII? Check out Mr. H's and the German emigre's profiles:

H is an historian and biographer. He is American of Dutch ancestry born and reared in the Middle West. He has been in love with America all his life. He can recite whole chapters of Thoreau and volumes of American poetry, from Emerson to Steve Benet. He knows Jefferson’s letters, Hamilton’s papers, Lincoln’s speeches. He is a collector of early American furniture, lives in New England, runs a farm for a hobby and doesn’t lose much money on it, and loathes parties like this one. He has a ribald and manly sense of humor, is unconventional and lost a college professorship because of a love affair. Afterward he married the lady and has lived happily ever afterward as the wages of sin.

H has never doubted his own authentic Americanism for one instant. This is his country, and he knows it from Acadia to Zenith. His ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and in all the wars since. He is certainly an intellectual, but an intellectual smelling slightly of cow barns and damp tweeds. He is the most good-natured and genial man alive, but if anyone ever tries to make this country over into an imitation of Hitler’s, Mussolini’s, or Petain’s systems H will grab a gun and fight. Though H’s liberalism will not permit him to say it, it is his secret conviction that nobody whose ancestors have not been in this country since before the Civil War really understands America or would really fight for it against Nazism or any other foreign ism in a showdown.

But H is wrong. There is one other person in the room who would fight alongside H and he is not even an American citizen. He is a young German emigre, whom I brought along to the party. The people in the room look at him rather askance because he is so Germanic, so very blond-haired, so very blue-eyed, so tanned that somehow you expect him to be wearing shorts. He looks like the model of a Nazi. His English is flawed–he learned it only five years ago. He comes from an old East Prussian family; he was a member of the post-war Youth Movement and afterward of the Republican “Reichsbanner.” All his German friends went Nazi–without exception. He hiked to Switzerland penniless, there pursued his studies in New Testament Greek, sat under the great Protestant theologian, Karl Barth, came to America through the assistance of an American friend whom he had met in a university, got a job teaching the classics in a fashionable private school; quit, and is working now in an airplane factory–working on the night shift to make planes to send to Britain to defeat Germany. He has devoured volumes of American history, knows Whitman by heart, wonders why so few Americans have ever really read the Federalist papers, believes in the United States of Europe, the Union of the English-speaking world, and the coming democratic revolution all over the earth. He believes that America is the country of Creative Evolution once it shakes off its middle-class complacency, its bureaucratized industry, its tentacle-like and spreading government, and sets itself innerly free.

The people in the room think he is not an American, but he is more American than almost any of them.

Roses for Stalin

The below poem about Stalin led to Osip Emil’evich Mandelstam's arrest in '34, and imprisonment and death in December 1938.

We live, not sensing our own country beneath us,
Ten steps away they dissolve, our speeches,
But where enough meet for half-conversation,
The Kremlin hillbilly is our preoccupation.
They’re like slimy worms, his fat fingers,
His words, as solid as weights of measure.


In his cockroach moustaches there’s a hint
Of laughter, while below his top boots gleam.
Round him a mob of thin-necked henchmen,
He pursues the enslavement of the half-men.

One whimpers, another warbles,
A third miaows, but he alone prods and probes.
He forges decree after decree, like horseshoes –
In groins, foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.

Wherever an execution’s happening though –
there’s raspberry, and the Ossetian’s giant torso.

Duck, JJ, duck!

I mean, Texas is big, so chances are the m__f__ is gonna hit there, no?

Regurge post

Look, schmucks! This article is fantastic and no one commented on it. I bet you guys are too busy playing with your stumps thinking of Obama's willie to read it. So would you, now that he's under Kennedy's aegis? The article is worth it even though it is by some yahoo named Fred Barnes. Wasn't he one of the idiots in the MacLaughlin Group? The one they hired because he looks like G F Will?

Cheer up, JJ

Don't let middle age drag you down the U-shaped curve.

Fly, JJ, fly

The skies just got friendlier.

Run, JJ, run

On the perils of being a couch potato.

Applebaum on Russian Babes

Anne Applebaum is onto something here with hot Russian women. She breaks down beauty by ethnicity, noting the Tartars and Mongolians as well. Just to footnote Applebaum's claim: from my empirical studies over here, yes, Mongolian women certainly increase the beauty factor, bringing attributes such as high cheek-bones and beautiful round eyes to the gene pool.

Applebaumism: Beauty is a matter of luck, but the same could be said of many other talents. And what open markets do for beautiful women they also do for other sorts of genius. So, cheer up next time you see a Siberian blonde dominating male attention at the far end of the table: The same mechanisms that brought her to your dinner party might one day bring you the Ukrainian doctor who cures your cancer or the Polish stockbroker who makes your fortune.

Ah, Berkeley

"In the same way that many communities limit the location of pornographic stores, that's the same way we feel about the military recruiting stations."

Hitch Says No to HillBilly

Fascinating article

Nothing short of heroic.

Bunda Lula

Bishop Antonio Augusto Dias Duarte said that while the church was not against people having fun in Carnival, the morning-after pill and condom campaign "will only serve to diminish inhibitions and encourage orgiastic behavior."

Khan On the Japanese Sumo Circuit

I caught this bout last evening in a modern Mongolian ger, electicity powering the television and sound system, vodka shots and piva flowing, all while the wood-burning stove kept us warm from the Siberian cold beyond the felt walls.

The Japs typically try to absorb the great wrestlers, offering the non-Japanese (gaijin) citizenship and Japenese wives if they are good enough to take the Grand Champion.

Orwell: leave the jester out of this...

P.G. Wodehouse remarks on his German internment during WWII: ...The only concession I want from Germany is that she gives me a loaf of bread, tells the gentlemen with muskets at the main gate to look the other way, and leaves the rest to me. In return I am prepared to hand over India, an autographed set of my books, and to reveal the secret process of cooking sliced potatoes on a radiator. This offer holds good till Wednesday week.

I Love Texas

El Andalus

Didn't all the Pepeans & Zapaterians assure us that caving in to the head-hackers, and becoming good dhimmi boys will prevent further Molotov cocktails being thrown at them? Ah, well, dream on.

I'm Back in this Absolut World

Today, I have internet. And the end of blessed silence from AA is unhappily upon you. Vodkas all around, boyos.

AI, we've got to get a drink sometime soon. I now understand why the devil's water sells so well near any public education joint. I need liquor, and I need it muy pronto.
MFT, enjoy that beetsoup and blackbread. However, I shall return to this plate of freshly grilled viands from a local Brazilian restaurant.
JJ, bliss while you can on the sub-80 temperatures while you have them. Come April you'll be sweating a mighty river, if not hunkering down in a brick icebox of a building that would do Novgorad proud.

The "mapclustr" has grown nicely since we "made public" this blog. But I won't rest happy until we see a nice little dot out of Mecca [probably the HQ of the Ministry For The Propagation of Virtue and The Prevention of Vice --and not the harem quarters where some fat poobah from the House of Saud keeps his comely wenches. Oh well].

[Added a pic--is that you in front of that rakija vat, AA? --AI]

How 'bout that

Mitt is on a roll!

Beat by a chimp!

Ah, but what does he know about Gaussian distribution?

40 Drunks to Go On Before We Die...

Number 1 of 40 is below, and it sort of sets the tone for the rest. We should all be so bold in that arena, to brave what others only dream, and to try and even fail at what others wouldn't dare.

1.) Objective: Open and close a bar. Find one that opens its doors before noon. Stake out a comfortable seat and hunker down. Resist informing the bartender of your tremendous plan, as this will cause him to pour waves of pre-celebratory shots and you won’t survive happy hour. Pacing is everything. Watch the crowds come and go, watch bartenders rise, reign and fade while you remain like a cagey Methuselah. From that day forward, within the walls of that bar at least, your name will be legend.

District of Columbia Speak

I have great respect for the senior senator.
I am about to drill my elderly colleague a new one.

I had some gals come over to the condo to give me a massage.
I paid for sex.

I hope we can work together in a bipartisan way.
I need to pick off one senator from the other party to pass this bill.

I don’t know how to get you to get it through your heads that it’s not new.
I am disappointed that you noticed that I switched positions.

This should not be a political issue.
My party has a winning political issue.

It’s time to stop playing politics.
The other party has a winning political issue.

As I said in my Wall Street Journal op-ed last week...
I am so important that I can quote myself.

Thank you for the very frank and candid discussion.
You just spit in my eye.

War is my last choice.
The bombing begins in three weeks.

I will continue to do the people’s business.
I expect to be indicted.

Obama's Baby-Boomer Watershed...

Still, at this point, gonna cast my vote for Rudy, but I haven't seen a piece like this on Obama yet. To Andrew Sullivan, Obama symbolizes a departure from the self-absorbed Vietnam War Generation. See the excerpt below.

...how do we account for the bitter, brutal tone of American politics? The answer lies mainly with the biggest and most influential generation in America: the Baby Boomers. The divide is still—amazingly—between those who fought in Vietnam and those who didn’t, and between those who fought and dissented and those who fought but never dissented at all. By defining the contours of the Boomer generation, it lasted decades. And with time came a strange intensity... How has a black, urban liberal gained far stronger support among Republicans than the made-over moderate Clinton or the southern charmer Edwards? Perhaps because the Republicans and independents who are open to an Obama candidacy see his primary advantage in prosecuting the war on Islamist terrorism. It isn’t about his policies as such; it is about his person. They are prepared to set their own ideological preferences to one side in favor of what Obama offers America in a critical moment in our dealings with the rest of the world. The war today matters enormously. The war of the last generation? Not so much. If you are an American who yearns to finally get beyond the symbolic battles of the Boomer generation and face today’s actual problems, Obama may be your man.

Still, I'm a bit confused by Sullivan's support of McCain (on page 2 of 4 in the article). Although McCain is received as bipartisan (most-recently by the editorial board of the New York Times), he directly participated in the Vietnam War and, as we all know, was a hostage for quite some time. Props to McCain. I think he'd be just fine as well. But Sullivan doesn't, so far, account for this.

Yet I'm inclined to agree with Sullivan's bigger picture, that is, healing the rift between the American Left and Right so as to confront the Islam Jihad menace on both political legs.

Run, Al, run!

[Add a vision test, to liven things up.]

Steyn on Newspeak

Killing thousands of people in Manhattan skyscrapers in the name of Islam does, among a certain narrow-minded type of person, give Islam a bad name, and thus could be said to be “anti-Islamic” — in the same way that the Luftwaffe raining down death and destruction on Londoners during the Blitz was an “anti-German activity.” But I don’t recall even Neville Chamberlain explaining, as if to a five-year-old, that there is nothing German about the wish to terrorize and invade, and that this is entirely at odds with the core German values of sitting around eating huge sausages in beer gardens while wearing lederhosen.

Slow Down, Europe...

As the EU seeks to alter the economic and political structure of Europe, so too will it try to press the landscape into its image. Hopefully it won't take the culinary regionalisms with it. Or will it?

AI recently commented on how he hopes Romanian artisan cheese doesn't suffer the same fate that the American beer industry did, where it took over 50 years for the right American brewmasters to bring it back on par with English, Czech, and German suds.

This new Italia university hopes to counter that dramatic kind of change in the area of food, the world over. They want to do this by cultivating an appreciation for culinary regionalism. Sounds good to me.

Ravel's drinking song

Bottoms up!

Dance, AI!

BARTOK, B.: 6 Rumanian Folk Dances. Magnificent.

Vegas fire

It doesn't sound like it's too big of a problem, and not terror related. Perhaps a couple welders who accidentally started the fire.

My sister took the photos you see here from her office or the parking ramp across from the Monte Carlo. It doesn't sound like anyone was hurt, either.

A consistent pacifist!

Rudy in drag

Rudy Giuliani In Drag

Obama's top 10 list

Pretty good delivery. Can any of the Republican boys match him? No way Rudy could do it. Maybe Huckie?

News from the Atlantic

The Atlantic now allows the free sailing of infomation and exchange of ideas across the oceans of the world wide web.

UB, Mongolia: 01.25.2008

Just a quick update from south of Siberia, perhaps of interest: after two weeks in Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia, one tends to appreciate the way us Yanks (or Italians; or Westerners in general) grill a steak. The anthropological reasoning behind why Mongolians cook the shit out of their meat might have to do with making sure food-born illnesses are gotten rid of. The gamey mutton has a "bouquet" of flavors. Right now I'm craving steak Florentine proper, a hand-sized cut of Montana or Great Plains beef (med-rare, naturally), or some of the prime rib I was treated to at the Bellagio in Vegas before I left. The Germans have a few entrepreneurial in-roads here (more and more each year), so there is plenty of good sausage. It'd be great to locate a piece of Kobe beef somewhere, especially since it's only a 4-5 hour flight to Tokyo, but I'm guessing Jap xenophobia (that is, Japanese disdain towards Mongols) might prevent that all-together. And I can only imagine the outrage Mongolian chefs would exact on that kind of primo beef -- on par with Ghinggis Khan razing Baghdad.

There's a great Ukraine restaurant about three blocks from where I'm staying. I again had lunch there today, and noticed that the Russians and Mongolians are well-aware of it too. Great borscht soup. Absolutely. Even better after walking in from the sub-zero weather.

Vodka sales are still being controlled since the 14 Mongolian deaths over the New Year. Lonely Planet's "Mongolian Phrasebook" says that Mongolians typically like to jam three days of drinking into one on New Years. That ethos coupled with mineral spirits a shoddy vodka producer mistakenly bottled as vodka resulted in the 14 deaths, and then a massive reaction by the communist government currently in power. Even the sale of piva was banned. Slowly the cops are allowing one store after another to sell. Mongolians I talk to are disgusted by it all.

gast-Romania

I believe we're all in accord in our like for good, aged cheese (I just had a great 2 year aged chedder from Canada not long ago). This article seemed to pertain to AI's old stomping grounds.

As you're a better expert than any of us, any more insight on how the EU is shaping what goes on the dinner plates in Romania, AI?

Al Gore, Imperator

The Gray Old Lady swoons for McCain

Hmmm... So what does this say?

Arnold rant on math, physics, and the French

Vendre!

JJ, Paris Hilton & Paris, Texas: GUT at last!

Say it ain't so

Bring back Berlu!

Italian politics, in all its glory: The move forced a brief suspension of the session after shouts that the senator was a "traitor" and a "clown" and one senator made a hand gesture as if to shoot Mr Cusumano. Mr Cusumano was reportedly spat on, and then fainted, before being carried out on a stretcher.

Keep Pullin' AI!

Quick! Get me a Windows box!

Liberations Galore

What to make of this?

Russian Mafia aren't fazed by getting a fingertip shot off - and they certainly don't go to the cops for help. You don't say.

Darwin alert

.. in Darwin.

That British capacity for understatement

Lisa Randall vs Cheney in a warped passage

Image

Fun chem

Look at this map

View Larger Map
Fishin' trip anyone?

The Onion on Geography

Hit the Italy button!

Buy, JJ, buy

And invite us all on your hacienda, when you get a chance.

A wonderful page

PC's everywhere

This is so wonderful, even you shitheads deserve to see it.

And you thought the math dept was political...

Steyn zings Rudy

Powww! This is like shooting fish in a barrel, JJ. You didn't take my Louis Rod offer -- OK, I'll ask for a Veuve Clicquot now.

Brain fryers, redux

Radiation from mobile phones delays and reduces sleep, and causes headaches and confusion. [This] can lead to mood and personality changes, ADHD-like symptoms, depression, lack of concentration and poor academic performance.

What, says JJ? What? Que pasa? Nothing to worry, man. Have some more ouzo.

The Making of an Islamic Mind

Lots of reminders and insights in his piece.....beginning with the simple fact that what, in the end, saved him was a father who insisted his son think hard and well for himself. A touch of Socrates against Islam's mind-numbing Calliclean brays.
Which is depressing, because even in the Western universities [never mind the Madrassahs]the Socratic is barely even a memory.

Am now in the "greater" Boston area, and as soon as have a computer set up [using Framingham's library right now]will return to this blog, to the world and to thought, and perhaps even to Life.

Later, amici

Paul Avril

This French painter had some funny ideas on what to paint - from chasing goats, to all sorts of other things.

Brass balls

It takes some to pull that knucklehead's balls out of the fire. [The head-in-the-wall pic is from here.]

Kama Bruni

Do they know about the Kama Sutra in India?

Eating soup with a knife

Anyone of you FCPers get a chance to read Lt. Col. John Nagl's work based off his Oxford dissertation? Looks good. Follow the link to a recent slate.com article. The article resonates a bit with my sister and bro-in-law. The former is a chief financial officer for one of the new City Center condos in Vegas, and the latter -- a 1st Sgt. -- was just sent over to Iraq for his second tour.

Upon departure from Las Vegas, he was interviewed by a local television station and said, "This is what we train for. This is what we do." I don't know if Fred Kaplan would think of a 1st Sgt. as "mid-level officer" material, but there are a certain amount of tours the American public might expect our soldiers to partake in so as not to drive them, their experience and intellect included, from the ranks. I digress.

McCain re-emphasizes that the South lost the Civil War

When will Southerners finally get it, that the Civil War was fought over slavery, and that the State's Rights argument was just another ploy to defend their individual state right to preserve that wickedly peculiar institution?

Nice work on this point, McCain. Nice work indeed.

Lone Star Easy Rider

How far can JJ be?

Hitch Says No to Hillary

For Sen. Clinton, something is true if it validates the myth of her striving and her "greatness" (her overweening ambition in other words) and only ceases to be true when it no longer serves that limitless purpose.

Also check out this excerpt from Wikipedia that is obviously a description for Hillary but has been mis-entered as one for Miss Piggy:

Miss Piggy began as a minor character in The Muppet Show TV series, but gradually developed into one of the central characters of the show. She is a pig who is convinced she is destined for stardom, and nothing is going to stand in her way. She presents a public face of the soul of feminine charm, but can instantly fly into a violent rage whenever she thinks she's insulted or thwarted. Kermit the Frog has learned this all too well since he is the usual target for her karate chops (she holds a pink belt in Pig Wan Do). When she isn't sending him flying through the air, she is often smothering him in (unwanted) kisses.

Chinese road runner

I can see it eating the miles on the North Dakota freeways. Buy, JJ, buy!

Killer bras

I love you, man!

The Filipino Monkey

Hmmm... One more thing to be wary of, I guess.

Is Petraeus fueling McCain's surge?

Sartre: "Hell is not being able to smoke in the morning..."

I believe it was Karl Marx who popularized the phrase, "The Dust Bin of History," and then the New Journalism modification by Thomas Wolfe, "The Garbage Barge of History," and now Abigail Cutler's latest with her appraisal of the French Anti-Smoking League, "The Ashtray of History."

Here's a question for FCP'ers: which European country or American state will be the last to ban smoking? Ireland led the way with California not far behind. Now Planet Pepe? As Universal Healthcare becomes more and more the norm, look for Governments to increasingly pry into your individual lives.

Also note North Dakota being recognized by Cutler in this Atlantic piece: in 1895, six years after joining the Union, North Dakota banned the sale of cigarettes. This is not surprising considering that the Teetotaler lobby also prompted the state organizers to include prohibition in the first North Dakota Constitution in 1889. And no, I don't smoke.

Misinformed

And so it goes.

Pizzo al forno

Well, maybe so, but how can they expect to fight the Cosa Nostra with a web site, when they don't know scat about the web or wireless out there?

Speedy Sarko & inamorata

The soap opera continues -- if he can stick to it. Imagine the mockery that Sarko will have to endure if Bruni, who in the past has described herself as allergic to monogamy – others have called her a “maneater” – loses interest. Earth to JJ: wake up, man!

Prague e-cathouse

A sign on the wall dissuades them from thinking they're the next Ingmar Bergman: "We do not film the air. We film people in a bordello having sex.'' But, does the Czech bouncer bounce checks?

A Texas story

Sounds good to me, but why put scare quotes around "Commies"? Anyone wanna go see the movie?

Campbell-Chavez Alliance

Pic

$1,000 reward

For catching this pair of car thieves. Maybe they're gonna grab Pepe's Indian car, next, and leave a pic for him?

The view from Nuevo Laredo

The church denies any wrongdoing and says it is stepping in to fill the void created by the lack of a U.S. immigration policy... Huh? How about, "you need a visa to get in"? What else does one need to know?

The wrath of Mme ex-Sarko

Ouchhh... Sounds like Fatal Attraction all over again.

Flyboys at work

That's the way do it, JJ. Not just stupidly plodding through the rice paddies with an M1, like Monsieur Jean Francois.

Paris bubbly

"Hilton hotels are a sign of quality; Paris Hilton is not," said Fulvio Brunetta.

Buy, JJ, buy!

No radio, no power steering, no power windows, no air-conditioning and one windshield wiper instead of two, no tachometer. To save $10, Tata engineers redesigned the suspension to eliminate actuators in the headlights, the levelers that adjust the angle of the beam depending on how the car is loaded. In lieu of the solid steel beam that typically connects steering wheels to axles, they used a hollow tube. The car runs on a continuous variable transmission, a lighter alternative to manual or automatic transmissions. Tata chose wheel bearings that are strong enough to drive the car up to 45 miles an hour, but they will wear quickly above that speed, reducing the car’s life span. The car’s top speed is 75 miles an hour. It has a $700 rear-mounted engine built by the German company Bosch, measuring 600 to 660 cubic centimeters, with a horsepower in the range of 30 to 35.

I also have a Bosch, but I use it to vacuum the house.

Pepean Navy

Ralph Peters is off his meds, rips a new one to the sailor boys.

Chinese Nationalists Sabatoge Mongol Vodka Industry?

The police arrested a man in Nalaikh District, called Bayaraa, who was charged with selling 600 liters of the material to the Asian Wolf company. The man said in his affidavit that he purchased the spirit component from Chinese nationals two years ago. The police are continuing their investigation.

Way to go Sarko!

I like this French prez more and more! Here's to kicking his ex to the curb, and picking up this new Italian babe! Way to go Sarko!

Update on the Passing Scene

The trip has started, as far as Las Vegas right now, staying with my sister for a couple days before the flight across the Pacific. The free airline booze on international flights should make for a passive flight across the said Pacific. I'll try to keep in touch with FCP here and there when I get a chance, and a full report upon my return, about the first week in February.

I assume JJ is busy with the goats in the Alps, and AA has intimated that he's poised to make some kind of move.

Currently, the communist party holds the majority in Mongolia's Parliament. This came about after the Mongols were exposed to a solid decade of full-blown Darwinian Capitalism. Unfortunately, some of the entrepreneurs weren't as ethical as they should have been; and equally unfortunate, these minor incidents were blown out of proportion. Fortunately, though, the Mongols experienced a brief return to what goes on in Totalitarian rule, specifically, the sale of vodka and beer was banned throughout Ulaan Bataar. Cops were going around and counting liquor bottles to make sure businesses weren't selling. After a couple days, though, the Mongols decided it was a ridiculous order by the police, and it was immediately revoked. This incident helped bring the memory of what Totalitarian rule is all about, at least for the Mongols. Lets continue encouraging our friends north of China to think for themselves rather than depend on others to do it for them.

Off to the Bellagio for dinner!

Binnie boyz throw Molotov cocktails at Planet Pepe

And the French surrender, of course.

King of spam in the slam

Hang him by his toenails! I hate spam with a vengeance.

Whiskey Rebellion!

...when journalists were journalists.

Friday, Jan. 4th, 2008, Meteor Shower

The timing of peak activity favors Western Europe and eastern North America.

French video games

Ah, the sweet sense of humor of the French! The stooopid Ricains never gonna get it.

Another Cell-Phone Conundrum?

This time with traffic.

Did JJ Contribute to This?...

Going to a party after the bars have closed is akin to crawling to the peak of Mt. Everest then turning to your expedition party and declaring, “Right, nice view. Now let’s break out the toboggans and see how fast we can get down the other side of this bastard.”

It’s a wild, exhilarating ride, all blur and screaming, and usually finishes with a spectacular crash.

Sherlock on the Bhutto Case...

Her Majesty's Royal Detectives are now on the Bhutto assassination case.

"Submission" by Theo Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali (pt. 1)

This is the video that angered a Muslim so much that he shot Theo down in broad Amsterdam daylight, slashed his throat, and used another knife to stab a note calling for a fatwa on Ayaan Hirsi Ali (then a member of the Dutch Parliament).

Media Breaking Wind in Iowa...

This is a November 26, 2007 piece. Perhaps another FCP'er already posted it back then. It's worth a read, though.

Hitch might even say Fuckabee, and MFT is still for Rudy...

Hitch is back at it, this time understandably whacking media hype along with the candidates. Iowa is stupid, even more so with CNN timpani booming in the background to their Breaking Political News, every 15 minutes. The same goes for FOXNews.

Here's Hitch: "I was in Des Moines and Ames in the early fall, and I must say that, as small and landlocked and white and rural as Iowa is, I would be happy to give an opening bid in our electoral process to its warm and generous and serious people. But this is not what the caucus racket actually does. What it does is give the whip hand to the moneyed political professionals, to the full-time party hacks and manipulators, to the shady pollsters and the cynical media boosters, and to the supporters of fringe and crackpot candidates... The process might be a good way for Iowa to pick its party convention delegates, though I frankly doubt even that. It is an absolutely terrible way in which to select candidates for the presidency, and it makes the United States look and feel like a banana republic both at home and overseas.

Go Rudy.