Mission Impossible Squirrel

CBL Version:


Reggae MI version:


Nod to the LMM

Ghost Busters!

Christopher Hitchens has a great post on Hugo Chavez's unseemly man crush on the cadaver of Simon Bolivar.

Money quote:

"Chavez, in other words, is very close to the climactic moment when he will announce that he is a poached egg and that he requires a very large piece of buttered toast so that he can lie down and take a soothing nap."

Earth day special: the bravest eco-warriors

No, people, it's not the Greenpeace dudes ramming whaling boats with their rubber dinghies. It's not the folks who chain themselves to bulldozers at construction sites.

It's the bicyclists of Mexico City!

Mrs. A and I lived in that lovely metropolis for 2+ years and I would rather be slathered with honey and walk through a grizzly bear exhibit than cycle on the streets of Chilangolandia!

"every Ecobici user interviewed said they are gravely concerned about drivers who don't follow rules that allow cyclists to have their own lane. They told of near misses with buses, aggressive drivers leaning on their horns, cars on sidewalks, cars going the wrong way on one-way streets, virtual mayhem at traffic circles.

"Nobody respects the bicyclist," said Gustavo Gonzalez, slipping an Ecobici from a downtown rack. "But I like it. It's a very good program. I wish they'd extend it further.""

So on this earth day let us salute Gustavo Gonzalez and his bike riding cuates: the bravest eco-warriors ever.

A bad day to be in Copenhagen

Consummate statesmen Robert Mugabe and Hugo Chavez addressed the climate change conference.

YIKES!!

Mugabe was as incisive as ever:

"Why is the guilty north not showing the same fundamentalist spirit it exhibits in our developing countries on human rights matters on this more menacing threat of climate change?"

And Chavez too got right to the heart of the matter:

"If the climate was a bank, they would have already saved it."

Now that things have devolved to a circus, why not go all the way and have Ahmadinejad say a few words?

What's that? He's on the schedule for tomorrow?

Holy Crap!

Does ICE stand for "Idiots Couldn't Explain"?

Hans Joachim Keil is a U.S. citizen. Demonstrably. He has a passport. He served in the U.S. Air Force.

But he was arrested in Branson, MO by the intrepid folks at ICE. They said he was using a false passport.

Okay, maybe. ICE was worried about human trafficking, and there was a Western Samoan dance troupe there. (Here is their web site. Some pretty studly guys. Tommy the Brit: You are welcome!) There was some kind of investigation. So it wasn't just made up.

Except....except that ICE held Keil for three months. Are our records so bad that it takes three months to check on a passport? (He wasn't in jail, but he couldn't leave Branson. Is that "trailer park arrest," like house arrest but Branson style?

Then, Kiel was released, having never been formally charged. He is now trying to sue the gubmint (here is the actual complaint, listing the facts and the allegation; good luck with that...)

He is (pauses) A. US. CITIZEN. ICE should not be able to harass him, not in any way. But they did. And they could do it to you. If you say, "But I'm a U.S. citizen!" they will simply question your passport.

Ugh. Here is a claim that there was some kind of problem with the application for the passport, in 1967. But then why release him, and say he IS a U.S. citizen? It's the 90 days thing that is strange.

In December 2008, a year ago, the US Attorney's office in Springfield, MO filed a motion essentially certifying (get this) that Kiel was and always had been a U.S. citizen! No, really.

Oh, and one more thing: Keil is the Western Samoa Ambassador to America. If he does NOT have a U.S. passport, then he has diplomatic immunity. He can be deported, but under no circumstances can he be detained.

Bottom line: there are only two possibilities...Keil has, or does not have, a valid U.S. passport. If he does, then he is a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil and ICE can't touch him. If he does NOT, then he is a duly appointed ambassador of a foreign nation, on formal diplomatic business, and the ICE CAN'T TOUCH HIM.

The only thing I can think of is that Ambassador Kiel is a big d**khead, and the ICE is just harrassing him for bureaucratic recreation. But if the ICE can use "is a known d**khead" as an excuse to hold you for three months, then...well, Angus and I need to go into hiding!

(Nod: Reason Brickbats)

No Country for Old Women

Patrick provides some useful info on the Nanny State GB.

Tommy, be careful, honey. Your mouth is going to get you in trouble over there....

Stir Crazy

Meanwhile, back in Honduras, deposed president Marvelous Mel Zelaya remains hunkered down in the Brazilian embassy, some measure of calm seems to be returning to the capital, and the two sides can't even agree on what to talk about if they ever do talk. 

Basically, the current regime is about 65% of the way to successfully filibustering its way to the new elections.

Living in the embassy under tough conditions seems to be taking its toll on Mel as he is claiming that "Israeli mercenaries" are attacking him with radiation and toxic gasses!

Given earlier reports that Mel's crew was subsisting on rice and beans and had no AC or running water, I think those toxic gasses might not have been Israeli in origin.

The Devil went down to .....Lima?

looking for a pageant to win.

One thing I really enjoy about Latin America is the intense national rivalries and even hatreds between the component countries. Which, to Mrs. Angus's dismay, I love to stir up. When in rural Peru, I'd ask "I had this great drink in Chile called Pisco, do you guys have that here?" and sit back and enjoy the show (works just as good in Chile, by the way).

Well, Bolivia and Peru are at it about who own the intellectual and historical property rights over a giant female devil costume:

A diplomatic storm is brewing between Peru and Bolivia. Bolivia's president has accused Peru of thievery. Peru's Congress issued a bristling denial. Bolivian diplomats are threatening to take the dispute to an international tribunal at The Hague.

The two Andean neighbors are tussling over a costume in the Miss Universe pageant.

Last week, in the event's national-costume competition, Peru's candidate, Karen Schwarz, wore an elaborately embroidered outfit with a massive horned headpiece. It was inspired by practitioners of a timeless Andean ritual known as La Diablada, the Devil's Dance.

Bolivia's Culture Minister Pablo Groux said what's really fiendish about the costume is that it's a rip-off of Bolivian culture. He maintains La Diablada originated in the 12,000-foot-high Bolivian city of Oruro and that Peru's imitation is threatening the national brand -- and the tourist industry. Bolivia formally protested to Peru's government and says it has protested to the Miss Universe pageant. 

Perhaps the best part of the whole story is the name of the Peruvian candidate: Karen Schwartz??? Are you kidding me??

The second best part of the article is that a Peruvian newspaper researched the issued and found that Chile first used the costume in a Miss Universe contest in 1983.

Chile!! That most hated of countries to a Bolivian. Took their coastline and took their costume.

(of course, all this was a tempest in a teapot because Miss Venezuela won the contest for the second year in a row and the 6th time overall)

Overcompensation?

Uncle Sam does NOT believe in photoshop

I thought this administration was cutting edge and tech savvy. You know, like cool and all.

Guess not as the "White House Military Office" approved flying a 747 low over Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty while being trailed by a fighter plane without letting the public know what was going on.

Why in the hell would they do something so sadistic?

"An administration official said the purpose of the photo op was to update file photos of the president's plane near the Lady Liberty."

YIKES!!!!

Air Force 1 has glamor shots? Really? And now is a good time to take them?

Here's how the photos were taken:

"An Air Force combat photographer took pictures from one of the fighter jets, administration officials said."

I'm sorry, a WHAT??

"Hello I'm Lance O'Reilly, Air Force combat photographer at your service!"

Dear President Obama. I have some ideas about budget cuts for you!

From the department of... WTF?

I got the following email from the Dean's office yesterday:

I want to make you aware of two recent classroom disruptions. On Wednesday afternoon, two groups of men entered two large adjacent lecture rooms in Dale Hall during classes. Seven to eight men entered each room, walked in a uniform manner and sat down in unison in seats, and two men stood at the back doors to the classrooms. They refused to leave when requested to do so by the instructor and eventually left the room in the same manner as they entered it. OUPD is investigating this matter.

For the curious, OUPD is the University of Oklahoma Police Department (yes we abbreviate the University of Oklahoma as OU 'round here!).

Gestapo? PAH! Girly Men....

One of the radio shows I am on each week sometimes gets complaints, and since I am in the studio I get to hear the cross-talk between producer and host. What surprises me most is the little tiny distinctions that really matter to listeners.

Within the last month, I heard the following conversation:

PRODUCER: "You really made a guy mad yesterday. A Russian guy. You were talking about Russians, and during that Russian music, you said something about the Gestapo."

HOST: (Honestly confused) "I was justing making the point that many totalitarian regimes have disappeared. We weren't just talking about Russia. In fact, I...."

PRODUCER: (interrupting) "Well, he just thought you should have said KGB."

HOST: (Even more confused) "You mean he just wanted me to get the correct thuggish sercret police name? He just wanted me to say KGB instead of Gestapo?"

PRODUCER: "Yeah, he thought the KGB was much worse than the Gestapo. And he seemed kind of proud of that. He was going for the 'Germans were just girly men, compared to the KGB.'"

HOST: (Staring, shakes head slowly)

John Staddon on Traffic Signs

My good friend, and Libertarian fellow traveller, John Staddon gives the straight dope on traffic signs in the U.S.



For the rest of the story, including a link to J-Stad's Atlantic Monthly article, "Distracting Ms. Daisy, check this out.

(Lagniappe: J-Stad on smoking....)

A French View of the Financial Crisis

From the inimitable Bernard-Henri (God is dead but my hair is perfect) Levy in The New Republic:

"Is man a predator of man? Does the fear of this predator slumber within us? An anxiety, formerly concealed by a poorly applied varnish of civilization, about a state of nature that is re-emerging? Consider the princes of finance, once so polite, so complicit, so civilized, who have been facing each other at the edge of the abyss, waiting to see who will be the next to fall; consider that dance of wolves, the ferocious ballet of battered predators sniffing at each other, detecting the scent of death on their neighbors, coveting their remains; consider the tango of white-hot hate that has been discreetly called the "drying up of interbank credit."

The scent of execution and of collective suicide has been circulating in the middle of the pack.

It is as though we have been watching a deadly dance around a fire, where those same people who, through their irresponsibility, devastating egoism and, it must be said, intelligence, turned mad and led the financial world toward implosion, thinking that they could pull themselves out of the furnace by pushing the others in first.

And the result has been, for all of us, a suspended apocalypse, in which it is easy to lay out the implacable chain of consequences, but also a situation in which no one knows how to defuse the mechanism. How to respond if account holders attempt to withdraw cash that the banks no longer have? How should we react if electrical and gas utilities default on payment to their employees? What will happen when an angry mob of ruined savers, mainstream borrowers harassed by those who pressured them to go into debt in the first place, and the desperate and unemployed erupt in protest and--according to a scenario that we in France know too well--shout their rage beneath the windows of the speculators, loan sharks and others with golden parachutes?"

Wow, so drugs are legal in France eh?

Hat tip to Felix Salmon

PS: Here's a shot of Bernie and his bride at Yves St. Laurent's funeral (Bernie is the one wearing shades).

Redemption: yer doin' it wrong

Yahoo sports, September 17th: Miles searching for redemption with Celtics

Yahoo sports, September 19th: Celtics F Miles suspended 10 games

Ah yes, redemption takes a detour via violation of the league's anti drug rules.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.....

So I'm reading Mark Thoma's blog and I see a link to KathyG. Hmmm, I say, I've seen her ripping Megan McArdle, maybe I should check out her blog. So I do and I find a newish post ripping Megan and the Atlantic for only having one female blogger. Kathy says:

How about, say, the brilliant Echidne of the Snakes? The Atlantic's sole female blogger and supposed expert on economics, Megan McArdle, consistently embarrasses The Atlantic and herself by the many rudimentary errors about economics she makes.....

But instead of, or in addition to, McArdle, they could have a real live Ph.D.-wielding economist who actually knows what the f**k she's talking about! Imagine that! In addition to her economic expertise, Echidne is a damned good writer. Even though she grew up in (I believe) Finland and English isn't her first language, Echidne, even on her worst day, writes with wit, verve, and style. In English. Whereas McArdle would be hard-pressed to write her way out of a paper bag. In English.

Wow, I say, this Echidne must be great. So I go check her blog and I find this:

Wouldn't peace be nice right about now? We could then focus on arguing about all the nitty-gritty stuff, such as rebuilding the dangerous infrastructure of this country. Of course Banana Republics require a dangerous infrastructure and as a Banana Republic seems to be on the plank of the Republican Party as the future of this country I guess that we won't see those bridges fixed. Could someone tell me, please, how much work has been done since last summer's bridge collapse? And how much money has been spent in Iraq during the same time frame?

On the other hand of the scales of victory, there is a new Kentucky Fried Chicken store in Fallujah. So the troops can come home now and start fixing the bridges, right? I love being a naive goddess.

WTF?? First some crazy unsubstantiated raving:

America's infrastructure is "dangerous"?

Republicans want America to be a "banana republic"?

Then, though, the laziness:

"Could someone tell me please how much work has been done.... and how much money has been spent in Iraq?"

Wow, isn't that your whole point? Why don't you look it up and tell us. And while you are at it, why don't you unpack for us your implicit argument that every dollar of war spending would instead flow to infrastructure if there was peace, and that the troops would be building bridges here if not fighting there.

Now to be fair, a lot of bloggers are lazy (including me!) so I guess I'm not ripping Echidne, but rather KathyG for suggesting the "naive goddess" as an brilliant economic expert who's being kept from blogging at the Atlantic only by gender bias. I searched a fair amount of the Echidne blog and the post I report is quite representative of the commentary there.

All that said, I agree with Kathy that it is ridiculous that there is only one woman blogger at the Atlantic. I nominate Great Satan's Girlfriend!

Saturday Links

Hey Rafa Nadal is blogging!!

The funniest sentence I've read in a long time is in this post. Can you figure out which one?

Tyler sez WALL-E is too good for its own good.

Greg Mankiw apparently doesn't get out much.

Like Thomas Edison, this guy knows 10,000 things that don't make good pants!

And this helped you exactly how???

In 2004, well known coach choker Latrell Sprewell spurned a 3 year 20 million $ plus contract from the Minnesota T-Wolves as woefully insufficient saying that "I have my family to feed" (you can buy the t-shirt here).

He has been out of the league since the end of that season.

Today, karma came calling again with the news that Spree's house is being repossessed. His 70 foot yacht was sold off at auction back in January.

This is pretty close to Darwin award behavior, innit?

Hat tip to TC

Assorted Links

1. Econ Journal Watch Watch!! The new issue is here. It's a good'n people.

2. Christopher Hitchens doesn't like Huckabee too much either.

3. What goes on during sabbaticals: the inside scoop.

4. The Australian Open is heating up. Seriously, it's a great tourney this year.

5. DO NOT mess with Ringo!