Technically we are breaking the rules today. The clip below is no poem by any conventional measure. But if you conceive of a poem as being something that expresses what you can not say with prose, then it follows that the clip below is poetic. Besides, we feel that it goes well with this week’s essay and rant.
Spring 007 from foopaux and Vimeo.
If this clip meant nothing to you, then maybe you should go watch this one instead.
Tatterdemalion is still going on about a Dressaday post that really got under her skin. So as usual, she is leaving no prisoners. We figured that we would alert the world to this fact as a kind of public service warning.
So take heed and don’t annoy The Tatterdemalion or this will be your fate.
This week’s essay of the week is from The Ape Man and it is called Why moderate Muslims don’t matter. It is a bit of a misleading title since Ape Man’s argument really applies to all religions. Nonetheless, it is a point that we don’t feel is given the proper consideration even in conservative circles.
We highlight so many examples of ridicules regulation over in Europe that it is worth highlighting how they survive. This from a New York Times article called Their House Is Your Trattoria…
Full and happy, we got up to leave and I started to leave a tip. “This isn’t done,” said Emanuele. “These places don’t pay taxes; all the money goes in their pockets.” Do they ever get in trouble with the law? “See those two men in the corner?” he pointed. “They’re police, and they like the food as much as the rest of us.”
The article was all about how the best food in Italy can be found in small places that operate outside the law. Thus ridicules European regulations don’t apply to them.
It seems that there is a trend sweeping the world. People want to see how many historical accepted economical principles can be broken before you have a disaster. China and the US are the trend setters in this regards, but Zimbawe is in a class all by itself.
This is how Mugabe is fighting inflation (this from Letters)…..
Dear Family and Friends,
Zimbabwe has been engulfed in a macabre and tragic frenzy this week and frankly, it beggars belief. Across the country what has been called a “Taskforce” has been unleashed by the government to force shop owners and businesses to cut their prices by 50%. The price cut enforcers are army men in camouflage clothes, police in uniform and large numbers of youth militia.They go from shop to shop and simply pick on items they want reduced : SLASH THAT PRICE, is the phrase we are hearing again and again and then products have to be sold for less than they were purchased for. Shop owners who refuse to cut the prices face arrest and having their goods seized. Some have been assaulted, others had their premises trashed and windows smashed.
The result of it all, inevitably, is rapid collapse and many goods and foods have now become completely unavailable including all the staples which were already difficult to find such as flour, oil, sugar, salt and maize meal. Joining the list now are most other normal household products in daily use such as soap, candles, matches, milk, eggs, margarine, rice, bread and the list grows longer by the hour and day. As the prices are ordered down hordes of people with bagfuls of money swarm behind and buy up all the stocks. Shops are displaying signs announcing that only one of each item may be purchased but entire gangs are moving around in dozens and just cleaning everything out.
I feel sorry for the people of Zimbabwe. But I can’t help find Mugabe’s rule to be an interesting experiment in how many stupid things it is possible to do before you lose power.
I hope the farm regulations in this country never become like those in Europe. To be required to keep a passport on every cow would be horrible. To be required to argue with some stupid bureaucrat about whether a particular cow was alive or dead would be unbearable. This from The Economist’s Correspondent Diary….
On top, for Mr Webb, come the grain-dryer for the contractors’ wheat and barley, (“no rapeseed this year, thank God—in a dry spring it bolts like lettuce”) and bringing in the big bales of straw. And the computer. And the ever-mounting documentation—including a 14-page passport for every beast in the herd—required by DEFRA, the former Ministry of Agriculture. Not to say its bureaucracy:
“Send us details of cow X.”
“It died years ago, we sent you its passport.”
“Still alive in our records.”
Mr Webb e-mailed them a picture of a cow being carried off by a UFO.
This from the blog Pakistan Uncut (although I think the credit should really go to Dawn News service)…..
Islamabad’s densely populated Sector G-6, where Lal Masjid is located, and the areas in its vicinity were jolted by big bangs of grenades, heavy shelling and other heavy arms used in the battle early in the morning.
The entire federal capital was declared a red zone as there was a complete ban on people’s entry and exit from morning to evening.
Life in Islamabad was paralysed and most residents went on rooftops to see clouds of thick black smoke over Lal Masjid.
The fighting was so horrifying that bullets of heavy guns hit many multi-storeyed buildings located four to five kilometres away from Lal Masjid.
Heavy movement of troops continued around Lal Masjid throughout the day with machinegun-fitted armoured personnel carriers and trucks carrying armed troops.
Some of the parents of the children, who did not come out of the mosque or were shifted to other places without informing them, started weeping when they were told that the operation had almost concluded.
I feel sorry for all the poor parents who had little kids trapped in there. Can you imagine seeing a fight like that go on knowing that your kid was trapped in side?
Unfortunately, I think events like this are only going to become more common.
A writer on a Federation of American Scientist Strategic Security Blog thinks he has found a picture of a new Chinese sub on Google Earth. He speculates that it can carry a more advanced sea-launched ballistic missile then previously known Chinese subs.
If it was anyone else, I would probably dismiss the story out of hand. But the Federation of American Scientist usually err on the side of caution. If they say they think they have found a new sub, they probably have.
(h/t Defense Tech: who also have some observations of their own.)
This week’s poem of the week is called The Church of Aalder and it was written by J. Dueck. While we are confident that this poem is a worthy piece of work and worth reading, we must protest Mr. Dueck’s inclusion of a foot note. It is just not proper.
I don’t know what it is about Spengler and Russia. But every time he gets on the subject he lets off a blistering little rant. Even some people who normally hate every word that comes out of Spengler’s mouth liked this one.