Quote from LA Times Columnist

"Frankly, I don't know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we're number one.

There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on Macbeth. The three of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab.

You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words."

--Columnist Burt Prelutsky, LA Times

Ah, so!

Confucius say,
"If you are in a book store and cannot find the book for which you search, you are obviously in the...

Woosh!

Never smash a very hot can of WD40 with a shovel!

Look at the can before he hit it. It was smoldering in the ashes of his little fire. I remember throwing my neighbor's hair dresser mom's hair spray cans in the leaf fires we used to burn. Luckily, we never had to initiate this! We were always very far away!

Tom

Going after your retirement savings

"The state tends to expand in proportion to its means of existence and to live beyond its means, and these are, in the last analysis, nothing but the substance of the people. Woe to the people that cannot limit the sphere of action of the state! Freedom, private enterprise, wealth, happiness, independence, personal dignity, all vanish."
--French economist Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

"People unfit for freedom -- who cannot do much with it -- are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a 'have' type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a 'have not' type of self."
--writer and philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

"The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians."
--British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

From Investors Business Daily

You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.

BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."

In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement years.

They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.

This "conversion" may start out as an optional choice, though you are already free to buy Treasury bonds whenever you want. But as Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker Web site reports: "'Choices' have a funny way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open market — so they will effectively tax you by forcing your 'retirement' money to buy them."

Chocolate weapons

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Ex-bankers sign up as real-life James Bonds

MI6 is recruiting former bankers in the City of London as the intelligence agency seeks out a new generation of spies.

The financial crisis has proved fertile ground for the British Secret Intelligence Service, with some well-travelled and well-heeled individuals turning away from banking in favour of serving their country.

Despite the pay cut, the service is able to play on its James Bond image of glamour and sophistication and offers the opportunity to travel to far-flung destinations in its intelligence-gathering role.

MI6's head of recruitment, who likes to be known simply as "John," said there had been "a lot of people in the city applying to join us" in the past 18 months.

Vancouver Sun

Babo hak-seng!

Foul-Mouthed Math Teacher Earns Praises From Students

"If it were in the U.S., he would be probably in jail for doing so. But yeah, it's Korea. "

Economics, yo!

Keynes vs Hayek rappin'

Eggwatchers

The egg timer that entertains you.

How to Fall 35,000 Feet - And Survive

From Popular Mechanics:

Things are bad. But now’s the time to focus on the good news. (Yes, it goes beyond surviving the destruction of your aircraft.) Although gravity is against you, another force is working in your favor: time. Believe it or not, you’re better off up here than if you’d slipped from the balcony of your high-rise hotel room after one too many drinks last night.

Or at least you will be. Oxygen is scarce at these heights. By now, hypoxia is starting to set in. You’ll be unconscious soon, and you’ll cannonball at least a mile before waking up again. When that happens, remember what you are about to read. The ground, after all, is your next destination.