Romeo was restless

"Romeo was restless, he was ready to kill. He jumped out the window cause he couldn't sit still. Juliet was waiting with a safety net. He said "Don't bury me cause I'm not dead yet"."

Replace "Romeo" with "Cassanova", "the window" with "of Clemson University", "sit still" with "eat Chiklfil-a", "Juliet", with "Auburn University" and suddenly Elvis Costello becomes relevant again!

You know, now that I think about it, "Mystery Dance" is a pretty apt title for the recruiting process in college athletics.

Hat tip to Mrs. Angus.
  

My Dinner with Angus (and the Lovely Ms. Angus)

So Angus put together a first rate supper here at House d'Angus. Afterwards, the sitting / tea drinking / storytelling began.

Angus and I, affected by the decaf tea no doubt, began to bare our innermost souls. Each of us confessed our deepest, most intimate fear, which interestingly happen to be identical.

Leeches.

Ticks we can deal with, broken bones, fire, all fine. But no freakin' leeches, please. Gives us nightmares.

So...Ms. Angus immediately tells a story of a missionary she had heard about, in Africa. A large leech apparently crawled onto him.

And into his eye.

It latched, and managed to get to the back of his eye. "Like it was going to go into his brain," she said.

Angus and I are staring at her. We have bared our manly vulnerabilities, and she is going to go THERE?

Immersed in her story, she continued: "They had to pour hot sauce into his eye. Hot pepper sauce. He was screaming and thrashing around, and they had to tie him down. They kept putting more pepper sauce into his eye, and he was screaming. But they were afraid the leech would go into his brain."

Angus and I are holding onto each other and making little whimpering sounds.

She goes on. "Finally, the leech couldn't stand it, and the pepper sauce was burning it. So it came out." Seeing us staring at her, she said, "What? What did I say? Did I mention it was going to go into his brain?"

I am going to dream me some tremulous dreams, I'm afraid. Ms. Angus won this round.

In the closet, with a candlestick

Hot Links!

This just in: Water is wet. Who knew?

You can now add driving to the list of things Diego Maradona is not good at.

The world's greatest sausage factory is in full swing.

3 Yikes and I'm out!

Who gives a crap about the dollar?

Abstract: Not me!

People, the dollar is "weak". The dollar has fallen from around 1.32 to the Euro in March to around 1.48 today and from around 100 Yen to the dollar in April to around 89 Yen to the dollar today. In some quarters, this is cause for hand wringing and hysteria.

You know what? I don't care. In fact, I am kind of happy. We dealing with the end of a huge recession, with unemployment still rising. A cheaper dollar will encourage exports and help GDP growth. Plus, there are extremely liquid and thick forward and futures markets for the dollar. If fluctuations threaten your business, you can easily insure against them.

We were faced with a financial crisis and potential meltdown that many thought would rival the Great Depression. Unlike the Fed of the 1930s, the Bernanke Fed (eventually) responded with a battery of unprecedented policy actions that, to my mind, actually helped avert catastrophe. With vanishingly low interest rates here in the States, it is not really a surprise that the dollar is weak.

To those who lament the potential loss of status as an international reserve currency, I say "who cares"?  Suppose the world's governments decided to hold Euros as reserves instead of dollars. The dollar would fall further in the short run and we would lose some seignorage revenues, but the world as we know it would not come to an end. 

There are certainly reasons to be concerned about our growing national debt and what it might do to inflation down the road, especially given that the Bernanke Fed actually crossed into third world territory with its purchases of government debt during the crisis, but "what will it do the special international standing of the dollar" is not one of the reasons for concern in my book at least.

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)

Bill sticks it to Hill (again)

So hot on the heels of the North Koreans calling out his wife, Bill Clinton heads over there to rescue two American journalists who were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the country. There were photo ops and North Korean press releases/propaganda. Pretty much a good time was had by all.

But I don't get it. We are on the outs with North Korea right? Hillary said we shouldn't give them any attention. But yet we did. I am happy for the two women and their families, but I have to say, if I were President I wouldn't have done this.

The White House says Bill went completely as a private citizen, the Northies say he carried a message from Obama. Either way, there is no way he went without the approval of the White House.

What about them firing missiles? What about the sanctions? Why are we giving the Dear Leader a global stage upon which to prance? Because conditions in North Korean jails are too harsh?

Even if the journalists didn't actually enter North Korea as they were alleged to have done, I believe that this circus is too high a price to pay for their release.

I wonder what we will have to do to "win" the release of the next group?

East meets West

Some people shouldn't travel and some people shouldn't have guests:

"It is the sort of offer that most tourists would jump at: an all-expenses paid return visit to a dream destination, as amends for a sleight by an unscrupulous host.

But not Yasuyuki Yamada, who yesterday turned down an offer of a free holiday in Italy as guests of the country's government after he and his fiancee were presented with an enormous bill at a restaurant in Rome earlier this month.

Yamada, 35, thanked Italy's tourism minister, Michela Brambilla, for the offer but said the trip would be a "useless way to spend Italian taxpayers' money," according to the Ansa news agency.

The couple complained to the police after they were charged €700 – including €207 for a pasta dish and a €115 service charge – for lunch at Il Passetto, a 150-year-old restaurant that counts Grace Kelly, Leonardo DiCaprio and Harrison Ford among its regulars, according to Ansa.

The restaurant attempted to blame the couple, saying they had ordered the priciest items on the menu, including oysters and lobster.

Speaking from his home in Tsukuba, near Tokyo, Yamada said: "I offer my thanks, but I have no intention of accepting it, even if a formal invitation arrives."

The restaurant debacle aside, he said he and his fiancee had enjoyed a terrific holiday and planned to return to Italy, but at their own expense.

A few weeks earlier another Japanese couple had complained about Il Passetto after being given a bill for €352 for a modest meal that included a shared main course.

Health inspectors ordered the restaurant to close after Yamada's complaint but it is expected to reopen soon.

Italian authorities were stung into action amid evidence that their country is falling out of favour among Japan's free-spending tourists.

Many have been put off by reports of poor service and inflated prices. About 1 million Japanese are expected to visit Italy this year, less than half the 2.17 million recorded in 1997.In an open letter published last week, Brambilla apologised for the incidents and urged Japanese tourists to give her country a second chance."

Man oh man. What kind of A-hole charges hapless foreigners 700 euro for lunch? And then when caught blames the victim and leaves it to his government to try and make amends?

But at the same time, what kind of simpering sap PAYS the 700 euro lunch bill? Are you kidding me?

I couldn't decide if this was a "culture that is Italy" or "culture that is Japan" post so I simplified the title.

Hat tip to E.F. Hutton

Econtalk: Franchises

Had a fine time talking with good bud Russ Roberts, about franchises, and car sales.

Give a listen....

SuperSklar

Here, courtesy of Bob "Ironman" Lawson, is a short video showcasing the unique comedy genius of the Sklar twins (I am not ashamed to admit that I have actually done this more than a few times):




For any of you not familiar with the Sklars and their late lamented show, Cheap Seats, here are a couple of excellent clips from that series:

A horse is a horse, of course, of course

Here at KPC we've been using the saga of the old lady who swallowed the fly as a parable for the government's actions in this our hour of crisis (as have some of our more tawdry imitators).

When, in the context of the AIG bonus sideshow, a commenter asked me "what the horse would be", I hazarded a guess of government pay scales for everyone.

So this has to to at least be a Shetland pony:

"The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said."

Yikes!

After you cough up $800 Billion, everything else is just chump change

The stimulus bill sure has accomplished one thing; it has raised the bar for what kind of expenditures are big enough to raise eyebrows. President O has followed it up with announcing $75 billion to "stem foreclosures" and serial corporate mendicants GM and Chrysler have asked for another $21 billion in aid.

But I guess we have reverse sticker shock; nobody seems to care about a few measly 10's of billions. That's now officially petty cash.

In fact the AP story linked above about the foreclosure plan repeatedly notes that it's not enough money to "save every home".

Yikes.

A little Christmas nepotism

My neighborhood has a "patron". This guy bought all the property and set up shop with the builder who did most of the original houses. The guy made his daughter the official "interior designer" (she lives in the development as does the patron and (in yet a third house) either his mother or mother in law).

The original builder is long gone and the new builder is the patron's son-in-law. Our HOA had a Christmas lighting contest with a cash prize for first and second place. Mrs. Angus and I have been joking to ourselves about how it's really only a contest for second as the patron will have first prize awarded to himself. At least we thought we were joking until this morning, walking Pluto, we saw the first place sign in the Patron's front yard.

It's like we are still living in Mexico, only without the food, art and history (to be fair without the traffic and crime either).

It's a Wonderful Life, Live

It appears that the actual script of "It's a Wonderful Life" is being reenacted.

Like all adaptations, it is disturbingly different from the original, though. (Think of Brecht's version of Antigone. Whoa....)

Mr. Potter, the guy who "made off" with all that cash. Well, it's Bernie "Madoff," of course.



Leaving LOTS of banks insolvent, just in time for the (Jewish, in this case) holidays.

The angel, Clarence? That's Barack Obama, I think. And that helps us transition to Obama's faith-based health care plan. The question is how they are going to get ALL Americans close enough to the Chosen One to touch the hem of his garment....

(Above: Obama Health Care System At Work)

but will the sea lions swim with you?

When Tyler went to the Galapagos, I asked him if he was going to swim with the sea lions and he paused, reflected, and said "It's not a question of if I will swim with the sea lions, it's a question of whether the sea lions will swim with me".

And lo, it's the same situation now in Berlin where up to 7000 "wild" pigs have apparently taken residence. The government's official position has shocking historical overtones: gun them down where they stand.

Here's an example:

"One pack (called a "sounder") of boars took to hanging out at a playground in Berlin's posh Dahlem district. The chief sow sunbathed on the warm tarmac of a main road, holding up traffic, while her striped sucklings played with children.

"If one piglet had squealed because a kid had held it wrongly, the sow would have attacked," says Mr. Ehlert. He had police cordon off the playground while hunters gunned down the entire sounder in front of shocked residents."

Nice work there Fritz. If something had happened that didn't, then something else would have happened that didn't so lets just save time and execute them. Booyah!!

However, Mr. Ehlert does back away from total porker-cide, if only for reasons of practicality:

"Hunters have shot over 500 boars in urban areas since April, but boar numbers keep rising. Up to 7,000 now live in the city, Mr. Ehlert estimates. "There is no way that hunting can get rid of them all," he says. "Ultimately we must learn to share the city with the swine."

I guess he better hope the pigs feel the same way!

Okies got Wings!

The Candy Man is back

I love the powder tossing Lebron commercial. The music is fantastic and seemed very familiar, so I looked it up and yes, it's Candy Man by Cornershop from their great late 90s album "When I was born for the 7th time". Cornershop is one of the all time favorites at Chez Angus.

Cool beans.

The spot also features the incredible Jaime Nared doin' her thing.

It's Lebron's world people and we are lucky to be living in it.

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).

On pins and needles

French President Sarkozy apparently hasn't heard that all publicity is good publicity. He is threatening to sue a company selling a Sarkozy voodoo doll. Here's the story from the BBC:

"The doll comes with pins and a manual with instructions on how to put the evil eye on the president.

Users can stick the pins into choice quotes from Mr Sarkozy which are printed on the doll.

The quotes on the Sarkozy doll include "work more to earn more" and "get lost, jerk" - which he reportedly said to a bystander who refused to shake his hand at an event last year".

Good stuff, but possibly the best part of the article is the last sentence:

"Voodoo has become associated with zombies and sticking pins into dolls to curse an enemy, but practitioners say this misrepresents their religion".

If it weren't for us gringos, Chavez would be broke

Oil production in Venezueala has falled by 25% since Chavez was first elected, from 3.2 million barrels per day down to 2.4 million, meaning that Venezeula has to a large extent missed out a lot from the recent oil boom. Not only that but,

"About half of this oil is now delivered at a discount to Mr Chavez's friends around Latin America. The 18 nations in his "Petrocaribe" club, founded in 2005, pay Venezuela only 30 per cent of the market price within 90 days, with rest in instalments spread over 25 years."

It turns out that we are his only retail paying customers,

"The other half - 1.2 million barrels per day - goes to America, Venezuela's only genuinely paying customer."

One reason why oil production is down is that Chavez has made the national oil company a footsoldier in his Bolivarian revolution,

"Meanwhile, Mr Chavez has given PDVSA countless new tasks. "The new PDVSA is central to the social battle for the advance of our country," said Rafael Ramirez, the company's president and the minister for petroleum. "We have worked to convert PDVSA into a key element for the social battle."

The company now grows food after Mr Chavez's price controls emptied supermarket shelves of products like milk and eggs. Another branch produces furniture and domestic appliances in an effort to stem the flow of imports. What PDVSA seems unable to do is produce more oil."

The article makes a guess that

"now that prices are falling, Mr Chavez faces huge financial problems. Nobody is sure at what point his government would be unable to pay its bills, but most sources consulted believe this would probably happen if oil falls to $80 a barrel."

FWIW, oil is around $75 a barrel this afternoon.

I liked this photo from the article: