We were at one of the megalomarts in our neck of the woods this afternoon. Not a supermarket we frequent, since there are others in closer proximity, but one we visit on occasion when there’s something on sale, because this particular outlet has a vast section.
We were in the “ethnic foods” aisle, since C wanted [...]
Archive for February, 2009
What is East Europe? Poland (plus Latvia), evidently
Posted in diversion, don't want to be an American idiot, send in the Slavs, tagged Latvia, Polska, stupormarket on 28 February 2009 | 3 Comments »
Pay toilet at 35,000 feet
Posted in travel, tagged Ryanair, Southwest Airlines, toilet humor on 27 February 2009 | 2 Comments »
According to Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair, the Irish-based discount airline may start charging passengers to use the airplane lavatories.
Nothing has been firmly decided, but evidently Irish aviation regulations don’t require carriers to provide toilets to passengers, so Ryanair would be well within its legal right to make passengers feed a coin slot before using [...]
Slovak advertising in the toilet
Posted in diversion, send in the Slavs, tagged Bratislava, Facebook, toilet humor on 26 February 2009 | 1 Comment »
By virtue of leaving Bratislava as my current location on my Facebook account, I get plenty of ads in Slovak. Mostly they’re for mundane things like nightclub events, Slovak e-tailers, books, and so forth.
But one ad that shows up regularly really stands out for its odd composition.
Care to guess what product or service this picture [...]
Down with Wall Street welfare!
Posted in Great Moments in YouTube, don't want to be an American idiot, tagged Virg Bernero, bailout on 21 February 2009 | 1 Comment »
Forget Rick Santelli’s “let them pay rent” diatribe on CNBC on Thursday.
The rant of the week belongs to Lansing, Mich., mayor Virg Bernero, tearing into Wall Street fat cats trying to punish labor, all the while leaving Fox News’ Gregg Jarrett flabbergasted.
Sure, Bernero basically disregards his interviewer’s questions to fly off [...]
Chump change?
Posted in Obamarama, cartoons, don't want to be an American idiot, tagged cartoons, ridiculing the NY Post for sport on 20 February 2009 | 1 Comment »
In an update to the NY Post monkey cartoon saga, the Post has offered a non-apology apology.
Here’s the cop out, in the form of an editorial to run in Friday’s editions:
Wednesday’s Page Six cartoon — caricaturing Monday’s police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut — has created considerable controversy.
It shows two police officers standing over [...]
Students’ sense of entitlement
Posted in acamademia, tagged teach on 19 February 2009 | 1 Comment »
The most popular story of the moment on the NYT is a piece about how students’ expectations that their hard work will earn them an A or B doesn’t always mesh with the reality of the grades they earn.
This is hardly news to anyone who has assigned grades at a university (or, I imagine, at [...]
The New York Post and the Chump
Posted in Obamarama, cartoons, don't want to be an American idiot, tagged cartoons, ridiculing the NY Post for sport on 18 February 2009 | 4 Comments »
Taking a break from outlining a paper on political cartoons, I surfed to the NYT and discovered … a controversy about a political cartoon.
The offending image in question appeared in today’s New York Post, and tried to make a tawdry connection between the newly passed stimulus package and the pet chimpanzee that recently had to [...]
Soviet veterans: The Americans will never win in Afghanistan
Posted in don't want to be an American idiot, tagged Afghanistan, Cold War on 14 February 2009 | Leave a Comment »
An interesting story in Sme about the views of Soviet veterans on the current American conflict in Afghanistan.
Since I don’t expect this story to appear in the NYT or any other English-language media, I’ve taken the liberty of translating it below.
MOSCOW. Soviet veterans, recalling the 20th anniversary of the USSR’s defeat in Afghanistan, warned the United [...]
European disunion
Posted in possible homes in exile, send in the Slavs, tagged EU, Klaus, Sarkozy on 14 February 2009 | Leave a Comment »
The NYT has an interesting piece about the ongoing spats between France and the Czech Republic, or more specifically about the pissing match between French president Nicholas Sarkozy, the previous holder of the rotating EU presidency, and his Czech counterpart Václav Klaus, the current head of the EU presidency.
Essentially, the piece portrays Sarkozy as contemptuous [...]
Male enhancement
Posted in diversion, don't want to be an American idiot, tagged "male enhancement", ExtenZe on 14 February 2009 | 1 Comment »
Joe Posnanski, who normally blogs about more prosaic things like baseball, offers the greatest description/analysis ever of ExtenZe, the “male enhancement” product that doesn’t actually specify how it enhances males.
Reading this makes me feel somehow slightly vindicated for all the ExtenZe/Enzyte/Viagra commercials the TiVo catches when it records sci-fi programs for C. (By contrast, I’m [...]
