Things I’ve noticed over the last 8 days in Germany.
- Not many other people seem to be ordering Apfelschorle, but I love it.
- At the Komische Oper: Tall bald man in all yellow suit, with yellow bowler hat, a yellow watch and a pint-sized briefcase. but very friendly.
- Urinating on the street at 6:15, while sober, seems to be acceptable to some.
- Saturday night in Nuremberg city center: large groups of douchey guys in matching t-shirts. Some sort of social ritual I don’t understand–which should be stopped.
- People seem to be noticably rounder in Bavaria than in Berlin, so I fit in better. I guess I chose the wrong city.
- Despite my looking, I did not see Mike Munger visiting from Erlangen on the GBike.
So I come all the way to Berlin and I learn after the fact that Sacha Baron Cohen was in town yesterday. Dammit all to hell.
From the local paper:
“The Government of Saskatchewan recognizes and values diversity in our province,” said Saskatchewan Party MLA Bill Hutchinson, who handed over a proclamation noting the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and two-spirited pride events in Saskatchewan.
Someone I follow on Twitter is hyping The 3/50 Project.
Do not follow this advice. It is bad advice. Here is what I would suggest: The Buy Anything from Anywhere for Any Reason Project. Just like protectionism in international trade is bad, so is protectionism in the local market. Now obviously this isn’t government enforced policy or anything, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s an unneccesary project. (Not to mention it’s crass consumerisim promoted by people who generally criticize consumerism.)
Not to mention that fact that one of the reasons they’re supporting this is because “taxes” are being returned to the community. I’m certainly not going to support something because I support giving more in taxes.
Likewise it’s incorrect to say that “nothing comes home” when people buy online. While it might not provide as much revenue as a mom and pop (ie. overpriced) store to the local economy, there are delivery persons who are local when you order online. Not to mention ordering online allows people to save money, which is better for everyone.
From Guy D, proprietor of Regina’s propaganda page, Regina in Pictures, comes this ridiculous statement:
They have to cross the t’s and dot their i’s, thats how govt’s work. [Link]
For a few years now I’ve been criticizing Regina’s Mosaic, a festival supposing to represent the cultures of Canada. I feel that Mosaic is both racist and ridiculous. Now I’ve found just the person to articulate just these feelings, Neil Bissoondath:
‘[C]ulture’ is a most complex creature; in its essence, it represents the very breath of a people. For the purposes of multiculturalism, the concept has been reduced to the simplest theatre. Canadians, neatly divided into ‘ethnic’ and otherwise, encounter each other’s mosaic tiles mainly at festivals. There’s traditional music, traditional dancing, traditional food at distinctly untraditional prices, all of which is diverting as far as it goes - but such encounters remain at the level of a folkloric Disneyland.
We take a great deal of self-satisfaction from such festivals; they are seen as proof of our open-mindedness, of our welcoming of difference. Yet how easily we forget that none of our ethnic cultures seems to have produced poetry or literature or philosophy worthy of our consideration. How seductive it is, how reassuring, that Greeks are always Zorbas, Ukrainians always Cossacks: we come away with stereotypes reinforced.
Not only are differences highlighted, but individuals are defined by those differences. There are those who find pleasure in playing to the theme, those whose ethnicity ripens with the years. Yet to play the ethnic, deracinated and costumed, is to play the stereotype. It is to abdicate one’s full humanity in favour of one of its exotic features. To accept the role of ethnic is also to accept a gentle marginalization. It is to accept that one will never be just a part of the landscape but always a little apart from it, not quite belonging. [Link]
I need to run out and grab his book Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada.
A Johnson County man is expected to face charges today in Sunday’s slaying of Wichita physician George Tiller, one of a handful of doctors in the United States who performed late-term abortions. [Kansas City Star]
Christians are really terrible people.
Or how I learned to stop thinking and love the government.
From an article passed on by Radley Balko via Twitter, I noticed this comment:
If the city did not have legal grounds to do what they did, I’m sure they would not have done it.
Influenced by the Pirahã’s concept of truth, he slowly lost his Christian faith and became an atheist. He says that he was having serious doubts by 1982, and had lost all faith by 1985 after having spent a year at MIT. He would not tell anyone about his atheism for another 19 years; when he finally did, his marriage ended in divorce and two of his three children broke off all contact. [Wikipedia]
Christians are really terrible people.
One of the main writers is Dustin Black, who was himself raised a Mormon but has since been cured. [Classically Liberal]
However, I’m not entirely convinced he’s cured. He thanked god a lot in his Oscar speech.
I’m against. For this reason alone she’s a terrible pick.
She might not be a racist, but she’s still wrong.
I’m with Ilya Somin and Jason Kuznicki.
I don’t use a radar detector to save me speeding tickets (though it has been known to do that), I use it to warn me of the location of cops. For a reference, see the post below.
As I have repeatedly said, the police in the United States should be considered armed and dangerous. We have overwhelming evidence that they routinely engage in violent assaults on the flimsiest of pretences. Be assured that witnesses are not safe, that innocent bystanders are not safe, and you aren’t even safe in your own home if a police officer knocks on your door. This is why I stay as far away from cops as possible. If you see a police officer your best response is to merely move as far away from them as possible. You should not speak to them, you should not try to help them. You should treat them as you would a rabid dog. Do nothing to stir them up but get as far away from them as you can. [Classically Liberal]
From today’s Leader-Post,
NEWS FLASH: Logical conclusion: “First Nations’ woman abandons newborn baby in Walmart toilet.”
The crime does not rest with April Halkett. It rests with all of us as a society. None of us can wash our hands of this.
We need to take more care of our children and less of our bank balances. Act now, before it is too late!
PATRICK C. A. JOHNSON
The Leader-Post sees this nonsense as fit to print, but not my latest letter to the editor?
The Boston-area transit authority trolley driver who allegedly slammed into another train while text-messaging his girlfriend Friday was hired as a minority because of his transgendered “female-to-male” status and had three speeding tickets on his driving record in recent years, ABC News has learned. [Link]
How is that remotely relevant?
Maggie and John Anderson of Chicago vowed four months ago that for one year, they would try to patronize only black-owned businesses. The “Empowerment Experiment” is the reason John had to suffer for hours with a stomach ache and Maggie no longer gets that brand-name lather when she washes her hair. A grocery trip is a 14-mile odyssey. [Link]
Not only is that economically stupid, it’s racist.
Swedish health authorities have ruled that gender-based abortion is not illegal according to current law and can not therefore be stopped, according to a report by Sveriges Television. [Link]
Why would it be? If “I don’t want a baby” is a legal reason then how would the gender be somehow different?
Naomi Klein might be the least informed supposedly intelligent commentator in the world. - Peter Boettke
Canada has its problems, but England is insane.
As a child I participated in a number games of ring and run. I even managed to have such indiscretions put on my elementary school permanent record when my group of friends decided it would be a good idea to do such things during recess.
As with everything, Wikipedia has a page on it. However, Wikipedia would have you believe that the most common name for such a game is Knock, Knock, Ginger in Canada or Ding-Dong Ditch in the United States.
Now I’m don’t want to question the wisdom of Wikipedia, but who the hell calls it Knock, Knock, Ginger? Seriously. That’s the stupidest name possible. I’m going to assume when Wikipedia says Canada they mean aristocratic Ontario loyalists.
The name is Ring and Run. Simple and literal.
Via Sullivan and Kottke I learn that a former staff writer for (one of my favorite publications) The New Yorker, Dan Baum, has been explaining how he was hired and ‘fired’ from there. Except he’s doing so on Twitter. So that means tweet after tweet after tweet you get the larger story.
I’m sorry, but that’s just stupid. Twitter is a useful communication tool and a good deal of fun, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good medium to tell a story. Baum’s use of Twitter feels like a high school kid desparately trying to fit in, but failing. Just blog normally people.
This reminds me of Radley Balko’s skewering of Ashton Kutcher:
Ashton Kutcher, writing about the founders of Twitter in the latest issue of Time:
Years from now, when historians reflect on the time we are currently living in, the names Biz Stone and Evan Williams will be referenced side by side with the likes of Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, Guglielmo Marconi, Philo Farnsworth, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs — because the creation of Twitter by Stone, 35 (right), Williams, 37, and Jack Dorsey, 32 (not pictured), is as significant and paradigm-shifting as the invention of Morse code, the telephone, radio, television or the personal computer.
Twitter is fun. But it isn’t going to revolutionize the way we communicate any more than Ashton Kutcher has revolutionized the way we play practical jokes on one another.
Ashton Kutcher is more proof that studying hard science doesn’t make you smart.
- Berliners like to have fun with shop names.
- Shopping is continuing in Berlin despite the economy.
- Gunther von Hagen’s latest creation–plastinized sex–is causing more controversy.
- Berlin’s famed Jewish Museum is going to expand.
- Swiss art historian Henri Stierlin says that the Neues Museum’s Nefertiti bust is fake.
- The annual (and planned) May Day riot was the worst in years.
- Nicholas Berggruen plans to open a second art museum in Berlin.
The provincial government will contribute $42.4 million of SaskTel’s $220-million capital budget for 2009 as the first phase of its three-year rural infrastructure program. [Leader-Post, May 6]
