Asians seem so harmless that it's really difficult to take the astoundingly offensive article, "Why I Hate Blacks," by self-declared Asian Supremacist (first time I've heard the term) Kenneth Eng (perhaps a cousin twenty times removed) seriously. It's so pitiful it's funny. And now we have to go about passing a San Francisco resolution just to make up for it. Save the paper and trees involved in such officialdom and just TP this guy's house once, folks.

Not sure what to make of the increasing vanity of my generation, however. I don't see it as being prevalent even at places like Eastman and Yale (perhaps Chip would ahem at Juilliard and I at Hahvahd ;), but how could I when I'm an illustrative representative? Might not the same thing be happening in China with the one-child-per-family deal?

So you don't just get fined if you don't vote in Belgium. If you're a student, you're normally required to work the polls. Won't they need more immigrants to work them this year, with students going into exams?

world press photos of the year

Much of the world we inhabit is nothing like what we know, is it? And yet even in horror there is beauty, and in ugliness there is extraordinary love.

I still really, really want to visit Beirut.

Happy Chinese New Year, folks! With apologies to the 125 people reported injured by fireworks in Beijing, including one person who lost their eyes. Partying always has its price.

Especially in a nation of pyromaniacs.

A big HAH to all of you who dare to contaminate your tea with milk: Milk may counteract the healthful effects of tea.

Sunday brunch in Schoen Place after taking the scenic route through brilliant snow-covered Rochester. Warming xocolatl and berry white tea at the natural foods store. Then sweet heavenly goodness at Simply Crêpes. Who could ask for more?

the deep

Massive lakes that fill and drain rapidly under Antarctica, so deep they're not affected by climate change. What an awesome world we inhabit.

another reason PCs suck?

Dell laptop burns down farmhouse. But... Apples have a recent history of going up in smoke as well, so...

who's got the best rack?

Did a man or women append the comment, "The good news is, breast size is increasing across generations," to the news that "The biggest breasts in Europe are found in Britain, where one in every six women prides herself on cup D or larger. The Danes and the Dutch are the runners-up. Belgian women come in fourth. Only little more than half of the Belgian women wear a bra sized bigger than B."

absurdity

Now that she's shocked the world by being dead, Anna Nicole Smith has everyone in the world coming forward and claiming they've dated and getting into scuffles about it. I wonder what precisely it is about a woman that would bring men to this point.

Are your caretakers at the hospital really as nice as they seem?

Oh, and the next time you think about redeveloping Olmstead's Central Park, just remember that the land costs $627 million an acre, which is "26% more than the entire 2006 U.S. defense budget, or 7 million times the price of Boardwalk and Park Place together."

apocalypse

The Klan is growing, fueled by and fueling anti-immigrant sentiment. Chapters grew 63% between 2000 and 2005 after a drop through the 90's. An ironic form of comfort against the accusation that I was deserting my country by moving abroad until it got better.

Software may well start watching all our (just as I suspected) unwatched surveillance camera feeds, turning America into a true surveillance society. Thanks to London for taking the lead... but it was the US that destroyed itself long before in V for Vendetta.

Our government was brilliant enough to ship over $4 billion in cash, weighing 363 tons, on military aircraft to Iraq in 2003 and 2004 at the request of the Iraqi minister of finance. "'Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?'.... On December 12, 2003, $1.5 billion was shipped to Iraq, initially 'the largest pay out of U.S. currency in Fed history'... It was followed by more than $2.4 billion on June 22, 2004, and $1.6 billion three days later." More irony: I and my fellow gamblers were debating at Casino Royale whether there was really $1 million in dollar bills in the educational display box at the RMSC's new Moneyville exhibit. Thanks to that instructive experience, I now actually have a visual image of how these shipments might appear.

13 computers manage global internet traffic (according to who?) and were briefly overwhelmed by hackers. The attacks continue.

Just some tidbits to brighten everyone's day.

45,000 missing

So much for Brussels being rated the best airport in Europe. Last year over 45,000 suitcases went missing. Where the hell could all those suitcases have gone? You can't just miss 45,000 suitcases lying around in some corner. The bending of the space-time continuum is clearly at work here.