English [language] preservation

The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that the English language is as pure as a crib-house whore. It not only borrows words from other languages; it has on occasion chased other languages down dark alley-ways, clubbed them unconscious and rifled their pockets for new vocabulary.

James Nicoll, March 21, 1992

Books come to life - NZ Books Council

Blues blast from the past.

1967 - Hound Dog Taylor & Little Walter. Harp mic is too loud, but a great recording and 'vid.'

iPhone --> Netbook

Classic Tom Waits

The line "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy," is my 2nd fave TW quote (behind "I wish champagne for my real friends and real pain for my sham friends.")

UK elementary school kids sing "Changes."

The times, they ain't a-changin'

Let’s see if we can add up all of the liberal change this new [i.e. Obama] administration has brought to economic issues so far:

1. The president has appointed the very same people who screwed up the economy to “fix it.”
2. Efforts to increase regulation of the financial sector appear to be in trouble, even as Wall Street continues to game the system.
3. Health care “reform,” with the public option in trouble, is beginning to look like “The Heath Insurance Company Relief Act of 2009.”

Don’t get me wrong. Obama has done a lot of good things and God knows he’s a thousand times better than what we had. Still . . . I can’t say I’m exactly pumped. Original post here.

Still studying the master

After acquiring the Intégrale collection, I am now one of the world's top scrobblers of Django Reinhardt.
Click here if you don't know what I am talking about.

Empty ships signal global economy still shrinking.

The largest ever gathering of maritime ships - bigger than the US and British navies combined - anchor empty and without crew off the coast of Singapore.

A couple of years ago those ships would have been steaming back and forth, going at full speed. But now you've got something like 12 per cent of the world's container ships doing nothing.

Some experts believe the ratio of container ships sitting idle could rise to 25 per cent within two years in an extraordinary downturn that shipping giant Maersk has called a 'crisis of historic dimensions'. Last month the company reported its first half-year loss in its 105-year history.

Read the piece here.

Talk about 6 degrees!

Greens get it.

"We get that (as a wise man once said) the economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way round. We get that the pursuit of economic growth at the expense of environmental security is a fool's bargain that betrays the health and prosperity of future generations of Canadians." From here.