Welcome to America, You No-Goodnik Foreign Guy!
We had a visiting Head of State hanging around here recently. It was this fellow, with the impossible name of (let me look it up) President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Someone invited him to speak at a university and the UN, and then everyone took all opportunities to fume and bluster, and insult the man at every turn. This struck me as odd, jingoistic, and just plain impolite behavior. As it is, we always have to have someone to demonize and serve as target for our rattling sabers. This fellow is a good one: he's simply not ready for Prime-Time, is he? Just look at him -- he's short and unattractive with a lousy sense of fashion, and can't even grow a decent beard. As it is, those same things can (and have been) said about me! The good news is that no one gives a flip in my case. I think the most unfortunate aspect was listening to the translators... I don't think any of his views had a chance of coming across properly.

Let me be clear -- I'm not defending those views. I don't really know what they are in any depth. Sure, I've heard the two or three things he's said that make him sound villainous and ignorant. I'll go along with that... he must be a bad guy so please note that I don't support terrorists (lest anyone wish me a cell in a secret prison). He just doesn't seem as scary as he should to be the Lex Luthor to GWB's Superman.

We didn't let him visit Ground Zero either. I was surprised... I thought Rudy (let me look up the spelling again) Giuliani would have fought tooth and nail for that. That's his big thing, bringing up 911 in every other sentence. He looked pretty good at that time. Of course, anyone who wasn't wearing a turban or a shemagh made our hearts swell back then. Rudy could have yelled at him through a bullhorn (interrupted only by cell phone calls from the Mrs). By the way, what the heck was that supposed to prove... that he didn't know how or when to use his voicemail box? Odd.

I might be prejudiced in favor of Iran. I worked with a quite superior fellow who was from that country. He was intelligent, talented, and patient. He saved my work-a-day butt on more than one occasion. I'll remember him fondly if the chicken hawks manage to expand the war in the direction of his homeland.

Caveat emptor (buyer beware)
So, what's the deal with China? Why do they keep sending us junk that has to be recalled all of the time? The mind reels with it... let's see, something that gave our pets kidney failure -- that was nice. Tires that fall apart, little magnets posing a danger to tots, and now everything is coated in lead paint! And that's not to mention some of the scams they perpetrate on each other. I heard some of them grind up cardboard and make egg rolls or something. Yum. There also was a factory repackaging used chopsticks without processing or sterilizing them in any way. Double yum. Isn't this the civilization that invented all kinds of cool stuff? Gunpowder, paper, the compass, etc. Now they seem to like rip-offs best of all.

Personally, I think the quality of a lot of things has gone downhill. No big revelation there. It's a little sad... when I buy something at Walmart I expect it to fall apart in short order. And yes, I shop at Walmart on those rare occasions when I need an appliance or the like. I should be boycotting the place as it's one of the symbols of things I object to... but it's just so convenient. Some day I expect all commercial establishments to be under the Walmart umbrella anyway (the umbrella is another Chinese invention by the way).

We had a very frustrating time trying to buy a video camera a while back. I wrote a flame to the companies involved (Circuit City and Hitachi). I'll spare the details (including the $80.99 "restocking fee"), but the proverbial straw was as follows: "I was eventually scouring the manual for any scrap of information and came across this notation on page 139: 'Note: Images recorded on DVD-R disc cannot be edited on the software provided with this DVD video camera/recorder.'" What kind of sense does that make? I have no idea if the Chinese were involved.

Oh well, at least Walmart has a liberal return policy.