The Security Council Veto By Russia And China: US Delegate Expresses Her 'Disgust'...

...(breaking into the local patois) but did ya'll notice that she didn't say she wuz serpriiiized?

Let's go over this agin, realll slow, so even dem folk at the Yew Nork Times kin understand it:


If'n we're beholden to China from here to Sunday, 'cuz they totin' our note, and buildin' our phones, auto parts, and everthin' else,  and hold a bunch of the world's gold, etc. etc. etc., then we have exactly no say about what may happen about lotsa' stuff, overseas or heah. In case yew haven't noticed, the folk what run RedChina are murderers and thieves, happily running great portions of their country as a slave labor camp. And jes' you try to open yerselves up a Baptist Church down the street....wheweee dey put yore lily-white in jail fer that.  These thugs be in the driver's seat, we be in the back of the bus, ya'll.


If'n Russia is the main natchural gas provider to Western Europe, then them Russkies can do whatever they damn well please, include ship freighters full of armaments to that murderer Assad, soze he can murder his citizen'ry more efficiently. Which is exactly what he be doin'--dem folks dyin' like flies, and tain'nt nuthin' Western Europe can do 'bout it, unless they love living in the dark and the cold.

So, folks in Syria whut don't want to live under that murderer Assad are being shot down wholesale in the streets--no Arab Spring nonsense heah', ya'll. Assad did notice how pitiful things ended for Gadafi, and don't intend to join him anytime soon. And he knows the Russkies and RedChinese have got his back, providing diplomatic cover and an endless supply of toys to kill folks whut displease him.

And, in more standard English...

Here in the States, we've been living like drunken sailors since the mid-1960's, running a welfare state here, and running wars in far-flung places so we can establish welfare states there, too. We won't drill our own oil, dig our own coal, make our own steel/cars/clothes/tv's/washing machines. And we've been charging it to our credit card, held by folks like the Chinese and the Saudis. As for the Russians, they're running their house like a criminal racket, and we've been more interested in cashing in than checking to make sure our pockets haven't been picked.

This cannot end well, and things have no hope of getting better unless we change our behavior.

The Biodegradable Animal Byproduct Begins To Actively Interact With Mobile Powered Air Circulation Device: The ChiComs Are Selling All Their US Debt

But, hey, no worries, right?

The Mouse Teaches English: Disney In China

This from The Economist, and it bears a close read.

Lots of descriptive stuff about the experience that Disney offers, but here's the heart of the matter:

Disney’s focus groups find that for Chinese parents, “education means everything”. English, in particular, is viewed as a ticket to the wider world, says Mr Sugerman. Studies commissioned by Disney estimate that the market for children’s English-language education in China is growing by 12% annually and will reach $3.7 billion by 2012. That may be too modest. Adele Mao, an analyst at OLP Global, a research and consulting firm, reckons the market is already nearly $6 billion a year and is growing by 20%.

OS, in part of his life, works with students, teachers, parents and educational institutions. What he tries to convey, with only slow progress, is that parents and kids in places like China are laser-focused on education, especially in English. By contrast, OS deals with native English speakers who are illiterate in their native tongue. His friends who teach in universities are going bald, tearing out their hair over students who cannot write or speak English. Not the immigrant kids--the native born kids.

Disney gets it.

OS hopes more parents here will begin to, lest we end up like this guy:

Ford Sells Volvo To the Chinese

It wasn't pretty. But it was probably inevitable.

The Chinese car maker Geely has signed a deal to buy Volvo from US car giant Ford for $1.8bn (£1.2bn).

The agreement, which was first announced in December, is the biggest overseas purchase by a Chinese car manufacturer.

"Today represents a milestone for Geely," the company's chairman Li Shufu said.

Loss-making Volvo has been on the market since 2008, when Ford put it and several other brands up for sale.

Jaguar and Land Rover in the UK have already been sold to India's Tata Motors.

Ford hopes that the sale of Volvo will help it pay off its debts and focus on its core brands, following a dire period for the global car industry.

The deal represents a loss for Ford, however, having bought Volvo in 1999 for $6.5bn.

Wowee! That's a haircut! But it is indicative, as Robert Peston elegantly points out, of how the ground has shifted under our feet.