The Coalition of the Willing

So, we gave Estonia $114,000,000 and, completely unrelated of course, they pledged troops to Operation Freedom Fries (or whatever it's called).

They sent 55 people.

55. Fifty-five.

That's $2,072,727.27 per person.

( My response )

Back in 1998

Many years ago, shortly before meeting with Senor Gaspar Antonio Xiu, I was travelling through the Yucatan with two travelling companions. At one point, we went our three separate ways for a short while/ When I returned to the small hotel we were staying in in Merida, I was informed by reynard52 that we had been invited to visit a small village where they spoke only Mayan.

When the last of our group returned, we had the following conversation:
Him: So, what are we going to do tomorrow?
Me: Oh! Great news! We've been invited to a small village where they only speak Mayan!
Him: Why would we want to go to a small village where they only speak Mayan?
Me: (bewildered) Ummm....because it's a small village where they only speak Mayan!

More on Japanese stuff

It seems there's a lot of Japanese references in friend's livejournals in the last couple of days. I'm not quite sure why this should be, but after amritarosa's post about the pet photography, and the English translations therein, I was reminded of this site which is dedicated to documenting bad or weird translations from Japanese to English.

My favorite is this T-shirt: http://www.engrish.com/clothing/source/hate.html

I like this one too

http://www.engrish.com/buildings/source/fack.html

Though it does remind me of a certain line in a Tom Lehrer song about the Boy Scouts...

"At G-8 meeting, Bush looks ahead "

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/06/02/MN297044.DTL

" U.S. wants help from other nations in fighting nuclear proliferation in Iran, North Korea "

They are helping him. They are helping him by giving him excellent advice (which he is ignoring), such as:
1. Agree to speak directly to North Korea, instead of this childish "tell Japan to tell North Korea that we want them to get rid of their weapons"
2. Stop threatening to invade everyone who doesn't have nuclear weapons to defend themselves.

Asshole. Idiot. I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again, but "America Uber Alles" is not a good long-term foreign policy.