Ask and you shall receive

I was thinking to myself, I've been light with the blogging today, so then I thought, world, give me something to blog about, and then world said to me, lo, behold these articles in your bookmarked newspapers and you shall have much to say. And I responded, thanks be to world, and thanks be to the strange and wondrous beasts with their wild and odd ways that inhabit it. And it was good.

First up from the NYT, an article that is one part hoax (in my opinion, these jokers with their matress are just pulling a fast one on the reporter, or the reporter is 'in' on the gag), and two parts what happens to a market when scarcity and rent control collide. Nasty stuff happens, people behave irrationally, and getting a place to live becomes a matter of who you know and not the long green.Next on my tour through newspaper lands this from WaPO said unto me, blog about the sheer unattractiveness of the muslim 'rent-a-mob'. There may have been one, maybe two, not more than four spontaneous demonstrations coming from that part of the world in reaction to something that happened in the west, but all others are just Saudi Wahabbis, or Persian Mullahs, spreading around oil money to buy a bunch of fist waving, AK-toting, occaisonally tooth having men to scream and yell and burn effigies and flags for the cameras. The best thing the west could do in response would be to corner the market on effigies and flags (somehow we could undercut the Chinese, it'd be difficult, but with enough determination and innovation it's possible).

Off to merry old England and in the Telegraph we get a Brit's eye view of the global headquarters of McDonalds in Illinois. It's your usual stranger in a strange land, but no hardcore McBashing to be had, I admire his restraint (and am sure most other London rags wouldn't have been so restrained)

Keeping up with the foreigners in America theme, Mainichi Daily News has an article describing life for Japanese students in America and their need to keep up with Japanese students at home in language (with all day Saturday school) while taking the rest of their classes in English at American high schools (and, big surprise, American teacher's are easier and have less avenues of discipline available to them, oh and Americans burp loudly and rudely).
(no image to go with this article, the actual article didn't have one, and well, the kind of pictures that pop up when you google 'japanese schoolgirls' aren't really appropriate now are they)


Finally, my hometown dog trainer prints something not destined for wrapping fish or the bottom of birdcages or training puppies, they have a good size feature article (with pictures, but not the really good pictures) of nouvelle burlesque goddess Dita Von Teese. Ignoring her unfortunate (some might say inexplicable) taste in matrimonial partners, she's Dita Von (freakin') Teese.

Something to chew on, now go forth and multiply, spread the word with links or comments, or just ignore all of this, it's all the same to me (OK, not really, but I can pretend to not care that I'm slipping down the TTLB food chain).