Ever been out running around late with friends, maybe during your college years, and you realize you’re not quite sure where you are, and so you dive into a brightly-lit convenience store for a few minutes, just to get your bearings?
Apparently this happens to tiny deer as well. Footage even made the news here (although I had to crib this from an American web page).
Cute is apparently an international language…
Online access remains limited. Saw this, however, in the international print edition of the USA Today, elaborating precisely the problem with the entire American political system (to wit: that its financing system remains corrupt to the core, and virtually every aspect of public policy is now on sale to the highest bidder):
Less than six months into a new term for President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress, some of their heaviest donors are scoring victories on the legislative and regulatory fronts.
From rewrites of the laws concerning bankruptcy and class-action lawsuits to relief for oil, timber, and tobacco interests, the GOP’s business supporters who gave millions of dollars last year are reaping decisions worth billions from a Congress with more Republicans.
The best-case annual return on invested capital within a particularly robust business: maybe forty percent.
The best-case annual return on invested capital when buying political influence: maybe a thousand percent.
You can see where the whole American system might be headed long-term very quickly.
On a related note:
One of the arguments you hear against sending aid to the poorest African nations is that many of their governments are notoriously corrupt kleptocracies.
The near-immediate response which seems to be commonly made by supporters of such aid across Europe: the American government’s a kleptocracy, too, but that doesn’t stop us dealing with them.
Whether that’s a fair comment or not you can judge for yourself. But I’ve now heard it made twice, in two different countries. And neither interviewer flinched.
Still loving Copenhagen, by the way, although I’ve now eaten so many pastries that I could fart pure cane sugar.
Of course, there’s a place up the street where people are paying 200 kroner a head to see that sort of thing.