Instant karma's gonna get you

From a Fox News story:

300 Irate Chinese Taxi Drivers on Strike Smash Cars, Demand Crackdown on Unlicensed Cabs

Sunday, November 30, 2008

BEIJING — About 300 taxi drivers went on strike in a southern Chinese city, smashing cars and demanding a crackdown on unlicensed taxis in the latest protest against illegal taxi competition in China.

Hundreds of cab drivers gathered Saturday in front of government buildings in Chaozhou, a city in Guangdong province, said an official Sunday from the Chaozhou city government who would only give his surname, Chen.

More than 200 taxis were parked in front of the gate of a government office as drivers sought greater enforcement against unlicensed taxis, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Excuse me while I replace the batteries in my irony meter.

In the country notorious for unlicensed knock-offs and counterfeits of products invented and developed in the West, the country in which one can buy in open market stalls bootleg copies of software ranging from Adobe Photoshop, to Microsoft Office (costing hundreds of dollars), to expensive manufacturing and CAD/CAM software (costing tens of thousands of dollars), in the country which has refused to work with US and European patent, trademark, and copyright agents. . . cab drivers are rioting and destroying private property because they want their government to crack down on the unregistered cabs, which is estimated at approximately 5% of the current transportation force.

I'm just saying, you know?

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Eat

100 Things to Do Before You Die' Co-Author Dies at 47

From Fox News:

Dave Freeman, co-author of "100 Things to Do Before You Die," a travel guide and ode to odd adventures that inspired readers and imitators, died after hitting his head in a fall at his home. He was 47.

Freeman died Aug. 17 after the fall at his Venice home, his father, Roy Freeman, told the Los Angeles Times on Monday.

An advertising agency executive, Freeman co-wrote the 1999 book subtitled "Travel Events You Just Can't Miss" with Neil Teplica. It was based on the Web site whatsgoingon.com, which the pair ran together from 1996 to 2001.

"This life is a short journey," the book says. "How can you make sure you fill it with the most fun and that you visit all the coolest places on earth before you pack those bags for the very last time?"

Freeman's relatives said he visited about half the places on his list before he died, and either he or Teplica had been to nearly all of them.

Hail to the VW Chief!

I'm totally for this! Let's get the write-in vote started.

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You can see more about VW Charles' groundswell support on the news website.

He's got my vote! After all, why choose the lesser of two evils?

Kent Falls 2008

Once again we picked Jenn up from overnight camp at Silver Lake and stopped at Kent Falls for a picnic. This was the most crowded I'd ever seen it, but it was a nice day - mid-80s and not too humid. The falls we lower than I would have expected, considering the rain we've had last month, but the water was cold and fairly clean.

Kent Falls 2008

As usual, click the picture to see the album.

Are we having fun yet?

Scott Adams is one of the few people that I've met who have publicly professed this particular sentiment about certain amusement parks:

One day we went to something called a "water park." I had never been to such a thing and was excited about the prospect of standing in line for 45 minutes in the sweltering heat for an opportunity to spend 12 seconds sliding down a watery tube while clutching my prescription sunglasses and wondering how many cartoonists had died doing exactly this sort of thing. It takes me a few days of vacation just to get into the proper attitude, which I gather is something along the lines of not caring if you live or die. I have a bad habit of stubbornly clinging to my preference for life over death, and I am told this interferes with my ability to have fun.

I remember mentioning this on my one and (to date) only trip to Disney World when I spent - literally - 45 minutes wending my way through with the crowd up an artificial mountain for what turned out to be a 60-second trip down a sluice in an oversized inner tube.

Scott Adams writes The Dilbert Blog when he's not busy drawing those cartoons.

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Is she rubbing my rooster in public?

It doesn't get much stranger than this