Hittin' the Road

So I'll be out in Palm Desert for the remainder of the week. I'll have WiFi and will check in, but probably not at the prodigious rate you've come to know and love.

I should also mention that the Blogiversary Week fundraiser is still running - the donate button is in the right-hand column. Thanks to all who participated so far.

Also, this is funny, in that way that poking your eyes with forks is funny.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, raised a lot of eyebrows Tuesday when he said that those who blame food price increases on the use of corn for fuel should also consider blaming the Chinese appetite. Grassley went so far as to rhetorically ask if it is legitimate to ask the Chinese to "go back and eat rice" as it is to ask the U.S. to change its policy on ethanol [...]

"If part of our problem is that the Chinese are going to eat meat -- and you've got to have corn and soybeans to feed the Chinese their meat -- then why isn't it just as legitimate for the Chinese to go back and eat rice as it is for us to change our policy on corn to ethanol?"

Um, the world food shortage is in large part because of a RICE shortage, Chuck.

I'll tell you, if Al Qaeda does end up collapsing because of their resistance to Web 2.0 tools, we're more than ready to have China replace them as public enemy #1, aren't we? Not that China is some benign force in the world - I've criticized them repeatedly - but the hauteur and subtle demonization at work here (and in Presidential speeches on the stump, too, particularly from Clinton and McCain) is palpable.