Rhetorical Exchanges

I’ve heard many of my fellow PPPlers lament the weakness of the US dollar, and indeed, at current exchange rates we’re paying an implicit 40 percent tax on many things we buy with converted currency. For us, the pain of a weak dollar is immediate and obvious.
My fellow sojourners might be surprised, therefore, to [...]

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Fall Back

Due to latitude and a recent clock adjustment, it’s pitch black in Rostock before 5 PM.
I’m not sure which is worse: the sinking feeling of loneliness and isolation or the fact that I have an instinctual desire to eat dinner at 5:30.

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And You Thought The Hooligans Were Bad

From The Globalist:
In some of the major European leagues, the share of foreign players now reaches up to 60%. The 18 clubs of the German Bundesliga, for instance, currently employ 153 EU and 60 non-EU foreigners, adding up to a total share of 46%…
However, the globalization of the soccer economy has also aggravated xenophobic violence [...]

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Good Jobs!

Today I was happy to see that the few shares I bought in Apple have gained nearly 50 percent in the 4 months since I purchased them.
My joy, however, has been tempered by the fact that the optical drive on my MacBook is almost assuredly kaput and has been so since before I came [...]

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Best (Credulity-Straining) Sentence I Read Today

From an article about Ayn Rand, referring to Atlas Shrugged:
To the dismay of [Rand's] more enthusiastic admirers, this popularity doesn’t indicate total agreement with her “Objectivist” philosophy so much as it is a tribute to the author’s talent for telling a rip-roaring fasten-your-seatbelts story.
Now, what little I know of Objectivism I’m sympathetic to, but describing [...]

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