Daily Web Links

Anybody else get this email this week?
I don't know, seems kinda fishy to me:

Dear American:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had
crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gram, lobbyist for UBS, who will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a Senator, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. This transactin is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred. Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,
Minister of Treasury Paulson

I am Currently in China Blogging about my Adoption:

As we were driving to our hotel in Guangzhou I had to check my airline ticket stub to make sure there wasn't a mistake and we were actually dropped off on the set of Blade runner.

This place is straight up sci-fi. To help their traffic situation in this city they built a series of elevated highways right through the heart of the city - 4 stories up. So as you are driving you have banner advertisements in Mandarin flashing in your face. I'm not much of a video game player, but I know I have seen this system of elevated downtown highways in some sort of game along the way.
It is weird.
Cool weird.

Our view out the window of the hotel is on a huge river confluence lined with neon covered hotels. One of the hotels, about an 18-story monstrosity, has somehow made itself into a huge television. the river is filled with neon-trimmed barges blasting chinese classic rock... I'm a little overwhelmed here.

Our poor daughter has no idea what to do with herself.

We went to a cantonese place for dinner tonight where they had your entree swimming, hoppingand crawling in the foyer. Turtles, eels, waterbugs, snakes... you name it, it was live and ready to be consumed. I tried ordering "yellow fish" or dinner, but our waiter insisted I come back to the lobby to pick which yellow fish I wanted. Even if I could have said anything int Cantonese, this is NOT the place you tell a waiter to "surprise me." You will be surprised in very unpleasant ways.

On another note: I f you were asking yourself if it were possible to buy a chinese pirated copy of the new Batman movie on the street for $3 yet, the answer is yes.
And Wall-e and Iron Man and on and on.....
Impressive in their blatant disregard for copyright law.

I Am Blogging From China This Week As My Wife And I Adopt Our Daughter:

Taxi drivers in the two cities we've been in here are more aggressive than anywhere I've ever been.
Their disregard for convetional road etiquette borders on disdain for the laws.
It is like they go out of their way to put you in harms way to show that they aggessively trying to get you from point A to point B.
Luckily traffic never seems to get above 35 mph with all the cars and bikes on the road.
I know, 35 doesn't soujnd very dangerous, but wait until your driver is flipping a u-turn on a very busy bridge over the Yangtzee with tour buses coming at you in both directions!
I still have no idea what I said to make him pull that move.

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We had a realy good translator/tour guide in Beijing that we got to be pretty good friends with. Here's a conversation with Leo:


Guide: "Leo isn't my real name"
Me: "Yeah I kind of guessed that."
Guide: "You know why I chose 'Leo"
Me: "After Leonardo Da Vinci?"
Guide: "No, you know Leornardo DiCaprio."
Me: *Sigh* -- "Leo, in the future tell people you are named after DaVinci. It sounds better."

Well, at least he wasn't named after Leonardo the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle (who, ironically, is named after DaVinci not DiCaprio.)


-----------------

Another quick conversation with Leo:

We were walking through "The Hall of foresight" in the Emporers Summer Palace.

When I asked Leo if the 'Hall of Forsight' is where Superman lives, he looked at me like I was an idiot and shook his head. "No, Superman lives in the Hall of Justice."

Ohhh, that's right. I didn't have the heart to ask if we could see that next.

Note to self : Stupid American comedy doesn't translate well.

I'm Currently In China Blogging About Our Adoption Trip:


We have accomplished what we are here for.
Sort of.

We have our daughter, we've signed our paperwork, but apparently we have to go to Guangzho for a passport to get our daughter home.

Guangzho is the only place in China to do this. Imagine if we boiled all of the DMV's in the US down to one location in Des Moines and everyone had to go there to get their passport or license. Yeah, I'm not looking forward to this.

A typhoon blew into China and it has been raining for 2 days, a welcome relief from the scorching heat.

I came down with something since we got to Nanjing, so between the rain and me being under the weather we have been checking out cable in Asia. The Chinese either enjoy or have been saddled with the collected work of Gary Bussey (and his son - "Busey the Lesser" as he is known here) and anything with a Baldwin Brother in it.

I think there is a catagory below "Direct To DVD" in the scale of bad movies - "Direct to Chinese Cable."

Thankfully I was feeling much better today and Flynn and I went out and explored town.

Flynn is kind of a rockstar here. The Chinese are very curious about a gringo like me carrying around a little "Daughter of China." We get a lot of smiles, thumbs up and good wishes. I also got a couple scoldings to put socks on my daughter (this is my first kid, If I knew any mandarin at all I'd aske them to cut me some slack!)

I'm trying to get our photos up, but having a little trouble on my end. Maybe in Guangzhou.

The strangest thing about Beijing is how normal it is.

If it weren't for my inability to read or communicate in Mandarin I would feel like I was in New York City, or a nice suburb in California.

Large, tree-lined avenues are filled with what seems like intentionally slow-moving traffic navigating through Beijing's soupy air. Nobody is in a rush, nobody seems to be worked up about anything, it's all just business as usual.

I'm not sure what I expected, but I didn't expect this.

We're here to get our daughter, the long-awaited final days of a 2-year process so maybe my preconceptions about Beijing was to expect chaos. I was bracing for the worst and got the best.

We're here several months before we anticipated being here, and this is exactly the time we were warned NOT to be here. We hit summer dead on. You think it's hot in Denver? Tack on clothes-soaking humidity and a brown cloud about 50 times worse than the Mile High City's and you have an interesting recipe for discomfort - A new ring of Hell I wasn't previously aware of.

The thing is, while It is insanely uncomfortable for gringos like me, it is adapted to by the 16 million residents of this city. Things move slower, the city comes alive at night. I just got back from a walk around the city (it is 10:30 p.m. here and 8:30 a.m. in Denver) where I stumbled across 2 separate out door dance parties in parks and an outdoor Karaoke concert where the people watching the singer seemed to be having more fun than the singer. People are squatting at short stools on the sidewalk outside bars. Toddlers are meeting one another from their mother's arms as they are walked down the street. It is an interesting community feeling.

As we were leaving our hotel to check out the Forbidden City yesterday I pointed out the hotel's daily weather forecast board. It said the high of the day would be 34 degrees Centigrade (93 F). Our guide looked at me in disbelief and said "it's already hotter than that outside." He then explained to me that there is a standing law that if the temperature goes above 38 C (100 F) nobody has to go to work.

Because of that rule the government has strongly suggested to the state media that they think long-and-hard before they tell anyone that the temperature is above 100 F.

Needless to say nobody has had a heat-related day off of work in years and nobody knows what the temperature truly is.

Alright then.

An interesting, if unexpected, side effect of the economic downturn:

"According to Mexican consulate officials in Dallas, some 400 immigrant families have told them so far this year that they're going back to Mexico and asked for transfer documents to enroll their children in Mexican schools.

Enrique Hubbard Urrea, Mexican consul general in Dallas, said it is impossible to track every Mexican who leaves the area. But he said the number asking for transfer documents at the consulate is on the rise.

In 2005, the consulate issued 162 such documents; in 2006 it was 199; and last year it was 270. At the current rate, more than twice as many people will leave this year as last, he said.

"There is no doubt the trend indicates that the number is growing," Mr. Hubbard said.

And it isn't happening only in Dallas. At the Mexican consulates in Chicago and Phoenix, too, the number of Mexican families applying for transfer documents for their children has increased."

Full story from the Dallas Morning news HERE

Not on purpose of course, just another bit of fallout from the mortgage meltdown:

June 25 (Bloomberg) -- More than a century and a half after Mexico lost Texas to the U.S., Virgilio Garza wants a piece of it back.

A ``Texas for Sale'' sign and cowgirls in boots and white hats greeted Garza at the Convex center in Monterrey, Mexico, earlier this month. A Monterrey developer and investor, Garza was in search of foreclosed U.S. property to buy.

A rising peso and an economy growing faster than the U.S. have given some Mexicans the buying power to take advantage of the housing slump in Texas, which the U.S. annexed in 1845 after Texans gained independence from Mexico nine years earlier. A three-year war followed and ended with Mexico ceding about half its territory, including Arizona, Nevada and California, to the U.S. under an 1848 treaty.

Read the full story here.

I always like the Frekonomics blog on New York Times (Insert your liberal joke here) and I thought this week's was especially interesting.  Cops talking about how they would deter and clean up crime:

How Cops Really Want to Police

Jordan is a 51-year-old police officer who works in New York. I met Jordan when I was studying prostitution. He was based in Manhattan, in Hell’s Kitchen, around the time when the police sought to rid the area of the sex economy — e.g., strip clubs, street-based prostitution, and video parlors. He also felt that the courts are largely impotent, but his pet-peeve was domestic violence. He says that he developed a set of skills that he now uses in “DV” incidents in the middle-class communities outside of Manhattan:

The one thing I hate is a wife beater. Or, anyone who beats women. I never arrest those idiots because they always get out of jail and go back and beat up their wives. It’s really frustrating. I have a daughter, and it just makes me sick … When I was in Hell’s Kitchen, I used to make those guys pay their women [prostitutes] extra, for maybe two months at a time, if they bruised them. You know, to make up for what they did. I’d just get their number at work and I’d call them and say, “Hey, you need to bring Shirley $500 because her kid needs school clothes. If they didn’t do it, I’d call their boss or show up at their job.

And, you know what? I do this now where I work [in wealthier areas of New York City]. These guys get arrested way fewer times [than the poor]. They think they are totally invincible because they make so much money. So, I do the same thing. Traders on Wall Street, lawyers — I don’t care. I tell them they have to pay up. I usually make them donate to a battered women’s shelter … See the one thing to know about these guys with money is that they HATE to give even a penny away! So it hurts. And, I take their money for months. A bunch of cops do this with me.

Oregon Man Wins Great American Think-Off

New York Mills, Minn. (AP) -- An Oregon man is the winner of this year's Great American Think-Off, a national philosophy competition that gives ordinary people the chance to debate some of life's perplexing questions.

This year's question: "Does immigration strengthen or threaten the United States?"

Craig Allen, of West Linn, Ore., won a gold medal Saturday after a live audience in New York Mills decided he was most convincing when arguing that the system of immigration and immigration policy is broken. He says it encourages an influx of illegal immigrants and poses a threat to the country.

During the debate, the four Think-Off finalists touched on what it means to be an American and stressed that American identity is evolving.

The debate is held by the New York Mills Regional Cultural Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding the cultural and creative opportunities of rural Americans. New York Mills is a farming town of some 1,200 people in central Minnesota, about 170 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

The silver medal winner was Deana Cavaliere from Richfield, Minn., who argued that immigrants of diverse cultures have created a mix of ideas that makes America an innovative and wealthy country.

The other two finalists received bronze medals. Tom Bailey of Nashville, Tenn., argued that immigration strengthens the U.S., and Nick Thayer of St. Cloud, Minn., argued that it threatens the country.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)

TRAFFIC ADVISORY
FULL I-70 CLOSURES TO TAKE PLACE NEAR STATE HIGHWAY 58 THIS WEEK FOR BRIDGE WORK
JEFFERSON COUNTY - Monday, April 28th through Thursday, May 1st, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) will completely close eastbound and westbound I-70 between Ward Road and 32nd Avenue from 9:30 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. each night. Crews will be conducting bridge work for the new ramp from eastbound I-70 to westbound State Highway 58.
During the closure, the following detour routes will be in place:
· Eastbound I-70: Motorists will be detoured to the 32nd Avenue/Youngfield Street exit where they will go north on Youngfield Street to 44th Avenue. Once on 44th Avenue, go east to the existing on-ramp to eastbound I-70.
· Westbound I-70: Motorists on westbound I-70 will take SH 58 west to McIntyre Street and then back on eastbound SH 58 in order to take the new ramp to westbound I-70.
In all, the project will construct, reconstruct or realign five ramps:
· A new ramp from eastbound I-70 to westbound SH 58 will be built
· A new ramp from eastbound SH 58 to westbound I-70 will be built
· The existing ramp from eastbound SH 58 to eastbound I-70 will be realigned and reconstructed without replacing the existing bridge
· The existing ramp from westbound I-70 to eastbound SH 58 will be realigned and reconstructed
· The existing ramp from Youngfield Street to eastbound I-70 will be relocated approximately ¼ mile to the south to accommodate a longer acceleration lane
For more information on this project visit <http://www.dot.state.co.us/I70SH58/>.
Ames Construction, Inc. is the contractor of this $30.8 million project, which will be complete by the end of
December 2008. The project is being funded by federal and state funds as well as Jefferson County funding.

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A windmill in Hornslet near Aarhus (Norway?) broke in the middle of a windstorm :

Guess what Barack Obama has done for you?

(Keep clicking on the text.)

The long-anticipated Indiana Jones 4.
(Too bad I'm not a big fan of the kid from Transformers in it.)


Watch the new Indiana Jones trailer!!