A free pawn?
Black’s left a Pawn hanging, and White can gobble it up with Rxe6. Is that move any good?
“99 Red Balloons” makes sense now
I always thought the lyrics to “99 Red Balloons” were kinda odd, but something’s always lost in translation. It can’t be helped.
Looking at a straight translation from the original German song “99 Luftballons”, it’s now obvious how loose the translation was. (Even “red balloon” is only used to match the syllable count in “Luftballon”, which just means “balloon”.) Here’s the first two stanzas:
| Direct translation: “99 Luftballons” | English lyrics: “99 Red Balloons” |
|
Do you have some time for me, |
You and I in a little toy shop |
|
99 balloons |
99 red balloons |
“But unluckily most Germans here are too smart. They all speak good English and won’t be able to speak German to me.” — Alex Chiu
More evidence China is becoming America
Over the past few decades, China has gone through a lot of changes. The economy’s freer, they’ve got nukes, and people are liking their cars. And they still execute people.
Now they’re starting to emulate the USA in other ways: bad lawsuits.
A Chinese smoker has sued a tobacco company for giving him yellow teeth. Liu Shengjiang, the law professor suing, argues “The producer only said ’smoking is harmful’ on its package, but we consumers don’t know what harm it will cause us.” He also managed to dragoon some students at his university to help him create legal cases (probably for extra credit on their next exam).
It’s very interesting that Mr. Liu was willing to smoke the cigarettes knowing they’d cause harm without trying to find out how they’re harmful. Or maybe Nanjing brand cigarettes are just that good.
Not so diplomatic
Food for Health International is an American company that’s been well aware of the health scares from Chinese foods and products (I’ve not heard that Darlie or Whitemen toothpaste have been affected, thankfully.)
Their solution is to add a “China-Free” label, since none of their ingredients comes from China.
Er…not so diplomatic.
