Damn, Charles, smoking the good stuff this morning, eh?

Obama: "Tell you what. You stop undervaluing your currency and import more American goods, I'll get you our top secret recipe for the Tiramisu.
Jintao: "Heh heh heh. Go fuck yourself."

We have a new type of rule now. Not one man rule, or rule of aristocracy, or plutocracy, but of small groups elevated to positions of absolute power by random pressures and subject to political and economic factors that leave little room for decision. They are representatives of abstract forces who’ve reached power through surrender of self. The iron-willed dictator is a thing of the past. There will be no more Stalins, no more Hitlers. The rulers of this most insecure of all worlds are rulers by accident inept, frightened pilots at the controls of a vast machine they cannot understand, calling in experts to tell them which buttons to push.
-bill burroughs

OK...who was Jena again?

Glad I don't have to parse or diagram this sentence: "It's appearance and much of its progress is accidental and entirely immanent."

Little known fact about a person who couldn't pronounce "nuclear": He was told to pronounce the president of China's name as "huge in towel". But to dismiss the mental picture.

@5: yeah, paulson & bernancke never had him push any buttons.

I wonder how much time they'll spend discussing human rights? *ba dum sssshhhhhh*

@4 The twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt were fought on 14 October 1806 on the plateau west of the river Saale in today's Germany, between the forces of Napoleon I of France and Frederick William III of Prussia. The decisive defeat suffered by the Prussian Army subjugated the Kingdom of Prussia to the French Empire until the Sixth Coalition was formed in 1812.

lolwut

The most powerful man on earth is in that picture and guess what; he wasn't born in the United States.

Obama?

via The Onion: "BREAKING NEWS: Chinese President Hu Jintao Pays For State Dinner While President Obama In Bathroom."