Lady of tdaxp and I are currently battling 圆通, or Yuantong, or YT, or the worst delivery company in China. (Or at least Beijing!)

It is inexplicably awful.

First the delivery guy forged a record of delivering it. Now the company cannot reach him on his rounds as his cell phone is turned off. And this is just the latest iteration of a nightmare of bizarreness.

The firm that shipped through “YT” guaranteed next-day delivery, about four days ago.

I have developed a speculative theory that neatly accounts for many aspects of the UFO phenomenon, including

• The Nazis
• Foo Fighters
• The Roswell Incident
• Flying Saucers
• Lights in the Sky
• MJ-12
• Missing Time
• Cattle Mutiliations

and so on. I would like comments on it. Anyone interested can either leave a comment, or email me, and I will send out a copy tomorrow.

It even includes killer robots, but not in the way you expect…

Fei and I caught the midnight showing last night / this morning. Very good, especially if you loved the Transformers as children (as we both did), and you are prepared for a script far closer to:

<Insert Cool Visual, Like a T-Rex silhouetted by a nuclear explosion >

(Repeat for 2.5 hours)

And not that similar to, say,

Salaama Rodriguez des Pari: But I’m a college-educated Nicaraguan bisexual. I don’t even know how to deliver a baby/log timber/balance the federal budget!

(Repeat for 2.5 hours)

Autobots: Transform!

Update: Manohla Dargis, who accuses the film of not making President Obama as heroic as Optimus Prime and concludes “it’s easy to pretend that you’re not ingesting 2 hours and 30 minutes of warmongering along with all that dumb fun,” would obviously have preferred the film about Salaama.

Courtesy of Razib

But some observers now say that Paulson’s injection of public capital was the beginning of unprecedented government involvement in the nation’s banking system, with consequences few understood.

“I think we nationalized the banks in the U.S. on that day,” former International Monetary Fund chief economist Simon Johnson says. “The government got a lot of say in how they are run, a lot of constraints, a lot of responsibility. A lot of downside risk was taken on that day.”

By December, Lewis was discovering what it meant to have the government as a partial owner. When fourth-quarter losses at Merrill grew to $15 billion, Lewis began to look for a way to get out of the deal. But in tense negotiations with government officials, Lewis was told he had no choice. If he did not go through with the merger, regulators threatened to change the bank’s management.

“Ken Lewis blinked, the full force of the government is being brought upon him. The rules of the game have changed,” Wall Street Journal reporter Dan Fitzpatrick says. “Ken Lewis is on top of the financial services world, but he’s not in charge. The government holds all the cards at the end of the day.”

via FRONTLINE: breaking the bank: video – watch the full program | PBS.

Of course, treason charges against Geithner won’t involve this (the establishment of Socialism was (a) a policy choice under (b) the previous administration), but his siding with the tribal raid against the US government in early 2009. Criminal charges, which are much more likely to be brought, are more mundane, and involve collusion, racketeering, insider-trading, and so on.

In China, Deng won. In Iran, &quot;Deng&quot; is certainly on the side of the protesters. For all the talk of an Iranian Tiananmen, the dynamic in Tehran is much closer ot 1976 (where the Communist government crushed demonstrators, and lost all legitimacy) than 1989.

The fruits of both the 1976 Tiananmen Incident and the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre are on display in Beijing.

Canon EOS5DmkII, One night in Beijing. from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

The hope for pro-globalization reforms in Iran depends on the current government in Tehran losing its credibility and legitimacy. If Tehran will ever be as synonymous with growth and openness and Beijing, the Supreme Leader should face the same road as Madam Mao.

Here’s how to start: follow @PersianKiwi.

I am not the first to say this: following his tweets is like reading an apocalyptic novel, one text message at a time.

In the meantime, here is a Basij attacked by Iranian protestors:

And a link to BBC Persian showing Basij panickng and retreating in front of a crowd.

Who was Neda? She was a resident of Tehran killed by the Basij.

Neda may be to the Unrest in Iran what the tank man was at Tiananmen.

Graphic videos of what the Basij did to her are available here and here.

Neda, may you rest in peace.

If this is true:

Federal judges are bound by a code that says they shouldn’t join any organization that discriminates by race, sex, religion or nationality.

via Sotomayor quits women’s club after GOP criticism.

Then Sotomayor’s membership (until Friday!) of the Belizean Grove Organization is extraordinarily disturbing. I knew Sotomayor was a racist and am not surprised that she is a bigot, but her shamelessness in flaunting her own code of ethics in actually carrying a sexist membership card is astounding.

The following should now happen.

1. President Obama should withdraw Sotomayor’s name from consideration

2. President Obama should encourage Sotomayor to resign from the Appeals Court. Failing this, he should encourage Congress to begin impreachment-and-conviction proceedings against her.

3. Informal investigations should be held to determine what federal laws Sotomayor violated in this case. For instance, did she break perjury laws at any time by stating that she was complying with her ethical obligations when she – in fact – did not?

Sotomayor is simply a racist, sexist judicial thug. Unlike Geithner, she does not deserve the death penalty.* Still, like Geithner, she should not hold any federal office of any sort. She cannot be trusted.

[* Article III Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution reads:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

This is operationalized by 18 US 2381:

whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

Geithner is overseeing a tribal raid against the U.S. Treasury, different from pirate raids against U.S. ships only by target (Geithner’s attacks wealth on the homeland), scale (Geithner’s is much greater) and death toll (more Americans people have died as a result of the economic downturn than from pirate attacks).

Many businesses operate according to the philosophy that they exist to take money from people. Merry Mart #24 in Beijing is under no such delusion.

First, let me back up and note that this was another great day in Beijing. My wife and I visited 南骡鼓巷 (Gongs and Drums Lane, South Road) in Xicheng District, Coal Hill, Houhai, the Bell Tower, and a very good hotpot restaurant.

Yet my dream of finishing the day on the same up-note was capriciously ground into the dirt. My ttempt to finish the day by purchasing cornflakes for the morning was cruely dashed by what I take to be a middle-aged female manager at Merry Mart #24. This grave injustice occured even though other people were checking out at the time.

Serve the people, Merry Mart #24. 为人民服务!

Is this the worst tragedy to befall a person — nay, a people — this year? Certainly. In living memory? Probably.

You will have succeeded in your selective enforcement of your closing hours, Merry Mart #24 in Beijing. But note the terrible cost of such a policy: tomorrow morning, I will not have two bowls of corn flake cereal, but only one.

Wèi rénmín fúwù!

This is a follow-up post to “Before the Deaths,” on the unrest following the Iranian election.

One phrase you will be hearing more about is the cycle of mourning.

In this video, regime paramilitaries begin firing and break into a private dwelling:

On Twitter, Joseph Fouche, Galrahn, and Selil debate whether the unrest is War. Of course it is. War is the application of violence for political objectives. Specifically, this is a 4GW, or 4th Gradient War. Specifically, this is an early stage 4GW.

Obama’s actions in handling America’s reaction to the unrest are praised by Andrew Sullivan and Juan Cole, and with good reason. It is hard to imagine Bush being able to react so well.