Bush on Taiwan

Who knew our president could speak in palidromes. Though he would have had to switch the placement of the "unilateral" part and the "status quo" part. Still, a small technicality. I say we give him full points:

"We oppose any unilateral decision by either China or Taiwan to change the status quo," Bush said, "and the comments and actions made by the leader of Taiwan indicate that he may be willing to make decisions unilaterally, to change the status quo, which we oppose."

I swear, I thought this kind of ludicrous-speak only existed in the papers of dumb undergrads who write this kind of paper, as undergrads, with ludicrous-speak in them.

In other news, when I came to California, people would say "I'm from Bakersfield", give a sardonic kind of grin, and then be met with laughter/sympathy/jokes from other califorNYE-AYans. I drove through Bakersefiled (granted only a motel stay there) and didn't notice anything in particular. But I guess Bakersfield is a weird place afterall. Or at least the police there are dumb.

Some people say exaggeration is comedy, some people say irrationality is comedy. I don't know about anything else but here, clearly, stupidity is verily comedic, if although with a regrettable hint of sadness in it as well.

*Addendum* Having been to Shanghai just last year, this is just foolish. NO bicycles on major roads in Shanghai. How are people going to get to work? On already crowded buses? Or in Taxis with the money that they don't yet have? Or are they expected to just circumnavigate around the side roads? I don't understand and I agree with the correspondent: the rule is going to be ignored. Not until there's a suitable alternative (and it's hard to beat the versatility of a bike in a big city, in China especially where the bicycle is like the two-wheeled demigod of transportation whom we collectively worship and fear from our days of infancy) is even curtailing bike traffic even possible...what are they thinking?