Merry Xmas to you too...

The only difference is that most kids figure out that Santa is not real by the age of 10, whereas a lot of adults never get to extending this similarity to God.

Thanks to the Unreasonable Faith blog.

Latvia is fucked

This is unacceptable. Latvia is slowly going bankrupt, requesting money from the IMF. GDP is decreasing (by 4.7% compared to last year), taxes are supposed to go up, and there are also talks of devaluing the national currency (apparently you can now go to jail for saying that - long live Freedom of Speech!!) This is a video of Atis Slakteris, the Minister of Finance, appearing on Bloomberg TV. I understand that he is not in an comfortable situation. He is held responsible for the current problems, and has to do something about it, but does that involve making a fool of himself on a global TV network? He obviously has limited knowledge of English. Around 9th grade level, if you ask me.

Some people say that it is a good thing that he spoke directly, and did not use an interpreter. Should he have? Yes, definitely! Those peole say that we should be proud that he chose to take such a bold move. If you think that making a fool of yourself is a good thing, go on. But not in this situation, when Latvian is making world headlines. If you have an interpreter handy (and you can always find a Latvian - English interpreter nowadays), use it.

The funniest part is when Atis has no idea how to say "taupīgs" ("sparing", "thrifty", even "economical" would have worked), mumbles the word in Latvian, and the interviewer says "It's not easy, I know." (23:00) She actually felt bad for him. Who wouldn't...

As a pretty cool highschool teacher, nicknamed BB, would say:
"Un tad mēs gribam, lai mēs kaut kur būtu..."
which is hard to translate, but is approximitely,
"And then we wish we could be part of something..."

Atis hoped he could speak English perfectly, but he failed miserably. As I have noticed, sometimes those living in the glorious country of Latvia think too high of themselves. Being a minister, representing the whole country on the world stage, speaking English on a high enough level is not easy. It takes a lot of preparation and hard work. It doesn't just happen all by itself. Let this be a lesson for all of us.

edit: fixed spelling, changed link to video.