Via Instapundit, some good words English just doesn't have word for.

A few examples:

2 Arigata-meiwaku (Japanese): An act someone does for you that you didnÂ’t want to have them do and tried to avoid having them do, but they went ahead anyway, determined to do you a favor, and then things went wrong and caused you a lot of trouble, yet in the end social conventions required you to express gratitude

Kind of convoluted but I know what they mean, I think, or at least something like that. I've been in the situation, trying to ingratiate myself to a girl, of suggesting we do something I'm guessing she'd like, and she agrees, thinking that's what I'd like, but in fact neither of us wanted to do this thing at all, so now here we are, trying to mutually please the other and both failing at at and now mutually displeased, eating a joint of mutton at Medieval Times.

Well no not Medieval Times but something.

3 Backpfeifengesicht (German): A face badly in need of a fist

Seems useful but I think maybe spelling it out in words is even better: "A face badly in need of a fist." Not sure I want to cut that down into a one-word thing.

5 Desenrascanço (Portuguese): “to disentangle” yourself out of a bad situation (To MacGyver it)

...

9 Guanxi (Mandarin): in traditional Chinese society, you would build up good guanxi by giving gifts to people, taking them to dinner, or doing them a favor, but you can also use up your gianxi by asking for a favor to be repaid

That idea exists in the English-speaking word but I don't know how you'd say it briefly.

11 L’esprit de l’escalier (French): usually translated as “staircase wit,” is the act of thinking of a clever comeback when it is too late to deliver it

I think maybe we have that, now: "Jerkstore."

22 Tatemae and Honne (Japanese): What you pretend to believe and what you actually believe, respectively

Very useful -- we talk about this when we talk about preference cascades.

Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Comments (291)
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Another story that the media isn't interested in for transparently obvious reasons.

“He pulled out his gun and started pointing it at people,” Thacker said.

Cowan trained a .380-caliber semi-automatic pistol at RidenÂ’s face, said Sullivan County Sheriff Wayne Anderson. Carolyn Gudger, the school resource officer, drew her gun, then shielded the principalÂ’s body with her own.

Thacker remembers Cowan shouting something – possibly including the words “10 years” – but she isn’t sure. She turned and ran out the set of public doors to the mulch pile in the front of the school, and hid behind bushes.

“He might shoot someone,” Thacker remembered thinking. “I just wanted to get out of there.”

Riden fled and Gudger inched back into the school, leading Cowan through the scattered pastel chairs in the empty cafeteria. It was a tactical move, meant to lure the gunman into a more contained place, Anderson said.

Gudger, the school resource officer (I called her a "teacher" in the headline just because I do not know what a "resource officer" is and I figure that most people don't either) held the gunman in a standoff for two minutes, until police arrived. After they did, the cops again demanded Cowen drop his gun. He didn't. Shooting broke out (I don't know who shot first, thus the passive voice) and Cowen was killed.

Posted by: Ace at 08:57 AM | Comments (327)
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I really didn't want to write about this. When we first heard about it a year ago, everybody laughed. When it came up again last week, there were snickers, contemptuous really of the idea that the government of the United States would have to pull a trillion dollar coin out of its ass to keep paying its bills.

Well, nobody's laughing anymore. "Serious thinkers" on both the right and the left are seriously thinking about whether the platinum coin trick is something the government can or should do to avoid a debt default if we blow through the debt ceiling.

There are actually three questions tied up in the platinum coin trick. Is it constitutional? Is it legal? Is it a good idea? Actually, there's a fourth question, and we'll start there: Is it even necessary? more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:18 AM | Comments (432)
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• Bill Clinton Named Father Of The Year
  
• Chicago Man Pulls Banned Assault Weapon On Landlord. Didn't He Know It Was Banned?
  
• Texas School Can Force Teeenager To Wear Locator Chip
  
• Christie Seems To Be Taking The John McCain Route To The White House
  
• What??? Obamacare Provision Forbids Gun And Ammo Registration
  
• Krauthammer: Obama's Gun Control Efforts Won't Have An Effect
  
• Five Facts About Guns, Schools, And Violence
  
• 20 Facts About The Collapse In Europe That Everyone Should Know
  
• VDH: What Is Hip?
  
• Joe Biden Meeting With The NRA Today
  
• The US-Iran Cyberwar Heats Up
  
• What Did Google Earth Spot In The Chinese Desert?
  
• Obama And Allies Working To Tilt Public Opinion Against Guns
  
• It's Not Game Over, It's Time For The GOP To Counterattack
  
• Greek Unemployment Soars To New Record, 56% Of 15-24 Year Olds Are Without A Job
  
• Tragic Video Shows Russian Dad Careening To His Death While Going Down A Mountain In A Zorb
  
• Funny "Driverless" Prank
  
• Pension Reform Fails In Illinois
  
• Fox's The Five Give Out Gawker Owners Phone Number On Air
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:31 AM | Comments (109)
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Happy Thursday.

Yes, D.C. journos are still digging into the coup for Speaker that never happened. I don't see the fascination.

Also, apparently some idiots think that strict gun control advocacy can be the foundation of a serious presidential campaign. FY, NQ.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:58 AM | Comments (416)
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Well I was supposed to flying on a business trip tonight but that was canceled at the last minute. But you're still gonna get a movie night anyways.

Tonight's feature presentation is:

The Fifth Element (1997)

Got multipass?

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:21 PM | Comments (522)
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(With a Shrimp Rant™ at no additional charge)

For Ace's Southern readers who may be unfamiliar with grits; they are simply milled corn cooked in some liquid. In this case homemade chicken stock. And adding cheddar cheese, butter and a dash of cream has never hurt any food in the history of cooking, so trust me on this; it's a good thing. Finish it off with some good quality shrimp (American, from the Gulf or off NC or SC is the best around) in a nice barbecue sauce of your choosing, and you will have a quintessential American meal that is fantastic.

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:19 AM | Comments (548)
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Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you, your new MERCURY ASTRONAUTS!

1 Cheese-eating surrender monkey 26 of 35 490
2 j.row. 21 of 35 470
3 dawgyear 22 of 35 444
4 drstanly1 22 of 35 439
5 Crunkadelic 23 of 35 438

Games correct out of possible, points.

Yours truly, who never even went to the moon (see Capricorn One.. GOOGLE IT) got 256 points, which is like an exponent of 2. I did that all just with my Alabama pick. There was some kind of "ass kicking" weighting factor applied.

Lest I leave anybody out.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:21 PM | Comments (312)
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Funny, again.

Last night's show was damned good. I think it was the best premiere they've done. Right off the bat they made Raylan more interesting. Two of the best shows last season were about Raylan's law-breaking to avoid his ex-wife Winona getting arrested for her own law-breaking. (She impulsively stole $20,000 from police evidence and then didn't know what the hell to do-- she immediately thought better of it.) So this season they introduce the idea that Raylan is now illegally (or at least very contrary to employer policy) running down fugitives for a bounty hunter in his spare hours, for $3000 a pop.

The whole show last night was about Raylan doing one of these off-book jobs, and then trying to fix things -- without attracting any police attention -- when unexpected events began to spin things into complication and disaster. So it looks like Raylan, who has a lot of hell-raising, anger, and law-breaking in him by birth, is going to spend the season dancing on a knife's edge.

There was no Nick Searcy, but, almost making up for it, the show introduced what I hope will be a recurring plot element, which I call "Partial Nudity." And what glorious partial nudity it was. Not the typical Partial Nudity networks have been "daringly" showing ever third month for ten years now, by which I mean male partial nudity. I mean real partial nudity, like a chick with T&A all over the place.

Porn's been around so long now I forgot what a nice little thrill it was to see partial nudity. I used to scour the HBO guide for that "content warning advisory" (which was really just an advertisement for the movie).

I actually rewound it twice (total of three times viewing). Yes, I did. I bet a lot of you did too.

So, season's off to a great start. Damn fine episode with Raylan beginning to drift into the gravitational fields of his crazy criminal father and crazy criminal friend, and a heaping helping of butt and sideboob.

They had me at butt and sideboob,* but then they attached a whole show to the end of it. Well done, International Film and Television Star Nick Searcy. Well done.

* Actually I have a bad suspicion they already decided they'd show Timothy Olyphant's ass, in some kind of play for female viewers, and realized that would piss the show's many male viewers off (given that there has been no female nudity). So I think they are pre-mollifying us to keep us from getting mad later. I think it's a pre-mitigation effort.

But for the moment, I approve.

Posted by: Ace at 10:36 AM | Comments (760)
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A nations of connections, and status, and social class, not laws.

Posted by: Ace at 10:06 AM | Comments (189)
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