Today we leave for Salvador da Bahia, Brazil.  It’s a trip to which we are looking forward immensely.  We will be there for Carnival, and decided to book the trip last May.  We visited Rio in 2004, and would love to visit again, but we decided to visit Salvador to explore its African heritage–and supposedly [...]

It has been said that the North Korean diplomatic outpost in Uzbekistan has probably the worst diplomatic staff on the face of the earth.  The second worst is probably the staff of the Brazilian Consulate in Los Angeles.  Horror stories abound, the most recent of which comes from poor (name withheld to avoid any risk [...]

We’re all in a tizzy over gasoline, oil reserves, air quality, will there be a GM next month, etc.  The discussion over transport fuel brings out hysterics on all sides.   (more…)