War Rocket Chile-Max

Normally a trip to Chile armed with an awesomely powerful Canon A70 PowerShot ("unsurpassable banker-snapping power") would be a cause for ill-composed photo-glee. But today was spent inside, listening in a half daze to the snippets of Spanish that might be traced back to French, Latin, or the darker recesses of memory. Chile has some of the hardest-working, smartest, and most modest denizens you could ever meet. Why they have not become an elite global force for efficiency along the lies of the Swiss is a mystery. Probably the fact that there are only 12 million of them, as the minister of Health so helpfully pointed out last night.

You will hopefully have read the latest on Mr Cunningham and his plethora of bribes. You may even be aware of the "Victory Plan" that the president has just outlined (the scare quotes belong to the BBC), using terminology eerily reminiscent of 1971. Please read the Next Hurrah's take on how these secret plan thingies work.

The only thing you absolutely must read, along with everyone else, is this tale of shoddy sales tactics from a camera retailer. There is definitely a website waiting to go up that provides a handy single source for gripes about utilities, retailers and airlines (particularly airlines, especially those that pretend not to find reservations, ya scumticles). Not one of those Verizonsucks.com-type websites, but an amazon.com com of abuse and grudge posts, with the shopping option removed. It would even be more popular than overheardinny.com, because there's nothing like gloating at the misfortune of others in the name of research.

Brief, and scrappy bit of undignified garage rock for you. Could have cleaned it up, but there's dinner to catch...

The Datsuns "Freeze Sucker"
Buy "The Datsuns" here. They're not quite as compelling live, but are sooo cutely stupid

[Update, hello, surpisingly large number of people that waded through the comments and all of the links from the original post to see our tuppence. Brooklyn electronics retailers are definitely like this. Pro-Line on Atalntic Avenue once offered a "one time, as long as you don't walk out this store, reduction" on a turntable listed at 40% lower in Amazon]