All affluent societies become increasingly litigious with time. It happened in ancient Egypt. It is happen to China.

A short-lived market shift? Sure. But China is in love with capitalism and 3 billion people are nouveau rich and hungry for more.

Besides it's like going to one parent when the other said no. Much will be swept under the rug.

Forgive a possible repeat, but nobody shares Mark's obsession with this artist. Is she from the island you lived on, Mark? Why is all the art on bbnet an echo chamber for six other websites? I've been reading for seven years and I hold Boing Boing in much higher regard than perhaps it deserves.

Now-defunct chat program Meetro utilized this concept for social networking beginning several years ago.

Whoever said it's Spanish: I'm sure they're right because you don't go randomly saying that for no reason. But I notice two things:

1. It's an ear wax scraper. While European gene pools produce wet ear wax, Asian gene pools produce dry ear wax. I know some nice old systems were developed in the east for scraping it out. I didn't think the scraper was the preferred method in the west, where the gunk is treated more like a liquid to be coaxed out. But what do I know?

2. It has dragons on it.

So lets hear it from the experts. What makes this scraper Spanish?