Month: March 2003
New war logic comes to light: Second coming overdue
As if the motivations for the war against Iraq weren’t already arguable, or maybe because they are, nutjobs from one end of the planet to the other are inventing more outlandish justifications for hundreds of thousands of American soldiers in Iraq. My favorite new reason—favorite mainly because it’s bonkers, and yet it seems just on…
“France declares war on American ‘invaders’,” by Jo Johnson from
;They do incredible damage to the ecosystem. They are so big that a mosquito is just not enough. That’s just like a peanut to them, an aperitif. Eventually they will crowd out the frogs that eat mosquitoes, which will necessitate returning to harmful chemical treatments.
The Coué method is a form of auto-suggestion
The Coué method is a form of auto-suggestion or encouragement which supposedly improves the effectiveness of cures merely by praising them. French president Jacques Chirac is said to apply la méthode Coué when imposing unpopular or unpalatable solutions to intractable problems.
A few quick notes on Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. 2003 G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New Yor
It is rare that I purchase hard-cover books: the cost per word is too high, and I cannot shake the sensation of having cheated myself out of other books which could have been purchased by the difference between the hard cover and soft cover prices. But last week I bought William Gibson’s latest, Pattern Recognition,…
“The Alternative United States” by Dr. Edward Said from
;[…]Apart from a few courses and seminars on American literature and politics scattered throughout the universities of the Arab world, there has never been anything like an academic center for the systematic and scientific analysis of America, its people, society, and history, at all. Not even in American institutions like the American Universities of Cairo…
More Unanswered Questions
Where is Saddam Hussein? Where is Osama bin Laden? Where is Peter Arnett? Answer: In Iraq for National Geographic. Where is Arthur Kent? Answer: Not in Iraq.
Unanswered Questions
Where are Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction? Are they hidden on ships? Were they destroyed prior to 1992? Do the weapons of mass destruction exist at all, or were the 50 liters of mustard gas, now destroyed, the end of it? And if the war starts, and Iraq launches no missiles which go beyond the…
The saga of getting the musical
The saga of getting the musical Chicago made into a film reminds me of nothing so much as the saga of reviving the Twenties musical No, No, Nanette in the Seventies. The 1972 book The Making of No, No, Nanette by Don Dunn details the torturous process of staging the Broadway show: the uncertainty about…
As many as 90,
As many as 90,000 undocumented—or illegal—immigrants live in Canada. As many as 12 million live in the United States.
The US Coast Guard’s wet foot/dry foot poli
The US Coast Guard’s wet foot/dry foot policy says that Cubans intercepted at sea are sent back to Cuba; those that reach US soil can stay.