Category: News
Shamu-Mania
Amy Sutherland has been on the “Today Show” and the most e-mailed N.Y. Times article for a long time now. This Salon article covers this cultural fad.
She said she’s been surprised by the article’s success: “I thought people would get a kick out of it, because it provides actual information they can use. But honestly I’ve been floored by the epic response it created. It’s kind of funny — who knew that people want marital advice mixed in with an animal-behavior story?”
On the other hand, she reflected, maybe it isn’t so surprising. “It hit on two universals. People love animals, and everyone wants marital advice.” And the training approach may especially appeal, she says, because everyone wants easy marital advice: “People don’t want to go to a counselor for every single thing, and not every little thing warrants going to a counselor,” she said. “People are hungry for really simple techniques.” I don’t know what that says about us — that we’re a bunch of slackers? that a lot of people are married to jerks? — but if the piece’s popularity is any indication, she’s probably right.
No Ordinary Counterfeit
No Ordinary Counterfeit – New York Times
We had an earlier post on this in March
In Oct. 2, 2004, the container ship Ever Unique, sailing under a Panamanian flag from Yantai, China, berthed in the Port of Newark. Beneath cardboard boxes containing plastic toys, they found counterfeit $100 bills worth more than $300,000, secreted in false-bottomed compartments.
The counterfeits were nearly flawless. They featured the same high-tech color-shifting ink as genuine American bills and were printed on paper with the same precise composition of fibers. The engraved images were, if anything, finer than those produced by the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Only when subjected to sophisticated forensic analysis could the bills be confirmed as imitations. Continue reading “No Ordinary Counterfeit”
Jihadists split on Islam’s true enemy
Jihadists split on Islam’s true enemy – Africa & Middle East – International Herald Tribune
The discussions reflect the widening divide between Shiite and Sunni Arabs in parts of the Middle East, and Sunni fears of the ascendance of Shiite-dominated Iran. The Internet volleys, some of them full of fury and venom, also offer a window into the startling diversity of opinion among jihadist groups.
Suspicions among Sunnis over growing Shiite power – and a vindictive backlash by Shiites – have come to the fore during the Iraq war and the conflict in Lebanon. Animosity is especially virulent among those Sunni militants who adhere to a conservative strain of Islam that views Shiites as infidels.
Fisherman speared by blue marlin off Bermuda
CNN.com – Fisherman speared by blue marlin off Bermuda
HAMILTON, Bermuda (AP) — A fisherman was recovering from surgery after he was speared in the chest and knocked into the Atlantic Ocean by a blue marlin during a fishing competition off Bermuda’s coast.
Pakistan Expanding Nuclear Program
Pakistan Expanding Nuclear Program
India currently has an estimated 30 to 35 nuclear warheads based on a sophisticated plutonium design. Pakistan, which uses a simpler, uranium-based warhead design, has sought for years to modernize its arsenal, and a new heavy-water reactor could allow it to do so, weapons experts say.
“With plutonium bombs, Pakistan can fully join the nuclear club,” said a Europe-based diplomat and nuclear expert.
God’s army has plans to run the whole Middle East
God’s army has plans to run the whole Middle East – Sunday Times – Times Online
A few minutes’ drive south from central Beirut takes you into what appears to be a different country. Beirut itself has European-style architecture, shops, hotels and cafes with men and women mostly wearing western clothes.
Once you enter Hezbollah land, the scene changes. You feel as if you are in Qom, the Iranian holy city, with men sporting bushy beards and women covered by mandatory hijab, milling around in noisy narrow streets fronted by nondescript shops. Billboards that advertise global bands in Beirut are used in Hezbollah land for pasting giant portraits of Khomeini and the Iranian “supreme guide” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Not surprisingly Hezbollah describes its territory as “Dar al-Iman” (House of Faith). Continue reading “God’s army has plans to run the whole Middle East”
Sectarian break-up of Iraq is now inevitable, admit officials
Independent Online Edition > Middle East
Just as Yugoslavia disintegrated after strong-man Tito, Iraq without Saddam is imploding along ethnic and religious divisions; hemmed-in by the unrealistic straight-line political boundaries historically-drawn by the Colonial Powers. (See next Post)
“Iraq as a political project is finished,” a senior government official was quoted as saying, adding: “The parties have moved to plan B.” He said that the Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties were now looking at ways to divide Iraq between them and to decide the future of Baghdad, where there is a mixed population. “There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into [Shia] east and [Sunni] west,” he said.
Count Ethnic Divisions, Not Bombs, to Tell if a Nation Will Recover From War
Count Ethnic Divisions, Not Bombs, to Tell if a Nation Will Recover From War – New York Times
The good news is that history suggests that the destruction of war has no lasting impact on economic prospects. The bad news is that most of these countries, especially Iraq, are filled with ethnic divisions and civil discord. The evidence shows that these problems, unlike bombs, cause lasting damage to the prospects for a nation’s economy, even if they do not boil over into civil war.
Boundaries between many countries of the Middle East, like those in Africa, were haphazardly put together in negotiations by European colonizers who had little regard for ethnic realities. Indeed, they sometimes even lumped enemies together on purpose, hoping that ethnic hatreds might reduce anticolonial feelings. In a new study, three economists — Alberto F. Alesina and Janina Matuszeski of Harvard University and William Easterly of New York University — document how important internal cohesion is for the health of a society. Continue reading “Count Ethnic Divisions, Not Bombs, to Tell if a Nation Will Recover From War”
Welcome to Air-conditioned box seats, Superbowl of World Religions
Thanks Randy for this collage of events:
Our foreign correspondent, Caroline, closest to the war zone says:
“Hello All, I had a busy day in Prague. Went to the Jewish Cemetary, where there are some 20,000 bodies burried over time in 12 layers, as being a ghetto they could not expanf the cemetary. Over time the tombstones of centuries past have worked themselves up to the surface and in their wake
left a dizzying display over ancient stone.”
Newt Gingrich, on with Tim Russert July 16 says;
“I, I believe if you take all the countries I just listed, that you’ve been covering, put them on a map, look at all the different connectivity, you’d have to say to yourself this is, in fact, World War III.” (Newt, by Jove, you’ve got it!)
Our foreign correspondent, Caroline, closest to the war zone says:
“Saw the astronomical clock do its thing, which is on the hour a proccession of saints twirl around inside the bell tower like they are on a merry go round . . . “
But Sheik Nasrallah is shrewdly rallying the faithful by evoking his party’s claim to a holy mandate:
“You are fighting the sons of Muhammad and Ali and Hassan and Hussein and all the prophet’s household,” he told the Israelis in a recorded message broadcast on the group’s satellite television station, Al Manar, and on several Arab satellite news stations.