While I procrastinate on real work, here's an
International relations
error message. [via Miche]
ISSN 1534-0236
Technology and ideology alike are exercises in applied imagination.
While I procrastinate on real work, here's an
International relations
error message. [via Miche]
The Register passes
along "unconfirmed, and so far sketchy, reports"
that yesterday's killing of the Nigerian consul to the Czech Republic was
revenge for a
Nigerian "419" fraud scheme.
On the local front, New York State
Comptroller Alan Hevesi has
subpoenaed
detailed financial records from the MTA, after failing to get useful
answers to his previous inquiries. Among other things, the MTA is claiming
that its contract with a private company forbids it to tell the state
comptroller how it estimates ridership.
[NY Times link, the usual annoying/annoying should work.]
Molly Ivins discusses
France,
a century or so of history, and what we might learn from the French experience,
including Dien Bien Phu, Algeria, and surviving urban terrorism.
This quote isn't the main point of her essay, but I'm including it for certain people I see on Usenet
George Will saw fit to include in his latest Newsweek column this joke: "How many Frenchmen does it take to defend Paris? No one knows, it's never been tried."When I was in Paris in 1999, an older man I happened to sit near one night urged me, in our halting mixed-language conversation, to visit the memorials of World War II, commemorating his countrymen and mine, fighting together against a common enemy. I didn't go--but I remember him and the conversation.That was certainly amusing.
One million, four hundred thousand French soldiers were killed during World War I. As a result, there weren't many Frenchmen left to fight in World War II. Nevertheless, 100,000 French soldiers lost their lives trying to stop Adolf Hitler.
On behalf of every one of those 100,000 men, I would like to thank Mr. Will for his clever joke. They were out-manned, out-gunned, out-generaled and, above all, out-tanked. They got slaughtered, but they stood and they fought. Ha-ha, how funny.
In the few places where they had tanks, they held splendidly.
Relying on the Maginot Line was one of the great military follies of modern history, but it does not reflect on the courage of those who died for France in 1940. For 18 months after that execrable defeat, the United States of America continued to have cordial diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany.
Oil
and water do mix--if you take all the dissolved gas out of the water
first. Even weirder, they stay mixed if the gas is allowed back in later.
"Many scientists are going to find this very hard to believe," says colloid scientist Len Fisher of the University of Bristol in England, "but Pashley has provided very strong proof that oil and water will mix." Pashley's observation is bound to cause controversy as the reason it happens is still unclear. Chemists are waiting to see whether the experiment can be repeated.Part of why it's unclear is that chemists don't understand why oil and water normally don't mix, though the "long-range hydrophobic force" involved is documented and measurable.
In honor of the February Bank Holiday, Jon Carroll
has written a convenient review of the life story of
President
Washington Lincoln.
Really ugly
unintended
consequences: the attempt to save the rhino has put the saiga, an Asian antelope,
on the endangered list.
Saiga horns were promoted as a replacement for rhino horns in "traditional" Chinese medicine, in this case meaning not the use of herbs or acupuncture, but what amounts to magic.
Aerial surveys in 2001 by the Institute of Zoology in Kazakhstan revealed no adult or juvenile males, only females, says Milner-Gulland. And time is running out to bring extra males in, as saiga antelopes normally only live for three to four years.Conservationists have struggled to keep up with the scale of the disaster, and did not put the saiga on the Red List of critically endangered species until October 2002. In the coming months they will launch an emergency appeal to rescue wild herds.
"We think we have probably got just two years to save the species," says Entwistle. "The trouble is, most people have never heard of the animal, so it is hard to raise funds."
"And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?"
The New York City Police Department admits that it has decided to
refuse
to grant any permits for protest marches in Manhattan. This has been policy since
Fall 2002, but only became public last Friday.
And a US District Court judge has ruled that the alleged need for security outweighs the protestors' First Amendment rights.
"The court will not second-guess or substitute its judgment for that of the NYPD," she wrote. "The court recognizes that it should not ‘kowtow without question to agency expertise’ but it considers the reasons offered by the city ... to legitimately implicate the significant governmental interest of public safety."The New York Civil Liberties Union, representing the protestors, is appealing.
I had hoped the Bloomberg administration was friendlier to the Constitution than its predecessor.
A
congestion
charge on motorists driving into central London will be going into effect on
17 February. The Guardian's overview includes the idea's political
history--Ken Livingstone admits to having "nicked the idea off Milton Friedman"--and a
wide variety of other background and comparisons. So I learned that the first road toll
in London was charged in 1270 (to pay for repairs) and that while most of the press,
presumably excluding the author of this article, has been against the idea, polls in
London consistently show a majority in favor.
The question may be whether it's either desirable or possible to speed up London traffic:
"The charge is all based on some myth that one wants a nice quiet city," says Paul Barker, who has been writing about the capital for decades. "The fact traffic is moving at about the same speed as it was in 1900 perhaps indicates there is something in the nature of London that means that's the correct speed."Livingstone and Transport for London hope it's possible, if not to speed up cars, to speed pedestrians and buses and generally help people move around London, and improve the air they breathe.
Vaclav Havel is
retiring from politics
as of midnight tonight. At that time, the Czech Republic will have no head of state:
Parliament has been unable to agree on his successor.
The only plans he has announced are to catch up on his reading:
I do not have any commitments, or intentions. I did not promise anything to anybody.I want to be free and I will write something in perhaps half a year's time, in five years' time, or maybe never. And I look forward to this freedom and to the fact that I will not have anything planned for every weekend that would involve writing speeches, because a week later I will have to present them somewhere. And I look forward to this very much.
By this, I am not saying that I will completely withdraw and nobody will ever hear from me again. I can imagine a situation when I will want to be heard.
Parasomnias
look very different from the better-known sleep disorders. Like narcolepsy, however,
they seem to be primarily neurological in origin.
Sleepwalking is the best-known and simplest of these, but some people eat in their sleep, or believe they're being attacked. The brain seems to be both weirder and in some ways simpler than we've imagined--most of these behaviors are also seen in other animals, including dogs and cats. In a few cases, people miss the vividness of the dreams, even while they're glad to have a better grip on reality. [NY Times link, registration or try annoying/annoying to log in.]
I have nothing to add to this, but some things must be said:
Space
Shuttle Columbia is gone, on its way back from space to the green hills of
Earth. In memoriam: Rick D. Husband, William C. McCool, Michael P. Anderson,
David M. Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, and Ilan Ramon.
It's scant comfort, but at least they'd had their time in orbit.
Günter
Grass considers the Bush administration's
script
for a war.
Llewelyn's
way of running for
President appeals to me.
Copyright 2003 Vicki Rosenzweig. Comments welcome at vr@redbird.org.
If you like this, you might also like my home page or my online journal.