Virtual, but permanent.
Even The Wall Street Journal is now in the business of reporting how all news coming out of Iraq is deliberately skewed. According to this article, the Iraqi authorities define criteria for reporting casualties in a way that reduces the number of deaths that are attributed to the aftermath of the Samarra Mosque bombing in February.
Here is the link to the scanned article.
By most criteria, Iraq is already in the grips of a civil war. So why the hassle?
Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities – New York Times
The RSS summary for this story reads “Heading into this year’s elections, senior Democrats said that they sense they had failed to exploit Republican vulnerabilities.” This confirms that the Democratic party is either comatose or about as corrupt as the Republican party. I am an optimist. Therefore, I prefer to think of them as comatose.
Given a choice between a human vegetable and a vegetating party, however, the latter is clearly the better choice because the vegetable will make stupid decisions but the vegetating party will at least let the system run unhindered.
A Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA – New York Times
The title does not quite convey the gravity of the matter. In case the link has expired, the story is about a Bush appointee, George C. Deutsch, who “told public affairs workers to limit reporters’ access to a top climate scientist and told a Web designer to add the word ‘theory’ at every mention of the Big Bang”, resigned because he lied about having a college degree from Texas A&M.
Of course, the wisdom of appointing a 24-year-old journalism major to oversee some of the world’s greatest scientists and engineers is illusive. About as illusive as appointing David Duke to head the EEOC. Still this is worse, because this kid was not even a scientist. At least a racist can conceive of “equality of opportunity”, even if he wants to squelch it. Like other Bush appointees, Deutsch is utterly clueless.
Given Bush’s track record of personal and group incompetence, it is not unlikely that we will see Alan Keyes (scroll to “Africa: No Money for AIDS) appointed to the NIH division on AIDS. We might even see some dumbass appointed to FEMA.
Oh, wait….
Web ads like this one make one wonder if it is wise to trust computers with advertising. At least, Albert Brooks should be thinking why his movie distributor allowed this ad to end up on this particular news page. Looking for humor in the Arab world? It might be just as hard to find in the Jewish world these days.
Obviously, this gaffe is not the reason the movie bombed, but it could not have helped.
Here. There. Somewhere. Nowhere. Elsewhere.
Where?
In the end,
before the end.
In the middle,
before the middle.
In the beginning
before the beginning.
Where to start? Where to continue? Where to end?
When to start? When to continue? When to end?
How to start? How to continue? How to end?
Why to start? Why to continue? Why to end?
Start? Continue? End?
There is that which I have penned.
There is that which I wish I had penned.
There is that which I wish to pen.
There is that which I wish I could pen.
There is that which I want to pen.
How do I reconcile it all with a pencil? Or with a keyboard?
Who knows where evil lurks?
Who knows why evil lurks?
Who knows when evil lurks?
Who knows how evil lurks?
Who knows if evil lurks
Berlin is a short distance from Prague: only four and a half hours on a standard train. Yet, the two cities could not be more different. Languages are as those from different planets. one still looks as it did a thousand years ago, World War II and communism notwithstanding, and the other is a great cultural mecca slowly mending the severe wounds it sustained at the hands of fascism and communism. The pictures show only part of the story. A great deal of European history is told in these two cities. A scant 6 days are not enough to capture any significant fraction of this history, but they are just enough to instill an appreciation of the stories.