ma parole

The Apple Product Cycle

Oh, too close to true to be true. Been there, done that.

Saddam's People Are Winning The War

Scott Ritter, a UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 through 1998, writes in the International Herald Tribune that Saddam's people are winning the war. His starts with the premise that Allawi's government, installed and supported by the US, is out of touch with the people and doomed to fail, and goes on to predict that

We will suffer a decade-long nightmare that will lead to the deaths of thousands more Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis. We will witness the creation of a viable and dangerous anti-American movement in Iraq that will one day watch as American troops unilaterally withdraw from Iraq every bit as ignominiously as Israel did from Lebanon.

Diamonds Are Forever

They won't leave in the night, I've no fear that they might desert me. But have you
ever tried to sell one? An interesting story on how De Beers, deliberately and methodically, arranged for a diamond to be forever.

Now, it seems, forever might be a tad too optimistict, according to The Economist.

Pigeon Suicide Bombers

Every once in a while, you come across an article in the news that makes you check the date, to see if it is, in fact, April 1st.

One such article in the BBC covers the use of pigeons to deliver explosives and biological weapons on suicide missions. "A thousand pigeons each with a two ounce explosive capsule, landed at intervals on a specific target, might be a seriously inconvenient suprise", they quote. The plan was abandoned, however, after "MI5 branded Rayner [a pigeon enthusiast advocating the project] a 'menace in pigeon affairs'" and scrapped development of a 400-pigeon aviary.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Perhaps they thought the name was a coincidence?

The Somali warlord, Hussein Aideed, finally has been jailed over a debt in Kenya.

The article correctly mentions he is the son of the former Somali dictator General Mohamed Farah Aideed. It mentions also Hussein Aideed is a US citizen and served with the US Marines. What it does not reveal is that Hussein Aideed served with those Marines in Somalia trying, in vain, to catch his father - the former dictator invariably would slip away just before the US forces showed up to capture him.

Hussein Aideed has admitted in subsequent interviews to being in almost daily contact with his father during his tour in Somalia. The correlation would seem pretty obvious, then. Perhaps the military commanders thought it a coincidence he could speak Somali and bore the same name as the man they were trying to catch?

"Sometimes, the sound of goodbye is louder than any drum beat."

Why Education Is Important

Dihydrogen monoxide is "an odorless, tasteless chemical that can be deadly if accidentally inhaled." Responding to the threat posed by this dangerous chemical, the Aliso Viejo suburb of Orange County, California was all set to ban the use of styrofoam containers (Boston Globe) as "they were made with a substance that could 'threaten human health and safety.'"

Worth A 1000 Words

How long, I wonder, before images doctored like this show up in the "real" print media? Or perhaps they already have.

John Kerry was never at a rally with Jane Fonda

and I think even the President knows how to hold a book.

21 Gun Salute

The Sydney Morning Herald reports "an English widow has honoured the memory of her gun-loving husband by having his ashes loaded into cartridges for use by his close friends in the last shoot of the season."

That's cool, but not, I think, as cool as my "the beer's on me" plan.

A Witty Saying Proves Nothing

...the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear from death.

Voltaire

Do-It-Yourself DNA

And in the same vein, Scientific American has some Amateur Scientist articles on extracting and replicating DNA in your kitchen at home.

You will likely want to build your own centrifuge from an old blender.

Now The Message Is The Medium

From Wired: an artist is using DNA as the media for his work. He translated Descartes' cogito, ergo sum in to a DNA sequence and inserted it in to a tomato plant.

The process "is a lot simpler than people may think, which takes away the mystery of the project. People may think 'Ooh, genetic engineering and art' -- but it's not really hard to do." ... In fact, "you could do genetic engineering in your house."

Not that you can see much difference in the plant, mind. But I'm intrigued by the glowing bunny rabbit and the e. coli virus a researcher induced to blink on and off.

Life in a Glass House

I just don't want to think what's going to go on inside this contraption.

A new way to view London, indeed.

Democracy For Hire

New term for the day - astroturf lobbying refers to the practice of manufacturing grassroots support. For a fee, these PR companies use boiler room phone operations to locate "less-informed" activists willing to send letters to their government representatives on whatever the PR firm's client's cause may be.

According to this page, astroturf techniques have been used to:

• defeat the Clinton administration's proposed health care reform, through a front group called "Rx Partners" created by the Beckel Cowan PR firm, and the Coalition for Health Insurance Choices, created by public relations consultant Blair Childs
• harass environmentalists through the Wise Use movement
• loosen automobile fuel efficience standards
• support clear-cutting American forests, through a front group called Citizens to Protect the Pacific Northwest and Northern California Economy
• oppose restrictions on smoking in public places, through a front group called National Smokers Alliance, which was created by Burson-Marsteller

Democracy for hire. But I'll bet it ain't cheap.

More about love

My love runs by like a day in June,
    And he makes no friends of sorrows.
He'll tread his galloping rigadoon
    In the pathway or the morrows.
He'll live his days where the sunbeams start
    Nor could storm or wind uproot him.
My own dear love, he is all my heart —
    And I wish somebody'd shoot him.

Our Army.

Technically, I am an immigrant. We moved to Canada just before my sixth birthday and though I have some memories of the country in which I was born, a young child's identity is sufficiently elastic (or perhaps the memory sufficiently pliant) that I remember always thinking of myself as Canadian.

My father says he remembers well the day this fact dawned on him, that I was Canadian. I had asked him how big our army was, and he realised that I meant the Canadian one, not the one of the country we'd left behind.

This is our army. Je me souviendrai.

On Deadlines

I've been doing a lot of ducking, lately.

Martinis and Madonna

I love this album - it is, for me, a real break-through in Madonna's work. But that is not why I love it. I love it for the associations: a mid-summer's eve in San Francisco; the sun slanting down on the back of the house, warm and yellow; crowded on a tiny fire escape just off my bedroom window; martinis in hand, cold and white.

Le Paris que j'aime

C'est de ce Paris-là que j'ai fait mes poèmes...
et
Jai plus écrit de toi Paris que de moi-même:
Et plus que de vieillir
Souffert d'être sans toi
     — Louis Aragon

Adrian Leeds writes in her emailed news letter:

I dare you to argue with this statement: Paris is the most romantic city in the world.

In Thirza Vallois' latest book "Romantic Paris," she says that after years of observation, she still has no answer as to why. And because there simply is no answer, "There lies the beauty of the enigma."

While it is often said that "Paris is for lovers," I disagree. I think "love is for Paris." So, let me clarify.

Parisians are passionate about Paris and just about everything else life offers...fine wines, smelly cheeses, harmonious architecture, sparkling lights, rich chocolate, strong coffee, silky scarves, red roses, luxurious furs, masterful art and stolen kisses. This passion is absolutely everywhere you turn. And it comes from the deepest chamber of the Parisian's heart.

I think it's this passion that we envy most and why we fall so deeply in love with this city, like no other. I think it's why we fall so easily in love while we're in this city, too. So, that even when we are single and "alone," we're never really lonely, because we are always having this passionate affair with the city, if not with a lover.

In Paris, not a day goes by that you don't see lovers openly affectionate with one another...of all ages, of all persuasions. And you're never made to feel embarrassed to be the observer or "voyeur." In fact, it's just the opposite. Passionate moments such as those are openly enjoyed by everyone around, perhaps sometimes envied, but never offended.

If you're single in the City of Light, Paris is your Lover. If you have a Lover in the City of Romance, Paris is your Light.

And the pigeons. Don't forget the fucking pigeons!

Pub etiquette

At last, somebody has written down all the unwritten rules. Some kind soul has put together a step-by-step guide to English pubs: how to find them, how to behave in them, and how to leave them.