From BBC News: Former South African President Nelson Mandela has topped a BBC poll to find the person most people would like to lead a fantasy world government. More than 15,000 people worldwide took part in the interactive Power Play game, in which players were invited to choose a team of 11 to run the world from a list of around 100 of the most powerful leaders, thinkers and other
October 2005
October 2, 2005
“Contentedness”: a protein wisdom micro-fiction
The man leaned forward in his seat, scooping warm con queso dip onto a lime-tinged tortilla chip, which he shoveled rapidly into his mouth. “Mmm,” he said, nudging his wife with an elbow. “This is really good dip.” “I know,” she said. “Isn’t it awesome?”
October 2, 2005
Root Causes
Terry Hastings emails: Since we all “know” that terrorism is driven by 1-) US policy in Israel 2-) US presence in Arabia How does Bali tie into this? Is Bali secretly sending troops and supplies to Iraq? Is Bali suppressing the peace loving Palestinians? Is the US actively involved in Bali governmental affairs? Or, is it much simpler than that? Perhaps the terrorist element within Bali could not gain control
October 2, 2005
Ends, means, the “progressive” left, and language (updated)
From Jonah Goldberg, writing in the Corner: Please read this post by Garance Franke-Ruta over at Tapped on what “movement-building” demands of liberal bloggers. It certainly reads to me like she’s upset that liberal bloggers are being too intellectually honest. The upshot of Franke-Ruta’s position seems to be that deliberately distorting Bill Bennett’s intent and meaning is a small price to pay to villify him unfairly and for the added
October 2, 2005
The “The trouble with Oktoberfest” post
The trouble with Oktoberfest, if you happen to be of a certain disposition, is that you may very well find yourself at evening’s end drunk on St Pauli Girl, sitting in the bathroom with a pair of professional-grade hair clippers and no idea how properly to use them. Which means that when you wake up in the morning to urinate, you could very well frighten yourself half to death simply
October 1, 2005
Portrait of the artist as a crazed lunatic Kos diarist with passive agressive homicidal impulses
Is a progressive jihad in the offing? You be the judge: We need terror. We need horror. We need the streets running awash in rivers of blood of these thugs and criminals and zealots. Activism didn’t prevent 60,000 deaths in Vietnam. All the activism of the Civil Rights era has gotten African Americans precisely nowhere. Segregation may not be the law of the land anymore, but it’s still the de
October 1, 2005
First, they came for the Burger King swirly cone wrappers and I did not speak out because I’m more of a Dairy Queen Blizzard kinda guy. Then they came for my ham sandwich…
From the Sun UK: Novelty pig calendars and toys have been banned from a council office  in case they offend Muslim staff. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even a tissue box featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. Bosses acted after a Muslim complained about pig-shaped stress relievers delivered
October 1, 2005
Bennett and the linguistic turn, redux
In response to my post yesterday about intentionalism as it applies to the Bill Bennett dustup, Politechnical Institute writes: There are two factors at work here—one, an intellectual understanding of how communication works, and two, a political understanding of how the current reality works. First, communicators must ALWAYS be aware of how their messages may be interpreted. This is standard business and political doctrine. If this were purely about intent,