March 2004

what do you do when your daughter says "You two don't love each other. If you loved each other, you'd be married." - you go get married, of course!

"after the pogroms of Gujerat and the inaccurate rewriting of textbooks, Naipaul's misleading take on medieval Indian history must not go uncorrected"

tempting: Larry Addington's America's War in Vietnam ("If you want to read one book about Vietnam, read this one") and Duong Thu Huong's novel Memories of a Pure Spring (Amazon links)

"And then do you know what Fiona Katie did next??? Fired an AK47! Yes, the very first thing I did in Baghdad" - and she visits Fallujah, too

"no stoplights, no police, no danger to hit some cage or some dog... a last day of Pompei sort of place"

"there have been confirmed reports of dissent among the ranks of the Pakistani para-military troops and the army sent into the semi-autonomous region "

"The US can to some significant degree thank Ariel Sharon's iron fist for the distrust and suspicion with which their presence in Iraq is greeted."

trying to claim "orphaned" works for the public domain by challenging the abandonment of registration and renewal requirements

I doubt this has anything at all to do with Al-Qaeda... there's a reason parts of Pakistan are still under tribal rule

"I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he's done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it."

would I have to get a .xxx domain just for some of my pages? and who would decide which ones - or would I be penalised for guessing wrong?

12 reasons for the death of small and independent book stores: "Corporate law, Publishers, Book buyers, Writers, Booksellers, Government, Librarians, Book collectors, Teachers, Editors, Reviewers, and the Public"

"Although Japan's economy is roughly equal to those of Germany, France, and Britain combined, the prime minister would never risk offending Washington by taking a 'French' or 'German' stance"

"not possible to find a leader 'more foolish than you (Bush), who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom'"

"if Windows XP were the Empire State Building, then the little barking Beagle virus can come in through the front door, lift its leg, deliver its payload, and cause the entire building to come crumbling down."

"a victory of the PP would have confirmed that governments can lie in this democracy and avoid paying for it"

bribery on the border, insecurity and kidnapping in Baghdad, a meeting with Ayatollah Sistani, the Karbala bombs

"the high profile participation of Nestlé in the Global Compact, even as the company continues its long history of violating UN principles and undermining regulatory efforts"

"the folks who brought us Oklahoma City are still out there, still looking for opportunities to strike"

"The big loser is North America, with a 17% drop in the number of international visitors arriving for recreational purposes" from 2001 to 2003

"Exploring migrants, exiles, expatriates, and out-of-the-way peoples, places, and times, mostly in the Asia-Pacific region."

"he never learned to pander unreservedly to foreign commercial interests... he remained indelibly associated with what's left of a genuine popular movement for political and economic empowerment"

"the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation - and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself - but never pulled the trigger"

"We had in our Constitution a commitment to free culture. In the case that I fathered, the Supreme Court effectively renounced that commitment. A better lawyer would have made them see differently."

"So if we can put aside the teachings on women, on divorce, on the Sabbath -- and those are all things that we choose -- then why not on homosexuality, when we don't choose our sexual orientation?"

"So now we have a new classification system, introduced with virtually no debate, based on questionable claims about increased complaints"