August 2004

"The kibbutz shaped the world's view of the Jewish state over the decades when it was seen as struggling for social justice as well as survival."

"It is impossible to understand an unmotivated definition but this does not stop the criminal algebraists-axiomatisators."

"a reminder of how far out of sync the American Muslim establishment is from most Muslims in the world"

"While traditional coca plants are dark green and grow to some 5ft, the new strain grows to more than 12ft. "

"Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, is all for democracy. It's just the practitioners of it that he can't abide."

"If protests against U.S. political plans for Iraq months ago are anything to go by, hundreds of thousands of Shiites could march on Najaf."

"They're like the old regime, only less disciplined. They're terrifying and they're the most dangerous element in this conflict."

"The Iraqi Security Forces are bad shots and the Americans are good enough to fire warning shots above peoples heads and not hit them."

"A member of the Al Mahdi militia quietly scaled the back of the tank in broad daylight, shot the men at point-blank range through the open hatch, and fled."

"The signatories called for democracy throughout the Muslim world through free and fair elections, with respect for pluralism and the dignity of citizens"... and for resistance against the US and its Iraqi puppet government

arbitrary arrests, extra-judicial executions and torture by the government; killings, abductions and child recruitment by the rebels

by "destroying the thin crust of lichen and stones that has protected vast areas of the Sahara from the wind for centuries"

"there is unlikely to be any more traffic in fish species [due to] the introduction of the predatory peacock cichlid to an artificial lake halfway along the canal"

"The ferocity of the rebel resistance surprised the marines, who had seen Saddam Hussein's army disintegrate last year"

"A German manufacturer will pay over $10 million to Israeli families whose infants died or suffered developmental damage after they were fed a milk substitute lacking a crucial vitamin" (thiamin)

"There is only one person whose opinions count. Somewhere in the bowels of Microsoft is a middle level employee whose job title is something like 'German localisation manager for Word'."

"Among the town's proudest historical artifacts is the Emmaus Church, built in 1297 and the first fortified church in Saxony."

"an association representing the interests of the former inhabitants of East Prussia has promised legal action"

"I'm no fan of the CIA - but still less of one when it's being converted into a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bush family and its GOP capos"

running life-critical medical systems on Windows is bad enough; having them connected to the Net as well is just madness

"Above all, it is wrong and dangerous for our elected representatives to mislead the Australian people."

"a bitterly ironic twist for a party founded almost a century ago to promote the interests of white Afrikaners and keep blacks from power"

"Aljazeera had to promise to change its policy regarding its Iraq coverage if it wanted the office to be re-opened"

Naqqash's novels were written "in various Arabic dialects that had already begun to disappear from the world when he was a boy"

this is why I'd never trade in my day job, even if my income from Amazon and AdSense were enough to live on!

"Spain's most controversial corpse was dumped in a makeshift grave alongside a one-legged teacher and two anarchist bullfighters"

"There is increasing evidence that U.S. doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures"

"On May 2, Sri Lankan Vipula Prasanna accidentally trod on Michael John-Charles's son's foot at Wembley Park station..."

"in the Middle East... America's favorability rating is now, essentially, zero. That's down from as high as 75 percent in some countries four years ago."

"Everything Scarlett wanted in was based on very old evidence which we had painstakingly investigated and shown to be false"

"the Islamic government is recognizing that some people want to change their sex, and allowing them to have operations and obtain new birth certificates"