December 2004

"parallels with American foreign policy today are apparent enough. The lack of real accountability, the rough justice, ignoring international conventions, maltreating prisoners, detention without trial"

"no scientific evidence exists that bodies of disaster victims increase the risk of epidemics... cadavers in fact pose less risk of contagion than living people"

77 book reviews this year is a record: I wrote 76 in 1992, 1995, and 1996, but back then many were one-liners

"the appalling truth is that there has been no remedy for the documented torture and killing of foreign prisoners by this American government"

"internal notices to their workforces warning them to be on the lookout for 'a scruffy guy in a baseball cap' who asks too many questions"

"The evidence based recipe included wine, fish, dark chocolate, fruits, vegetables, garlic, and almonds."

"the least the Supreme Court can do is extend the principle of equality to JNF land, and end the anomaly of a public authority administering a restrictive covenant over an eighth of the country"

"Is the repeated bombing, strafing, and missiling of heavily populated civilian urban centers and the partial or total destruction of cities such a humdrum event that no one thinks it worth the bother to attend to?"

"focus-group participants declared they wouldn't accept a Washington Post subscription even if it were free"

"Publishers refusing to label restricted publications can opt to wrap them in plastic or sell them in special [adults only] sections of the store."

"If F = ma is formally empty, microscopically obscure, and maybe even morally suspect, what's the source of its undeniable power?"