OT: Finding Bush's g-spot
maff
Conor Foley
March 12, 2007 10:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/conor_foley/2007/03/sexy_brazil.html
Brazil's President Lula was probably not aware that his US
counterpart's surname has a sexual connotation when he suggested on
Friday working together to find the "g-spot" in their negotiations.
President Bush also seems to have missed the joke, due to a faulty
translation, although his Spanish is good enough for him to have
understood the explicitly sexual references to his mother that tens of
thousands of Brazilian protesters were chanting during his recent
visit.
A lesson in free trade
Michael Lisman
March 12, 2007 9:30 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_lisman/2007/03/a_lesson_in_free_trade.html
President Bush's first visit to Guatemala this week focused attention
on, among other things, the free trade agreement with Central America
(DR-CAFTA) and on the complicated issues surrounding liberalized trade
policies in the region. But a less visible issue, though no less
important, is that free trade also requires better education.
In implementing DR-CAFTA agreements, it's important that education
policy match the labor and economic ambitions of the region. Failing
to do so would not only be a lost opportunity for true systemic
reform, but a blow to the potential for evenly distributed gains from
freer trade. President Bush's comments to the Latin American press
corps last week reflected this truth, though it will take much more
than a dollop of aid from the north to make the needed impacts.
I dreamed of AFRICOM
Paul McLeary
March 12, 2007 9:00 PM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/paul_mcleary/2007/03/africom.html
The words "combat command", when used in conjunction with the
militarily ham-fisted Bush administration, don't exactly inspire
confidence. Given the White House's disastrous track record of
military adventurism, none of us should look the other way when
Washington's sabers start rattling.
But skepticism can be taken too far. Case in point is a post by Salim
Lone this morning that criticizes AFRICOM, the new American combat
command for Africa. Lone makes a series of accusations that aren't
supported by what we know about AFRICOM at this early date, while
distorting what we do know about the command.
Don't let truth stand in the way of a red-hot debunking of climate
change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2032361,00.html
The science might be bunkum, the research discredited. But all that
counts for Channel 4 is generating controversy
George Monbiot
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
Were it not for dissent, science, like politics, would have stayed in
the dark ages. All the great heroes of the discipline - Galileo,
Newton, Darwin, Einstein - took tremendous risks in confronting
mainstream opinion. Today's crank has often proved to be tomorrow's
visionary.
But the syllogism does not apply. Being a crank does not automatically
make you a visionary. There is little prospect, for example, that Dr
Mantombazana Tshabalala-Msimang, the South African health minister who
has claimed Aids can be treated with garlic, lemon and beetroot, will
be hailed as a genius. But the point is often confused. Professor
David Bellamy, for example, while making the incorrect claim that wind
farms do not have "any measurable effect" on total emissions of carbon
dioxide, has compared himself to Galileo.
An invitation to proliferate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2032271,00.html
If Labour MPs can force a delay on Trident renewal tomorrow, it will
be good for Britain and the world
Jon Trickett
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
In a telling echo of the vote for the Iraq war, the prime minister's
rushed enthusiasm for nuclear rearmament contains more holes than an
Atlantic driftnet. The parliamentary majority for the invasion of Iraq
was achieved without a Labour majority. Now it seems that the decision
to renew the Trident missile fleet will also require the support of
opposition MPs. Despite a brace of resignations, despite the large
numbers of Labour MPs - as many as 70 - signing my amendment to delay
a decision, Tony Blair seems determined to push through a vote
tomorrow night. This legislation will not just cost billions of
pounds, it will also send a signal to nations across the globe that if
they wish to feel secure in an unpredictable world, they should beg,
steal, borrow or purchase weapons of mass destruction.
The threat of Balkanisation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2032362,00.html
US policy is fuelling the disintegration of Iraq and that threatens
societies across the Middle East
Sami Khiyami
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
America's strategy in the Middle East, devised by Washington's hawks -
the ultra nationalists, neocons and Christian Zionists - smells of oil
and domination. It has been based on two objectives. First, US global
dominance must shape further globalisation; while the present rules of
the world economy left open opportunities for rising stars like
Russia, China and India, it was clear to some Washington extremists
that, in addition to technology, the US would need to control the
world's oil. The second is to give paramount importance to Israel
while sidelining the interests of the Arabs.
We must not oversimplify the failings of fair trade
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2032266,00.html
The complex debate on international trade takes place on a messy
middle ground
Peter Hardstaff
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
Julian Baggini's article on fair trade (Free doesn't mean unfair,
March 5) is laced with oversimplifications and misrepresentations,
where straw men have been haphazardly constructed so he can take a
swipe at them. Free trade works fine in economic textbooks, but in the
real world a wealth of evidence exists on its limitations and
failures. UN research shows that those poor countries which have
liberalised most have deindustrialised and suffered worsening poverty.
Few, if any, in the fair-trade movement believe impoverished countries
should throw open their markets, see their nascent industries collapse
and then hope that rich consumers will pick up the pieces by choosing
to pay more for all their exports. Perhaps this is why the Fairtrade
Foundation, Traidcraft and over 70 other organisations across the UK,
including the World Development Movement (WDM), came together to form
the Trade Justice Movement - to fight for fundamental changes to the
rules of international trade.
Last night's TV
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv_and_radio/story/0,,2029773,00.html
The Great Global Warming Swindle is sceptical of climate change. I'm
sceptical of this kind of TV
Zoe Williams
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
"We're heretics! I'm a heretic. The makers of this programme are
heretics." Nigel Calder is explaining how the world sees scientists
who deny global warming. Channel 4's The Great Global Warming Swindle
made one interesting point - that scientists are not unanimous in
their assessment of the connection between global warming and CO2.
Most say the second causes the first; a few say the first causes the
second. Interesting, huh? Academics in not-all-thinking-exactly-the-
same-thing shock. The amazing thing about global warming is not that
someone from Winnipeg University disagrees (if you've ever been to
Winnipeg, you will know what it means to be forced by your academic
qualifications to live there); it's how many people don't disagree.
China plans to build its own super-jumbo
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2032251,00.html
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
China plans to produce its own large commercial jet by 2020 to
challenge the dominance of Airbus and Boeing in the world's fastest-
growing aircraft market, the state media reported yesterday.
Beijing has accelerated the development of a homegrown passenger
aircraft to compete for the billions of dollars it is spending on
foreign planes. The blueprint for the large aircraft project will be
completed by 2010, according to the Xinhua news agency, which
highlighted the national prestige attached to the government-funded
plan. An aviation official described the project as an "inspiration to
the nation" similar to the country's manned space programme.
Evangelical Christians attack use of torture by US
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2032616,00.html
Ed Pilkington in New York
Tuesday March 13, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
The uncoupling of American evangelism from the administration of
George Bush gathered pace yesterday when one of the largest national
umbrella groups of socially conservative Christians issued a statement
critical of US policy towards detainees and repudiating torture as a
tactic in the war on terror.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which represents about
45,000 churches across America, endorsed a declaration against torture
drafted by 17 evangelical scholars. The authors, who call themselves
Evangelicals for Human Rights and campaign for "zero tolerance" on
torture, say that the US administration has crossed "boundaries of
what is legally and morally permissible" in the treatment of
detainees.
Morocco plays on terror fears in Sahara peace bid
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2032340,00.html
Simon Tisdall
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
Playing on European and US fears of expanding terrorist networks in
North Africa, Morocco is seeking international backing for a new peace
plan for the Western Sahara. But ownership of the vast mineral-rich
territory bordering the Atlantic, controlled in theory by Rabat since
the 1970s, is disputed by Algerian-backed Polisario Front separatists.
They want full-blown independence, not limited autonomy.
Senior Moroccan officials have visited Washington and other western
capitals in recent weeks to promote the plan, to be presented to the
UN next month. In return for creating a Western Sahara regional
government and parliament, Moroccan sovereignty and control of
security, borders and finances would be formally acknowledged.
160,000-year-old jawbone redefines origins of the species
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2032480,00.html
· North African fossil hints at ties to humans today
· Find shows growth of complex society
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
Modern humans were living in northern Africa far earlier than
previously thought, according to scientists. A new analysis of a
160,000-year-old fossilised jawbone from Morocco shows that the homo
sapiens in the area had started having long childhoods, one of the
hallmarks of humans living today.
It is known that the species homo sapiens emerged in Africa 200,000
years ago, but the oldest fossils that resemble modern humans come
from sites in Europe dated to around 20,000 to 30,000 years ago.
Letter proves Speer knew of Holocaust plan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,,2032490,00.html
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
A newly discovered letter by Adolf Hitler's architect and armaments
minister Albert Speer offers proof that he knew about the plans to
exterminate the Jews, despite his repeated claims to the contrary.
Writing in 1971 to Hélène Jeanty, the widow of a Belgian resistance
leader, Speer admitted that he had been at a conference where Heinrich
Himmler, the head of the SS and Gestapo, had unveiled plans to
exterminate the Jews in what is known as the Posen speech. Speer's
insistence that he had left before the end of the meeting, and had
therefore known nothing about the Holocaust, probably spared him from
execution after the Nuremberg trials at the end of the second world
war.
US army surgeon general quits in hospital row
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2032428,00.html
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
A scandal over hospital treatment of wounded US soldiers returning
from Iraq and Afghanistan yesterday claimed the biggest scalp yet when
the army surgeon-general, Lieutenant-General Kevin Kiley, was forced
into early retirement.
He is the third victim of a row that has been rumbling since a
detailed exposure in the Washington Post last month of the shoddy
conditions wounded soldiers were living in at the military's supposed
showcase hospital, the Walter Reed, in Washington.
Pessimistic Pentagon studies fallback options in Iraq
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2032414,00.html
Ewen MacAskill in Washington
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
The Pentagon is actively considering a series of fallback positions
for Iraq in the event that President George Bush's plan of expanding
the US military presence fails. Among the options are adoption of the
El Salvador model, which would see Washington withdraw most of its
150,000-plus troops and replace them with a few hundred, or few
thousand, military advisers.
A more drastic option also being looked at is to retreat inside
Baghdad's Green Zone and the heavily fortified airport on the
outskirts of the city.
China's legal bodies want cut in executions
http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2032478,00.html
Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
China should reduce its use of the death penalty and stop humiliating
death-row prisoners with public parades, the state's top legal bodies
have declared ahead of their annual report to parliament tomorrow. In
an apparent move towards a more humane justice system, the supreme
court, chief prosecutor and ministries of police and justice have also
called for an end to the use of torture in police interrogations.
China accounts for at least 75% of all the executions in the world,
but the true scale is hidden. Based on reports, Amnesty International
says China executed at least 1,770 people in 2005. Including
unreported killings, estimates of the annual death toll rise to
10,000.
Lawyers clash with riot police over Musharraf's removal of chief
justice
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2032484,00.html
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
Lawyers clashed violently with police and boycotted Pakistan's courts
yesterday as protest grew over the ousting of the country's top judge.
General Pervez Musharraf, the president, sparked the crisis last
Friday when he summoned Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to his army
headquarters, removed him as chief justice and placed him effectively
under house arrest.
Relatives of missing Iranian general accuse US of kidnap
http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2032510,00.html
Robert Tait in Tehran
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
Claims by western intelligence to have scored a coup by securing the
defection of a senior Iranian general were contradicted yesterday by
the man's relatives, who claimed he had been kidnapped by US or
Israeli agents.
Relatives of Ali Reza Asgari, an Iranian former deputy defence
minister who disappeared during a trip to Turkey, said reports that he
had fled to the west were "lies". They said he would never have spied
on Iran or abandoned his family.
Water of life
http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2032458,00.html
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
Floodwaters flowed into the world's largest ephemeral lake in outback
Australia yesterday, triggering an explosion of life that erupts once
in a decade from its arid salt bed.
Rivers overflowing from northern monsoon rains emptied into the lake
which covers about 1.2m sq km (463,400 sq miles) in the state of South
Australia. Birds swarmed on the area. The waters pouring through the
lake's northern Warburton Groove inlet had started a mass hatching of
salt shrimp from dormant eggs, said charter pilot Trevor Wright from
nearby William Creek.
UN investigators accuse Sudan of orchestrating Darfur abuses
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sudan/story/0,,2032477,00.html
· International response to region's crisis 'inadequate'
· Islamic states try to block damning report's delivery
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
UN human rights investigators have accused the Sudanese government of
orchestrating "gross and systematic" human rights abuses in Darfur and
complained that the international response has been "inadequate and
ineffective".
"It's a damning report. It's another example of lovely words in UN
resolutions which don't mean anything if you don't put them into
action," the head of the investigative team, Nobel peace prize
laureate Jody Williams, told the Guardian.
Ms Williams said she was hoping to deliver the report to the UN human
rights council on Friday, but there are attempts by Islamic states
supporting Khartoum to block it and order a new one.
Al Gore brings DIY television 'revolution' to Britain
http://technology.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2032432,00.html
· Ex vice-president targets internet generation
· Google and British Library join 'snack' view channel
Owen Gibson, media correspondent
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
Former US vice-president turned Oscar-winning environmental campaigner
Al Gore yesterday unveiled the British version of his Current TV
network, claiming it was the first example of "television for the
internet generation".
He said the new service, which relies on viewer-created content for
more than a third of its schedule, marked a media revolution that
would prove as pivotal as the invention of the printing press.
Current TV, which launched yesterday on the Sky and Virgin Media pay-
TV platforms, is aimed at the 18- to 34-year-olds increasingly turning
to the net, mobile phones and a myriad of digital channels to
complement mainstream media habits.
US refuses to hand over its Iraq rules of engagement to inquest
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2032568,00.html
Audrey Gillan
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
American defence chiefs yesterday refused to hand over their rules of
engagement for operating in Iraq to Ministry of Defence officials, in
spite of a demand from a British court.
The move was condemned by the constitutional affairs minister, Harriet
Harman, as regrettable and disappointing.
A coroner investigating the death of Lance Corporal of Horse Matty
Hull in a so-called friendly-fire incident in March 2003 said the US
refusal meant that British forces were fighting "in a situation where
they do not know the rules of engagement of the American forces they
are working alongside".
Mrs Darwin's diaries go online
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2032461,00.html
James Randerson, science correspondent
Tuesday March 13, 2007
The Guardian
He was one of the most brilliant and controversial scientists the
world has known. And yet the diaries of his wife portray a very
ordinary English gentleman, whose family life was untouched by the
revolutionary challenge to the Victorian world-view his ideas were
provoking.
Art from Gaza and the West Bank: Gallery of a troubled nation
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2352803.ece
The Palestinian answer to Charles Saatchi pursues the elusive dream of
a permanent home for his unique but unheralded collection. Donald
Macintyre reports
Published: 13 March 2007
Mazen Qupty had always planned to study film - the seventh art as he
calls it. Yet the irony is that if he hadn't reluctantly taken a
friend's advice to do a law degree instead, he wouldn't now, at 52, be
embarked on the great project of his life, the establishment of a
national museum of contemporary Palestinian art. For even in the
negligible market there is for Palestinian painting, Mr Qupty, a
successful lawyer whose clients include most of the churches in the
Holy Land, would never have been able to afford to collect the 170
pieces that he and his wife, Yvette, have promised to donate as the
nucleus of the museum that is their dream.
It says something about international ignorance of contemporary
Palestinian art that the richness, technical mastery and vibrancy of
the works Mr Qupty has hung and stored in his home in the East
Jerusalem suburb of Beit Hanina come as a complete shock. Sip a glass
of wine in Mr Qupty's living room and you are mesmerised by the
variety of the works on the opposite wall, its centrepiece the first
picture Mr Qupty ever bought and the only one from his collection -
the largest single one of Palestinian art assembled anywhere - that he
never rotates back into storage to make way for others. By Taysir
Barakat, born in the Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza 48 years ago and a
graduate of the College of Fine Arts in Alexandria, it's a haunting,
memory-laden oil painting just over a metre square, its colours
dominated by a luminous dark red, of a boy standing in a swing, with
female figures in the background framed by open windows, entitled "The
Children of Our Neighbourhood".
Trident revolt grows as minister resigns
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2352814.ece
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 13 March 2007
Government whips have mobilised to stop more Labour MPs joining the
revolt against the replacement of the £65bn Trident missile system -
after the Deputy Leader of the Commons announcedyesterday he was
quitting in protest.
Nigel Griffiths, a long-term ally of Gordon Brown, said he was
resigning " with a heavy heart but a clear conscience". Meanwhile,
whips were urgently calling in Labour MPs and warning them not to
allow Tony Blair to be humiliated by having to depend on the Tories to
win a vote tomorrow.
As even Halliburton heads for Dubai, what's so special about the
place?
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/analysis_and_features/article2352856.ece
By Saeed Shah
Published: 13 March 2007
When the chief executive of one of America's most famous companies,
Halliburton, decides to move to Dubai, you know the Gulf emirate has
made it.
Attracting the regional headquarters of international companies is one
thing, but having the boss of a global player decide that Dubai is the
best place to be based shows that the emirate has managed to turn
itself into one of the world's foremost business hubs.
The Sketch: It's finally time for Blair to 'go to his Gawd like a
soldier'
http://comment.independent.co.uk/columnists_a_l/simon_carr/article2352788.ece
By Simon Carr
Published: 13 March 2007
We'd been expecting Nigel Griffiths to make "a personal statement".
He'd resigned from the something-or-other job he'd had in the
Government. People think he may be the unremarkable pebble that starts
the avalanche, so we wanted to watch.
But it was the Prime Minister instead making a statement on a European
summit. It's a mark of what things are like now that we were
disappointed.
China's next revolution
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8815075
Mar 8th 2007
>From The Economist print edition
A new property law is a breakthrough, even though it raises hopes that
one-party rule may dash
SOME 2,500 years ago, one of Confucius's big ideas was the
"rectification of names". If only, he argued, sons would behave
filially, fathers paternally, kings royally and subjects loyally, all
would be well with the world. A faint echo of this thesis has been
resounding this week in the cavernous auditorium of Beijing's Great
Hall of the People, where nearly 3,000 delegates to China's
parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC), have been enjoying
their annual fortnight of wining, dining, snoozing and pressing the
"yes" button. Living up to one's name poses something of a problem for
the Chinese Communist Party, which dictates the laws the NPC will
pass, and whose name in Chinese literally means "the public-property
party".
To such a party it must be an ideological embarrassment that China has
such a large and flourishing private sector, accounting for some two-
thirds of GDP. So one law due to receive the NPC's rubber stamp this
month, giving individuals the same legal protection for their property
as the state, has proved unusually contentious. It was to be passed a
year ago, but was delayed after howls of protest from leftists, who
see it as among the final of many sell-outs of the ideas of Marx,
Lenin and Mao Zedong, to which the party pretends fealty.
Woodstock revisited
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8766061
Mar 8th 2007
>From The Economist print edition
Could new techniques for producing ethanol make old-fashioned trees
the biofuel of the future?
MANKIND has used trees as a source of fuel for thousands of years. But
now the notion of exploiting trees for fuel is being updated with a
high-tech twist. The idea is to make ethanol, a biofuel that usually
comes from maize (corn) or sugar cane, from trees instead. Politicians
and environmentalists are embracing ethanol for a number of reasons.
Unlike oil, ethanol is renewable: to make more of it, you grow more
crops. And blending ethanol into ordinary petrol, or burning it
directly in special "flex-fuel" engines, reduces greenhouse-gas
emissions.
Why use trees, rather than maize or sugar cane, as a feedstock for
ethanol? Because "treethanol" has the potential to be much more energy
efficient. The ratio of the energy yielded by a given amount of
ethanol to the energy needed to produce it is called the "energy
balance". The energy balance for ethanol made from maize is the
subject of much controversy, but America's energy department puts it
at 1.3; in other words, the ethanol yields 30% more energy than was
needed to produce it. For ethanol made from sugar cane in Brazil, the
energy balance is 8.3, according to the International Energy Agency.
Rumbles in the revolutionary ranks
http://www.economist.com/world/la/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8815114
Mar 8th 2007 | CARACAS
>From The Economist print edition
Hugo Chávez's move to leftist autocracy faces some unexpected
opposition from some of his own supporters
SINCE he won a further six-year term in a presidential election last
December, Hugo Chávez has had his foot firmly on the accelerator of
his "Bolivarian revolution". He has promised sweeping constitutional
changes, including indefinite re-election; nationalised "strategic"
industries; and instituted rule by decree. He is also pressing forward
with plans to gather together his disparate supporters into a single
revolutionary organisation.
Now he has hit his first speed bump since the election. It is over the
new party, provisionally called the United Socialist Party of
Venezuela, whose leader will of course be Mr Chávez himself. The
largest chavista party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MVR), has already
agreed to disband. So have others, including the smaller UPV. "My
comandante gives the order-we obey," said its leader, Lina Ron,
without irony. "Who am I to question the second Liberator of the
Republic, the messiah God sent to save the people?"
Higgs may fly
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8810988
Mar 8th 2007
>From The Economist print edition
Physicists in America may have scooped their counterparts in Europe in
the hunt for the source of universal mass
BUMBLEBEES cannot do it. Fly, that is. Or so physics is said to have
shown. That the insects routinely become airborne demonstrates the
shortcomings of some theoretical accounts of the world. Particle
physics is in a similar state. The Standard Model that scientists have
devised to describe the building blocks of nature is incomplete. One
failing is the lack of a proven explanation for the existence of mass.
Finding exactly what bestows this vital property on matter is the
quarry of a global hunt.
Without mass the universe would be a sea of particles zipping around
at the speed of light (the natural condition of any massless object).
It would be hard for such particles to get together. Even molecules
would be rare; galaxies, stars and planets would be impossible. So
would life. So physicists want to find what enabled the universe to
evolve in the way it has.
Arthur Schlesinger
http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8810722
Mar 8th 2007
>From The Economist print edition
Arthur M. Schlesinger junior, historian and liberal, died on February
28th, aged 89
THE true American liberal is now a vague, elusive creature. Many claim
to have seen it; some even claim to have been it, in some fit of
youthful idealism that they have lived to regret. In the 1980s and
1990s its American habitat became so eroded, as the behemoths of
conservatism overgrazed the plains, that it was on the brink of
extinction. For any politician or intellectual of ambition, the L-word
was woolly-headed, dangerous and naive: an interest to be indulged
only in secret, and out of the way of the police.
Yet one liberal stayed defiantly in the public view. You could spot
him on New York's East Side (a natural habitat), small and spry,
bouncing along as if he couldn't wait to write down the ideas for
human improvement that buzzed around in his head. Or you could track
him, by the cool whiff of Martinis and the sizzle of steaks, to his
table among the bookshelves at the Century Club, turning the pages of
Emerson as he waited for dessert. He had no patience with camouflage.
The horn-rimmed glasses, the bow tie and the expression of perpetual
questioning proclaimed him as a liberal (American genus) to everyone
who saw him.
A slow-boiled frog
http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/asiaview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8808702
Mar 7th 2007
>From Economist.com
Taiwan may rejoin China peacefully within 20 years
TO THE untutored ear, the verbal salvoes lobbed across the Taiwan
Strait since the weekend might appear to carry with them an alarming
rise in tensions over nearly the last bit of unfinished history left
over from the cold war: Taiwan's long separation from mainland China.
They began over dinner on Sunday night, when Taiwan's president, Chen
Shui-bian, declared before a gathering of independence-minded
Taiwanese that Taiwan was a country whose sovereignty was none of
China's business. Taiwan, in short, "should be independent."