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Thursday, July 10, 2003 |
The Hunt Goes On
Carl Hiaasen presents the President's speech on the search for WMD in Iraq.
According to our most current intelligence estimates, the Iraqi desert is made up of ''jillions and kazillions'' of grains of sand. One particle of anthrax the size of a single grain could infect thousands of innocent people. Therefore, it is our intention to search Iraq one grain of sand at a time until we're absolutely sure that Saddam did not disguise any biological agent as desert cover.
How long will this take? I can't answer that question. But now that we've occupied Iraq, what's the big darn hurry? Heck, we basically own the joint.
11:08:52 PM Permalink
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The New Card Shark. How could a man who had never sat at a tournament table win $2.5 million in the World Series of Poker? He played extensively online, where the game is faster and the money is just as real. By Peter Wayner. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]
10:55:14 PM Permalink
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The hole in NASA's culture
James Oberg writes about the culture at NASA that has led to the loss of two shuttles.
THE SHOCKING FLAW was just another incarnation of the most dangerous of safety delusions — that in the absence of contrary indicators, it is permissible to assume that a critical system is safe, even if it hasn’t been proved so by rigorous testing. The absence of evidence for the absence of safety, so this delusion goes, is adequate proof of the presence of safety.
7:12:26 PM Permalink
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I Can't Remember What I was Thinking Of
Verlaine & Rimbaud, Armed & Dangerous:. "On this day in 1873 Paul Verlaine shot Arthur Rimbaud in a Brussels hotel, wounding him in the wrist. Although not yet two years old, their relationship was in such sexual, emotional, financial and absinthe confusion that no specific motive seems relevant, but the Belgian courts were determined to convict Verlaine of assault, and gave him the maximum two-year sentence. Rimbaud's attempts to testify on Verlaine's behalf, and then to withdraw charges, were ignored; condemnations from Verlaine's jilted wife were entertained, as were political charges relayed from Paris. Given even greater sway was the report of the police doctors; this attested, in great anatomical detail, 'that P. Verlaine bears on his person traces of habitual pederasty, both active and passive.' The police reports on Rimbaud also suggest that, for reasons of rhyme or lifestyle, everyone would have been happier if the two poets had managed to kill each other..." Today in Literature [Follow Me Here...]
9:05:07 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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