Current Events

Saudi Interior Minister Prince Naif: The most powerful nation in the world is hostile to Arabs and Muslims as a result of the influence the Zionist lobby wields in the United States. Fittingly enough, naïf is a French word meaning naive, i.e. excessively credulous. 

Washington Post: A pudding with no theme but much poison. Such was the foreign policy speech Al Gore delivered in San Francisco on Monday. It was a disgrace -- a series of cheap shots strung together without logic or coherence. Most of all, it was brazen. It was delivered as if there had been no Clinton-Gore administration, no 1990s. If Gore is truly trying to position himself to win the 2004 election, he seems to be assuming that the USA will neither topple Saddam nor turn Iraq into a semi-decent democracy. Is he underestimating both President Bush and the US military? 

Six teams of architects from across the globe have been shortlisted in the race to redevelop the site of the former World Trade Center in New York. The competition was re-opened after initial plans were rejected The teams, selected from more than 400 submissions from 34 countries, were chosen to develop new design schemes for the site after initial plans for the site were roundly criticised as being too dull. The choice is very simple: erect Frank Lloyd Wright's mile-high building. 

Malaria has killed hundreds of millions of people in recent decades, because of the anti-scientific DDT scare which Rachel Carson launched in Silent Spring. The continuing DDT ban allows malaria to kill millions every year, mostly children and pregnant women in developing countries.

Now The Seattle Times encourages people to honor Rachel Carson by continuing her fight: Forty years ago ... Rachel Carson published her landmark book, Silent Spring [which] chronicled the devastating impact that DDT and other toxic pesticides were having on our wildlife. ... Carson's book rocked the nation when it was released, and unquestionably launched the modern environmental movement. In other words they want you to support the annual killing of millions of people in developing countries. Anyone who seeks and knows the facts behind the DDT ban, and its direct consequences, will be horrified.