Not exactly what De Coubertin envisaged (Image from New York Times).
The flame did not actually out ‘die out’, but had to be extinguished several times, as pro-Tibetian protesters disrupted the Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay. This was after similar protests in London (in addition to protests by Uighur Muslims in Istanbul) and certainly [...]
Dinesh D’souza is a right-wing extremist nut-case and (therefore?) a self-proclaimed intellectual, who has gone to town with a ridiculous assetion that the so-called ‘cultural left’ in America (e.g Hollywood, gay people etc) was actually responsible for 9/11. His main motive, of course, is to sell a book.
His delusional rambling have received well-deserved smackdowns [...]
[UPDATED]
The recent decision by New York City’s Board of Health to ban the usage of trans-fat in all restaurants (and catering units) in the city bothers me. Ever since I heard about the initial proposal few months ago, I have not been able to decide whether it is a good or bad idea.
On one hand, [...]
Megan McArdle (Jane Galt) refers (via Crooked Timber via WaPo) to a recent paper by Vanderbilt economist Joni Hersch which purports to show that there exists a correlation between skin color and economic prosperity for recently arrived immigrants to the United States (link to pdf).
Bypassing a discussion over the findings of the study itself, interesting [...]
Awarding a ‘Peace Prize‘ in a world full of conflict may sound like a twisted irony to the cynical mind like mine - but it is tough to argue against this year’s awardee. Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh has been fighting poverty where it really matters - on the ground, at the [...]
…in Literature (finally breaking the American march towards a Nobel sweep1). Pamuk, a Turkish author, was recently mired in controversy in his homeland for speaking out about Turkish atrocities against Armenians and Kurds. He was accused of being anti-Turk, and the case generated international condemnation for Turkey’s stance on freedom of speech. The charges were [...]
……speak American dude! Otherwise you’ll be booted off the flight. (via)
I usually try to avoid commenting on contemporary US politics - mainly because there are so many fine voices out there and I have little to add. However, this brilliant fisking by Keith Olbermann of Donald Rumsfeld’s speech delivered the day before where the latter compares critics of the US war on Iraq with Nazi [...]
While discussing negotiation strategies in leadership/management classes, a phrase that commonly pops up is: ‘everybody wins’.
Something tells me that the recent ceasefire in Lebanon is not exactly the same type of negotiated settlement, even though, amusingly enough, both sides are claiming victory !
First, the Hezbollah:
HEZBOLLAH leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has declared that his [...]
So said the President of the United States of America, having exercised the first veto in his 6 years of presidency. He was referring to the use of frozen embryos for stem cell research, restating his belief that destroying them to harvest stem-cells is tantamount to murder. Of course, the honorable President’s moral concerns [...]
Soon after the Mumbai train bombings, speculations began on the Indian response (both of the common people and the government) to these terrorist attacks. In the immediate aftermath, there was worry about communal violence erupting - especially given the mindless riots by the Shiv-Sena and the lynching of policemen in a Muslim neighborhood earlier in [...]
I tend to think of Recurring Decimals….. as that sleepy little town/village with a railway station consisting of a solitary building, a few benches, the single squealing hand-cranked tube-well pump and an enormous banyan tree. On first glance, one among many ubiquitous stops dotting the hinterlands, where express trains whiz through without an after-thought. Few [...]
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