May 2005

ownership of pastoral land isn't a bad idea, but it needs to be owned by local communities or cooperatives, not individuals

"Both Baldwin and Achebe, who I concede some people might feel were left out, in fact sell very little in this country"

"I explain to them that we have a long winter, very dark, the days are very short with only five or six hours of light. They get confused"

"the source is the findings of the US military's own investigation... Seven US soldiers face criminal charges"

"the mainstream Western media have been wearing dunce's caps since September 11, 2001. The PhDs should go and join them in the corner"

"no traffic lights, signs or sidewalks... no markers on the ground, no speed bumps, no police officer conducting the flow of vehicles... not even a curb"

""genes expressed in the brain seem to be among the most conserved genes with the least evidence for positive selection"

the Amazon "reviews" appear to have been (cluelessly) stacked by people who haven't actually read the book

"Those who treat their donated freedom as a stock market profit have failed to understand what May 8 teaches us every year."

providing weapons to death squads seems to be ordinary US policy, so I can't see them facing any sanction

"Two years ago, the Python book market was approximately 1/6 the size of the Perl book market. As of this week, it was 2/3 the size"

"to mark the anniversary of the Government's withdrawal of recognition of the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice"

"Canada's balanced proposal for copyright reform does not leave the U.S. copyright industries particularly happy"

"allowing unemployed people to meet their mutual obligation requirements by working on open-source software projects"

"Even in a farming area like this, it seems somehow more shocking than cutting a cow in half and pickling it in formaldehyde"