March 2006

International Dada Month will be "Feb. 4, April 1, March 28, July 15, Aug. 2, Aug. 7, Aug. 16, Aug. 26, Sept. 18, Sept. 22, Oct. 1, Oct. 17 and Oct. 26"

I've only reviewed The Futurological Congress; other works I'd recommend include The Cyberiad and His Master's Voice

Voices From Chernobyl makes it clear there was a coverup in Byelorussia, which copped the worst of the effects

"Parallels Between My Living Through Two Years of Middle School and the Two Terms of the Bush Presidency"

"Most of the banned airlines, including Air Koryo from North Korea and Reem Air from Kyrgyzstan, will be unknown to the average tourist."

"According to Malaysian lawyers, the sharia courts have never granted permission for a Malay Muslim to convert out of Islam"

"Bali's provincial governor has seriously raised the possibility of the resort island seceding from Indonesia if the legislation is passed"

"the cabinet as a whole is a technocratic one... a majority of ministers from outside parliament, several of whom are also from outside Hamas"

"Samsung’s engineers, awaiting the 'official' operating system from Microsoft, took matters into their own hands and installed Linux in Windows’ place"

"Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing that given to any other state."

"he saw a listing of the '10 Most Wanted.' Subtlety was on it, and Ambiguity, Diplomacy and Mischief. His own picture was next to the sentence that read, 'These are the ones we need to lock up forever.'"

"Always use the word 'Africa' or 'Darkness' or 'Safari' in your title... Also useful are words such as 'Guerrillas', 'Timeless', 'Primordial' and 'Tribal'."

"Up to 95 per cent of cattle in some areas have died because of the drought and local economies are crumbling"

Important Works of Art from the Collections of the Zanabazar Museum of Fine Arts, Bogd Khan Palace Museum, and Choijin-Lama Temple Museum

"Windows XP Professional stays safe just one hour and 12 seconds... unpatched installations of both Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and SuSE Linux 9 Desktop were never compromised during their month-and-a-half exposure"

discharged with a testimonial as a "balanced, honest, loyal and determined individual who possesses the strength of character to have the courage of his convictions"!

"The U.S. military cites the digital watches worn by prisoners when captured as possible evidence of terrorist ties. Casios have been used repeatedly in bombs"

"it would be politically smarter as well as economically superior to go for broke: to propose a straightforward single-payer system, and try to sell voters on the huge advantages such a system would bring"

"consumers concerned about the scam should avoid PIN-based retail transactions at stores, and chose instead to make signature-based, credit-card-style transactions when making purchases"

"The story of immigration in the U.S. is a mishmash of hospitality and hatred, encouragement and restriction."

"More than 400 researchers, including 2 Nobel Laureates signed a letter opposing the elimination of the SIPP... the only major longitudinal survey that tracks the same families over time."

"any writer who strikes lucky with a distinctive formula is punished by being forced to plagiarise himself in every subsequent book"

but it seems individual Chinese ISPs have added modified their name servers, rather than "splitting the root"

"Scientists, agencies and governments who sit on the their flu sequences should be pilloried, reputations impugned and careers should suffer."

"Men are great, but they do not always fit into your timescale. This is the modern way. We can all suit ourselves."

"the founders of Rough Guides and Lonely Planet are troubled that they have helped spread a casual attitude towards air travel that could trigger devastating climate change"

"much of the lore underlying both modern ninja movies and modern ninja schools has both a long history AND little basis in reality outside the theatre"

According to a WHO study, the last natural blond is likely to be born in Finland during 2202 - Note: that last bit is a hoax

"Whether it is at the oil complexes or in the shopping malls, locals remain on the outside looking in."

"In 1997, we decided to use bahasa suratkhabar (casual newspaper language) rather than bahasa sastera (the more formal language of literature), which had, until then, been the standard in novels"