#1: A prof was offered ten grand (and more) by Utah Republicans if he could use his nifty text-analysis software to show that William Ayers wrote Barack Obama’s biography (what…). Apparently the deal fell through largely because he wanted the results published no matter what the outcome should be.
#2: MY HEAD ASPLODE! Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, in a recent speech, pushed an expansion of the Bush Doctrine of preemptive strikes to include nookyulur weaponz! YES. He insisted that the U.S. should LAUNCH PREEMPTIVE NUCLEAR STRIKES. He said (among other things): “Challenging the US in the nuclear arena—or with other weapons of mass destruction—could result in an overwhelming, catastrophic response.” Could this get any worse? I suppose it’s a natural progression:
- We will attack you if we think you are a threat
- We will kidnap, torture, and imprison your citizens for life, without trial and without evidence
- We will violate your national boundaries if we think you’re not doing enough to fight terrorism
- WE WILL BOMB YOU WITH NUKULAR BOMBS if you have too many weapons.
#3 (for Alex): Several local city councils in England have banned the use of Latin and sometimes French phrases (ergo, ad hoc, ex oficio, QED, in lieu, etc.). They are apparently “elitist”. Also people are worried that new English speakers might not understand them. Hm.
#4: A new salvo in the recurring debate about “embedded” reporting with enemies of the U.S. during wartime (well, our current eterno-war, anyway). Are embedded reporters traitors? Are they actually doing something highly patriotic? Neither? And how much of the enemy groups’ activities can they participate in before they’re doing something very, very bad? These are the Taliban groups, here, not some cupcake tea party association. I find this debate very interesting.