Do not follow where the path may lead ... go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
-Anon

History Cold War archive
His Story: Frankly, They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. (Benjamin Franklin)
· Raw Cold War [Learning Curve of Imre Kertész]

Politics The Agitating Lott
Basically sums up feelings of those who know too well how political sausages are made.
· Lott [The Agitator]

Getting Chemical?

The Bush administration has received a credible report that Islamic extremists affiliated with al Qaeda took possession of a chemical weapon (smallpox) in Iraq last month or late in October.

There's the dog-poking problem. Let's say you take a nasty, vicious dog who has never bothered you personally. Then you take a stick. As you poke the dog, it becomes more and more likely that the cur will attack you--at which point you'll have to shoot it. You'll be justified in shooting the leaping, slavering, fanged attack dog, even if it would have been best if you'd never poked the dratted thing in the first place.
· Saddam and Al Qa'eda [Eve Tushnet]
· Mohammed Atta in Prague [This is London]

From Maxwell to Gutnik: Sue
David Hooper explains in Reputations Under Fire: London has become known to many foreign forum-shoppers as a town named Sue - a place where you can launder your reputation on the basis of a few sales in the UK of some overseas publication. Publishers would have to take account of the law of every land on Earth. This was a trick used by the late Mirror Group boss Robert Maxwell, who used England's libel law to sue the New Republic - a journal with fewer than 135 subscribers in the UK compared to a circulation of 98,000 in the USA.
· Good Gut Feeling of Down Under [Spiked: a crying shame]
· Good Akademonic Logic [OLO & Professor]

Shackling the opposition

Admitting he is breaking political rules, John Reid, the new Labour party chairman, used his first major speech in the job not to talk about his party, but to lecture the Conservative party on how to survive.
· Ideas [BBC]
· Guts [Spectator]

The Problem Of Thinking Too Much...
For most of us, the problem would seem to be not thinking enough. But it can go the other way. According to one scholar, overthinking can sometimes be worse than not thinking at all. The real difficulty is knowing when to stop thinking and go with your gut. Too many eminent & demonic akademics seem to refuse heed this advice.
· Decisions, decisions... How to stop thinking [Boston Globe]
· Blairingly Odd Vanity Thinking: Your pleasure is my purpose [Times London]

Literature Half-Plated
E. Annie Proulx, winner of a Pulitzer for The Shipping News, wrote a story five years ago called The Half-Skinned Steer. John Updike selected it as one of the best stories of the 20th century.

The girlfriend started a story, Yeah, there was this guy named Tin Head down around Dubois when my dad was a kid. Had a little ranch, some horses, cows, kids, a wife. But there was something funny about him. He had a metal plate in his hand from falling down some cement driveway.
· Falling off the bike [Atlantic]

Internet Human or Computer? Take This Test

On the Internet, no one knows you’re a dog,” says a famous joke. But can one tell that you’re a real human being, and not another computer? Ah, well.
· Dr Turin [NY Times]

Mysteries of Life Hands, knees and bumps-a-daisy

What makes an ideal husband? Every woman needs a man. But how to choose? Is he dark or fair? Is the form of his nose sharp, melancholy, or refined?
· Ear lobes tell a story [Guardian]
· What's the secret to a happy marriage? [SunTimes]

Life Cigarettes better than sex?

Nearly 80 percent of British smokers, almost 70 percent in the Netherlands, France and Germany and more than 55 percent in Belgium and Spain would forgo sex rather than live without cigarettes for a month.
· Smoke v Fire [CNN]

Nathan Vass a.k.a. Pritikin?
You don't remember Euell Gibbons? Here's a taste: Without going more than a half mile from the house, I saw, identified and recorded more than sixty species of plants good for human food and several of these had more than one edible part.
He's dead.