Antiwar.com's random quote:

"A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over...is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.
- G. K. Chesterton "

Incompetent Imperialists - by Charley Reese

Quote:

Let's face it – we have become a secular and materialistic society. The two kinds of people we have real trouble believing actually exist are people of true religious faith and people to whom honor means more than money.

Years ago, an understandably irate chiropractor said of medical doctors, "If they can't drug it or cut it, they don't know what the hell to do." Similarly, if we can't bribe with our dollars or intimidate with our bombs, we don't know what to do. That disqualifies us to run an empire, so we ought to cut our losses and go back to being a republic.

Wherever All the Turks Go, So Goes Little Mujo

(Kud svi Turci, tamo i mali Mujo)

 
The New York Times has a great article by Frank Rich, "Happy Talk News Covers a War," which should be a required reading for all who desire to influence the way people get their information.

In the now legendary White House press conference of March 6, 2003, not a single reporter, electronic or print, asked a tough question about anything, including the president's repeated conflating of 9/11 with the impending war on Iraq (eight times in that appearance alone). To some critics on the left, this Stepford Wives performance indicated a press corps full of conservatives, but I doubt it. This lock-step spectacle was at least in part an exercise of the Burgundy principle of pandering: don't do anything that might make you less popular with your customers. In that same month, Frank N. Magid Associates, still a major player in the news consulting business, released a survey telling its clients that war protests came in dead last of all topics tested among 6,400 viewers nationwide. In other words, if you're covering the news based on what's happening as opposed to what your viewers like, you're taking a commerical risk. Given that the ownership of local stations, networks and cable news alike is now concentrated in far fewer hands than it was in the 1970's, such thinking quickly becomes orthodoxy in much of the American news business.

Good morning, America!

Play Chess, Go to Jail

Guardian of London tells the sad tale of end of Bobby Fischer's 12-year long flight from relentless persecution for playing chess in then-ostracized Serbia and Montenegro. Apparently, the controversial chess champion can't be persecuted for his anti-US, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian views, but he's still liable for "trading with the enemy." AP's shorter version of the same story is also available.

The New York Times > Magazine > Not Funnies - and article about the mainstreaming of the graphic novel.

Some of the Better-Looking Legs from Macedonia



Vest daily published, and Reality Macedonia republished the article about some of the most beutiful pairs of legs in Macedonia. Educational? Not. Entertaining? Yes.

PS
He Ate Till the Morning! - more Macedonian trivia