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Sometimes technology creeps up on you, goes boo!, and suddenly you realize you are living in yesterday's science fiction. Wireless broadband is now offered on several Lufthansa flights, and hence iChat AV video conferencing, as these Apple employees enjoy telling us:
I was first introduced to calcio (football, soccer) when I lived in Italy and have therefore always rooted for the Azzuri in international competitions (after the USA). In the 2002 World Cup a lot of Italian reactions to the team's setbacks, particularly the loss to South Korea, were childish, but I could still sympathize. Korea is notoriously corrupt, as is Italy, and if Italian society leads people to suspect a crooked referee, well, the Koreans aren't above that sort of thing either. And some of the calls against Italy were egregiously bad.
But the behavior at the Eurocup has been disgusting. Totti set the pace by spitting in an opponent's face. Every Italian setback has resulted of accusations of conspiracy. The entire team - the nation - is acting like a real pain-in-the-ass bambino. Buffon deserves to be penalized by EUFA for his slander. I don't care how well they played against Bulgaria, the Italians have lost the tournament, and the plot, on their own.
Clive Thompson points out an interesting fact highlighted yesterday in the NYT: work morale doesn't really affect work productivity.
While Mr Thompson focuses on how people often refuse to believe this (and I'll admit I find it surprising and a little dispiriting), his post begs the question: is there anything that does affect productivity? Or is there some productivity coefficient (call it x) set in all of us, that means that for any job y, we'll get xy done? Will we develop an aptitude test for x, the results of which will be applied to the base salary for any job we take? ("Mike, we'll offer you $50,000 a year, multiplied, of course, by your productivity coefficient, which, I see from your file, is 0.35...")
At least my coefficient isn't negative.
News of a Dresdner Bank global equity strategy report for clients urging them to have sex in order to be happy has been making the rounds of newswire outtakes. I've gotten my hands on the original [PDF]. It's actually a good read. Our happiness expert in residence Charles should be aroused into commenting.
The annual Tuen Ng Festival, better known to the rest of the world as dragon boat racing day, is Hong Kong's best holiday and a signature piss-up. This year did not disappoint.
There's a storyline about a mandarin who offered some polite criticisms of the emperor but, rebuffed, threw himself into the sea. The local fishermen raced their boats into the ocean to scare off the fish so that the dead mandarin's spirit would not be troubled. Yada yada yada. Let's get to the beer and babes.
The Bush administration, after three years of paralysis masked by a 'refusal to submit to blackmail', has finally suggested a deal to North Korea. This promises goodies and a 'provisional' agreement not to invade if the North verifyably halts and dismantles its nuclear program along identical lines to Libya's volte-face.
This offer is too little, too late. It was made under intense pressure from America's Asian allies and from the Kerry campaign, and doens't resolve the internal argument in the White House about whether to try to negotiate with Kim Jong-il or if the US should do its utmost to oust his regime.
Continue reading "Jaw-jaw with Jong-il"
The downside to building a cult of personality is that you get surrounded by sycophantic hagiographers and professional yes-men. Nobody tells you what they really think, and we all know what a drag that can be.
Spare a thought, then, for Turkmenistan's president-for-life, Saparmurat Niyazov, who has been reduced to pleading for less credit for his fatherhood of the nation:
You praise me too much. I am upset when all the achievements of the epoch of independent Turkmenistan are linked only to my name. In reality they are the merits of the whole Turkmen people. [...] The glorifying odes make me wish the earth could swallow me up. Each song is about me. Shame makes me look aside.He must be devastated, then, by a new 6-meter statue being erected at Turkmenistan's parliament in honor of his 12 years as Turkmenbashi. I cannot begin to imagine what they will get him for his 13th anniversary.
When the Supreme Court dismissed Michael Newdow's Pledge of Allegiance case on what seemed to be a technicality, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick stepped in with an essay saying that if SCOTUS had actually got around to addressing the case itself, they would have "thrown millions of custody arrangements into question".
A few days later, Michael Newdow himself appeared in Slate, arguing that both parents should always have custody of every child, except where real harm would result. But he didn't directly rebut Lithwick's argument about whether the Supreme Court made the right decision. For that, we have to turn to the New York Times op-ed page today, where Newdow writes that "this decision sets a dangerous precedent that violates the rights of citizens to have the federal judiciary address their claims."
Continue reading "The Newdow debate"
Matthew wants me to link to his little octopushy graffiti photoblog entry because he "needs to check if his trackback system works." The things people will say to get a mention on MemeFirst. Honestly.
Following in the footsteps of Alex Ross, here's a list of names found in the Sunday Styles section of today's New York Times:
Alex Kuczynski, Sherrell J. Aston, Muffie Potter Aston, Kalliope Karella, Martine Assouline, Prosper Assouline, Kelly Killoren-Bensimon, Rena Kirdar Sindi, Bettina Zilkha, Milly de Cabrol, Strawberry Saroyan, Leza Piazza, Julia Peyton-Jones, Sienna Miller, Susannah Constantine, Geordie Greig, Tamara Mellon, Eva Cavalli, Priti Paul, Solange Azagury-Partridge.
The EU constitution has been agreed upon. (Fortunately, God didn't make it in.) We have Irish PM Bertie Ahern to thank for this amazing feat:
The leaders gave a standing ovation to Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, who resurrected negotiations that collapsed last December and steered them to success through Dublin's six-month presidency of the bloc.
Now all we have to do is wait for is a couple of hundred Maltesers or Cypriots to decide to refuse to ratify it or somesuch.
I've raved about Alex Ross, the New Yorker's music critic, in the past, and I'm now overjoyed that he has his own blog. This is the best new blog I've come across in a long time: the entries are not too long, not too short, and always interesting. On Tuesday, he gave us some wonderful analysis of the connections between James Joyce and Richard Wagner, while today I've reread his list of obscure composers many times, never without a smile on my face. This has to be the blog sentence of the year so far:
Vernon Leftwich, Fleetwood A. Diefenthaeler, Armand Balendonck, Bainbridge Crist, Julia Klumpkey, Edna Frida Pietsch, the Right Rev. Fan Stylian Noli, Alexander Skibinsky, Lamar Stringfield, and Uno Nyman.
mail·age Pronunciation Key (m
l
j)
n.
1. Text from previous emails that accumulates at the bottom of new messages because of constant replying in a heated email conversation.
It now seems it wasn't just Iranian intelligence Bush relied upon in his decision to go to war. Russian intelligence pitched in as well.