Daily Archives: 22 Nov 04

Witness to an Execution

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In an open letter on his weblog, Kevin Sites agonizes over his videotaping of the Marine killing of the wounded Iraqi in the mosque:

“It’s time you to have the facts from me, in my own words, about what I saw — without imposing on that Marine — guilt or innocence or anything in between. I want you to read my account and make up your own minds about whether you think what I did was right or wrong. All the other armchair analysts don’t mean a damn to me. “

Sound solution

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The pistachio problem is solved: “A new gadget uses the distinctive pings made by bouncing nuts to sort the open shells from the uncrackable closed ones.” (New Scientist)

Q: So, has success changed you?

A: Yeah, it’s changed me. You know how when you’re eating pistachios and you find one that’s hard to get the shell open? Well, I don’t bother with them anymore.

— Bob Weir [thanks, Paul]