The hypnotic realities of Dr Ronald Dante and Dr Michael Dean: “What is it like to have someone attach themselves to the essence of who you are, and feed off that essence for the rest of your life and beyond, like a vampire sucking your nourishment? And what if you became rich and famous and this vampire on your essence also became rich and famous, so that no one could ever remember you without remembering them?” (nthposition)

“Faced with the ferocity of the offensive in Waziristan, any terrorist with an instinct for self-preservation will have rotated across the border to Afghanistan where US military operations are more predictable. If Mullah Omar was indeed ever there, he is more likely now to be clasped in the hospitable embrace of the Zabul triangle where US forces increasingly fear to tread.” (nthposition)

On Madness, Sleep and Other Twilight Afflictions: “We know considerably more about the functioning of the brain than we did fifty years ago, but so many of its behaviours remain mysterious. How can we make sense of spirit possession or the psychology of alien abduction? Or even the effects of sleep deprivation or of being in love. Antonio Melechi’s strikingly original book explores the ‘abnormal’ functioning of the brain, ranging from the affects of mental illness and depression to drugs, alien abduction, sleepwalking and migraine. Melechi not only writes beautifully, his range of reference crosses neurology and psychology, anthropology, poetry and the novel, ranging from Freud and William James to Cardinal Newman and William Burroughs. Some of the ‘afflictions’ Melechi discusses are familiar to us all, like sleep and love, others – such as Capgras’s syndrome (the conviction that all the people around you have been replaced by doubles – are rare and bizarre. Melechi makes them all equally fascinating…” (amazon.com)

“Make no mistake about it; Ann is, in word and deed, anti-American. She is one of the few voices in America that can be compared directly to the voices of prewar Nazi Germany without fear of running afoul of Godwin’s Law, simply because the combination of disinformation, rabid nationalism, more disinformation, depersonalization of political opponents, even more disinformation, and nothing-resembling-subtle calls for violence is torn right from the playbooks of earlier propagandists.

An abject coward, that endorses violence by others. A voice straining to resurrect McCarthy, he of the politically motivated faux hunt for witches and demons, the closest thing this country has to a He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named outside of the Harry Potter universe. A face twisted into unimaginable hate, with talk of the traitorousness of her perceived enemies, all of them better Americans than she can even momentarily pretend to be.

That such transparent propaganda, wrapped with such venom for her fellow Americans, could exist is hardly surprising. But those that publish her words should be branded with them. Those that give her a voice should be remembered for what they are, as surely as she herself.”

“Last month, an Associated Press-Ipsos poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans said they believed that people are ruder now than they were 20 or 30 years ago, and that children are among the worst offenders. (As annoyances, they tied with obnoxious cellphone users.)

…In 2002, only 9 percent of adults were able to say that the children they saw in public were ‘respectful toward adults,’ according to surveys done then by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan and nonprofit public opinion research group. In 2004, more than one in three teachers told Public Agenda pollsters they had seriously considered leaving their profession or knew a colleague who had left because of ‘intolerable’ student behavior.” (New York Times )

“A cure for computer viruses that spreads in a viral fashion could immunise the internet, even against pests that travel at lightning speed, a mathematical study reveals.” (New Scientist)

Attacks Threaten Religious Harmony in Southeast Asia: “Buddhist monks are being murdered, Christian schoolchildren beheaded and dissenters blown up. Southeast Asia’s peaceful co-existence among religions is under siege, from Bangkok to Jakarta. Meanwhile, politicians and military leaders are using Islamic fervor to boost their own power.” (Der Spiegel)

“The strategy for marketing the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which will open across the country on December 9, resembles nothing so much as the strategy used to re-elect George W. Bush as president in 2004: Pursue mainstream voters, er, viewers in widely broadcast ads that stress martial valor and family values, and target Christian evangelicals with overtly religious appeals church by church, radio station by radio station.

It’s a strategy that appears to be working, at least so far. While Newsweek, which was given an exclusive look at the rough cut of the movie, says that Lion is ‘only as Christian as you want it to be,’ Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, describes it as a ‘tool that many may find effective in communicating the message of Jesus to those who may not respond to other presentations.'” (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

“Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. once urged the Reagan administration to use a circuitous approach to challenging Roe v. Wade, arguing that promoting and defending state regulations on abortion would have a ‘mitigating effect’ on the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that established a constitutional right to abortion.”