Two pork recipes

Ten years on, Osama bin Laden’s caliphatist dream is not one step closer to being realised, and his nihilist vision of Islam never gained support from anything more than a miniscule fringe of his intended audience. Muslims were simply not interested, and by the time he was killed in his hideout in Pakistan, the Arab world was too busy pursuing pos…

The great Irish novelist Flann O’Brien’s debut, At Swim-Two-Birds, should have sealed his reputation as the equal of Joyce and Beckett. At long last, in the year of his centenary, the world is catching up.

speaking at the Edinburgh international book festival, AS Byatt has declared Terry Pratchett her hero, for having "caused more people to read books than anyone else – because he tells them something they want to know, that they can laugh at, and because he writes really good English".

A conspiracy promoting lies about something as vast, global and pervasive as the climate would have to be as vast, global and pervasive as the climate itself.

1. The presence of hate in politics. 2. Money matters too much. 3. Refusing to even listen to the other guy. 4. The micro managing of politics. 5. The disparaging of experience and learning.

A couple of the report conclusions are worth pointing out: We found no basis to conclude that the [Climategate] emails were evidence of research misconduct or that they pointed to such evidence. That’s clear enough, I think. They also said: There is no specific evidence that [Mann] falsified or fabricated any data and no evidence that his actions …

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.

The emptiness symbolizes the country’s degrading economic situation. But it goes beyond visual representation. The estates have had a very physical effect on the face of the open landscape.

Eager hands caressed the small of her back, made their way over the crest of her buttocks, and temporarily cupped them like a pair of cantaloupes. Sadly, this isn’t an exerpt from a cheesy Harlequin romance, it’s airport security in 2011. The buttocks were mine and I didn’t enjoy the experience at all.

the Sunday Times is guilty of spectacular understatement when it says that: Whatever the outcome, the AU will have to position itself so that it is a voice that is recognised by the next Libyan government.

Q: What is the difference between a Ph.D. in mathematics and a large pizza? A: A large pizza can feed a family of four...

"...stress created by incivility can be so intense that, at the end of the day, it is taken home."

"...avoid moral panic and a rush to historically-illiterate judgement."

He began a speech so pained and passionate that I could not tell if it meant the beginning or the end for us. I retained none of it as I concentrated on keeping my face neutral and my breathing steady, ready to bear the worst with dignity, until the very end when the tumble of words paused and he said “… and that’s why I want to marry you.”

On a recent episode of South Park, the kids got all excited about reading The Catcher in the Rye, the supposedly scandalous novel that's been offending teachers and parents for generations. They were, of course, horribly disappointed: As Kyle says, it's "just some whiny annoying teenager talking about how lame he is."

1. One is entitled to one’s own opinions, but not one’s own facts. 2. If you make an assertion that implies a factual basis, it is entirely proper that others may ask you to back up these assertions with facts. 3. If you cannot bolster said assertion with facts beyond the anecdotal, others may not find your general argument persuasive. 4. people a…

I really do not want my teenage sons unconsciously absorbing notions of male privilege and entitlement in stories where a woman’s importance is always defined by who she might choose to sleep with, or better yet, save her precious virginity for. Where women who transgress male authority are invariably punished by supposedly indifferent twists of f…

McSweeney's pieces don't always work for me, but this one did.

Wise advice from Frankie.

What's in Carl Bildt's suitcase?

Looking into alignments.

Asteroid discoveries from 1980 to 2011

Dissecting the difference between faith (believing things that cannot be disproved) and superstition (believing things that can).

Extraordinary.

I’m proud that I was one of a dozen IBM engineers who designed the first machine and was fortunate to have lead subsequent IBM PC designs through the 1980s.  It may be odd for me to say this, but I’m also proud IBM decided to leave the personal computer business in 2005, selling our PC division to Lenovo. While many in the tech industry questioned…

Interview with Canada's foreign minster. "‎A friend of mine's daughter is a consultant at one of the major consulting houses and she needed to bring her university degree to show, which she did and it had a nice Princeton logo on it. The border guard then explained to her that the United States was an English-speaking country and she should get it…

Linkedin tries to be like Facebook. Bad idea.

"A3: Please.""Q3: Should I avoid top posting on this mailing list?"