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Wednesday, Mar 20, 2002

promises in the dark

One of seven children featured in the film "Promises" -- a strong bet to win the Academy Award for best documentary on Sunday night -- Moishe has never met a Palestinian. Still, he is convinced he can't stand them. Speaking directly to the camera, in his husky, high-pitched voice, he tells us he comes from the West Bank settlement called Beit-El, "a place where people who hate Arabs live."

compost me

"Last weekend the Cremation Association of North America's two-day seminar in Las Vegas concluded with a session called "It's Not Your Grandparents' Funeral." On the agenda, along with aesthetic choices such as Eternally Yours memorial paintings that blend the deceased's ashes into watercolors, were several "green" options. Celebration Forest in Idaho will plant and care for a memorial tree, and scatter the ashes around its trunk. A "nature preserve" cemetery in South Carolina buries actual bodies in an ecologically sound way. And people who love the ocean can choose artificial reefs."

Tuesday, Mar 19, 2002

old black water

"I thought, 'What in the world is going on here?"' Daniels said. "I went out to the northwest and it was solid black. And I went to the west to get off of it � out to 70 or 80 feet of water north of the Marquesas (Islands) � and it was still there. I came back in and turned north of Key West and it went north. (More than) halfway to Naples from Key West, it was black across the whole place."

rube kinkade

"Kinkade has parlayed his fame into an entire country-cottage industry of Kinkade-licensed products, as seen on QVC -- home furnishings, La-Z-Boy chairs and sofas, wallpaper, linens, china, stationery sets, Hallmark greeting cards and so on. Kinkade has also recently co-authored a novel. The Village at Hiddenbrooke bills itself as the culmination of Kinkade's vision: an actual manifestation of the quaint cottages, charming gazebos and inspiring landscapes in his artwork."

river prattle

east river info site via ftrain

wo pop poops

"Before the century ends, the number of humans likely will start to shrink, reckons James Chamie, director of the United Nation's population division. That will be a "momentous" reversal in direction."

seeing things

"Now, however, a geologist, an archaeologist, a chemist and a toxicologist have teamed up to produce a wealth of evidence suggesting the ancients had it exactly right. The region's underlying rocks turn out to be composed of oily limestone fractured by two hidden faults that cross exactly under the ruined temple, creating a path by which petrochemical fumes could rise to the surface to help induce visions."

il lucci

"Last November Frank Carlucci, chairman of the Carlyle Group, spoke to a conference on national security sponsored by the Pentagon and the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, a conservative think tank where he sits on the board of directors. His topic, "Employing the Instruments of National Power in a Complex Environment," was a perfect metaphor for Carlucci's career, which has taken him from the CIA to the highest ranks of the defense and national security establishment and, finally, to the top of one of the world's largest private equity funds. "

mountain retreat

"LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - In the first major Inca find in four decades, Peruvian and British explorers say they have discovered a hidden city, perched on an Andean hilltop, that may have sheltered stalwarts of South America's legendary empire as they made a last stand against Spanish conquerors."

wham!

"It is also clear that some elements of your existing defence programme contravene both of the treaties your government and your party have sabotaged. The genetically engineered fungus you have developed for aerial spraying in Colombia plainly qualifies as a non-lethal biological weapon. And, because your strategic aims in that country extend beyond the simple eradication of drugs to the elimination of the leftwing rebel forces, the chemical sprays you have been using in the regions they control have also clearly been deployed as weapons, much as Agent Orange was in Vietnam. Your military laboratories have been developing a new range of genetically engineered "materials-eating bacteria", designed to destroy runways, engines and the radar-blocking coatings of warplanes. Though they do not directly affect humans, you would be hard-put to deny that these are biological weapons."

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