… is what the Guardian seems to be saying this morning, noting that in Pakistan only 7% support Bush while 65% think Osama is … well … groovy. Americans should, it is suggested, listen to the citizens of states traditionally resentful of the success of the American revolution and vote for a candidate said citizens…
This eez Chief Inspector Clouseau speaking on the phön. No, sorry, this is a malevolent interpretation of a notion dreamt up by Maurice Druon, distinguished member of l’Académie française, who claimed the other day that French “reduced the risks of differing interpretations to a minimum” compared to other languages… He presented a declaration of the…
No prize to the first person to figure out why Yves Rocher (France) might not be particularly thrilled that the following product of theirs was being sold in the Carrer Ferran Yves Rocher franchise: This is a gross over-simplification. There’s an interesting pharma-oriented summary here, and here‘s an article by a lawyer from a local…
From an alert, Preventing Deaths of Farm Workers in Manure Pits, issued by the American National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health: On July 26, 1989, five farm workers died after consecutively entering a manure pit on their farm. The pit measured 20 by 24 feet and was 10 feet deep. The victims were a…
Mark Liberman points to an article by Laura Durnford on the Radio Netherlands World Service site which describes how the C17th Fort Oranje on the Hudson River and the town that sprang up around it, Beverwijck, was part of just one settlement within the Dutch colony of New Netherland. The other and more famous was…
There’s a mini-discussion over at Transblawg re the first use of the term “mobbing” in an institutional context. Matt Bulow says that a Swede coined this usage, although the author he quotes, Heinz Leymann, says he borrowed it from another Swede, Heinemann, who used it in education and had it from Konrad “Gooseman” Lorenz. In…