She was a phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely apparition, sent To be a moment’s ornament; Her eyes as stars of twilight fair; Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful dawn; A dancing shape, an image gay, To [...]
Archive for January, 2009
She Was a Phantom of Delight
Posted in Poetry on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Canada optimistic it will be exempted
Posted in Economy and business on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Canada, America’s top trading partner, is cautiously optimistic it will be exempted from protectionist provisions in the economic stimulus bill moving through the senate that call on major public works projects to favor U.S. iron, steel and manufactured goods over imports, Canada’s international trade minister said Saturday. Canada and other U.S. trading partners warn that favoring [...]
A bidding war and a row over ethics: how the octuplets story turned sour
Posted in Health, Living, tagged Nadya Suleman on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
It was a heart-warming tale of a young Californian mother who gave birth to eight babies. But now, as more details emerge, public reaction has turned from from joy to shock to anger. It was a midwinter miracle; eight babies born to a single mother and every one of them delivered alive. For a nation [...]
More on Nonprofit Newspapers
Posted in Media on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
The sad irony of the predicaments facing newspapers today is that their troubles are not a function of loss of audience. In fact, the total readership of the content of the New York Times and the Washington Post has grown more than fivefold since the emergence of the World Wide Web. My statistics are not [...]
Rove was instructed by then White House counsel Fred Fielding to exert executive privilege if subpoenaed. Just four days before he left office, President Bush instructed former White House aide Karl Rove to refuse to cooperate with future congressional inquiries into alleged misconduct during his administration. On Jan. 16, 2009, then White House Counsel Fred [...]
Judge rejects Obama bid to stall Gitmo trial
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Law, tagged Guantanamo on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
A military judge at Guantanamo on Thursday rejected a White House request to suspend a hearing for the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, creating an unexpected challenge for the Obama administration as it reviews the U.S. war-crimes trials process. The judge, Army Col. James Pohl, said his decision was difficult but necessary to [...]
Plight of the humble bee
Posted in Energy and Environment, tagged Bee on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Native British bees are dying out — and with them will go flora, fauna and one-third of our diet. We may have less than a decade to save them and avert catastrophe. So why is nothing being done? Think of summer. Meadows and gardens daubed with so much colour it looks as if some giant [...]
Latin America’s Quiet Revolution
Posted in Economy and business, Politics, tagged Latin America on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
An unprecedented political and economic transformation is under way in most of the region The Mexican government is locked in a vicious war against powerful drug cartels which assassinate public officials seemingly at will. Bolivian President Evo Morales’s constitutional rewrites threaten to push the country toward civil war. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez persecutes his political [...]
Hijacked on the High Seas
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Law, tagged Piracy on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
A French sailor aboard the navy frigate Jean de Vienne guards merchant ships against pirates near the coast of Somalia. When Somali Pirates Attacked, They Kicked Off 56 Days of Drama Over the Fate of a Ship and 28 Crewmen A few hours after dawn on the Friday after Thanksgiving, a speedboat carrying five men [...]
Law Like Love
Posted in Poetry on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Law, say the gardeners, is the sun, Law is the one All gardeners obey To-morrow, yesterday, to-day. Law is the wisdom of the old, The impotent grandfathers feebly scold; The grandchildren put out a treble tongue, Law is the senses of the young. Law, says the priest with a priestly look, Expounding to an unpriestly [...]
Time for a new world order: Australia PM
Posted in Politics, tagged Australia, Rudd on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Labor Party leader, addresses the national press club in Canberra, Australia, Nov. 21, 2007 KEVIN RUDD has denounced the unfettered capitalism of the past three decades and called for a new era of “social capitalism” in which government intervention and regulation feature heavily. In an essay to be published next week, the [...]
Iran says Obama’s offer to talk shows US failure
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Politics, tagged Iran on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Iran’s president has responded to an overture by the new US president by demanding an apology for past US “crimes” committed against Iran. US President Barack Obama’s offer to talk to Iran shows that America’s policy of “domination” has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday. “This request means Western ideology has become passive, [...]
Physics of ‘the Hit’
Posted in Physical sciences on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Baltimore running back Willis McGahee was seriously injured after a collision with the Steelers’ Ryan Clark in the A.F.C. championship game. Sunday’s Super Bowl could very well ride on how well the Steelers’ defense — known as perhaps the most fearsome and bone-clattering in the N.F.L. — can tackle the Arizona Cardinals’ fast and evasive wide [...]
Justices Step Closer to Repeal of Evidence Ruling
Posted in Law, Supreme Court decisions on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
In 1983, a young lawyer in the Reagan White House was hard at work on what he called in a memorandum “the campaign to amend or abolish the exclusionary rule” — the principle that evidence obtained by police misconduct cannot be used against a defendant. The Reagan administration’s attacks on the exclusionary rule — a [...]
German town plans dog DNA database to stop fouling
Posted in Living on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
The scheme will involve taking either fur or saliva from each of the 420 registered hounds in town. The German town of Volkach is to DNA test every dog so it can fine owners when their pets foul public spaces. Officials in the small Bavarian town are to begin DNA testing every dog so they [...]
Thousands of Russians march in protest over Vladimir Putin and the economy
Posted in Economy and business, Politics, tagged Russia on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
The head of the National Bolshevik Party, Eduard Limonov, is arrested by police in Moscow The biggest display of public disaffection with Russia’s normally popular prime minister prompted a violent response in Moscow, the capital. Pro Kremlin youths brutally beat some protestors, while others were detained, including Eduard Limonov, a prominent Kremlin critic and leader [...]
‘He had sex with me in the marital bed and sex with her on Facebook’
Posted in Living on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
_____ Georgina Hobbs: ‘Their lusty emails touched on poetry, but were infused with textspeak.’ My mother emailed me last week to tell me she had joined Facebook. We don’t chat on the phone; we email. Soon I expect she will want to poke me, write on my wall and, worse still, tag me in photographs [...]
Kenyan police say the half-brother of President Barack Obama has been arrested for alleged possession of marijuana. Area police chief Joshua Omokulongolo told the Associated Press George Obama was picked up today and was being held at the Huruma police post in the capital. Omokulongolo said officers found one joint of marijuana on him. “He [...]
Re-evaluating the risk of concussions
Posted in Health on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
For teenager Samantha Yurechuk, it started as just another scramble for the puck. She collided with a player, hit her head on the ice and suffered a concussion – unaware the injury put her at risk of mental decline decades later. As the 14-year-old opened her eyes under the glare of the arena lights two [...]
Cops order removal of shoe-thrower monument
Posted in Law, Politics, Strange but true, tagged Iraq on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
Children unwrap a monument recognizing the shoes thrown by an Iraqi journalist at former U.S. President George W. Bush, in Tikrit, Iraq, on Friday. A sculpture honoring an Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush has been removed, the director of an Iraqi orphanage said Saturday. Fatin al-Nassiri said Iraqi police told [...]
When a Ponzi scheme becomes a movement
Posted in Law, tagged Colombia, David Murcia Guzman on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
AMONG the elite here, David Murcia Guzmán is often disparaged as the Madoff of Colombia, after Bernard L. Madoff, the New York financier accused of creating a $50 billion investment fraud. But to some in the lower classes in one of Latin America’s most stratified of countries, he is a folk hero, and his government-shaking [...]
Good or bad design?
Posted in Arts and Entertainment, Other on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
______ The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, launched a competition to design a new bus for the city. The winning design, above, by the architects Foster + Partners and the sports car maker Aston Martin, was unveiled late last year. Not only does “good design” mean different things to different people, it also changes at [...]
Humbled Masters At Davos
Posted in Economy and business on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
A general view of the Swiss Alpine resort of Davos on January 26. The annual Davos political and business summit has started with new warnings over the gravity of the global recession and the impact of the damage already done. “How could we have been so stupid?” That was the refrain of several experts at [...]
In 1915, a publication was founded for personal ads. For the first time, through its carefully coded classifieds, anyone, whatever their sexual preference, could find like-minded souls. These days, friendship, sex or even love is seemingly only a click away. With the internet, it’s never been easier or more convenient to meet those who share [...]
Obama prepares to unveil plan to rescue US banking industry from $2 trillion hole
Posted in Economy and business, Politics on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
President Obama is preparing to unveil a rescue plan for Wall Street next week which will dig the world’s biggest banking industry out of a $2 trillion hole. His plan, which has yet to be finalised and signed off, is expected to include the creation of a “bad bank” that will buy some of lenders’ [...]
Coca-Cola to drop ‘Classic’ label in U.S.
Posted in Economy and business, Other on January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
After 24 years, one of the most famous blunders in marketing history is quietly coming to an end. Coca-Cola is dropping the “Classic” from its red labels in some southeast regions of the United States, and the word will be gone from the name on all of its packaging by the summer, the company said [...]
A Birthday
Posted in Poetry, tagged A Birthday, Christina Rossetti on January 30, 2009 | Comments Off
My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a watered shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me. Raise [...]
Throwing the Book at Salt
Posted in Health on January 30, 2009 | Comments Off
DR. THOMAS R. FRIEDEN invited some of the biggest names in food processing to lunch last October. Grilled salmon and green salad were on the menu, but the subject was salt. After a string of victories over smoking, trans fats and calories, Dr. Frieden, the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Health and Mental [...]
As jungles grow, a new debate on rain forests
Posted in Energy and Environment on January 30, 2009 | Comments Off
Marta Ortega de Wing once raised pigs in Chilibre, Panama, on land now reverting to brush and trees. Such regrowth is now being measured against untouched forest. The land where Marta Ortega de Wing raised hundreds of pigs until 10 years ago is being overtaken by galloping jungle – palms, lizards and ants. Instead of farming, [...]
