Archive - Mar 31, 2008 - Article

Reporting for Destruction

When it was reported in May 2007 that Rupert Murdoch's "surprise" $5 billion bid for the nation’s largest financial newspaper, the prestigious Wall Street Journal, it was received with great apprehension lest this paper of record for the U.S. economy lend itself to Murdoch's conservative leanings. The anxiety felt was not misplaced. Murdoch now has The Wall street Journal from which to propagate misinformation to the public; the latest such scandal being an opinion piece by Amir Taheri. What prompts Murdoch to allow such an incredulous opinion piece to be published in his paper? >>>

For tortured souls in our midst

With the switchover to a more bloggy style format, and the ease by which readers can comment on articles, I figure enough experimentation has gone by, to spend this piece defining a code of conduct that I think we can all agree on and hopefully abide by. It's probably not perfect, but it'll do, for me anyways. As I am sure you have by now seen, there are several problems. First, the sniper comments have exploded. These are those pointless, harm intending, vicious, often personal attacks on the site, by those tortured souls in our midst, who feel the inexorable urge to express what is obviously their own deep demonic torment. Except that they do it with comfortable glee>>>

The Spider Killings (11)

Azadeh took her time approaching the passenger side. She looked in as the driver reached over and rolled the window down.
-- “Hey haven’t seen you in a while.” The man said smilingly.
-- “That can be changed,” Azadeh replied, “if you have five thousand tomans.”
-- “Panj-hezaar-taa meegiri! Five thousand!” The man scoffed, “Who do you think I am, a millionaire mullah?”-- “Listen buddy, you wanna haggle, go to the Baazaar,” Azadeh fired back, unfazed, “I’m not selling chaghale-badoom, spring almonds, here.” >>>