Gentle reader, it is Halloween!In celebration of the day's silliness, I give you not 1, not 2, but 3 kinds of fun!Choose:~Nerds, part one and part 2. ~Geeks ~Crazy pumpkins! Here too is my Halloween entry from last year, complete with pho

This story from Japan is too good to let pass.A single businessman made a mistake in his typing, and look what happened: The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) is being sued for $350m (£185m) by a trading company at the centre of a giant share sa

I confess that I have no real love for the euro.  I do suppose that at the time of its conception and creation, plenty of people had great hopes for its success.  I had a number of reservations about the euro, and they ranged from the small

I met my dissertation chapter deadline, and I am back!  Thanks to all for good wishes, funny links, YouTube entertainment, and movie suggestions.I *am*, though, very very tired!*Mad Minerva flops over on her keyboard: "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Here is a tiny blog announcement: Blogging will be light and erratic for the next few days, probably.  I have an absolutely gigantic, massive dissertation deadline to meet, and my faculty advisors (aka the "Nerd Lords") want real resul

Here is an interesting piece in the Aussie news about Chinese attitudes toward the Kim dictatorship .Tell me what you think.Now you know Kim Jong-Il is making no friends with his behavior, but has he finally pushed even Beijing too far? Some believe

I don't know what to say about this story.  But it seems just about right for posting on an afternoon, especially of Friday the 13th.  (We're all in a silly mood!)

No, I'm not making this up. Go read the story for yourself.Even better than the mere words is the photograph of the insane outfit. Crazy! That wedding dress is made with 1,500 cream puffs!

This has got to be the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.  Take a look at what might be the best academic hoax and prank I've seen in a long time!  It's time to read all about “An Incomplete History of the Art of the

All I'm saying is . . . It's about time! Etiquette lessons for clueless academics! In fact, some of my fellow nerd-observers and I have long talked about writing a wickedly satirical "A Handbook to Manners for Academics."  Heck

Well, this young Yalie's certainly got some imagination for job-hunting .Cool! (Of course, I must still hate and despise Yale University with every fiber of my being. That hasn't changed, but I certainly can appreciate individual Y

Did you know that "Genghis Khan" may soon become an actual registered brand name ?No, really! Or, at least, that's what the Mongolian government is thinking. (My only comment?  Well, this is really for my Star Trek-mad S

Take a look at a current debate about how textbooks present Switzerland's role in World War II .Emotions are, as expected, running hot and high. PS: Does anybody have any books to recommend on Swiss history?

Power Line Blog has the video and the links to numerous sources of both news and comment. Just go see for yourself what happened a few days ago. All I can do is sigh and pound my head against my desk. The radicals of Academistan display

Interesting. Very interesting. Geeks and nerds, we may have cause to rejoice. Marketability! Of course, from other circles we can also expect rumbles of discontent about the "talent elite" and the neverending clash be

Blog friend Pursuit of Serenity has just emailed me regarding some new reading on Taiwan. (Xie-xie!)The Jamestown Foundation's latest issue of "China Brief" is all about Taiwan. Here is the link, or you can download the entire is

Well, only very recently I posted about Communism being chic on campus.Now here is a tiny news blurb that reminds me of why I am beginning to love Aussie prime minister John Howard. He's not handsome, he's not eloquent, he's not exc

Here is an interesting interview in Spiegel with professor Bassam Tibi, a Syrian-born scholar in international relations and Islamic influences.What do you think of his analysis? He speaks at length about "the war of ideas" between t

This post is for all you gentle readers who are interested in (a) technology, (b) language issues, or (c) both!It should be no surprise that technological jargon is still confusing countless people.

I confess my ignorance: I didn't know October 3 was German Unity Day until Atlantic Review posted about it.But, oh, what a fun post, complete with amusing video. You really don't have to know much German to understand. It helps t

Are the Dutch actually rude? In the vast cornucopia of European stereotypes, I had never heard of this one.But apparently the Dutch themselves think they are rude and bad-mannered. Of course, according to this recent poll taken by a Dutch

Here's a very interesting twist on current policy debates from the Washington Post. Check it out. Well, if there's one thing we don't need in public policy debates, it's more self-righteous emotionalism and finger-pointin