All News is Local

Our friend Annie in Virginia shared a story today about the outsourcing of copy editing services by American newspapers to companies in India. Like much such outsourcing, the reasons for this seem logical: there’s more and cheaper labor available and no cost in product transport. For their part, Indian company reps seem typically polite and …

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Thanks to…

Terrie Miller, for Keller’s Bouchon cookbook, and Mike for Walter Jon Williams’ new novel. Reviews and food photos forthcoming… And Terrie, we’d be happy to take you hawking.

Trinity

Stingray has an un- PC post on the anniversary of the first atomic bomb here. I wrote to him: “Slightly irrelevant tale: I was at the site (October opening I think) and some hippies had set up an altar with a Shiva figurine on it (“I am become Shiva, destroyer of worlds”.) “A ranchy- type …

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More Links

Patrick’s link in the comments below got broken but I think THIS may have been it. In my youth I once had a romance with a woman whom I initially impressed by telling her she reminded me of Emma Peel. Unfortunately the resemblance was only to her looks… And (on a linked subject?): what is …

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BirdBrain’s New Hood

Shunkar’s training continues well. He just got fine new hood from Ken Hooke. His is fairly conventional but Ken does an amazing range, including Asian styles.

Lost Kitty

Paul Domski mailed me this poster under the head of “Why City People Shouldn’t Move to the Country”:

Around the Web…

Busy, but there are so many good and horrific things to link to, on the Usual Suspects and more and worse… First, Asia. Look at this map from Strange Maps (courtesy of Rod) showing the “real”, ie Han, China as an island. All those places in the ocean to the north and west– Tibet, Xinjiang, …

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THomas Disch: 1940- 2008

The poet, critic, and science fiction writer Thomas Disch died last week, a suicide. He was brilliant, unclassifiable, unemployable, and poor, despite having written some odd best sellers– the quintessential freelancer. He was facing eviction from his last home after the death of his long- time companion, and in bad health. He was still writing …

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Top 10 Dumbest Lists

Reid forwarded a link and a wink with this story: 10 Dumbest and Smartest Dog Breeds Needless to say the list itself (a silly, rehashed non-story) deserves no comment; and equally needless to say, we all jumped in eagerly to comment on it. Steve wrote in first: I don’t even have to LOOK. Oriental sighthounds, …

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