(Read the original story here .) A couple of weeks ago, about 450 students at Utah State University were supposedly awarded grants from the federal government for being in certain majors - physics, math, life sciences, computer science, etc. - totalling about 4000 quid per student. (I know lots of other places are pricier for school, but at USU, that's two semesters - a full year - worth of tuition and fees in the bag.) Many of these students were young married people, with spouses ...

So . . . according to The Guardian , approximately 190,000 American-issued weapons have gone missing. From the story: The weapons include AK-47 machine guns, pistols, body armour and helmets, some of which will have ended up in the hands of insurgents. The report, by the Government Accounting Office, which sent its report to Congress last week, found an alarming 30% gap between the number of weapons issued to Iraqi forces and records held by US forces in Iraq. The 20-page report...

Do you know how cool it would be if all the cell towers in the entire world exploded tomorrow? Forget about all the problems to commerce, communications, etc. I don't care. I still think it would be wonderful. Maybe then I could get some PEACE AND QUIETTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's ridiculous when people come into the bank, with their stupid Bluetooth dongledildoes hanging from their ears, gabbing and c...

Yeah, man.  Rant on. -- 18 Apr 2008.  11:42am. As much as I missed my Mediterranean, I'll tell you what I didn't miss - Pervy McPervington. Perhaps my repeated use of this nickname for him is childish and rude, but it fits him on both levels so well: He's childish and rude, so turnabout is the fairest kind of play; and He's a total, one-hundred-per-cent pervert. After a week away from him, I started to rationalize away the odious feelings ...

Another chunk from my journal.  It's not as travel a journal these days. -- 01 May 2008.  1:07pm. I've been thinking a lot about Foucault lately. Not something I necessarily do of my own free choice (it's not like he's Kierkegaard or something) but it's what I'm doing, nonetheless - slogging through his essays as if my life, and not just my grade, depended on it. I was thumbing through "Truth and Power" today, and I stumbled across Foucault's definition of truth - throug...

13 May 2008.  2:15pm. I sit in the dilapidated hallway of the ramshackle building the Facultat de Lletres is stuck in.  The once white walls are graying, cracked and webbed with the lines of age, plaster crinkled and breaking off into tiny chunks that haunt the corners.  The outline of a garbage can is etched into the wall in front of me, almost like the flash shadow of a bomb.  The can itself is on the floor, tipped sideways, spilling crumpled papers in a blast patter l...

DATELINE:  This last weekend.  Once again, I don't know when. MONTERREY, Mexico (AP) -- A car plowed into a weekend bike race along a highway near the U.S.-Mexico border, killing one and injuring 10 others, police said. The 28-year-old driver was apparently drunk and fell asleep when he crashed into the race, said police investigator Jose Alfredo Rodriguez. Holy.  Caca.  Doodie. Yes, you're looking at that picture exactly right - the car ...