Mehta on Mumbai

Teacher Arrested At New York’s Kennedy airport today, an individual, later discovered to be a public school teacher, was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-Gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. “Al-gebra is a fearsome cult, ”Gonzales said. They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search…

Two articles worth reading: Haroon Siddiqui has a fair and well-balanced article in the Ideas section of the Sunday, 20 August Toronto Star entitled The Muslim Malaise George Soros’ article in the Wall Street Journal entitled A Self-Defeating War is also worthwhile and is published at the TPM Cafe. Here are some excerpts: “The war on terror is a false metaphor that has led to counterproductive and self-defeating policies…Unfortunately, the “war on terror” metaphor was uncritically accepted by the American public as the obvious response to 9/11. It is now widely admitted that the invasion of Iraq was a blunder.…