It's that time of year.. time to register for next semester's classes, orat least time to start looking. Looking over the course catalogue, thedifference between CMU and most universities is again highlit.. the 'missing'majors, the particular courses offered in each field... An art school plus ascience school != a general school... Anyhow, I likely will end up takingtwo psychology classes, but it's tempting to take something really different,like an urban planning class. I'd like to take a language, but the only onesoffered this semester are the 2nd-half of ones from last semester. Also, noHebrew or Arabic. Maybe I'll take Russian or Japanese, or perhaps I'll be ableto convince Andrew that it'd be useful for me to know Arabic, so I could take itat Pitt (I'd need permission).
Britain and Spain are at ends over Gibraltar. Apparently,Spain closed its border with Gibraltar when a ship full of sick people landed,and Gibraltar lacks a hospital. Spain, according to the article, considersGibraltar a tax-shelter that has outlived its time, and they've been playingpolitics in the E.U. on various matters relating to it. It's a shame -- in theend, the goal of the E.U., I think, should be to reduce the differences betweencountries, eventually to the point where it doesn't matter whether Gibraltaris considered British or Spanish..
I know very little about the country or its troubles, but I'm fascinated to readthat things in Sri Lanka have deteriorated to the point where the militaryis now deployed in TV/Radio stations. Wow.
It seems a bit premature to me to start condemning Putin for arrestingKhodorkovsky -- It makes me wonder if the condemnation is purely inspired bybusinessmen who have an interest in seeing Russia with inadequate legal/marketcontrols.
This looks interesting. A clever feat of engineering, to be sure. It mightbe useful for my laptop too.
An exercise: Rewrite this story, retaining all facts but altering thespin to a more sympathetic viewpoint. If you like, get a login on my BLOG,and post it as a reply... :)
Right now, free time is scarce, but I'm looking forward to geocacheing soon..Also, I'm going biking with a friend soon! Woo!