Loose cannons

Final frontier

"Several big Japanese builders have set up divisions for moon-based-construction research. Shimizu Construction Corp, for instance, has been studying plans for lunar tennis courts and golf courses." — Wall Street Journal, May 24.

Brainless I

"Do you have blacks, too?" — Question posed to Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso by George "The Crusader" Bush during Cardoso's visit to Washington, November 8, 2001 (reported in Der Spiegel May 19, 2002)

Brainless II

"There's a lot of brains in this room. And you get to decide whether there's a brain drain in Russia... Russia's most precious resource is the brain power of this country. And you've got a lot of it. It's going to take a lot of brains in Russia to create a drain." — George the Crusader, at St Petersburg University, May 25.

Partners

"In February, the Business Software Alliance, the group that represents Microsoft, Adobe, and other software makers concerned about [software] piracy, signed up another unusual partner — the grand muftis at Al Azhar in Cairo. The highest religious authority in Sunni Islam, Sheikh Ibrahim Atta Allah, issued a fatwa, or edict, against piracy." — Web posting by law.com, May 31.

From Green Left Weekly, June 5, 2002.

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From GLW issue 495