The Facts Machine

"And I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide"

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 SECONDS...

Thabo Mbeki and Atal Behari Vajpayee, leaders of two countries with signifcant historical ties -- they were once under the hegemony of brutal men with British accents -- are metting this week in India to, among other things, hammer out a free trade agreement. The sun never sets yada yada!

Related vaguely to the above is the story that a huge movie studio is going to be built in Cape Town. India has one of the largest film industries in the world, so I can imagine that at least casually, the subject will come up in the Mbeki-Vajpayee meeting.

China's first manned space launch is nearing its end, and it appears to be successful. This story makes me very happy, I'm not quite sure why. Even NASA seems impressed. Check out a diagram of the Chinese spacecraft. Maybe I'm just happy that Rumsfeld didn't try to shoot the thing down.

An American diplomatic convoy was attacked in Gaza, killing at least 3 Americans. And since none of the three were Rachel Corrie, our media is now instructing us to care and be upset. Obviously, from Israel's perspective, the way to curb these attacks is to further humiliate Palestinians by building a security wall that actually infringes on Palestinian territory. Yeah, that'll do it.

Okay, now I'm off to class, and then back home to study for my PS121 midterm from hell. Maybe I'll sneak Cubs/Marlins game 7 in there. Maybe (er, definitely) I'll give Laurie a call. Maybe (er, very unlikely) I'll post here again today.
Bye!

UPDATE: one more thing before I go! This is more domestic, but a Buzzflash reader noticed two divergent headlines for the same poll:
ABC Headline:
Poll: Bush Slipping
Iraq, Economic Problems Level the '04 Playing Field
[LINK]

Washington Post:
President Rallying Support in Polls
Rebound Sets Campaign Team into Action
[LINK]
In the poll, by the way, his overall approval is down one point, his issue-specific numbers are as low as they've ever been, and his re-elect numbers are trailing that of the Dem nominee.

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