Conquest

I'm quite impressed with Google Books' scanning technology. But occasionally it makes little mistakes, like reading "finally conquered" as "Anally conquered." Cases in point:

The French occupied Pignerol, threatened Turin, and Anally conquered Savoy.

It was not until between the years 1273 and 1307 that the Welsh were Anally conquered by Edward I, son of Henry III, and grandson of John, the Nero of English kings.

He Anally conquered the Byzantine portion of Asia Minor and gave it to Suleiman to rule over.

The religion of Constantino achieved, in less than a century, the anal conquest of the Roman empire.

American Exceptionalism

Apparently pro-Ghadhaffi forces have started leaving land mines behind when they retreat. If only the United States were in a position where it could credibly condemn such actions as immoral and outside international norms. But, no, even President Obama insists that we should let sleeping dogs lie on this issue and not ratify the land mine treaty. Presumably getting the Pentagon to swallow cuts to the nuclear arsenal, conventional forces, and give up anything that looks like a land mine was just a bridge to far. Nonetheless, compromises have consequences.

Do The Right Thing

The Atlantic's Chris Good flags a reason for Mike Bloomberg to be embarassed. From a DOJ press release:

In 2005, the Division filed suit against the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority for its policy forbidding employees from wearing religious head coverings with their uniforms, affecting Muslim and Sikh bus drivers, subway operators, and other employees who believe their head coverings are religiously mandated. The suit alleges that a stated no-hats policy has been applied inconsistently, with employees permitted to wear various secular hats and head coverings. We continue to vigorously litigate this case, and recently defeated the MTA's motion for summary judgment. ...

The DOJ lawsuit was filed six years ago. Even the US Army now allows Sikh's to wear turbans. How is this still in court today?

Today in "Shit Not-Quite Presidential Candidates Say": Newt Gingrich

Ladies and gentlemen, the intellectual heavyweight of the Republican party, thrice-divorced and disgraced former Speaker Newt Gingrich.

In a speech to Texas evangelicals, Gingrich also took up the theme over the weekend, warning that unless America is saved, his grandchildren “will live in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.”

Can anyone explain to me how this would work?

Oh Lord

One of the section headings in this Fortune Magazine piece on unpaid labor is "The challenges of hiring and managing modern day serfs." I've never been great at detecting irony, but the whole thing reads more as cheery and matter-of-fact than as sarcastically criticizing something unfair.