UNCOMMON THOUGHTS

A Bigot's Conceit

An Aye for an Eye

Cheney's Bull Pen

Who Are the Real Terrorists

Don't Ask for Evidence, Just Nuke Baghdad

That Tricky Saddam Still Sets the Agenda

Permanent Revolution

The Pundits Have It All Wrong

How the West (Bank) Was Won

Anita Roddick

"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room." --Anita Roddick, Founder, The Body Shop

"The US signally failed to capitalise on the vast wave of solidarity that surged towards it after 11 September.  Its treatment of prisoners captured in Afghanistan, its seemingly cavalier attitude to civilian casualties, the enduring belligerence of its language and its high-handed attitude towards its allies resulted in a squandering of international goodwill.  President Bush's warning after 11 September that 'all who are not with us are against us' now rings all too true."  --The Independent - 15 October 2002

The wisdom of Albert Einstein: *"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" *"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." *"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." *"Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts." *"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."

"Today there is a complete power vacuum in Washington over the Middle East, with fundamental disagreement at the highest level. President Bush and his National Security Adviser, the ineffable Ms Rice, are too dim to understand the issues. Vice-President Cheney and the historically myopic Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are so gung-ho as to make the bellicose John Foster Dulles seem a peacenik." --Gerald Kaufman, British Labour MP for Manchester, Gorton

"Young and vigorous, filled with a just hatred of the old world built on their fathers' bones," Isaiah Berlin wrote, "the new barbarians will raze to the ground the edifices of their oppressors, and with them all that is most sublime and beautiful in Western civilisation; such a cataclysm might be not only inevitable but justified, since this civilisation, noble and valuable in the eyes of its beneficiaries, has offered nothing but suffering, a life without meaning, to the vast majority of mankind."

As Congress prepared to sign off on the war resolution Thursday, Mr. Daschle sounded relieved, predicting that Americans would start brooding over the economy "once we get this question of Iraq behind us." Behind us? Given that he just signed on to a policy that by the C.I.A.'s estimation may increase the likelihood that a ruthless foe will attack us with biological and chemical weapons, you have to wonder just what America he is living in. --Frank Rich NYTimes October 12, 2002