12 April 2007: Morning

Yesterday's bomb attacks in Algeria linked to Al Qaeda's escalating violence in North Africa.

Math on the likelihood of a nuclear attack in the U.S.

Global economics as model trains: The world will decouple if U.S. has a soft landing; it will not decouple if there is a U.S. hard landing.

Europol's first "EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report"; bomb explodes inside the Iraqi parliament's cafeteria.

Whether we are safer with jihadists converging on Baghdad or jihadists converging on camps in Afghanistan and planning events like 9/11, there's no doubt. Interview with invasion defender Richard Perle.

Rapex device to be available in South Africa this month: vaginal teeth that don't do permanent damage to an attacker.

Old established white men chuckle when discussing Don Imus's hos; Oprah unlikely to chuckle.

Kurt Vonnegut dies, age 84.

Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted. Vonnegut's rules for writing fiction. See also, Vonnegut and Heller.

Author and now TV star John Hodgman explains what it's like to be mistaken for a computer in public.

Op: Dropping the charges, says Newsweek, gives Duke's accused their reputations back.

Related: Forget about firing David Sedaris from the New Yorker--but is Rodney Rothman owed an apology?

Crazy English, Total Physical Response, and other new systems for teaching English. See also, notes for meeting Stephen Hawking.

What your car says about you, or, does driving a Miata make you gay?

Good vs. evil, the foosball table.

Interactive high-speed sailing; the flipping ship.

Video: Scenes from a marriage within a ship, starring Bjork.