Nearly all 700,000 residents of San Francisco are about to become homeless:
A San Francisco psychiatric facility for the severely mentally ill is preparing to close because of the city's budget crisis, and staff members say patients are already being discharged despite the risks to their well-being.
The victory in Iraq coincides with a drop-off in Shark Blog readership back to its pre-war levels. Perhaps there is a causal relationship here? Heck, if more people stop reading me then maybe somebody will overthrow the House of Saud or topple Baby Doc Assad! Don't get me wrong -- YOU should keep reading the Shark Blog. Let somebody else make the sacrifice.
Mark Steyn nearly resigned from the Spectator because of a dispute over that newspaper's editorial policy. (Steyn believes that the UN is a "fully-fledged member of the axis of evil", while the Spectator argues that it has some redeeming merits). I agree with Steyn's characterization of the UN, but I'm glad he didn't resign. His fortnightly Spectator column is one of my favorite items on my reading list. But if you ever need a new home for your column, Mark, you have a standing invitation to publish it right here on the Shark Blog. I can't afford to pay very much, but the prestige would be priceless.
Abu Mazen plans to stay at home for a while:
"I will not leave the country and I will not visit anywhere before the siege imposed on President Arafat has been lifted and before he enjoys full freedom to move within the West Bank and Gaza and outside, without any obstacles to his return," Abbas told The Associated Press
Jordan's King Abdullah told the Corrupt Nabob Network that democracy won't come to the Arab world until the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is "solved". Use your imagination to figure out what a "solution" that satisfies the Arab world might look like. Even then, Abdullah says:
Different countries will set different paces. Democracy will mean different things to different nations. It has to be something that's homegrown.Use your imagination to figure out what "homegrown democracy" in some of these countries might look like. For some reason, the CNN interviewer didn't think to ask the installed king why it is that Israel has managed to have democracy for the last 55 years while nobody else in the region has. Then again, you wouldn't expect CNN to pose difficult questions to unelected despots, would you. Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 27, 2003 01:12 PM