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The American press is stunningly bad at reporting on events in Iraq right now. CNN relies on Michael Ware, which is a bit like relying on Ollie North for an account of the Iran-Contra affair – Ware has all but come out in favor of McCain’s occupation forever line. The New York Times crew evidently is not only incapable of reading or speaking Arabic, but relies mostly on the Green Zone for its framework, and has no sources whatsoever in the Mehdi army. The latter is pretty much the condition of the whole of the U.S. press. In one way, it is understandable – establish a source with the Sadrists and watch the U.S. army take your ass to jail. On the other hand, it makes it impossible to trust the NYT or the Washington Post. LI recommends the BBC news service translations of what is being said in the Arab press. At the present time, according to the Saudi owned Al-Sharq al-Awsat website, there is a dispute about a message being sent around from Sadr, which says: In his message, a copy of wh

As all space freaks know, the Shuttle landed safely yesterday. But what is less known is that the shuttle depends on a curious weave between science and the magic cast by Northhanger, who has been working hard to make sure that no evil ondulation threw them off course. Congrats, North! And don't be fooled by the disproportion to the all too human eye between high tech and magic. As Thomas Vaughn, that most unsuccessful alchemist, writes in Anthroposophia Theomagica: “It is a strange thing to consider that there are in Nature incorruptible, immortall principles. Our ordinary kitchin fire, which in some measure is an enemy to all compositions, notwithstanding doth not so much destroy as purifie some parts. This is clear out of the ashes of vegetables, for although their weaker exterior elements expire by the violence of the Fire, yet their Earth cannot be destroyed, but vitrified. The fusion and transparency of this substance is occasioned by the radicall moisture or seminall water o

- photo de C. Monin LI has been reading a talk Caillois gave in 1963 on a conference on “the robot, the animal, man”. In it, Caillois does that thing which make LI both happy and uneasy – he uses ethology and zoology as though these were collections of myths. In one way, this is simply the kind of sociology that Bataille and Caillois did. And it seems to look back on romantic science, the leap from the feature to the analogy, and from the analogy to some universal force. But in Caillois’ case, he is not looking for some shaping force, or a series of Ur-forms, the kind of sequence that we can all too easily conflate with evolution, but that is, if anything, its opposite – relying on the necessity of a force on the model of the physical forces, rather than the statistical differences given in a population when a chance mutation leads to the spread of some trait. The closest Caillois gets to such thinking is his notion that humans, butterflies, ants and flowers all share a penchant for pl

In the Fourth book of his Principles of Political Economy (1847), John Stuart Mill looked forward to the possible results of the progressive tendency of the free market industrial system, to the vastness of which he had dedicated his book. Among other things, he predicted that the number of servants would go down, and that a fundamental change would occur in the structure of business such that the divide between the owner and the worker would slowly wane. This change would, he hoped, come about by the rise of large scale associations. Perhaps he was sort of hinting at the absentee, stock owned corporations of today, but his words seem more hopeful - perhaps, in the end, capitalism would flow into the utopian scheme of the 1800-1820s, but on a sounder, scientific basis. In any case, the future belonged to large scale heavy industry, as well as larger scale agriculture. “But, confining ourselves to economical considerations, and notwithstanding the effect which improved intelligence in

For reasons unknown, suddenly Lady Bitch Ray fans have suddenly started flocking to Limited Inc – and no doubt leaving disappointed, as we don’t have the fabulous nude pics. But – never fear! Here's a link to one of the Bitch’s great moments on Austrian TV . We have sent letters in to get Kino Fest to invite Lady Bitch Ray for her first English appearance – to no avail. What is sad is that, of course, you could get her to come relatively cheaply, now, but in a couple of years, Lady Bitch Ray can ask her own price. Yes, LI is ahead of the curve in wanting Lady Bitch Ray to extend her empire to the Anglosphere. According to Bild: Sie beherrscht insgesamt sechs Sprachen, kann neben Deutsch und Türkisch auch noch Portugiesisch, Französisch, Englisch und Latein. How do I love this woman? Well, a little below the Queen B, of course, but she is rising in my estimate every day! Although – confession – I’m not as happy with Mein Weg as Ich hasse dich, or, joy of joys, Deutschland sikti