Line in the sand

At the G20 meeting last week when announcing the new nucluar weapons program in Iran, Gordon Brown, PM of GB, said the international community must draw a line in the sand over this.

That phrase comes from a scence in John Wayne movie about the Alamo, when a the Texas defenders basically made a suicide pact.

Is that what Gordon Brown has in mind? A suicide pact?

Forecasting terror

Sometimes experts aren't quite as expert as we'd like to believe they are.

The website Forecasting Principles has reprinted some research results on the lack of experts ability to forecast the course of conflict situations.

Some of the findings include such observations as the unaided forecasts of experts are little better than those of novices.

The Vitter wife

In the news conference she said "I made the decision to love him".

Since when is being in love a decision?

Cool dress though. The last time I saw a dress like that was on a street corner in the San Francisco Tenderloin.

Checking for weapons

The modern version of a security weapons check

In a section entitled "Preventing Demonstrators," the document says: "All Presidential events must be ticketed or accessed by a name list. This is the best method for preventing demonstrators. People who are obviously going to try to disrupt the event can be denied entrance at least to the VIP area between the stage and the main camera platform. ... It is important to have your volunteers at a checkpoint before the Magnetometers in order to stop a demonstrator from getting into the event. Look for signs they may be carrying, and if need be, have volunteers check for folded cloth signs that demonstrators may be bringing."