“The progress of Jayawardene’s innings was not unlike the shaping of a diamond. It was raw to begin with - carefully negotiated dot-balls, as he reached 17 off 47 balls, and, as the right environment was created slowly but surely, 23 runs came off as many balls; then, as the carbon crystal was almost worth its weight in carats, Jayawardene applied immense heat and pressure, carting 60 off 30 balls; finally, when the stone was done he cut and polished his gem, taking 15 off 5 balls, and left it out there for the world to admire.

“coprolite –noun: a stony mass consisting of fossilized fecal matter of animals.

“Last year, 91 Texas parolees were returned to prison after being charged with a new crime, even though the charges against them were later dropped or they were acquitted in court.

“The real problem with our Asia policy is not the Bush administration but the U.S. political system. Congress is in a narrow-minded and protectionist mood, unlikely to see the need for trade agreements, foreign aid and far greater engagement with a crucial country like Vietnam. Minor issues, ideological obsessions and small but tenacious domestic lobbies hold back sustained strategic movement in foreign policy.

“[To circumvent pdf DRM] send the pdf as an attachment to your Gmail account, and click the ‘view as html’ option within gmail.

“..menopause and post-menopausal life do not confer evolutionary benefits in themselves, but rather evolved by antagonistic pleiotropy because of selection operating.. to maintain regular ovarian cycles at young adult ages.

“..encryption does not prevent you from copying a file. Copying a file is just a matter of moving a series of ones and zeroes from one digital device to another, and you can copy an encrypted file
just as easily as you can copy an unencrypted one. ..instead, encryption prevents access to the content of a file

“The 9/11 Commission Report is created by the federal government and therefore has no copyright; it is in the public domain. Nevertheless, when I selected some text and try to copy it, I get this lovely message: “You do not have permission to copy portions of this document.

“Any preliterate human societies that included individuals old enough to remember the last great catastrophe had a much better chance of surviving the next one than did societies without such old people. The old men were not at risk from childbirth or from exhausting responsibilities of lactation and child care, so they did not evolve protection by menopause. But old women who did not undergo menopause tended to be eliminated from the human gene pool because they remained exposed to the risk of childbirth and the burden of child care.