ellauri100.html on line 319: However, it was not momentous events but a bit of seemingly irrelevant analysis that administered the coup de grâce to my naïve “liberalism”. It happened in the early 1970s, when my boss asked me to concoct grand measures of effectiveness for the armed forces (i.e., summary measures of antisubmarine warfare capabilities, of tactical strike capabilities, and so on). I struggled with the problem, and made a good-faith effort to provide the measures. But in the end I had to report to my boss that he had given me “mission impossible”. Why? Because, no summary measure could capture the effects of the many factors that would determine the effectiveness of the armed forces: the enemy, the characteristics of his forces, the timing and geographic particulars of any engagement, and so on. (See “Hemibel Thinking” in this post for a précis of my argument.) That was the first time I got sacked. But I returned as soon as my boss got fired.
ellauri111.html on line 379: You can see that the main paragraphs come from John (who was not present) and Paul (who was not present either). George and Ringo say nothing, as usual. (Well, there's Norwegian wood, and Yellow submarine, but they're completely beside the point.) All you need is love!
ellauri335.html on line 504: You might think a presidential visit, presidential speech, three Secretary of State visits, two Secretary of Defense visits, the dispatching of two aircraft carrier groups, a nuclear submarine and Marine expeditionary unit, and the pledge of $14.3 billion in emergency military aid are testament to the unwavering support the United States is extending to Israel.
ellauri375.html on line 286: Sounds like more beating about the bush. I don't thing you got a clue. You are not very deep, sorry to say. I have had a better conversation with a coffee machine. You're as useless as a screen door on a submarine! You're about as much fun as a sandpaper toilet roll! You're as welcome as a skunk at a lawn party! You've got a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle! You're as sharp as a bowling ball! You're about as subtle as a chainsaw in a library!
xxx/ellauri068.html on line 187: "My own favourite tribute to Borges comes in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow in which a group of Argentinian exiles, led by the adventurer Squalidozzi, and at large in Europe during World War Two, hijack a German submarine. Improbably, they are accompanied by the glamorous Graciela Imago Portales – a ‘particular friend’ of the Buenos Aires literati – to whom ‘Borges is said to have a dedicated a poem’. Two lines are cited: “El laberinto de tu incertidumbre / Me trama con la disquietante luna . . .” Of course, the quotation has puzzled scholars, as it is neatly consistent with the rhythms and motifs of Borges’ earlier work, and yet nowhere to be found in his oeuvre. It would no doubt have delighted Borges, the more so since Pynchon made it up."
xxx/ellauri128.html on line 516: Among Hubbard´s many publications were the fourteen-volume work Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great and the short publication A Message to Garcia. He and his second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, died aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland on May 7, 1915.
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xxx/ellauri320.html on line 176: Cartland's second lover, Mayfair neighbour Lieutenant-Commander Glen Kidston, was also married. The former submarine officer in the Royal Navy was rich, handsome and ruggedly masculine.
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