department of "really?"

From an NYT article:

Britain is particularly isolated because the country is cut off from continental land routes by the English Channel.

I think the word you're searching for is "island." Maybe "islands" if you want to be more careful, but honestly.

europe stranded

Major European airports are closed because of volcanic ash. What I don't get is why the planes can't fly under the ash, since they say it starts at 18,000 feet. Can't they fly at 10,000 feet until they're out of danger? Obviously not, since there are going to be a million passengers with canceled flights, but it seems weird.

why i never believed deborah tannen

She says, in http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/:

People who speak more than one language report that they always curse in their native tongue; they can say swear words in a second language but they don’t feel them — the gut link to emotions just isn’t there.

This is emphatically not true. Cursing, in my experience, is one of the easiest things to change. My father curses only in English (although he'll say it's only because he never cursed in Tamil). Lots of people curse in the language they happen to be speaking. Incidentally, Birbal was wrong about this too.

wow

From an article on China exporting rail technology:

China’s long-term vision calls for high-speed rail routes linking Shanghai to Singapore and New Delhi by way of Myanmar, and someday connecting Beijing and Shanghai to Moscow to the northwest and through Tehran to Prague and Berlin, according to a map that Mr. Zheng keeps on a bookshelf behind his desk. He cautioned that there were no plans to start construction yet outside China.