This paper focuses on how leaders in Western countries talk about the “war on terrorism.”

The paper discusses the difficulties of defining “terrorism,” because, unlike Marxism or capitalism, “terrorism” is not an ideology. Instead the term may be used to designate actions that are used by members of non-governmental organizations against civilian targets. In the case of the “war on terrorism,” the signifier, “terrorism,” is used widely. However, the signified, the perpetrators and what they do, are quite different. Because the designation of the signified depends upon the speaker, the concept of terrorism seems to be subjective and fluid. The signified switches radically both by context and over time, while the only aspect that is stable is the signifier, “terrorism.”

The paper goes on to analyze the “war on terrorism” as an ontological metaphor.

The paper concludes by arguing that although figures of speech contribute to the cognitive dimension of meaning by helping us to recognize the equivalence to which we are committed and suggesting new equivalences, metaphors like the “war on terrorism” raise problems and do little to increase our understanding.

Considering different cultural codes and world views, this type of metaphor is highly counterproductive for communication on the global level.

How We Talk about the 'War on Terrorism'

Mr. Bush’s “shot in the arm,” economists said, did not persuade the rest of the world that the United States will escape a recession, or that it will either.

A decade after a credit crisis in Southeast Asia triggered an “Asian contagion” of stock market declines around the world, the credit crisis in the United States is now producing an “American contagion” to which no stock market seems immune.

“There is indeed some panic,” said Thomas Mayer, the chief European economist at Deutsche Bank in London.

The Japanese stock market dropped 5.7 percent, for the worst two-day loss in 17 years, while the Australian stock market tumbled 7.05 percent, its worst single-day loss in nearly two decades. The Shanghai market lost 7.22 percent while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong plummeted 8.65 percent.

European stock indexes opened with losses of 2 to 5 percent, extending a steep slump that pushed some indexes down more than 7 percent on Monday.

Trading on the Bombay Stock Exchange was halted for an hour on Tuesday after the Sensex index dropped 11.5 percent shortly after the opening.

On Monday, the Frankfurt Stock Exchange’s Dax index plummeted 7.2 percent, its steepest one-day decline since Sept. 11, 2001. The 7.4 percent drop in Bombay’s Sensex index was the second-worst single-day tumble in its history.

Awaiting Wall Street’s Open, Asia Markets Plunge

As China's middle class expands, hundreds of thousands of new car owners are hitting the roads each year, driving up imports of luxury cars, snarling traffic, creating a car culture and reveling in what many Chinese describe as a newfound sense of freedom.

In China today, owning a car is what owning a television set was in 1950s America.

Contrast this with the Klinkenborg piece. Then recall:

China’s catching up alone would roughly double world consumption rates.

Now, take care to replace that incandescent lamp with an energy efficient fixture, and don't forget to turn it off when you leave the room!

Creating a Car Culture in China

The ever-essential Verlyn Klinkenborg, following up on the thread about Magic Highway:

Every now and then I meet someone in Manhattan who has never driven a car. Some confess it sheepishly, and some announce it proudly. For some it is just a practical matter of fact, the equivalent of not keeping a horse on West 87th Street or Avenue A. Still, I used to wonder at such people, but more and more I wonder at myself.

Driving is the cultural anomaly of our moment. Someone from the past, I think, would marvel at how much time we spend in cars and how our geographic consciousness is defined by how far we can get in a few hours’ drive and still feel as if we’re close to home. Someone from the future, I’m sure, will marvel at our blindness and at the hole we have driven ourselves into, for we are completely committed to an unsustainable technology.

To Drive or Not to Drive: That Was Never the Question

The Bush administration is beginning its last year in office by quietly scaling back its foreign policy ambitions as it struggles with new obstacles and rapidly dwindling influence.

The upshot is that the Bush administration is going to be spending the next year managing crises and tidying up messes until the next president takes over, rather than reaching legacy milestones, as officials recently had hoped.

Contrast this with George Friedman's expectations about the last year under Bush:

George W. Bush is not up for re-election, and there is no would-be successor from the administration in the race; this frees up all of the administration’s bandwidth for whatever activities it wishes. Additionally, Bush’s unpopularity means that each of the White House’s domestic initiatives essentially will be dead on arrival in Congress. All of the Bush administration’s energy will instead be focused on foreign affairs, since such activities do not require public or congressional approval. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, 2008 will see the United States acting with the most energy and purpose it has had since the months directly after the 9/11 attack.

I guess the LA Times is that conventional wisdom he's talking about.

Bush officials narrow foreign horizons

Another paywall falls.

Readership will get another boost starting Tuesday, when TheAtlantic.com will abolish the fire wall that has allowed only subscribers to the print magazine to see most of its articles online. It will make its archive accessible, too.

Executives hope that a rise in traffic brings to The Atlantic, one of the nation’s oldest publications, something it hasn’t had in many years: a profit.

A Venerable Magazine Energizes Its Web Site

Baby stepping toward the end of "cable", and bundles ...

HBO, cable’s most popular premium channel, is carefully entering the arena of Internet video.

The channel, a subsidiary of Time Warner, will introduce HBO on Broadband starting this week to subscribers in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wis., then spread the service slowly to other parts of the country. The free service will allow access to about 400 hours of movies and original programming each month. It will be made available only to people already subscribing to HBO, and it will be marketed and delivered through cable operators.

HBO Putting Shows Online, at No Additional Charge

Scantily clad prostitutes are being pushed out of their neon display windows by fashion mannequins in a battle for control of the busiest red-light district in Europe.

“If you come to this area, you know what you are coming for – and it is not fashion,” Jan Broers, the owner of an hotel and eight prostitute windows, said. “... there are some crazy people in the Government who think they can take control of the whole thing, not only the prostitutes but also the coffee shops.”

The city council claims that the famed Dutch permissiveness, which also turns a blind eye to cannabis being sold in coffee shops, is being exploited by organised crime.

Prostitutes are pushed out to provide a window for fashionistas

On paper the labyrinth of British dance genres and microgenres can seem hopelessly complicated. But at Love D1 emphasized the basics, and he got a big cheer every time he dropped one of the monstrous bass lines that dubstep is known for. Although “bass line” scarcely seems like the right term: the timbres are scrambled and the tones are obliterated; instead of a melodic groove, you get a huge, serrated blob.

Dubstep is one more aftershock of an explosion that happened in the early 1990s, when British producers drew from electronic dance music and dance-hall reggae to create a furiously syncopated genre called jungle — and, later, drum and bass. Since then the sound has been mutating, spinning off new genres as producers and D.J.s change their priorities: hot declaration versus cool abstraction; voices versus beats; fits and starts versus nonstop dancing.

Evolving and Mutating, Dubstep Splits Cells and Gives Life to Dance Floors

A 13-year-old boy wearing an explosives-packed vest blew himself up Sunday among a group of tribal leaders in the western province of Anbar, becoming one of the youngest suicide bombers since the U.S.-led invasion, Iraqi police said.

The attack targeted a meeting of leaders from the Anbar Awakening Council, a U.S.-supported group that has turned against al-Qaeda in Iraq. A tribal chief, Hadi Hussein al-Isawi, was among those killed, police and Fallujah hospital officials said.

Another version of the lede:

A teenager holding a box of candy strode into a gathering of Sunni Arab tribal members near Falluja and detonated an explosive belt, killing four people and wounding nine, members of the Issawi tribe said Sunday. It was the second major bomb attack to strike American allies in Anbar Province in two days.

"He was a child and one of our people, so he did not raise doubts."

Contrary to some analysts' assertions, we have not "won the war."

Teenage Bomber Strikes In Anbar