In the mail recently, I've received several ads noteworthy for their bold claims.

One yesterday offered a device with the headline: Makes meetings more powerful and efficient! Hmmm. Now, close your eyes and hold hands. Visualize the table lifting off the floor. . . .

An ad received today offers The Most Effective Way to Re-Define Your Body! Really? I thought. How interesting.

MEANWHILE, discussion of the New Weird continues fast and furious. Participants include M. John Harrison, Cheryl Morgan, China Miéville, Paul McAuley, Farah Mendelson, Charles Stross, Jeffrey Ford, Farren Miller, Gabe Choinard, and others.

DISAPPEARING NEWS: The Guardian has pulled yesterday's story in which Paul Wolfowitz was quoted as saying "Iraq swims on a sea of oil." I found something that looks like it may be the original text of the Guardian article at a Moslem site, khilafah.com.

Explanation from the Guardian:

A report which was posted on our website on June 4 under the heading "Wolfowitz: Iraq war was about oil" misconstrued remarks made by the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, making it appear that he had said that oil was the main reason for going to war in Iraq. He did not say that. He said, according to the Department of Defence website, "The ... difference between North Korea and Iraq is that we had virtually no economic options with Iraq because the country floats on a sea of oil. In the case of North Korea, the country is teetering on the edge of economic collapse and that I believe is a major point of leverage whereas the military picture with North Korea is very different from that with Iraq." The sense was clearly that the US had no economic options by means of which to achieve its objectives, not that the economic value of the oil motivated the war. The report appeared only on the website and has now been removed.

OK, so Wolfowitz said what he said. We are asked by the Department of Defence to understand him differently.

It's now a little clearer why he said what he said -- it wasn't just Xtreme in-yer-face you-gotta-problem-with-that? Republicanism. But I think we understood him the first time.