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Okay, having read the news about hurricanes in Florida and now through Jamaica, and having lived through a number of typhoons in Japan, I did a little <a href="http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2004/hurricanes/interactive/glossary/frameset.exclude.html">research</a>. Just what the heck is the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon?

Answer: none.

They are both "tropical cyclones". Get it? Cyclone is the root term here. Both are also used for tropical cyclones north of the equator (i.e. in the northern hemisphere). The difference is merely there location relative to the Greenwich Meridian: "hurricane" is used for Northern Hemisphere cyclones east of the International Dateline to the Greenwich Meridian: "typhoon" is used for <em>Pacific</em> cyclones north of the Equator west of the International Dateline.

For a refreshing look at <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3644990.stm">Al-Qaeda "three years later"</a>, check out this article. Unlike the torrent of news and abuse coming out of America's presidential spin-machine ("two-thirds of Al-Qaeda has been killed or captured"), this is a sober review of current world trends regarding the new, younger generation of militants that may only have tenuous - if any - links to the al-Qaeda core.

Can you say, <em>maelstrom</em>? I know you can.