Passing of Margaret Thatcher, 1925-2013

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher has died today, but she leaves an important legacy for women and girls the world over. Called the "Iron Lady" (a sobriquet first hung on her by a Soviet journalist), she was Britain's prime minister from 1979-1990, making her the longest-serving PM of the 20th Century.

As Wikipedia notes,

In February 2007, Thatcher became the first living British Prime Minister to be honoured with a statue in the Houses of Parliament. The bronze statue stands opposite that of her political hero, Sir Winston Churchill, and was unveiled on 21 February 2007 with Thatcher in attendance; she made a rare and brief speech in the members' lobby of the House of Commons, responding: 'I might have preferred iron – but bronze will do ... It won't rust.'

I thought she was a marvelous terror, and the world is poorer for her passing.

If you have on-plane 'net access and an Apple device...

...you can run Apple Maps and see this. Damn, but this is cool.

Okay, *this* is fun

With today's addition of the "Kissinger cables," Wikileaks has added nearly 2 million documents (and 1 billion or so words) dealing with a broad range of State Department issues from 1973 to 1976.

I've been browsing the days just after Nixon's resignation in August 1974.

Fascinating stuff.