Windows XP, currently in not-quite-final "release candidate" state, looks more like the Manchurian Candidate, a bland facade concealing unexpected brutishness.

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From MK-ULTRA to the Manchurian Candidate, scientists and science fiction fans have been thinking about mind control for a very long time.

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But perhaps Frankenheimer's most enduring work was The Manchurian Candidate (1962).

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Think of films like The Manchurian Candidate, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and even Election which focused on a high-school race but still featured plenty of intrigue.

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As I quipped on Twitter this morning, if Ivanishvili (someone who has repeatedly and forcefully advocated on behalf of EU and NATO membership) is really the best Manchurian candidate that the Russians can dig up, then their bench is even thinner than I would have guessed and the GRU and the FSB need to urgently re-evaluate their recruiting procedures.

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David Brooks, a conservative columnist on the New York Times, recently declared that he sometimes wonders whether Mr Bush is a Manchurian candidate sent to discredit conservatism.

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