An even brighter idea
maff
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=7904236
Sep 21st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
Lighting technology: The light bulb is synonymous with invention. But,
as this case history explains, it may lose out to the light-emitting
diode, which is better in many ways
HOW long does it take to change a light bulb? According to iSuppli, a
market-research company that specialises in technology trends, the
answer is 131 years. That is the amount of time that will have elapsed
between 1879, when Thomas Edison first demonstrated his incandescent
light bulb, and 2010, when semiconductor-based light-emitting diodes
(LEDs) are expected to have made significant inroads into general
illumination, a market worth $15 billion.
Since LEDs were first invented over four decades ago, they have mostly
been used in niche applications, first as simple indicator lights on
calculators or watches and then, as their brightness improved, in
displays, signs and traffic signals. More recently, some companies have
begun to sell LED fixtures for residential use. "We're on the brink
of a new lighting revolution," says Jerry Simmons, head of the
solid-state lighting programme at America's Sandia National Laboratory.
Thailand in crisis
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7938267
Sep 19th 2006 | BANGKOK
>From Economist.com
Thailand's armed forces move against the prime minister, Thaksin
Shinawatra, while he is out of the country
RUMOURS of an impending military coup have been circulating in Bangkok
for weeks. Until now it was unclear if they were just wishful thinking
by opponents of the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. He has
withstood months of pressure for his resignation, including big street
protests earlier this year, over allegations of corruption and abuse of
power. However, in the late evening of Tuesday September 19th, a small
group of tanks appeared on the Thai capital's streets, heading for
Government House.
Mr Thaksin, apparently blasé about the rumoured unrest, had taken a
long foreign trip, and was in New York for the United Nations General
Assembly when the tanks rolled. He managed to contact one of
Thailand's television networks to begin broadcasting a declaration
imposing a state of emergency in Bangkok. In the broadcast, he also
ordered the army's commander, Sonthi Boonyaratglin, to report to
Chidchai Vanasathidya, one of Mr Thaksin's deputies, in effect
relieving General Sonthi of his command.
The George and Mahmoud show
http://www.economist.com/agenda/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7938954
Sep 20th 2006 | NEW YORK
>From Economist.com
The Iranian and American presidents both spoke to the United Nations'
General Assembly on Tuesday. Neither man is backing down from
confrontation
IT WAS not a debate, at least not formally. But when George Bush and
Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad each took the stage on Tuesday September
19th, just a few hours apart, to speak to world leaders gathered at the
UN's General Assembly, it was clear that each president had the other
man in mind.
Mr Bush said that spreading freedom is a good thing. Addressing various
Muslims in the "broader Middle East", he contrasted the lot of
people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Darfur. As well
as "freedom", he found another favourite word to use:
"moderates". He repeatedly contrasted the rival claims of
"extremists" and moderates in the Middle East.
The dark side of debt
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7943243
Sep 21st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
Public markets for raising and investing capital are plunging into the
shadows
LENDING is a sober business punctuated by odd moments of lunacy.
Genoese lenders' indulgence of Philip II of Spain's expensive taste for
warfare caused not only the world's first sovereign bankruptcy in 1557,
but the second, third and fourth as well. Lenders recycled petrodollars
to third-world countries in the 1970s in the wilfully naive belief that
countries, because they cannot go bust, will not default.
The world is once again in the grip of a spree of lending, but this
time to companies rather than countries. What is striking is that much
of this lending is happening not through public share and bond markets,
nor exclusively through banks (see article). The issuance of syndicated
loans vaulted to $3.5 trillion last year, from $2.3 trillion in 2000.
Thanks to the low cost of debt, private lenders, such as hedge funds,
are extending vast amounts of credit to leveraged buy-out firms and
other private borrowers. Forsaking the sunlit uplands of global
finance, the market for capital is plunging into the shadows.
The uses of scare-talk
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7946091
Sep 21st 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
>From The Economist print edition
The Republicans think talking about terrorism can save them from defeat
in November. A new poll suggests they may be on to something
HOW worried should Americans be about terrorism? Pete Hoekstra, the
Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, cites the
story of Rick Rescorla, the late security chief at Morgan Stanley's old
office in the World Trade Centre. Rescorla predicted that terrorists
might try to blow up the twin towers with a truck bomb. In 1993, they
tried. Rescorla predicted that they might try to attack with a
commercial aircraft. His suggestion that the firm move to New Jersey
was rejected, but his insistence on regular evacuation drills meant
that, on September 11th 2001, all but six of Morgan Stanley's 2,800
staff in the World Trade Centre survived. The six who died included
Rescorla himself, who went back in to get more people out.
Mr Hoekstra told this story at a press conference on September 20th
unveiling his committee's new report on al-Qaeda. His message was that
America is at war, that the battleground is the whole planet, and that
radical Islamist terrorists could strike anywhere. Al-Qaeda, he said,
had "morphed into a decentralised entrepreneurial organisation" of
exceptional speed and agility. He warned against the complacent view
that America, unlike Britain, has no problem with home-grown Islamist
radicals: American prisons and universities might well become a
breeding ground for the ideology of terror.
When the heavens open
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7950090
Sep 21st 2006 | ROME
>From The Economist print edition
An ill-judged quotation about Islam has obscured a more serious message
HE HAD to wait six centuries, but Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus has his
revenge. Manuel, who ruled the Byzantine empire in 1391-1425, ended his
days after signing a humiliating peace with the Ottoman Turks, the
rising Muslim power of his day, who within three decades of his death
would destroy the empire entirely.
In a university lecture at Regensburg on September 12th, Pope Benedict
XVI conjured up the memory of the emperor by recalling his views on
Islam. Citing a hitherto obscure 14th-century text, the pope quoted
Manuel as saying: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new,
and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his
command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
A new Jerusalem
http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7947517
Sep 21st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
Christianity is collapsing everywhere except London
THE English church of most people's imagining is rural, and so is the
English Christian. "The modern town-dweller has no God and no
Devil," complained the dean of St Paul's Cathedral in 1919. True
then, perhaps, but the landscape of belief in England is changing fast.
The latest report of the English Church Census, an independent count of
bums on pews which is carried out every seven to nine years, contains
the surprising news that London, the modern-day Gomorrah, is now more
devout than almost everywhere else.
In 1979, when the first census was carried out, London was the least
observant region of Britain. One in ten Londoners could be found in
church on a given Sunday. That compared with one in six in poor
northern counties such as Cumbria and Lancashire and with one in five
in heavily Catholic Merseyside. The wealthy Home Counties, which
surround London, were almost as godless.
Learning without learning
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7941685
Sep 21st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
The events of childhood may have an impact on the brain, even if no
conventional memory is formed
FREUD was famously preoccupied with the influence of early childhood
experiences on development. His theory of psychoanalysis, which
provided a new approach to the analysis and treatment of abnormal adult
behaviour, has attracted both ardent followers and fierce critics.
According to this theory, the unconscious mind carries imprints of the
past that mercilessly haunt the present. Unearthing those imprints is
the key to understanding what is going on and then treating it.
In Freudian theory, the imprints are memories, albeit unconscious ones.
In other words, they are encoded in the way that the nerve cells which
make up the brain are connected to one another. This theory of
unconscious early memory is controversial. On the other hand, it seems
clear that early experience is important to later behaviour. So what is
going on?
Dolling up the dole
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7942235
Sep 21st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
A better way to help America's jobless
"MANY of our most fundamental systems-the tax code, health
coverage, pension plans, worker training-were created for the world
of yesterday, not tomorrow. We will transform these systems." With
these words George Bush laid out an agenda of domestic reform at the
Republican convention in 2004. That agenda, starting with last year's
attempt to transform America's vast state pension system, has gone
nowhere. But Mr Bush's basic argument is right. Much of the machinery
of America's domestic economic policy dates from the 1930s and needs
repair. Unemployment insurance is a case in point.
Created by Franklin Roosevelt in 1935, America's dole has barely
changed since. It provides temporary income support to laid-off workers
and is financed by a small tax on wages. The details vary from state to
state, but full-time workers who lose their jobs get a cheque worth, on
average, just over a third of their previous wage for up to six months.
Benefits can be paid for longer if the economy is in recession, but
only if Congress agrees. By European standards, America's dole is
short-lived, a characteristic that encourages people to get a new job
quickly.
Poison Ivy
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7945858
Sep 21st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
Not so much palaces of learning as bastions of privilege and hypocrisy
AMERICAN universities like to think of themselves as engines of social
justice, thronging with "diversity". But how much truth is there in
this flattering self-image? Over the past few years Daniel Golden has
written a series of coruscating stories in the Wall Street Journal
about the admissions practices of America's elite universities,
suggesting that they are not so much engines of social justice as
bastions of privilege. Now he has produced a book-"The Price of
Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite
Colleges-and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates"-that deserves to
become a classic.
Mr Golden shows that elite universities do everything in their power to
admit the children of privilege. If they cannot get them in through the
front door by relaxing their standards, then they smuggle them in
through the back. No less than 60% of the places in elite universities
are given to candidates who have some sort of extra "hook", from
rich or alumni parents to "sporting prowess". The number of whites
who benefit from this affirmative action is far greater than the number
of blacks.
Technical failure
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7953427
Sep 21st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
Some numbers are not magic
PRACTICAL traders, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any
intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct
mathematician. That is what Keynes might have said had he considered
the faith placed by some investors in the work of Leonardo of Pisa, a
12th and 13th century number-cruncher.
Better known as Fibonacci, Leonardo produced the sequence formed by
adding consecutive components of a series-1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and so on.
Numbers in this series crop up frequently in nature and the
relationship between components tends towards 1.618, a figure known as
the golden ratio in architecture and design.
Misbegotten sons
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7939629
Sep 21st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
Richard Dawkins has long trumpeted the rationale of science. Now, at
65, he has finally marshalled a lifetime's arguments against believing
in God
"THE GOD DELUSION" is an irreverent book. The author, Richard
Dawkins, accuses Jesus of having "dodgy family values". And don't
get him started on the God of the Old Testament, "a misogynistic,
homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential,
megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully".
Mr Dawkins is an atheist, an evolutionary biologist and an eloquent
communicator about science, three passions that have allowed him to
construct a particularly comprehensive case against religion. Everyone
should read it. Atheists will love Mr Dawkins's incisive logic and
rapier wit and theists will find few better tests of the robustness of
their faith. Even agnostics, who claim to have no opinion on God, may
be persuaded that their position is an untenable waffle.
All strung up
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7905225
Sep 14th 2006
>From The Economist print edition
String theory has dominated theoretical physics for the past 20
years-to the detriment of science, say two new books
IT IS almost a century since Einstein did his finest work; more than 30
years since theoretical physicists developed the standard model that
describes the basic building blocks of nature. Not a lot has happened
since, despite the best efforts of thousands of theorists and the
expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars. Two new books blame
string theory.
String theory is an attempt to unify two fundamental ideas in
physics-quantum theory and general relativity-by building
everything in the universe from tiny strings and membranes existing in
10 or 11 dimensions. The theory has been the dominant area of research
in theoretical physics for the past 20 years. Unfortunately its promise
remains unfulfilled. As yet, string theory has made no predictions that
could prove it to be wrong. Since being falsifiable is one of the tests
of what constitutes a science, Lee Smolin and Peter Woit have come to
the conclusion that string theory is unscientific; not only that, they
regard it as mere conjecture and unworthy of being called a theory at
all.
Heading off
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7905267
Sep 14th 2006
>From The Economist print edition
GRANTED, the competition isn't strong. But England has never had a
cleverer line of monarchs than the 17th-century Stuarts. Nor one more
foolish, as apt to harm themselves as the nation they misruled: four
civil wars provoked and lost; two crowns lost and one crowned head.
Still they did the nation-and, as time showed, the monarchy-one
real favour. If most later sovereigns have used their heads more
wisely, it was not least because Charles I lost his.
The hero of this lively biography, which was published in Britain a
year ago and is just out in America, is the lawyer who, in his field,
did most to execute the king: John Cooke, who prepared the case for
trial in 1649, and was savagely punished for it after the monarchy was
restored in 1660. Cooke's name is barely a footnote in histories of the
time. With men like Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic and Saddam
Hussein in mind, Geoffrey Robertson, an international lawyer, is eager
to write it six feet high.
Joe has another go
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7879903
Sep 7th 2006
>From The Economist print edition
A Nobel prize-winner who remains an artist of the impossible
THIS is Joseph Stiglitz's second bite at the topic of globalisation,
but his incisors are not as cutting as they were. The passions that
excited his first popular book, "Globalisation and its
Discontents", published in 2002, have faded, he writes; calm now
prevails. That book featured flames on the cover; this one pictures a
bird's nest (in the American edition), and a ring of hearts (in the
British one).
Mr Stiglitz's earlier, angrier forays, which began while he was chief
economist of the World Bank from 1997 to 2000, created a lot of
intramural ill-feeling at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which
was not used to such outspoken criticism from across the street. His
indictment of the IMF's policies during the Asian financial crisis
outraged the Fund rather less than his claim that it hires third-rank
economists from first-rate universities. In his new book he makes only
glancing reference to this bad blood, accusing the Fund of trying to
discredit him, "rather than engage in intellectual debate".
Gertrude of Arabia
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7879942
Sep 7th 2006
>From The Economist print edition
THIS excellent biography of Gertrude Bell, the woman behind the
creation of modern Iraq, goes far towards making her a true heroine, a
Gertrude of Arabia to match her friend, T.E. Lawrence. Indeed, there
are moments when Georgina Howell seems a little starstruck: by her
subject's brains, linguistic brilliance, administrative genius, not to
mention her green eyes and auburn hair. And yet who wouldn't be
starstruck? By all accounts Gertrude Bell was a phenomenon. Plus she
wore beautiful clothes.
There's something to be said for being a woman in a man's world if you
have the wit and nerve to carry it off. A Yorkshire woman, Gertrude
Bell had both. At Oxford in 1888, she was the first woman to take a
First in Modern History. She fell in love with the desert and its
archaeological remains, and between 1900 and 1913 journeyed about
20,000 miles (more than 30,000km), from Istanbul to the Syrian desert,
from Damascus to the Tigris. An unveiled woman, leading her caravan,
she conversed with warrior chieftains and wrote it all down in her
diary: the feuds and alliances, the routes and water sources, the
flowers and ruins.
A rather lengthy conversation
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7879962
Sep 7th 2006
>From The Economist print edition
FEW writers of fiction have matched Michael Frayn's success with both
novels and drama. In the 1960s his first two novels won major prizes,
and his latest one, "Spies", took the Whitbread novel award in
2002. His two most recent plays, "Copenhagen", about a meeting
between two of the founders of quantum mechanics, and "Democracy",
about the East German spy who worked for Willy Brandt, are just as
popular as his light comedies once were. His latest offering is a
magnum opus on philosophy. In 1974, he published "Constructions", a
collection of philosophical observations which turned out to be
whimsical and a flop. But now that he is practically a grand old man of
English letters, Mr Frayn's second venture into metaphysical waters is
serious stuff.
"The Human Touch" is about a question which Mr Frayn says has
puzzled him for most of his adult life. How much of man's conception of
the world reflects an independent reality, and how much of it is made
up by us? We are faced, he thinks, with a paradox. On the one hand, we
know that when mankind ceases to exist, "the universe will go on as
if we had never been". On the other hand, we know (or so he says)
that "if we go, so does everything". As a peg on which to hang a
tour through many parts of the far-flung empire of philosophy, this
dilemma is perhaps as promising as any. But Mr Frayn is far too
sensible and modest a British sort of chap to embrace its second horn
with much enthusiasm. He knows that pretty much everything will in fact
continue perfectly well without him or indeed anybody.
Counting the cost
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854010
Aug 31st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
A usually tolerant country troubled by intolerant Muslim extremism
NOT for nothing is it known as the Low Countries. The flat, watery
Netherlands, inhabited by respectable burghers of the sort painted by
Frans Hals, is normally a placid, prosperous place, and a bastion of
enlightened liberalism. In modern times, indeed, it has become famous
(or, to some, notorious) for its social tolerance: of gays,
prostitution, soft drugs and, perhaps above all, of ethnic minorities.
Yet this tolerance is being severely tested. It began in May 2002 with
the assassination by an animal-rights activist of Pim Fortuyn, a
flamboyant, right-wing, anti-immigrant populist. Then, in November
2004, came the murder of Theo van Gogh, a film-maker who had made a
movie, "Submission", featuring a beaten, naked Muslim woman covered
in writings from the Koran. The killer, a Dutch-born Muslim of Moroccan
origin, shot and then tried to decapitate Van Gogh, before pinning a
note to the corpse threatening Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Dutch Muslim who
co-wrote the script of "Submission".
The geometry of geopolitics
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854060
Aug 31st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
BOOKS based on graphs are all the rage. First came Malcolm Gladwell's
"The Tipping Point", about a kink in a graph where the adoption of
a new idea starts to increase exponentially. Then came "The Long
Tail" in which Chris Anderson argued that in future profits will
shift from the fat, mass-market head of the distribution curve of
consumer demand to the many niches found in the long tail of that
distribution. And now there is "The J Curve", an attempt to sum up
in one simple graphic arguably the world's most pressing geopolitical
challenge: how to turn authoritarian regimes into stable, open
democracies.
Like the long tail, the J curve is an old shape given new meaning by
its author, Ian Bremmer, founder of Eurasia Group, a firm that advises
on political risk. The J is formed as the line moves along the x axis,
falling before eventually rising far above its starting point. In Mr
Bremmer's graph, the x axis measures political openness (internally and
to the outside world), and the y axis the stability of a country,
meaning its ability to survive political shocks.
What to do
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854051
Aug 31st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
THERE is no shortage of new writing about Iran. Memoirs, prurient and
otherwise; travel accounts; worthy political tomes: all tastes are
being catered for as readers-and the publishing trade-turn to look
at the likely next epicentre of conflict in the Middle East. Now two
academics, Ali Ansari and Ray Takeyh, who are based, respectively, in
Britain and America, lend their voices to the cacophony. Do their books
have anything new to say about the Islamic Republic and its place in
the world, and, equally important, a new way of saying it?
Malign or maligned?Mr Takeyh's "Hidden Iran" is a sober,
American-accented tour d'horizon of Iranian resentments, fears and
ambitions. The historical context that the author provides for Iran's
venomous relations with America, its assiduous networking in
neighbouring Iraq and the help it provides to militantly anti-Israel
groups such as Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad, is authoritative. So is his
argument that America, since it does not appreciate the nuances of
Iranian politics, has missed opportunities to end decades of hostility.
Indeed, weeks after Iran lent America a helping hand in toppling
Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2002, George Bush included the
Islamic Republic in his "axis of evil".
Indian tonic
http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854134
Aug 31st 2006
>From The Economist print edition
THE esteem in which mankind holds its furrier friends may be an
indicator of the conception it has nurtured of itself. In the dualistic
universe mapped out by Descartes in the late 17th century, for example,
animals were regarded as cogs in the vast machinery of nature. Man, by
virtue of the reflective soul that set him apart from the rest of
Creation, was cast in the role of master of the natural world. By
contrast, the acceptance a century later of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's
portrait of mankind as just another, more adaptive kind of animal had
proved so widespread that man was as likely to consider himself
nature's student as its (perhaps incompetent) master.
This evolution and the light it sheds on a certain strand of cultural
and intellectual history, lies at the heart of "The Bloodless
Revolution". Despite his serious approach, Mr Stuart has a relaxed,
semi-anecdotal style which repays both careful engagement and lighter
dipping. Beginning, for example, with a quotation from "Withnail and
I", a British film in which the heroes are prevented from killing a
chicken by its "dreadful, beady eyes", he moves on to the issue of
man's sympathy-or otherwise-for animals, a thorn in many a
non-vegetarian side.
New terror that stalks Iraq's republic of fear
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1696153.ece
By Patrick Cockburn in Arbil
Published: 22 September 2006
The republic of fear is born again. The state of terror now gripping
Iraq is as bad as it was under Saddam Hussein. Torture in the country
may even be worse than it was during his rule, the United Nation's
special investigator on torture said yesterday.
"The situation as far as torture is concerned now in Iraq is totally
out of hand," said Manfred Nowak. "The situation is so bad many people
say it is worse than it had been in the times of Saddam Hussein."
Musharraf: US threatened to bomb Pakistan
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1696179.ece
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 22 September 2006
The President of Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf, reveals in an
interview to be aired at the weekend that, soon after the terror
attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States threatened to bomb his
country "back into the Stone Age" if he didn't offer its co-operation
in fighting terrorism and the Taliban.
The revelation was made by General Musharraf during his visit to New
York for the annual General Assembly of the United Nations. It comes
after a week in which the US has been criticised by a number of foreign
leaders for trying to impose its will on other nations.
Bush critics unite: Chavez plug for Chomsky's book boosts sales
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1696141.ece
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 22 September 2006
Who needs publicists and expensive advertising campaigns when you have
Hugo Chavez plugging your books? When Venezuela's leader spoke at the
UN this week and described George Bush as the Devil, he also gave a
resounding boost to a book by another outspoken critic of the US
President, Noam Chomsky.
After Mr Chavez recommended that anyone wishing to understand "what has
been happening in the world through the 20th century" read Professor
Chomsky's 2003 work, Hegemony and Survival: America's Quest for Global
Dominance, sales of the book soared. On Amazon.com's best-seller list,
it leapt from 160,722nd position overnight to seventh.
arwin finch could disappear from Galapagos islands
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article1696144.ece
By Daniel Howden
Published: 22 September 2006
The Galapagos islands could be about to witness the first disappearance
of a species in the 170 years since Charles Darwin's historic visit,
after scientists warned that the mangrove finch has been driven to the
brink of extinction.
There are fewer than 50 pairs of the birds, the rarest of all of
Darwin's finches, left on the group of islands. Despite occupying just
one square kilometre of mangrove forest, their habitat is under threat
from the arrival of humans.
Mayans occupy Canadian-owned mine in campaign for farming land
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1696157.ece
By Andrew Buncombe
Published: 22 September 2006
Hundreds of families of Mayan Indians have occupied part of a large
nickel mine owned by a Canadian company in Guatemala and demanded they
be given land for subsistence farms.
Concerned about the threat that the mine allegedly poses to the
environment and land rights, about 2,000 Q'eqchi Indians moved on to
three separate areas of the mining complex and began setting up
makeshift camps. Campaigners say the UN-sponsored Truth Commission -
part of a 1996 peace agreement that ended Guatemala's brutal civil war
- demanded that indigenous communities with historical claims to land
have the right to determine how it is used.
A Bad Bargain
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/opinion/22fri1.html
Less than an hour after an agreement on the military tribunals bill was
announced, the White House was already laying a path to wiggle out of
its one real concession.
Lebanon's Future: Bending Toward Hezbollah or Leaning to the West?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/world/middleeast/22lebanon.html?ref=world
By CRAIG S. SMITH
The outcome of the battle for Lebanon's political future could have
profound ramifications for the Middle East.
Iran Leader, at U.N., Skirts Issue of Hezbollah's Disarmament
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/world/middleeast/22nations.html?ref=world
By WARREN HOGE
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, refused to say if he would
meet a Security Council demand to disarm and disband Hezbollah.
A Scholar Is Alive, Actually, and Hungry for Debate
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/nyregion/22chomsky.html?ref=americas
By MARC SANTORA
After an address by President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela at the United
Nations, the linguist Noam Chomsky joined the exclusive club of
luminaries who were reported dead before their time.
Pakistan Tells of U.S. Threat After 9/11, CBS Reports
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/world/asia/22pakistan.html?ref=asia
By REUTERS
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said the United States
threatened to bomb his country if it did not cooperate with the
American campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
At Home, Tehran Deals With a Restive Arab Minority
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/world/middleeast/22tehran.html?ref=middleeast&pagewanted=all
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Iran wants to be a leader in the Islamic world, but it has often had to
labor to unify its own people under one national identity.
Innovator Devises Way Around Electoral College
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/us/politics/22electoral.html?ref=us
By RICK LYMAN
A professor of genetic programming at Stanford has concocted a plan for
states to skirt the Electoral College.
Venture Investing as a Strategy, Not to Make Money
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/business/22venture.html?ref=technology
By MIGUEL HELFT
Technology giants are increasingly deciding that venture investing is
not for them and not just because of the financial risk involved.
Good News for Republicans?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101510.html
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, September 22, 2006; Page A17
In Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar looks into the camera and declares: "These
days, no matter how hard you work, the price of gas, college and health
care is getting out of reach."
The answer, says the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, is to
"bring a dose of Minnesota fairness to Washington."
Interrogators Left Out in the Cold
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101509.html
White House Legal and Political Missteps Led to an Unneeded Duel Over
Detainees
By David Ignatius
Friday, September 22, 2006; Page A17
The White House and Senate GOP rebels finally cut a deal yesterday on
rules for interrogation of terrorism suspects. That's good news for the
CIA officers who need clear guidance about what's legal and what isn't.
But the truth is, this collision could have been avoided if the
administration had sought broader political and legal support for its
secret program from the start, rather than leaving the CIA out in the
cold to take the hits.
Since the CIA began what it calls the "High-Value Terrorist Detainee
Program" in mid-2002, the administration has pushed CIA officers to use
coercive interrogation techniques without giving them solid legal
assurance that in doing so, they are not violating U.S. laws and treaty
obligations. Indeed, it took the Justice Department nearly three years
to provide a detailed legal opinion that the CIA program complied with
U.S. and international law.
Why the Firebrands Get Heard
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101512.html
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, September 22, 2006; Page A17
My but the lesser nations are getting uppity.
I do love that word, uppity. Once upon a time, it was used to describe
a black person who didn't know his place. The word came back to me this
week as I heard all that impertinent oratory at the United Nations,
most of it aimed at the United States in general and George W. Bush in
particular.
Did Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez actually call Bush the devil? And
then ostentatiously cross himself? And then complain that the podium,
where Bush had spoken a day earlier, still smelled of sulfur? That's
exactly what he did.
On a Column's Past, With One Parting Toast
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101971_pf.html
By Nora Boustany
Friday, September 22, 2006; A10
The first time Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez came to The Washington
Post seven years ago, the former paratrooper spoke about the poverty in
the hinterlands of his native country, which he had toured by donkey.
He vowed then to be a reformer, to crush corruption and to lift
millions of Venezuelans from poverty.
We wondered, would he prove to be a dictator or a true populist and
innovator?
Report Calls for Improvement in K-8 Science Education
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101570.html
By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 22, 2006; Page A09
A report released yesterday by a committee on science education says
K-8 classes are in "urgent need" of improvement, just as schools must
for the first time assess students on the subject under the federal No
Child Left Behind Act.
The report by the National Research Council, the main operating agency
of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of
Engineering, said that the past 15 years of reform have produced few
positive results and that science education too often is based on
faulty notions of how children learn.
A torrent of twittery
Padraig Reidy
September 22, 2006 11:37 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/padraig_reidy/2006/09/this_mornings_torrent_of_twitt.html
Question: would you invite a leading member of a well-known (though
tiny) Islamist fundamentalist group on the nation's flagship news
programme and, er, not make it clear to listeners that this man is a
leading member of a well-known (though tiny) Islamist fundamentalist
group? Would you grant him the flagship interview on said flagship
programme to put forward his absurd, dangerous views? Would you then
lead your news update following the interview with this man's warnings
of "Muslim anger"? Would you then let your presenter score the rather
silly own-goal of suggesting that said British-born leading member of a
well-known (though tiny) Islamist fundamentalist group "go somewhere
else" if he doesn't like the UK?
I'm sure the majority of you would respond "no" or quite possiby "duh,
why are you asking such stupid questions, Reidy?" But the Today
programme team, should they be reading this, would have to squirm a
little bit.
This morning's interview (audio here) with Abu Izzadeen (né Trevor
Brooks) was an embarrassment for all concerned, with the possible
exception of Abu Izzadeen, a man obviously lacking in the
self-awareness necessary for shame.
A match made in heaven
Stephen Bates
September 22, 2006 11:01 AM
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stephen_bates/2006/09/an_opportunity_missed.html
The news that Desmond Tutu, the South African church leader and Nobel
Peace Prize winner, was sounded out about becoming Archbishop of
Canterbury in preference to George Carey in 1990 is likely to cause
liberal members of the Church of England to sob quietly into their
cocoa. If only, they'll be muttering.
Since the revelation comes in Tutu's authorised biography,
Rabble-rouser for Peace, written by his longtime press officer John
Allen, I think we can assume it's true. The idea was stymied because as
a South African Tutu could not swear allegiance to the Queen, as is
required by the Established Church of England. That is clearly a much
more important priority for a Christian leader in this country than any
question of mere belief.
Les Hellawell
>An even brighter idea
>http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=7904236
>
>Sep 21st 2006
>>From The Economist print edition
>
>Lighting technology: The light bulb is synonymous with invention. But,
>as this case history explains, it may lose out to the light-emitting
>diode, which is better in many ways
>
>HOW long does it take to change a light bulb? According to iSuppli, a
>market-research company that specialises in technology trends, the
>answer is 131 years. That is the amount of time that will have elapsed
>between 1879, when Thomas Edison first demonstrated his incandescent
>light bulb,
Actually the answer is 132 years. The amount of time that elapsed
between 1878 when Joseph Swan first demonstrated his
incandescent light bulb and 2010 as indicated
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/edison/lightbulb.shtml
Actually the modern light bulb did not come until 1906 when tungsten
was first used intead if the much dimmer and short lasting carbon
filament lamp as first invented by Swan. It is tungsten we used
today.
If they cannot even get the basic facts right...
--
Les Hellawell
Greetings from:
YORKSHIRE - The White Rose County
fremlin...@yahoo.co.uk
Les Hellawell
>
>Les Hellawell wrote:
>> On 22 Sep 2006 05:06:49 -0700, "maff" <maf...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> >An even brighter idea
>> >http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?story_id=7904236
>> >
>> >Sep 21st 2006
>> >>From The Economist print edition
>> >
>> >Lighting technology: The light bulb is synonymous with invention. But,
>> >as this case history explains, it may lose out to the light-emitting
>> >diode, which is better in many ways
>> >
>> >HOW long does it take to change a light bulb? According to iSuppli, a
>> >market-research company that specialises in technology trends, the
>> >answer is 131 years. That is the amount of time that will have elapsed
>> >between 1879, when Thomas Edison first demonstrated his incandescent
>> >light bulb,
>>
>> Actually the answer is 132 years. The amount of time that elapsed
>> between 1878 when Joseph Swan first demonstrated his
>> incandescent light bulb and 2010 as indicated
>> http://www.enchantedlearning.com/inventors/edison/lightbulb.shtml
>>
>> Actually the modern light bulb did not come until 1906 when tungsten
>> was first used intead if the much dimmer and short lasting carbon
>> filament lamp as first invented by Swan. It is tungsten we used
>> today.
>>
>> If they cannot even get the basic facts right...
>>
>Some notes on this sorry affair:
>
>http://www.feeds4all.com/redirect.aspx?Website=56403
I watched this live and if you take away the headline event
of a man attempting to hi-jack the meetings with what can
only be described as a rant it can be judged a positive
meeting that went down reasonably well. The majority
of the muslims there did not appreciate the intrusion
and listened to Dr. Reid quietly then put their questions
when invited to. They made some valuable and in
some cases forthright points to him in a calmer and
more positive atmosphere. Many of the questions came
from women.
Actually I think it is a good idea to expose these creatures
to the public in genera so they can see forthemselves what
they are like. l. These types can discredit themselves far
better than anybody else can without any accusations
of censorship. . I had never seen him before. Here was a
man who did not listen to others but clearly though he was so
important everybody else should listen to him. He shouted,
he jabbed his fingers in the air and yes he just simply ranted.
He ranted and shouted so fast it was impossible to make out
what he was actually saying. He ranted in the hall, he ranted
as he was ushered out, and ranted on the street outside non
stop. Very repulsive I thought.
maff
So you would prefer a quiet and polite suicide bomber?