Today we all can feel good about Northern Ireland. Protestants and Catholics - Unionists and Republicans in local parlance - are about to jointly run their government.

Belfast, for decades the scene of urban terrorism and the deaths of so many innocents, has become a city of peace and possibility.
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Negotiations are essential. Peace never just happens; it is made, issue by issue, point by point. In order to get negotiations launched, preconditions ought to be kept to an absolute minimum.

In the case of Northern Ireland, it was right to make a cease fire a prerequisite. Killing and talking do not go hand in hand. But it was also right not to require that parties give up their arms or join the police force before the talks began.

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by

Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, was U.S. envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process. George J. Mitchell, chairman of the law firm of DLA Piper, was the majority leader of the U.S. Senate and led the Northern Ireland negotiations from 1996 to 1998.

Learning from success - International Herald Tribune

Although as a child I had turtles named Disraeli and Gladstone, I was never invited to sip Champagne with the queen until yesterday. Although I’ve been an Anglophile all my life, I was never able to participate in a fawning orgy of Albion worship until the British ambassador’s party for the monarch yesterday afternoon.

It was wonderful.

I got to enjoy many of the features I love about Britain: repressed emotions, overarticulate conversationalists and crustless sandwiches. It reminded me why over the decades so many of my Jewish brethren have gone in for the “Think Yiddish, Act British” lifestyle — shopping at Ralph Lauren and giving their sons names that seem quintessentially English: Irving, Sidney, Norman and Milton. More deeply, it reminded me why Britain is such a successful country.

haha
looking at u looking at us

Where History Reigns - New York Times

But spin – the pronouncing on things from an interested angle – is not a regrettable and avoidable form of suspect thinking and judging; it is the very content of thinking and judging

Stanley Fish on his home territory -- lovely essay but he himself is guilty of making assertions about the nature of thought and language which, as i understand it, psychologists would say was at best unproven: we need more empiricism on the topic and less art faculty assertion and rhetoric. But i do have to acknowledge his expertise on the topic of language since i came up against his work whilst doing my degree and didn't agree with it but couldn't defeat his arguments.

Stanley Fish - Think Again - Opinion - TimesSelect - New York Times Blog

In 1950, the psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson, in a famous treatise on the phases of life development, identified wisdom as a likely, but not inevitable, byproduct of growing older. Wisdom arose, he suggested, during the eighth and final stage of psychosocial development, which he described as “ego integrity versus despair.” If an individual had achieved enough “ego integrity” over the course of a lifetime, then the imminent approach of infirmity and death would be accompanied by the virtue of wisdom. Unfortunately for researchers who followed, Erikson didn’t bother to define wisdom.

Baby Boomers - Aging - Wisdow - Middle Age - Medicine and Health - New York Times

Blunders, romance and tales from far-flung places which find their way into email users' inboxes could soon be archived alongside the stirring speeches of Churchill and the works of Shakespeare.

The British Library, home to some of the world's most historic documents, has asked Britons to forward all manner of emails to create what it says will be the first email archive.

Become part of history: email the British library | UK | Reuters

"Blade Runner," is considered to be a classic movie by many science fiction fans. Director Ridley Scott has stated that he had never been happy with the way the movie turned out.

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I hope he doesn't tinker with it too much. I was just hoping for a cleaned up remastered version with maybe some footage that got dropped on the cutting room floor. If what Lucas did with the Star Wars flicks is any indication, the formula of mixing new tech with a film from an older period usually clashes on screen.

Did he ever do this with any of the Alien re-releases? Might be a reference point to see if he's any good at mixing new back into old.

At any rate, glad to see some more info about this finally.

New Info about Blade Runner 25th Anniversary Re-Release

The Supreme Court on Monday scaled back a controversial legal test that has made it difficult to challenge patents on new products.

San Jose Mercury News - Court modifies for invalidating patents

Police in Estonia arrested more than 200 people yesterday following a third night of protests over the government's decision to remove a Soviet war memorial in the country's capital.
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Estonian prime minister Andrus Ansip has called for calm in the wake of the rioting prompted by the removal of the statue, which was erected in 1947 to honour Red Army soldiers who fought against the Nazis.

But while Ethnic Russians, who make up around a third of Estonia's population, see the memorial as a recognition of Russia's efforts in the fight against fascism, supporters of the statue's removal associate the monument with the 50-year period during which the Baltic state was ruled by the Soviet Union.

a situation to watch
there are real ethnic tensions here but to what extent is the Kremlin directing the FSB to stir tensions, laying the ground work for the tanks to roll across the border "to preserve peace and stability" at some moderately distant future moment

Third night of protests in Estonia

This project is the sick, sick work of Instructables member canida and company. It is a real mouse, gutted and fitted with parts from one of those small laptop mice.

The Real Mouse, Mouse - Gizmodo

The possibility is growing that Britain in 2007 may experience a summer of unheard-of high temperatures, with the thermometer even reaching 40C, or 104F,a level never recorded in history.
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The incredibly warm April days we have been experiencing are not just wonderful, they are downright weird when seen in their seasonal context. Some of them have been 10C hotter, or more, than they should be at this time of the year.

no kidding it's kinda surreal

Overheating Britain: April temperatures break all records - Independent Online Edition - Climate Change