And as I grew, and my political views took shape, I treasured "Star Trek" as a dream of what my country could one day become - a liberal and tolerant society, unafraid to live by its ideals in a dangerous universe, and secure in the knowledge that its greatness derived from the strength of its ideas rather than the power of its phasers.

ditto

'Star Trek' at 40: Still a beacon of hope - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

President Bush is urging Congress to let the CIA keep using "alternative" interrogation procedures -- which include, according to published accounts, forcing prisoners to stand for 40 hours, depriving them of sleep and use of the "cold cell," in which the prisoner is left naked in a cell kept near 50 degrees and doused with cold water.
...
The Soviets understood that these methods were cruel. They were also honest with themselves about the purpose of such cruelty -- to brutalize their enemies and to extract false confessions, rather than truthful intelligence. By denying this, President Bush is not just misleading us. He appears to be deceiving himself.

Tom Malinowski - Call Cruelty What It Is - washingtonpost.com

a sanctury for the bonobo
the apes who settle disputes by having sex

In pictures - Saving the bonobo - BBC News

The Taleban have ousted Afghan security forces from a district headquarters in the western Farah province after days of heavy fighting, police say.

when are the west and nato going to get serious about fighting the Taliban
this is the 21st century battle i'm not convinced we can afford to lose (i'm not convinced we can afford to lose in iraq either now we're there however the Taleban are a clear and present danger)

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Taleban 'seize Afghan district'

A Nasa satellite has documented startling changes in Arctic sea ice cover between 2004 and 2005.

The extent of "perennial" ice - thick ice which remains all year round - declined by 14%, losing an area the size of Pakistan or Turkey.
...
Continuous scatterometer data has been available only since 1999, so for comparison researchers must use the records of summer ice extent - which is almost, but not exactly, the same thing as perennial ice extent.

"If we average that over the long term we find a reduction of between 6.4% and 7.8% per decade," said Dr Nghiem. "What we have here is 14% in one year - 18 times the previous rate."

The key questions are what caused it, and whether it is an anomaly or the first sign of a major change of pace for Arctic melting.

possably an anomally?
possably not

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | 'Drastic' shrinkage in Arctic ice

We had elections in New York and around the country on Tuesday. But it seems to me that the biggest issue of our time is getting very short shrift from the politicians, and that’s the fact that the very character of the United States is changing, and not for the better.
Skip to next paragraph

One of the things that stands out in my mind amid the memories of the carnage and chaos of Sept. 11, 2001, is the eerie quiet — an almost prayerful quiet — that hovered over a scene on the western edge of Manhattan that afternoon.

I stood for a long time outside the triage center that had been set up at the Chelsea Piers sports and entertainment complex. Sunlight glistened off the roofs of ambulances lined up in military fashion on the West Side Highway. Doctors, nurses and other medical personnel were standing by, waiting for what they thought would be the arrival of legions of seriously wounded victims in need of emergency care.

There seemed to be very little talking. As I recall, most of the people maintained a kind of stunned, awed silence.

The expected onslaught of victims never came. As the afternoon faded, I headed east, along with others, toward the morgue at Bellevue Hospital.

What I thought was the greatest expression of the American character in my lifetime occurred in the immediate aftermath of those catastrophic attacks. The country came together in the kind of resolute unity that I imagined was similar to the feeling most Americans felt after Pearl Harbor. We soon knew who the enemy was, and there was remarkable agreement on what needed to be done. Americans were united and the world was with us.

For a brief moment.

The invasion of Iraq marked the beginning of the change in the American character. During the Cuban missile crisis, when the hawks were hot for bombing — or an invasion — Robert Kennedy counseled against a U.S. first strike. That’s not something the U.S. would do, he said.

Fast-forward 40 years or so and not only does the U.S. launch an unprovoked invasion and occupation of a small nation — Iraq — but it does so in response to an attack inside the U.S. that the small nation had nothing to do with.

Who are we?

Another example: There was a time, I thought, when there was general agreement among Americans that torture was beyond the pale. But when people are frightened enough, nothing is beyond the pale. And we’re in an era in which the highest leaders in the land stoke — rather than attempt to allay — the fears of ordinary citizens. Islamic terrorists are equated with Nazi Germany. We’re told that we’re in a clash of civilizations.

If, as President Bush says, we’re engaged in “the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century,” why isn’t the entire nation mobilizing to meet this dire threat?

The president put us on this path away from the better angels of our nature, and he has shown no inclination to turn ... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

The Stranger in the Mirror - Bob Herbert - New York Times

Madrid fashion week, one of Spain's most prestigious shows, is banning underweight models on the basis of their body mass index (BMI).

UN health experts recommend a BMI of between 18.5 and about 25, and some models may fall well below the minimum.

The Spanish Association of Fashion Designers has decided to ban models who have a BMI of less than 18.

excellent
not a moment too soon

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Madrid bans waifs from catwalks

You must remember the period where various electronic devices, from phones to radios, were available in transparent cases. You may have found them utterly cool. Yet the simple fact that you can't find these things on the shelves anymore (except for do-it-yourself PC cases) means the crowd doesn't find them nearly that cool. While you may not see the link yet, this is exactly why the Linux desktop will never be popular.
...
This is one of the things that makes it appealing to technology enthusiasts because their brains recognize the concept of "technical elegance," analogous to "mathematical elegance," a concept beyond the reach of non-mathematicians. In other words, they see beauty in the insides of hardware and/or software. But the crowd has a different opinion; being technophobists, transparency in design and implementation is inelegant, even repelling. Indeed, when you try to explain your old folks why Linux is technologically superior, you scare them away.

errr since i'm writing this on a PC which I built and has a transparent case i think the writer may have a point

Why Desktop Linux Will Not Take off, and Why You Don't Want It to - OSNews.com

Unix has always lurked provocatively in the background of the operating system wars, like the Russian Army. Most people know it only by reputation, and its reputation, as the Dilbert cartoon suggests, is mixed. But everyone seems to agree that if it could only get its act together and stop surrendering vast tracts of rich agricultural land and hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war to the onrushing invaders, it could stomp them (and all other opposition) flat.

Neal Stephenson is very cool and this just made me laugh

Unix as a drill Neal Stephenson

When high school students in Shanghai crack their history textbooks this fall they may be in for a surprise. The new standard world history text drops wars, dynasties and Communist revolutions in favor of colorful tutorials on economics, technology, social customs and globalization.

Socialism has been reduced to a single, short chapter in the senior high school history course. Chinese Communism before the economic reform that began in 1979 is covered in a sentence. The text mentions Mao only once — in a chapter on etiquette.
...
Mr. Zhou said the new textbooks followed the ideas of the French historian Fernand Braudel. Mr. Braudel advocated including culture, religion, social customs, economics and ideology into a new “total history.” That approach has been popular in many Western countries for more than half a century.
...
The new textbook leaves out some milestones of ancient history. Shanghai students will no longer learn that Qin Shihuang, who unified the country and became China’s first emperor, ordered a campaign to burn books and kill scholars, to wipe out intellectual resistance to his rule. The text bypasses well-known rebellions and coups that shook or toppled the Zhou, Sui, Tang and Ming dynasties.
...
Mr. Zhou, the Shanghai scholar who helped write the textbooks, says the new history does present a more harmonious image of China’s past. But he says the alterations “do not come from someone’s political slogan,” but rather reflect a sea change in thinking about what students need to know.

wow but have they entirely ditched a marxist analysis of history from the article this isn't clear but implied
this rather reinforces the view that following the cyclic analysis beloved of chinese historiography the communist party's domination of China is temporary and just the current dynasty in a sequence and the communist bureaucracy is the Chinese civil service of old only guided loosely by the principles of communism rather than Confusionism

if you ditch the command economy (an economic model which Eric Hobsbawm argued Lenin borrowed from the war economy of First World War Germany) and ditch the marxist analysis of history
hmmm that leaves the dictatorship of the proletariat but not much else
after all ditch the marxist analysis of history and there's not a lot left of marxism just vague socialism
good say I as a vague socialist
ok now ditch totalitarism in way that the country doesn't disintergate, lead to gangsterism, mass starvation and civil war
unfortunately the history of china suggests, on a repeating pattern, that the fall of dynasties leads in chinese deaths tolls in the millions

Where’s Mao? Chinese Revise History Books - New York Times