The Earth is the hottest it has been in at least 400 years, probably even longer. The National Academy of Sciences, reaching that conclusion in a broad review of scientific work requested by Congress, reported Thursday that the "recent warmth is unprecedented for at least the last 400 years and potentially the last several millennia."
A panel of top climate scientists told lawmakers that the Earth is running a fever and that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming." Their 155-page report said average global surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere rose about 1 degree during the 20th century.

BREITBART.COM - Study Says Earth's Temp at 400-Year High

For the past 30 years the greatest novelists writing in English have been genre writers: John le Carr�, George Higgins and Patrick O'Brian.

I am a total science fiction fan on the whole however this year i've been delving into other literary mines for my gold
John le Carre i know from my childhood when my grandmother read his novels and a vague recollection of TV serialisations being required viewing. John le Carre is a brilliant writer and I've enjoyed several of his novels this year especially the Smiley trilogy.
And a week or so ago I started Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. I remember talk about him when he died and thought at the time yes i must read some and promptly forgot his name but an impression remained of a writer of naval stories during the great age of sail who was very admired and rich in authentic detail. Then last week I was reading the paper between calls at work when Patrick O'Brian's name was mentioned.
The article memed is an old one from when Patrick O'Brian died but it is by David Mamet, who I greatly admire, and is a defence of genre fiction and pleasure in literature.
To be enlightened and educated by a novel is good but principally I read to be entertained and enthralled by a narritive. Art should be a byproduct and not an aim. I have no faith in those who seek to create art, that is the road to pretension. Give me art by sleight of hand. Give me a writer who is not grandstanding their technique but is in the tradition of Homer, telling a story.

The Humble Genre Novel, Sometimes Full of Genius

Rebecca Holdcroft likes to "express" herself through body art. However, she felt she was being discriminated against at work and contacted the BBC News website to express her point of view.

Even though she does not deal with the public face-to-face, her latest employers told her she must wear a cardigan to conceal her tattoos. And in the hot weather, this can get unbearable, she says.

BBC NEWS | UK | Tattoo cover-up 'discriminates'

Japan and other pro-whaling nations have won a vote to move towards a resumption of commercial whaling, for the first time in 20 years.

*disgusted*

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Japan gains key whaling victory

On his way to the Bundestag, Germany's Parliament, Hans-Christian Str�bele usually rides his bicycle, but what he sees these days in Berlin's streets is not his cup of tea. Thousands of German soccer fans are waving German flags every night on the so-called "fan mile," which stretches west from the Brandenburg Gate.
...
As the president of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert, put it this week when asked about the new patriotism, "It is the reconstruction of normalcy."

we will never forget but the generations born since the war are not responsible for the crimes committed by earlier generations

it disgusts me that English football fans try to offend ordinary Germans by doing Nazi salutes and goose stepping -- they only reveal their own ignorance

there is much to be proud in the new Germany

seeing thousands of Germans waving the gold, red and black flag is an odd sensation but "'a reconstruction of normalcy'" is a good thing or there is no hope of ever moving forward

German pride that surprises - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

Sometimes very important elections receive very little attention.

When the Southern Baptist Convention elected the Rev. Frank Page as the group's president at its meeting this week in Greensboro, N.C., the news appeared on the back pages of most secular newspapers -- or it didn't appear at all.

But Page's upset victory could be very significant, both to the nation's religious life and to politics. He defeated candidates supported by the convention's staunchly conservative establishment, which has dominated the organization since the mid-1980s. His triumph is one of many signs that new breezes are blowing through the broader evangelical Christian world.

A Shift Among the Evangelicals

MOSCOW, June 13 — On March 29, agents of the Interior Ministry seized 167,500 mobile phones that Motorola had shipped into Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, dragging the company into the Kafkaesque world where Russian justice intersects with business.

Wide-ranging coverage of Russia and the former Soviet republics, updated by The Times's Moscow bureau.
Vitaly Belousov/Itar-Tass

The Interior Ministry ground up 49,991 Motorola phones on April 25. About 117,000 seized phones remain in the government's hands.

The phones were first declared counterfeits, then contraband, then a health hazard, and now they are evidence in a criminal investigation focused, again, on suspected smuggling.

the wild east

Phone Seizure Seen as Example of Russian Corruption - New York Times

For two millennia it was a "little hill" - the meaning of kleitoris, its root word in Greek.

But an Australian urologist, Dr Helen O'Connell, has revealed that the clitoris is shaped more like a mountain than a hill.

BBC NEWS | Health | Time for rethink on the clitoris

n Lome, Togo's capital, one of the first things you notice is that football is everywhere.

On back streets flooded by the wet season's downpours, young boys chase a ball. On waste ground, teenagers splash around in the rainwater. On the long expanse of sand beside the Atlantic Ocean, clubs hold their training sessions.
...
Togo are outsiders, a small West African state which many global World Cup viewers will have difficulty placing on a map.

Otto Pfister is aware of the challenges ahead, but he also knows that a football-mad country is watching, full of hope and expectation.

"It is like a religion," he told me after training. "Everybody is behind the team, from grandfather to baby. When Togo plays a game, no-one is in the street."

the real spirit of the World Cup

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | World Cup putting Togo on the map

A tiny bone has kept a nation in suspense for more than five weeks now. The digit in question, the fractured fourth metatarsal of England striker Wayne Rooney's right foot, has been the country's leading cause of angst and speculation this spring, and during the team's first World Cup training session in Germany on Tuesday morning, reporting on the injury still was irresistible for the massive British media throng.

cool Rooney has made even the Washington Post
and they are right the country is officially closed during England world cup games and semi-detached during the tournament in general
i shall be enjoying the football (i'm english so to me this is football not soccer) and various male friends of mine will hide from the entire event (hello simon, keith and andy)
the rest of us, both men and women, will enjoy the beautiful game in the biggest and greatest sporting competition in the world
please note if you are doing business or phoning friends abroad check the world cup tournament fixture list first unless you know for certain they aren't football fans

Rooney's Injured Foot Pains All of England