Simon Wiesenthal, the renowned Nazi-hunter, who died in Vienna on Tuesday, has been buried in Israel.

Shalom

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Wiesenthal honoured at graveside

janelane wrote:
In my "Engineering Design" class, we have to figure out what the world of 2020 will be like.
-janelane, obliged
decius wrote
government structure: This is a US centric response: I don't see many structural changes occuring in a 15 year timespan,

I don't see any structural changes to be likely since the constitution is designed to make fundamental change incredibly difficult however if the religious right has its way and Roe v Wade is overturned because Bush or a successor packs the Supreme Court then we almost move into Margaret Attwood The Handmaid's Tale territory. I see an even greater clash between the urban progressive elements and the fundamentalists. There does not seem much room for political compromise between the creationist, pro-life, anti-gay forces and liberal rainbow coalition eco-friendly pro-choice pro-diversity forces.

The EU could spin apart. The problems faced by various governments to ratify a constitution and may prove a landmark. It has in many ways a top down project imposed by a political elite. It has a fundamental logic ecomonically and politically but medium term there are huge hurdles. The Rupert Murdoch press and the political elite fudging the democratic imperitive of handing real power over to the directly elected body rather than the council of ministers and second hand failed politicians becoming Commissioners ( the senior EU bureaucrats ).

One of the major questions is China. A nuclear power, a dictatorship. Will the economic leap forward spread to other areas of China? Will economic liberty lead to increased calls to loosen the grip of the party, what will happen when the last of the old guard who marched on the Long March are dead? The political role of the Chinese Army is as ever key.

War, poverty, debt, diease in the developing world. HIV is devastating a generation in Africa. Dictators have saddled much of the developing world with huge debt and much of the planet is riven by violent political struggle of which Al-Qaeda is a religious veil for a deeper political and economic struggle. Choosing the World Trade Center was not a random act, it was a political focus which to them incapsulated "the enemy". Whether the divisions will increase between rich and poor I think depends on perspective. Internally to countries I think divisions will increase, as manual and low skill jobs are outsourced across borders. Jobs will continue to flow abroad but this will in turn enfranchise people in India, China and potentially Africa and continue the disenfranchisement of elements in the "West". Flint Michigan will only get back on its feet through education, which means sending its children into the military so they can go to college.
The US regained a lot of perceived ecomonic power through information technology. Where was America in the 70s and 80s? Brewing a technological revolution produced by the capit... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

RE: The Year 2020

A publicity campaign has been launched to highlight details of new laws allowing the UK's first "gay marriages". The BBC News website asks two couples what the law means to them.

not quite marriage but an important step forward

BBC NEWS | UK | 'Life changing but long overdue'

Scientists will meet this weekend to launch an action plan aimed at stemming the global decline in amphibians.

About a third of frog, toad and salamander species are facing extinction; threats include fungal disease, pollution and habitat loss.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Frog action plan to cost millions

Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries. American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations

The counter point to this perspective usually consists of "sick people aren't my problem" or "wealthy people get more convenient healthcare in the US then in Canada." I am constantly amazed to talk to Americans who actually beleive that Canada is a socialist country. This spin is the product of Rush Limbaugh's rantings during the Clinton years. "Socialism is bad, right? Thats what the communists did, and they were evil!"

The American healthcare system is both heavily regulated and wealth redistributed. Its just as socialist as anyone else's healthcare system. But it has the additional feature of generating a class of people with serious medical problems who are too sick to work and therefore don't get to participate in the wealth redistribution. Oh, and its more convenient for the wealthy because they never have to wait in line behind someone with a more serious problem unless they are at an ER. And its a hell of a lot more expensive.

Gripping onto a ideology for ideology's sake while it is literally killing you seems the very definition of irrational behavior. On the issue the United States is like the last guy back in the hood in New Orleans, sitting on his couch with a foot of standing water in his living room, slowly succumbing to the E.Coli because its his damn town and he'll be damned if he is gunna leave, even after everyone else is long gone...

Sounds like the Administration wants to get up off the couch and go for a swim. Don't worry about Europe hating us. If we keep going down this path they'll be laughing at us instead.

The New Yorker: The Moral Hazard Myth

Edinburgh scientists have made a small blob of liquid move across a surface by shining a light in front of it.

It may not sound like much but the molecular engineering that went into this feat is said to be a step forward in the emerging area of nanotechnology.

MemeStreams | MemeStreams Discussion

The world's first pure nerve stem cells made from human embryonic stem cells has been created by scientists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Milan.

It is hoped the newly-created cells will eventually help scientists find new treatments for diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Scientists make nerve stem cells

Science and technology have powered huge leaps in understanding but our biggest challenges lie ahead.

The science of complexity is perhaps the greatest challenge of all, Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees believes.

The biggest conundrum is humanity and how we came to be, he told the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in Oxford.

The cosmologist said that in the 21st Century science has changed the world faster than ever before and in many new ways.

BBC NEWS | Technology | A future full of hopes and fears

By John Simpson
BBC world affairs editor

Last Monday, when I wrote here that it was going to be quite a week, I didn't know the half of it.

This is the voice of one the most respected journalists in the BBC and I urge everyone at Memestreams to read the article. This is the voice of the country I love.

BBC NEWS | UK | London bombs need calm response

At their most mundane, weblogs record the minutiae of the author's day. On Thursday this trivia became the biggest story in the world.

more blogs
Hooray us Brits

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Blogs on the bombs