The Coen brothers' latest work in progress.

Set in the late 1970’s in West Texas, the story is an ultraviolent neo-western about an antelope hunter, Llewelyn Moss (played by Josh Brolin), who stumbles across $2 million in a drug deal gone awry. Moss takes off with the money, prompting a chase up and down the Mexican border, as a psychopathic hit man (Javier Bardem) follows him, leaving a slew of bodies in his wake. On their trails is the aging local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones).

Hollywood Stampedes a Texas Town, and Tranquillity Rides Into the Sunset

A small biotech company says it has found a way to produce human embryonic stem cells without destroying an embryo. That the prospect does not satisfy many religious conservatives who have opposed stem cell research demonstrates once again why the government should avoid making decisions on theological grounds.

Remember what happened in Ireland?

This illustrates the great lengths to which scientists must go these days to shape stem cell research to fit the dictates of religious conservatives who have imposed their own view of morality on the scientific enterprise.

Stem Cells Without Embryo Loss

"It's nice to be the first one to get a big scoop that just came out and nobody's heard of," Spring said. "You want to be the first to say, 'Hey, look at this!'"

"It's almost like urban archaeology, finding interesting things."

An Eye for Cool, and Cash

Pakistan's problems with Islamic violence cannot be resolved as long as the military remains in power. In an unusual move last month, a diverse group of senior former civilian and military officials wrote an open letter to Musharraf, warning that the country is becoming dangerously polarized and that a uniformed presidency only exacerbates the problem by politicizing the armed forces. The only solution, the group wrote, is a transition to a "complete and authentic democracy."

According to the above link:

The letter asked for the following:

* Disengagement of military from political power
* A separation between the offices of President and Army Chief.
* As the 2007 elections ‘would not be credible without neutral and impartial caretaker governments, both at the centre and in the provinces’, a genuine empowerment of the Chief Election Commissioner and the Election Commission of Pakistan was a prerequisite for the holding of transparent elections. For this purpose, it is necessary for the district administrations to be placed under the control of the CEC during the 2007 polls.
* All the political parties of the country learn from their past mistakes and commit themselves to strengthening democratic institutions and traditions so as to ensure the rule of law and good governance at all levels.
* All the political parties exercise restraint and respond positively to any offer of dialogue to make free and fair elections possible. As a sustained dialogue between the leadership of principal institutions and organisations was a vital prerequisite to ensure a peaceful, orderly transition to complete and authentic democracy.”
* All power groups refrain from taking extremist positions and hurling threats and charges against each other.
* Pakistan to be a decentralized federal state, by the granting of genuine political, financial and administrative autonomy to the provinces.

Pakistan's Awkward Balancing Act on Islamic Militant Groups

Sounds like this arrest could backfire significantly.

The law, which went into effect in 1977, was meant to put legal teeth in international trade embargoes with other nations, but once it was amended by the Patriot Act after 9/11, the government began to use it far more frequently against particular groups and individuals.

The use of the law, however, to focus on television broadcasts seemed to fall under an exemption laid out in a 1988 amendment to the act, several experts said, and it raised concerns among civil libertarians and some constitutional scholars about limiting the free marketplace of ideas.

The exemption covers publications, films, posters, phonograph records, photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, compact discs, CD-ROM’s, art works and newswire feeds.

Law Put to Unusual Use in Hezbollah TV Case, Some Legal Experts Say

Behavioral profiling — especially the cut-rate version the T.S.A. has in store for us — is not going to help in this respect. Learning to defeat poorly trained screeners is a lot easier than learning to fly a jumbo jet. The likely result is that our newly minted behavioral detectives will be singling out and searching the wrong passengers.

Almost all the studies Qhave found that accuracy is close to chance."

A better idea would be to eliminate most carry-ons and emulate high-security prisons.

Search and Defend

In a sign of continued jitters after the London bombing alert, an Aer Lingus passenger jet flying from New York to Ireland was evacuated and searched at Shannon Airport on Friday after an anonymous caller told the police that a liquid explosive had been planted on board.

Jets Grounded in U.S. and Ireland; Alert Raised at Houston Airport

A stick of dynamite was found in a college student's checked luggage on a Continental Airlines flight from Argentina, one of seven security incidents Friday that caused U.S. flights to be diverted, evacuated, searched or delayed.

While you're waiting for your checked luggage to arrive, ponder this:

The remarkable track record of the security force at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv — no successful hijackings ever— is also often chalked up to behavioral profiling, but that too is naïve. For three decades, the airport has had intensive security practices and a sky marshal program. All departing passengers are interviewed and subjected to one-on-one searches that, according to Rafi Ron, former head of security at Ben-Gurion, take an average of 57 minutes per person.

Dynamite Found in Luggage

This news analysis by Michael Gordon appears in today's NYT magazine; with its point of view and directness, it reads like an Atlantic Monthly article.

The rules posted on the wall of the Marine base in Barwana concisely summed up the American predicament in Iraq: Be polite, be professional, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

What I saw in more than three weeks in Anbar Province was not reassuring.

Anbar has long been what the military calls an "economy of force" operation, which is a polite way of saying that troop requirements elsewhere in Iraq have led American commanders to employ fewer forces in the province than the situation warrants. As a consequence, counterinsurgency operations have taken on the quality of a whack-a-mole arcade game.

This lethal game would be more manageable if the insurgency were weakening. Instead, it is stronger than ever.

Officially, the Bush administration’s strategy is: Clear, hold and build. But with limited American forces to do any clearing, the war in western Iraq looks much more like hang on and hand over. Hang on against an insurgency that seems to be laying roadside bombs as quickly as they are discovered, and hand over to an Iraqi military that is still a work in progress.

An Army of Some

Stop picking on Pakistan!, says Richard Armitage.

It is critical that Pakistan not be shortchanged in our engagement in the region. While India is clearly important to us for its strategic and economic promise, the success of Pakistan holds the key to stability in the region and perhaps throughout the Muslim world. Were Pakistan to fail, there would be no hope for Afghanistan, a dimmed future for India and an increased threat of Islamist terrorism globally.

While a failed Pakistan would be bad news for Afghanistan, Musharraf's success does little to create legitimate business opportunities for Afghans.

Keep Pakistan on Our Side