EU: What kind of club? By Paul Reynolds World Affairs correspondent, BBC News website Thursday, 16 June, 2005 Source The European Union summit in Brussels this week is unlikely to resolve the twin issues currently facing Europe - the future of its proposed constitution and the imbalances in its budget. if Rome was not built in a day, the EU will not be saved in a summit. On the constitution,by archive - Archive
NASA sees earliest manned moon landing in 2015 Mon Jun 13,12:02 PM ET Source The next mission to land a man on the moon will take place in 2015 at the earliest, the new chief of the United States' space program said on Monday, adding the mission could be followed by the construction of a multinational space station there. But NASA has not yet decided what vehicles will be used to reach thby archive - Archive
PRESS RELEASE Date Released: Tuesday, June 14, 2005 Source: Transformational Space Corp. Source t/Space Demonstrates New Air-Launch Technology Three weeks of flight tests over the Mojave desert have demonstrated a breakthrough in how to safely launch future passenger-carrying rockets using a carrier aircraft. Transformational Space Corp. (t/Space) and Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites drop-by archive - Archive
Canada's government-run insurance system has much less bureaucracy and much lower administrative costs than our largely private system. Medicare has much lower administrative costs than private insurance. The reason is that single-payer systems don't devote large resources to screening out high-risk clients or charging them higher fees. The savings from a single-payer system would probaby archive - Archive
Losing Our Country By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: June 10, 2005 Source Baby boomers like me grew up in a relatively equal society. In the 1960's America was a place in which very few people were extremely wealthy, many blue-collar workers earned wages that placed them comfortably in the middle class, and working families could expect steadily rising living standards and a reasonable degree ofby archive - Archive
IBM Turns to Open Source Development By David Worthington, BetaNews June 13, 2005, 2:47 PM Source INTERVIEW Is open source changing the way that software is made? It is at IBM. BetaNews sat down with Doug Heintzman, IBM Software Group's VP of Strategy and Technology, to discuss the adoption of a hybrid development model called Community Source that combines the best elements of the open soby archive - Archive
Spinoza Reconsidered Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: Philosophy and the Making of Modernity 1650-1750 Oxford University Press Review by Ann Talbot 26 August 2003 Source I last reviewed Jonathan Israel’s Radical Enlightenment on this site in 2001 just after it came out in hardback. Why return to it now? The book itself would justify another review since it is a large and rich work thatby archive - Archive
Boards Get Brains, Chalk Vanishes By David Cohn 02:00 AM Jun. 09, 2005 PT Source NEW YORK -- Third graders at Columbia University's elementary school may never know the painful sound of fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. That's because the dust-covered board that normally would be the focus of their classroom has been replaced by a giant, touch-sensitive computer screen. Allby archive - Archive
Can this union be saved? Jun 6th 2005 From The Economist Global Agenda Source The French and Dutch referendums have dashed hopes of political union in Europe. As criticism of the euro grows louder, there are fears that monetary union, too, might be in peril VARIOUS countries have been called “the sick man of Europe” at one time or another, but never before has the competition for the title proby archive - Archive
Buttonwood Bankers scratch their heads—and worry Jun 7th 2005 From The Economist Global Agenda Source An inverted yield curve may be approaching in America. Do we care? Banks do IT’S official: Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is still puzzled by the stubborn refusal of American bond yields to rise in sympathy with the Fed’s upward yanks on short-term interest rates. In his satby archive - Archive
Many Scientists Admit to Misconduct By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer Thu Jun 9, 1:00 AM ET Source Few scientists fabricate results from scratch or flatly plagiarize the work of others, but a surprising number engage in troubling degrees of fact-bending or deceit, according to the first large-scale survey of scientific misbehavior. More than 5 percent of scientists answering a confidby archive - Archive
Building Iraq's Army: Mission Improbable Project in North Reveals Deep Divide Between U.S. and Iraqi Forces By Anthony Shadid and Steve Fainaru Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, June 10, 2005; A01 Source BAIJI, Iraq -- An hour before dawn, the sky still clouded by a dust storm, the soldiers of the Iraqi army's Charlie Company began their mission with a ballad to ousted presideby archive - Archive
Believing (and Believing and Believing) in Bullion By STEPHEN METCALF June 5, 2005 Source On a recent early spring morning, I made my way down to the appropriately poker-faced and austere building that houses the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In its sub-basement, 80 feet below street level, there is a vault that rests on the granite bedrock of Manhattan. ''No man-made floor couldby archive - Archive
Senate panel votes to expand Patriot Act June 7, 2005 7:22 PM PDT Source Forget scaling back the Patriot Act. Instead, the controversial post-9/11 law would be expanded to give the FBI new powers to demand documents from companies without a judge's approval, according to a vote late Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence committee. The final text of the Senate Intelligence committee's aby archive - Archive
Coming in out of the cold: Cold fusion, for real posted June 06, 2005 Source By Michelle Thaller | csmonitor.com PASADENA, CALIF. – For the last few years, mentioning cold fusion around scientists (myself included) has been a little like mentioning Bigfoot or UFO sightings. After the 1989 announcement of fusion in a bottle, so to speak, and the subsequent retraction, the whole idea of cold fusby archive - Archive
"Orthodoxy means not thinking -- not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - George Orwell, 1984 Bayle, Enlightenment, Toleration and Modern Western Society By Jonathan Israel (11 december, 2004) Suddenly, the Netherlands is in uproar – culturally, politically, socially. Since the killing of Theo van Gogh, one finds deep shock and abundant signs of distress on aby archive - Archive
Hail to the Robber Baron? By Yoshi Tsurumi Source 04/07/05 "Harvard Crimson" - - Thirty years ago, President Bush was my student at Harvard Business School. In my class, he called former president Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904, a “socialist” and spoke against Social Security, unemployment insurance, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other New Deal innovationsby archive - Archive
Horrifying, personal John Bolton story By amyindallas Fri Apr 15th, 2005 at 07:15:42 PDT Source My best friend since college, Melody Townsel, was stationed in Kyrgyzstan on a US AID project. During her stay there, she became embroiled in a controversy in which the oh-so-diplomatic John Bolton was a key player. She described the incident in a letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee membby archive - Archive
US Military Report: Bush’s Achilles’ Heel Source The Bush Butcher’s Bill: Officially, 84 US Military Deaths in Iraq from 2 through 28 May, 2005 – Official Total of 1,747 US Dead to date (and rising) U.S. Military Personnel who died in German hospitals or en route to German hospitals have not previously been counted. They total about 6,210 as of 1 January, 2005. The ongoing, underreporting ofby archive - Archive
Iraq: The New Heroin Route By Arnaud Aubron Libération Source Friday 13 May 2005 Opiates - and cannabis - produced in Afghanistan transit through Iraq before being distributed in Europe. Their consumption is growing in Baghdad and elsewhere. Repeat yet again. Although Washington took the lead thirty years ago in the global anti-drug war, narcotics seem to stubbornlyby archive - Archive
US lowers standards in army numbers crisis Jamie Wilson in Washington Saturday June 4, 2005 The Guardian Source The US military has stopped battalion commanders from dismissing new recruits for drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy in an attempt to halt the rising attrition rate in an army under growing strain as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. An internal memo sent toby archive - Archive
Toxins may pass down generations BBC News Friday, 3 June, 2005 Source Toxic chemicals that poisoned your great-grandparents may also damage your health, US research suggests. A team from Washington State University has produced evidence that some inherited diseases may be caused by poisons polluting the womb. Research on rats indicates man-made environmental toxins may alter genetic activity,by archive - Archive
The machine that can copy anything By Simon Hooper for CNN Thursday, June 2, 2005 Posted: 10:48 AM EDT (1448 GMT) Source LONDON, England (CNN) -- A revolutionary machine that can copy itself and manufacture everyday objects quickly and cheaply could transform industry in the developing world, according to its creator. The "self-replicating rapid prototyper," or "RepRap" isby archive - Archive
The Most Powerful Labor Union in the World: Linux? By Rob Enderle TechNewsWorld 05/30/05 5:10 AM PT Source This is power that Microsoft, Oracle, IBM and many governments could only dream of having. The power to control the press and the skills contained in this organization are likely capable of disrupting travel, power grids and other broad national infrastructure systems if their demands areby archive - Archive
Euro report whips up German storm Wednesday, 1 June, 2005 BBC News Source A political storm has broken out in Germany over reports that the government may be distancing itself from the European single currency. Stern magazine said that Finance Minister Hans Eichel had been present at a meeting where the "collapse" of monetary union was discussed. The government is planning to blameby archive - Archive
From My Lai to Abu Ghraib Interview with Seymour M Hersh 4 June 2005 Source The US’s foremost investigative journalist, Seymour M Hersh, spoke to Andrew Burgin of the Stop the War Coalition and Matthew Cookson from Socialist Worker about George Bush, US foreign policy and the “war on terror” In 1968 you exposed the US massacre at My Lai in Vietnam. Last year you exposed the torture of Iraqi prby archive - Archive
Toyota aims to sell service robots by 2010-Asahi Source TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp. aims to start selling robots that can help look after elderly people or serve tea to guests by 2010, the Asahi daily reported on Tuesday. Japan's top automaker sees a declining birthrate and aging population leading to growing demand for robots that can help in tasks such as child care and nursingby archive - Archive
Industry chiefs' environment plea By Roger Harrabin BBC Environment Correspondent Friday, 27 May, 2005 Source A group of Britain's leading industrialists has written to the prime minister urgently demanding long-term policies to combat climate change. The heads of the 12 leading firms say climate change is a huge challenge that needs serious investment by business. But they say theby archive - Archive
Running Out of Bubbles By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: May 27, 2005 Source Remember the stock market bubble? With everything that's happened since 2000, it feels like ancient history. But a few pessimists, notably Stephen Roach of Morgan Stanley, argue that we have not yet paid the price for our past excesses. I've never fully accepted that view. But looking at the housing market, I'by archive - Archive
Is the enterprise software licensing business dying? By Andy Singleton 2005.05.18 Source Is the enterprise software business dying? Is anybody out there buying new licenses? Based on news from the past few weeks, it seems that there are very few buyers. The collapse of new licensing revenue isn't news -- it started five years ago -- but the latest news makes it look like a permanent and acby archive - Archive