Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: March 2005

are children public goods? - CT

the comments thread is fascinating

Abrams tanks take a pounding in Iraq - USAToday [via Informed]

"80 have been damaged so badly they had to be shipped back to the United States"

aid money in Afghanistan goes to pay foreign consultants - Spiegel [via RW]

"the day rate for the American development agency USAid, which operates globally, is $840"

background on the Chinese minority in South Korea - oranckay [via Far]

in the UK, the lamp-posts are watching - Register

with cameras, and speakers to chastise naughty citizens

a ring-tailed possum on my back verandah - photo [300k, 1280x1024 jpeg]

taken with my razor sharp 50mm f/2.0 macro lens - this is a 100% crop with a tiny bit of USM

mathematical devotionals: "Christ is our common parameter" - TrinChristColl [via Cosma]

these appear to be entirely serious, not spoofs

Harriet Klausner reads four or five books a day - OJ [via CR]

I wonder if there's any overlap at all between her 8500 reviews and my 850? Probably in my ventures into romance.

background to BBC reporting on Palestine - EI

"there is a kind of insidious self-censorship going on"

the last stand of the Karen Army against the Burmese SPDC? - Asia

limiting corruption in Indonesian tsunami aid - Asia

OpenOffice.org's growing dependence on Java is a problem - NewsForge [via /.]

Novell is migrating 6000 desktops from Windows to Linux - NewsForge [via OSWALD]

desperate attempt by poor Chinese to obtain redress - Guardian

sounds like the court system doesn't work very well

DNA testing to help crack down on dog poop in Dresden - Guardian

over ten trillion dollars are in tax havens around the world - Guardian

"not including the vast amount of money stashed in tax havens by multinational corporations"

Jeffrey Sachs would like the US to change its spots - Guardian - The End of Poverty [Amazon]

the US government fails to act on corruption in Iraq contracts - MSNBC [via AntiWar]

India's new patent law is a health disaster - OneWorld [via ProRev]

"restricting the ability of Indian companies to supply generic drugs to Africa and other poor regions"

Where is the Counterculture When We Need it? - ProRev

"We must not only bring an end to the wrong but give birth to the good, the community, the culture and the values that will replace it."

a guide to reading about Central Asia - Amazon

"Now that you have learned Russian, Persian, Chagatay, Uzbek (I presume you already know English), you're ready to get started."

an inventive but disappointing fantasy novel - Iron Council [review]

the Franklin investigation only slightly cramps AIPAC's style - Haaretz

myths about climate change debunked - Stoat - Stoat2 [via Deltoid]

social security is insurance, not welfare - Mark Thoma

conflict over development in the Alps - Guardian

facing global warming, ski resorts try to move higher

dispute over Iraq's choice of weekend - B2I

Thursday and Friday or Friday and Saturday?

Iran acquires high tech small arms to fight drug smugglers - Guardian

"the real Zionism is to work for an Israel that is morally strong" - Guardian

the Kyrgyzstan government falls - Guardian

"An angry mob stormed the presidential building yesterday, prompting President Askar Akayev to flee the country"

some octopuses can walk bipedally - Guardian

China, Japan and the United States: an overview - Tom's

the state of copyright reform in Canada - MichaelGeist [via /.]

secure Internet banking with bootable Linux CDs - ZDnet [via Link]

an Austrian cartoonist is sentenced to jail in Greece for blasphemy - Guardian

water that's as hard as iron and glows bright yellow - Nature

giant planets may hold superionic water

Historiography in the Twentieth Century [review]

how extensive is North Korea's "catacomb church"? - Asia [via Far]

Iraq is not Vietnam - Informed

Breadwinning: New Zealand Women and the State [old review (testing)]

aerial photos reveal rapid expansion of Israel's West Bank settlements - Guardian

and a report exposes "government complicity in systematic fraud, 'institutional lawbreaking' and theft of private Palestinian land in establishing outposts."

five apples - Skeptico [via Deltoid]

"I have four apples. At least I'm pretty sure there are only four, I only bought four, I can only see four and there is no reason to suppose I have any more."

Bush appoints Charles Manson to head Office for the Victims of Crime - Unconfirmed [via JWalk]

time frames and risk in stock-market investments - Norstad [via deLong]

the risk of investing in stocks increases as the time horizon increases

[but if the increase is sub-linear...]

MIT's Media Lab urges Brazil to use Linux in computer distribution - MSNBC [via OSWALD]

debate over Iraq's Transitional Administrative Law - BBC [via Informed]

threats to the US: "international fora, judicial processes and terrorism" - Billmon

in a Pentagon document "The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America"

comments on Australia's "Voluntary Student Unionism" - Quiggin - Norton

The Common Wombat in Australia [review]

a Dutch paediatrician explains how infant euthanasia works - IHT

Blue-Ray vs HD-DVD - Softpedia

which way will the porn industry go?

the US denies the chief minister of Gujarat a visa - TimesIndia [via Ag] - AP

for fuelling religious violence in 2002

in Japan, people are reading entire novels on mobile phones - Wired

I'm happy reading short documents online, but only on a decent-sized monitor!

Britain awards the first Victoria Cross in over twenty years - ABC [via Ag]

the EC stands up to Microsoft on file-system licensing - Register

some US soldiers refuse to return to Iraq - Guardian

limited but growing discontent in the ranks

the Catholic church dumps on The Da Vinci Code - Reuters [via RtoS]

does this crappy book really need even more publicity?

misspellings from semantic reinterpretation - the Eggcorn Database [via Lang]

a slow start for Windows XP Starter Edition - news.com [via /.]

human gene patents are technically flawed - Economist

even ignoring the ethical and economic arguments against gene patents

the SF writers I read as a teenager are dying - Andre Norton - Jack Chalker

modelling the next Sumatran earthquake - NewScientist - Guardian

an obituary for Janet Frame (from last year) - Economist

Kasparov writes about his retirement - ChessBase

"There are millions like me in Russia who want a free press, rule of law and fair elections. My new job is to fight for those people and to fight for those things."

Digital Rights Management will harm the developing world - EFF [via Boing2]

a interview with VoIP provider Skype's CEO - InfoWorld [via RW]

the US opposes a crackdown on illegal logging - Guardian

network value: Metcalfe's Law's n^2 or n.log(n)? - news.com [via /.]

arbitration report illustrates Wikipedia's internal governance - Wikipedia

Darfur is suffering "one of the severest droughts in 50 years" - CSM

anti-Iran legislation may kill the international space station - Eadsense conomist [via RW]

Rivka has woken up, with four great posts in as many days - Otters

the physics of wealth distribution - New Scientist

the snow has almost gone from Kilimanjaro - Guardian - Billmon

fifteen years before it was predicted

Kuwaiti women are still fighting for the vote - Al-Ahram

home tagging of terrorist suspects off to a troubled start - Register

"Government incompetence is one of the UK's most important safeguards against totalitarianism"

Chinese mining: "life is cheap, while coal is increasingly dear" - Guardian

Condoleeza Rice as presidential candidate?! - Guardian

the Republicans will nominate a black woman when the Gulf of Mexico freezes over

ex-POWs of Japanese disagree about reconciliation - Guardian

300,000 Fallujans still displaced, dispossessed - Informed

a flu pandemic now may not be so terrible - NationalPost [via Colby]

in 1918 war had made the world vulnerable, nothing was known about viruses, and public health infrastructure was poor

Hizbollah's calculated show of force - Guardian

an excellent piece on the social and political background to events in Lebanon

cavefish, fleas, and evolutionary loss of vision - Loom

attitudes to homosexuality in 29 countries - IntSurvey [PDF, via RtoS]

a US university student takes on Microsoft and survives - Register

racism in Georgette Heyer's The Grand Sophy - TelegraphIndia [via Kit]

I had assumed it was written in the 30s, but no, it was first published in 1950

persecution of Israeli Palestinians - EI

Israel's apartheid housing policies stop some Palestinians building anywhere, even on their own land

enduring anger at Japan in South Korea - IHT

US military medical care in Iraq and Afghanistan - NEJM [via Colby]

"In WWII, 30% of the Americans injured in combat died. In Vietnam, 24%. In the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, 10%."

Iceland offers sanctuary to Bobby Fischer, US not impressed - ChessBase

forests and paper in Finland - Crikey

and if you want forest music to listen to, try Sibelius' Tapiola

appalling stories of "mother drive-bys" - ChezMiscarriage [via Colby]

a RIAA "John Doe" speaks out - VillageVoice [via /.]

on the receiving end of "law suits as a volume business"

the Edelweiss Pirates: WWII youth resistance in Cologne - DeutscheWelle [via ProRev]

the El Mozote massacre and Bush's deputy security adviser - DavidCorn [via AntiWar]

the best 25 books: Indian fiction in English - Kit - BusinessStandard

I've only read Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children (Amazon links)

comments on the new Dr Who - WarrenEllis [via SideS]

the Pentagon looks to Europe for weapons - WP [via AntiWar]

that's one way to get Europe to support US wars...

whistleblowers expose Halliburton profiteering - VanityFair [via RW]

Historical Dictionary of Indonesia [review]

online book Formosa Betrayed: the US and Taiwan from 1941 - pinyin [via Far]

stunning war/documentary photography - James Nachtwey [via JWalk]

(go through all the galleries, they aren't that big)

Creationism, pluralism, and science teaching - Spiked [via Panda]

tsunami aid has dramatically increased Indonesian support for the US - TFT [via Far]

"support for Osama Bin Laden has dropped significantly (58% favorable to just 23%)"

concern about polygamy in Utah - CP [via ProRev]

I think I agree with the attorneys-general on this one: any kind of abuse or exploitation is bad, but how is polygamy per se any worse than adultery?

the Missouri is running dry - Boston [via ProRev]

academics as ants, disciplines as ant colonies (or slime molds) - L2R [via Cosma]

have Bin Laden's warnings been preparation for an attack? - Jamestown [via RW]

Michael Scheuer (Anonymous) suggests they are inspired by "religious requirements pertinent to waging war" in Islam

economist Ross Gittins has upset Australian treasurer Peter Costello - Crikey

Gittins is the closest thing we have to a Krugman, though he's not - yet - as "shrill"

Windows 2003 and XP SP2 vulnerable to TCP SYN attack?! - SecurityFocus [via /.]

JWalk's webhosting woes - J-Walk

every so often I think about using a database for sections of this site... but static html is always going to be more robust

a Croatian woman sounds off - Night [review]

the Hand Me Up project: houses for hermit crabs - CabinetMag [via RW]

an amusing English language teaching site - EnglishDroid [via Lang]

Croatia's EU accession stalls on handover of war criminal - Guardian

one person's war criminal is another's military hero...

lack of intellectual diversity at Stanford - AaaronSW [via SideS]

"only 1% of Stanford professors believe in telepathy, compared with 36% of the general population"

a preview of OpenOffice.org 2.0 - Tectonic [via /.]

the state of Linux in China - LinuxMag [via OSWALD]

higher density housing for London? - IHT

the mysteries of the EU budget - Economist

huge subisides for mostly French farmers, a special rebate for Britain, and regional aid to now well-off Spain...

trading class enrolments at New York Uni's law school - LegalAffairs [via CT]

China and Japan race for the moon - Guardian

Jews are now a minority in Greater Israel - EI

the parallels with apartheid become ever stronger

ten outstanding examples of game journalism - Guardian [via RW]

retired carrier USS America to be sunk in testing - Guardian

rap political philosophy - CT

Australian columnist Miranda Devine just makes up stuff - Deltoid [via RtoS]

big strides for Big Brother in the UK - Register

A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century - The Adventures of Ibn Battuta [review]

a story on Wikipedia - Wired [via RW]

the numbers on Free/Open Source Software - DWheeler [via LWN]

are Iraq's Special Police Commandos really a private militia? - TNR [via SideS]

Paul Krugman dissects the Social Security and demographic "crises" - NYROB

"the problem isn't with Social Security, it's with the rest of the budget"

Shahak's Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel - full text [via RW] - Amazon

the state of Afghanistan - NYROB

more background history of Lebanon - Informed

when a whale falls in the ocean... - BBC [via RW]

Robot Wisdom lives: Jorn has resumed blogging! - RW

Robert Fagles talks about his Aeneid translation - Princetonian [via CR]

the Lebanese government falls - Guardian

a beginner's guide to Lebanese politics - HH - part 2

the social costs of Israel's occupation policies - Guardian

the full Oxfam report doesn't appear to be available yet