Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: October 2007

a rogue state defies yet another UN resolution - SMH

thirty suggestions for interventions against poverty - PLOS

there's a serious risk of the Mosul dam collapsing - SMH

"a collapse would put Mosul under 20 metres of water and parts of Baghdad under 4.5 metres"

"open access" journals are not always open - PLOS

a depressing view of Mongolian poverty - Stuff

a visit to Peshawar - Guardian

I didn't see much of it when I was there in 1999

controversy over the Philip Pullman movie - CalendarAlive

the loony Christians are giving it lots of publicity

UK retailer Tesco sells computers with Ubuntu - Blorge [via OSWALD]

an Iraqi refugee's early experiences of Syria - Riverbend

Microsoft versus the GPLv3 - DigitalMajority [via Plex]

airport bureaucracy and taser kill hapless Canadian immigrant - GlobeMail [via ProRev]

a call for real action by the US on Israeli-Palestinian peace - NYROB

but AIPAC and Bush will never allow anything like this to succeed

more revelations about "unconscionable" Guantanamo - Independent

a resignation gives insights into Iranian leadership divisions - Economist

25 primate species face imminent extinction - Guardian

the poverty of libertarian floating utopias - InTheseTimes [via CT]

"advocates of 'seasteading' are disproportionately adherents of 'libertarianism,' that peculiarly American philosophy of venal petty-bourgeois dissidence"

book digitization and the undoing of the canon - Tozier

"The contingent history of what is worthwhile and correct is being undone. Every day. And all that potential is being redistributed, willy-nilly, faster all the time."

Sacred Texts and Buried Treasures [review]

Issues in the Historical Archaeology of Ancient Japan

I Have the Right to Destroy Myself [review]

there was no "Judaism" in the classical world - Harland [via RW] - JStudJud [only abstract free]

a "poverty collection" - PLoS

collected articles on poverty from the PLoS journals

real progress towards a malaria vaccine? - Economist

cement manufacture is a major source of greenhouse emissions - IHT

the chances of saving the world's coral reefs look poor - CT

how bureaucracy fails an Aboriginal community - SMH

Microsoft stacking cripples standards committee - Consortium [via OSWALD]

how power undermines morality in Israeli soldiers - Guardian

prominent American conservatives support Islamo-Stalinist terrorist cult - OurFuture [via CT]

following in Saddam Hussein's footsteps

the confusion that is "general factor of intelligence" g - Cosma

building a rainforest research facility out of shipping containers - EarthSci [via MLite]

kosher rules about fallow land burden Israeli farmers - SMH

weird but compelling webcomic with very odd premise - A Girl and Her Fed

economic perspectives on why IT security is hard - RossAnderson

an alternate history of science fiction - NoFear [via Cosma]

a tour-de-force, rewriting Verne, Burroughs, Lovecraft, etc. as Chinese

eradicating guinea worm - ChapatiMystery [via Cosma]

who actually writes most of Wikipedia? - AaronSW [via Cosma]

many people make a few large contributions and 500 editors make thousands of minor tweaks to those

actually, just check out the latest linkfest - Cosma

there's no point my linking to half the items here!

the US invasion-by-proxy of Somalia is not going so well - RtoS

a tour of the West Bank - Economist

a poem (?) that just turned up as spam

"Microsoft said that it had accepted responsibility for the past and

Once all have broadband there will be no grounds for claiming that."

searching for evil - Google Techtalk [video]

phishing and other Internet nasties

rural China's health insurance problems - Economist

the menace of the Storm superworm - Wired

assessing space-based solar power - NSS [via /.]

al-Qaeda and the Taliban rebuild in Pushtunistan - Guardian

forget Quebec: nationalism in Newfoundland - Economist

I wasn't aware that Newfoundland only became part of Canada in 1949

Lake Tai: a case study in Chinese pollution - IHT

Switzerland's right-wing populist, Christoph Blocher - Guardian

previous US commander in Iraq attacks administration - Yahoo [via AntiWar]

"incompetent, inept and derelict in the performance of their duty"

what happens behind-the-scenes at GMail - ELER

reforming the Saudi Arabian legal system - Economist [via XR]

improving inheritance taxes - NewStatesman [via CT]

Trafalgar in History: A Battle and its Afterlife [review]

Jimmy Carter gets stuck into Dick Chaney - Reuters [via SideS]

all worked up about sex trafficking - SusieBright [via SideS] - WP

debunking some myths about sex and migration

the economics of solar power - Platinum [PDF]

detention without trial - Economist

St Thomas university sees light on Tutu - MPR

can Go be brute-forced in much the same way chess was? - IEEE [via /.]

reeducation camps in Iraq - Arran [via AntiWar]

Sheep-Rearing and the Wool Trade in Italy during the Roman Period [review]

Gertrude Bell and earlier nation-building in Iraq - NYROB

expansion difficulties for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation - DiploTraffic

finally, some innovation in fortune cookies - IHT

literary theorist Terry Eagleton is alive and spitting - Times [via CR]

myths about differences between men and women - Guardian

Craig Venter claims creation of new lifeform - Guardian

the US gave Iraqis hundreds of thousands of small-arms - Yahoo [via AntiWar]

without registering serial numbers or getting receipts

phylogenetic analysis of the global migration of seasonal flu - PLOS

"evolution appears to be shaped by frequent cross-hemisphere migration and recurrent reintroduction"

the argument for regulatory unbundling of Windows - Cybersource

Darwin hérétique: L'éternel retour du créationnisme

a plug for my brother-in-law's new book, for those of you who can read French

how Keegan misunderstands Clausewitz - Clausewitz

Ross Gittins dissects outright lies about Australian salaries - SMH

"far from doing better than workers on collective agreements, people who had the misfortune to be on AWAs did about 1% a year worse in terms of pay rises"

Sam Smith is not happy with Hilary Clinton - Undernews

77.1 x 850 = 100000, according to Excel 2007 - Accounting

I tested this myself, and it really does this

Desmond Tutu uninvited by rabid Catholic University - Informed

Ann "kill or convert all Muslims" Coulter is fine, but Tutu would be "hurtful to Jews"

the sorry state of the US prison system - ProRev

marriage in New York as an economic transaction - DealBreaker [via RW]

the new White Australia policy - SMH - RtoS

yet another superb Hungarian novel - The City Builder [review]

Samba stands up to Microsoft - PlexNex [via OSWALD]

you can't buy off free software

a new lobby group against open access research - Linux [via OSWALD]

even if OOXML becomes a standard, Microsoft won't commit to it - Techworld [via OSWALD]

Spain's national anthem has had no words since 1975 - Guardian

How Plants Changed Earth's History - The Emerald Planet [review]

probably the best popular science book I've read this year

how to "downgrade" Vista Business/Ultimate to XP Pro - Microsoft

an Zionist recants, rejects Israel - Haaretz

Seymour Hersh on Bush administration planning for Iran - NYer

a revolution in Swiss cheese subsidies - Economist

this must have been the ultimate geek gettogether - xkcd

some Americans are still trying to defend slavery - Sadly [via CT]