Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: January 2008

rich Americans consume at the expense of poor Chinese - Atlantic

applying graph theory to the Synoptic Problem - Carlson

the possibility of metabolic cycles on prebiotic Earth - PLOS

Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the Internal Refugees [review]

how Canada funded ethnic cleansing on the West Bank - Zochrot [PDF]

the company car tax break is possibly the most stupid subsidy in Australia - SMH

rogue SocGen trader has French fans - Guardian

could a junior trader earning 75000 pounds a year really have pushed the Fed to cut rates?

a young American woman meets Rudyard Kipling - Atlantic [via Chapati]

Judt on the Holocaust and the problem of evil - NYROB

in Palestine, 5 year olds have to carry birth certificates - Non-Arab

the plague is still with us - Aetiology - PLOS

a look at Ikea Australia's finances - SMH

archaeological discoveries under Istanbul - Barista

even old New York, was once New Amsterdam...

more on the Europe-Asia tunnel - Wired [via Barista]

The Revolution of Peter the Great [review]

I haven't even read the specs for the Kindle yet - Amazon

one day I will no doubt succumb to the lure of electronic books, but I don't think this is it - $US400 for a proprietary system?!

a comparison of Iraq death surveys - Deltoid

Brad Pitt teams up with Dutch architect to build New Orleans houses - RadioNL [via RW]

debt is a central problem for development - CT

German railways open up about Holocaust heritage - Guardian

Edward Tufte on the iPhone - EdwardTufte

enforcing originality on an irc channel - xkcd blag

the Head Heeb on the Gaza breakout - JustWorld [via Informed]

rogue trader loses 5 billion euro at French bank - Guardian

involving '"massive" fraudulent positions in 2007 and 2008, beyond his "limited authority"'

in the US, puberty in 8 year old girls is no longer unusual - LA [via RW]

but should the response be to redefine "normal"?

mass prison-break by starving Gazans - Guardian

a tour of New York's graveyards - Economist

Montana takes on new US Federal government ID rules - Wired [via ProRev]

Cancer: The Evolutionary Legacy [review]

Hungarian literature online - HLO

I don't know why, but I've been reading a lot of Hungarian literature

Australia must put order back into the Internet - RtoS

five times as many bombs were dropped on Iraq in 2007 as in 2006 - WP [via Informed]

readable critical essays by Umberto Eco - On Literature [review]

Amazon defies French ban on free shipping - IHT [via WMW]

Canada lists US and Israel on torture watch list - Reuters [via ProRev]

Canada has apparently backed down, presumably under diplomatic pressure

Siberian exile for misbehaving German teenager - Guardian

if this takes off, I'm sure the Russians have some old POW camps they could defrost...

experiments with geothermal power in Germany - Economist

prison lyrics by Faiz Ahmed Faiz - Chapati

Hasbro versus Scrabulous - Fortune [via /.]

scrabulous is about the only thing I use Facebook for

antidepressants don't actually work - CNN

oustanding social housing in Vienna - DeputyDog [via ProRev]

how Israel stole five missile boats from the French in 1969 - JVL

Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd chase Japanese whalers - Guardian

Laszlo Krasznahorkai's extraordinary novel - The Melancholy of Resistance [review]

guarding gorillas means fighting a war - Wired

campaigning for the rights of 2 million Indian Malaysians - FL

the previous Aus government lied about an Internet risk survey - Creative [via Link]

but the Rudd government seems just as prone to "making shit up" in this area

Indians in New Delhi rush to buy cars - IHT

while environmental and licensing regulation lags

local interest story about Sydney Uni footbridge - SMH

this is now local to me

alienating Iraqis with house searches - Times [via AntiWar]

ongoing problems with the US embassy in Iraq - InTheseTimes

how foreign companies are coopted as censors in China - FEER [via EFA]

will Murdoch test Singapore's intimidatory libel laws? - SMH

be alarmed, not alert - NetAlarmed [via EFA]

Casio announces 1200fps digital camera - DPR

ok, that's only at 32 kilopixels, but it'll do 60fps at 6 megapixels

good for capturing insect behaviours, but what else needs 1200fps?

why Microsoft-controlled RTF failed as an exchange format - RobWeir [via OSWALD]

and OOXML has exactly the same problems

politics in a small Pakistani town - Guardian

in Sweden, buying sex is a crime - Guardian

this is better than going after the sellers, but still seems dangerous

(no one should be desperate enough to have to resort to street prostitution in Sweden in mid-winter)

a year of attacks on civil liberties in Australia - SMH

Paris may get free cars as well as free bikes - Treehugger [via ProRev]

Africa's Discovery of Europe: 1450-1850 [review]

Uganda's Jews and their music - AfroPop [via Far] - Barista [summary]

originating in a mass conversion in the 1920s

Dalrymple on Benazir Bhutto - Guardian [via CT]

"a feudal princess with the aristocratic sense of entitlement that came with owning great tracts of the country"

20Mbps down, 812Kbps up, 20ms pings to uni!

I'm feeling much less lonely now I have an Internet connection

a young woman in Barcelona in the 1940s - Nada [review]