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Colombian Officials Recount Rescue Plan - Washington Post SAfrica's Mbeki meets Zimbabwe's Mugabe - Reuters Obama: Media response to Iraq remarks overblown - The Associated Press Mongolia lifts state of emergency in capital - China Daily Student's family appeal to killer - BBC News 2500 rally in Sapporo to protest G-8 summit - The Daily Yomiuri A Side Competition in Beijing: Island vs. Mainland - New York Times Sarkozy turns screw on Irish over EU treaty - Times Online US response to Iran pending consultation - PRESS TV On Film, a Monk’s Passion and Protest - New York Times 'Gaza truce in danger without progress on Schalit' - Jerusalem Post A nuclear Iran does not compare to Cold War - guardian.co.uk Malaysian fuel price hike protesters undeterred by police warning - International Herald Tribune Pakistan's Military Denies it Sent Nuclear Centrifuges to North Korea - Voice of America Q&A: Turkey's ruling party on trial - BBC News Pakistani agents arrest 5, say foil suicide attacks - Reuters India India's Singh Gains Support On Nuclear Pact With US - Wall Street Journal When the bus 'gets a boo-boo' - Jerusalem Post Zambian President Remains in Stable Condition at Paris Hospital - Bloomberg Russia says Georgia could spark new war in Abkhazia: agency - AFP

Stuff International

Mbeki meets with Mugabe Anti-gay violence mars Hungarian parade Obama 'puzzled' by Iraq comment frenzy California's priority wildfire in check Obama 'puzzled' by Iraq comment frenzy Last drinks for pub dwellers

Boing Boing

Wil Wheaton (and his GTA obsession) profiled in GEEK.Laptop theft at Clarion West sf workshop -- donations needed The Phoenix TV series As price of fuel soars, so does a dirigible renaissance?Body armor developer shoots himself (video)EUROPEANS! You have until MONDAY to contact your MEP and save the EU from a three-strikes copyright rule!Anatomic model puzzles of surpassing loveliness Stross's new novel: Saturn's Children, a late Heinlein homage Barlow's Forth of July message Where the Linear Crosses the Exponential: Kevin Kelly Jesse Helms leaves the planet.Iran: death penalty for “corrupt weblogs”Some douche steals Ian Curtis' (of Joy Division) headstone Captain America, Fuck Yeah!New eBoy Peecol figures Tattooed living zombie Lost scenes from Metropolis found Bugs have creepy faces America loves drugs Serialization of The Deal, Chapter 5 Video: documentary on Showbiz animatronic band Interview with Charlie Angus, Canadian MP who's fighting the Canadian DMCA NYC cops harass club owner whose CCTV footage overturned drug conviction XKCD's "Choices" -- now an audio drama Grimly hilarious cartoon about telecom immunity and warrantless wiretapping with Snuggly the Safety Bear Government nosy parkers use passport database to spy on celebs Recently on Boing Boing Gadgets Distressed steampunk keyboard Ninja scare results in school lockdowns Terrible new Brazilian Internet law proposal will criminalize brazillions of people

Fark

Snowmobiler arrested for speeding on Lake Winnipesaukee amid "heavy boat traffic." With a video camera on his helmet Skilled thespian Moe the chimp has disappeared: "He's on his way home. He's probably looking for a car to drive"For sale: one lighthouse on the Connecticut shoreline. Asking price: $1 FedEx: When your 200 pounds of pot absolutely, positively has to be sent to the wrong address China's thirst for oil will save the planet France's bid to have its cuisine added to UNESCO's list of world cultural treasures has failed Photoshop this storage ring thing Break out the world's smallest violins for all the deadbeats complaining about not getting their stimulus check The fashion world, in addition to being behind every political assassination of the last 300 years, is also racist Relax. Nobody gives a darn what you watch on YouTube Could World Trade Center 7 have been knowingly demolished? "In a screenplay, in a movie, something with Bruce Willis in it, maybe. In reality, no"The national park service is considering re-opening Liberty's crown, one compromise being that her eyes be modified to fire missile destroying lasers "[Y]ou know you're unattractive when people see you in a Speedo and call 911"The priest who flew through the air via 1000 party balloons for charity last April and got lost, has been found dead in the middle of the ocean. Darwin does a facepalm Vegetarians have higher risk of going brain dead. You want steak Rising cost of fuel has governments and private compaines consdering using dirigbles instead of airplanes. What could possibly go OH THE HUMANITY New Jersey town lets kegs flow, middle fingers fly. We're sure this is exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they started the Revolution The vegetable kingdom's attack on human beings continues unabated. PETA protesters looking somewhat worried 10 things you might not know about robots. Sarah Connor, Old Glory Robot Insurance suspiciously absent from article Woman visits the drive-thru window at Einstein Bagels store, is surprised to discover they don't have a drive-thru window If you abandoned your half-million dollar Lamborghini on the highway, the Ontario Provincial Police would like a word with you. And bring a dustpan, too "That's when Trooper John Hennessey noticed a large bulge in Belmont's pants"The most patriotic moran you will ever meet. Evar Wal-Mart is coming up with a new logo. Give them a hand Drunk, stupid, and weaving all over a bike path on a riding mower is no way to go through life, sons Fight against knife crime overtakes terrorism as London's number one police priority. If only there was something Britons could bring to a knife fight to have an advantage Snail prices expected to go up amid poor harvest. TOUT LE MONDE PANIQUE Former downtown Orlando nightclub owner ditches that lifestyle for more profitable one: Towing cars that are illegally parked near downtown Orlando nightclubs What's the easiest way to keep your downspout from flooding the neighbor's yard? No, I said EASIEST If you had "one day" in the "how long will it take someone to attack wax Hitler at the new Berlin Madame Tussauds" pool, please step forward to claim your prize Tank the runaway tortoise returned home... eventually No kitty, no die: Marley the cat survives 14-story plunge to celebrate another Caturday Rotting cheese placed alongside fresh products and resold. That's not gouda Family Guy's Peter Griffin arrested for dealing drugs (with mugshot goodness)Those "faceless people" spotted around the UK? You guessed it. Marketing stunt. Followup trumps Obvious tag RSPCA officers seize owls from a falconry center that supplied them for a Harry Potter movie. YA RLY A five-year battle ends not with a bang or a whimper, but with a chicken in a soundproof box Photoshop these boaters and their dog The coolest thing you'll see all day: 45 Navy SEAL Tridents laid out on the casket of a fallen SEAL. Godspeed Italy declares a state of emergency in Pompeii. Well, better late than never Woman attempts to recreate "Thelma & Louise" ending, fails If you have found the Edgewood City Hall Building, please contact Babbit Neuman Construction. Thank you, that is all If you have a fear of heights, you do not want to live here (pics)Thief pays no attention to that silly 10,000 volts warning sign. Darwin is a cruel mistress Saskatoon zoo welcomes ugly-ass baby Bengal tiger Daily Mail: "The government is criminally careless in losing discs containing the public's personal details. They should keep it all safe, just like we store our sensitive staff data on the laptop in this briefca- Ohhh"UK court rules that Pringles are only 42 percent potato, still 100 percent awesome America retains title in Nathan's hot dog eating contest. 64 dogs, 19,000 calories. USA USA USA "She wore her first set of false eyelashes at eight, and her beauty treatments cost £300 a month. A sick abuse of an 11-year-old? 'No', insists Sasha's mother, 'I just want her to be famous'."College professor teaches the science and psychology behind getting the most mileage out of being drunk Latest media-manufactured social crisis is "green rage", where you or a mythical neighbor fly into anger over the poor recycling habits of those around you Indiana man gave beer to his 1-year-old nephew, "he's a champ, he can handle it," then punched his girlfriend in the face when she objected and sped away in her SUV, threatening to kill her and her daughter when he returned Photoshop this 1963 vintage Vine Men with hot girlfriends have more sex, according to researchers at the Ric Romero Institute for Studying Things Protip: It's always best to wait until AFTER you get home to light off the fireworks Operation Falcon, founded by U.S. Marines, provides a life in America to Iraqi translators marked for death Woman shocked, SHOCKED to be sexually assaulted after agreeing to be tied to a bed in a complete strangers box truck. Fark: You would be too, the accused is a paramedic This. Is. AMERICAAA Sometimes you just want to ride without standing in line. This guy took it to the next level, though Robbing a Subway at 11pm, check. One employee and a 71 year old customer, check. 71 year old is a retired Marine? Oh oh. With concealed carry permit? Why me?Man arrested for walking dog, by automobile, at 45 mph Man takes girlfriend for a spin in new car, only to be confronted with the inferno of wife's disapproval. Will stand up for himself when he comes out of hiding If you're going to carjack a car, perhaps you should pick an easier target. For instance, don't pick the car with two uniformed police officers inside it Sasquatch sexually assaults man in Canadian park Russians suspect Welsh arsonist stripper could be British spy Researchers warn that fireworks can cause seizures, brain freeze, natural selection Police respond to call from man reporting "bright stationary object" in the sky. M-O-O-N spells "Dumbass"Susan Olsen has radio interview that ends badly after she shows up hung over. You might remember her from the Brady Bunch, she was the one that played Cindy BraAAAAAAAAUUUUGHHRRRRGGGHHH The most baffling explosions in movie history A tip for parolees: Don't conduct drug deals when the cops are right across the street and parole agents are in town. It's not Fark, it's the San Francisco Chronicle Dude never played a piano before in his life, hits head on bottom of pool and suddenly becomes a master pianist. Submitter tempted to hit head to see if he becomes fluent in Spanish The best how to tie a double windsor knot instructional you'll see all day German Shepherd survives being thrown off an overpass with only a fat lip. Your dog wants a parachute (dog headline trifecta now complete)Miniature dachshund gnaws off diabetic owner's toe, confused it for steak "I've never seen a blood feud like this before," says lawyer. "A cautionary tale of parental hopes dashed, sibling rivalry triumphant and love for a place embittered," says judge who is writing a novel on the side Photoshop Challenge: Create a new national monument Professional soccer player attacks nightclub bouncer with handbag, perpetuates every soccer player stereotype there is Your all-purpose July 4th special: Ugly-ass bald eagle baby rescued from clutches of evil Canadians (w/pic)Boston can't even build a sidewalk without three government agencies suing and fining each other Instant Photoshop Contest: Uncle Sam Your flat screen TV contains a gas that is 17000 times more potent than CO2 and hangs around for 550 years. And you thought having your in-laws over for the holidays was bad Ruthlessly efficient German hailstorm wrecks 30,000 Volkswagens

Sci-tech Daily

Nerve-zapper looks like a promising way to beat obesityWhy not spin up a tornado and then extract energy from its tethered tail?Rapid changes in the churning of Earth's liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet's surfaceThe book of birds is being rewritten by genetic discoveries Facial recognition technology in a remote control means looking puzzled will prompt a rewind Athletes are putting their performance hopes in Viagra A solar sail may finally get a chance to unfurl Volcanic nanoparticles of mercury end up in polar iceThe skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth's history could help us understand how fish came to walk on land His master's voice puts a strain on teacher vocal cords Scratching is one of the sweetest gratifications of nature, but where does the itch come from?Tunguska -- still a mystery a century after the big badda boom Take your apartment for a spin Medieval monks fell prey to mercury Telling one penguin from another has just gotten easier Girls are no less competitive than boys, they simply employ more subtle tactics Why have a building named after yourself when you could be immortalised by a sea slug instead?Plants are heading for the hills First your home computer could help find alien life, now it could help find out more about cancer No bees to rent -- no food to eat While we many not be rational, we all make the same irrational choices, so they are predictable There is more to time than just clocks and circadian rhythms The basis for humour is pattern recognition The Wisdom of Whores is a rollicking, eye-opening, hilarious account of theunderbelly of international AIDS research The factions and follies of psychiatry in five books Why are both sides wrong in the race debate? The sense of smell is underappreciated, even when special smells threaten to become extinct Imagine being able to project images into someone else's photographs [more]So what does objectivity actually entail?Every culture and subculture gets the drugs that it deserves, so what did we do to deserve methylenedioxymethamphetamine?Expert policy advisers would do best tofunction as honest brokers of scientific alternatives, recognising limits and uncertainties So how does the mind work?Medieval masons used geometry to unfold an entire cathedral, such as Chatres, from inside a square Hard core video-gaming has risen from the basement to the Big Time Here's someone who captures the ethereal beauty of wading birds with the flair of a painter and the passion of an activist Science is one of the most dramatic narratives our species can tell Now you can see the world through x-ray eyesForget predicting what's going to happen next year or even next century -- what will the world be like a million years from now?Could video games replace the textbook?The Hubble Space Telescope and its stunning images have captured the hearts of the public, even if they do not grasp the astronomical significance You should appreciate the complexity, chaos and wonder of what's going on in your gut Books dealing with individual naturalists rarely give a sense of the entangled webs that have always made the world of natural history work When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions will make you not want to leave the TV, let alone the planet Trust your instincts in calculating the odds and you�re likely to get it wrong.Whether reckless, megalomaniac or elitist in construction, the mysteries behind Stonehenge remain As they visited more and more nuclear establishments, the authors of A Nuclear Family Vacation lost their confidence in nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence [more]Half the battle of getting through a disaster is just cognitively knowing you can survive; the other half is making it happen The lauding of lone geniuses making breakthroughs perpetuates a misleading image of science that may alienate as many as it fascinates The Victorian stage was set for every fraud and phoney and quisling quack to make with the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo The survey of a life of no ordinary surveyor Add unsustainable farming methods to a spiralling demand for food and you have a society heading for catastrophe For many kids, computers are more of a distraction than a learning opportunityWe know that whale songs are complex messages, but we still don't know what they mean or what we could learn from them, and now they may be under threat When and how did the behaviours that we associate with modern humankind emerge?Mirrors in the Brain: How our Minds Share Actions, Emotions, and Experience Our little bubble of thought-filled space grows year by year Paper tiger fraud exposes questions of corruption and accountability Homosexuality may persist because the associated genes convey surprising advantages on family members In his studies of entropy and the irreversibility of time, Caltech physicist Sean Carroll is exploring the idea that our universe is part of a larger structure Celebrating 150 years of the survival of the wisestShould the Buddhas blasted by the Taliban be rebuilt?Spain may be better known for bull-fighting than animal rights but it's to be the first national legislature to support rights for non-human great apesSuicides linked to phone masts, but check out the rest of the story before you start protesting How do creative partnerships work?Reading should not be believing, especially when it comes to health coverage in the media Science is losing significant numbers of women in their 30s due to the extreme work pressuresInstead of using arable farmland or coastal wetlands for biofuels, why not use abandoned land?Relying on unverifiable casual wildlife observations, such as those of the ivory-billed woodpecker, can hinder successful conservation effortsMy research progress report has been tied up in bureaucracy and it's all the Pope's faultMathematical formulas create realityWhat do you do when coastal erosion means your property ends up part of a public beach? The quality of rice is more important that the quantity Is thanking God for evolution a sign of a sensible compromise or an attack on science?When we look to the ancient past for clues about whether global warming will cause mass extinctions, what we learn is not encouraging It's time to get more aggressive with brain cancerOne of Britain's leading brain scientists has profound fears about the way new technology is changing our thought patterns and behaviour Leo Szilard had a Eureka moment in a London Square The cost of care for premature babies is some 15 times the expense of full-term infants and rising -- so is there such a thing as too young?So you've had a genetic test -- now what?Inadequate funding and lack of political commitment pose significant challenges to meeting the world�s sanitation goals In science, as in life, some stories are too good to be true, such as the crater of dooom idea As we face the possibility of a significant increase in lifespan, we have to ask does death give meaning to our lives?Maybe we�re now spending so much more time with consumer objects than with our natural environments that we have forgotten how to think about the latter Computer game addicts suffer from more shame and are harder to treat than their computer porn confreres When forming attitudes about embryonic stem cell research, people are influenced by a number of things, but scientific information isn't one of themPop culture references to the butterfly effect may be bad physics, but they're a good barometer of how the public thinks about science "Lost" Amazon tribes know where they are and what they are doing there Medical science has progressed fairly steadily, but health policy has thrashed about like a flatworm swimming through a solution of LSD

Ars Technica

Five ways to keep your PC cool on a hot summer day Bandwidth caps could lead to ISPs benefiting from piracy Yankee Hotel Net Neutrality? Indie rockers back an open 'Net Judge: FISA trumps state secrets, binds executive branch No Google source code for Viacom, just 12TB of YouTube data Report: US broadband market edging towards saturation Virgin, BPI at odds as first infringement letters go out EMI joins Viacom in trying to drain the UGC safe harbor OpenMoko FreeRunner Linux phone to launch on July 4 Civil liberties groups sue for info on cell phone lojacking Groups: FCC indecency process stifles creative expression Hands on: Filtrbox tries to filter out information overload First look: Mozilla Weave 0.2 puts Firefox in the cloud Poll: US taxpayers want more funding for scientific research AMD narrows market share gap with Intel, revenue gap grows Mobile group to establish security standards for mobile web Mozilla sets Guinness World Record with Firefox 3 launch Senators to FCC: Sirius/XM's proposal still needs work Australia shows US how a real broadband strategy works Microhoo redux? Something's up, but no one quite knows what

The Register

Indies celebrate Independence Day 2010: the 5TB 3.5in HDD cometh PC World pips Asus to UK Atom sub-laptop premier DARPA calls for 'DUDE' combo infra-nightscope Welcome back, WiReD!Apple drags its heels on iPhone security patches Serco sharpens the IT guillotine Ofcom flashes cash guarantees at BT for fibre investment Consider yourself Moderatrixed IPS finds no nuggets in ID checking goldmine MoD mega gov-IT project only mildly catastrophic - NAO Mystery over Verisign boss' shock exit TVonics MFR-300 micro digital TV set-top box David Davis tells <em>El Reg</em> that Labour is 'mesmerised' by tech eBay Australia ditches PayPal scheme 'Anaconda' 200m rubber snake generator scheme gets funding Geldof backs Davis 'For Freedom' by-election Opera update fixes stability bugs Google deigns to comply with a privacy law Palm, BlackBerry-beating demand for 3G iPhone claims researcher Microsoft gets hip with da yoof to flog email BSA slams EC's 'narrow-minded' interoperability vision MS readies Vista code injection risk fix Government waves cutlass at IT budget Oracle risks loss of influential BEA users Solar-curtain "soft house" plan proposed by MIT prof Apple takes axe to MacBook Air SSD price Would a data notification law improve UK data security?Judge grants Viacom 12TB of YouTube user records Nut launches death threats at Debian women EU still greasing IBM antitrust probe despite PSI withdrawal Strange cults, vocal surgery and the quiet man: Inside Microsoft Microsoft flogs subscriptions to the unwary and confused 'HD TV gas' 17,000 times worse for planet than CO<sub><small>2</small></sub>, claims boffin Are the ice caps melting?Microsoft touts trustworthy browsing with IE8 Wife-slaying Linux guru may have 'developmental disability'UK and US agree biometric <strike>heavily vetted</strike> trusted traveller deal The Moderatrix will see you now Transatlantic data sharing talks stumble over access to justice Linspire CEO defends Xandros buy-out Scareware runs amok on PlayStation site What powers a solar-powered snail, kids?ISO certifies Adobe's PDF Firefox 3 makes up world record to set world record Brit carrier deals inked at last Pay-by-phone commerce coming closer America wakes up to the surveillance society Built-in browser expiry proposed to fight botnet menace Research: Wind power pricier, emits more CO<sub><small>2</small></sub> than thought

Techdirt

Everyone Be Afraid! Predators Move To Game Consoles Can A Company Ban Retailers From Selling Its Products On eBay?Do J.R.R. Tolkien's Kids Deserve Money For The Lord Of The Rings Movies?Virgin: We Won't Cut Off File Sharers; Sends Envelope Saying 'We May Cut You Off'Mark Cuban's Wrong: Porn Filtering On YouTube Doesn't Mean It Loses Safe Harbors Lawyer Seriously Slapped Down For SLAPP Attempt Against Librarian Blogger Theaters Working To Make Even The Pre-Show Ads More Entertaining Has Broadband Growth Stalled In The US?Viacom Gets To Find Out What YouTube Videos You Watched US Gov't: Do Not Carry Your Social Security Number; US Gov't: You Must Carry Your Social Security Number EFF, ACLU Sue To Find Out Details Of Gov't Use Of Mobile Phone Data To Track People Kia Decides That It No Longer Wants Its TV Commercials To Be Entertaining Social Engineering 101: Focus On Informal Conversations If You Must Make A Hidden Camera, Don't Make It Look Like Garbage UK Gov't Throws Open Data For Mashups; Offers Prize Money For Best Results Congress Close To Fixing Constitutional Loophole Over Patent Judge Appointments Blockbuster Looks At Circuit City's Books; Ditches Acquisition Offer Missouri Makes Online Harassment A Felony Court Says CD-ROMs Of Magazine Archives Don't Violate Copyrights Of Article Authors Why Zittrain's Techno-Pessimism Is Unwarranted

Techmeme

Think Before You Voicemail On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble Kinderplex crisis reveals Google founder's fumbling and fibbing Google, the press, and tearing down your heroes Who would wait a week in line for an iPhone 3G?The Law and Your Privacy Kid-Proof Your PC with SteadyState Ipoque Study: Middle East Doesn't Watch YouTube TinyURL Adds Custom URLs; Is This Exciting or What?Can You Build A Business On Browser Extensions?As Web Traffic Grows, Crashes Take Bigger Toll Google Sold Us Out: The Viacom Decision Facebook App for Windows Mobile (Finally!)Ethan Malasky on Developing Secure AIR Applications This Week on C9: Fireworks, Powerset, Equipt, Pex, and cool downloads It ain't easy being agile AskTheSpeaker.org Launched - Powered By IdeaScale Freedom to move your data whenever and wherever you need to - Support for Import and Export in Zoho Invoice Timothy Ferriss and The 4-Hour Workweek Kid-Proof Your PC with SteadyState Facebook App for Windows Mobile (Finally!)Who would wait a week in line for an iPhone 3G?Ipoque Study: Middle East Doesn't Watch YouTube Kinderplex crisis reveals Google founder's fumbling and fibbing As Web Traffic Grows, Crashes Take Bigger Toll TinyURL Adds Custom URLs; Is This Exciting or What?Can You Build A Business On Browser Extensions?Think Before You Voicemail Google, the press, and tearing down your heroes What could Open Office do with a business model?Google Sold Us Out: The Viacom Decision Waiting in line for iPhones is glorious Iran Parliament to Debate Death Penalty for Bloggers Tap Tap Revolution coming to the iPhone App Store as “Tap Tap Revenge”Top Torrent Sites Ranked by Google The Law and Your Privacy Digital download model puts song exposure above sales

Cringely

Independence Day Go Home, Bill What a Difference a Day Makes MeMobile, You Kaput It's the Platform, Stupid Nolo Contendere IT Wars Reality Check Wimpy Iron Man Apple to the Core The Truth About IT Consultants You Never Write, You Never Call Ozzy Knows Best Amish Paradise

Arts and Letters Daily

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75%, far more than previous estimates, says a secret World Bank report... As everyone knows, Socrates spoke for all skeptics when he said, �All I know is that I know nothing.� But is that what he really said?... The Architect of Bras�lia? Yes, it was urban planning gone badly wrong, but the city still contains some graceful modernist government buildings... Woodrow Wilson talked of �a common order, a common justice and a common peace� for America and the world. His is an idea ripe for revival... Is the golden age of biography now past? What future for a genre where the best subjects have been written about over and over and over again?... Gene Weingarten got his Pulitzer Prize, and even got on Arts & Letters Daily, by being so original. So should he now turn his prize back in?... Tim Berners-Lee made the web because he had a poor memory for some things. John Naughton wonders if it won’t give us all a poor memory... You say you know what you’re doing. But what if your brain has made up its mind ten seconds before it tells you?... Unequal America The gap between rich and poor is growing: that much is certain. But of the consequences of the gap... To get parents to pick up their kids on time, a preschool started fining late parents. So did average tardiness decrease? Quite the reverse... She’d gone to hell and back and rebuilt her life. But then there was that episode with shingles. And then the itch. The Itch... Here’s a test. Play Grand Theft Auto IV for a few hours, then go outside and find a locked car. Are you tempted to steal it?... Add more signs, directions, and limits on the road, and drivers will be safer, right? Wrong. Drivers tend to compensate... Multitasking costs the economy. One study found workers took 25 minutes to recover from phone calls or emails and return to their original task... Lower men wallow in pity as swine do in mud, their pity for others being the same as their pity for themselves. Thus spake Nietzsche... Why do government efforts to correct problems so often seem to make things worse? Because people are the problems... Young radicals of the 1960s and today have mixed motives and impulses: at once craving autonomy and validation, guidance and self-definition... It’s not just NASA pilots who need to nap. Arts & Letters Daily readers need naps, too. Herewith, a complete guide... Imagine building a 1500 ft tunnel under the center of a Soviet-controlled city. The CIA did it, in secret, under Berlin... The $100 Distraction Device. Why giving poor kids laptops is about as good for schools as giving them their own private PlayStations... How to save money, as a woman. How to be a creative spirit, or find balance, as a woman. How to buy a house, as a woman. Why all these books?... James Watson does not have a high IQ. That’s what he told Henry Louis Gates – as proof that IQ is not all that important. Maybe... Sex and the City’s women are defined not by their talent and the swordplay of their wit, but by their ability to snare a man... Georges Simenon’s crime novels are superb and polished works of art that masquerade as pulp fiction... The Hindu-supremacist right in India is back, with a mass murderer leading Gujarat. Now consider the Communists in West Bengal... Win the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest. Patrick House did it, and he can show you how to do it too... The fundamental differences between man and animal are overrated, Charles Darwin felt. Alex the parrot helps prove his case... Top ten solutions to the world’s biggest problems. The Copenhagen Consensus says micronutrients must take the highest priority... Roberto Mangabeira Unger is Brazil’s answer to John Stuart Mill – a century and a half later and a lot nattier... The cubicle revolution in office plans was above all ideological. Cubicles were to create a utopia for Dilbert... Charles Darwin’s language sings in The Voyage of the Beagle. It is the work of a young man intoxicated by the tropics... Christianity’s collapse has wrecked U.K. society and family life, leaving the country defenseless against radical Islam, says Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali... more» ... The charges against video games – that they stunt minds and spark addiction – are based on ignorance of what gamers do when they sit down to play... The chasm between the humanities and the sciences can be bridged with a new kind of thinking that uses the strengths of both disciplines... It’s in opera as in life, Ian McEwan says: “Conversations are a kind of duet.” That is why he has now written an opera libretto... Seated in the Memorial, he looks so big. But his hair is uncombed, his tie askew, his fingers fidgety. Abe Lincoln is still only a man... The Betrayal of Judas. Did a “dream team” of biblical experts assembled by National Geographic mislead millions?... The future looks different from the past, but on a grand cosmological scale, maybe it’s all the same. Somewhere, maybe time runs backwards... At the end, Susan Sontag’s son colluded with his mother’s fantasy that she wasn’t dying. Doing this was not without cost... Using an odorless dye to color white wine red induces wine tasters to use red-wine descriptors for it. As for martinis... The real test of character, George Orwell noted, is how you treat someone who has no possibility of doing you any good. It’s a matter of honor... Just say “no.” Why don’t more women go into science and engineering? Shocking new research suggests they actually aren’t interested... Can you engineer the kind of insight that leads to invention? Nathan Myhrvold left Microsoft and struck out on his own in order to find out... You got a problem with that? Why do New Yorkers seem so rude? Joan Acocella wonders... Does she insist on dragging you to Sex and the City? The agony. No man should have to sit through this movie. Now, a solution... Britain’s nearest neighbor and oldest enemy: No nation stirs such conflicting emotions in the British breast as France... Does China operate sweatshops? How could you know? One way to find out is to send over some inspectors. Easy... Richard Rorty was lovable as a person, and as a philosopher both perceptive and, at times, intensely irritating... Gleaming pneumatic women: the female ideal pushed by laddie magazines is as smooth and lifeless as an iPhone... With Russia flexing its military muscle, are the chances of an accidental nuclear war back again on the increase?... Frida Kahlo knew a way to show a certain emotion, at once accusatory, nervy, furious, a little adolescent, and sometimes even funny... Jesse Jackson is relieved when he hears footsteps behind him, turns around, sees it’s a white man – and figures he won’t be mugged. Is this acceptable?... Suppose we found remnants of algae or a trilobite on another planet? It might be a bad omen for the human race... Human beings are impulsive, lazy, busy, inert, irrational creatures prone to all kinds of biases and errors: that’s why they need libertarian paternalism... Alice Walker cared so much about other people’s kids, she forgot her own. Her daughter says the writer “resigned from being my mother”... If Frederick Douglass were alive today, he would be dismayed by the reluctance of liberals to connect programs with the spirit that animates their politics... The book is not for burning. Contra its author’s dying wishes, son Dmitri will publish Vladimir Nabokov’s last novel, Laura... If in the end Niels Bohr was not able to explain it all to Margrethe, well, that was nature’s doing, not Bohr’s fault... The penalties for prostitution in Iran are severe – whipping and even execution. So how does the oldest profession fare in that land?... Saint Walter Cronkite intones in grainy footage or black and white stills – that’s the way it is, at the Newseum. Whatever... William Jefferson was inspired by love of his kinfolk to do great things. That’s why he had $90,000 cash in his freezer... Augusten Burroughs’s memory: what sort of freakishly bloated cortex retains after eighteen years the color of some random person’s belt?... Percival Lowell, a brilliant, rich, charming Boston Brahmin, thought a century ago he could see a network of canals on Mars. He got other people thinking... If you think you know who the winners are going to be, come November, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is. Enter the political betting markets... The British love their trees, but across the land beautiful old trees are being chopped down in their thousands. The reason? Safety rules and hungry lawyers... A child’s body had been found on the island of Jersey, in the grounds of a children’s home, said the BBC, and the media frenzy began... An atheist church? “The last thing atheists want to see is their rational set of ideas yoked up with the trappings of a religion,” says Daniel Dennett... Diana was “a simpering Bambi narcissist,” Mother Theresa a “thieving fanatical Albanian dwarf.” Christopher Hitchens does have opinions... Crazy English. Li Yang’s cosmology ties the ability to speak English to personal strength – and national power... It is a truth universally acknowledged that available, sociable, and attractive men are hard to find for dinner parties... Trace the city walls of Elea today. Maybe Zeno formulated his paradoxes pacing these same stones 900,000 days ago... The dirty secret of travel guides: update your edition by plagiarizing another guide, or just Google that town you might have explored on foot... Plants are green because the sun that keeps them alive is a type G star. If they’d evolved for a red dwarf, plants would be black... Now 35 years on, how does Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying stand up as literature? In Elaine Showalter’s view, very well... India is about to create what may be the biggest mass eviction of indigenous people ever. All in the name of conservation... You can walk into an elevator one night, with your life in one kind of shape, and emerge from it with your life in quite another. Ask Nicholas White... Deconstruction was for M.H. Abrams a problem from the start. He had doubts about the idea that “for hundreds of years people have missed the real point”... A bad night at the opera. But at the Met, the talent pool is formidable, and even Tristan und Isolde can end happily. Sort of... The pop music industry has sadly come to depend on “heritage acts” – wrinkled, dyed-hair, aging stars – to pack houses and make money... We need a deadly sins update. Anyway, Pride, Sloth, and Gluttony are now self-esteem, relaxation, and having gourmet tastes. P.J. O’Rourke offers new sins... No wonder Hugo Chavez was upset when Colombia struck at the FARC terrorists in their home camp. He’s been giving them money and arms... Paul Theroux depicted V.S. Naipaul ten years ago as a stingy, tantrum-prone, racist snob badly in need of driving lessons. He was far too kind... Walt Whitman had imagined his poetry would be read by American workers. But his most receptive audience was the British intelligentsia... More than half the world’s building cranes are at present in China. Robert Macfarlane can count 34 of them from his apartment windows... Let’s face it: Batman and Robin, as many gay writers have so fondly noted, are a tad campy. They both love flowers... With his legit literary career in decline, Rupert Smith took on a nom de porn and entered the parallel universe of erotica... Peanut Lolita, a liqueur with a grainy texture and an overwhelming taste of whiskey and peanuts. But what a name... The poor suffer, of course. But why do some poor people act to ensure their continued indigence? Charles Karelis wonders... How long you live, whether you win or lose cancer lotto or Parkinson’s bingo, have little to do, says Michael Kinsley, with life’s other successes... As a waitress in a posh restaurant, she was ally, authority, and confidante for her customers – all within 30 seconds... Just before it was to open with an exhibit of Titian, Botticelli, and Caravaggio, a major New York gallery has been shut by a judge... more» ... Switzerland: a small country with a skilled workforce, booming exports, and enormous prosperity has become the envy of Europe... That “lovable old-fashioned bundle of ink and cellulose,” the newspaper, will land for the last time on a doorstep one day in 2043... Does it not demean a woman, every bit as much as it demeans a man, to make of her either a victim of men’s appetites or a fantasist of them?... Did Samuel Taylor Coleridge compose a blank-verse translation of Goethe’s Faust and publish it anonymously in London in 1821?... Cities declined as they emptied while the suburbs swelled. History moves on, and now it is the suburbs that are poised for decline... He sat alone in a room for 24 hours with 6 TVs, a laptop, and 2 radios watching and reading only political pundits and blogs. Yes, it can be done... China’s new intelligentsia. Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them... Like the United States, Ireland is at the tail end of a housing- and consumer-fueled boom – and its luck is running out... Religion may have evolved as an adaptive benefit for human beings. But once you know that, you’ll derive no such benefits from religion... Suppose you had a nose job, but then decided you liked your old nose better. Maybe with the help of science, you could regrow it... By turns adulatory and neglectful, the English did not know what to make of Edward Elgar in his life, and have felt ambivalent about him ever since... Yes, the conservative revolution did get its start in the 1970s, and yes, it did succeed. But not quite as completely as its champions would suggest... The dictatorial capitalism of China carries the seeds of its own demise. In the short term, such countries are forces to be reckoned with, but... It’s always a shock when firebrands of the left abandon their old politics and turn right. But this sort of thing has a history... Encyclopedia Britannica’s sales for its 32 volume set peaked in 1990. Today, paper encyclopedias are in deep trouble... Catholicism was an immigrant church in the 19th century. As the Pew study shows, it’s on its way to becoming one again... Though the rational mind knows what a picture is, it’s hard to hit a baby’s photo on a dartboard: our aim falls prey to deep intuitions... Figure skating: fiercely individualistic and starkly conformist, with a fair modicum of corruption. Its popularity is in freefall... Gustave Courbet’s Femme nue couchée, an erotic masterpiece of 1862, was lost for 50 years after the end of WWII... The next bubble must be large enough to recover the losses from the housing bubble collapse. How bad will it be? Some rough calculations... Kinship and reciprocity are the “twin pillars of altruism in a Darwinian world.” So altruism is an urge wired into us by selfish genes?... Despite paranoia about bio�tech and routine panics over it, America’s gee-whiz attitude toward machines may yet make the country a haven for nanotech... Fashion provides a way to now and again liquidate the accumulated dross of consumer lifestyles. The “cleansing effect” is good for us all... In 1908 astronomers thought the Milky Way galaxy made up the entire universe – it was an “island universe” in an infinite void. Ideas keep changing... Yet another faked memoir: this one from a “mixed-race former child drug-runner” from South-Central L.A.... Who was it who said women aren’t funny? Chances are it was a man – and these days the joke is on him... The New York Times Most Stolen Book List: Philip K. Dick, Charles Bukowski, William S. Burroughs, and Jim Thompson. Or any graphic novel... Ethnonationalism is not just a detour in European history: it’s an enduring propensity of the human spirit that must be faced... When Gen. Raymond Odierno took over the Multi-National Corps-Iraq in 2006, Iraq was in flames. He has become the Patton of Counterinsurgency... Dmitri Nabokov has turned to his dead father for advice on whether to burn the secret manuscript of Vladimir Nabokov’s last novel... More expensive wines taste better than cheaper wines, a new study shows. Even when they are exactly the same wine... We’re made for math, but only up to a point. Our sense of what a number is stands independent of language, memory, and even reason... Assassination works, when you’re trying to get rid of a tyrant. It is a less successful as a way to influence democracies... Alain Robbe-Grillet’s 1962 Last Year at Marienbad made little sense to its viewers, but it was perfect for its moment in the history of taste... Peter Gelb wanted “theatrical values” for the Metropolitan Opera, and live movie house screenings were his gimmick. Hey, they work... Golf in decline: the number of people who play the game 25 times a year or more fell to 4.6 million in 2005 from 6.9 million in 2000... Americans are deeply divided over the wisdom of making space warfare a part of the national military strategy. Risks are manifold... The freaks and geeks of the 9/11 Truth movement are on to something. They just haven’t yet figured out what... Do professors indoctrinate students by expressing a political ideology in the classroom? Good question. Watch this space... Libertarians see profit as the basis of stability and opportunity, others see only greed. But a new study shows business creates peace... Beware a slightly too-slick essay as part of your college entrance application. It may raise a DDI alert: “Daddy did it”... Is the incidence of autism rising? No. It’s a matter of what we now call “autism.” As for MMR vaccines, or mercury... more» ... With Christianity’s hold over people in decline and Islam on the rise, Europeans are more defensive of their cultural heritage... Because we must decide if some means can be justified by their ends, moralists will always be in work. Consider the history of the CIA... Sex is interesting, even when it’s bad, says Jessa Crispin. Sex memoirs, on the other hand, can be boring beyond belief... Artist of wondrous Vermeers? Except that they were not so wondrous, and they were most certainly not Vermeers... China: both proud and resentful, open and closed, like us yet not at all like us. Still, the onetime sick man of Asia is in exuberant health... Readers are incurable fabulists. Take that ordinary chap, Franz Kafka. We prefer him as a man of metaphysical mystery... Richard Gatling invented a mechanized seed planter: seeds dropped from a hopper one by one into the furrow. Why not use the same idea for a gun?... Man goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, my penis is burning.” Doctor explains, “That means somebody is talking about your penis.� What is it about jokes? ... more» ... more» ... No one will doubt the intense emotions that drive David Rieff’s memoir of his mother’s death. But books are not made out of emotions... Jump-cut, whip-pan, purposeless camera move: Jean-Luc Godard remakes narrative form with his every movie... The Black Plague killed millions and at the same time opened up history for survivors, changing the whole future of Europe... Will unplugging our cellphone chargers or turning TVs off standby reduce energy use and help fight global warming? How do the numbers stack up?... Sure, the Lolita Effect may be real. But little girls do also spend time reading books, jumping rope, and playing ball... Casanova: priest, con-man, writer, soldier, violinist, alchemist, prisoner, fugitive, gambler, intellectual, and great lover... The British invented curry? Not quite. But the Madras curry (Tamil: kari) was born with the East India Company... Work and sex have always been prime movers of Lord Snowdon. Even confined to a wheelchair the old goat can’t be stopped... For all of Churchill’s faults, we may still be grateful for a 1930s politician who found it intolerable even to breathe the same air as the Nazis... Mrs. Thatcher viewed Ferdinand Mount as “an idle and effete youth.” But she came to admire his powers as a wordsmith. Right she was... Stuck in a Washington traffic jam, you may curse the name of Pierre L’Enfant. But it’s not really all his fault... Q: “So is Marxism-Leninism scientific?” A: “Surely not. If it were, they would have tested it on animals first.” Old Soviet jokes... In America, where God and Devil live with science in the age of 9/11, John Milton seems right at home — his Satan a model terrorist... Heinrich Heine, both playful and serious, called himself the last of the romantics and the first of the moderns... Country music knows what it means to be trapped by poverty, a lousy job, lust, and booze. To grasp the USA, just listen... Pakistan tribal frontier: a nightmare landscape of unknowable mountains swarming with enemies? This is not the entire story... Pat Buchanan’s Spenglerian rhetoric about the decline of the West lays bare the racist and reactionary premises of his thought... Richard Wright knew what once faced a little black boy in a big white world. “This was the culture from which I sprang. This was the terror from which I fled”... Hugh Trevor-Roper was repelled by myths of Scottish nationalism and its tribal loyalties: concocted history had fired the minds of the Nazis... Humans evolved to live in small isolated groups and are finely tuned to seek people of common values. Hence we care about race... The Comanche empire once dominated New Mexico and much of Texas, its power a melange of kinship, trade, diplomacy, extortion, and violence... Germaine de Staël may not have been good-looking, but she had real charisma, brains, money – and Benjamin Constant... Awe-inspiring acts of imagination, impish acrobatics of diction, high-jinks of imagery, and dollops of wordplay. But is it good poetry?... Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn are both Russian prophets, holy fools, and dissidents. Not Anton Chekhov, for which we may be thankful... How could such a masterly writer as V.S. Naipaul turn out to be such a monster in his personal life? Perhaps by a conscious decision... The conceit that we can have any useful idea of what the world will be like in a hundred years is, Nigel Lawson says, inherently absurd... Those who worship at Ronald Reagan’s altar no longer hope to “make the world over again,” the line their icon used to borrow from Tom Paine... Churchill regarded Gandhi as “a fanatic and an ascetic of the fakir type well known in the East.” Well, yes. And no... Population anxieties used to be about starvation. Now they are about “saving the planet” from our rapidly breeding species... Pythagoras was right: his universe may not be as simple as he imagined, but it proves ever more comprehensible by the day... Scientists may be biased, but science itself, for all its flaws, is still the best system ever devised for grasping how the world works... Sean Wilentz rescues the real Ronald Reagan from the “mythological president” offered by fans on the right and critics on the left... Henry Kissinger’s Jewish origins are the real key to understanding both the man and the world’s reaction to him... Was WWII worth fighting? Get the facts and make up your own mind! No need for experts! This book tells all you need to know!... Shakespeare vs. Milton. Prithee, who is the greater figure in literary history? Nigel Smith thinks he knows the answer... Seven years’ distance from 9/11 reveals a brutal reality. For both his family and his country, Osama bin Laden’s attacks have turned a tidy profit... Like Edmund Wilson, Alfred Kazin laughed off John Kennedy’s attempt to wine, dine, and co-opt him... Religion is beliefs, ideas, rituals, customs. Conscience is deeper. It searches for the beliefs and ideas that make up religion... Wernher von Braun: a 20th-century Faust, a man willing to work with an evil regime in return for the resources to carry out his cherished research... So this Aristotle guy hops a boat from Athens, goes into the library at Alexandria, grabs some books, returns home and puts his name on them... V.S. Naipaul is a prospector digging along a vein he has worked before, says Joseph Lelyveld. Much of it still sparkles... Monolithic politico-corporate elites have a big place in Naomi Klein’s world. But they don’t quite fit every political situation... Postwar Britain: shabby frocks, sallow faces, and dreary meals of ground meat stretched with grated potato and oatmeal... The recrudescence of robust atheism means non-belivers need no longer need suffer lonely isolation... Nina Khruscheva is Russian to the core, but also “as New York as they come.” She says it’s time for Russians to reread Vladimir Nabokov... James Frey’s latest depends not on plots or characters but “high concepts,” the bright, shiny clichés that Hollywood screenwriters use for their pitches... The Dalai Lama’s frequent meetings with Western leaders are now seen by China as provocations and used as an excuse not to meet with him... The past, historians like to say, is another country. Israeli history is another galaxy, writes Carlin Romano... Is licking an ice cream cone on the street beneath your dignity? What then is human dignity? Steven Pinker wonders... Our eyes are amazing, a genuine credit to evolution. So are our hands, not to mention our kidneys. But our brains?... How many writers got the Nobel Prize for Literature for a book that was largely ghostwritten? Winston Churchill, for one... You can argue with some credibility that John Stuart Mill was the greatest public intellectual in the history of Britain, maybe even the world... Shopping gives our choices tangible effect. The enthusiasm with which people shop contrasts with their view of work... Nikola Tesla feared earrings, peaches, and touching people’s hair. Sure, another nutty inventor. But men like him changed our world... Philosophers often cannot resist writing about Shakespeare, with his depth and complexity. Alas, they are mostly ill-equipped to do so... Prokofiev’s dry wit resulted in some fine, bitchy one-liners. Mahler’s 7th Symphony was “like kissing a stillborn child”... Today we have nannies, but in the 19th century they had governesses. That plain Jane Eyre, for example... Classical music: abandoned, left behind sulking in its tent as culture moves on, with the action happening somewhere else... The house embodies our ideas of intimate family life and serves as our haven in a cold world. It’s also the site of Sisyphean labor, mostly female... The RAND Corporation remains one of the most potent and complex purveyors of U.S. imperialism. Its influence, positive and sinister, continues to be felt... In Peter Gay’s reading, modernist thinking is reduced to a psychological impulse: the lure of heresy. Yes, but... Antiquity cannot be owned by any culture or any nation state. It is the inheritance of all humanity and ought to be open to all, preserved in museums... Women: enslaved by patriarchal views of proper domestic toil, or expected to get a high-paying job. Susan Pinker explains... As a student, Tony Judt was an arden