From Earth the distinctive set of rings belonging to the sixth planet from the Sun appear to be tranquil garlands adorning their mother planet but on closer inspection the rings of Saturn - composed of orbiting, ice-strewn debris - are far from peaceful.Immense tidal forces tear into the materials that make up the rings to prevent them clumping together to form bigger objects and, eventually, a new moon. Giant rocks and meteorites pummel the rings with violent collisions that break apart the orbiting debris still further....After six years of studying the rings, the researchers involved in the £1.6bn Cassini mission believe they can show that the planetary rings are far from a static collection of space debris orbiting their host but rather a highly dynamic interaction of continually colliding objects."It has been amazing to see the rings come to life before our very eyes, changing even as we watch," said Jeff Cuzzi of Nasa's Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California, and lead author of a study published in the journal Science. "The rings were still a nearly unstructured object in even the best telescopes when I was a student, but Cassini has brought us an intimate familiarity with them," said Dr Cuzzi, one of the scientists in the joint American-European mission named after the great Italian-born astronomer Giovanni Cassini.
From Earth the distinctive set of rings belonging to the sixth planet from the Sun appear to be tranquil garlands adorning their mother planet but on closer inspection the rings of Saturn - composed of orbiting, ice-strewn debris - are far from peaceful.
Immense tidal forces tear into the materials that make up the rings to prevent them clumping together to form bigger objects and, eventually, a new moon. Giant rocks and meteorites pummel the rings with violent collisions that break apart the orbiting debris still further.
...After six years of studying the rings, the researchers involved in the £1.6bn Cassini mission believe they can show that the planetary rings are far from a static collection of space debris orbiting their host but rather a highly dynamic interaction of continually colliding objects.
"It has been amazing to see the rings come to life before our very eyes, changing even as we watch," said Jeff Cuzzi of Nasa's Ames Research Centre in Moffett Field, California, and lead author of a study published in the journal Science. "The rings were still a nearly unstructured object in even the best telescopes when I was a student, but Cassini has brought us an intimate familiarity with them," said Dr Cuzzi, one of the scientists in the joint American-European mission named after the great Italian-born astronomer Giovanni Cassini.
(The journo couldn't resist a bit of silly over-dramatising; for example those tidal forces are far from 'immense'. But the news is that the rings are viewed as much more dynamic today.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
What can make tens of millions of people - who are in their daily lives peaceful and compassionate and caring - suddenly want to physically dismember a man for drawing a cartoon, or make excuses for an international criminal conspiracy to protect child-rapists? Not reason. Not evidence. No. But it can happen when people choose their polar opposite - religion. In the past week we have seen two examples of how people can begin to behave in bizarre ways when they decide it is a good thing to abandon any commitment to fact and instead act on faith. It has led some to regard people accused of the attempted murders of the Mohamed cartoonists as victims, and to demand "respect" for the Pope, when he should be in a police station being quizzed about his role in covering up and thereby enabling the rape of children.
In Europe, the European People's Party (EPP) was alone in denouncing communism, its secretary-general, Antonio López-Istúriz, declared in Brussels yesterday (18 March)."We combated communism. We denounced the big lie of communism," López-Istúriz said at a conference organised by the Centre for European Studies, the EPP-affiliated think-tank. "The EPP was alone in this fight. Other parties were blind," he claimed. The statement was not challenged by the audience, despite the fact that socialist François Mitterrand, French president in the 1980s, was an important player in many of the dramatic events that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, alongside German Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the centre-right CDU party. Mitterrand famously organised a breakfast with Bulgarian dissidents at the French Embassy in Sofia on 19 January 1989, which hugely accelerated events leading to the collapse of the communist regime in that country on 10 November that same year.
"We combated communism. We denounced the big lie of communism," López-Istúriz said at a conference organised by the Centre for European Studies, the EPP-affiliated think-tank.
"The EPP was alone in this fight. Other parties were blind," he claimed.
The statement was not challenged by the audience, despite the fact that socialist François Mitterrand, French president in the 1980s, was an important player in many of the dramatic events that led to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, alongside German Chancellor Helmut Kohl of the centre-right CDU party.
Mitterrand famously organised a breakfast with Bulgarian dissidents at the French Embassy in Sofia on 19 January 1989, which hugely accelerated events leading to the collapse of the communist regime in that country on 10 November that same year.
Jürgen Rüttgers, a state governor in western Germany, faces a new challenge in his fight for re-election this May: the well-informed political blog. Independent writers armed with leaked documents have brought some "anarchy" back to Germany's staid political scene. ...Since late 2009 the self-appointed heirs of Tucholsky have written a blog called "Wir in NRW" (roughly, "We Here in North Rhine-Westphalia"), a title that will remind German readers of cronyism. The bloggers lash out at many politicians, but they focus on the state governor, Jürgen Rüttgers, a conservative Christian Democrat seeking re-election on May 9. They regularly publish internal e-mails from the archives of power, a number of which have proved embarrassing for Rüttgers' party, the CDU. Who stole what is still not clear. The bloggers claim they never intended to become an instrument in the campaign. The purpose of the site was to spread news about the government that the mainstream press ignored. Not only did they want to shine a spotlight on Rüttgers; they also wanted irritate a man they identified as responsible for lukewarm coverage of state politics: Bodo Hombach, chief of a publishing concern called WAZ, which owns nine newspapers in Germany. The name of the blog is a barb aimed at Hombach, a one-time cabinet aide to former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder...
Jürgen Rüttgers, a state governor in western Germany, faces a new challenge in his fight for re-election this May: the well-informed political blog. Independent writers armed with leaked documents have brought some "anarchy" back to Germany's staid political scene.
...Since late 2009 the self-appointed heirs of Tucholsky have written a blog called "Wir in NRW" (roughly, "We Here in North Rhine-Westphalia"), a title that will remind German readers of cronyism. The bloggers lash out at many politicians, but they focus on the state governor, Jürgen Rüttgers, a conservative Christian Democrat seeking re-election on May 9. They regularly publish internal e-mails from the archives of power, a number of which have proved embarrassing for Rüttgers' party, the CDU. Who stole what is still not clear.
The bloggers claim they never intended to become an instrument in the campaign. The purpose of the site was to spread news about the government that the mainstream press ignored. Not only did they want to shine a spotlight on Rüttgers; they also wanted irritate a man they identified as responsible for lukewarm coverage of state politics: Bodo Hombach, chief of a publishing concern called WAZ, which owns nine newspapers in Germany.
The name of the blog is a barb aimed at Hombach, a one-time cabinet aide to former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder...
Swiss editor and publisher Roger Köppel is loud, shrill and provocative -- traits not usually associated with his countrymen. The right-wing positions he takes do not appeal to a majority of people in Switzerland, and yet he is viewed abroad as the new, authentic voice of the Swiss....Köppel is a man in his mid-40s who seems eternally young, with slightly rumpled hair and round, metal-rimmed glasses. He is remarkably slim, and he's wearing a trademark expensive-looking suit. Köppel looks out of place in a rural setting. The countryside is the home of the Swiss People's Party, or SVP, which has spent the last 20 years using its opposition to Europe, immigration and the liberal market economy to become Switzerland's strongest party. But Köppel, the urban journalist, has dedicated himself to both this popular party and its leader, Christoph Blocher -- a contradiction that has earned him a reputation beyond Switzerland's borders. Three and a half years ago he bought Switzerland's Weltwoche, a liberal, left-leaning weekly newspaper, smart, stolid and politically correct, and turned it into a conservative, right-wing opinion magazine.
Swiss editor and publisher Roger Köppel is loud, shrill and provocative -- traits not usually associated with his countrymen. The right-wing positions he takes do not appeal to a majority of people in Switzerland, and yet he is viewed abroad as the new, authentic voice of the Swiss.
...Köppel is a man in his mid-40s who seems eternally young, with slightly rumpled hair and round, metal-rimmed glasses. He is remarkably slim, and he's wearing a trademark expensive-looking suit. Köppel looks out of place in a rural setting. The countryside is the home of the Swiss People's Party, or SVP, which has spent the last 20 years using its opposition to Europe, immigration and the liberal market economy to become Switzerland's strongest party.
But Köppel, the urban journalist, has dedicated himself to both this popular party and its leader, Christoph Blocher -- a contradiction that has earned him a reputation beyond Switzerland's borders. Three and a half years ago he bought Switzerland's Weltwoche, a liberal, left-leaning weekly newspaper, smart, stolid and politically correct, and turned it into a conservative, right-wing opinion magazine.
Plans to build a super skyscraper just metres short of the height of the Eiffel Tower in Paris' business district have fallen through, the tower's French architect, Jean Nouvel, announced Friday, through lack of investment due to the economic crisis.
The United States is becoming a broken society. The public has contempt for the political class. Public debt is piling up at an astonishing and unrelenting pace. Middle-class wages have lagged. Unemployment will remain high. It will take years to fully recover from the financial crisis. This confluence of crises has produced a surge in vehement libertarianism. People are disgusted with Washington. The Tea Party movement rallies against big government, big business and the ruling class in general. Even beyond their ranks, there is a corrosive cynicism about public action. But there is another way to respond to these problems that is more communitarian and less libertarian. This alternative has been explored most fully by the British writer Phillip Blond.
This confluence of crises has produced a surge in vehement libertarianism. People are disgusted with Washington. The Tea Party movement rallies against big government, big business and the ruling class in general. Even beyond their ranks, there is a corrosive cynicism about public action.
But there is another way to respond to these problems that is more communitarian and less libertarian. This alternative has been explored most fully by the British writer Phillip Blond.
To create a civil state, Blond would reduce the power of senior government officials and widen the discretion of front-line civil servants, the people actually working in neighborhoods. He would decentralize power, giving more budget authority to the smallest units of government. He would funnel more services through charities. He would increase investments in infrastructure, so that more places could be vibrant economic hubs. He would rebuild the "village college" so that universities would be more intertwined with the towns around them. Essentially, Blond would take a political culture that has been oriented around individual choice and replace it with one oriented around relationships and associations. His ideas have made a big splash in Britain over the past year. His think tank, ResPublica, is influential with the Conservative Party. His book, "Red Tory," is coming out soon. He's on a small U.S. speaking tour, appearing at Georgetown's Tocqueville Forum Friday and at Villanova on Monday. Britain is always going to be more hospitable to communitarian politics than the more libertarian U.S. But people are social creatures here, too. American society has been atomized by the twin revolutions here, too. This country, too, needs a fresh political wind. America, too, is suffering a devastating crisis of authority. The only way to restore trust is from the local community on up.
To create a civil state, Blond would reduce the power of senior government officials and widen the discretion of front-line civil servants, the people actually working in neighborhoods. He would decentralize power, giving more budget authority to the smallest units of government. He would funnel more services through charities. He would increase investments in infrastructure, so that more places could be vibrant economic hubs. He would rebuild the "village college" so that universities would be more intertwined with the towns around them.
Essentially, Blond would take a political culture that has been oriented around individual choice and replace it with one oriented around relationships and associations. His ideas have made a big splash in Britain over the past year. His think tank, ResPublica, is influential with the Conservative Party. His book, "Red Tory," is coming out soon. He's on a small U.S. speaking tour, appearing at Georgetown's Tocqueville Forum Friday and at Villanova on Monday.
Britain is always going to be more hospitable to communitarian politics than the more libertarian U.S. But people are social creatures here, too. American society has been atomized by the twin revolutions here, too. This country, too, needs a fresh political wind. America, too, is suffering a devastating crisis of authority. The only way to restore trust is from the local community on up.
Blond would reduce the power of senior government officials and widen the discretion of front-line civil servants, the people actually working in neighborhoods. He would decentralize power, giving more budget authority to the smallest units of government. He would funnel more services through charities.
And this is meant to rehabilitate public service?? By making it inconsistent and subject to the whims of local officials or self-appointed charities? Wind power
Centralised big government is just as much the problem as centralised big corporates, and the current unholy alliance of the two is, as we see, unsustainable. "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
As was leaked earlier this week, a study paid for by the International Chamber of Commerce has come out with ridiculously misleading and misguided report about how "piracy" is killing jobs all through Europe. The tagline is that it's "costing" 1.2 million jobs and about $330 million. And, of course, that sort of report is the kind that the press loves, and so we get a series of headlines:
Earlier this week, reader Jorvay sent over the news of how food giant Nestle had massively overreacted to an (admittedly disgusting) anti-Nestle video put together by Greenpeace and posted to YouTube. The thing was, this video was getting no attention. It had less than 1,000 views... but someone who should have known better at Nestle filed a bogus copyright claim to take down the video. There is no copyright issue in the video at all, so it was a bogus takedown. Even if there had been a legit reason for the takedown, doing so only drew much more attention to the issue, and the video quickly went back up on Vimeo, where it started getting even more views, a lot of which came because of the takedown. Okay, bad enough, right? I was going to post that story, but before I had the chance, Nestle decided to make things worse. Because of all this new attention, a bunch of anti-Nestle people went to Nestle's Facebook group, and started posting messages that were certainly anti-Nestle. Now, there are lots of ways to respond to such things. The one thing you don't want to do is respond the way Nestle's "moderator" did. First, they threatened to delete comments from anyone using a modified Nestle's logo, claiming that this infringed on trademarks (which is an interesting claim, but unlikely to hold up in court, where countless times the use of a logo in protest has been upheld). This resulted in some pointed responses from group members, such as "It's not OK for people to use altered versions of your logos, but it's OK for you to alter the face of Indonesian rainforests? Wow!"
Pope's pastoral letter to Ireland. You can't be me, I'm taken
