Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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So how's Iraqification going?
Dan Drezner has a good post on current efforts in Iraq, drawing from a number of sources. Encouraging stuff. I would have added John Simpson’s first column on the BBC site to the list too. He, as ever, has a good take on the situation. Yet the basic problem remains: the Sunni population is as…
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Iraq, Tony and the truth
Panorama was exceptional this evening. You can read the full transcript here. I can’t find a link to a Realplayer stream.
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Data retention imposed
This one slipped under the radar, though the Examiner did report on it last week. This has been Karlin’s baby since it started, and she copies her story in the Irish Times to her blog. The full piece of legislation can be read here.(PDF) Hands up who thinks sweeping data retention such as this is…
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Genes contribute to religious inclination
I am not surprised by this study, but it is still a good read on the day that’s in it. The team gave questionnaires to 169 pairs of identical twins – 100% genetically identical – and 104 pairs of fraternal twins – 50% genetically identical – born in Minnesota. The twins, all male and in…
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13 things that do not make sense
Here is some interesting reading for a Sunday evening, the top 13 things in science that don’t really make sense. For example the Belfast homeopathy results. MADELEINE Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen’s University, Belfast, was the scourge of homeopathy. She railed against its claims that a chemical remedy could be diluted to the point where…
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Irish terror groups 'to hit London'
The Observer leads today with this story. Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism section sent out an email about a new threat to businesses across London on Friday evening, following intelligence received from MI5 about an increase in activity from breakaway groups such as the Real IRA. The chilling note, seen by The Observer, states: ‘Reporting indicates that…
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Ocean heat store makes climate change inevitable
Some more fuel to the climate change debate: Meehl and his colleagues used two sophisticated computer models of global climate to predict what would happen under various scenarios for greenhouse gas emission controls, taking into account the oceanic time lag. Their most optimistic scenario – in which atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are capped at…
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Irish Cinema Set to Go Digital First
This is interesting news. Not only that but it got Slashdotted. I have read about the advent of digital cinema for some time, what amazes me is the sheer scale of the files. Cinemas using the technology will be able to download the latest releases to a computer server via satellite at a lower cost.…
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Qatar blast kills Briton
Worrying news indeed from Qatar. This would appear to be work of al-Qaeda, and if it is, is the first attack (outside of Iraq) for quite a while. As the Observer piece notes: Al-Qaeda militants have staged attacks in neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Kuwait but Qatar, a key US ally, has seen no Islamist violence…
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Eircom Increases Broadband Bandwidth
This got some coverage on the news last week, eircom have doubled the speed of their DSL product. Eircom were soon followed by almost all the other DSL providers. Now my 512k Esat BT connection will be 1Mb and I should start getting 90-100k/sec downloads from next month.
Got any book recommendations?