In the News

While tons of people are screaming "Vietnam!" here's someone quietly saying "Afghanistan." This is well worth reading.

And in the weird yet disturbing category, North Korea doesn't want tourist in South Korea visiting tunnels the North dug, planning to use them to infiltrate the south.

A strange game. I feel like I'm missing something here...

And today is Banned Book Day. Here's a list of the most frequently challenged book from 1990-2000. Sad to say, I have only read 7 of them and seen a movie based on one other. Some of them aren't surprising (references to sex and homosexuality). Some of them are insane.

This one surprised me. It seems there's some data showing that strong belief in God tends to make societies have lower life expectancies and (possibly) higher murder rates, at Pharyngula. I don't see much on the homicide graph. It looks fairly flat with two outliers. The life expectancy graph is another story. Bear in mind that association does not imply causation, but I wonder what the confounding variables might be... The comments have some good links to original materials and commentaries on the study.

Also from Pharyngula: A case of evolution correctly predicting the number of mutations in DNA.

A clarification from Juan Cole on an article advocating withdrawal from Iraq: "I should clarify that as several diarists noted, I do believe that the US has a duty to manage the withdrawal so as not to provoke a massive civil war. I suspect that can be done with a combination of continued training and arming of the new Iraqi army and air power. For those who say there is not way to prevent massive civil war and a million dead, I'd just suggest that that level of fatalism is not helpful or necessary or even perhaps moral. American liberals tend to believe that no form of military force is ever useful, which is rather an odd belief for non-pacifists and in light of the obvious usefulness it has had on a number of occasions in dealing with fascists, thugs and other people who use force and need to be opposed with force."

A suggestion that we could trap CO2 and store it to keep it out of the atmosphere.

A discussion of whether global warming played a role in Katrina. Answer? A definite maybe.

PM ADDENDUMS:
An interesting analysis of anti-gay hypocracy. Pity he didn't get anyone quoting Leviticus at him.

And a book that objects to politicians (mostly republican) treating science as something to spin and twist.