There always seems to be a good reason to support a dictator. In the late 1970s, Jeane Kirkpatrick argued that it was better to support a "right-wing" dictator lest he be replaced by communists. Right-wing dictatorship -- today some call it "liberal autocracy" -- was in any case a necessary way station on the road to democracy. Communist totalitarians would never give up power and stifled any hope for freedom, but our friendly dictators would eventually give way to liberal politics.

Robert Kagan - Musharraf and the Con Game - washingtonpost.com

Hundreds of thousands of public employees, joined by students and striking railway workers, took part in raucous demonstrations across France yesterday to protest against President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans for state sector job cuts and other economic reforms.

fasinating to watch another country go through the political contest Britain went through in the early/mid eighties - specifics aside - this is about who runs the country, the unions or the elected government

Sarkozy: strikers are taking France hostage - Independent Online Edition - Europe

For years before rising to power here, President Hugo Ch�vez conspired alongside Ra�l Isa�as Baduel, who recently retired as army commander, in a secretive cell of leftist military officers intent on fomenting revolution. It was General Baduel who led the paratrooper raid that returned Ch�vez to office after he was briefly deposed by a coup in 2002.

But those impeccable leftist credentials have not spared the general from withering attacks since he broke with Ch�vez this month over proposed sweeping changes to the Constitution that, among other things, would abolish presidential term limits. At a recent political rally here, the president's supporters called Baduel a "traitor" and shouted for him to be taken to the "pared�n," the execution wall.
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"I believe a president's term should be defined as six years, with one period of re-election allowed," he said. He has repeatedly described the proposed revision of the Constitution as a "coup," a word sure to elicit strong reaction from a government that frequently describes its opponents as "putschists."

I am reminded of Sir Thomas Fairfax

Charges of 'traitor' for Ch�vez ally turned critic - International Herald Tribune

Human skin cells have been reprogrammed by two groups of scientists to mimic embryonic stem cells with the potential to become any tissue in the body.

The breakthrough promises a plentiful new source of cells for use in research into new treatments for many diseases.

BBC NEWS | Health | Skin transformed into stem cells

Recently there has been a sharp increase in the amount of abusive language on the New Scientist website. No, it's not because our writers have become degenerates, it's because we rolled out a new commenting facility on all articles, giving people the chance to share their thoughts and opinions across the site.
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My pet theory about why people behave so rudely is that online commenting is treated, by most people, like a pub conversation – they don't necessarily expect to be taken seriously and the social rules are fairly relaxed. And yet, because comments appear in cold text without important cues like friendly body language, they can easily seem more offensive than if they would otherwise. As a result some people get annoyed, and the flaming and trolling begin.

guilty as charged
I know i've been immensely rude to other memestream users sometimes after coming in from the pub and having had a few drinks i've said things i would never say to a person's face or on sober reflection -- partly out of fear of being thumped whereas online i am physically safe

New Scientist Technology Blog: Don't flame me, bro'

Like vultures, the mortgage lenders began circling the single-family house with the tiny front lawn on Merrill Avenue.

They knew that the woman who owned the house was old and sick and that her two aging daughters were struggling with illness and poverty as well. That was all to the good as far as the lenders were concerned. The predator’s mission is to home in on the vulnerable.

“The people that wanted to put through the loan called me about a hundred times,” said Rosa Dailey, who is 65 and going blind and needs an oxygen tank at times to help her breathe. “I kept telling them no, because I didn’t think we could afford it. But they kept saying how it was to our advantage. So I finally said: ‘All right, let’s see what we can do.’ ”

A Swarm of Swindlers - New York Times

I went through about a year back in the early part of the decade trying to work with desktop linux on a laptop. It didn't work very well. Eventually I got a mac. The trouble with Apple is that about 30% of the hardware they produce has serious design flaws. After many years of dealing with them I'm tired of the high cost of their stuff and the annual week without a computer.

So I thought I'd give Ubunto a try. I'd been told by many people that it "just works." I installed it on a pretty run of the mill Dell laptop. It did not "just work." Within a few minutes I'm googling around for long winded explanations of how I have to configure this and compile that and download this other thing in order to get this OS working on this extremely ubiquitous hardware.

This HOWTO describes how to get Wifi working on your Dell Inspiron E1505/6400 laptop using Ndiswrapper.

Im sorry, but if in 2007 you STILL have to compile something in order to get a basic thing like wireless networking working on an extremely popular hardware platform, LINUX WILL NEVER BE SUCCESSFUL ON THE DESKTOP.

Ubuntu sucks, nothing has changed.

The New Scientist must hire someone to trawl through the arXiv in the hopes of getting the science news one step ahead of everyone else. Unfortunately, its record for distinguishing good science from bad science is not all that great, so I was pretty skeptical when I was pointed to an article on a new theory of everything™.
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The problem is that Lisi has ignored much of physics, where he adds normal numbers to vectors and other similar no-nos (imagine adding a speed to an energy and you have got exactly what Lisi has done). He has found that the chosen symmetry operations correspond to the symmetry groups of particles—not that surprising, considering the number of symmetry operations he has at his disposal—but he hasn't checked to see if the masses come out as found experimentally because he can't; once you put nonsense into a model, the only thing that comes out is nonsense.

oh well!!

Upon further review, surfer's new Theory of Everything severely deficient

SO this, in the end, is what love is.

Former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's husband, suffering from Alzheimer's disease, has a romance with another woman, and the former justice is thrilled — even visits with the new couple while they hold hands on the porch swing — because it is a relief to see her husband of 55 years so content.

What culture tells us about love is generally young love. Songs and movies and literature show us the rapture and the betrayal, the breathlessness and the tears. The O'Connors' story, reported by the couple's son in an interview with a television station in Arizona, where Mr. O'Connor lives in an assisted-living center, opened a window onto what might be called, for comparison's sake, old love.

Old love: It has its rewards, they say - International Herald Tribune

While most of this is over my head. Is it possible that this could become the Grand Unified Theory we are all looking forward to?

Even if it isn't the pdf is very interesting.

Surfer dude stuns physicists with theory of everything - Telegraph