Danny's Pathologically Polymathic: June 2008

some Iowa libraries have been destroyed by the floods - DesMoines [via Barista]

Anwar Ibrahim accused of sodomy again - CNN

not a lot more subtle than the Zimbabwean "vote for us if you want to live"

attacking Iran is still a really bad idea - NYROB

at this point, the world would probably be safer if Iran did have nuclear weapons

state land value capture in Singapore and Hong Kong - AmJEcSoc

"the state owns all land in Hong Kong, and four-fifths of the land in Singapore"

from "shell shock" to "post-traumatic stress disorder" - Informed

a potential disaster in Turkey - Informed

moderation may die at the hands of military hardliners and Islamist extremists

swapping genders in traditional Albania - SMH

"a practical solution for families short of men. Keqi's father had been killed in a blood feud, and there was no male heir."

formal recognition for the ß - Guardian

"something of a blow to German spelling reformists who had been keen to scrap the Eszett from the alphabet altogether"

Arctic sea ice news and analysis - NSIDC [via Deltoid]

ten of the world's most polluted cities - PopSci [via /.]

Nokia will buy Symbian and open-source it - Reuters [via WMW]

who's going to pay for Windows Mobile if Symbian, LiMo and Android are all free?

the severity of vivax malaria is highly context dependent - PLOS

I caught vivax malaria on a trip to PNG when I was eight

a graphical representation of US political blogs - PresWatch [via CT]

Berlusconi wants exemption from Catholic rules as well as immunity from Italian laws - Guardian

meet one of the 15 year old "hardened terrorists" in Guantanamo - CD

Buckminster Fuller - NYer [via /.]

more on A.Q.Khan and nuclear proliferation - Economist

a video about game censorship in Australia - ThinkOfTheChildren

Pakistanis are fighting the British in southern Afghanistan - Guardian

the political segregation of the United States - Economist

why you don't want to run Windows on your coffee-maker - SecurityFocus [via /.]

how portion sizes in the US have increased - DivineCaroline [via CT]

20kg savannah cats to be let loose in Australia?! - SMH

haven't we learnt anything from our experiences with cane toads, rabbits, and suchlike?

Israel "pressed to explain" cameraman, civilian deaths - Independent

isn't it obvious that the IDF tries to scare off unsympathethic foreign journalists by killing one every so often? (Or has a policy of not chastising individuals for that, anyway.)

the reality of online child abuse material - NewMatilda

this is an extract from The Porn Report

meet Zhong Kui, scholar and demon-hunter - Barista

autogenerating mindlessly racist comments - whydontyougolivethere [via K5]

I think robots have been using this for years on discussion forums

Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500-2000 - Maize and Grace [review]

fifty "essential" music CDs from around the world - Guardian

but this has no gamelan, or any other Indonesian music

atheists offer to deliver messages for Christians after the rapture - Post-Rapture Post [via Schneier]

photos and info about Cedar Rapids (Iowa, US) flooding - Kos

the water is three metres above the previous record flood...

the problems with UK obscenity law - Withers

the French debate the merits of the semicolon - Guardian

a visit to the past: my web site a decade ago - archive.org

I now have six web sites

OED updates have reached "R" - OED

an evolutionary explanation of the sonnet - AudoDidact

how can Bangladesh's military quit politics? - Economist

The Laughing Policeman [review]

some lighter reading for a change - a murder mystery set in 1967 Stockholm

the failures of West Bengal's CPI(M) government - Dissent [via JH]

communist party thugs murdered poor villagers to enable industrial development

what future for copyright? - Cato Unbound [via Link]

Warren Buffet bets the S&P 500 will outperform picked hedge fund funds - Fortune

Bruce Schneier on the War on Photography - Guardian

Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World [review]

Matt Drudge may prefer Obama to McCain?! - Politico

I don't think I've ever looked at the Drudge Report before, despite its fame

does the Israeli Transport Minister have that much influence? - Guardian

"jittery oil markets were sent into spasm by remarks from Israel's transport minister that an attack on Iranian nuclear sites looked 'unavoidable'"

housing segregation in the US in 1966 - OurFuture [via CT]

this helped me to understand just how revolutionary Obama's candidacy is

French universities face changes - Economist

Bush wants to formalise Iraq's status as a permanent colony - CP

but I really can't see how this is going to help McCain

demolishing a Beijing hutong: a photo-essay - Guardian

my own photos of Beijing old and new

does freer trade in food help poor people? - Economist

Isador Nabi Associates has an opening for an Intelligent Re-designer - MonthlyReview

now comes the "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" - Huffington

the latest attempt to create new "intellectual property" crimes

Donald Coxeter, the Man Who Saved Geometry - King of Infinite Space [review]

NSW/Aus government subsidy to Catholic Church now $140 million - SMH

a documentary about John Wyndham - YouTube [via CT]

(contains spoilers for many of the books)

40 nations are fighting an unwinnable war in Afghanistan - Spiegel

a review of the new film Mongol - Times - Amazon

episodes in the early life of Genghis Khan, with great landscapes and setting

"please don't go" - LAT

is the only real ecotourism staying at home?

securing the DNS root servers - Renesys [via /.]

Brazil, India and South Africa challenge OOXML standard - NYT

the judges for Guantanamo prisoners will be cherry-picked - NYT [via ProRev]

I had a great weekend bushwalking

but I learned that running over an echidna will do bad things to your tires