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New Zealand is the most peaceful nation on Earth, according to the 2009 Global Peace Index released Tuesday by an Australian-based research group that counts former President Jimmy Carter, Ted Turner and the Dalai Lama among its endorsers.

After New Zealand, next on the list are Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Sweden, Japan, Canada, Finland and Slovenia. In the bottom ten are Zimbabwe, Russia, Pakistan, Chad, Congo, Sudan, Israel, Somalia, Afghanistan and, in last place, Iraq.

The US is 83rd on the list, according to the Institute for Economics and Peace that rated the relative tranquility of 144 nations according to 23 indicators, including gun sales, the number of homicides, the size of the military, terrorism, and the number of people in jail.

Germany is at 16 on the list, Australia at 19, Spain (28), South Korea (33), Britain (35) and Italy (36). Libya, Nicaragua, Jordan, Cuba, China, Peru, and Ukraine all are rated more peaceful than the US. Rwanda is rated 86, Syria 92, Iran 99, and Mexico 108.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/03/new-zealand-rated-most-peaceful-us-83rd/

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In fighting for science, we subscribe to a comforting illusion: that people can be swayed by the facts. The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science. Telegraph columnist Gerald Warner dismissed scientists as "white-coated prima donnas and narcissists, pointy-heads in lab coats [who] have reassumed the role of mad cranks. The public is no longer in awe of scientists. Like squabbling evangelical churches in the 19th century, they can form as many schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them any more."

Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company -- and precious few journalists -- with a science degree, yet everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world. But the problem is compounded by complexity. Arthur C Clarke remarked that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." He might have added that any sufficiently advanced expertise is indistinguishable from gobbledegook.

Scientific specialisation is now so extreme that even people studying neighbouring subjects within the same discipline can no longer understand each other. The detail of modern science is incomprehensible to almost everyone; we have to take what scientists say on trust. Yet science tells us to trust nothing; to believe only what can be demonstrated. This contradiction is fatal to public confidence. The problem is not only that most scientists can speak no recognisable human language, but also the expectation that people are amenable to persuasion.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2010/03/08/the-unpersuadables/

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The New York Times identified 74 corporations that have done business both in Iran and with the United States government over the last decade, using corporate records filed with the Securities Exchange Commission, company websites, news accounts confirmed by interviews with company officials, and Congressional reports. The list includes two Finnish-based corporations: Nokia and Wärtsilä.

Nokia, which has sold mobile devices and accessories to Iran since at least 2004, said in a 2010 Securities and Exchange Commission filing that it was gaining market share there. Nokia's contracts with the American government include providing telecommunication services to the Department of Defense and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Contracts that were separately awarded to Nokia-Siemens, a joint venture, were not included in the company's totals here.

Nokia-Siemens sold technology to Iran in 2008 that could be used by the government to eavesdrop on cellphones and e-mail messages. The sale proved controversial, though the technology is required by other countries, including the United States. Nokia-Siemens continues to provide services to two cellphone companies in Iran, company spokesman Ben Roome said. "We certainly think that providing telecom equipment is a force for good," Mr Roome said.

Wärtsilä Corporation has built power plants in Iran and in 2002 supplied engines for Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line (IRISL) container ships. IRISL is a state-owned shipping company later blacklisted by the United States for facilitating the transfer of military cargo to Iran. Wärtsilä has received federal contracts to provide engine parts to the Coast Guard. A Wärtsilä spokesman, Atte Palomäki, said that the company operates in full compliance with sanctions.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/03/06/world/iran-sanctions.html

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Human-flesh search engines have become a Chinese phenomenon: they are a form of online vigilante justice in which internet users hunt down and punish people who have attracted their wrath. The goal is to get the targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town. It is crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online -- with offline results.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Human-t.html?pagewanted=print

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Glottopedia is a freely editable encyclopedia for linguists by linguists that is currently being built up. It will contain dictionary articles on all technical terms of linguistics and is multilingual. In addition, there are survey articles, biographical articles and language articles, potentially on all linguists and all languages.

http://www.glottopedia.de/

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Tommy Westphall was an austistic child on the television series St Elsewhere who, it was revealed in the closing moments of the final episode of that series, had dreamt the entire run of the show. Tommy's mind is a tricky thing to decipher.

St Elsewhere has direct connections to twelve other television series, many of them direct crossovers of character to and from the series. Others make mention of specific parts of St Elsewhere, placing them within the same fictional sphere.

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~kwgow/crossovers.html

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