Here's the take on the NASA drunken scandal from the BBC POV:

By Irene Klotz Cape Canaveral, Florida

Deputy administrator Shana Dale said addressing the problems would take time

Investigations into both of Nasa's fatal shuttle accidents determined that workers were often discouraged, even ostracised, for raising safety concerns or voicing objections.

Unfortunate, if true, because it means NASA hasn't learned it's lesson, despite several tragedies. 

link to the article

And rightly so, I might add. 

But the ISC report reveals aspects of the usually close Anglo-American intelligence relationship that are "surprising and concerning".

These tensions have centred on the evolving US policy of rendition - the transferring detainees from one country to another, in some cases to stand trial, in other cases to US military detention or even to third countries for interrogation - and its alleged mistreatment.

This policy has meant that for British intelligence "ethical dilemmas are not confined to countries with poor track records on human rights - the UK now has some ethical dilemmas with our closest ally " because of "very different legal guidelines and ethical approaches".

Remember, you are what you do in the dark.

link to the entire article 

I never thought I’d say this, but I have to admit I agree with Mitt Romney, Mormon, Republican Presidential candidate, about at least one policy proposal….that there be sex education in schools beginning with kindergarten. I will grant you that it’s not his proposal, but Barack Obama’s. And don’t pay lots of attention to the recent press reports that have Romney slamming Obama for this policy. In 2002, while the Governor of Massachusetts, Romney supported the same concept. He’s only recently changed his mind.

Sex Education for 5 year olds, you say?! The euphemism is ‘age-appropriate’, but if you think about it, what sex education would you offer a 5 year old? How about, ‘inappropriate touching’ discussions? I’d certainly support that information tidbit for my own child, although I’m not Catholic, so it would probably be information that is never used. But I do feel there is a place for some amount of education for all children. And sadly, some parents today won’t be dependable sources of that information for their own kids. In some cases it is by neglect, or embarrassment, but in some also, the parents were never given this education themselves, and have no information to pass on to their children. Jus another way in which our abysmal school systems have failed us. Too little sex education for too long.

I've tried very hard to live my life according to this maxim. It means, of course, that your own morality and trustworthiness are only as good as your actions when you think no one will find out. Which is why, at first blush, I read an article like this one from BBC and ask, "Why not? If you're out in public, and anyone can see you, why not a cop?"

"Bit by bit vast computer databases are being made inter-operable and yet the government seems to be running scared of a full and public debate on the safeguards needed to make such information sharing acceptable."

The experience of the last few weeks has shown that this is a necessary tool to combat the threat of alleged vehicle-born terrorism Home Office spokesman

He added: "The government appears to be using the London cameras as a Trojan Horse to secure unprecedented access to information on car drivers' movements without full public scrutiny or debate."

On Tuesday, the Home Office announced that anti-terror officers in London would be exempted from parts of the Data Protection Act.

The Metropolitan Police previously had to apply for access to congestion charge data on a case-by-case basis.

link to the whole article 

So tell me please, why should I be concerned about privacy on the public roads? I know there is a reason I just don't remember it right now. 

I don't like to copy and paste large amounts of text. I usually give the gist of the link, and the link, and trust that you will follow it if you so desire. But Hannah Lobel has hit the nail so on-the-head, I'm breaking from form and copying more than usual. Read, think about this, and do something. It truly IS important, but you've probably got the wrong idea about what needs to be done......

America's strange breed of isolationism and interventionism didn't begin with Bush, however, and it's not likely to end with him unless there's a major shift in priorities. If the intention is to create an international reputation that can transcend any one leader and survive a rapidly changing global landscape, a more foundational transformation is necessary--one that requires the American people and their politicians to rethink the way they see the world and their place in it.

"One notable constant in American history is our lack of awareness of the rest of the world--or, if we're aware, our indifference to whether we've got the world right," Cullen Murphy writes in Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).

Murphy diagnoses this myopia as the recurrence of an ancient affliction known as Omphalos syndrome: the misguided belief that one's polity is the center, or navel (omphalos), of the world. For Rome, it was a malignant condition that, among other things, blinded the city-state to a fatal external threat: the Hun conquests that drove hordes of displaced barbarians to Rome's gates.

Today, America's narcissism has blinded its citizens to a host of looming dangers, including the spread of infectious diseases, the reality of climate change, and the tinderbox of troubles in failed states. What's more, Murphy writes, we've fallen prey to "the conviction that assertions of will can trump assessments of reality: the world is the way we say it is."

 We've seen the disastrous consequences of this refusal to acknowledge reality in Iraq, from the administration's flowers-in-the-street postinvasion plan to its unyielding faith that a few thousand extra troops can put the lid back on a civil war. More generally, this perspective has skewed Americans into believing that we are the world's moral center as well as its power center.

"We see ourselves as selfless, as adopting positions that represent only a higher good," writes veteran diplomatic negotiator Dennis Ross in Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007). Such pretense is not only radically out of step with the way the world sees us in the wake of Abu Ghraib; it's perilous for practical purposes as well. "If we act only out of a higher purpose," Ross explains, "how easy is it to compromise with those who don't?"

In a world where the line between domestic and global problems is evaporating--where pandemics brewing in chicken coops in Asia can land on our runways, where the greenhouse gases belching from our SUVs dry up Africa's arable land--we'll have to step down from the moral high ground to reality. We'll need to work with others, listen to their ideas, and sometimes follow their lead.

That will undoubtedly be a tough sell for a populace reared on a national messianism that reaches far beyond the "Proud to Be an American" set. Even well-meaning liberals like Senators John Kerry and Dianne Feinstein parrot the refrain that we must restore our moral authority. But such an imperative is undermined by the very claim to superiority it presumes. Our moral compass certainly needs resetting, but our efforts should be calibrated to reestablish our moral credibility. That way, when we need to call on the world--for our own security or for those in Darfur--we'll not only be heard, we'll be believed.

the entire article 

this should put an end to speculation that concern over global warming is useless and man's contribution is negligible:

By Richard Black BBC Environment Correspondent

Scientists have been measuring the frequency of solar flares

It shows that for the last 20 years, the Sun's output has declined, yet temperatures on Earth have risen.

It also shows that modern temperatures are not determined by the Sun's effect on cosmic rays, as has been claimed.

link 

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy (AP) -- Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

link to article by Nicole Winfield

I cannot believe that God is exclusive. And thank you, Pope Benedict XVI, for helping to prove what I have written here before: Religion = bad, Spirituality = good.

When you step back and look at the evolution of religion, note that at the beginning of Christianity the world was flat. Indeed, a millennium and more would pass before the first men would think different. Hundreds of years after the acceptance of a round planet, we are now awakening to the interconnectedness of it all, how my driving a car in California can actually impact the quality of life for someone in Thailand, half a world away. And as I have posited before, I submit that on the deepest levels, we are all part of the One, just another manifestation of the Universal All, connected and part of the same Spirit that you may choose to call God. That being the case, and that being the ultimate reality, how can you defend the separation the Church demands? How can you say, I win and get to go to Heaven, you lose and go to Hellfire and Brimstone for eternity? How can you say that only 144,000 will be redeemed? How can you call yourself the Chosen People? How can you kill another because they aren’t of your village/nation/religion? It makes no sense, people, and it feels wrong. Do unto others, if for no other reason than this: you are truly doing unto yourself. We are One.

Grow beyond your petty religion, embrace what you feel to be true.

Being so close to Burma (I refuse to call it Myanmar, as requested by the bloody dictatorship) for so much of the last few years, I am always fascinated by books about life inside this impoverished country. That's what led me to pick this book up in the first place. But I couldn't put it down, once I started reading, because of Karen Connelly's masterful storytelling. It ends up being a tale of the human condition that could occur in any solitary prisoner situation. I cried during the ending....the departure scenes will break your heart, full of hope and sadness at the same time. If you know nothing of living under a military government, or nothing about life in a prison in a third world country, this book will open your eyes. If you care to read about love and compassion and hope in the midst of utter despair, this book fills that need. My only regret is the author leaves no clue how an American like me can be of any service to the people in Burma who are living this tale today, even as you read this.

perhaps cigarettes was a poor choice to use, concerning the unhealthy aspects of Chinese manufacturing. So here's another bit on a product more mundane, drinking water. I only point out these issues because it is interesting to see a new economy expanding rapidly, as the American economy did decades ago, and to observe a similar 'learning curve' take place. How soon before there is a Chinese FDA that will regulate traditional herbal medicines there? Of course we'd not be hearing about any of this, were it not for the fact that we are now at risk by their lack of oversight. But so much of what American consumers purchase today comes from this (relatively) unregulated system, we need to be concerned. The May 24, 2007 Newsweek magazine included an article about American companies that have outsourced work to China, and now are opposing labor reform there. Would they also oppose greater governmental oversight of their product safety? One would hope not, but anything that potentially hits the bottom line, like ensuring product safety, may be fair game. So until the Chinese have an FDA like ours, don't buy their bottled water:

Counterfeit Barreled Water Halves Beijing Market - Beijing Times

Posted by Michael Zhao :: 2007-07-09, 05:20 AM :: Society

Another sort of water crisis, this time maybe not deadly though. Translated from Beijing Times via sina.com (photo: see which is fake? answer in the end of story):

Beijing's bottled water professionals spill the secret that half of Beijing's bottled water is counterfeit, numbering more than 100 million barrels a year, worth 1 billion yuan. The big four brands, Wahaha, Robust, Nestle and Yanjing, with a combined annual sales of 25-30 million bottles, are the major targets of counterfeiting.

The bottled water market started up in 1997 and by 2002 the counterfeit products, also knonwn as No. 2 water, accounted for only 20%. In five years, counterfeits sweep half of Beijing. A Guangdong water firm tried to make in to Beijing but only learned it was impossible: over 1,000 water stations it approached to work with tried to teach its employees how to counterfeit. [left glass is fake, middle is tap water and right is genuine bottled water. Not much of a difference huh?]

Americans.....China thinks we are whiners? 

Chinese Product Safety of Little Concern in Burma
By Shah Paung and Sai Silp
July 6, 2007

A business journalist in Rangoon told The Irrawaddy o­n Friday that most people in Burma regularly buy Chinese products because of their cheap price and growing availability.

“People don't worry whether its quality is good or not," he said. "The most used products are consuming items, electronic materials and farm equipment.”

link