America's longest war
http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854412
Aug 31st 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC
From The Economist print edition
A nation once joined together in shock and vulnerability is now riven
by failure and recrimination
ON THE morning of September 12th 2001, Americans woke up to a changed
country. They had seen the twin towers of the World Trade Centre
reduced to rubble, the Pentagon aflame and a field in Pennsylvania
transformed into a graveyard. Almost 3,000 people had been killed and
twice as many injured, in the bloodiest day on American soil since the
battle of Antietam in 1862. They had seen their president-the most
powerful man in the world-flitting from pillar to post. And they had
seen the face of a new enemy. Before September 11th few people even in
the administration had heard of al-Qaeda. After that day there was no
getting away from the images of Osama bin Laden and his agent, Mohammed
Atta.
That September 11th changed America dramatically is hardly open to
debate: George Bush's presidency has been about little else since then.
But some of the changes have been unexpected. Who would have guessed,
as a shocked country rallied round the flag, that five years later
partisan divisions would be deeper than ever? Who would have guessed,
as the president pledged that "the people who knocked these buildings
down will hear all of us soon," that five years later Mr bin Laden
would still be at liberty and America would be bogged down in Iraq?
Life 2.0
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854314
Aug 31st 2006 | BERKELEY, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, AND ROCKVILLE,
MARYLAND
From The Economist print edition
The new science of synthetic biology is poised between hype and hope.
But its time will soon come
IN 1965 few people outside Silicon Valley had heard of Gordon Moore.
For that matter, no one at all had heard of Silicon Valley. The name
did not exist and the orchards of Santa Clara county still brought
forth apples, not Macintoshes. But Mr Moore could already discern the
outlines. For 1965 was the year when he published the paper that gave
birth to his famous "law" that the power of computers, as measured
by the number of transistors that could be fitted on a silicon chip,
would double every 18 months or so.
Four decades later, equally few people have heard of Rob Carlson. Dr
Carlson is a researcher at the University of Washington, and some
graphs of the growing efficiency of DNA synthesis that he drew a few
years ago look suspiciously like the biological equivalent of Moore's
law. By the end of the decade their practical upshot will, if they
continue to hold true, be the power to synthesise a string of DNA the
size of a human genome in a day.
The non-denial of the non-self
http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7854216
Aug 31st 2006
From The Economist print edition
How philosophy can help create secure databases
IN THE 1940s a philosopher called Carl Hempel showed that by
manipulating the logical statement "all ravens are black", you
could derive the equivalent "all non-black objects are non-ravens".
Such topsy-turvy transformations might seem reason enough to keep
philosophers locked up safely on university campuses, where they cannot
do too much damage. However, a number of computer scientists, led by
Fernando Esponda of Yale University, are taking Hempel's notion as the
germ of an eminently practical scheme. They are applying such negative
representations to the problem of protecting sensitive data. The idea
is to create a negative database. Instead of containing the information
of interest, such a database would contain everything except that
information.
The concept of a negative database took shape a couple of years ago,
while Dr Esponda was working at the University of New Mexico with Paul
Helman, another computer scientist, and Stephanie Forrest, an expert on
modelling the human immune system. The important qualification concerns
that word "everything". In practice, that means everything in a
particular set of things.
Goldwater Girl
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/magazine/27wwln_q4.html
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
The senator's granddaughter talks about making a documentary about
him, why Democrats now embrace him and why she isn't a member of the
Republican Party.
How Do You Take a Gun Away?
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/magazine/27wwln_lede.html
By JAMES TRAUB
All disarmaments are political, as we're about to learn in Lebanon.
A Younger India Is Flexing Its Industrial Brawn
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/business/worldbusiness/01rupee.html?ref=world
By KEITH BRADSHER
For decades, India focused on its domestic economy and grew more
slowly. But all that is starting to change.
In Latest Push, Bush Cites Risk in Quitting Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/01/washington/01bush.html?ref=washington&pagewanted=all
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT and SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
President Bush cast the struggle against Islamic extremists as the
successor to the battles against Nazism and Communism.
Scold War Buildup
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101438.html
The Perils of Foreign Policy by Report Card
By John R. Hamilton
Friday, September 1, 2006; Page A21
Attempts to explain the vehemence of anti-U.S. feeling abroad correctly
home in on Iraq and other unpopular policies of the current
administration. But over the past three decades the kudzu-like growth
of another U.S. practice, used by Congress and by Democratic and
Republican administrations alike, has nurtured seething resentment
abroad.
This is what might be called "foreign policy by report card," the
issuing of public assessments of the performance of other countries,
with the threat of economic or political sanctions for those whose
performance, in our view, doesn't make the grade. The overuse of these
mandated reports makes us seem judgmental, moralistic and bullying.
Perfect Storm for the Poor
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101443.html
In Income Data, Something More Damaging Than Katrina
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Friday, September 1, 2006; Page A21
After a week of remembering the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, the most
depressing realization is how easily our leaders forgot their fervent
promises to lift up our nation's poorest citizens.
All manner of politicians and columnists said in Katrina's wake that
this was the time to revisit the problems of the destitute. The anguish
of the people of New Orleans's Lower Ninth Ward would have at least
some redemptive power if the country took poverty seriously again.
As Lebanon's Troops Deploy, Hezbollah Stays Put in South
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101574_pf.html
Across the Region, Militia and Army Operate in Parallel
By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, September 1, 2006; A11
AL GHANDOURIYEH, Lebanon, Aug. 31 -- Backed by an M113 armored
personnel carrier, Lebanese soldiers wearing flak vests and carrying
M16 automatic rifles manned a checkpoint at the little crossroads
marking the entrance to Al Ghandouriyeh.
On a decorative archway nearby, the Lebanese flag with its distinctive
green cedar flapped proudly, proclaiming restored national authority.
Just above it on the pole, however, another flag flew: the yellow and
green banner of Hezbollah, with an AK-47 assault rifle depicted atop
the word "God." The arrangement seemed to illustrate popular sentiment
in this heavily damaged village in southern Lebanon.
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