22 Sep 2005
In Place Where the Hungry Are Fed, Farmers May Starve

Gosh, I seem to remember talking about this a couple of months ago ...

A torrent of food aid from Western donors that was intended to save lives could ruin the harvest for many of Niger's farmers by driving down prices.

(link) [NYT > Home Page]

00:00 /Agriculture | 0 comments | permanent link

Giants, Ancient and Modern

The Cerene Abbas Giant in Dorset

Ginat Pink Bunny on Italian hillside

00:00 /Humor | 0 comments | permanent link

Copyright Lawsuit Targets Google

I can't understand the objections raised by the authors here: how is this any different from a Xerox machine in a library? It's speedier, but that's about it. Will speedy search really kill the publishing industry?

The search giant's bold plan to scan and index books from university libraries hits another obstacle: a lawsuit filed on behalf of 8,000 authors that accuses Google of 'massive copyright infringement.'

(link) [Wired News]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Turkey bans 'genocide' meeting

Sooner or later the Turks are going to have to deal with 1915 - just like the Japanese dealt with Nanking and Unit 731, and the Germans dealt with the Holocaust. We Americans have had to come to grips with all manner of (much more minor, in scale at any rate) war crimes, from My Lai to Abu Ghraib.

Opening up, talking about it and taking action, even if only symbolic, is the way real democracies deal with these kinds of problems: shoving them under the rug and hoping they'll go away is wishful thinking in an open society.

And until the Turks do the Right Thing, I can only suggest that the acronym "EU" will stand for "Extremely Unwelcome" regarding their membership in the continental trade bloc.

A Turkish court bans a symposium aimed at reconsidering the mass killings of Armenians in 1915.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link