Auyang, Sunny Y., How is Quantum Field Theory Possible?, Oxford University Press 1995 Jacket: 'Quantum field theory (QFT) combines quantum mechanics with Einstein's special theory of relativity and underlies elementary particle physics. This book presents a philosophical analysis of QFT. It is the first treatise in which the philosophies of space-time, quantum phenomena and particle interactions are encompassed in a unified framework.' 
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Bergson, Henri, Creative Evolution, General Books LLC 2009 'Long absent from the center of discussion in Western philosophy, Bergson has recently made a reappearance. The Centennial Series of his works undertaken by Palgrave Macmillan thus comes at an opportune time, making it possible for those interested in Bergson's ideas t have access to newly annotated versions of several of his chief writings, freshly introduced and discussed. It is particularly good to see the republication of Mind-Energy, a treasure trove of Bergsonian insights long out of print.' - Pete A.Y. Gunter, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of North Texas 
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Cheney, Margaret, Tesla: Man out of Time, Touchstone 2001 Jacket: 'In Tesla: Man Out of Time Margaret Cheneyexplores the brilliant and prescient mind of the twentieth century's greatest scientist and inventor.  
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Christie, Agatha, Taken at the Flood, Collins Crime 2000  
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Feynman (2005), Richard Phillips, Feynman's Thesis: A New Approach to Quantum Mechanics, World Scientific Publishing Company 2005 Amazon editorial review: 'Editorial Reviews Review 'The young Feynman revealed here was full of invention, verve, and ambition. His new approach to quantum mechanics, after simmering for decades beneath the surface of theoretical physics, burst into new prominence in the 1970s. Now its influence is pervasive, and still expanding. Feynman's original presentation is not only uniquely clear, but also contains insights and perspectives that are not widely known, and might well provide ammunition for another explosion or two.' Frank Wilczek 
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Fortun, Mike, and Herbert J Bernstein, Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the Twenty-First Century, Counterpoint 1998 Amazon editorial review: 'Does science discover truths or create them? Does dioxin cause cancer or not? Is corporate-sponsored research valid or not? Although these questions reflect the way we're used to thinking, maybe they're not the best way to approach science and its place in our culture. Physicist Herbert J. Bernstein and science historian Mike Fortun, both of the Institute for Science and Interdisciplinary Studies (ISIS), suggest a third way of seeing, beyond taking one side or another, in Muddling Through: Pursuing Science and Truths in the 21st Century. While they deal with weighty issues and encourage us to completely rethink our beliefs about science and truth, they do so with such grace and humor that we follow with ease discussions of toxic-waste disposal, the Human Genome Project, and retooling our language to better fit the way science is actually done.' 
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Grgin, Emile, The Algebra of Quantions: A Unifying Number System for Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, AuthorHouse 2005 Amazon Product Description 'Quantum mechanics and relativity have been in structural conflict for eighty years. This work shows that the incompatibility in question stems only from the assumption that their unification must be based on the field of complex numbers. Dropping this assumption, one can derive a simple mathematical structure which subsumes both theories as special cases. While the idea of generalizing the number system of quantum mechanics to make structural room for relativity is very old, no attempt has been successful in the past. The novelty brought out in the present work is based on a self-evident observation: there is no reason to expect the development of mathematics and physics to be synchronized in a manner that would keep the former forever one step ahead of the latter. More specifically, if a new number system seems to be needed in physics, there is no reason to believe that this system already belongs to our mathematical heritage.This observation changes the nature of the problem from 'finding' a unifying number system among the algebras already studied by mathematicians, to 'discovering' it ab initio from the requirement that it should lead to a structural merging of quantum mechanics and relativity. The solution, named "algebra of quantions", is derived in this book from several viewpoints, together with proofs of its mathematical uniqueness. Its physical relevance stems from the fact that the Standard Model depends less on observations if formulated over the quantions. This work is a philosophical and technical introduction to the algebra of quantions, to quantionic analysis, and to quantionic field equations.' 
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Latifa, My Forbidden face: Growing Up Under the Taliban: A Young Woman's Story, Miramax 2003 Amazon review From Booklist 'Latifa was only 16 when the Taliban overran Kabul, changing her life dramatically. On the morning of September 26, 1996--the day the Taliban took Kabul--Latifa, her sister, Soraya, and their father drove to Aryana Square and saw the body of the murdered former president, Najibullah. The Taliban began issuing edicts, forbidding women to leave their houses without a close male relative to escort them; forcing them to wear chadris, which cover their entire bodies; and refusing to allow them to work. Latifa, Soraya, and their mother suffered greatly, falling into depression. Their mother, a doctor, continued to see patients secretly, and Latifa eventually started an underground school for girls, an action that put both her and her students at great risk. Latifa and her parents left Afghanistan to be interviewed by the French magazine Elle, but when they tried to return, they discovered that the Taliban had declared them enemies of the state. A moving firsthand account with a real sense of immediacy.' Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. 
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Nielsen, Michael A, and Isaac L Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information, Cambridge University Press 2000 Review: A rigorous, comprehensive text on quantum information is timely. The study of quantum information and computation represents a particularly direct route to understanding quantum mechanics. Unlike the traditional route to quantum mechanics via Schroedinger's equation and the hydrogen atom, the study of quantum information requires no calculus, merely a knowledge of complex numbers and matrix multiplication. In addition, quantum information processing gives direct access to the traditionally advanced topics of measurement of quantum systems and decoherence.' Seth Lloyd, Department of Quantum Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Nature 6876: vol 416 page 19, 7 March 2002. 
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Park, David Allen, Introduction to the Quantum Theory, McGraw-Hill Book Company 1992  
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Polanyi, Michael, and Amaryta Sen (foreword), The Tacit Dimension, University Of Chicago Press 1966, 2009 Amazon product description: '“I shall reconsider human knowledge by starting from the fact that we can know more than we can tell,” writes Michael Polanyi, whose work paved the way for the likes of Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper. The Tacit Dimension argues that tacit knowledge—tradition, inherited practices, implied values, and prejudgments—is a crucial part of scientific knowledge. Back in print for a new generation of students and scholars, this volume challenges the assumption that skepticism, rather than established belief, lies at the heart of scientific discovery.' 
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Veltman, Martinus, Diagrammatica: The Path to the Feynman Rules, Cambridge University Press 1994 Jacket: 'This book provides an easily accessible introduction to quantum field theory via Feynman rules and calculations in particle physics. The aim is to make clear what the physical foundations of present-day field theory are, to clarify the physical content of Feynman rules, and to outline their domain of applicability. ... The book includes valuable appendices that review some essential mathematics, including complex spaces, matrices, the CBH equation, traces and dimensional regularization. ...' 
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Veltman, Martinus, Facts and Mysteries in Elementary Particle Physics, World Scientific 2003 'Introduction: The twentieth century has seen an enormous progress in physics. The fundamental physics of the first half of the century was dominated by the theory of relativity, Einstein's theory of gravitation and the theory of quantum mechanics. The second half of the century saw the rise of elementary particle physics. . . . Through this development there has been a subtle change in point of view. In Einstein's theory space and time play an overwhelming dominant role. . . . The view that we would like to defend can perhaps best be explaned by an analogy. To us, space-time and the laws of quantum mechanics are like the decor, the setting of a play. The elementary articles are the actors, and physics is what they do. . . . Thus in this book the elementary particles are the central objects.' 
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Active intellect - Wikipedia, Active intellect - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The nature of the active intellect was the subject of intense discussion in medieval philosophy, as various Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers sought to reconcile their commitment to Aristotle's account of the body and soul to their own theological commitments. At stake in particular was in what way Aristotle's account of an incorporeal soul might contribute to understanding of the nature of eternal life.' back

Al Jazeera and Agencies, Diwali 2020: When and how is it celebrated, ' Diwali, also known as the festival of lights, is the biggest festival celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists around the world. Hindus celebrate the triumph of good over evil – of light over darkness – to mark the return of Ram, the lord of virtue, to his kingdom after 14 years of exile. Followers of Jainism commemorate Mahavira, a venerated ascetic who fundamentally reformed the faith, reaching a state of nirvana after his death. Sikhs use Diwali to mark the anniversary of the release from prison of Guru Hargobind in 1619. For Buddhists, this day represents the time Emperor Ashoka gave up everything and adopted a path of peace after going through bloodshed and death. The day is observed as Ashok Vijayadashami.' back

Annabel Crabb, The fight between being and nothingness, 'Several weeks ago, the Thatcher archive finally released the speech the Iron Lady had been planning to give at that 1984 conference. It was an unprecedentedly savage attack on the Labour Party, laced with personal abuse and contumely. The speech she actually gave, hastily rewritten in the rubble, was eminently more gracious. Even Britain's immortal political warrior knew that in the face of a shared new enemy, old enemies must sometimes call a truce.' back

Ari Mattes, Reflections of Paris: technics and terrorism in Vision Culture, 'The entire event-complex is, of course, deeply sad for the families of the dead – all of the dead, including the families of the perpetrators – and this, hopefully, elicits the empathy of those not directly affected. But the event’s revelation of the inability of the majority of public figures to think in terms of systems and history – to think dynamically, and to see and understand the relationships between different forces, political, economic, cultural and geographic – is a source of profound despair regarding the global future.' back

Carol Giacomo, What the Saudis Miss When They Focus on Iran, 'I visited the region last month, shortly after a gunman linked to an Islamic State affiliate killed five people at a meeting hall associated with a mosque in the city of Shaihat. On Wednesday in the same city, gunmen killed two members of the Saudi security forces. Many Shiite residents, already alienated from the government, are fearful. “They feel they are being targeted for their faith,” a Saudi journalist said. The Saudis’ Wahhabi version of Islam, which underpins the conservative government and society, considers Shiites infidels, and anti-Shiite propaganda is common.' back

Carol Rumens, Poem of the week: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám , ' The coming year [2009] is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edward FitzGerald; so, as the year turns, what better celebration than some stanzas from his free translation of that great meditation on life's transience, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám? . . .
Though initially published as an anonymous pamphlet, once the Rubáiyát was discovered by Rossetti, Swinburne and others, it swiftly became famous. It is said that its effect on Victorian England was no less considerable than that of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, published in the same year, 1859.' . back

CREA, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, ' We are a new independent research organisation focused on revealing the trends, causes, and health impacts, as well as the solutions to air pollution. Health-harming pollutants from burning fossil fuels are responsible for at least 3 million air pollution deaths per year. However, rapid advances in modern, clean energy technologies are a key opportunity to improve air quality and protect public health. We use scientific data, research and evidence to support the efforts of governments, companies and campaigning organizations worldwide in their efforts to move towards clean energy and clean air. We believe that effective research and communication are the key to successful policies, investment decisions and advocacy efforts.' back

Dan Murtagh & Karoline Kan, China Must Ban New Coal Power Plants to Meet 2060 Goal: Report, ' China’s coal power fleet, already more than 1,000 gigawatts strong, is underutilized and already includes dozens of redundant plants, researchers from Draworld Environment Research Center and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said in the report. The country should aim to whittle its coal fleet down to about 680 gigawatts by 2030, instead of plans by some in the industry to expand it to about 1,300 gigawatts. With solar and wind power quickly becoming as cheap or cheaper than coal, such an building spree could result in more than 2 trillion yuan ($304 billion) in stranded assets, said Zhang Shuwei, Draworld’s chief economist and the report’s lead author.' back

David Dodwell, Multilateralism is alive and well in Asia, no thanks to Donald Trump and 'America First', ' . . . despite four years of relentless US efforts to reject multilateral cooperation, the rest of the world has held firm in the conviction that collaboration is in everyone’s best interest, and that other economies’ prosperity is not at our expense, but in our mutual interest. Within the 21-economy Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, leaders have stood firm, 20 against one, in support of the rules-based multilateral system and the proposition that free and open trade and investment is a net positive for us all.' back

Dennis Muller, Courting the chameleon: how the US election reveals Rupert Murdoch's political colours, ' Joe Biden’s victory in the US presidential election raises a perennial question about what Rupert Murdoch does when the candidate he has opposed wins. Answer: He adapts and he waits. Electoral cycles last three, four or five years. Murdoch has been wielding power for five decades. Murdoch is a chameleon. It is true that when political and business conditions are favourable he glows brightly in blood-red conservatism. But when, as now, conditions are uncertain, the colour dims and takes on a more complex hue. . . . Reactionary ideology is important to Murdoch, but not as important as making money.' back

Eugene Wigner, The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, 'The first point is that the enormous usefulness of mathematics in the natural sciences is something bordering on the mysterious and that there is no rational explanation for it. Second, it is just this uncanny usefulness of mathematical concepts that raises the question of the uniqueness of our physical theories.' back

Francis Fukuyama, We still don't understand Trumpism, ' The single most confounding thing about the Trump era is that we still do not really understand why more than 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, and why there remains a smaller core of fanatical supporters who will believe anything he says—most recently, that he won the election but that it is being stolen through voter fraud. Over the past several years, a legion of explanations for the Trump phenomenon have been put forward—that it is a backlash against the inequalities created by globalization, that it represents the fear of white voters fearing a loss of power and prestige, that is has been generated by social media companies, that it reflects a huge social divide between people living in big cities and those in smaller communities, that it is based on level of education, and so on. All of these factors are probably true to some extent, but none of them adequately explains the fear and loathing evident on the right in America today. There is a qualitative change in the nature of partisanship that conventional explanations fail to capture, reflected in poll data showing that a majority of Republican voters believe some version of QAnon theories about Democrats drinking children’s blood. Nor have I seen a good explanation for why so many conservatives can see such an imperfect vessel as Trump as the object of cultlike worship, or fear the Democrats as the embodiment of Satan. At the end of Trump’s term, what I’ve learned is that I really don’t understand America well at all.' back

George Monbiot, There's a population crisi alright> But probably not the one you think, 'So let’s turn to a population crisis over which we do have some influence. I’m talking about the growth in livestock numbers. Human numbers are rising at roughly 1.2% a year, while livestock numbers are rising at around 2.4% a year. By 2050 the world’s living systems will have to support about 120m tonnes of extra humans, and 400m tonnes of extra farm animals. Raising these animals already uses three-quarters of the world’s agricultural land. A third of our cereal crops are used to feed livestock: this may rise to roughly half by 2050. More people will starve as a result, because the poor rely mainly on grain for their subsistence, and diverting it to livestock raises the price.' back

Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, 'The primary premise of the Alliance is that in order to insure an environmentally sustainable future, humans must reorient themselves from an exploitative and ultimately self-destructive relationship with nature, to one that honors the deep interrelation of all life and contributes to the health and integrity of the natural environment. An essential step in achieving this is to create a system of jurisprudence that sees and treats nature as a fundamental, rights bearing entity and not as mere property to be exploited at will.' back

Hawking radiation - Wikipedia, Hawking radiation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Hawking radiation is blackbody radiation that is predicted to be released by black holes, due to quantum effects near the event horizon. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who provided a theoretical argument for its existence in 1974. . . . A black hole of one solar mass (M☉) has a temperature of only 60 nanokelvins (60 billionths of a kelvin); in fact, such a black hole would absorb far more cosmic microwave background radiation than it emits. A black hole of 4.5×10²² kg (about the mass of the Moon, or about 133 μm across) would be in equilibrium at 2.7 K, absorbing as much radiation as it emits. Yet smaller primordial black holes would emit more than they absorb and thereby lose mass.' back

Henri Bergson - Wikipedia, Henri Bergson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Henri-Louis Bergson (. . . 18 October 1859–4 January 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century.' back

Jim Holt, Nothing Ventured, 'In 1935, around the time he began proclaiming that Hitler would rescue the German people from their forgetfulness of Being, Heidegger declared "Why is there something rather than nothing?" to be the deepest and most far-reaching of all questions. Each of us, he claimed, is "grazed...by its hidden power" at least once in our lives, whether we realize it or not: The question looms in moments of great despair, when things tend to lose all their weight and all meaning becomes obscured....It is present in moments of rejoicing, when all things around us are transfigured and seem to be there for the first time, as if it might be easier to think they are not than to understand that they are and are as are. The question is upon us in boredom, when we are equally removed from despair and joy, and everything about us seems so hopelessly commonplace that we no longer care whether anything is or is not... ' back

John Henry Newman, The Dream of Gerontius, ' The dedication of "The Dream of Gerontius" reads, in English: "To the Most Beloved Brother, John Joseph Gordon, Priest of the Order of St. Philip de Neri, whose soul is in the Place of Refreshment. All Souls' Day, 1865." The Rev. John Joseph Gordon, of the Oratory, was very dear to Newman, and his death was a great blow to him. But of all the Oratorians, the Cardinal especially loved Father Ambrose St. John, whose name he accentuates on the last page of the "Apologia." Father St. John, who was of the Gordon family, died in 1875, and Newman suffered what he held to be his saddest bereavement. Ambrose St. John had been with him at Littlemore. Writing to Mr. Dering of the death of Father Ambrose St. John, he said: "I never had so great a loss. He had been my life under God for twenty-two years." The dread of dying alone and the deep affection for friends—an affection that reaches the throne of God by prayer—tinge the whole structure of "The Dream." They are part of Newman himself.' back

Joshua Robertson, Sex abuse victimes struggle for justive in Brisbane's web of powerful interests, 'Archbishop Phillip Aspinall has signalled the church will refund considerable fees paid to St Paul’s by victims of abuse by Lynch and Knight. But Aspinall indicated to the commission that the church, even when it was willing to take a less combative tack with victims in legal proceedings, had scarcely any more opportunity to do so while “trapped” by the terms of their insurance contracts. Aspinall said there was an inherent conflict when insurers with commercial interests acted for a school or a church that wished to “express care and concern for the survivor without voiding its insurance cover”. Worse still, he saw no way “that conflict can be resolved”. This means that churches and schools, regardless of any willingness to own up to their failures, remain captive to commercial imperatives that turn the handling of historical sexual abuse complaints into a ' back

Jotam Confino, Noam Chomsky: 'White Supremacy Is a Deep Principle in U.S. Society - and Jews Are Famliar With That', ' “Trump has managed to tap into poisonous currents that are right below the surface in American life, culture and history – to simply extract and magnify the poison. And that’s what he has been running on. White supremacy is a deep principle in American society and culture. And Jews are familiar with that. I’m old enough to remember overt antisemitism in the streets. But the anti-Black racism is much more extreme,” he opines.' back

Kamel Daoud, Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It, 'Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it. The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.' back

Laila Lalami, When terror strikes, Saudi Arabia evades responsibility, 'When I was a child in Morocco, no clerics told me what to do, what to read or not read, what to believe, what to wear. And if they did, I was free not to listen. Faith was more than its conspicuous manifestations. But things began to change in the 1980s. It was the height of the Cold War and Arab tyrants saw an opportunity: they could hold on to power indefinitely by repressing the dissidents in their midst – most of them secular leftists – and by encouraging the religious right wing, with tacit or overt approval from the US and other Western allies. Into the void created by the decimation of the Arab world's secular left, the Wahhabis stepped in, with almost unlimited financial resources. Wahhabi ideas spread throughout the region, not because they have any merit – they don't – but because they were and remain well funded. We cannot defeat IS without defeating the Wahhabi theology that birthed it. And to do so would require spending as much effort and money in defending liberal ideas.' back

Linearity - Wikipedia, Linearity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' In mathematics, a linear map or linear function f(x) is a function that satisfies the two properties:[1] Additivity: f(x + y) = f(x) + f(y). Homogeneity of degree 1: f(αx) = α f(x) for all α. These properties are known as the superposition principle. In this definition, x is not necessarily a real number, but can in general be an element of any vector space.' back

Luke Kemp, Explainer: how the OECD agreement dealsanother blow to coal worldwide, 'The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have agreed to limit subsidies for the export of inefficient coal-fired power plant technologies. Export credit funding will be limited to coal-fired power generators using only the most efficient, and least polluting, “ultra-supercritical” technologies. The deal will come into force in January 2017 and be reviewed in 2019. . . . Australia unfortunately continued its role as a climate laggard by negotiating for the inclusion of a clause allowing for exceptions. back

Martin Powers, From China, France and Thomas Jefferson: history lessons for Donald Trump and Republicans on aristocratic excess, ' ' “Let the constitution of a government be what it will, if there is but one man in it exempt from the laws, all the other members must necessarily be at his discretion.” Perhaps we should thank US President Donald Trump for demonstrating the truth of 18th-century French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s insight. Buoyed by “presidential immunity” – a mere supposition, not a law – Trump has shown us how easily a reality television star can render the world’s leading democracy powerless to check even the most blatant abuses.. . .
If the Republican Party can destroy the very meaning of “office” with its built-in checks, it is not only the president who will remain above the law. The entire party, and only that party, will enjoy that privilege. The West will have returned to what The Atlantic calls “quasi-monarchical” rule, leaving others to remember what it means to govern for public benefit.' back

Pat McConnell, 21st Century bank fraud demands a new generation of IT experts, 'It would seem that the world is vastly infested with dodgy code, a lot of it hiding behind the shield of ‘intellectual property’, ‘commercial in confidence’ etc etc. Code functions very like law, and despite the efforts of many dodgy lawmakers in Australia and elsewhere, it is a well established principle that the text of laws will be publicly available and that the High Court has the last say on what the words actually mean and whether the meaning is constitutionally acceptable. The law, in other words, is ‘open source’. Maybe it is time to implement this principle in all code which effects human health, safety and security, the stability of the financial system and in fact everything which impacts on the public welfare. If all this code was open source, millions of skilled eyes could go over it and alert the rest of it to deliberate or unintentional dodginess. It would seem, for instance, that there are forests of errors in the code employed by our governments in their efforts to get into the cybercentury while being too stingy to employ properly qualified software engineers to design and build their systems, eg http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/consumer-security/taxpayer-records-exposed-by-serious-ato-mygov-security-flaw-20151117-gl1kex' Jeffrey Nichols comment back

Path integral formulation - Wikipedia, Path integral formulation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The path integral formulation of quantum mechanics is a description of quantum theory which generalizes the action principle of classical mechanics. It replaces the classical notion of a single, unique trajectory for a system with a sum, or functional integral, over an infinity of possible trajectories to compute a quantum amplitude. . . . This formulation has proved crucial to the subsequent development of theoretical physics, since it provided the basis for the grand synthesis of the 1970s which unified quantum field theory with statistical mechanics. . . . ' back

Politico Magazine, What Trump Shows Us About America, ' With four years of Trump nearly behind us, Politico Magazine asked a group of smart political and cultural observers to tell us what big, new insight this era has given them about America—and what that insight means for the country’s future. . . .
“The house always wins,” one wrote. And then there was this conclusion from another contributor: “At the end of Trump’s term, what I’ve learned is that I really don’t understand America well at all (Francis Fukuyama).” ' back

Sverre Spoelstra, Coronavirus has put scientists in the frame alongside politicians and poses questions of leadership, ' If there’s one thing we’ve got used to in the pandemic, it’s seeing our political leaders on TV standing next to scientists. So striking is the impact of scientists on policy that it has become hard to see such figures as anything other than leaders working alongside, rather than simply for, politicians.
The Swedish state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell is a noteworthy example. His popularity in Sweden has reached levels normally beyond even the most popular political leaders. . . .
The US provides another interesting example of a scientist taking on a leadership role. Dr Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease specialist and an important White House adviser, became a de facto leader for large parts of the population during the crisis.' back

Tamara Tulich, National security bill opens the door to expanded control orders and secret evidence, What is new in the anti-terror context is legislation that allows the courts to rely on secret evidence in control order proceedings. . . . UK Supreme Court justice Lord Kerr made the following comments in a case about secret evidence: The central fallacy of the argument, however, lies in the unspoken assumption that, because the judge sees everything, he is bound to be in a better position to reach a fair result. That assumption is misplaced. To be truly valuable, evidence must be capable of withstanding challenge. I go further. Evidence which has been insulated from challenge may positively mislead.' back

Ted Lefroy and Benjamin Richardson, We quibble over 'lawfare', but the law is not protecting species properly anyway, 'An alternative vision that evokes Christopher Stone’s ideal is beginning to find legal expression in some countries, such as New Zealand, where a long dispute between the government and Maori over management of a major river concluded in 2012 with an historic agreement that the Whanganui River is a legal person, with its own rights. Two guardians, one appointed by the local Maori iwi and the other by the government, will protect the river’s interests forever.' back

The Ant and the Grasshopper - Wikipedia, The Ant and the Grasshopper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Synopsis The fable concerns a grasshopper who has spent the warm months singing away while the ant (or ants in some editions) worked to store up food for winter. When winter arrives, the grasshopper finds itself dying of hunger, and upon asking the ant for food is only rebuked for its idleness. The story is used to teach the virtues of hard work and saving, and the perils of improvidence. Some versions of the fable state a moral at the end, along the lines of: "Idleness brings want", "To work today is to eat tomorrow" or "It is best to prepare for the days of necessity". back

Tom Orlik & Bjorn Van Roye, An Economist's Guide to the World in 2050, ' The share of global output coming from economies that are “free” or “mostly free” is set to slide from 57% in 2000 to 33% in 2050, based on Bloomberg Economics’ GDP forecasts and the Heritage Foundation’s classification system. The share from those classed as “mostly unfree”—economies with a high degree of state ownership and control—is set to rise from 12% to 43%. . . . Since 2016, the U.S. has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars in Chinese imports, signed a trade agreement that dictates what China should buy, required U.S. firms to obtain a license before selling certain technologies to China and attempted to break up a major Chinese internet firm. In other words: the fear of China’s rise has already begun to turn the U.S. away from free-market principles.' back

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Act 4, Scene 3, 'BRUTUS Under your pardon. You must note beside, That we have tried the utmost of our friends, Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe: The enemy increaseth every day; We, at the height, are ready to decline. There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat; And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures.' back

Wojciech Hubert Zurek, Quantum origin of quantum jumps: breaking of unitary symmetry induced by information transfer and the transition from quantum to classical, 'Submitted on 17 Mar 2007 (v1), last revised 18 Mar 2008 (this version, v3)) Measurements transfer information about a system to the apparatus, and then further on – to observers and (often inadvertently) to the environment. I show that even imperfect copying essential in such situations restricts possible unperturbed outcomes to an orthogonal subset of all possible states of the system, thus breaking the unitary symmetry of its Hilbert space implied by the quantum superposition principle. Preferred outcome states emerge as a result. They provide framework for the “wavepacket collapse”, designating terminal points of quantum jumps, and defining the measured observable by specifying its eigenstates.' back