Sure. A desert in a PENINSULA. Peninsulas tend to have sea shores.

Regarding DNA and the facts, not to worry. Al Qaeda has already confirmed the news.

Tap, tap. End of discussion.

You may think that it’s tea time, but it’s still the Savannah out here.

It seems after ten years of War On Terror they just run out of possibilities.

Another point one begins to notice, when big news strikes, is how completely worthless most of the newspaper columns, media, and their “analysts” are in general. I know this is common knowledge, but it really hits you hard how many of these folks can just be replaced by machines that make words. Before the news hits, they all have some deeply insightful thing to say about something, they all are busy making words to fill the various media. Then the news hits the wire – they are stormed into silence. For a few seconds. Then all of a sudden, they have forgotten whatever great wisdom they were about to impart on the world, all their useless columns of commentary goes down the drain, all their miserably obvious “analysis” is forsaken, and every single medium is suddenly talking about the news that just arrived. And continues to do so, for days.

What worth is the information they wanted to write before (and that they write now), if they are always prisoners of sudden events far away, that have the power to change their course so drastically?

If it is worth being written, it should always be written, no matter what happens.

My thanks to yourself and the other physicists maintaining this wonderful website.

-Ahmed

I’m American, my wife is Dutch. We often have visitors from Holland, visitors of every political stripe. Guess what — Europe appears to be moving in exactly the same direction as the U.S.

Yes, sometimes I need to remind our European visitors that, just because we’re Americans, doesn’t mean we’re stupid. But, let me leave you with a comment I made to a Dutch brother-in-law back in 2000.

He asked how I felt about the newly formed European Union. My reply was, “I hope it succeeds beyond your wildest dreams.” That shocked him and he asked, “I’m surprised you’d say that. Doesn’t the Union threaten the power of the U.S.?” My answer … “If the Union succeeds, the rest of the world has someone else to hate as much as they hate US.” That seems to be what’s happening. America needs to step away from the table a bit, let natural forces run their course, and tend to it’s own business for a change.

History is just that. “History”. Sure there are lessons to be learned from it, but, as humans, we have a record of NOT learning those lessons. We haven’t learned squat from our history. Maybe we need to learn to make better decisions NOW, in the present.

Those 70+80 years make for a very long time, relatively speaking, in the lifetime of a “young” country, after all. I don’t think the statement that the Western European democracies have thrived post-WWII under American protection, nor the assertion that European-style social democracy is threatened by the current financial crisis are particularly arrogant. I think they are statements of uncomfortable fact.

On the other hand, you are 100% correct that the war in Iraq is an unmitigated disaster. Let’s hope it is the apex of post-Cold War American foreign policy arrogance. My original comment was perhaps regrettably worded. However, I bristle at lectures about European civility, and particularly at this idea that it roots from some ancient and deeply-ingrained “old” cultural attribute, when the reality is that the bulk of European history is 2500+ years of carnage. I admire the social democracies that have arisen in Europe since WWII, and wonder at what can be accomplished when states don’t spend $1 trillion/year on the military industrial complex. But just,as you suggest, America would often be well-served to display more humbleness, sometimes Europeans need to express a bit more humility and consider why it hasn’t been necessary for their countries to spend that money on defense.

Come on now — Georg started the smug name-calling

What you say is right, of course, neither America nor Europe should be smug and self-important — no one should. And I agree that Iraq was a huge mistake — it was not a war we should have ever fought. Afghanistan and the battle against Al Qaeda and other similar terrorists is, in my opinion, a different story.

As someone wrote in 2001:

“It is not true that the recent attacks on the US were motivated by a state of mind similar to that which is currently motivating the Western response. The Western stance — and even Western mistakes . . . are driven fundamentally by respect for human beings, human choices and human life. Western values are life-affirming and life-seeking. The murderers worship death. There is no symmetry between life and death.”

This is not meant to excuse our mistakes, and we should not be afraid of or immune to criticism — we can learn to make fewer mistakes (like Europe learned from two world wars in the last century; like the US learned through a civil war). Nevertheless, mistakes will continue to be made and problems will continue to arise. And there will still be violence and war for some time to come.

What can we do about that? The above quoted author on that occasion also said:

“People wring their hands and say that there must be “better ways of finding solutions” than warfare. Of course there are. We have already found them. The nations and people of the West use them all the time. They are openness, tolerance, reason, respect for human rights — the fundamental institutions of our civilisation. But no way of finding solutions is so effective that it can work when it isn’t being used. And when a violent group defines itself by its comprehensive rejection of all the values on which problem-solving and the peaceful resolution of disputes depend, and embarks instead on a campaign of unlimited murder and destruction, it is morally wrong as well as factually inaccurate to represent this as a case of our needing “better ways of finding solutions”. ”

I agree with this statement and personally was happy to see the end of Osama bin Laden.

The rule of law can be a pretty dicey path to justice. Right / Wrong – who can say ?

Assange has very little money but as humans go he ranks very high.

right, right. and while at it, why not kill Assange as fox news already wanted to?

kill the ugly and the world will become beautiful.

My TV showed a scene from earlier in the evening of jubilant fans at the Phillies – Mets baseball game yelling “USA, USA” when they became aware of the news of Osama Bin Laden’s death. The scoreboard in the back indicated that at that time, the game had been tied 1-1 in the ninth inning. My most consuming thought? “I wonder who won the game.”

Yes, perhaps this can sometimes be a shortcoming among Americans. However, seeing all political objectives as being legitimate, all rival value systems as matters of taste, and treating murderers and their victims with evenhanded sympathy is too often a sign of Europe being “old” — to say it as polite as possible.

There is a thing in this country that is called the rule of law. It is what holds our society together. Ten years ago an organization led by a man named Osama Bin Laden murdered over 3000 of our citizens in cold blood. Our country sought to bring that man to justice. You can disagree with the decisions that were made between now and then but there is no doubt that bringing to justice the person responsible for those deaths was the right thing. And yes – we really don’t need to have a fair trial for someone who was admittedly overjoyed by the results of his actions on that unforgettable September day.

We still have time to steer the consequences. A debate on how is always welcome. But questioning who we should bring to justice and who we might not depending on the longer term affects goes against the basic foundation of our country.

Generally this is an American manner, everything is personalized, all
politics (internal and abroad) not only at wartime.

This and an inclination on either black or white, good or evil,
is smiled at in Europe as a sign for America beeing a “Young”
nation, to say it as polite as possible.

The idea that “Obama” killed him (or ordered it, not Bush)
is another instant of this thinking. Such orders can be a necessity,
if this depends on who is president, US is in big danger.