Adolf Hitler, who rolled into Freud's home city of Vienna on March 14, 1938, preceded by thousands of troops, was no surprise to Sigmund Freud. Nor would the many forms of tyrannical fundamentalism that have grown up in Hitler's wake and have extended into the 21st century have shocked him very much. In books like "Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego" and "Totem and Taboo," Freud predicted Hitler and his descendants almost perfectly. Now, in an age threatened by fundamentalisms of many sorts, Freud's thinking may be more usefully illuminating than ever before ...

For Freud, we might infer, a healthy body politic is one that allows for a good deal of continuing tension. A healthy polis is one that it doesn't always feel good to be a part of. There's too much argument, controversy, difference. But in that difference, annoying and difficult as it may be, lies the community's well-being. When a relatively free nation is threatened by terrorists with totalitarian goals, as ours is now, there is, of course, an urge to come together and to fight back by any means necessary. But the danger is that in fighting back we will become just as fierce, monolithic and, in the worst sense, as unified as our foes. We will seek our own great man; we will be blind to his foibles; we will stop questioning, stop arguing. When that happens, a war of fundamentalisms has begun, and of that war there can be no victor. NYT Magazine (reg/req)

The situation is at a "crucial stage" and all parties should "exercise restraint," Chinese officials say. 

The comments come the day before the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, is to report on whether Iran has suspended its uranium enrichment work. BBC

Jumah al-Dossari, 33, claims he has been repeatedly beaten and suffered intense psychological abuse during his years of incarceration at the US prison camp in Cuba. He says he has watched US guards abuse the Koran, that he has been sexually humiliated and regularly kept in isolation.

His 12 attempts to take his life - either by hanging, slitting his wrists or a combination of both - account for a third of all the suicide attempts by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay reported by the US authorities. The most recent was in March. The Independent

"What can we offer them as 25-year-old new workers that might interest them enough to pick up sheets of paper and examine them for several minutes a day?" ... "I don't think you'll ever see another 'Calvin & Hobbes,' 'Bloom County' or 'Doonesbury' again," says Breathed, 48, who received the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1987. "The popularity of those strips was built on a young audience — great comic strips are not built on the backs of aging readers."

Part of the problem, Breathed and other cartoonists say, is that newspapers, when choosing their comic strip lineup, put too much emphasis on the opinions of aging readers. As a result, stalwart strips such as "Peanuts," which continues to run as a reprint since the death of Charles M. Schulz in 2000, and "Blondie," which was created in 1930 by Chic Young, tend to remain entrenched on comics pages. LA Times

During a luncheon speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors conference here, Carroll, who serves as a guest lecturer at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard University, told a roomful of editors that their business needs to defend the ideas of journalism and “rock-turning” against increased budget-cutting and bottom-line demands.

Under Carroll, the Times won a shelf of Pulitzers a few years back, but he exited the paper in the wake of Tribune Co.-ordered cutbacks. Editor & Publisher

But appearances can be deceiving. And in this case, they are.

Although Roman Catholic and mainline Protestant leaders are voicing strong support for undocumented immigrants, recent survey data suggest that their flocks are increasingly uneasy about immigration trends. And evangelicals are proving to be divided along ethnic lines.

"That Bush coalition of religious conservatives has some qualms" about establishing pathways to citizenship because they want stiff punishments for lawbreakers, says Luis Lugo, director of the non-partisan Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in Washington, D.C. "But these folks are also being cross-pressured. There is in all of these religious traditions strong emphasis on care of the immigrant. ... That's why people are conflicted."

In a March survey by Pew: 

• 64% of white evangelicals agreed with the statement "Immigrants today are a burden on our country because they take our jobs, housing and health care." That's up from 49% in December 2004.

• 56% of white Catholics agreed with the same statement, up from 44% in December 2004. 

• 51% of white mainline Protestants agreed that "The growing number of newcomers from other countries threatens traditional American customs and values." In December 2004, 41% agreed. USA Today

In the widest insurance retreat from coastal property since Hurricane Andrew slammed Florida in 1992, insurers as far north as Long Island, N.Y., and Cape Cod, Mass., are shedding coastal homeowners policies to reduce their exposure.

In Florida alone, insurers that are undercapitalized or fearful of losses have notified the state of plans to cancel more than 500,000 homeowners policies. With $2 trillion each in coastal property, Florida and New York lead the USA in coastal exposure, followed by Texas and Massachusetts. USA Today

The fact that White House policy is now in the hands of two Jews is not seen as significant by activists in the American Jewish community. The Jerusalem Post

Shaul Mofaz said: "Of all the threats we face, Iran is the biggest. The world must not wait. It must do everything necessary on a diplomatic level in order to stop its nuclear activity."

He added: "Since Hitler we have not faced such a threat." Telegraph

In a speech to a renewable-fuels group, Mr. Bush is expected to instruct the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and the Energy Department to vigorously enforce laws relating to price gouging. And the attorney general and FTC chairman will send a joint letter to all 50 state attorneys general calling on them to use their broader investigative powers to pursue illegal gouging, according to a senior administration official. They also will offer assistance to states that need it.

The steps are among several short-term measures to address energy worries that Mr. Bush is likely to discuss, as his administration confronts yet another second-term political flare-up. Wall Street Journal

The Beijing Institute of Clothing Technology said the average chest size of Chinese women had increased by nearly 1cm in the past decade. 

Measurements were taken from nearly 3,000 women over six years. BBC

The researchers studied 2,258 Medicare recipients in Manhattan who did not have dementia, recording their health status and their consumption of constituents of the Mediterranean diet: olive oil, fruits, vegetable, legumes, cereals, fish, a little alcohol and very little dairy or meat. The study appears in the Annals of Neurology in April. NYT (reg/req)

Skip to next paragraph The scene is no longer science fiction. This month, De Tijd, a Belgian financial newspaper, started testing versions of electronic paper, a device with low-power digital screens embedded with digital ink — millions of microscopic capsules the width of a human hair made with organic material that display light or dark images in response to electrical charges. NYT (reg/req)

But we do know this: The American president says publicly that for the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program, even the use of tactical nuclear weapons is legitimate. Those familiar with the Pentagon warn that the U.S. Defense Department's most recent war plans against Iran are more than routine planning for a remote possibility. Financial Times Deutschland via WatchingAmerica.com

The demonstration by the Queens-based group was monitored by the Investigative Project on Terrorism whose members noted signs including "Islam will Dominate" and a picture with an Islamic flag flying over the White House. WorldNetDaily.com 

In 2005, a total of 83 soldiers committed suicide, compared with 67 in 2004, and 60 in 2003 — the year U.S.-led forces invaded Iraq. Four other deaths in 2005 are being investigated as possible suicides but have not yet been confirmed. The totals include active duty Army soldiers and deployed National Guard and Reserve troops.

"Although we are not alarmed by the slight increase, we do take suicide prevention very seriously," said Army spokesman Col. Joseph Curtin. The AP

Officials cautioned against reading too much into the overall total. The government last year adopted a new definition of terrorism and changed its system of counting global attacks, devoting more energy to finding reports of violence against civilians.

Yet the numbers are a striking reminder that violence around the globe has dramatically increased in the more than four years of the war on terror. The AP

It has been a gleam in the eye of astronomers for nearly a decade and now they are on the verge of seeing the birth of their brainchild - a telescope that for the first time will enable us to watch other Earth-like planets orbit distant suns.

The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will be four times bigger than the biggest existing telescope and 10 times more powerful than the hugely successful Hubble Space Telescope. The Independent

The court papers describing the plea agreement, motions filed by the legal team representing the businessman, Philip H. Bloom, 66, and interviews with contractors and government officials in Iraq make it clear that the case is certain to expand. The court papers, focusing narrowly on Mr. Bloom's contracting work in the south-central Iraqi city of Hilla, indicate that at least three more senior Army Reserve officers are likely to be implicated. NYT (reg/req)

Some 200 extra police are to patrol the streets of Tehran confronting women who reveal ankles, sport thin headscarves or wear short or tight jackets. 

Those found to be in breach of Iran's Islamic dress code could face instant penalty fines. 

The move is part of a blitz against anti-social behaviour, also targeting drugs and people who play loud music. 

People walking pets or men sporting outlandish hairstyles could also face fines, of up to $55 (£31), said Tehran's police chief, Mortaza Talai. 

Iran's clerical establishment says it wants to protect the values of the country's Islamic revolution against a corrupting Western influence. BBC

The 2% decrease, reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, came as a shock to many, because the U.S. is aging, growing in population and getting fatter. In fact, some experts said they suspect the numbers may not hold up when a final report is released later this year.

Nevertheless, center officials said the statistics, based on a review of about 90% of death records reported in all 50 states in 2004, were consistent across the country and were deemed solid enough to report.

The center said drops in the death rates for heart disease, cancer and stroke accounted for most of the decline. The AP

The study followed 1258 young people who were interviewed at ages 11, 13, 15 and 19. It found that of those who considered themselves goths, 53% had self-harmed and 47% had tried to commit suicide. The average prevalence of self-harm among young people in the UK is 7% to 14%. Self-harm includes behaviours such as cutting or burning oneself. And about 6% of young people admit suicide attempts. Some studies suggest the incidence is rising in society.

Researchers at University of Glasgow found that while most self-harmers started the practice at age 12 to 13, they did not become goths until they were a couple of years older, on average. 

“One common suggestion is they may be copying subcultural icons or peers [when they self-harm], but our study found that more young people reported self-harm before, rather than after, becoming a goth. This suggests that young people with a tendency to self-harm are attracted to the goth subculture,” says Robert Young, who led the study.

“Rather than posing a risk, it's also possible that by belonging to the goth subculture, young people are gaining valuable social and emotional support from their peers.” But he cautions: “However, the study was based on small numbers and replication is needed to confirm our results.” Only 25 participants felt strongly associated with goth culture.

Self-harming, Young says, is a behaviour that people often employ as a mechanism to deal with negative emotions. “It may be used as a quick-fix. "Some physiological studies suggest, or are compatible with the theory that endorphins [brain chemicals that produce a feeling of well-being] are released after episodes of self-harm," he told New Scientist.

China is rising fast and is expected to eclipse the United States economically in the future - its gross domestic product is tipped to overtake that of America by 2045. The Independent

The July 18 exercise at National Defense University's National Strategic Gaming Center will include members of Congress and top officials from military and civilian agencies. It was scheduled in August, before the latest escalation in the conflict, university spokesman Dave Thomas said.

It's the latest example of how otherwise routine operations are helping the United States prepare for a possible military confrontation with Iran. On Tuesday, President Bush refused to rule out military action — even a nuclear strike — to stop Iran's nuclear program. USA Today

The newspaper has witnessed the departures of its publisher and not one, but two editors in chief, as well as a low-grade reporting scandal and the unexplained termination of a senior investigative reporter. 

"There are people there who are superior in this work and are just waiting to have their heads lopped off," said Sydney Schanberg, 72, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who left The Voice in February over his objections with the new management. "Not a good atmosphere."

Now, staff members are awaiting word of a permanent editor in chief, meanwhile reading into every change a predictor of their own fortunes. Along those lines, the termination of the investigative reporter, James Ridgeway, alarmed many in the newsroom and prompted 20 journalists to sign an open letter that called the action "shameful." NYT (reg/req)

His archive, some 200 boxes now being held by George Washington University's library, could be a trove of information about state secrets, dirty dealings, political maneuverings, and old-fashioned investigative journalism, open for historians and up-and-coming reporters to see. 

But the government wants to see the documents before anyone else. 

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation have told university officials and members of the Anderson family that they want to go through the archive, and that agents will remove any item they deem confidential or top secret. 

The Andersons, who have not yet transferred ownership of the archive to George Washington University, are outraged. They plan to fight the FBI's request. Editor & Publisher

They say that since the US-led invasion, gays are being killed because of their sexual orientation. BBC

The Bosnian archaeologist leading the project says it resembles pyramid sites he has studied in Latin America. 

Initial excavations have revealed a narrow entrance to what could be an underground network of tunnels. 

On Friday, a team of rescue workers from a local coal mine, followed by archaeologists and geologists examined the tunnel, thought to be 2.4 miles (3.8km) long. 

The team found two intersections with other tunnels leading off to the left and right. 

Their conclusion was that it had to be man-made. 

"This is definitely not a natural formation," said geologist Nadja Nukic. 

Satellite photographs and thermal imaging revealed two other, smaller pyramid-shaped hills in the Visoko Valley, which archaeologists believe the tunnels could lead to. BBC

In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, nearly half of those surveyed said the United States "should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along as best they can on their own." Three years ago, just one-third felt that way. USA Today

The White House has said it is happy with the way Mr Rumsfeld is handling his job and the situation in Iraq. 

But the backing comes as the number of retired generals calling for him to be replaced has risen to six. BBC

They are among thousands of Americans who refuse to pay part or all of their federal taxes as a protest against war and military spending. "It takes two things to fight a war: people and money," says Smith, 67, a retired math and computer science teacher. "I can't refuse anymore to go, but I certainly can refuse to send the money."

The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee says about 10,000 people "resist" paying taxes. The group plans demonstrations in Washington and 24 states Monday against the Iraq war. USA Today

Sex.com went for a record $12 million in cash and stock to adult-entertainment company Escom in January, according to industry-trade reports and sources with knowledge of the deal, who declined to be named because of the private nature of the sale.

Sales of 5,851 domain names generated $29 million in 2005, compared with the sale of 3,813 names for $15 million in 2004, says market researcher Zetetic. And the pace is quickening: In the first three months of this year, 1,949 names have generated $14.2 million, says Domain Name Journal magazine. USA Today

Shrewd, amusing, bulky in his superb white robes, he described to me all the disasters he was certain would follow the invasion. 

The US and British troops would be bogged down in Iraq for years. There would be civil war between Sunnis and Shias. The real beneficiary would be the government in Iran. 

"And what do the Americans say when you tell them this," I asked? "They don't even listen," he said. BBC

Scientists have unearthed a set of fossils in the Ethiopian Afar region that they believe is a "missing link" between a primitive ape-like creature that lived more than 4.4 million years ago and a later ape-man who became our own ancestor.

The discovery means that the region now boasts the discovery of the fossilised remains of eight distinct species that represent different stages in the evolutionary transition from ape to anatomically modern man.

The latest fossil find belongs to a species called Australopithecus anamensis, which lived about 4.2 million years ago, between the earlier Ardipithecus ramidus and the later Australopithecus afarensis.

Professor Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, said that the discovery filled a million-year gap in the human fossil record between our ape-man ancestors - the australopithecines - who lived 3.5 million years ago and the even more primitive Ardipithecus. "This new discovery closes the gap between the fully blown Australopithecines and earlier forms we call Ardipithecus. We now know where Australopithecus came from before 4 million years ago," Professor White said. The Independent

"I think we need a fresh start" at the top of the Pentagon, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq in 2004-2005, said in an interview. "We need leadership up there that respects the military as they expect the military to respect them. And that leadership needs to understand teamwork."

Batiste noted that many of his peers feel the same way. "It speaks volumes that guys like me are speaking out from retirement about the leadership climate in the Department of Defense," he said ... Washington Post (reg/req)

Mr. Beltram, a casino executive, is the point man in a high-technology experiment that could alter the face of slot machines, and their insides, too. 

With a few clicks of his computer mouse, Mr. Beltram can reprogram the 1,790 slot machines on the casino floor, adjusting the denominations required to play, payback percentages, even game themes.

Las Vegas is constantly tinkering with its slot machines, which generate more than $7 billion annually in Nevada, roughly double that taken in by table games. Despite their growing popularity and an increase in overall gambling proceeds in recent years, casino operators want to win back more of the money their customers are now spending elsewhere — on food, lodging and other entertainment, or at Indian casinos or for online gambling. 

In the past, changing out a slot machine was a complicated operation and entailed opening it, replacing the computer chip inside, then changing the glass display that markets the game's theme. The alteration usually took a day and could cost thousands of dollars, from ordering parts to modifying the machine.

"Now, I just come to my office, and select the program," said Mr. Beltram, the 28-year-old executive director for slots at Treasure Island, which is owned by the MGM Mirage. "With the technology, it takes 20 seconds." NYT (reg/req)

The government is considering issuing identity cards to families with children which would give discounts at stores cooperating with the program, the Yomiuri Shimbun daily said on Thursday.

The size of the discounts would be decided by the stores, which would also be expected to fund the system in return for favorable publicity surrounding the plan, the Yomiuri said.

The government is also considering tax rebates as a way of reducing the economic burden on parents of young children, which is seen as one reason for the declining birth rate.

Japan's fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime -- fell to a postwar low of just under 1.29 in 2004. Demographers say a rate of 2.1 is needed to keep a population from declining.

The nation's population shrank in the year to October for the first time since 1945. Reuters

"We have asked to meet the editors of Playboy today so we can reach an agreement to delay the publication of the second edition .... so it will not trigger more reaction," said Gen. Firman Gani. 

Playboy representatives were not immediately available for comment. 

Previously police and government officials have said that there were no laws to ban the magazine, which does not feature any nudity and is no more risque than scores of other local and foreign publications already for sale. 

Gani also said police were investigating an attack by rock-throwing Muslim hardliners yesterday on the building that housed the magazine's offices in South Jakarta.

A sign on the door of the building today said the magazine was no longer based there. 

So far protests have remained small against the magazine, which was launched last week. But they could get larger, leaving authorities in a difficult position given the fact they cannot ban the publication. The AP

With the rise of blogs, reality TV, camera phones and other types of instant media, one can see a day when anyone, anywhere could become the subject of salacious journalism. And as gossip journalism spreads, so do the shoddy standards that accompany it. I'm not talking about bribes or extortion. One hopes that's a rare practice. But consider what the New York Times reported about the way business is done at Page Six: "Keeping a list of reliable sources, of course, means having a list of people who need to be protected somewhat. Those who cooperate--called 'friends of the column,' according to people who work with and at Page Six--are rewarded; those who fight back are punished." Wall Street Journal

We were reminded of this 1994 book by Dennis W. Mazzocco while watching the ABC Evening News last night. They ran a seemingly gratuitous story about extravagant tax breaks - how this billionaire wrote off this, and how that billionaire wrote off that.

ABC ended the short piece by reporting on how some people living in the Washington, DC area donated the facades of their historic homes to a local historical preservation group, and got to write a little something off for that.

As an example, ABC cited the home of DC- based journalist Seymour Hersh, whose recent piece in The New Yorker has caused quite an international stir, and begins thusly: “The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.”

We were happy to discover, that even with Peter Jennings gone, we can still learn a lot by watching ABC News.

In a small-scale study presented at a meeting of the American Educational Research Association here this week, researchers surveyed 65 girls ages 15-18 in an upscale Sacramento suburb in 2004 and found that self-identified female bullies most often text-messaged harassment by cellphone, preferring it nearly 2 to 1 over e-mail, websites and instant messaging. About 45% had been victims of cyber-bullying.

The findings are by no means universal but do point to what could be a troubling trend, says researcher Juliana Raskauskas of Massey University in New Zealand: Vulnerable children have virtually no refuge from harassment. "It's a non-stop type of harassment and it creates a sense of helplessness."

She notes a recent case in New Zealand in which a teenager committed suicide after being inundated with dozens of harassing, insulting text messages. USA Today

The telescope is the first to be developed solely to search the skies for light pulses from aliens and will be able to cover 100,000 times the amount of sky covered by current equipment, its developers said.

"The opening of this telescope represents one of those rare moments in a field of scientific endeavor when a great leap forward is enabled," said Bruce Betts, project director at The Planetary Society, a group in Pasadena, California, that advocates space exploration and funded the telescope's development.

"Sending laser signals across the cosmos would be a very logical way for E.T. to reach out, but until now, we have been ill-equipped to receive any such signal," he said.

Researchers say alien civilizations may be as likely to use light signals to communicate as radio transmissions. Visible light can form tight beams and could potentially convey information more efficiently, Betts said. Reuters

Burkle taped his meetings with Stern and contacted the FBI, and as a result, the fedora-capped, bow-tied, 35-year-old Stern might be going to jail, where fedora-capped, bow-tied people don't traditionally thrive. While others believe Stern's mistake was extortion, I see it as a matter of mispricing.

As a fellow newspaper columnist, I figured it was important to understand my potential value as an extortionist in case things ever got drastic and I needed to pay for a life-saving operation for my mother, or the finance payments on a really nice Porsche.

I contacted Steven Levitt, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and co-author of "Freakonomics." He told me that, as I suspected, Stern's price was way off. "You can supposedly hire a hit man for $10,000," Levitt said. "Most reported cases of bribery and corruption are much less. Dan Rostenkowski was taken down for stamps and office furniture." LA Times 

But now White House officials, and specifically President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, have been pitched back into the center of the nearly three-year controversy, this time because of a prosecutor's court filing in the case that asserts there was "a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House," to undermine Mr. Wilson.

The new assertions by the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, have put administration officials on the spot in a way they have not been for months, as attention in the leak case seems to be shifting away from the White House to the pretrial procedural skirmishing in the perjury and obstruction charges against Mr. Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby Jr.

Mr. Fitzgerald's filing talks not of an effort to level with Americans but of "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson." It concludes, "It is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish Wilson.' "

With more filings expected from Mr. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor's work has the potential to keep the focus on Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney at a time when the president is struggling with his lowest approval ratings since he took office. NYT (reg/req)

"Would you like your Coke and orange juice medium or large?" Ms. Vargas said into her headset to an unseen woman who was ordering breakfast from a drive-through line. She did not neglect the small details —"You Must Ask for Condiments," a sign next to her computer terminal instructs — and wished the woman a wonderful day. 

What made the $12.08 transaction remarkable was that the customer was not just outside Ms. Vargas's workplace here on California's central coast. She was at a McDonald's in Honolulu. And within a two-minute span Ms. Vargas had also taken orders from drive-through windows in Gulfport, Miss., and Gillette, Wyo.

Ms. Vargas works not in a restaurant but in a busy call center in this town, 150 miles from Los Angeles. She and as many as 35 others take orders remotely from 40 McDonald's outlets around the country. The orders are then sent back to the restaurants by Internet, to be filled a few yards from where they were placed. NYT (reg/req)

The 1.3 ton Venus Express took off on a Soyuz rocket from Baikonur in Kazakhstan last November, traveling 250 million miles through space to a mission scheduled to last 486 days.

"Everything went as it was planned, clearly, without difficulties," Gaele Winters, European Space Agency (ESA) director of operations, told a news conference. "This is a great success," he said.

Priced at a relatively modest 220 million euros ($265 million) and built by firms from 14 countries, the Venus Express underlines the ambition of European scientists to be at the cutting edge of exploring the scope and origins of the universe.

"It all comes back to the basic question that I'm sure just about everybody has asked --- how did we turn up here out of all that?" said David Southwood, director of science at ESA. Reuters

The report, 10 pages of briefing points titled "Provincial Stability Assessment," underscores the shift in the nature of the Iraq war three years after the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Warnings of sectarian and ethnic frictions are raised in many regions, even in those provinces generally described as nonviolent by American officials. 

There are alerts about the growing power of Iranian-backed religious Shiite parties, several of which the United States helped put into power, and rival militias in the south. The authors also point to the Arab-Kurdish fault line in the north as a major concern, with the two ethnicities vying for power in Mosul, where violence is rampant, and Kirkuk, whose oil fields are critical for jump-starting economic growth in Iraq.

The patterns of discord mapped by the report confirm that ethnic and religious schisms have become entrenched across much of the country, even as monthly American fatalities have fallen. Those indications, taken with recent reports of mass migrations from mixed Sunni-Shiite areas, show that Iraq is undergoing a de facto partitioning along ethnic and sectarian lines, with clashes — sometimes political, sometimes violent — taking place in those mixed areas where different groups meet. 

The report, the first of its kind, was written over a six-week period by a joint civilian and military group in Baghdad that wanted to provide a baseline assessment for conditions that new reconstruction teams would face as they were deployed to the provinces, said Daniel Speckhard, an American ambassador in Baghdad who oversees reconstruction efforts. NYT (reg/req)

American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ” The New Yorker

The world is mistakenly focusing on oil reserves when the problem is capacity to produce oil, M de Margerie said in an interview with The Times. Forecasters, such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), have failed to consider the speed at which new resources can be brought into production, he believes. 

"Numbers like 120 million barrels per day will never be reached, never,” he said. The Times

The people who escaped from collapsed or damaged buildings on Sept. 11, 2001, were several times as likely to suffer from breathing problems or psychological trauma if they were caught in the cloud of trade center dust and debris that covered lower Manhattan, researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The AP

Economists take pride in the sophisticated statistical techniques on which they rely to analyze phenomena such as growth, inflation, unemployment, trade, and even the long-term effects of abortion on crime rates. Many are convinced that their methods are more rigorous than those of all other social sciences and dismiss research that does not rest on quantitative methods as little more than “storytelling” or, worse, “glorified journalism.” Anthropologists, some economists jest, believe that the plural of anecdote is “data.”

A survey published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that 77 percent of the doctoral candidates in the leading departments in the United States believe that “economics is the most scientific of the social sciences.” It turns out, however, that this certitude does not stem from how well they regard their own discipline but rather from their contempt for the other social sciences. Although they were nearly unanimous about the relative superiority of their profession, only 9 percent of the respondents were convinced that economists agree on fundamental issues.

And they are right. Economists today are still grappling with basic questions for which they have no answers. Much more than fodder for academic squabbles, this uncertainty often has serious consequences. When economists err in theory, people suffer in practice. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazil’s former president, recalls that in the midst of his country’s financial crisis, he received calls from experts at the International Monetary Fund, several Nobel laureates in economics, and other superstars in the economics firmament. Each offered different advice, and each sounded convinced that his or her recommendation was the only correct one. A distinguished sociologist, Cardoso managed to employ his considerable talents and experience to steer Brazil out of the crisis, ignoring the recommendations of several celebrity economists—some of whom had even urged him to adopt a fixed exchange-rate regime just like the one that Argentina’s recent crash has now discredited.

“We do not really know what causes economic growth,” admits François Bourguignon, the chief economist at the World Bank. “We do have a good sense of what are the main obstacles to growth and what are the conditions without which an economy can’t grow. But we are far less sure about what are the other ingredients needed to create and sustain growth.” FOREIGN POLICY

Television news in particular has struggled to find its way, wounded by the “60 Minutes” debacle and forced resignation of Dan Rather on CBS, the retirement of NBC’s Tom Brokaw and the loss of ABC’s Peter Jennings. To add to the TV news woes, Fox has shown that partisan, preaching-to-the-choir news is both cheap to produce and popular. Meanwhile “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” have demonstrated that so-called “fake news” is often more revealing about the day’s events, and more emotionally satisfying.

Into this gap between the lassitude of the nightly news and the edginess of Jon Stewart has stepped an unlikely figure: Lou Dobbs. I used to watch Dobbs for what are called surveillance purposes; how do right-leaning, pro-business types report and spin the news? Now, I try not to miss Dobbs, in part because he seems to be deliberately crafting a new kind of anchor persona—that of the outraged everyday American, the one who is indeed “mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.” He expresses his incredulity over Bush pronouncements and policies in his give-and-take with CNN reporters, addresses the audience directly with sarcastic rhetorical questions and has abandoned the more neutral, objectivity-adhering stylings of news anchors. He has also been walking an interesting political line, conservative about some issues, especially American immigration policy, populist about others, including corporate giveaways and the privileging of business interests over national security. And you won’t find soft news stories about puppies or diets here. In the process, Dobbs is showing how you might do a version of “The Daily Show” straight. In These Times

The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.

A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare. The New York Times was breathless with admiration. The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.”

It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived.

One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior. 
The Progressive

Over at the Cincinnati Enquirer's online site, Cincinnati.com, there's a blog about Iraq written by military staffer whose job is to generate positive news about U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq.

Grandma in Iraq is the title of the blog, written by Suzanne M. Fournier, a Public Affairs Officer for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The posts are largely upbeat. "Everytime [sic] an Iraqi contractor bids on a reconstruction project. . . it is a sign that democracy is winning here," reads one. "I am confident we'll have another banner year of success for the benefit of the people of Iraq and democracy in the Middle East," another says.

Cincinnati.com identifies "Grandma" as "Suzanne Fournier of Alexandria, grandmother of 15, [who] posts from Iraq, where she is stationed with the U.S. Army Corp. [sic] of Engineers." It makes no mention she's a flack.  TPM Muckraker.com

The plan calls for the most sweeping realignment and modernization of the nation's massive system of laboratories and factories for nuclear bombs since the end of the Cold War. LA Times

The findings, to be reported Thursday in the scientific review Nature, push back the dawn of dentistry by 4,000 years to around 7000 B.C. The drilled molars come from a sample of 300 individuals buried in graves at the Mehrgarh site in western Pakistan, believed to be the oldest Stone Age complex in the Indus River valley. NYT (reg/req)

He considers himself lucky. The tab could have topped $1,000.

Anderson, 41, of Los Angeles, experienced the downside of one of the technological wonders of today's automotive world — newfangled keys and fobs packed with remote-control features. USA Today

In a new, math-heavy paper titled "Media Bias and Reputation," the two economists leapfrog over the usual analysis about the media's liberalness or conservativeness to construct a new model of media bias. They assume, logically enough, that media firms seek to establish reputations as purveyors of accurate information because such reputations increase demand for their products.

If news consumers can't easily evaluate the quality of a news story, they will tend to grade it based on their previous observations of the media outlet. No surprises so far. But the article, which will appear in the April issue of the Journal of Political Economy, goes on to present findings that are sure to appall and delight students of press bias. Gentzkow and Shapiro find that:

1) If a media outlet cares about its reputation for accuracy, it will be reluctant to report anything that counters the audiences' existing beliefs because such stories will tend to erode the company's standing. Newspapers and news programs have a visible incentive to "distort information to make it conform with consumers' prior beliefs." 

2) The media can't satisfy their audiences by merely reporting what their audience wants to hear. If alternative sources of information prove that a news organization has distorted the news, the organization will suffer a loss of reputation, and hence of profit. The authors predict more bias in stories where the outcomes aren't realized for some time (foreign war reporting, for example) and less bias where the outcomes are immediately apparent (a weather forecast or a sports score). Indeed, almost nobody accuses the New York Times or Fox News Channel of slanting their weather reports.

3) Less bias occurs when competition produces a healthy tension between a news organization's desire to conform to audience expectations and maintaining its reputation. 

The Gentzkow-Shapiro model helps explain Fox News Channel's success. Because folks tend to become more politically conservative as they age, and because older folks spend more time in front of their televisions than young folks, it stands to reason that the first network to coddle this underserved audience would profit. Slate