Externalities

Over dozens of pages, the author chillingly and meticulously details his efforts to create cover stories for his plot, to build up his personal fitness levels, and to acquire the weaponry and explosives materials needed.

“The fact that I joined the club as early as 2005 was a planned move to increase my chances for obtaining a Glock, legally.”

“My thought was to save the last [bottle of wine] for my last martyrdom celebration and enjoy it with the two high class model whores I intend to rent prior to the mission.”

Isn’t it good to see that, following the phone-hacking scandal, the integrity of our newspapers has been restored?

From the editorial in the UK’s most-read newspaper, before there was a prime suspect for the attacks:

Why Norway? The answer is simple.

Because it is brave. It is a loyal member of NATO and plays its part in Afghanistan and Libya.

It has courageously stood up to Muslim fanatics trying to stir up hatred in Norway, where Islam is the second largest religion.

[…]

The lesson for us are clear [sic]. […]

We must ask ourselves whether – like Norway – we offer too cushy a life to bogus asylum seekers.

kohenari:

The Israeli Parliament on Monday passed contentious legislation that effectively bans any public call for a boycott against the state of Israel or its West Bank settlements, making such action a punishable offense.

Critics and civil rights groups denounced the new law as antidemocratic and a flagrant assault on the freedom of expression and protest. The law’s defenders said it was a necessary tool in Israel’s fight against what they called its global delegitimization.

Passage of the law followed a string of efforts in the rightist-dominated Parliament to promote legislation that is seen by the more liberal Israelis as an erosion of democratic values.

Just dreadful.

I’ve been trying to come up with something to say about the passage of this bill for at least an hour now. “Dreadful” is all I’ve got.

Now, without making it sound too much like the sky is falling, my sense is that this bill doesn’t represent something new, strange, or unforeseen; it’s actually a pretty unsurprising reaction to international public opinion given the way that Israeli politics have gone of late.

And this sort of thing won’t simply be resolved by finding a way to deal with the issue of a Palestinian state, either. Because, at bottom, it’s also about the Israeli right-wing, for whom a liberal democracy just doesn’t seem to be nearly as meaningful as it is to others in Israel or as it was to virtually everyone many years ago.

The direction of the country at this moment is unsettling, frankly. And, in my opinion, the parallels to the current state of American politics aren’t too hard to see either. There is, in every democracy, an anti-democratic element that wants to stifle dissent, push out those who are different, and see everything in dichotomous pairings in which my side is Right and your side is Wrong. Resisting that element with persuasive argumentation and political organizing is a central task of good liberal democrats and apparently, and very sadly, those are in short supply at the moment in Israeli politics. Hopefully that’s not the case in the U.S. too; I suppose that remains to be seen.

All but two of the EU’s 27 member states have agreed to set up a common European patent system that could mean big savings for hundreds of firms.

Currently European patents can cost ten times more than patents registered in the US because of translation costs.

A fast-track procedure is being used to make the common patent a reality, but there is still a big legal obstacle.

Italy and Spain fear discrimination because patents would be filed only in English, French or German.

[…]

Hungary’s Minister for Economic Strategy, Zoltan Csefalvay, […] called the current fragmented patent system an “innovation tax” on European enterprises.

The Global Commission on Drug Policy will host a live press conference and teleconference on Thursday, June 2 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City to launch a new report that describes the drug war as a failure and calls for a paradigm shift in global drug policy.

Members include former Presidents of Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Switzerland, the Prime Minister of Greece, Kofi Annan, George Shultz and Paul Volcker.

The commission of world leaders will urge new approaches to the failed drug war, with a move from criminal justice towards a public health approach.