Dalrymple, William, From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium, Flamingo" Harper Collins 1997 Amazon reader review: 'From the Holy Mountain deserves to be put along side such other classics of the genre as the Road to Oxiana and a Time of Gifts. It is erudite, witty, scholarly & compassionate in its treatment of the subject of Christian Minorities in the Middle East. This book means so much to me as I travelled in the very same areas covered at approximately the same time the research for the book was undertaken. I can confirm the total accuracy of the authors assessments. The book both confirmed and provided illumination as to what I had seen with my own eyes and heard from the communities depicted. This remarkably accomplished work deserves to be read by everyone with an interest in the Middle East.' Anthony 
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Feynman, Richard P, and Albert P Hibbs, Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals, McGraw Hill 1965 Preface: 'The fundamental physical and mathematical concepts which underlie the path integral approach were first developed by R P Feynman in the course of his graduate studies at Princeton, ... . These early inquiries were involved with the problem of the infinite self-energy of the electron. In working on that problem, a "least action" principle was discovered [which] could deal successfully with the infinity arising in the application of classical electrodynamics.' As described in this book. Feynman, inspired by Dirac, went on the develop this insight into a fruitful source of solutions to many quantum mechanical problems.  
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Frazer, James, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Penguin Books 1996 Preface: "The primary aim of this book is to explain the remarkable rule which regulated the succession of the priesthood of Diana at Aricia. ...' 'Such was the rule of the sanctuary. A candidate for the priesthood could only succeed to office by slaying the priest, and having slain him, he retained office till he himself was slain by a stronger or a craftier.' [p 1]  
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Gibran, Kahlil, The Prophet, Knopf 1995 Amazon: ' In a distant, timeless place, a mysterious prophet walks the sands. At the moment of his departure, he wishes to offer the people gifts but possesses nothing. The people gather round, each asks a question of the heart, and the man's wisdom is his gift. It is Gibran's gift to us, as well, for Gibran's prophet is rivaled in his wisdom only by the founders of the world's great religions. On the most basic topics--marriage, children, friendship, work, pleasure--his words have a power and lucidity that in another era would surely have provoked the description "divinely inspired." Free of dogma, free of power structures and metaphysics, consider these poetic, moving aphorisms a 20th-century supplement to all sacred traditions--as millions of other readers already have.' --Brian Bruya 
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Grossman, David, Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2008 From Publishers Weekly 'Peace activist and vocal advocate for relinquishing the Territories and ending the Occupation, Israeli novelist Grossman is unafraid of controversy; these six essays, however, address these concerns more obliquely, through the lens of literature. Books That Have Read Me merges the young reader's discovery that books are the place in the world where both the thing and the loss of it can be contained with the older writer's urge to describe contemporary political reality in a language that is not the public, general, nationalized idiom. Grossman's passions are two—an Israel at peace with its neighbors and a citizenry restored to dignity through the individual language of literature, which can bring us together with the fate of those who are distant and foreign. Grossman lays claim to an acquired naïveté in his hopefulness; how welcome and enlightening it is.' Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 
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Nature Editorial, , "Uncomfortable truths", Nature, 434, 7034, 7 April 2005, page 681. 'In 1999, Hubert Markl, then Max Planck Society president, launched a six year Euro 5-million ($US 5-million) programme, conducted by independent science historians, to systematically analyse the role of the society -- then known as the Kaiser Wilhelm Society -- and its scientists in supporting the Nazi regimes's policies. The programme ended last month, and the results of its many projects confirm the superficiality of the accepted view ... The programme's final conference, held last month in Berlin, made clear the productivity of the endeavour. A thick dossier of publications is freely available on the website of the back

Schiermeier , Quintin, "Pope praised for partial conciliation of science and religion", Nature, 434, 7034, 7 April 2005, page 694. 'Catholic researchers and bioethicists have responded to the death of Pope John Paul II with tributes to his efforts to achieve reconciliation between faith and science. And some are optimistic that his successor will keep on the same path.' . back

Shannon, Claude E, "The mathematical theory of communication", Bell System Technical Journal, 27, , July and October, 1948, page 379-423, 623-656. 'A Note on the Edition Claude Shannon's ``A mathematical theory of communication'' was first published in two parts in the July and October 1948 editions of the Bell System Technical Journal [1]. The paper has appeared in a number of republications since: • The original 1948 version was reproduced in the collection Key Papers in the Development of Information Theory [2]. The paper also appears in Claude Elwood Shannon: Collected Papers [3]. The text of the latter is a reproduction from the Bell Telephone System Technical Publications, a series of monographs by engineers and scientists of the Bell System published in the BSTJ and elsewhere. This version has correct section numbering (the BSTJ version has two sections numbered 21), and as far as we can tell, this is the only difference from the BSTJ version. • Prefaced by Warren Weaver's introduction, ``Recent contributions to the mathematical theory of communication,'' the paper was included in The Mathematical Theory of Communication, published by the University of Illinois Press in 1949 [4]. The text in this book differs from the original mainly in the following points: • the title is changed to ``The mathematical theory of communication'' and some sections have new headings, • Appendix 4 is rewritten, • the references to unpublished material have been updated to refer to the published material. The text we present here is based on the BSTJ version with a number of corrections.. back

Aquinas 13, Summa: I 2 3: Does God exist?, I answer that the existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. . . . The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. . . . The third way is taken from possibility and necessity . . . The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. . . . The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. back

Aquinas 13 (Latin), Summa: I 2 3: Whether God exists?, 'Respondeo dicendum quod Deum esse quinque viis probari potest. Prima autem et manifestior via est, quae sumitur ex parte motus. Certum est enim, et sensu constat, aliqua moveri in hoc mundo. Omne autem quod movetur, ab alio movetur. Nihil enim movetur, nisi secundum quod est in potentia ad illud ad quod movetur, movet autem aliquid secundum quod est actu. Movere enim nihil aliud est quam educere aliquid de potentia in actum, de potentia autem non potest aliquid reduci in actum, nisi per aliquod ens in actu, sicut calidum in actu, ut ignis, facit lignum, quod est calidum in potentia, esse actu calidum, et per hoc movet et alterat ipsum. Non autem est possibile ut idem sit simul in actu et potentia secundum idem, sed solum secundum diversa, quod enim est calidum in actu, non potest simul esse calidum in potentia, sed est simul frigidum in potentia. Impossibile est ergo quod, secundum idem et eodem modo, aliquid sit movens et motum, vel quod moveat seipsum. Omne ergo quod movetur, oportet ab alio moveri. Si ergo id a quo movetur, moveatur, oportet et ipsum ab alio moveri et illud ab alio. Hic autem non est procedere in infinitum, quia sic non esset aliquod primum movens; et per consequens nec aliquod aliud movens, quia moventia secunda non movent nisi per hoc quod sunt mota a primo movente, sicut baculus non movet nisi per hoc quod est motus a manu. Ergo necesse est devenire ad aliquod primum movens, quod a nullo movetur, et hoc omnes intelligunt Deum.' back

Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, National Pain Strategy, 'The intended audiences for the National Pain Strategy are state and federal governments, funders, clinicians, consumers, researchers and research funders. The recommendations contained in this Strategy have been developed through an independent process, including discussion at the National Pain Summit in March 2010. The process included health professionals, consumers, funders and industry. It was led by the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, Faculty of Pain Medicine, Australian Pain Society, and Chronic Pain Australia in collaboration with inaugural supporters, the MBF Foundation and the University of Sydney Pain Management Research Institute.' back

Boson - Wikipedia, Boson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In particle physics, bosons are particles with an integer spin, as opposed to fermions which have half-integer spin. From a behaviour point of view, fermions are particles that obey the Fermi-Dirac statistics while bosons are particles that obey the Bose-Einstein statistics. They may be either elementary, like the photon, or composite, as mesons. All force carrier particles are bosons. They are named after Satyendra Nath Bose. In contrast to fermions, several bosons can occupy the same quantum state. Thus, bosons with the same energy can occupy the same place in space.' back

Claude E Shannon, A Mathematical Theory of Communication, 'The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem. The significant aspect is that the actual message is one selected from a set of possible messages.' back

Isabel Saint Malo de Alvarado, Don't blame Panama for the Panama Papers, 'Many forget that Panama is now a stable democracy after years of being ruled by a dictatorship. Our efforts to transform our country into a global economic hub have resulted in the establishment of the regional headquarters of over 100 transnational corporations. It is our hope that through Panama’s reform efforts and increased international cooperation, our country will become even more attractive to multinational companies that seek to act as responsible global citizens.' back

Jamie McKinnell, Neerkol orphanage probe raises systemic child abuse issues, 'Sadistic nuns at a notorious Queensland orphanage dished out abuse in a toxic environment that festered due in part to inadequate government scrutiny, supervision and training, a royal commission has found. The child sex abuse royal commission last year examined cruel treatment of 13 former residents of St Joseph's Orphanage at Neerkol, near Rockhampton, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy between 1940 and 1975.' back

John Long, The first fossilised heart ever found in a prehistoric animl, ' A new discovery, announced today in the journal eLife, shows the perfectly preserved 3D fossilised heart in a 113-119 million-year-old fish from Brazil called Rhacolepis. . . . Finding a complete fossilised heart in a fish almost 120 million years old was a major breakthrough for José Xavier-Neto of the Brazilian Biosciences National Laboratory, Lara Maldanis of the University of Campinas, Vincent Fernandez of the European Synchotron Radiation Facility and colleagues from across Brazil and Sweden.' back

Juna Manuel Santos, As Colombia's leader, I know we must rehink the drugs war, 'How does one explain to a Colombian peasant in a rural community in the south-west of the country that he will be prosecuted under criminal charges for growing marijuana plants, while a young entrepreneur in Colorado finds his or her legal recreational marijuana business booming? This is perhaps the most glaring paradox in the global debate over the “war on drugs”. A war that on most counts shows little progress if contrasted with the amount of time, blood and treasure invested by so many nations with a view to dismantling a business that remains as strong and active as it was half a century ago.' back

Michael Bradley, Thought 'death cult' lawmaking ended with Abbott? Think again, back

Nicholas Kristof, Obama in Saudi Arabia, Exporter of Oil and Bigotry, 'I’m glad that President Obama is visiting Saudi Arabia, for engagement usually works better than isolation. But let’s not let diplomatic niceties keep us from pointing to the insidious role that Saudi Arabia plays in sowing instability, and, for that matter, in tarnishing the image of Islam worldwide. The truth is that Saudi leaders do far more to damage Islam than Trump or Cruz can do, and we should be as ready to denounce their bigotry as Trump’s. . . . To be blunt, Saudi Arabia legitimizes Islamic extremism and intolerance around the world. If you want to stop bombings in Brussels or San Bernardino, then turn off the spigots of incitement from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.' back

Noosphere - Wikipedia, Noosphere - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The noosphere . . . is the sphere of human thought.The word derives from the Greek νοῦς (nous "mind") and σφαῖρα (sphaira "sphere"), in lexical analogy to "atmosphere" and "biosphere". It was introduced by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in 1922 in his Cosmogenesis.' back

Object-oriented programming - Wikipedia, Object-oriented programming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm using "objects" – data structures consisting of data fields and methods together with their interactions – to design applications and computer programs. Programming techniques may include features such as data abstraction, encapsulation, messaging, modularity, polymorphism, and inheritance. Many modern programming languages now support OOP, at least as an option.' back

Saskia E. Wieringa, How shoud Indonesia resolve atrocities of the 1965-66 anti-communist purse?, 'More than 50 years after the arbitrary killing, torture and imprisonment of more than a million communists and their sympathisers in Indonesia, the government has for the first time hosted a two-day national symposium on the 1965-66 violence' back

Spin-statistics theorem - Wikipedia, Spin-statistics theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In quantum mechanics, the spin–statistics theorem relates the spin of a particle to the particle statistics it obeys. The spin of a particle is its intrinsic angular momentum (that is, the contribution to the total angular momentum that is not due to the orbital motion of the particle). All particles have either integer spin or half-integer spin (in units of the reduced Planck constant ħ). The theorem states that: The wave function of a system of identical integer-spin particles has the same value when the positions of any two particles are swapped. Particles with wave functions symmetric under exchange are called bosons. The wave function of a system of identical half-integer spin particles changes sign when two particles are swapped. Particles with wave functions antisymmetric under exchange are called fermions.' back

Washington Post Editorial Board, The Catholic Church's defiance and obstruction on child sex abuse, 'Francis has pledged “the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all.” Yet there has been scant accountability, particularly for bishops. Too often, the church’s stance has been defiance and obstruction.' back