Feynman, Richard Phillips, and Gerry Neugebauer (Preface), Roger Penrose (Introduction), Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry and Space-Time, Perseus Press 1998 'No single breakthrough in twentieth-century physics (with the possible exception of quantum mechanics) changed our view of the world more than that of Einstein's discovery of relativity. The notions that the flow of time is not a constant, that the mass of an object depends on its velocity, and that the speed of light is a constant no matter what the motion of the observer, at first seemed shocking to scientists and laymen alike. But, as Feynman shows so clearly and so entertainingly in the lectures chosen for this volume, these crazy notions are no mere dry principles of physics, but are things of beauty and elegance. No one - not even Einstein himself - explained these difficult, anti-intuitive concepts more clearly, or with more verve and gusto, than Richard Feynman.' 
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Hallett, Michael, Cantorian Set Theory and Limitation of Size, Oxford UP 1984 Jacket: 'This book will be of use to a wide audience, from beginning students of set theory (who can gain from it a sense of how the subject reached its present form), to mathematical set theorists (who will find an expert guide to the early literature), and for anyone concerned with the philosophy of mathematics (who will be interested by the extensive and perceptive discussion of the set concept).' Daniel Isaacson. 
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali, The Plot Behind Saudi Arabia's Fight With Qatar, 'Second, M.B.S.’s grand strategic reform plan — known as Vision 2030 — is a direct threat to the prestige and power of the established (and reactionary) Wahhabi clergy in Saudi Arabia. The clergy has the clout, and motive, to frustrate his plans. If the economy is opened up to private enterprise, the clergy’s wealth and influence will be diminished, leaving it with fewer resources to maintain its grip on the kingdom. For centuries, the royal family has relied on a pact with the Wahhabi clergy to provide religious legitimacy to the family’s rule.' back

Bella DePaulo, I study liars. I've never seen one like President Trump, 'By telling so many lies, and so many that are mean-spirited, Trump is violating some of the most fundamental norms of human social interaction and human decency. Many of the rest of us, in turn, have abandoned a norm of our own — we no longer give Trump the benefit of the doubt that we usually give so readily.' back

Caroline Wake, Barbara and the Camp Dogs turns pub theatre into an impassioned call to listen to Indigenous Australian, 'In truth, Barbara and the Camp Dogs is both steadying and unsteadying, rattling and reassuring. In the hard-earned hush between the blackout and the bow, I see a head rest on a shoulder and glimpse the weight of a world. Barbara and the Camp Dogs reminds me that it’s mine to carry too.' back

complexity, The complexity of theorem-proving procedures, 'It is shown that any recognition problem solved by a polynomial time-bounded nondeterministic Turing machine can be “reduced” to the problem of determining whether a given propositional formula is a tautology. Here “reduced” means, roughly speaking, that the first problem can be solved deterministically in polynomial time provided an oracle is available for solving the second. From this notion of reducible, polynomial degrees of difficulty are defined, and it is shown that the problem of determining tautologyhood has the same polynomial degree as the problem of determining whether the first of two given graphs is isomorphic to a subgraph of the second. Other examples are discussed. A method of measuring the complexity of proof procedures for the predicate calculus is introduced and discussed.' back

Emily Piesse, WA domestic violence figures expected to reach alarming numbers over Christmas-New Year period, police say, 'In the last financial year, 141 family violence reports were made to police every day, on average. That figure climbed to 175 incidents per day during the 2016 Christmas-New Year period — an increase of almost 25 per cent. A total of 51,445 family violence incidents were investigated by police during 2016-17.' back

Freya Higgins-Desbiolles, Spare a thought for Bethlehem this Christmas as politics and tourism collide, 'Bethlehem is more than just a symbolic site in the Christian imagination; it is a vibrant city of the Middle East. Today, Bethlehem’s economy depends on tourism, following 2,000 years of religious pilgrimage. However, hosting tourists under occupation results in a complex and severely restricted tourism situation.' back

H. C. Ackerman, APlea for Scientific Theology, Journal Article A Plea for a Scientific Theology H. C. Ackerman The Biblical World Vol. 52, No. 2 (Sep., 1918), pp. 195-199 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3135668 Page Count: 5 Topics: Theology, Christianity, Energy, Metaphysics, Materialism, Hope, Faith, Philosophical object, Morality, Repentance back

Jill Filipovic, The Men Who Cost Clinton the Election, 'A pervasive theme of all of these men’s coverage of Mrs. Clinton was that she was dishonest and unlikable. These recent harassment allegations suggest that perhaps the problem wasn’t that Mrs. Clinton was untruthful or inherently hard to connect with, but that these particular men hold deep biases against women who seek power instead of sticking to acquiescent sex-object status.' back

Massimo Faggioli, 'I'm Sure It Will Do a Lot of Good' : Francis's Response to Argentine Bishops on 'Amoris Laetitia', 'Changes in canon law don’t come quickly, as the ongoing reception of Amoris Laetitia since its promulgation in April 2016 is currently reminding us. But the news this week that Pope Francis has officially recognized the interpretation of Chapter VIII of the exhortation put forth by Argentine bishops indicates that change does nevertheless occur. back

Melissa Davey, Melbourne Catholic archdiocese's inaction had 'catastrophic' consequences, 'https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/dec/05/melbourne-catholic-archdioceses-inaction-had-catastrophic-consequences back

Michelle Langley, World's scientists turn to Asia and Australia to rewrite human history, 'Some 40 or so years ago, our origins seemed quite straight forward. But now we see that the human story is far more complex. As summarised by Christopher Bae and colleagues in their latest paper just published in Science, data from Asia and Australia is becoming vital in piecing this new history together.' back

Patrick D. Nunn, Friday Essay: monsters in my closet- how a geographer began mining myths , 'So you think the Loch Ness Monster never existed? That the story is a cunningly cobbled-together fiction intended to boost tourist interest in an otherwise unrelentingly dull (only to some) part of mid-Scotland? Think again. The embryonic science of geomythology is breathing new life into such stories, legitimising the essence of some and opening up the possibility that other such folk tales might not be pure fiction but actually based on memories of events our ancestors once observed.' back

Pawel Pawlikowski, Ida, 'From acclaimed director Pawel Pawlikpwski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) comes Ida, a moving and intimate drama about Anna, a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland.' back

Robert S. McElvane, I'm a Depression historian. The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929, 'Yet the plain fact that the trickle-down approach has never worked leaves Republicans unfazed. The GOP has been singing from the Market-is-God hymnal for well over a century, telling us that deregulation, tax cuts for the rich, and the concentration of ever more wealth in the bloated accounts of the richest people will result in prosperity for the rest of us. back

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, No, Trump is not a madman -- because he knows exactly what he is doing, 'Far from being lunatics, leaders such as Trump are opportunists and skilled manipulators who may change their ideas on specific policy issues without ever deviating from their main goal: the accumulation and steady expansion of their own power. The one-party state may be mostly a thing of the past, but the authoritarian playbook — and the ways we respond to it — has proved surprisingly durable.' back

Susana Ferreira, Portugal's raical drugs policy is working. Why hasn't the world copied it?, 'In 2001, nearly two decades into Pereira’s accidental specialisation in addiction, Portugal became the first country to decriminalise the possession and consumption of all illicit substances. Rather than being arrested, those caught with a personal supply might be given a warning, a small fine, or told to appear before a local commission – a doctor, a lawyer and a social worker – about treatment, harm reduction, and the support services that were available to them.' back