An exhibition put together by Israeli soldiers shows pictures and interviews with soldiers in the Palestinian city of Hebron. The army confiscated the damning testimonies.

At least 92 Russians were killed in militant attacks in the Russian republic of Ingushetia, which is risking becoming a new Chechnya.

A collection of links about the summer solstice (today!).

A Pulitzer prize-winning jornalist exposes Israel's strategy to support Kurdish separatists.

An article in the magazine "Philosophy Now" about the unease with which many scientists view philosophy.

An extract of the new book by Germaine Greer, "Whitefella Jump Up: The Shortest Way To Nationhood", on the unresolved tension between white and aboriginal identities in modern Australia.

If everything goes according to plan, this next Monday, June 21st, there will happen the first commercial launch of a recoverable manned spacecraft. It belongs to a company intending to bag the X Prize, to be given to the first private company to take three people to a suborbital flight (min 100Km of altitude) and repeat the feat with the same spaceship within two weeks.

Mongolians have traditionally used only first names for a long time. Now the government needs them to pick family names, only they are all going for 'Borjigin', which was Genghis Khan's tribe name...

I also have problems with countries whose phone books have low entropy. Try, as I have, finding a particular paper on quantum physics by an author called Wang!

A profile of Ikea.

A concerned U.S. parent failed to make his daughter's school exclude the line 'one nation, under **god**' from their daily pledge of alliance. He argued that this violated the separation between state and religion, but (unfortunately, in my opinion) the process was dismissed on a technicality.

Tem gente que reclama que o meu blog é impessoal... acho que em parte é porque costumo escrever textos acadêmicos de física -- difícil encontrar um registro mais impessoal e objetivo do que esse. Além disso, pelo que vejo pela internet, blogs de auto-contemplação tendem a ser chatíssimos!

Escrevo as notinhas deste blog em inglês porque é a língua dos textos que comento, e da maior parte das minhas conversas e leituras desde que fui morar fora do Brasil. Infelizmente eu quase não tenho chance de falar português aqui no Canadá. A exceção é minha boca suja quando estou jogando sinuca com o pessoal do Instituto. Agora de vez em quando meus parceiros de sinuca exclamam ´Carrraio!´ ou ´putaquiparriuu!´ com sotaque fortíssimo, sempre me pegam de surpresa e isso me diverte.

Meteorito atinge casa na Nova Zelandia. Do artigo:

["Estava na cozinha preparando o café da manhã quando escutei uma explosão", disse Brenda.
Seu marido se deu conta que havia uma pedra embaixo do computador, que estava quente e que antes havia arrebentado o sofá da sala.]
Imagina o susto!

An article on the network of prisons around the world where the U.S. government sends prisoners (from Al-Qaeda and Iraq) to be tortured for information. This includes a well-known case of a Syrian-born Canadian who was captured in a flight stop-over in New York and sent to be tortured in Syria.

VIP clubbers in Barcelona now can have a computer chip implanted in their arms. They can buy drinks and with a quick scan their accounts are debited accordingly.

D-day probably wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for the huge Red Army offensive on the eastern front. This article details the scale and significance of the Soviet attack, which is not being recalled and celebrated as much as D-day. Quote:

"It does not disparage the brave men who died in the North African desert or the cold forests around Bastogne to recall that 70% of the Wehrmacht is buried not in French fields but on the Russian steppes. In the struggle against Nazism, approximately 40 "Ivans" died for every "Private Ryan". Scholars now believe that as many as 27 million Soviet soldiers and citizens perished in the second world war."

An article about the Bilderberg group, a secretive society of very influential people who meet anually.

The U.S. is now one of a handful of countries demanding a special visa for foreign journalists. A Guardian journalist was not aware of that, and in spite of being married to a U.S. citizen and having an american son, was detained for 26 hours and deported back to the U.K. .

For the first time a German chancellor will be alongside Allied leaders in D-day commemorations. The resentment with Czech republic and Russia still remains -- not enough time to thaw since 1989.

On the murder of a 12-year old by a class-mate inside their school. In 2002 the age for criminal responsibility in Japan was decreased from 16 to 14. Looks like Battle Royale, doesn't it?