When saving money is a paradox

Paul Krugman talks on the need for a policy response on the recession that is happening in the US. Saving can be a pull-down on the economy. Rebates may not work. Federal spending can be a door. Read the article.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/31/opinion/edkrugman.php

Mathematics and Fractals

Seeing mathematics in a beautiful angle and the use of fractals.

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http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/a-beautiful-math/?em

Collectors with mission.

Collectors of debt are like soldiers. They have a mission to accomplish. Around the US due to the large credit problems of American consumers, claims come in that collectors are threatening them with deportation (as to migrants) and a sheriff knocking on their doors.

What is your experience of Filipino collectors? Or credit card sellers?

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/30/debt.collectors.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Decision making, Fannie Mae, Risk we take

A discussion by David Brooks on this timely subject.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/28/opinion/edbrooks.php

Gold as seen by Dr. Mahathir Mohammad

There are far too many comments and questions in my blog that I simply cannot respond to all. But I will try.

Pegging

The Bretton Woods System did not fail because the United States ran out of gold. It failed because Britain decided to devalue the pound. President Richard Nixon decided to go off the gold standard much later.

After that it was a free for all as currency traders fiddled with valueless paper money.

If we have a trading currency, it should be controlled by an international body unbeholden to the US or anyone else. Poor countries must be adequately represented.

Like all systems we need to study the pros and cons before we approve.

If during all these years we could use the US Dollar as a kind of standard, I don't see why we cannot use gold. Gold prices do fluctuate but the range is far less than with paper currency. Besides there will always be a demand for gold so that you will not lose too much if gold depreciates.

Ref: www.chedet.com

Former PM uses blog to needle government

Former Prime Minister Mohammed Mahathir of Malaysia is using his blog to criticize a leader he once support.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/26/asia/blogger.php

What about blood?

The wonders of blood. Can human live without it?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/21/science/21angi.html?em

Loukili is renting a place in Paris

A story of Loukili and immigrant from Morocco. It is that difficult to look for a place in Paris.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/25/business/mparis.php

Improving a blogspot or adding gadgets

Josephs tomb, pilgrimage and conflict

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/24/africa/24tomb.php?page=2

Who produced the first oxygen?

Scientist from Perth Australia are investigating the first ocurence of oxygen on earth. As to the answer to the question well nobody knows. They have a name for it, cyanobacteria.

Copy paste the link below and read the article.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/10/23/photosynthesis-rock-02.html

Where the hell is Matt?

Media's role in US presidential election

Below is a link on how mass media has been covering the US presidential election.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/24/america/24webseelye.php

A Prayer

This is a forwarded message. It seems it came from the USA.

This pastor has guts
It seems prayer still upsets some people. Please read.....



When Minister Joseph Wright ( NOT obama's pastor!!!) was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate,
everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is
what they heard;

'Heavenly Father,

We come before you today

To ask your forgiveness and

To seek your direction and guidance.

We know Your Word says,

'Woe to those who call evil good'

But that is exactly what we have done.

We have lost our spiritual equilibrium

And reversed our values.


We have exploited the poor and

Called it the lottery.


We have rewarded laziness

And called it welfare.


We have killed our unborn

and called it choice.


We have shot abortionists

And called it justifiable.


We have neglected to discipline

Our children and called it

Building self esteem.


We have abused power

And called it politics.


We have coveted our neighbor's

Possessions and called it ambition.


We have polluted the air

With profanity and

Pornography and called it

Freedom of speech and _expression.


We have ridiculed the time

Honored values of our

Forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God,

And know our hearts today;

Cleanse us from every sin

And set us free. Amen!'

Spain, once our mother

Spain is now experiencing an economic downtrend and there seem to be no end in sight. Two hundred years ago, it was considered our mother.

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http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/oct2008/gb20081016_531383.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

Debt Trap

A series of visual and article in understanding the debt we are into.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/07/20/business/20debt-trap.html?ref=multimedia

Debt, new strain of virus

Jerez was in deep debt but the credit card company still wants to issue her a double platinum credit card. How's that? In America and the Philippines, it is happening.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/22/business/22target.php

Border talk.

Mexico and American border, a place where you can talk about friendship. A place where love is stronger than border walls or constructed separations.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/22/america/22border.php

Monastery open to public?

Perhaps if you are looking for a place in Baguio, Bukidnon, Davao, Tagaytay, you can look up on the religious congregation's website. You might hit it good.



http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/21/travel/19journeys.php

Sovereign wealth funds

Sovereign wealth fund is a new word in my vocabulary. Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France taught what it is and its reason for having one.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/21/business/funds.php

Botnets are coming!

Botnets are considered to be a digital internet scourge. It enters computers and snoop on anything particularly something that has to do with money. It can be used by the dark forces that will undermine the internet regime.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/21/technology/21botnet.php

Buckypaper

Is your newspaper made of "buckypaper"? Will books be printed on "buckypaper"? Or will "buckypaper" be the next generation of stealth planes, outer space probes?

Read article below.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/10/17/buckypaper.invention.ap/index.html

On buses and God

The British Humanist Association is putting up slogans in buses that will read, "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/7681914.stm

America needs $2 billion daily to run government

Joseph Impoco tells us that America is not saving while the Japanese does. America needs loans to run its government which is in the figure of $700 billion a year (we only have 365 days a year). America is in deep credit card debt.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/19/business/19impoco.php?page=2

View on economic meltdown

Tyler Cohen traces what could have went wrong.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/19/business/19view.php

Iceland meltdown

This article essays on how the world economy is tightly interconnected and it could tells us it has both a boom side and just like a balloon it can burst.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/19/opinion/edfriedman.php

Islam meets China rules

Below is an article on how Chinese authorities are dealing with Muslim in Xinjiang autonomous region.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/18/asia/19xinjiang.php

Melamine Tsunami and Chinese courts

The article essays on the Chinese response to the problem of tainted milk. Well, somewhere in a limbo.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/17/asia/17milk.php?page=2

What volcanos do.

Are you in a credit crunch?

Solutions from CNN article.

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http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/08/pf/personal_credit_crisis/index.htm?iref=werecommend

Office of tomorrow

A glimpse of what could be the office of tomorrow.

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http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/16/future.office/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Child mortality, global view.

Link below are country indicators on the prevalence of child malnutrition and child mortality.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7670229.stm

Who is Richard Fuld?

The story of Lehman's collapse.

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http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/06/the-last-days-of-lehman-brothers/?excamp=GGDBlehmanbros&WT.srch=1&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_id=DB-S-E-GG-NA-CT-lehman_bros

Cost of Food?

In this days of hardship, how much is the cost of food around the world?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/7671124.stm

Why China is important in global politics?

With trillions of dollars in their foreign reserve, who can ignore China?

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7671482.stm

How the bailout will cost?

Is anybody in this room know how much space will it take to have a $2.25 trillion in one hundred bills?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/15/business/15bailout.php

Special Court for drug dependents

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/15/america/15drugs.php

Wash your hands

Washing hands with soap will help a lot.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7670855.stm

Yilmas, a woman examining modernization

In Turkey the government is run by a secular doctrine. It's founder Ataturk push Turkey towards the democracy of the west and cut its ties to the Ottoman East.

Yilmas is an activist who is advocating the wearing of headdress or veils for women.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/14/europe/turkey.php

Pepsi goes to cut 3,000 jobs!

The economic turmoil has caused workers their job at Pepsi.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/14/business/pepsi.php

Paul Krugman, Who is he?

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/14/business/14econ.php

Now, now, where is the Dictionary?

If not for Noah Webster where would we be?

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http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/12/noah.webster.birthday.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest

Hindu and Christian relation in India

Somewhere in India, a land of one billion people, and a secular state, there is a confused relationship between Hindu and Christians.

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/13/asia/13india.php

How much is $10.2 trillion?

Do you know how to count up to 10.2 trillion?

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/12/national.debt.clock.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Economic rescue plan fails to address problem of 6 million to default house payment

Below are two articles that is related to the Wall street economic meltdown and a woman, 90 years old who shot herself because her house will be foreclosed.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/10/03/eviction.suicide.attempt/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Mass extinction

During the period where most life was extinguished and few survived, where did living forms took refuge?

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http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/10/03/permian-extinction.html

Graphic presentation of BBC on Wall Street's economic collapse

BBC's graphics tells us the figures and the graphs that points to things all going down. The next is to go up, but when?

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7644238.stm

Time Line of the Crisis under American sky

The link is CNN's documentation on the economic crisis spawned by mortgages that the American failed to arrrest.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/BUSINESS/09/30/us.bailout.timeline/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Update: Wallstreet

Thomas Friedman tries to figure out the Wallstreet meltdown. Shows how we are interconnected.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/01/opinion/edfriedman.php?page=2

Rising Poverty in America

There is a rising poverty and homelessness in American. There is no end in sight.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/home-s27.shtml

Ecuador's way out using referendum

The national leader of Ecuador is seeking a referendum to tighten controls of vital industries and maybe stop debt payments.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7637458.stm

On saying Thank You

An interesting 3 minutes clip on saying Thank You by Laura Trice.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/laura_trice_suggests_we_all_say_thank_you.html

Tower of Babel and collapse at Wall street

Just Say "No" to Any Immediate Bailout-Don't try band-aids to keep the Tower of Babel Standing
by Rabbi Michael Lerner

Rabbis of antiquity interpreted the attempt by humanity to build a Tower of Babel that would allow people to storm heaven as a symbol of human hubris and technological power gone crazy. It was globalization for the sake of power, not for the sake of kindness or goodness, so, according to the Bible, God ensured that the whole thing would collapse. Scrambling languages and created a multi-cultural reality provided a way for humans to develop their own less imperialistic goals, diffusing power and challenging the notion that the path to salvation lies with material conquests and technological prowess.

Our contemporary capitalist system and its globalization of selfishness has evolved into a similarly grotesque distortion as people are increasingly socialized into the goals of the system: accumulate as much money and power as possible, and refuse to allow any other ethical goals into the public sphere (we are allowed to pursue them in our own "private lives" but not together in social space). The human suffering that results is not only for the poor. As people internalize the ethos of the marketplace and its "looking out for number one" and its seeing others primarily in instrumental terms ("what can you do for me to further my goals or satisfy my needs?"), families feel increasingly unstable, education becomes training to "make it in a global competition," and politics increasingly focuses on how to best assist the most powerful in their aims to secure or increase their wealth, or to protect American corporate interests as they increasingly seek to dominate world markets.

The pursuit of money and power is a huge ethical distortion for human life and destructive for a society. Whether manifested in the failed wars in Vietnam or the continuing bloody conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and soon Pakistan and Iran, or in the collapse of our banking, insurance, and stock market systems, the ethos of selfishness and materialism are not sustainable in the 21st century.

So the careful and skillful manipulating us into a mass hysteria that this all be worked out immediately and before Congress goes on recess to run for reelection, with dire predictions that nobody knows to be true, to rush to use our monies (currently proposing a trillion dollars, but there will be trillions more to come, because we will be nurturing a "culture of dependence" by the rich and their corporate holdings) to bolster this way of life. Democrats have bought in. Yet it is a huge error-it's like trying to put bandages on the Tower of Babel. Of course, the wealthy all think that this is an immediate emergency-they suspect that a Democratic President and Congress might be more willing to demand a better deal for ordinary citizens in return for using their tax dollars this way. And they think that our tax monies (of which they contribute very little, should be used to "provide confidence to the markets"-meaning themselves). Many of them don't care that the resulting inflation is likely to make most working people's savings, retirement accounts, and social security considerably less valuable in real purchasing power terms. But they are wrong to fear the Obama election-the Democrats, including Obama, are as much committed to propping up the current system as the rich, in order to prove (to the pundits and inside-the-Beltway crowd and their wealthy funders who together constitute their primary reference group) that they are "responsible." So their demands for "accountability," re-regulation, and "limits on executive incomes" throws the merest little restraint while the hundreds of billions that will be spent will resuscitate the system of selfishness, keep the majority of corporate executives benefiting from the excesses they current enjoy, and not even touch on reshaping the fundamentals.

This is an extraordinary moment, a crisis like this is a precious thing and should not be wasted. If we had any ethically or spiritually visionary leadership, they would reject any immediate bailout, and instead, talk of ethical and spiritual reconstruction of the society in accord with a New Bottom Line: that every institution should be judged efficient, rational and productive not only to the extent that they maximize money and power, but also to the extent that they maximize love and caring for others, generosity and kindness, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and awe and wonder at the grandeur of the universe.

To start that process, we should demand that any corporation receiving help from our government give a corresponding level of ownership and control of their venture to the people of this country. Moreover, any such corporation should be required to meet the terms of the Network of Spiritual Progressives' proposed Social Responsibility Amendment to the Constitution: that any corporation with an income of more than $50 million a year must get a new corporate charter once every ten years, to be granted only if it can prove a satisfactory history of social responsibility as measured by an Ethical Impact Report and as decided by a jury of ordinary people whose task is to represent the interests of the common good.

Meanwhile, the rest of us should be protected as the Tower of Babel collapses. So the hundreds of billions of dollars being thrown recklessly by our Congress into the hands of the very people and corporations that fostered the current meltdown, should instead be used to create a national bank that would provide mortgage assistance at affordable rates, buy up and restart in the hands of the people who work within them any at-risk corporations providing socially useful functions at a price not dictated by the need to ensure that the wealthy prosper, recreate ( for those who've lost them) and sustain (for those who still have them) pension funds for families with incomes under $300,000/yr., create a single-payer universal health care system of the sort now being used by Members of Congress, and provide strong incentives for alternative energy-oriented investment and a minimum wage that rises with inflation to ensure adequate compensation for working people.

Yet these are only baby-steps, and the moment is now to insist that the elections themselves be dedicated to exploring more visionary approaches to reconstructing our economy on the basis of caring for each other and rejecting the materialism and selfishness that has perverted our media and threatens to continue to destroy our economy in the years to come. Just say "no" to the demands for an immediate "bailout" of the wealthy with your tax monies-and take the time to use this amazing historical moment to put ethical and spiritual values back into our economic life!

Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine (www.tikkun.org), chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives (www.spiritualprogressives.org) , rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in San Francisco, and author of eleven books, most recently: The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right (HarperCollins, 2006).

If you agree with this perspective, please please please JOIN the Network of Spiritual Progressives at www.spiritualprogressives.org to help us support the work necessary to develop and publicize this approach to contemporary issues (and with membership you get a year's free subscription to TIKKUN magazine). You can also respond to Rabbi Lerner: RabbiLerner@Tikkun.org

AJ Dimarucot

An artist with a nationalist bent. His art is asking votes for his shirts.

Beautiful work of art that you can wear around your place.

Copy-paste link to your webrowser.

http://www.collision-theory.com/apparel/

The Greeks and Filipinos.

The Greeks are worried about the flooding of junk-food into their society. Pediatricians are finding out high blood pressure among their children.

Copy-paste link below to reach the news article.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/24/europe/diet.php

Children dying

About 82,000 children die before the age of 5 in the Philippines. How much is the budget for Department of Health compared to our foreign debt payments?

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http://www.pia.gov.ph/?m=12&fi=p080917.htm&no=37

Stones as part of women diet?

Women eat a kind of stone in Kenya.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7596067.stm

Is your lifestyle leads to health?

Copy-paste to your browser if your lifestyle leads to your well-being.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7617146.stm

Is America a waning power?

A sharp criticism on McCain and somewhat seeing America becoming irrelevant in this world.

Thomas Friedman writes.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/14/opinion/edfriedman.php

Mental illness and American Dream

Frank Brenner made a critique on mental illness in the United States.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/mar2000/ment-m24.shtml

Science and Society

Science, Society and Superstition, from the World Socialist forum.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/aug2000/geno-a15.shtml

Poincare's Conjecture

Dr. Grigori Perelman of the Steklov Institute of Mathematics in St. Petersburg tackled the Poincare's Conjecture.

Copy paste the link below:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jun2003/math-j03.shtml

Pope and secularism

How the Pope and other leader's sees secularism in the present light.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/13/world/europe/13pope.html?ref=world

Challengers

Jerome White, 49, and Bill van Auken, both of the Socialist Equality Party, are challenging Obama and McCain for the US presidential election this 2008.

Copy-paste the link below

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/elec-s13.shtml

One Life that can change

Francois Demulder, 61, a war photographer died not in the battlefield but a heart attack that her friends called a medical error in cancer treatment.

Copy-paste the link below

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/12/europe/letter.php

Why we shouldn't fear the Large Hadron Collider from making small "black hole"

Scientists in Switzerland have begun an experiment in simulating the so called "Big Bang" theory.

This will happen inside the Large Hadron Collider to be found in the territory of Switzerland and France. It is an underground loop and these guys are going to bombard proton particles and would see what will happen. Well what will happen?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/12/opinion/edbgreene.php?page=2

Google

If you are with Google ten years ago, you might be a billionaire now.

http://www.forbes.com/2008/09/04/google-tenth-anniversary-tech-enterprise-cx_wt_0905google.html?feed=rss_popstories

Knowing more of me.

The link below tells a story through words and picture on the art of magic.

In short, knowing more of me.

Click on colored link.

http://innermagicclub.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/prof-al-brings-his-magic-to-poor-children/#comment-1702

Wealthy fails the poor

The United Nation claimed that the wealthy nations have failed the poor nations.

Millenium development goals will not be met on 1015. Copy-paste link to your browser.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7599291.stm

Manila 1938

View Manila in 1938.

Wow! An article on Sex?

8 Bad reasons why you should not have sex.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/personal/08/28/tf.bad.reason.for.sex/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

How do typhoon create themselves?

The link is an animated guide from BBC in understanding how typhoons are born.
The word typhoon has a Chinese origin.

Copy and paste to your browser.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4588149.stm

India's caste system, on the way out?

Chandra Bhan Prasad argued that India's economic liberalization is about to do the unthinkable: destroy the caste system.

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http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/index.html

How children learn?

A video essay of Sugata Mitra, an educator. Sugata Mitra is the main instigator of Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiment. A computer was placed in an area where children can access this computer and learn how to manipulate it. He is a proponent of Minimally invasive education.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugata_Mitra

Women, work, raising a child in Germany.

How a German woman struggles in work and raising children.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/28/business/women.php