| The Kensington Review |
19 October 2005 |
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Volume IV, Number 125 |
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America Unprepared for Avian Flu -- The current global fuss over a possible pandemic is largely over-blown. A couple of years ago, the SARS virus was supposed to be the big bad bug. Before that, Ebola in all its various forms and its fellow hemorrhagic fevers were going to kill of a sizable portion of humanity. Yet, the odds suggest that someday, something is going to tear through the human population because that is the nature of disease. And in the last 30 years, America has grown less, rather than more, capable of reacting.
Saddam Hussein Show Trial Begins -- The Trial of Saddam Hussein, et. al, got underway earlier today in a Baghdad court room. The temptation is to treat as though it were a news event. Such a journalistic instinct, while understandable, is wrong – there is no chance for an acquittal. The event is better seen as theatre. Microsoft Opposes UK ID Card on Security Grounds -- Microsoft is not this journal’s favorite company, and its software is not terribly well esteemed here. Nonetheless, it has some of the sharpest techies in the world working for it. So, when Microsoft's National Technology Officer for the UK writes an op-ed piece about technology, it’s worth reading. When he suggests that Mr. Blair’s proposed national ID card may allow “massive identity fraud on a scale beyond anything we have seen before,” the policy is worth scuttling. Saudi Arabia to Try Cartoons after 20 Years Without Movies -- To say that Saudi Arabia is conservative is an understatement. Women there cannot drive, it is illegal to possess alcohol and corporal punishment is part of the legal code. While not exactly outlawed, there hasn’t been any cinema there either since the mid-1980s. That is about to change; when Ramadan ends this year, a one-hour program of foreign cartoons dubbed into Arabic will be shown in Riyadh. But it’s a women and children only affair. © Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux. |
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