last week's blog, today's NYT

3-29-09—A high-level Spanish court has taken the first steps towards opening a criminal investigation against six former Bush Administration officials, including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [and Yoo and Feith] on whether they violated international law by providing a legalistic framework to justify the use of torture.... NYT A6

--[English Prime Minister Brown]: “...we in Europe are uniquely placed to lead the world” in meeting the challenges of remaking the world’s economic system, not only because the union’s 500 million people constitute “the greatest and biggest single market in the world,” but because of European moral sensibilities. Without mentioning the United States, he implied that the moral contagion that has afflicted market economies ran counter to European belief that “liberty, economic progress and social justice advance together, or not at all.” “...riches are of value when they enrich not just come communities, but all.” “As we have discovered to our cost, the problem of unbridled free markets in an unsupervised marketplace is that they can reduce all relationships to transactions, all motivations to self-interest, all sense of value to consumer choices and all sense of worth to a price tag.” NYT WK 4

--A 2007 University of Louisville study concluded that people with blue eyes were better planners and strategic thinkers—superior at things like golf, cross-country running and preparing for exams—while people with brown eyes had better reflexes, making them good at hockey and football. –NYT Wk10

--Before blogs and radio call-in shows, people joined forces and turned to the streets as their most effective means of expression; a unified, angry crowd was often sufficient to win concessions from employers and governments.... That’s how we’ll recover our public life and perhaps help one another through this crisis—storming angrily into the streets and then, once we’re out there, actually talking to one another. NYT WK 10