What's on the web today...

I browse several dozen news, opinion, blogs and other websites every day. Here's what I found of broader interest today:

Mark Steyn writes eloquently in a column entitled The etiquette of modern warfare in today's Jerusalem Post:

...an enemy folds when he knows he's finished. In Iraq, despite the swift fall of the Saddamites, it's not clear the enemy did know. Indeed, the western peaceniks pre-war "human shields" operation proved to be completely superfluous mainly because the Anglo-American forces decided to treat not just Iraqi civilians and not just Iraqi conscripts but virtually everyone other than Saddam, Uday and Qusay as a de facto human shield. Washington made a conscious choice to give every Iraqi the benefit of the doubt, including the fake surrenderers who ambushed the US marines at Nasiriyah.

In happier technological news Akio Namiki and colleagues at the University of Tokyo, Japan have built a Robot catcher grabs high speed projectiles, as reported by Newscientist. See the video (about 9 MB) -- it's pretty cool.

On the Ayn Rand Institute's web site I am pleased to see that a couple of new local (to Irvine, California) public lectures have been announced:

Monday, September 12, 2005, Free Public Lecture (title TBD) By Yaron Brook
Thursday, November 17, 2005, Creationism in Camouflage: The "Intelligent Design" Deception By Keith Lockitch
Time: 6:30 PM: Bookstore opens, 7:30 PM: Lecture, 8:30 PM: Q & A
Location: Hyatt Regency Irvine 17900 Jamboree Rd. Irvine, CA 92614