Parrots, Politics, Life & Miscellania

I found the following news items to be of interest today:

• Life, death and the Taliban: Blowback
• Taiwan seeks foreign aid after typhoon catastrophe
• Taliban claim blast at NATO base in Kabul
• Five killed in suicide blast in Pakistan’s Swat
• Madagascar’s Rajoelina says only he can lead transition
• Space review panel says moon, Mars out of reach
• Obama says insurance companies holding U.S. hostage
• Obama keeps heat on insurance firms
• U.S. senator meets Suu Kyi, Myanmar junta leader
• Hamas hits Qaeda allies in Gaza, over 20 dead
• Bongo son stripped of defense job before Gabon vote

Of especial interest to me is the very first article profiling the Taliban; in fact, I’d label it a must-read for a quick yet concise analysis on the history and evolution of the Southasian Taliban movements.

However, I have a more pressing matter on my mind. I have just finished reading a book called The Blue Zones and took the official online “life expectancy test” referred to from the book and while I find that there are some good ideas that are worth applying it is a very unscientific analysis on the secrets to living beyond 100 years healthily (and the online test is almost a joke). It’s late now at 10:30pm and I should have completed this draft sooner because now I’m getting too tired to rant about some of the problems I have found with this book. I’ll save this for my next post. In the meantime I’m just surprised that, certain sensible advice aside, this book has not recieved more criticism and scrutiny within the scientific community.