The plaza collects the fleeting happiness of the couple's ephemeral love. In spite of this knowledge, they kiss. And the world disappears. All that remains are the entwined hearts in that long kiss. People pass and look but they don't notice. They are too preoccupied with each other.
A dog tries to eat its tail, as absorbed with itself as they are with themselves.
The kiss ends, the dog finishes.
The couple no longer exists, not the plaza, not even the dog. Or you. Or this story.
TONY BLAIR inspected the ground zero of his Middle East policy yesterday with a trip to bomb-ravaged Beirut.
The embattled British Prime Minister flew on to Lebanon after a two-day peace mission to neighbouring Israel and the West Bank.
Tight security was deployed around the state building in central Beirut to protect Mr Blair from about 1500 protesting Lebanese angered by his support for the recent Israeli onslaught, which killed more than 800 civilians and caused billions of dollars in damage and losses.
Mr Blair is believed to be hoping for a diplomatic triumph to boost his crumbling domestic and international prestige. He has just endured a disastrous week in which he was forced to set a one-year deadline for his retirement or face a leadership challenge from within the Labour Party.
The main catalyst for the discontent was Mr Blair's staunch support for Israel and the US during the 34-day war sparked by the July 12 raid in which Hezbollah guerillas captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others.
Mr Blair will thus face a difficult task in winning over Lebanese opinion. While he went straight into a meeting with the Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, yesterday, two Hezbollah members of the elected government declined to attend a planned meeting and the Speaker of the parliament, Nabih Berri, who is close to Hezbollah, went abroad on Saturday.
On the eve of his arrival, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon's most senior Shiite cleric and a spiritual guide to Hezbollah, said Mr Blair had been "a real partner in the Israeli-American war on Lebanon" and should not be allowed to visit.
Before his departure for Beirut, Mr Blair achieved a symbolic breakthrough when the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, and Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, stated separately that they would meet each other without preconditions.
Israel has refused to allow any formal contacts with senior Palestinian Authority officials, including the moderate Mr Abbas, since parliamentary elections in January brought a surprise victory for the Islamic militant group Hamas, which Israel shuns as a terrorist organisation. In practice, however, both sides say that no preparations for talks are under way.
Mr Blair also stated that Britain would welcome the formation of a new Palestinian unity government including Hamas and Mr Abbas's Fatah party - perhaps setting the scene for an end to the diplomatic and financial boycott imposed on the Palestinian Authority by Israel and the West after Hamas came to power.
The boycott has led to surging poverty and desperation in the West Bank and in particular Gaza, where Israeli raids and bombardments have killed hundreds of Palestinians this year, many of them civilians.
Such a breakthrough would depend on Hamas - as part of the new government - accepting United Nations, Western and Israeli demands that it end armed resistance, recognise Israel's right to exist and accept previous agreements recognising Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories pending a final settlement.
A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the group was prepared for a coalition with Fatah, but "not according to standards that are dictated". Instead, Hamas has sought to blur the issue by accepting the so-called "prisoners' document", a Palestinian peace initiative that calls for independence in Arab lands seized by Israel in 1967.
By doing so, some say, Hamas is accepting a de facto recognition of Israel's existence in the other 80 per cent of the former British mandate of Palestine, lands that Israeli forces occupied in 1948.
A half-mile below the surface of the New Mexico desert, the federal government is interring thousands of tons of monstrously dangerous leftovers from its nuclear weapons program --plutonium-infested clothing, tools and chemical sludge that will remain potentially lethal for thousands of years to come.
It may be safely secured now, but how to keep our descendants centuries in the future from accidentally unearthing it?
That's the question posed by the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation’s only underground repository for military-generated radioactive waste.
To address it, the Department of Energy convened a conclave of scientists, linguists, anthropologists and sci-fi thinkers to develop an elaborate system intended to shout "Danger!" to any human being for the next 10,000 years -- regardless of what language they speak or technology they use.
The resulting solution: an unprecedented and epic scale monument that's expected to take the next three decades and as much as $1 billion to complete. "Basically, we just want to make sure society doesn’t forget we're here," says Roger Nelson, WIPP's chief scientist.
It's going to be pretty obvious that something is there under the scrublands near Carlsbad. The waste site will be surrounded by a four-mile outer fence of dozens of 25-foot, 20-ton granite markers engraved with multi-lingual and pictographic warnings.
Inside that perimeter will be a massive earthen berm 33 feet high, forming a rectangle matching the footprint of the underground site.
The berm will be implanted with magnets and radar reflectors to make it obvious that it’s not a natural formation. A structure in the center of the space and two subterranean rooms will hold detailed information on the facility, and hundreds of super-hard disks printed with pictographic danger signs will be scattered throughout its 120 acres.
Construction of the full Stonehenge-like structure won’t start until WIPP is filled up, sometime in the mid-2030s. At that point, the underground site will be sealed and guarded for the next 100 years.
Prep work, however, is already underway.
"We looked at what messages had come from deep in time to the present, like the pyramids," explains David B. Givens, an anthropologist specializing in non-verbal communication who helped conceive the warning system. "It boils down to stones," he says -- the only medium so far to have established a track record of retaining messages for as long as 5,000 years.
That’s a good start, but still not enough. Scientists at WIPP are currently conducting tests to figure out whether they can develop materials that might last even longer.
Then there's the question of how to make the message itself comprehensible. Centuries from now, any modern language is likely to be as hard to understand as pre-medieval Pictish.
"Egyptian hieroglyphics lasted thousands of years, but it took us years of research to decipher them," says Givens. "We want ours to be self-explanatory."
That means pictures, as well as words.
The next step will be testing various pictograms on people from far-flung cultures to find some that are as universally legible as the "man" sign on an airport restroom.
Still, given the infinite unknowns of what society might look like millennia from now, there's every chance none of this will work -- and might even backfire.
"The pyramids were designed to keep people out, but wound up attracting them instead," points out Don Hancock, a spokesperson for the Southwest Research and Information Center, a New Mexico environmental group.
That's a particular concern, considering that there are probably large reserves of oil and natural gas underneath the waste site. "People are going to want to get to that, and markers are not going to keep them away," says Hancock.
Of course, there's one consolation. If the warning system doesn’t work, none of us will be around to find out.
Maxi Rodriguez fired Argentina ahead from Javier Saviola's pass before Esteban Cambiasso rounded off a flowing 24-pass move, finishing from 12 yards.
Javier Saviola set up Rodriguez for the second and after Mateja Kezman saw red for a late lunge, Hernan Crespo made it 4-0 from Lionel Messi's cross.
Carlos Tevez rolled home the fifth and then teed up Messi who completed the rout with a low finish for the sixth.
Argentina took an early lead with a beautifully constructed goal that typified their flowing style.
Juan Pablo Sorin's cute backheel opened Serbia up down the left, allowing Saviola to cut inside where he eased a perfect pass into the path of Rodriguez who stabbed a first-time shot past Dragoslav Jevric.
Argentina gave a masterclass of passing skills to double their lead with the sweetest of goals.
They patiently strung together 21 passes before Juan Pablo Riquelme fed Saviola who slipped a pass inside for Cambiasso. Cambiasso knocked the ball into Crespo who backheeled a return pass into the Inter midfielder who thumped the ball home from 12 yards.
Predrag Djordjevic vainly attempted to prompt Serbia & Montenegro from midfield but there was already an air of resignation from his strikers and they were the architects of their own downfall as Argentina scored a third just before half-time.
Argentine legend Diego Maradona led the celebrations
Mladen Krstajic's attempts to shepherd the ball out for a corner ended in embarrassment as Saviola took the ball off him and cut inside where his shot was parried by keeper Jevric into the path of Rodriguez who scored from a tight angle via the post.
Savo Milosevic provided Roberto Abbondanzieri with his first test in the opening minute of the second half and the former Aston Villa striker was inches away as he lunged at Kezman's knock-back.
Serbia & Montenegro became increasingly frustrated as Argentina strutted their stuff and Kezman boiled over with a wild lunge on Javier Mascherano which earned him a straight red card.
There was even time for Messi to make a contribution as the substitute latched on to Riquelme's quickly taken free-kick and crossed for Crespo to tap in at the far post.
Another substitute, Tevez, scored a fine individual fifth as he beat two defenders in drifting in from the left before rolling the ball in.
Tevez then provided the pass for Messi to run on and beat Jevric at his near post to complete the rout with Argentina's sixth.
Argentina: Abbondanzieri, Burdisso, Ayala, Heinze, Sorin, Maxi (Messi 74), Mascherano, Gonzalez (Cambiasso 16), Riquelme, Saviola (Tevez 58), Crespo.
Subs Not Used: Coloccini, Aimar, Cruz, Cufre, Franco, Milito, Palacio, Scaloni, Ustari.
Booked: Crespo.
Goals: Maxi 6, Cambiasso 31, Maxi 41, Crespo 78, Tevez 84, Messi 88.
Serbia & Montenegro: Jevric, Duljaj, Gavrancic, Krstajic, Dudic, Koroman (Ljuboja 49), Stankovic, Nadj (Ergic 45), Predrag Djordjevic, Kezman, Milosevic (Vukic 69).
Subs Not Used: Basta, Nenad Djordjevic, Dragutinovic, Ilic, Kovacevic, Stojkovic, Vidic, Zigic.
Sent Off: Kezman (65).
Booked: Koroman, Nadj, Krstajic.
Att: 52,000
Referee: Roberto Rosetti (Italy).
Fifa man of the match: Juan Roman Riquelme.
This 6-0 hammering of Serbia and Montenegro is the joint 10th biggest win ever at the World Cup. Substitute Lionel Messi became Argentina's youngest player at the World Cup (18 years and 357 days). Messi also became the sixth youngest goalscorer ever in the finals. Pele is the youngest at 17 years and 239 days.
Roberto Ayala has equalled Javier Zanetti's career record of 102 caps for Argentina. Diego Simeone is the Argentine record holder with 106. Captain Savo Milosevic won his 100th cap. He's the first Serbia and Montenegro player to reach this milestone. So far Milosevic has won 72 caps for Yugoslavia and 28 for Serbia and Montenegro.
Serbia & Montenegro have now lost their last three World Cup matches (against Argentina and twice against Holland in 1998 and 2006). This equals their worst ever run set in 1974 as Yugoslavia.
Green-minded activists failed to move the broader public not because they were wrong about the problems, but because the solutions they offered were unappealing to most people. They called for tightening belts and curbing appetites, turning down the thermostat and living lower on the food chain. They rejected technology, business, and prosperity in favor of returning to a simpler way of life. No wonder the movement got so little traction. Asking people in the world's wealthiest, most advanced societies to turn their backs on the very forces that drove such abundance is naive at best.
With climate change hard upon us, a new green movement is taking shape, one that embraces environmentalism's concerns but rejects its worn-out answers. Technology can be a font of endlessly creative solutions. Business can be a vehicle for change. Prosperity can help us build the kind of world we want. Scientific exploration, innovative design, and cultural evolution are the most powerful tools we have. Entrepreneurial zeal and market forces, guided by sustainable policies, can propel the world into a bright green future.
Americans trash the planet not because we're evil, but because the industrial systems we've devised leave no other choice. Our ranch houses and high-rises, factories and farms, freeways and power plants were conceived before we had a clue how the planet works. They're primitive inventions designed by people who didn't fully grasp the consequences of their actions.
Consider the unmitigated ecological disaster that is the automobile. Every time you turn on the ignition, you're enmeshed in a system whose known outcomes include a polluted atmosphere, oil-slicked seas, and desert wars. As comprehension of the stakes has grown, though, a market has emerged for a more sensible alternative. Today you can drive a Toyota Prius that burns far less gasoline than a conventional car. Tomorrow we might see vehicles that consume no fossil fuels and emit no greenhouse gases. Combine cars like that with smarter urban growth and we're well on our way to sustainable transportation.
You don't change the world by hiding in the woods, wearing a hair shirt, or buying indulgences in the form of save the earth bumper stickers. You do it by articulating a vision for the future and pursuing it with all the ingenuity humanity can muster. Indeed, being green at the start of the 21st century requires a wholehearted commitment to upgrading civilization. Four key principles can guide the way:
Renewable energy is plentiful energy. Burning fossil fuels is a filthy habit, and the supply won't last forever. Fortunately, a growing number of renewable alternatives promise clean, inexhaustible power: wind turbines, solar arrays, wave-power flotillas, small hydroelectric generators, geothermal systems, even bioengineered algae that turn waste into hydrogen. The challenge is to scale up these technologies to deliver power in industrial quantities - exactly the kind of challenge brilliant businesspeople love.
Efficiency creates value. The number one US industrial product is waste. Waste is worse than stupid; it's costly, which is why we're seeing businesspeople in every sector getting a jump on the competition by consuming less water, power, and materials. What's true for industry is true at home, too: Think well-insulated houses full of natural light, cars that sip instead of guzzle, appliances that pay for themselves in energy savings.
Cities beat suburbs. Manhattanites use less energy than most people in North America. Sprawl eats land and snarls traffic. Building homes close together is a more efficient use of space and infrastructure. It also encourages walking, promotes public transit, and fosters community.
Quality is wealth. More is not better. Better is better. You don't need a bigger house; you need a different floor plan. You don't need more stuff; you need stuff you'll actually use. Ecofriendly designs and nontoxic materials already exist, and there's plenty of room for innovation. You may pay more for things like long-lasting, energy-efficient LED lightbulbs, but they'll save real money over the long term.
Redesigning civilization along these lines would bring a quality of life few of us can imagine. That's because a fully functioning ecology is tantamount to tangible wealth. Clean air and water, a diversity of animal and plant species, soil and mineral resources, and predictable weather are annuities that will pay dividends for as long as the human race survives - and may even extend our stay on Earth.
It may seem impossibly far away, but on days when the smog blows off, you can already see it: a society built on radically green design, sustainable energy, and closed-loop cities; a civilization afloat on a cloud of efficient, nontoxic, recyclable technology. That's a future we can live with.
Alex Nikolai Steffen (alex@worldchanging.com) runs Worldchanging.com and edited the book Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century
Greenpeace´s action was in hundreds of newspapers.Argentine legend Maradona, 45, said: "There is a willingness of Argentina Football Association boss Julio Grondona to have me work as a coach.
"If Pekerman wins the World Cup, I could work with the youth squads."
Asked about Argentina's 2006 chances, he added: "We must be cautious. We came back early from the last World Cup."
He stated: "The boys know that in Korea-Japan we made history. So that error will serve as an example for us to do things in a different way."
The former Argentina player made 91 apperances and scored 34 goals for the national side and helped them to World Cup glory in 1986.
The MIT Solar Electric Vehicle Team's car placed third in the North American Solar Challenge, completing the 2,500-mile course along U.S. Route 75 and Trans-Canada Highway 1 from Austin, Texas, to Alberta, Calgary, in just over 56 hours.
The world's longest solar car race, NASC 2005 began on July 17 and ended July 27. The University of Michigan's car, Momentum, took first place, making the arduous 10-day trip in just under 54 hours. The University of Minnesota's Borealis III placed second.
MIT's 375-pound, single-seat vehicle, called Tesseract, was one in a field of 20 sleek, low-slung solar cars that drove through city traffic, open highways and pounding Kansas rain using only the energy of the sun. (When the sun's not out, the cars run on batteries charged with solar energy.)
Tesseract's start was not sunny: MIT was in ninth place on the morning of July 17, but pulled into third place by day's end and held that position for much of the NASC event.
Other U.S. universities that competed included Missouri (fourth and eighth place), Western Michigan (sixth) and Stanford University (ninth). To qualify for NASC, each solar car had to prove it could drive 120 miles at a minimum speed of 25 mph.
The NASC course-known as a "rayce" among solar power enthusiasts-followed a straight line from south to north, with a sharp westward turn at Winnipeg, Manitoba. En route to the University of Calgary's Olympic Oval, the solar cars passed through checkpoints in Weatherford, Texas; Broken Arrow, Okla.; Topeka, Kan.; Omaha, Neb.; Sioux Falls, S.D.; Fargo, N.D.; Brandon, Manitoba; Regina, Saskatchewan; and Medicine Hat, Alberta.
Before the race, each NASC vehicle underwent a rigorous inspection process, known as scrutineering, in Austin, followed by a qualifying test at Texas World Speedway.
Despite its extraordinary shape, Tesseract is composed of ordinary parts, including 512 lithium-ion batteries, the same type found in most laptop computers. A 6-horsepower motor attached to the hub of the rear wheel provides power; there is no transmission.
The driver controls the car with center-mounted handlebars, much like a bicycle; the car uses four mountain-bike brakes connected to go-kart master cylinders and pedal to stop.
Tesseract's Batmobile-like sheen comes from its solar array-2,732 solar cells, the same cells used on NASA satellites-covering a Kevlar and epoxy resin body. A chromoly steel space frame holds Tesseract together. The suspension is a car-mountain bike hybrid.
The car's name has interdisciplinary significance. In geometry, a tesseract, or hypercube, is a 4-dimensional analog of a cube. In literature, science fiction author Madeleine L'Engle used "tesseract" both as a noun-a type of "wrinkle" in space and time-and as a verb, as in tessering, or travel in the fifth dimension, in her novel, "A Wrinkle in Time."
In September 2005, Tesseract will compete in the World Solar Challenge, traversing Australia from Darwin in the north to Adelaide in the south, a distance of about 1,860 miles.
The NASC 2005 contest was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Natural Resources Canada, DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, TransAlta, University of Calgary, CSI Wireless, AMD and Manitoba Transportation and Government Services.
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth slam Government's decision on sustainable timber
(London, 11th August 2005) A coalition of leading environmental NGOs, today, attacked the UK Government's decision to water down its standards for sustainable timber, by allowing government departments to buy wood from forest certification schemes that approve destructive logging practices.
In a joint statement, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace said the changes were a major set-back in the Government's efforts to only purchase timber from legal and well-managed forests.
The Government has decided to allow timber produced under the PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) schemes to qualify for sustainable timber procurement.
Evidence shows the two schemes allow large scale, unsustainable logging in ancient forest areas, the destruction of endangered species habitat and the abuse of indigenous peoples' rights. The Government's acceptance of the PEFC scheme is conditional on the adoption of international criteria by all national schemes, and this will be reviewed in six months. But campaigners say that the scheme should not be accepted because even if they achieve this, their international criteria are still too weak.
Approval of the SFI is only applicable to a percentage based labelling scheme that is not yet in use. Nathan Argent, Greenpeace Forest Campaigner said, " This decision by the Government will rubber-stamp destructive logging practices that threaten the environment and do not take into consideration indigenous peoples' rights.
We urge both the public and private sector to clearly specify FSC on all contracts in order to guarantee that the timber they are using is from legal and sustainable sources ." Ed Matthew, Friends of the Earth's Forest Campaigner said, " The Government has come up with an ingenious method for persuading its critics that it only buys sustainable timber. They are officially recognising destructive logging as sustainable logging. Hey presto, all that horrible destructive timber that they buy has disappeared."
The announcement follows DEFRA's Central Point of Expertise on Timber (CPET) re-assessment of the two schemes. Environmental groups have challenged the Government's conclusions and say the schemes cannot provide consumers with a credible assurance that the timber they buy comes from well-managed forests.
The assessment was strictly paper-based, did not address on the ground practices and does not include social criteria meant to address the rights of forest peoples. Previously only certification by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Canadian Standards Association was considered as proof of legal and sustainable sourcing by the UK government. The only scheme that is generally accepted by all stakeholders, including environment groups, as ensuring environmentally and socially responsible timber sourcing is the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
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