AEI | Short Publications | Banks: The New HMOs: "A transformation is under way in health care that will displace the entrenched giants among the ranks of America's HMOs and pharmacy benefit managers. In their place will be millions of consumers linked by their financial services companies to accounts.

Forbes.com | Hybrid Power Opportunity: "At first glance, hybrid car economics just don't make sense. A conventional engine costs about $70 per horsepower-or, in electrical units, about $50 per kilowatt. Now add the extra cost of going hybrid: The power electronics required to convert horsepower to kilowatts run $6 a kilowatt, battery packs add another $25, and then you need electric motors, at $15 a kilowatt, to turn electricity back into shaft power to drive the wheels.

Jay Nordlinger's Impromptus on National Review Online: "I give you the great Paul Johnson, from the current Spectator (of London):

The plight of Europe is such that, whenever I have the chance to talk to young people now, at any age from 12 to 20, I always urge them to make their future in America, particularly if they are clever and energetic, qualities essential for a vigorous life over there.

University of Michigan - Michigan Today: "What Feynman didn't realize at the time, and couldn't have known, was that he was already in possession of trillions of devices far smaller and more powerful than he imagined. To utter this challenge and to gesticulate as he spoke, Professor Feynman was relying on the molecular motors and machines that worked within almost every cell throughout his body.

MD Robotics: "Like human vision, the MD Robotics Instant Scene Modeler (iSM) uses a pair of cameras to observe a scene. As each camera looks at the scene from a slightly different angle iSM can measure distances to hundreds of thousands of points in each scene.

VDH's Private Papers::Aiding and Abetting the Enemy: "What about the media's portrayal of the enemy? Why do these ruthless murderers, kidnappers and thieves get a pass when it comes to their actions? What did the the media show or tell us about Margaret Hassan, the director of C.A.R.E. in Iraq and an Iraqi citizen, who was kidnapped, brutally tortured and left disemboweled in streets of Fallujah? Did anyone in the press show these images over and over to emphasize the moral failings of the enemy as they did with the soldiers at Abu Ghuraib? Did anyone show the world how this enemy had huge stockpiles of weapons in schools and mosques, or how he used these protected places as sanctuaries for planning and fighting in Fallujah and the rest of Iraq? "

God Bless the English 

Globes [online] - UAV flocks to be operated against terrorists "Kivelevitch and Gurfil have developed an algorithm for indentifying and destroying targets in hostile territory, based on natural movements of flocks, such as storks, wasps, and ants. They have created a flock of coordinated UAVs, which do not collide with each other, and which work as a team.

this is too good a name for a band:tin whisker - a Whatis.com definition: "

tin whisker

A tin whisker is a single crystal of tin that grows spontaneously from a tinned surface, a phenomenon that poses problems for manufacturers who would prefer using tin rather than lead for interconnections.

Abracadabra... ��� Map it!���: "at memory from this basic and survival point of view, we quickly realise that memory is not just a matter of recalling shopping lists and information for exams - it is literally a matter of life and death. It is for this reason that all cultures throughout history have devoted large amounts of their time and energy to making sure that there �memory systems� were both excellent and improving.