The Sun has this interesting article about one of Saddam Hussein's palaces, which apparently has a fully equipped blast-proof bunker as a basement.  It was built in 1982, at the height of Iraq's war against Iran.  What do you do against such a bunker?  Anh Duong has the answer.

Reading about Anh made me think.  She was a vietnameese boat-person who came to the U.S. at age 15.  She became a chemical engineer at the University of Maryland, and joined the famous Indian Head weapons team twenty years ago.  Now she is a world-renowned explosives export.  This kind of social mobility - the ability for anyone to shift intellectual classes based purely on merit - is unique to the U.S., and one of the key reasons why the U.S. has been so economically successful.

Life expectancy is at an all time high in America - the average lifetime is now over 77 years.  This is reported as unmitigated good news, of course, but it does have troubling implications for Unnatural Selection...

Gridlock can be addicting.