Collaboration begins

Tough climate roadmap begins

It was undoubtedly one of the most complex and global conferences: the meeting last month in Bali to tackle greenhouse gas emissions lived up to its billing with moments of high drama. Representatives of 190 countries had gathered to map out future plans to tackle global warming, with the US delegation finally agreeing to join in the process at the thirteenth hour (see Hard bargaining, this iss...

Equity begins with children

measure of income poverty and the more directly observable – and more reliable – indicators of human well-being. The former frequently yields a distorted view of reality. After examining the role of social services in human development, Anand and Ravallion (1993) conclude ‘that certain components of public

Internet Computing Begins

Elastography--the movement begins.

The advent of real-time ultrasound in the 1970s, together with a growing interest in tissue characterization, led to a number of investigators using the nature of tissue motion to distinguish healthy from diseased tissue. Our group at the (then) Ultrasonics Institute demonstrated the use of phase methods for detecting very small tissue motions, using natural stimuli. The method could also be ap...

Charity Begins at Harne

lCf. John Woods and Douglas Walton, "Ad Hominem", The Philosophical Forum, 1977. These authors distinguish three different types of tu quoque, only one of which is tu quoque in the sense I attend to here. They refer to this type as involving "deontic-praxiological inconsistency", say that it can sometimes constitute a good argument which will successfully shift the burden of proof, and report a...