Hugh Eakin | NYRB | 20 December 2012 State remains relatively stable thanks mainly to late King Faisal's strategy of "defensive change", which relies on a vast central bureaucracy to absorb hostile factions and supplant tribal loyalties. If you don't like it, you leave Comments Esther Inglis-Arkell | io9 | 20 December 2012 "It took a lot of detailed measurement to prove that the speed of light doesn't change. But it also took one important thought experiment. The de Sitter Effect showed us how stars would look if light didn't have a speed limit" Comments Bruce Barcott | Outside | 18 December 2012 Story behind outbreak of deadly hantavirus in summer 2012. Park upgraded its accommodation to offer hard-sided cabins as well as tents. Unwittingly, it provided the perfect environment for a killer virus. Three lost their lives Comments Bruce Schneier | Schneier on Security | 14 December 2012 Security measures are often nothing of the sort. "Security is both a feeling and a reality, and the two are different things. People can feel secure when they’re actually not, and they can be secure even when they believe otherwise" Comments Carl Bernstein | Guardian | 20 December 2012 "The Murdoch story – his corruption of essential democratic institutions on both sides of the Atlantic – is one of the most important and far-reaching political/cultural stories of the past 30 years." And here is a smoking gun Comments Jeffrey Toobin | New Yorker | 19 December 2012 "An unrepentant reactionary who was on the wrong side of every major legal controversy of the twentieth century." After his Supreme Court rejection, "he devoted himself to proving that his critics were right about him all along" Comments | 
