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Sam Harris interviews Daniel Kahneman on his blog.

The amount force government authorities use, then, is no longer based not on what sort of threat a suspect poses to the government or those around him, but on the political implications of the laws being enforced. It isn’t difficult to see how we get from here to pepper-spraying and beating peaceful protesters, particularly if the protesters are becoming a thorn in the side of politicians or are losing support from the public.

Upon its completion in May 2012, the 1,017 foot tall skyscraper Shard London Bridge will be the tallest building in the European Union—but its unmissable presence on the London skyline has been felt for over a year. Since the completion of its 804 foot, 72 story concrete core in early 2011, the Shard has been the tallest building in London. In a city, country, and continent not famed for skyscrapers, the Shard more than stands out. Observant Londoners have watched as glass facades have crept up around the core over the past weeks and months. It’s impossible to look at the Shard without extrapolating its lines upwards to a point, completing the pyramidal form in the mind’s eye (crick in the neck notwithstanding). But mock-ups of the completed tower show a pinnacle characterized by a fragmented crown of glassy splinters, not a neat pyramid. Architect Renzo Piano, who conceived the Shard, has compared its shape to “a 16th century pinnacle or the mast of a very tall ship.” But “Shard” is the name that stuck, a name reportedly coined by Piano after criticism from the group English Heritage that his design resembled a “shard of glass.”

Over the last decade, cheap Web access over phone lines brought millions to the Internet. But in recent years the emergence of services like video-on-demand, online medicine and Internet classrooms have redefined the state of the art: they require reliable, truly high-speed connections, the kind available almost exclusively from the nation’s small number of very powerful cable companies. Such access means expensive contracts, which many Americans simply cannot afford.

Most Iranians, like most people anywhere, would deplore the idea of thugs storming into a foreign embassy. Nonetheless, some may have felt a flicker of satisfaction. Even an outrage like this, they might have said, is a trifle compared with the generations of torment Britain inflicted on their country.

In the 1948 film “Red River,” there is a scene in which John Wayne traces the outlines of a new cattle brand in the dirt. He draws a “D” for Thomas Dunson, the rough and rowdy rancher he portrays, next to two wavy lines, for the banks of the Red River.

Alain de Botton is a non-believer. Yet he argues religions have important things to teach the secular world. He’s written a book explaining ways in which atheists should look to religion for some solutions to contemporary ills. In doing so, he hopes to move the tired old debate between atheists and believers onto more fruitful ground. Blending deep respect with total impiety, de Botton proposes that agnostics and atheists should stop mocking religions and start stealing from them.

This trend at the corporate level mirrors email trends among young people—the future workforce. As the chart below shows, the use of web-based email by the younger crowd is plummeting, as these folks communicate via Facebook, IM, and texting instead. Email is still an extremely convenient way to communicate, so it’s not likely to go anywhere. But there’s no question that email is losing share of digital communications, including in the workplace. And that’s not good for companies that depend on it for their livelihoods.

The acid test of this growing openness may be the new Republican presidential front-runner, Newt Gingrich . His personal past is messier than most. He is on his third marriage, and he left his first two wives when they were in poor health and while he was having affairs. Also, his version of events is replete with gaps and changing and contradictory stories; both of his two former wives have questioned his moral character. Finally, he is the front-runner of a party in which a sizable chunk of the base consists of family-values conservatives who will have to decide between Mr. Gingrich’s rhetoric and his past.

Bomb disposal experts in the German city of Koblenz have successfully defused two bombs from World War II found in the riverbed of the Rhine. They were discovered when water levels fell because of a prolonged dry spell. The bigger of the two bombs weighed 1.8 tonnes and was dropped by the Royal Air Force between 1943 and 1945. Nearly half the city’s population - 45,000 - has been evacuated, including the inhabitants of two hospitals, seven nursing homes and a prison. It is the biggest bomb disposal operation in Germany since 1945.

“Cultural criss-cross … the new-look Exhibition Road in London.”

Iron bones (par mysaliva)

“The capital’s topography was to be transplanted onto the existing villages of Maisons-Laffitte, Sartrouville, Montigny-les-Cormeilles, Herblay, Conflans-Ste-Honorine, Beauchamp and Pierrelaye.”