Wikileaks founder Julian Assange accused of rape Read Article   

Rod Blagojevich stands outside his home in Ravenswood Manor on the city's Northwest Side.
(Jean Lachat/Sun-Times file)   Did Rezko pay for Gov's house rehab? FEDERAL INVESTIGATION | Probe into Blagojeviches centering on whether indicted fund-raiser paid for all or part of $90,000 work on Northwest Side home Recommend (22) Comments October 4, 2008

 Antony Beevor: 'History has not emphasised enough the suffering of French civilians during the War' Interview by Deborah Orr
  Saturday, 6 June 2009

Steve Schofield
 Poor Doctor Stagg. How tightly the hand of history, for a short time, clasped his shoulder. In 1944, the Scot was Britain's leading civilian weather expert. Suddenly, he had been made a group captain in the RAF, so that he carried the necessary authority to dole out decisive advice on the timing of the invasion of Normandy. The weather had to be right, and by Saturday 3 June, Stagg was "all but physically nauseated" at the lack of consensus among meteorological experts reporting to him with data. He decided for himself that the prediction had to be rough seas, high winds, low cloud, and on the advice of Stagg, Dwight D Eisenhower reluctantly ordered a postponement of D-Day. The next morning, even though the convoys were being called back, in a blow to efficiency and morale, the sky was still clear. Stagg, who could not face the other officers over breakfast, "felt a certain shamefaced relief, when the cloud and rain began to increase from the west" later in the day. By midnight on 4 June, a storm was battering the windows, but Dr Stagg and his colleagues had discerned a possible slow-down in the coming depression.   Related articles Politicians and veterans take part in D-Day ceremony
By the early hours of 5 June, Stagg's forecast of a short break in the deluge had hardened into a firm conviction among the political and military leaders of the largest and most complex invasion the world had ever known: the invasion had to take place…

 Israel's Isolation DeepensNetanyahu accused critics of an "international offensive of hypocrisy," as the diplomatic crisis over the raid on a flotilla of pro-Palestinian activists threatened to deepen Israel's isolation. Read Article   

 Why golden ratio pleases the eye Many artists have proportioned work in shapes that facilitate scanning of images to brain, says professorKaren McVeigh guardian.co.uk, Monday 28 December 2009 Article history The Parthenon in Athens: its facade is said to be circumscribed by golden rectangles, although some scholars argue this is a coincidence. Photograph: Katerina Mavrona/EPA  From Leonardo da Vinci to Le Corbusier, the golden ratio is believed to have guided artists and architects over the centuries. Leonardo is thought to have used the golden ratio, a geometric proportion regarded as the key to creating aesthetically pleasing art, when painting the Mona Lisa. The Dutch painter Mondrian used it in his abstract compositions, as did Salvador Dali in his masterpiece The Sacrament of the Last Supper. Now a US academic believes he has discovered the reason why it pleases the eye. According to Adrian Bejan, professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina, the human eye is capable of interpreting an image featuring the golden ratio faster than any other. Bejan argues that an animal's world – whether you are a human being in an art gallery or an antelope on the savannah – is orientated on the horizontal. For the antelope scanning the horizon, danger primarily comes from the sides or from behind, not from below or above, so the scope of its vision evolved accordingly. As vision developed, he argues, animals got "smarter" and safer by seeing better and moving faster as a result. "It is well known that the eyes take in information more efficiently when they scan side to side, as opposed to up and down. When you look at what so many people have been drawing and building, you…