“He was a feminine boy, averse to manual work, who was ‘annoyingly subservient’ to superior officers as a young soldier and had nightmares that were ‘very suggestive of homosexual panic.’ The mass killings that he later perpetrated stemmed in part from a desperate loathing of his own submissive weakness, and the humiliations of being beaten by a sadistic father.

What is believed to be the first psychological profile of Hitler commissioned by the Office of Strategic Services, a predecessor to the Central Intelligence Agency, was posted this month by Cornell University Law Library on its Web site (www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library/donovan/hitler/). Although declassified some years ago, the report, written in 1943, has not been widely cited or available to the public, historians and librarians at Cornell say.” (New York Times )

“Humans are damaging the planet at a rapid rate and raising risks of abrupt collapses in nature that could spur disease, deforestation or ‘dead zones’ in the seas, an international report said Wednesday.

The study, by 1,360 researchers in 95 nations, the biggest review of the planet’s life support systems ever, said that in the last 50 years a rising human population had polluted or overexploited two-thirds of the ecological systems on which life depends, including clean air and fresh water. ‘At the heart of this assessment is a stark warning,’ said the 45-member board of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. ‘Human activity is putting such strain on the natural functions of earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted.'” (New York Times )