Breast fixation

William Fisher worries that Americans' civil liberties have suffered as a result of the Patriot Act. He also observes that Americans' civil liberties are under attack in general, citing this example:

In the Macomb County, Michigan suburb of Roseville, North of Detroit, artist Edward Stross was convicted by a six-person jury last month and sentenced to prison for his mural depicting a bare-breasted figure on a building. The artist was ordered to serve 30 days in jail, do two years of probation and pay a fine of $500 for his variation of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Man,” illustrating a half-naked woman. Stross was also mandated to alter the fresco, which he painted on the outside of his art gallery in 1997. The mural depicted a woman’s breast and the word “LOVE,” as does the original Michelangelo work.

Fisher sees the Christian right as responsible for such acts of oppression and he may well be right. If I had my way, breasts – and I mean real breasts – would be on view everywhere. So, I don't support breasts in artistic works being covered.

What's interesting about Fisher's opinion piece is that it's in the Arab News. Think about that, a newspaper based in a country that doesn't allow a woman to wear clothing that might reveal an outline of her figure is worried about whether or not Americans are allowed to look at breasts. Odd, no?

Cataclysm politique

The anti-constitution forces in France are gaining momentum:

France's political elite was stunned on Friday by an opinion poll that showed for the first time a majority of voters opposed the European Union constitutional treaty.

Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission, warned of a political cataclysm if France voted No to the constitution in a national referendum on May 29.

Over the past few weeks, the unemployment rate has climbed above 10 per cent, the trade unions have staged mass protests against the government's reforms, and the finance minister has been forced to quit over a housing scandal.

President Jacques Chirac has also engaged in a public dispute with José Manuel Barroso, the Commission president, over a draft European services directive which the French president has labelled unacceptable in its present form.

The directive, which seeks to free the European services market, has been seized upon by the No camp in France as evidence that Europe is heading in an excessively liberal direction.

While the French are distracted Monaco and Andorra should take the opportunity to kick some French butt, Force de Frappe be damned. (Neither Monaco nor Andorra has a military; I'm confident their police forces - or maybe Boy Scouts - can do the trick.)

Affluence spreading

How often do we hear this little gem?

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. It’s not just a trite expression. It’s reality.

According to – shock, horror – Reuters, lots of Americans in the middle are doing just fine, thank you:

Affluent households, with annual earnings of at least $100,000, should number more than 20 million by 2010, up 32 percent from 2004 ...

Damn, what's gotten into Reuters?

World's worst job

It may bill itself as a workers' paradise but working in its coal mines is no picnic:

A gas explosion in a northern Chinese coal mine on Saturday killed at least 17 miners and trapped 52 others, state media said, in the latest tragedy to strike the world's deadliest mining industry.

China's coal mines are the world's deadliest. Last year, more than 6,000 miners were killed in explosions and accidents.

Many of China's mining deaths occur in small, privately owned pits that frequently evade Beijing's attempts to regulate them and impose safety standards.

It's a Reuters report so that last line isn't unexpected.

What did you do at work today?

I survived.

Nuts about Bolton

Mark Steyn on John Bolton's nomination:

It’s not just the rest of the world. Most of the American media are equally stunned. The New York Times wondered what Mr Bush’s next appointment would be:

‘Donald Rumsfeld to negotiate a new set of Geneva conventions?
Martha Stewart to run the Securities and Exchange Commission?’

Okay, I get the hang of this game. Sending John Bolton to be UN ambassador is like ...putting Sudan and Zimbabwe on the Human Rights Commission. Or letting Saddam’s Iraq chair the UN conference on disarmament. Or sending a bunch of child-sex fiends to man UN operations in the Congo. And the Central African Republic. And Sierra Leone, and Burundi, Liberia, Haiti, Kosovo, and pretty much everywhere else. All of which happened without the UN fetishists running around shrieking hysterically. Why should America be the only country not to enjoy an uproarious joke at the UN’s expense?

As they say, read the whole thing.

The sinister anti-terror network

Try to read this Guardian report, about the establishment of a network of detention centres in Afghanistan, without either losing your temper or your lunch. Here's a snippet from near the end:

Dawn broke on the festival of Eid and four US army vehicles gunned their engines in preparation for a "hearts and minds" operation in Khost city, Afghanistan. A roll call of marines, each with their blood group scrawled on their boots, was ticked off and we were added to the muster. The convoy hurtled towards the city. Men and boys began to run alongside. First a handful and then a dozen. The crowd was heading for a vast prayer ground, and soon there were thousands of devotees in brand newEid caps and starched shalwas marching out to pray. The US Humvees pulled over. The armoured personnel carriers, too. A dozen US marines stepped down, eyes obscured by goggles, faces by balaclavas.

They fell into formation and stomped into the crowd while a group of Afghan police looked on incredulously. "Keep tight. Keep tight. Keep looking all around us," a US marines captain shouted. More than 10,000 Pashtun men were now on their knees praying as a line of khaki pushed between them.

An egg flew. Then another. "One more, sir, and the guy who did it is going down," a young sergeant mumbled, as the disturbed crowd rose to its feet. Bearded men with Kalashnikovs emerged from behind a stone wall and edged towards us, cutting off our path. The line of khaki began to panic, and jostled the children. "Back away, back away now," shouted the sergeant. Suddenly an armoured personnel carrier roared to meet us. "Jump up, people," the captain shouted, and the convoy sped back to Camp Salerno.

Are Marines stupid, or what? They should have called for air support.

Gay wedding party not so gay

Saudi security forces have raided a gay wedding party, detaining 110 men. These guys were taking a big risk:

Homosexuality is illegal in Saudi Arabia and is punished by flogging, jail or death.

Despite the heavy penalties for homosexuality, most Saudi cities are said to have underground gay networks which organise parties in private villas, and sometimes in hotels.

Saudi executions are not systematically reported, and officials deny that the death penalty is applied for same-sex activity alone.

They might want to consider moving to Oman, which is much more tolerant of such goings on.

Report: waste wasteful

The ABC reports on a study by the Australia Institute:

The institute, based in Canberra, looked at spending behaviour and found nearly all Australians purchased things they did not use.

The institute's deputy director, Richard Dennis, says the actual amount of money wasted on unused items is likely to be much greater than $10 billion as only some areas of spending were considered in the study.

He says Australians pay out more than $1 billion a year in interest on "interest-free" credit cards and more than $5 billion is spent on unused food.

"The old thing's true about your parents telling you there's starving people overseas and you should eat your food," Dr Dennis said.

Shocking, people buy things they don't need or use. And what's with the "clean your plate because people overseas are starving" comment? This guy obviously isn't aware there's an obesity epidemic. Anyway, it's not like someone in Bangladesh is going to go hungry if I throw a helping of glazed carrots in the bin, now is it?

The Sydney Morning Herald also reports on the study, with emphasis on the doom and gloom aspects:

The wasters tend to be young, rich or both.

"Australians seem to live with a contradiction," said Clive Hamilton, who co-wrote the study. "They express concern about the environment yet live materialistic lives that result in high levels of waste."

Tim Rogers, who is executive director of sustainability projects in the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation, said people needed to think about their purchases.

"Do you need it? How is it packaged? What can you do with it when it's finished?"

No one wanted, he said, to create more landfill sites, but in an era of affluence it would be an achievement if NSW met its target of simply keeping the amount of waste at the current 6 million tonnes a year.

"Even if people recycle, large quantities of energy and natural resources have been wasted making products people don't use," he said.

Jeez, now I feel guilty – isn't guilt what this report is all about? – for wasting the electricity it took to read this nonsense.

Native Americans and oil exploration

The ABC headline screams Native Americans decry Alaska exploration ruling with the article following through:

There has been an angry reaction from native Americans in Alaska to the decision by the United States Senate to open up a remote wildlife refuge to oil drilling.

"Sixty to 70 per cent of our diet comes from the land and caribou is one of the primary animals that we depend on for sustenance," he said.

"For us this is a human rights issue and it's a basic Aboriginal human rights issue."

A bit of checking reveals that "Eskimos" are supportive of oil exploration in the area:

A January 2000 survey of 68 Kaktovik residents found that 78 percent favor opening ANWR while only 9 percent are opposed. The Alaska Federation of Natives, representing some 80,000 Eskimos, adopted a resolution in 1995 calling for opening ANWR as a "critically important economic opportunity for Alaska Natives."

(The survey mentioned above is here.)

The angry native Americans sound like they might be relatives of Ward Churchill. If that's the case that would actually make them angry, non-native, American-hating Americans. Screw it, start drilling already.

Risk not obvious

Young people are risk takers but they aren't necessarily stupid. Kids can understand and evaluate dangerous activities from a very early age. If not, lots of kids would be killed on playgrounds every day. But, the New South Wales Supreme Court thinks 14 year olds are complete idiots. How else to explain the court awarding a man over AU$1 million for jumping off a bridge and breaking his neck despite a warning sign? Especially when the jumper admitted he knew he was taking a big risk:

Phillip James Dederer, now 20, said he saw the sign but, as a "cocky 14-year-old", he ignored it. The risk was "part of the thrill", he said.

The court had this angle covered:

Justice John Dunford said yesterday that while he accepted Mr Dederer had engaged in a "dangerous recreational activity", a 14-year-old, unlike an adult, could not have been aware of the risk of serious permanent injury.

"I am not satisfied that it was an obvious risk," Justice Dunford said.

The sign didn't make the risk obvious so tax-payers get to pay for this fellow's folly.

I see a future where the warning labels will weigh more than the hammers they're attached to.

"X" RIP

George F. Kennan has died at the ripe old age of 101. Made famous by his "Long Telegram" from Moscow, later republished as "The Sources of Soviet Conduct," he signed himself simply as "X". He offered a nuanced but realistic view of the Soviet Union and was a prominent "Cold War" strategist.

The New York Times sums up his life, here.

Oh Canada

"The Great White Waste of Time"


"A sort of arctic Nebraska"

Blame allocated, responsibility absolved

Aussie blogger Tim Dunlop thinks if anyone is going to be barred from visiting Australia, evangalist Billy Graham's son Franklin should be at the top of the list. According to Dunlop, Graham the younger is not only a supporter of Bush and the Iraq war, he's credited with the US AIDS prevention policy in Africa, which favours abstinence over condoms. According to Dunlop's sources, this policy has been disasterous, with Graham to blame:

In other words he is credited with a policy that cost millions of dollars, doesn't work, and condemns thousands of people to die a slow death from a horrible disease because he reckons that God reckons that people shouldn't put a plastic bag over their dicks.

So, in typical looney lefty thinking, those spreading AIDS are not resposible, while a man who has proposed a possible means of prevention is responsible. AIDS has been a threat in Africa for quite a few years and has caused many deaths. Surely Africans should have worked out by now there's a link to unprotected sex and would want to be very careful where they park their dicks, condom or no condom.

Why does the left insist on treating adults in the developing world like mentally retarded children? Oh, that's right, the left regards all non-leftists everywhere as mentally retarded children.

No excuses

I'm well aware that over the past few days I haven't been at the top of my blogging form. There are contributing factors: it has been hot and very humid; I'm new to blogging; ongoing domestic dramas - suffice to say the wife understands RWDB to mean Really Worthless Dead Beat; dental problems – flouride poisoned water was not allowed to impurify my precious bodily fluids as a child; and I'm committed to undertake lots of hours of professional development training after work.

The quality of my posts has suffered. I've become sloppy; not enough effort has gone into editing posts to eliminate unnecessary words. The important thing is I'm aware of the problem. Making excuses isn't going to get me where I want to go. I want to be respected and widely read so I'm going to have to lift my game.

Fortunately, I've remained alert enough not to have posted anything outlandishly stupid – at least I don't think I have. Some of my political blogger adversaries have, however, lost the plot.

As noted several days ago in the post When academics attack, I'm of the opinion that John Quiggin's post The national comparisons game is, well, drivel, especially coming from an economist.

Even though Quiggin is aware of my post taking him to task – he must be, I posted a link to it in his comments section – he refuses to respond. I therefore decided to take my challenge to his comments section. He tried to fob me off by responding with some economist schtick but ignored the essence of my posts.

I persisted with questions for Quiggin but his site suddenly refused to accept further comments. Comments were edited and reedited but rejected. Two changes of email address did not help. Omitting my URL didn't work either. My frustration grew with every failed attempt.

Then I noticed some of my comments, especially the later, more pointed comments, had been omitted from Quiggin's comments section. I sent Quiggin an email asking what was going on. After a few hours, during which time he posted to his site but did not respond to my email, I posted this, claiming that Quiggin had wimped out by blocking my comments.

Quiggin did eventually respond, telling me the comments were rejected by his spam-filtering software. He suggested that if I really wanted to comment at his site I should persist and I'd probably eventually get through. He ignored the question of the disappearing comments.

Somewhere in the midst of this, one of my comments reappeared. I sent off another email to Quiggin asking if my comments had been removed, and one of them later replaced, by his spam-filtering software. He replied that, bizarre as it might seem, this was indeed the case. He also asked that I correct or retract the accusation that he had blocked my comments.

After giving the matter much thought I've decided a correction is not yet warranted. I've invested quite a bit of time and effort in posts, comments, comments that were rejected and comments that were omitted. Quiggin owes me some answers as a common courtesy. Answer the questions that follow – to my satisfaction – and the correction is his:

1. Do you stand by your contention that the article Tim Blair linked to, which is based on a Eurochambers study deriving from the research of Pavle Sicherl, Professor of Economics at the Lubljana University and Founder of SICENTER, was intended to scare?

2. Do you stand by your contention – stated in behind-the-scenes emails – that it was your spam-filtering software, acting without input from you, that blocked my comments, removed a number of my comments and later replaced one of my comments?

No excuses, please.

Oops, almost forgot, for stupidity for which there is no excuse, go here.

Europeans expect worst from Bush, get it

OH MY GOD! Chimpy McHitlerburton has gone and upset the nuanced Europeans, again. Wolfowitz has been nominated to head the World Bank:

"We were led to believe that the neoconservatives were losing ground," said Michael Cox, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. "But clearly the revolution is alive and well."

He added that despite recent efforts from Washington to mend relations, "Europeans are still inclined deep down to suspect the worst, and this appointment won't go down too well."

There's also the little matter of a Jew heading the World Bank. I mean, how's the Arab street going to react to a neo-conservative, Muslim-hating, maths-major Jew in charge of the World Bank? And, have you seen the size of this guys nose? His God-damn feet don't get wet when it rains.

Commies arousing

Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque addresses the Human Rights Commission:

"The Human Rights Commission that brings us together today reflects the unjust and unequal world in which we live," he emphasized.

In that respect, he predicted that Cuba will not tire or make concessions, much less in the face of maneuvers which – he denounced – the U.S. is imposing in order to attempt to condemn the Cuban government.

He referred to the administration of President George W. Bush, stating that "it fears the Cuban example."

"We are a dangerous example, a symbol that only in a just, solidarity-focused, socialist society can there be the possibility of all citizens enjoying their rights," stressed Pérez Roque.

Yep, that's Cuba, land of rights.

Hey, this guy is such a great speaker the audience gets aroused even before he takes the stage. With lines like these it's no wonder his listeners get wood in anticipation.

He condemned the partiality of the Commission, in which the European Union has refused to co-sponsor and vote in favor of a resolution to investigate the torture and abuse of hundreds of prisoners at the military base occupied by the Pentagon in Guantánamo.

He also mentioned the conclusion reached by the High-Level Segment concerning the threats to, challenges for and changes within the UN. In his report, he recalled that this panel recognizes that "the commission cannot be credible if it considers applying two distinct measures when dealing with human rights issues."

And he questioned whether the United States and its accomplices would then be capable of exercising self-criticism and committing itself, along with the Third World, "to rescuing the HRC from discredit and confrontation."

The Cuban foreign minister’s speech had aroused expectations, in particular from developing countries and accredited NGOs, who provided the most resounding ovation heard so far in the commission.

Pérez Roque mentioned the United States by name on 10 occasions, not counting his references to President George W. Bush. "Cuba is the voice of millions who are silent," commented to me an African man who occupied one of seats reserved for the NGOs.

Commies talking shit. The UN listening. Twas ever thus.

Desperate for success

Hugh Muir writes in the Guardian of crime and criminals in Britain:

The polarisation of our society into the haves and have-nots, the connected and the disconnected, is such that those of us at one end of the scale can barely begin to think in the same way as those at the other.

Hugh's right, I can't think like them but I can understand how they think:

"People are trying to make as much money as they can to live a better life. They see a lot of things happen on TV, famous people, rap stars, gold, big cars, houses; they all want it but everyone ain't got the same means of getting it, so they are going about getting it in other ways."

These criminal scum-bags think they are just like us:

"Most of the criminals out there, they're not stupid, they're smart people, they just ain't had opportunities ... it's just, they do the easiest, like, the easiest thing that's there. Like me, for example, it was robberies and that. Robberies are easy, easy stuff. I could have done much, I could have maybe been a doctor, I could have been a lawyer, but it's just the way I grew up."

Hugh's conclusion is as expected:

An excluded schoolboy with no education and few prospects will nevertheless try to have the things and the life that we all aspire to. It is just that he might buy a gun, sell drugs or shoot someone on the way.

We are required to show personal responsibility, but desperate people do desperate things. If we don't like the way these young men play with cards they have been handed, perhaps we need to think harder about how we shuffle the deck.

Hugh, these people are criminals because liberals have tried to convince a whole generation they are not responsible for their behaviour; they are the powerless victims of capitalism. They are unable to associate success with work – they tell you as much – because they have never had to work – really work – for anything they have achieved in life. In effect, they cannot succeed because they have never been allowed to fail.

Rather than trying to stack the deck, we should teach everyone from a very young age they must follow the rules of the game. Break the rules; face the consequences.

Long life? Fat chance

American health researchers are making dire predictions for the future of overweight Americans:

Researchers say that the explosion in obesity in the United States is likely to cut life expectancy, reversing two centuries of uninterrupted progress.

In one of the most dire warnings ever issued about obesity, the researchers say the next 50 years, growing waistlines will cause more premature deaths than cancer and heart disease.

"It's distinctly possible that our kids will live shorter lives than their parents," Dr S Jay Olshanksy, of the University of Illinios, said.

"It's a frightening possibility."

Ever the optimist, I predict there will be a number of breakthroughs that will make the predicted problem disappear. If the problem does materialize as predicted, the fatties should be thanked for helping to solve Social Security's shortfall problems.

Britney tries to be helpful

She can't run her own life yet she tries to help others:

Pop superstar Britney Spears has offered some unusual advice to the beleaguered Michael Jackson – he should get drunk and fight someone in a bar.

Hey, I'd pay good money to see these two go a few rounds and Jackson is reputed to have money problems ...

Super-brained dissent crusher

Over the past few days there has been a nasty little comments fight going on over at social-democratic Australian academic and blogger John Quiggin's site. He got the ball rolling by making some pretty silly comments which I challenged. The professor refused to respond to me directly – apparently my lowly BA does not merit a response – and generally tried to ignore my posts. Christopher Sheil – see profile here – felt obliged to try to save the professor's self-esteem by attacking mine, alluding to me living under a rock. I, on the other hand, was totally civil throughout.

Last night John Quiggin's site refused to accept my comments, and continues to refuse further comments. Late this afternoon I noticed my later, more pointed comments had been removed. There has been no response to an email asking about my posting status and the disappearing comments.

It seems the professor can dish out but can't take it. RWDB 1, John Quiggin 0.

More academic attacks

In a recent post, lefty Australian academic and blogger Tim Lambert takes to task two pundits who perpetuate what he sees as the DDT ban hoax. Techincally he's right, there was no actual DDT ban; there was, however, an effective ban in some parts of the world, which he fails to note:

In the early 1990s, for example, the United States Agency for International Development stopped the governments of Bolivia and Belize from using DDT. In Madagascar, the United Nations Development Programme tried to persuade the government to replace DDT with Propoxur, a less effective pesticide. To its credit, Madagascar refused. In Mozambique, both NORAD, the Norwegian development agency, and SIDA, its Swedish counterpart, said that they could not support the use of DDT, as it was banned in their own countries. That the problems of a desperately poor malarial country in Africa might be somewhat different from those of wealthy, non-malarial Scandinavia seems not to have occurred to them.

It's usually best to let people decide what's best for them.

Lambert also fails to note that only minute quantities of DDT are used in the house spraying programs, which are thought to repel mosquitos rather than kill them:

Only 3 percent as many mosquitoes entered the DDT-sprayed hut as the other two. Of those few mosquitoes that did venture in, most exited without biting.

One more thing, in taking the erring pundits to task, Lambert calls them "lazy and ignorant". Hmm, the same words might be applied to Lambert himself.

Anyone wanting to know what Lambert does for a hobby should go here. For an excellent list of links to DDT - malaria articles, go here.

Big Dig unsafe

Surely the Senators from Massachusetts will become involved:

The engineering specialist who led the investigation into leaks in the Big Dig says he can no longer say with confidence that the Interstate 93 tunnels are safe to drive in, according to a letter obtained by the Globe.

Oh, that's right, they have been involved all along. Kerry and Kennedy should stay as far away from water as possible.

Human - mouse hybrid

It doesn't take much to get Jeremy Rifkin worked up but this time he thinks scientists really have gone too far:

What happens when you cross a human and a mouse? Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke but, in fact, it's a serious experiment recently carried out by a team headed by a distinguished molecular biologist, Irving Weissman, at Stanford University.

Scientists injected human brain cells into mouse foetuses, creating a strain of mice that were approximately 1% human. Weissman is considering a follow-up that would produce mice whose brains are 100% human.

What if the mice escaped the lab and began to proliferate? What might be the ecological consequences of mice who think like human beings, let loose in nature? Weissman says that he would keep a tight rein on the mice, and if they showed any signs of humanness he would kill them. Hardly reassuring.

Feral cats, your days are numbered.

Word invented

In comments at John Quiggin's, marklatham inadvertently invents a new word:

Tim bliar is a curse on the blogosphere. Coments on his site are inane because bliar censors alternaive views. Him and I had an email exchange about this and his response was-if you want to publish your views,get your own blog! The dickhead just doesn’t get it.

Alternaive, what better way to describe lefty views? Here's a thought, marklatham should start a blog at alternaive.com

The problem with France

As this excerpt from an editorial in the Taipei Times shows, the Taiwanese are none too happy with France:

As France tries to pressure the rest of the EU into lifting the arms embargo on China, some readers might remember that Christine Deviers-Joncour -- the erstwhile mistress of former French foreign minister Roland Dumas whose tell-all books played a serious role in clarifying details of the scandal surrounding the kickbacks involved in Taiwan's purchase of Lafayette frigates in the early 1990s -- once wrote a book about herself called The Whore of the Republic.

The former lingerie model's right to this title is now under severe challenge from France's Defense Minster Michele Alliot-Marie, who last week said -- and you should probably reach for your sick bags now -- "France has the strictest, most stringent rules applying to the sale of weapons of the European Union and probably in the world." As the American writer Fran Lebowitz once said: "To the French, lying is simply talking."

The real problem with France? It's full of French.

Seriously, the editorial does make sense, anything for a Franc:

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) broached the issue twice on Thursday, and it is a shame that he was not a little stronger in his condemnation of lifting the EU arms ban. The plain truth is that for purely commercial motives, France is prepared to collude with the Chinese dictatorship in the stamping out of Taiwan's liberties.

Nothing new here.

Weasel discrimination

The national president of the Australian Computer Society demands change:

The definition of the family must also change to include not just the nuclear variety but a "21-year-old with a dog".

Unfair. Single ferret owners don't have to take this. Arise single ferret owners of Australia.

Reuters, the commie's friend

China has proclaimed a law threatening Taiwan with attack should it declare itself independent. Reuters has an interesting take on this new law:

China's parliament passed an anti-secession bill on Monday that authorizes the use of force against Taiwan, drawing a warning from the self-ruled island that Beijing would have to pay a price.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao defended the legislation, approved in a near unanimous vote to a lengthy ovation from lawmakers, saying it was aimed at peace as long as Taiwan, which China claims as its own, does not formally declare statehood.

The National People's Congress is not a parliament: a bunch of stooges does not a parliament make. Of course there was a "lengthy ovation", that's what stooges do. Stooges do not legislate, they rubber stamp: the vote was 2,896 "for" with two abtentions – the two abstentions voted from their rooms in the mental hospital.

Could this be some of that covert government propaganda passed off as news?

Foreigners polluting US

As if US pollution isn't bad enough, it turns out they're importing the stuff:

Mercury from China, dust from Africa, smog from Mexico — all of it drifts freely across U.S. borders and contaminates the air millions of Americans breathe, according to recent research from Harvard University, the University of Washington and many other institutions where scientists are studying air pollution. There are no boundaries in the sky to stop such pollution, no Border Patrol agents to capture it.

Quick, somebody call the UN. Hah.

When academics attack

Some lefty sites are quite good; mostly they're funny, in a whiny doom-mongering sort of way. Australian lefty economist John Quiggin can be very entertaining, especially when on the attack:

Tim Blair points to this exercise asserting that the EU is twenty years behind the USA. As Tim subtly points out, it’s absurd to suggest that the EU today (home of Nokia and Airbus, and birthplace of Linux and the World Wide Web) is comparable to the US when Atari boxes were the state of the art. Unfortunately, Tim’s irony is lost on his commenters, who assume the report deserves to be taken seriously.

Surely JQ read the report, which is of European origin and states explicitly that the EU is behind the US when judged on a number of economic criteria. It's Europeans making this "absurd" judgment. JQ continues:

To ram the point home to his slower readers, Tim might do well to point to the fact that, in terms of output per hour, several European countries are ahead of the US. Of course, when hours worked are taken into account, the US regains the lead, but on that criterion, Britain during the Industrial Revolution was ahead of any modern country.

What's with cherry-picking – something the left so often accuses the right of - of "output per hour" figures? The report states multiple criteria:

Presenting the survey, Arnaldo Abruzzi, the Secretary-General of Eurochambres, said, "the current EU levels in GDP, R&D investment, productivity and employment were already reached by the US in the late 70s/early 80s".

"Even the most optimistic assumptions show it will take the EU decades to catch up and then only if there is considerable EU improvement", he concluded.

And, it would be nice if JQ explained how it is working longer hours increases output per hour. I'm no economist – I hope that's obvious – but I can't see that workers in Industrial Revolution era Britain produced more per hour than modern American and European workers. (There appears to be a heretofore unrecognised gap in my understanding of the way the world works.)

By the way, Eurochambres, which commissioned the report, is the Association of European Chambers of Commerce and Industry. It represents 43 national associations of Chambers of Commerce and Industry, comprising a European network of 2000 regional and local Chambers with over 18 million member enterprises in Europe. What would they know about economic conditions in Europe?

JQ should have finished long ago but soldiers on:

The real point is that productivity differences between modern economies are so small that, by selecting the right criterion, any developed country can be made to look better, or worse, than any other. The report is explicitly described by its promoters as a “wake-up call” designed to scare Europeans into adopting the policies favored by its promoters. Having seen this kind of thing going on since the 80s, when Australians were terrified with the prospect of becoming the “poor white trash of Asia”, I find such reports more soporific than alarming.

Look JQ, I've received a couple of wake up calls in my day, none of them alarming – Okay, that's a lie, it was a bit alarming when my cousin dropped a box of 50 .22 shells into the campfire early one cold morning while the rest of us were still zippered into our sleeping-bags. Anyway, if the report is only partly correct, Europeans should take note. It's about competitiveness and standard of living and that sort of stuff, not alarm.

I haven't discussed this with Tim Blair – haven't ever spoken with the man – and don't know how he feels about it and wouldn't presume to speak for him but I will say, keep 'em coming professor, unintended humour is the best.

Terrorism, the European connection

From the March 21 issue of Newsweek:

Now those recruits have been joined by a stream of young Islamists from Western Europe who are making their own way to the battlefield. Some are looking for Paradise as "martyrs," some just for street cred back home and some for serious combat experience in urban warfare. "Those who don't die and come back will be the future chiefs of Al Qaeda or Zarqawi [groups] in Europe," says French terrorism authority Roland Jacquard.

At a conference marking the anniversary of the Madrid atrocity last week, Robert Leiken of Washington's Nixon Center presented a provocative study of 373 radical Muslim terrorists arrested or killed in Europe and the United States from 1993 through 2004. His conclusion: some 87 percent are from immigrant backgrounds, but 41 percent are Western nationals, either naturalized, second generation or converts to Islam. "More French nationals were arrested than nationals of Pakistan and Yemen combined," says Leiken. While homegrown Muslim terrorists have so far been rare in the United States, in Europe they virtually recruit themselves, and Leiken points out that those who have European passports have almost open access to American territory through an ongoing visa-waiver program.

It would perhaps be an overstatement to call Europe and open sewer but, at the very least, a few manhole covers are ajar.

This excerpt doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know, does it?

Student reveals: no war in Australia

Student Stuart McMillen was walking down the street, not bothering anyone, except possibly the girl he was with, when an Australian soldier supposedly pointed a weapon in his direction. After giving the matter some thought, Stuart decided he was unhapy about this:

"But then I realised that that was an Australian Army soldier pointing their gun at an Australian citizen in Australia, where there's currently no wars happening, so I thought that was a bit inappropriate."

"I think they were probably just having a little bit of fun, pretending they were driving through the streets of Baghdad or something like that."

I wonder if Stuart came to these conclusions by himself or whether he consulted with the girlfriend?

Given Coalition Forces' propensity for snatching, hooding and rendering innocent civilians to torture-loving foreign Hell-holes, Stuart should consider himself lucky to be still walking the streets.

Coulter debates Beinart

Beinart, as liberals are, was very serious. Coulter opened with:

"There's no one left to argue with on the Left - I've started to like liberals when they're afraid and shivering."

"I keep hearing Democrats say they couldn't get their message out [during the last Presidential election] - I don't believe that was the problem,"

"Was it a good idea to say it's our constitutional right to stick a fork in a baby's head?"

Coulter 1, Beinart 0.

Iraq death stats important?

A number of doctors from around the world are upset that there has not been a proper body count in Iraq, with Klim McPherson, professor of public health epidemiology, taking the lead:

Counting the dead is intrinsic to civilised society. Understanding the causes of death is a core public health responsibility. The government's white paper on public health emphasises the vital role of assessing the impact on health of all public policy. This is well recognised, and yet neither the public nor public health professionals are able to obtain reliable and officially endorsed information about the extent of civilian deaths attributable to the allied invasion of Iraq. Estimates vary between tens and hundreds of thousands.

These estimates come from reports in the press, or counting bodies admitted to hospitals, (www.iraqbodycount.net) as well as surveys. The former are likely to be inaccurate and to underestimate the true numbers and do not easily allow for reliable attribution between, for example, violent and natural causes. Public access to reliable data on mortality is important. The policy being assessed—the allied invasion of Iraq—was justified largely on grounds of democratic supremacy. Voters in the countries that initiated the war, and others—not least in Iraq itself—are denied a reliable evaluation of a key indicator of the success of that policy. This is unacceptable.

Note the focus on voters' need to know: how are we to truly hate ourselves if we don't know how many deaths we're responsible for? Anyway, is counting civilian war deaths an established practice? Statistics, we need statistics. How are we going to establish the cost-benefits ratio if we don't have statistics? 100,001 civilians killed, bring back Saddam.

In a companion piece, Owen Dyer makes pretty much the same point but, since this is billed as a news item, a photo is attached.

Save yourself the trouble of reading both articles: go here, look at the photo, read its caption and you'll have the instant summary of both.

Cowboy to tame unruly British brats

Monty Roberts, aka "the horse whisperer", has been signed on to conduct a three day education workshop in England. Sir Mike Tomlinson, former chief inspector of schools is enthusiastic:

'Some people might think it's wacky to turn to an approach best known for horses, but this also has interesting things to say about children,' said Tomlinson. 'We think it's worthwhile listening to Roberts's opinions and to expose our headteachers to different and interesting people who have ideas that might be of use to them,

'We want to try everything that is innovative and interesting for headteachers; we want to encourage them to question current practice. We want to explore difficult and different areas [in education].'

The key to Roberts's approach to horses is what he calls 'join-up': the moment a wild horse chooses to initiate contact and nuzzles the trainer. He said teachers must achieve an identical moment of breakthrough with children.

'Horses and children are almost identical emotionally and psychologically: they are both flight animals who wish to avoid trouble, but will become first bashful, then aggressive, if intimidated.'

British education authorities are desperate. Reasoning with the kiddies hasn't worked; maybe it's time to try the "sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up" approach. Just a thought.


Update: Contrary to Amelia Hill's reporting in the original article in The Observer, Monty Roberts is not the original horse whisperer, did not inspire the book and doesn't claim to be a horse whisperer. He bills himself as "the man who listens to horses". Hill reports Roberts is Canadian; if he is, it's by birth only; he grew up in Salinas, California.

Amelia Hill fails to mention that Roberts runs the Monty Roberts International Learning Center (MRILC), which trained more than 140 students last year using his nonviolent methods. This doesn't guarantee his methods will succeed in England but, he's not the education novice Hill makes him out to be.