TIME TO CUT AND RUN

John Quiggin thinks it's high time the US led coalition got the hell out of Iraq:

I think the best option is to announce, and adhere to, a timetable for withdrawal of US? [sic] Coalition troops from Iraq, and hope that the Iraqis can reach some sort of solution among themselves.

Somehow I don't think we can allow the practitioners of the new arab way of war to defeat us. If we do, they will only become more numerous and bold.

SOFTBALL AND BASEBALL DUMPED BY IOC

Softball and baseball have been voted out of the Olympics:

Baseball and softball are out of the Olympics as of 2012, in a vote that surprised even longtime International Olympic Committee members.

Friday's secret vote reflected a heavy European influence of the IOC, which claims a near majority of European members. The popularity of baseball and softball are limited primarily to the Americas, Canada and Asia. Both sports were founded in the U.S.

Handball would have been dropped but for its universal popularity.

PREYING ON AFRICA

Mark Curtis, writing in the Guardian, is unimpressed with the G8's commitment to help Africa out of the mess it's in:

G8 leaders favour private business interests, and their agreement is a vehicle to facilitate the corporate plunder of Africa. Britain's lead in this needs to be exposed and challenged.

This is the same Mark Curtis who wrote in December 2004:

I have calculated that Britain is complicit in the deaths of around 10 million people since 1945, in conflicts or covert operations where Britain has played a direct role or where it has strongly supported aggression by allies, especially the US.

Curtis probably learned how to do such calculations while attending the London School of Economics and Political Science.

THE STRUGGLE BEGINS

Mark Steyn:

There is an important rhetorical battle to be won in the days ahead. The choice for Britons now is whether they wish to be Australians post-Bali or Spaniards post-Madrid.

Since 9/11 most Britons have been sceptical of Washington's view of this conflict. Douglas Hurd and many other Tory grandees have been openly scornful of the Bush doctrine. Lord Hurd would no doubt have preferred a policy of urbane aloofness, such as he promoted vis à vis the Balkans in the early 1990s. He's probably still unaware that Omar Sheikh was a westernised non-observant chess-playing pop-listening beer-drinking English student until he was radicalised by the massacres of Bosnian Muslims.

Abdel Karim al-Tuhami al-Majati was another Europeanised Muslim radicalised by Bosnia. The inactivity of Do-Nothin' Doug and his fellow Lions of Lethargy a decade ago had terrible consequences and recruited more jihadists than any of Bush's daisy cutters. The fact that most of us were unaware of the consequences of EU lethargy on Bosnia until that chicken policy came home to roost a decade later should be sobering: it was what Don Rumsfeld, in a remark mocked by many snide media twerps, accurately characterised as an "unknown unknown" - a vital factor so successfully immersed you don't even know you don't know it.

This is the beginning of a long existential struggle, for Britain and the West. It's hard not to be moved by the sight of Londoners calmly going about their business as usual in the face of terrorism. But, if the governing class goes about business as usual, that's not a stiff upper lip but a death wish.

It's impossible to have an air-tight anti-terrorism defense. We must either surrender or ruthlessly pursue and destroy those who would kill us.

THE BEST THEY CAN DO?

Gerard Baker takes a pragmatic look at the London attacks and the coming political point scoring:

WHEN THE IMMEDIATE shock and grief at yesterday’s carnage subsides, a hard, almost callous, question will be on the lips of all those who seek to understand its true meaning.

Is this the best they can do?

It does not seek to minimise the tragedy that visited a normal, busy London morning. It does not devalue a single life, the emptiness of a single bereavement, the pain of a single mother, son or best friend whose life has been forever shadowed by a light extinguished.

It’s a truly important question, with geopolitical implications. It will be asked first by The Power of Nightmares crowd, the documentary film-makers and columnists and left-wing politicians who argue that the terrorist threat has been got up by right-wing ideologues in Washington and their pliant poodle in London.

At first, of course, yesterday’s events do not look good for the “al-Qaeda was all an invention” party. The bombings surely demonstrated, to those who doubted it, that there really are people out there with the motive and the capacity to inflict mass murder on the innocent.

But on deeper reflection, the conspiracy theorists will, quietly, claim a kind of vindication for their argument. They will say that for all the fear and terror inspired yesterday, the first and much anticipated attack on London in the post-September 11 era was a conventional and, by any standards, a rather limited business.

A few pounds of plastic explosive on the least impregnable parts of the London infrastructure. Dozens dead; horrific, of course; larger in scale than anything the city has seen before, but no different in kind. Is this really evidence of some new global terrorist threat? There was no ricin, no sarin, no smallpox, no nuclear detonation, no dirty bomb.

Not even the commandeering of aircraft for use as ballistic missiles. Just old-fashioned, 20th-century techniques in the service of 14th-century fanaticism.

Is this the best they can do? They’ll take the argument further, too. They’ll say that the terrorists wouldn’t even have been capable of this if we had not bolstered their cause by invading Iraq and producing thousands more martyrs for their cause. There was no threat before, they’ll say: if there is one now, it’s our own fault.

Read the whole thing.

JUST LIKE GITMO

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi claims the group is holding a Navy SEAL Commando:

"The soldier is with us.

"He is alive, but we will kill him in the coming couple of days. We are interrogating him and that is why we have kept him alive. The interrogation is about American military tactics and their operations."

That's one way to keep prisoner numbers down.

DON'T UNDERESTIMATE AL QAEDA

Usually the left bleats that the terrorism threat is exaggerated by the right; not James Wolcott:

Whoever carried out these attacks managed with a minimum of expense and a modest amount of planning and ruthless execution to upstage the G8 Summit, instantly deflate London's euphoria over winning the Olympic nod for 2012, and wipe the smile off of Tony Blair's face--Blair, for whom the G8 summit was to be his big comeback stage and an opportunity to get out from under his poodle image by taking the high moral ground over Bush on the issues of global warming and African relief. It's been over three years since 3000 Americans died on 9/11, Bin Laden is still at large, Iraq is turning into quicksand, oil has crested $60 a barrel, and yet the Steadfast and Resolute politicians and pundits still insist on underestimating the strategic and tactical intelligence of Al Qaeda. Why, I don't know.

Well, you gotta give Bin Laden and the rest of al Qaeda's leadership credit, they're smart enough to get others to blow themselves up.

BLAME ASSIGNED

Tariq Ali knows who's to blame for the London attacks:

Most Londoners (as the rest of the country) were opposed to the Iraq war. Tragically, they have suffered the blow and paid the price for the re-election of Blair and a continuation of the war.

It must be about time for the Poms to run up a white flag.

NUCLEAR ARSENAL UPGRADE

The Bush Administration's plan to modernize America's nuclear arsenal is far from a sure thing:

The U.S. administration may have another chance to try and develop an earth-penetrating nuclear warhead.

The U.S. Senate agreed Friday [1 July] to revive the "bunker-buster" program Congress decided to kill last year.

Administration officials have maintained the country needs to try and develop a nuclear warhead that would be capable of destroying deeply buried targets including bunkers tunnelled into solid rock.

But opponents said its benefits are questionable and such a warhead would cause extensive radiation fallout above ground killing thousands of people. And they said it may make it easier for a future president to decide to use the nuclear option, instead of a conventional weapon.

France is definitely going to upgrade its arsenal:

Though France is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is bound by Article VI's goal of nuclear disarmament, it shows no signs of giving up its remaining arsenal. Instead, it is making plans to develop, procure, and deploy new nuclear weapons, and to maintain its existing arsenal without nuclear testing, for years to come.

The left will no doubt be outraged.

LONDONERS GET ON WITH LIFE

What better way to tell terrorists they picked the wrong people to terrorise:

All London mainline stations have reopened and are expected to run a normal service, with the exception of King's Cross. The mainline rail station at Liverpool Street was open but the tube station there remains closed.

A full bus system was running, although there are suspensions and diversions around the bomb sites at King's Cross, Aldgate and Russell Square.

The Metropolitan police yesterday requested people to stay away from work today if possible but there were signs that many were making the journey on a transport system that appeared to be less disrupted than feared.

Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission also suggested some people should stay home:

He said he was "very concerned about a backlash" and called on British Muslims to "remain vigilant and calm and stay indoors".

He said: "IHRC is advising Muslims not to travel or go out unless necessary, and is particularly concerned that women should not go out alone in this climate.

"In the event of being attacked, IHRC urges victims not to retaliate and to report the matter to the police and appropriate authorities."

Not everyone agrees with Shadjareh:

Dr Mohammed Naseem, chairman of the Birmingham central Mosque, questioned the advice and said it was "a bit over the top".

But, even Naseem has concerns:

But he expressed concern about the potential use of existing anti-terrorism legislation that has been criticised in recent years by the Muslim community.

The government should be open about the evidence it has against potential suspects and not help foster a "climate of suspicion" about the Muslim community, he said.

"There are dangers that if we work on the basis of suspicions, the harmony between communities will be the first victim of these attacks," he added.

Harmony? If anyone's disrupting harmony, it's the lunatics bombing civilians.

BOYS' TOYS

I want one, you know, for my "pleasure and convenience". While I'm wishing, I'd like a wheelman as well.

AMERICANS TOO DUMB TO BUILD TOYOTAS

That's according to Gerry Fedchun, president of Canada's Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association:

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.

Odd, Americans build such cool weapons.

DANGEROUS WORK

Teaching in Thailand:

In an escalating campaign of violence here in the largely Muslim south of mostly Buddhist Thailand, government-run schools and the teachers who work in them have become particular targets of bombs and gunmen.

In the past year and a half, dozens of schools have been damaged or destroyed by arson. The local teachers union said 18 teachers had been killed in that period in the three most dangerous southern provinces, an average of one a month. Some give higher figures.

The Education Department said recently that it was buying used pistols and expediting permits so that teachers could arm themselves. [Free flak jackets are available to 3,000 teachers in the most dangerous areas, Reuters reported Tuesday.]

Sounds a lot like teaching in Australia.

TOO MUCH HELP

An article at Spiegel Online on the aid money flooding into Africa is summed up by its title, "Choking on Aid Money in Africa". Despite the billions in aid life is still tough in Africa, but not for everyone:

The aid workers are thirsty and the beer is flowing: There is a party mood in Rumbak, the city of tents which at one time almost became the capital of Southern Sudan. It's is a bit like the end of the day atmosphere at a trade fair: The stands have closed down and people have knocked off work.

All over the place people in sandals and washed-out T-shirts emblazoned with meaningful slogans ("no cattle plague -- more milk") and where they are stationed ("Somalia, Uganda, Sudan"), dart down side streets. The aid organizations' colored pennants flutter in the hot evening wind.

Don't anybody tell Sir Bob and mates, they'll be shattered.

FORMER ALLY CONTRADICTS MUGABE ON SLUM CLEARANCE

Mugabe apologists have supported his governments claims that the destruction of property in Harare is an operation – Operation Drive Out Rubbish – a long time in the planning and that the dispossessed will be given a place to live. A former Mugabe associate disagrees:

Mr Mbalekwa, a former senior director of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), was a member of Zanu-PF's senior body, the central committee, until resigning last Friday.

He said that neither the central committee nor MPs were consulted until the crackdown had already begun.

"This thing was not planned, it was done haphazardly, thereby causing a lot of suffering to people."

Making non-supporters suffer is the whole point.

ANCIENT FOOTPRINTS FOUND

The accepted wisdom that humans have only been in the Americas for about 12,500 years looks to be wrong:

British scientists say they have identified what appears to be the earliest human footprints so far discovered on the American continent.

The footprints were discovered in an abandoned quarry in Mexico.

They say they appear to have been made some 40,000 years ago.

It seems that humans must have traveled to the Americas by boat, not overland as we we're taught in school. Ain't it funny how science "facts" change over time?

The article doesn't say but I'm betting the footprints were found near the Rio Grande, heading north.

GADDAFI MORE SENSIBLE THAN GELDOF AND FRIENDS

Mark Steyn on the Live 8 performers, who want to give our taxes to African despots:

Once upon a time, rock stars weren't rated by Moody, they were moody - they self-destructed, they choked to death in their own vomit, they hoped to die before they got old. Instead, judging from Sir Pete Townshend on Saturday, they got older than anyone's ever been. Today, Paul McCartney is a businessman: he owns the publishing rights to Annie and Guys & Dolls. These faux revolutionaries are capitalists red in tooth and claw.

The system that enriched them could enrich Africa. But capitalism's the one cause the poseurs never speak up for. The rockers demand we give our fokkin' money to African dictators to manage, while they give their fokkin' money to Winthrop Stimson Putnam & Roberts to manage. Which of those models makes more sense?

Read the whole thing, it's well worth it, as always.

Africa's leaders, hoping to see a Live 8 windfall come their way, have jumped on the bandwagon:

Leaders at the African Union summit in Libya are preparing to release a final declaration expected to appeal for the continent's debts to be wiped out.

They are also likely to call for fairer terms of trade with the West, while stressing their desire for better governance and transparency.

The meeting ends a day before the G8 summit of the world's richest nations.

On Monday, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi told other African leaders to "stop begging" for Western charity.

But the final declaration is likely to urge the G8 to end all $350bn of African debt, not just the $40bn planned.

What does it say about Africa's leadership that Gaddafi is the most sensible leader at the African Union summit?

PLOT PROPAGANDA POSES PREVENTABLE POLIO PROBLEM

The problem – some people want to live in the 7th century and are determined to force everyone else to live there with them:

A further 21 cases of polio have been found in Indonesia, bringing the total to 100, the WHO has said.

Officials believe the outbreak can be traced to Nigeria, where vaccinations were suspended in 2003 after radical clerics said they were a US plot.

Polio is still endemic in six countries - Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Nigeria, Niger and Pakistan.

Let's see, what do those countries have in common, other than polio?

TEFLON THE NEW DDT

Scientists recently concluded that a chemical used in the manufacturing of Teflon causes cancer in rats. Activists reacted as activists do:

Radical environmental groups immediately seized the opportunity to move in for the kill. On 29 June, Richard Wiles of the Environmental Working Group opined on the NBC Nightly News that PFOA 'has now been determined to be a likely human carcinogen. That ranks up there with DDT, PCBs, dioxin as a very serous hazard. It needs to be banned'.

So, it turns out Bubba – the Teflon Kid – was even more toxic than we thought. I hope Monica brushed her teeth and rinsed well, you know, after.

CHANNELING ISLAMIC FUNDAMENTALIST AGGRESSION

Robert S. Leiken believes the most dangerous Islamic terrorist threat to the United States comes from the Syria sized population of angry Muslims in Europe:

Jihadist networks span Europe from Poland to Portugal, thanks to the spread of radical Islam among the descendants of guest workers once recruited to shore up Europe's postwar economic miracle. In smoky coffeehouses in Rotterdam and Copenhagen, makeshift prayer halls in Hamburg and Brussels, Islamic bookstalls in Birmingham and "Londonistan," and the prisons of Madrid, Milan, and Marseilles, immigrants or their descendants are volunteering for jihad against the West. It was a Dutch Muslim of Moroccan descent, born and socialized in Europe, who murdered the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam last November. A Nixon Center study of 373 mujahideen in western Europe and North America between 1993 and 2004 found more than twice as many Frenchmen as Saudis and more Britons than Sudanese, Yemenites, Emiratis, Lebanese, or Libyans. Fully a quarter of the jihadists it listed were western European nationals -- eligible to travel visa-free to the United States.

The emergence of homegrown mujahideen in Europe threatens the United States as well as Europe.

Europe's Muslims are jihad joiners because they're an unhappy bunch:

Unlike their U.S. counterparts, who entered a gigantic country built on immigration, most Muslim newcomers to western Europe started arriving only after World War II, crowding into small, culturally homogenous nations. Their influx was a new phenomenon for many host states and often unwelcome. Meanwhile, North African immigrants retained powerful attachments to their native cultures. So unlike American Muslims, who are geographically diffuse, ethnically fragmented, and generally well off, Europe's Muslims gather in bleak enclaves with their compatriots: Algerians in France, Moroccans in Spain, Turks in Germany, and Pakistanis in the United Kingdom.

The footprint of Muslim immigrants in Europe is already more visible than that of the Hispanic population in the United States. Unlike the jumble of nationalities that make up the American Latino community, the Muslims of western Europe are likely to be distinct, cohesive, and bitter.

It could be that Old Europe's leadership subconsciously – or consciously – demonized Bush and the US in an effort to channel this pent up Islamic aggression toward the Great Satan. There might be nothing to my theory but it's something to think about.

STUDY'S SHOCK FINDING: LABOR HAS IMAGE PROBLEM

Here's the one sentence summary:

A new study conducted by Melbourne's Monash University reveals Labor's reliance on the ethnic vote and inner city professionals, and it says Labor is seen as a party of elite social and cultural concerns.

It's time for a long hard look in the mirror, not that the smarter-than-thou will take any notice. Get used to the view from the back-benches, boys and girls.

WAR OF THE WORLDS PANNED BY PRETENTIOUS POM

For those of you who have seen the film, Peter Preston's commentary in the Guardian might make sense but it's doubtful. For Preston the movie was about "Uncle George's favourite paranoia pie with chocolate Cheney sauce." Damn, now that's a remake. (Personally, I usually opt for mint sauce with my paranoia pie. It must be an Australian thing.)

FOURTH OF JULY

Here's hoping all Americans everywhere have a wonderful Independence Day.

BRITISH CAR GETS BETTER THAN 12,000 MILES PER GALLON

Colour me sceptical:

A car that can travel on less electricity than it takes to power a lightbulb was unveiled by its British creators today.

The gas company BOC said the hydrogen-powered Ech2o car needed the input of 25W for a 25,000-mile global trip. This is the energy equivalent of less than two gallons of petrol. Emissions would consist of water. But with a top speed of 30mph, the journey would take more than a month, even if the car was driven flat out.

By my reckoning, 25W is equal to.o335 horsepower. Acceleration must be fantastic.

Update: There's a catch, the car's size limits its carrying capacity.

LIVE 8 GROUPIE

Anna Nicole Smith backstage at the Philly concert. As with those who actually performed, it's all about "hey, look at us".

Jeez, those monsters would keep the average African family in silicone for years.

POWER TOOL TRADE TO BE BANNED?

Iraqi police are accused of mistreating terrorist suspects:

...the use of an electric drill for a knee-capping.

Now that's torture. Like the British government, I too am deeply concerned.

No doubt the EU will now slap a trade ban on power tools.

LIVE 8 MOTIVATES THE MASSES

Live 8 reaction from an unaware European:

At France's concert, which boasted the Chateau de Versailles as its elegant backdrop, 16-year-old Hugo Viollier sat on the grass drinking beer with friends.

"I came because it's free and not very far from where I live," he said. "I didn't even know it had anything to do with Africa until you told me but that's a good thing."

Smart kid, the celebrity self-promoters are best ignored. Hopefully this kid's at home ripping some music off the net right now.