Scary new year, thanks to Iran

Richard Bernstein of the IHT doesn't go out on a limb when he predicts Iran will aggressively pursue nuclear weapons, but his description is chilling nonetheless. Read his other predictions for the new year, too.

[...] To begin with, the most dire: Iran will move to acquire the technology to enrich uranium gas into fissionable uranium, even as European negotiators will, finally, give up on talks with Tehran and bring Iranian violations of the Nonproliferation Treaty to the Security Council.

This is probably the most important event that will take place next year, because the world will not have prevented Iran from moving decisively to become a nuclear power, and Iran's becoming a nuclear power changes everything in the Middle East.

After Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will go nuclear too, and just when the post-Cold War world is supposed to reduce its nuclear stockpiles, a nuclear arc will be forming from India and Pakistan in the East all the way to North Africa, and it will be forming in the most politically explosive, death- and extremist-prone region of the globe.

What will have gone wrong? For the final few weeks of 2005, the negotiations between the EU-3 and Iran have essentially turned into a public relations campaign aimed at what both sides recognize as a sort of global parliament.

The Europeans keep talking in order to give the Iranians a chance to show how truly belligerent and uncompromising they are, and thereby to isolate Tehran from the countries that form its natural constituency, most importantly Russia and China, the two permanent Security Council members who, until now, have been opposed to sanctions.

The Iranian game is the inverse: it is to keep talking, and to throw in the occasional concession, to provide some hope that the negotiations can succeed - an example being the announcement Wednesday in Tehran that Iran would give the so-called Russian ideas to enrich Iran's uranium in Russia and re-export it to Iran "enthusiastic" study.

Iran wants to give Russia, China and the nonaligned countries that form Iran's home group the pretext they all prefer in any case, to maintain business as usual, rather than move to sanctions that will hurt them at least as much as they hurt Iran. [...]

On the brighter side: As Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac lose their luster, the luster of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, will brighten even further. Blair and Chirac suffer badly from what the French call "usure," a wearing out from too much exposure, like quilts left out in the sun. Merkel is not only a smart and capable politician, she has the decided advantage of having an easy act to follow.

Just how easy was made clear by the news in Germany this week, namely that the much-proclaimed Hartz IV reforms, on which Gerhard Schröder staked his chancellorship and lost it, have utterly failed, according to studies by independent research institutes. The goal was to decrease unemployment, but unemployment has risen. As the mass-circulation Bild Zeitung put it, referring to the former Social Democratic-Green coalition government, "Red-Green's most important reform is one big disaster."

The Schroeder years are finally beginning to be seen in Germany as a disaster. Now if only some journalists could point out that his failed policies are still being championed by the SPD and Greens....

The fundamental problem, as the economist Wolfgang Nowak put it some time ago, is that it does no good to try to force people into work if there are no jobs for them to be forced into. That realization, put into cold statistics by the report on Hartz IV, will induce the Social Democrats to agree to Merkel's reforms, focusing on reducing the cost of labor and labor market flexibility. But Merkel here will have to be bold and tough. It will be her opportunity and her test.

Internationally, following her stellar performance in cobbling together an unsatisfactory compromise at the EU budget talks a couple of weeks ago, Merkel will be the European honest broker. The French and the British have abandoned the possibilities of European leadership by pursuing narrow national self-interest. Merkel becomes the new European leader by default. [...]

Given the initial low expectations for Merkel, 2006 may well be the year she eclipses Chirac (practically a given) and Blair. She certainly lacks the ties to Bush that hurt Blair so much in the public's mind, which means she is well placed to be the bridge between the US and Europe.

Third of Pakistan’s madrassahs defying deadline to register

File it under: hardly surprising.

Pakistan is expected to take a flexible approach towards Saturday’s deadline for the registration of Islamic religious schools. About a third of the 12,000 madrassahs has so far failed to comply with government’s efforts to tighten regulation of their activities.

The registration drive is widely seen as a response to western concerns over the alleged role of some madrassahs in providing a breeding ground for Islamic militants.

The registration forces the schools to periodically submit information on their sources of funding as well as respect an official ban on recruiting foreign students. Government officials will also carry out regular inspections to ensure there is no training of students in the use of weapons. [...]

The good news is that some two-thirds have complied; whether sufficient oversight will take place is doubtful, however.

A cyclist for all seasons (hint: not Lance Armstrong)

The sports reporters at the IHT have voted on the cyclist of the year, and it's not Lance Armstrong. Although they leave the considerable evidence that he doped in 1999 out of their rationale, the evidence remains the snorting and trumpeting elephant in the room.

Unstated, too, is that the writers likely feel that the focus on the Tour de France is finally gotten to be too much. Starting with Miguel Indurain--who won the Tour five times running--riders have focused their seasons on winning the Tour, to the exclusion of all else. By choosing a well rounded rider who has no chance of ever winning the Tour--or any other multi-day race--the IHT staff is seeking to bring a bit more balance back to bike racing.

Here is the article:

The next question is from a Mr. Lance Armstrong of Austin, Texas: "I hear rumors that, once again, I have finished second in the voting for the IHT man of the year in bicycle racing. Last year, I lost out to a corpse; who is it this time, a spectator?

"When somebody wins the Tour de France, the world's toughest athletic competition, for the seventh consecutive year, you'd think he would cop this award, too. What gives?"

Answer: Steady there, champ. It's true that the title last year went to the deceased Emile Brichard, a 104-year-old Belgian who succumbed to the pressure of countless interviews when he turned out to be the oldest Tour de France former rider. He gave his all to the sport and the jury felt he fully deserved the honor. [...]

It is true, Mr. Armstrong, that you had a magnificent ride in the Tour de France, ending your career with an easy triumph.

The record you set - two victories more than any other rider in the century-old history of the Tour - will not be broken anytime soon, or at least not for the next seven years.

But the Tour de France is just - if that is the word - a three-week race in July. Where were you otherwise during the season? Nowhere. All spring you showed no more life than Brichard did.

On the other hand, look at what Tom Boonen did.

The Belgian, who turned a mere 25 in October, won the Tour of Flanders in April with a decisive attack that left him alone by 35 seconds at the finish line. A week after that one-day classic, he finished first in Paris-Roubaix [the most prestigious one-day race in the world--pigilito], beating two rivals in a sprint on the track at the end of the cobblestoned slog.

Victories in those two esteemed races in the same year are not unprecedented, but they don't occur all that often either.

Boonen had an otherwise quiet spring, then won two sprint stages in the Tour de France before he had to quit the race because of injuries in crashes.

In September, the Belgian emerged from a crowd near the finish of the world championship road race in Madrid and sped across the line the winner by a bicycle length.

Over a full season, two of the monuments of bicycle racing and the rainbow jersey of the world champion add up to a triumph that overshadows Armstrong's.

The international jury for the Vélo d'Or, the Golden Bicycle award that is given by the French magazine Vélo to the top rider of the year, agrees. Boonen accumulated 84 points, with Armstrong the runner-up at 65 points.

The Belgian, who rides for the Quick Step team from his homeland, paid tribute to Armstrong when he accepted the award.

"These last few years, it's been very difficult to do better than Armstrong," he said. "He's been untouchable. But I think I've also raised the bar pretty high. It's also a victory for all classics riders, who are sometimes forgotten when the Tour de France comes around.

"This award will be a lesson to some riders, who base their season on July, that there's life outside the Tour."

Pat Buchanan, ID attack dog, is frothing

Pat Buchanan throws just about everything but the kitchen sink at evolution (one of the few tropes left out: evolution is just a theory). Tellingly, rather than defend ID, he seeks to attack "Darwinism", with hilarious results.

"Intelligent Design Derailed," exulted the headline.

"By now, the Christian conservatives who once dominated the school board in Dover, Pa., ought to rue their recklessness in forcing biology classes to hear about 'intelligent design' as an alternative to the theory of evolution," declared The New York Times, which added its own caning to the Christians who dared challenge the revealed truths of Darwinian scripture.

Pat writes as though the sum of evidence for evolution includes only those books penned by Darwin himself, thus "Darwinian scripture". Ignorance of the thousands of experiments and papers in peer-reviewed journals is helpful in this case. But the paragraph does point up the threat Creationists take evolution to be.

Noting that U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III is a Bush appointee, The Washington Post called his decision "a scathing opinion that criticized local school board members for lying under oath and for their 'breathtaking inanity' in trying to inject religion into science classes."

But is it really game, set, match, Darwin?

Have these fellows forgotten that John Scopes, the teacher in that 1925 "Monkey Trial," lost in court, and was convicted of violating Tennessee law against the teaching of evolution and fined $100? Yet Darwin went on to conquer public education, and ACLU atheists went on to purge Christianity and the Bible from our public schools.

So, the evidence for evolution had nothing to do with it conquering public education? He does have a point, though. The backlash to Scopes' conviction led to an examination of such laws and the debunking of creationism. Thus, evolution did benefit from the trial.

To suggest that ID will similarly benefit is incredible. One trial was solely about whether a man had violated a state law. The recent Dover trial which has Pat's knickers in a loop concerned itself in part with whether ID was science.

The Dover defeat notwithstanding, the pendulum is clearly swinging back. Darwinism is on the defensive. For, as Tom Bethell, author of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science," reminds us, there is no better way to make kids curious about "intelligent design" than to have some Neanderthal forbid its being mentioned in biology class.

That's all? Let me tell you, Pat, few children are going to willingly add to their school workload. Nevertheless learning about ID is a fine idea; encourage children to learn all they want. By all means, place whatever reading material you wish in the library. But keep it out of science classes.

In ideological politics, winning by losing is textbook stuff. The Goldwater defeat of 1964, which a triumphant left said would bury the right forever, turned out to be liberalism's last hurrah. Like Marxism and Freudianism, Darwinism appears destined for the graveyard of discredited ideas, no matter the breathtaking inanity of the trial judge. In his opinion, Judge Jones the Third declared:

"The overwhelming evidence is that (intelligent design) is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism and not a scientific theory. ... It is an extension of the fundamentalists' view that one must either accept the literal interpretation of Genesis or else believe in the godless system of evolution."

Just like Pat: everything is an ideological battlefield, even what should be taught in science class. Also, unlike Marxism, evolution is not a political ideology. Likewise, evolution is supported by thousands of experiments and observations.

But if intelligent design is creationism or fundamentalism in drag, how does Judge Jones explain how that greatest of ancient thinkers, Aristotle, who died 300 years before Christ, concluded that the physical universe points directly to an unmoved First Mover?

As Aristotle wrote in his "Physics": "Since everything that is in motion must be moved by something, let us suppose there is a thing in motion which was moved by something else in motion, and that by something else, and so on. But this series cannot go on to infinity, so there must be some First Mover."

A man of science and reason, Aristotle used his observations of the physical universe to reach conclusions about how it came about. Where is the evidence he channeled the Torah and creation story of Genesis before positing his theory about a prime mover?

How did Aristotle channel a creation myth before it was included in the Torah? First of all, the Book of Genesis was written before Aristotle. Secondly, Genesis is not the first creation myth; plenty were around to provide Aristotle with inspiration. Thirdly, how is the idea of a First Mover equivalent to the creation story of Genesis? Fourthly, Aristotle's views and conclusions about how the physical universe works have long been supplanted; Aristotle is no longer the expert on all things the Middle Ages took him to be.

Darwinism is in trouble today for the reason creationism was in trouble 80 years ago. It makes claims that are beyond the capacity of science to prove.

Darwinism claims, for example, that matter evolved from non-matter -- i.e., something from nothing -- that life evolved from non-life; that, through natural selection, rudimentary forms evolved into more complex forms; and that men are descended from animals or apes.

Evolution makes no claims as to the origin of life. Period.

Now, all of this is unproven theory. And as the Darwinists have never been able to create matter out of non-matter or life out of non-life, or extract from the fossil record the "missing links" between species, what they are asking is that we accept it all on faith. And the response they are getting in the classroom and public forum is: "Prove it," and, "Where is your evidence?"

No missing links in the fossil record? Plenty have been found showing how one species turned into another. The problem with missing links is that as soon as one is discovered, it creates two more. Which is why the missing link argument is so beloved of Creationists. Regarding the lack of evidence, it is ID which has failed to produce meaningful evidence.

And while Darwinism suggests our physical universe and its operations happened by chance and accident, intelligent design seems to comport more with what men can observe and reason to. If, for example, we are all atop the Grand Canyon being told by a tour guide that nature, in the form of a surging river over eons of time, carved out the canyon, we might all nod in agreement. But if we ask how "Kilroy was here!" got painted on the opposite wall of the canyon, and the tour guide says the river did it, we would all howl.

A retreating glacier may have created the mountain, but the glacier didn't build the cabin on top of it. Reason tells us the cabin came about through intelligent design.

Thus we have the argument at last for ID: things that appear designed must have been designed. By th way, evolution in no way postulates the origin of the universe.

Darwinism is headed for the compost pile of discarded ideas because it cannot back up its claims. It must be taken on faith. It contains dogmas men may believe, but cannot stand the burden of proof, the acid of attack or the demands of science.

Substitute ID for Darwinism and Pat would be correct. Evolution as a process is accepted as fact. Disagreements as to how it operates exist, but it has clearly met the demands of science.

Where science says, "No miracles allowed," Darwinism asks us to believe in miracles.

Europe and the US: more storms ahead

From an opinion piece in today's IHT comes this assessment of the EU-US rift: many problems may have been patched over this year, but significant disagreements remain, and will cause continued friction.

As 2005 draws to a close, European and American officials are enthusing over how good a year it has been for trans-Atlantic relations. In the words of Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, Europe and the United States have rebuilt bridges across the Atlantic, ended the war of words sparked by discord over Iraq and recognized the fundamental truth that the trans-Atlantic partnership is a long-term marriage not susceptible to separation or divorce.

The same conclusion is drawn by senior European officials. But the improved climate in day-to-day exchanges conceals two big structural disjunctions that are far from resolved and are likely to cause more trouble in future. The first is that while from Washington's point of view, as Burns puts it, trans-Atlantic relations are "no longer about Europe," in European eyes they are still very much about the United States.

Burns's analysis is frequently echoed in Washington these days. At its simplest, it is little more than a polite statement of the obvious fact that Europe today is no longer at the heart of U.S. geopolitical strategy. But administration officials are now putting a more constructive spin on that reality: With the end of the Cold War and the inclusion of former Soviet satellites in NATO and the European Union, Europe has solved most of the problems that for centuries made it the world's most dangerous flashpoint.

Now that the process of postwar European construction has largely been achieved, the question is no longer what Washington thinks about Europe, but what the United States and Europe can do together to promote their interests and values, and spread democracy, in the rest of the world. This new approach, together with recognition of the growing role of the EU, was deliberately highlighted by President George W. Bush's visit to the European Commission in Brussels, the first by a U.S. president, in February 2005.

The approach is seductive to those of the Brussels-oriented European elite who want to believe that the EU is poised to become an equal partner to the United States on the world stage. But that belief is largely based on self-delusion. While the United States wants Europe as a helpmate for many purposes, Washington does not usually place the word "equal" before "partner." And a still highly anti-American European public is further away from accepting U.S. leadership, or even partnership, than it has been for many years.

The fundamental difficulty is that despite Washington's recent blandishments, the majority of the European intelligentsia, the news media and the political classes believe that the United States, particularly under Bush, is domineering and dangerous. They pounce on every alleged misdeed, from so-called "torture flights" carrying terrorist suspects to secret prisons to purported infringements of American civil liberties, as avidly as Bush's most virulent opponents in the United States.

For a taste of how the German media fans the flames of anti-Americanism, go here.

This distorted view of America is fed by widespread envy of U.S. power. As long as it persists, many Europeans will be reluctant to commit themselves to a stronger Atlantic partnership. Political leaders who want to work with the United States, especially against terrorism, are frightened of saying so too openly. Although Atlanticism is far from dead in Europe, discussions of trans-Atlantic relations too often focus on the alleged shortcomings of the United States, rather than on constructive new ideas for collaboration.

The second, related, disjunction stems from the different ways in which Europeans and Americans believe that the world should be organized. It is true, as EU and U.S. officials often stress, that the EU is making major contributions to peace in places like the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan and working with Washington on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. But the standard European view of how Western influence - and particularly military force - should be exerted in the 21st century is radically opposed to America's and is likely to remain so.

While Europeans generally want diplomacy, international law and the will of the United Nations to prevail, Americans tend to believe, particularly since the Sept. 11 attacks, that in the end America must look after itself, with allies if possible but without if necessary.

The clash is accentuated by EU efforts to build a common foreign policy, venturing into international arenas that Washington expects to dominate. It is consequently not surprising that the worst trans-Atlantic confrontations are no longer about trade but about how the world should be run - most seriously over Iraq and the Middle East, but potentially equally seriously over EU arms sales to China. And yet it is precisely in such areas that Washington now wants to work with the Europeans.

Despite the undeniable improvements at surface level, these deep, underlying trans-Atlantic tensions are unlikely to disappear for years, at best. But an exchange of modest New Year's resolutions could point in the right direction. It might help if the Americans pledged greater respect for European opinions, and Europeans resolved to make those opinions less biased and sanctimonious.

(Reginald Dale is editor in chief of European Affairs and a media fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.)

Overall, I don't see this as much of a problem. The EU understandably has goals which differ from those of the US, although there remains much overlap. Opinions certainly differ over how to accomplish these goals (the EU prefers soft power and appeasement, even in cases of extreme urgency or peril; whereas the US is willing to openly threaten military means in such cases).

European hysteria over the US is also nothing new. At the time of the Rosenberg executions (1953), European intelligensia were proclaiming that the US had rabies and that Europe would have to sever all ties in order to avoid infection. Roughly the same thing happened in 1968 over the Vietnam war.

Problems will become unmanageable only if the EU defines its foreign policy as one of thwarting US goals (as France and Germany attempted prior to the Iraq war).

Chief Intelligent Design cheerleader deplores cheerleading

On his recently mothballed blog (via TPD), Uncommon Descent, ueber-cheerleader for Intelligent Design William Dembski posts this regarding Science magazine's selection of evolution as the story of the year:

[...] In what other science do its scientists have to do so much cheerleading for their theory?

I would answer: Intelligent Design, except that it is neither science nor a theory.

A call to charge Mugabe with human rights violations

A powerful call for the UN Security Council to intervene in Zimbabwe comes from the pen of the head of the International Bar Association in an IHT opinion piece. It will come to naught as African nations (following their colonial past) are very opposed to outside interventention, and would lobby strongly against any action against one of their owm (nor would some of the lesser tyrants like to see a precedent set). Nevertheless, the article's cataloging of Bob Mugabe's actions makes a strong case for sanctions and diplomatic isolation, if not for a referral to the International Criminal Court.

Zimbabweans have been gallant in their struggle to try to topple Robert Mugabe and rescue their country from despair. But Mugabe's state machine is simply too powerful and corrupt to be defeated by weakened and demoralized citizens. The escalating humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe requires an immediate and forceful international response.

Mugabe must be held accountable for the crimes he has committed. A UN Security Council referral to the International Criminal Court to investigate Mugabe and his regime, similar to the referral over Sudan's Darfur situation, is the most appropriate and effective response.

The International Criminal Court, or ICC, was established on July 1, 2002, as the first permanent international court to investigate and try individuals for the most heinous violations of international humanitarian law. A referral to the ICC to immediately investigate Zimbabwe would fall squarely within the powers of the Security Council to decide what measures should be taken to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Exercising its wide discretionary powers, the Security Council could specifically name Mugabe as an ongoing threat to the peace and security of the region and authorize an ICC investigation, even though Zimbabwe has refused to accept the court's jurisdiction.

Would an investigation for crimes against humanity stop Mugabe? Nobody knows. But we have to try, because the Zimbabwean government's systematic human rights abuses have reached staggering proportions.

Under the guise of creating order in the cities, Mugabe's government has razed informal suburban townships that housed more than a million people. Without notice or judicial proceedings, tens of thousands of homes, classrooms, clinics and businesses have been bulldozed or set on fire, forcing their residents onto the streets. The government has provided no alternative housing, nor has it provided aid for the 700,000 people who are now displaced.

Crimes against humanity include acts committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack directed against any civilian population - including the deprivation of housing and forceful transfer of a population, calculated to bring about the destruction of a targeted political group, which is the case in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe's razing of the townships is the culmination of the ruling ZANU-PF Party's anti-democratic assault. In rural areas, ZANU-PF is able to control voting through village leaders using a widespread system of patronage. But the residents of the townships and cities, who have access to the news media and are able to mobilize, form the backbone of Zimbabwe's opposition. Not content with shutting down the opposition media and targeting its leaders, the government is now is literally dispersing opposition supporters.

There is overwhelming evidence that Mugabe's government has committed other crimes against humanity, including imprisonment, rape, abduction and torture.

Zimbabwe is a country in ruins; its people are destitute. The unemployment rate is more than 70 percent and the annual inflation rate is more than 500 percent. Since 1998, annual foreign investment inflows have dropped from $436 million to less than $5 million.

The rural population suffers from increasing starvation, which is now being exacerbated by the influx of people displaced from the townships. Nearly 40 per cent of Zimbabweans are malnourished, with 70 percent of the population living below the poverty line of $1 a day. In the span of only 15 years, the average life expectancy has declined from 60 years to 30 years.

To make the situation worse, many of those who have been left on the streets suffer from AIDS. The World Health Organization reports that one in four Zimbabweans has the AIDS virus. In a recent demolition campaign, an AIDS orphanage was bulldozed. The independent news media have been shut down; the judiciary has been compromised; social services have collapsed and elections are rigged.

Mugabe is a demagogue whose egregious crimes have, to date, gone unpunished - much to the consternation of Zimbabweans. It is time for the international community to act, by using the "trigger mechanism" at the UN Security Council to initiate proceedings before the International Criminal Court.

An indictment by the ICC would turn Mugabe into a pariah within the context of international law: An international arrest warrant would be issued, and all UN member states would be obliged to detain Mugabe if he stepped outside the borders of Zimbabwe.

A referral to the ICC would also send an unmistakable message to the beleaguered citizens of Zimbabwe that Mugabe will ultimately be held accountable for his crimes. There is no statute of limitations for those, like Mugabe, who commit atrocities against their own citizens. It is time to bring him to justice.

Most of what is listed falls into the catagory of poor governing (poverty, reduced foreign investment), rather than crimes suited to the ICC, but the piece is a good indictment of his rule.

EU constitution may be revived

The EUobserver reports that the EU constitution, long held for dead, may be resurrected in 2007. Germany and Portugal favor adopting the constitution; the nations will split the EU presidency in 2007.

The Financial Times has an article about a preemptive attack on the ghost of the treaty:

Tony Blair’s longest serving minister for Europe has launched a stinging attack on the European Union’s now mothballed constitution, saying it was proposed “at the wrong time, by the wrong people, in the wrong manner”.

Denis MacShane, who as Europe minister from 2002 to 2005 was responsible for promoting the draft constitutional treaty, says he was “horrified” at the way some of his ministerial colleagues wanted to promote it as a “constitution” when it was really a new “rule book”.

In a pamphlet published by the Foreign Policy Centre, a think-tank, Mr MacShane makes clear he was uneasy with the prime minister’s decision to call a referendum on the proposed treaty. Plebiscites are “a device that undermines representative parliamentary democracy”, he writes. [...]

Criticising parliamentary procedures for scrutinising EU legislation as “inadequate”, he calls for five new committees each devoted to examining a separate field of EU activity. [...]

Is Britain regaining a sense of patriotism?

Few countries have a greater reason to be proud of their history than England. At the same time, few citizens are so dismissive of the moral and intellectual acheivements of their forebearers as many of the British.

The Telegraph points to an uptick in patriotism, even among the Left. Reading the piece reminds me of the spasms of schadenfruede many US progressives evince when bad news hits America. Americans often ignore their intellectual betters; it appears that British intellectuals are beginning to approve of a certain British bias.

Can an intelligent person be patriotic? Or is national loyalty a base emotion, fit only for the tabloid-reading masses? In the 1940s, George Orwell remarked that Colonel Blimps and highbrow intellectuals both accepted as a law of nature that patriotism and intelligence were divorced.

England was, he thought, the only great country whose intellectuals were ashamed of their own nationality and felt it their "duty to snigger at every English institution".

The recent re-publication of Our Island Story (1905), Henrietta Marshall's patriotic and beautifully written children's history, which encouraged legitimate pride in British achievements, has sparked some reactions that Orwell would have recognised.

Writing in the Times Literary Supplement, A. N. Wilson even went so far as to claim that from "Charlemagne to Frederick the Great, the story of Europe is very largely a German story".

The necessity to look up the dates of these two monarchs may distract a little from the audacity of this claim. Charlemagne assumed the Frankish throne in 768 and Frederick the Great died in 1786, a period during which, in Britain, the long struggle for liberty and democracy was taking place, culminating in the founding of parliamentary democracy and the entrenching of the idea that the power of the state was limited by law.

Meanwhile, in Germany, the foundations for totalitarianism - the absolute power of the unchecked ruler - were being laid. Wilson's Anglophobia has found recent support from no less a figure than the Archbishop of Canterbury: Dr Rowan Williams apologised at an international conference for the sin of making "cultural captives" of people subject to missionary work by the Anglican Church during the days of Empire.

Yet this hostility seems increasingly like an anachronistic outburst. Patriotism as Orwell defined it - "devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people" - is making a comeback among members of the intelligentsia.

In the week before his enthronement as Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu urged the English to stop being embarrassed by their own culture. He owed his own success to Anglican missionaries in Uganda, he said.

The English way of life was democratic, based on reason, and allowed "genuine dissent without resort to violence". And while in office he intended to remind everyone that English culture was rooted in Christianity.

Prospect magazine has put the idea of national loyalty to core beliefs back on the map of intellectual respectability. Consciousness of the threat from Islamist extremists has given added impetus, but the debate stimulated by its editor, David Goodhart, had begun earlier.

Among academics, Oxford's David Miller had been quietly restoring respectability to legitimate national pride through his book Nationality, and Professor Robert Rowthorn of Cambridge had warned, also in Prospect, of the dangers of multiculturalism to the sense of solidarity on which any free people must rely.

The Anglophobia that Orwell noticed within the intelligentsia of the 1930s and 1940s is still a powerful presence.

During the Second World War, various highbrows did not actually want Germany and Japan to win, he said, but they were pleased when Singapore fell because they "could not help getting a certain kick out of seeing their own country humiliated".

Occasional reverses suffered in modern Iraq provoke the same ambiguous, gloating reaction from today's Anglophobe intellectuals.

But the success of Our Island Story - boosted by a hearty recommendation from this newspaper's education editor, John Clare - suggests that the tide has turned.

Not only has the book sold more than 20,000 copies in a couple of months, but it has earned unexpected praise from bien pensant quarters.

The Guardian reviewer remarked that Antonia Fraser, an undisputed progressive heroine, had expressed her "lifelong gratitude" to the book. And so did the reviewer - on the grounds that, in the Peasants' Revolt, Henrietta Marshall had been on the side of the peasants, who had been ruthlessly exploited by a cruel ruling class and betrayed by the king.

Time Out, always a handy guide to the mental assumptions of the fashion-conscious Left, also came out in favour, finding "its tight focus on the virtues of courage, wisdom and patriotism" both valuable and relevant. And the Sunday Mirror declared it approved reading for the Labour-voting working class: it was "one of the great children's history books of all time".

The Economist, meanwhile, called it an "impeccably postmodern" contribution to the new political fashion of musing about the meaning of being British.

Perhaps the most interesting and encouraging feature of this debate is that it is taking place above the tribal loyalties of party politics. Orwell would have approved. "Patriotism has nothing to do with Conservatism," he wrote.

"It is actually the opposite of Conservatism, since it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same. It is the bridge between the future and the past."

Europe 'behind on Kyoto pledges'

The Kyoto Protocol is more and more being exposed for the feel good scrap of paper it is. Aside from Britain and Sweden, no European nation is likely to meet their commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

[...] Ten of 15 European Union signatories will miss the targets without urgent action, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found. [...]

France, Greece and Germany are given an "amber warning" and will not reach targets unless they put planned policies into action, the IPPR said.

Only Sweden and the UK were on course to meet their commitments, the think-tank's study found. [...]

The moral high ground also comes with a greased slope, as fervant Kyoto backers and noted international scolds France and Germany are discovering. But at least their citizens can say that their governments' hearts were in the right place. And, after all, isn't that what really counts?

No matter if the EU fails to meet its goals, there is always the US to blame:

The Kyoto commitments have been undermined, critics say, because the US - the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases - has refused to sign up to the treaty. [...]

Merry Christmas to all

Actually, best wishes to both my regular readers, the RINO community, and anyone who stumbles in due to a google search gone awry.

I hope that the holidays go well for everyone, that our troops are safe, and that your travels go smoothly.

Pigilito

Several good articles at The Economist

All are free (nice of them, as most of their best articles require a subscription; well worth the money, as the magazine is head and shoulders above its competition). All are entertaining and useful--some more than others.

An essay on pranks.

A short history of hated American corporations.

The story of wheat.

A possible explanation of French anti-Americanism.

The political importance of Ohio.

My favorite: a survey of evolution (this comprises a series of articles. Alas, only the first is free).

Evolution was the number one science topic in '05

Science magazine has selected research in Evolution as the most important science breakthrough of the year. Perhaps the editors raised it so high in response to Intelligent Design advocates' incessant bleatings about Evolution being in crisis.

From the journal's editorial (also as PDF file):

[...] Wait a minute, I hear you cry. Hasn’t it been a trying year for evolution, considering the debates about teaching evolutionary theory in science classes in the United States and the headlines about Intelligent Design? On the contrary; in the research community, it’s been a great year for understanding how evolution works, through both experiment and theory. No single discovery makes the case by itself; after all, the challenge of understanding evolution makes multiple demands: How can we integrate genetics with patterns of inherited change? How do new species arise in nature? What can the new science of comparative genomics tell us about change over time? We have to put the pieces together, and it could not be a more important challenge: As the evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”

Our scientist/journalist teams have compiled a splendid case for this exploding science. One of my favorites is the European blackcap, a species of warbler that spends the winter in two separate places but then reunites to breed, with birds selecting mates from those who shared the same wintering ground. Assortative mating of this kind can produce a gradual differentiation of the two populations. Biologists have shown that new species can arise because of geographic barriers that separate subpopulations, but the divergent evolution shown in this case could result in new species arising within a single range.

A favorite, if unlikely, subject for evolutionary studies is the small fish called the stickleback. Repeatedly, sticklebacks [Beatrix Potter wrote about them, too--Pigilito] have moved from the sea into fresh water. When that happens, the fish shed the rather heavy armor plates that protect them from marine predators, freeing themselves to enjoy la dolce vita fresca. New species have been generated in each invasion, always in the same way: by rapid evolutionary selection of the same rare and ancient gene. The exciting thing about evolution is not that our understanding is perfect or complete but that it is the foundation stone for the rest of biology. As such, researchers are eager to explore issues that have been seen as problems. Genes that are now known to exert complex effects on body form at the macro level answer the commonly stated objection that complex structures could not have evolved from simpler precursors. And so it goes: Scientific challenges are raised, inviting answers. [...]

Organic building blocks orbit a sun-like star

Creationists just can't get a break these days:

The first evidence that some of the basic organic building blocks of life can exist in an Earth-like orbit around a young Sun-like star has been provided by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. [...]

These gases, when combined with water, can form several different amino acids. These are needed to form proteins, as well as one of the four chemical letters, or bases, in DNA, called adenine.

The organic molecules were detected in a ring of dust and gas circling a young star called IRS 46. Such dust rings, found around all of the young stars that were examined by the Spitzer telescope, are believed to be the raw material for planetary systems.

The spectrographic data showed that the gases were so hot that they must be orbiting close to the star, approximately in its "habitable zone", the region where Earth orbits the Sun and where water is just at the borderline between liquid and gaseous states.

The detection supports the widely held theory that many of the molecular building blocks of life were present in the solar system even before planets formed, thus assisting the initial formation of complex organic molecules and the start of life itself.

Observations earlier in 2005 by a different team using Spitzer showed that simpler organic molecules, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, were present in galaxies as much as 10 billion years ago.

The star IRS 46 and its emerging planetary system "might look a lot like ours did billions of years ago, before life arose on Earth", said Fred Lahuis of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, who led the research team. [...]

But the new findings are the first to show they can occur around other Sun-like stars, and in a region where planets are likely to form. Follow-up observations with the Keck Observatory in Hawaii suggest that a stellar wind is beginning to blow away the dust surrounding IRS 46. This may be the start of what is thought to be a final stage in the formation of planets.

So we have organic building blocks, an energy source, and the makings for planets in the sweet spot (not too far or too close to a sun). Looks like science is getting closer to explaining the origin of life.

The pace of science has changed, adding to ethical lapses

As this analysis in the IHT makes clear, scientific ethics have changed as the rewards available to scientists have increased.

The recent scandal over falsified stem cell results brings that point home: Dr. Hwang Woo Suk became a national hero in South Korea for his ability to consistently produce breakthroughs in his field--one of the most glamorous in science at the moment (see the update below for more on Dr. Hwang).

In recent weeks, two widely respected scientists have found themselves in the stockades under suspicion of scientific misconduct, at worst, or poor judgment, at best.

Hwang Woo Suk of South Korea, who repeatedly stunned the world with groundbreaking cloning research in the past year, is now charged with ethical lapses and presenting inaccurate data in a landmark paper on cloning that appeared in the journal Science last summer.

Jean-Michel Dubernard of France, the plastic surgeon who has pushed the boundaries of transplant surgery, first with hand transplants and more recently with a partial face transplant, is now accused of rushing to perform surgery that was poorly conceived and unacceptably risky.

Although their work is unrelated, both are part of a new, high-profile school of science, where discoveries are often trumpeted in the media, sometimes even before they are thoroughly scrutinized by scientific peers or published in scientific journals. [...]

While such high-profile tactics have helped bring science to center stage, many critics complain that they fundamentally distort the slow, boring scientific method that for centuries has ensured the quality of research. In a world where top scientists are increasingly celebrities and millionaires, they say, the limelight can corrupt judgment.

"In these two cases I would say scientists were overzealous, too quick to push ahead," said Adil Shamoo, editor of the journal Accountability in Research and an ethicist at the University of Maryland. "Scientists feel the pressure of our society like everyone else. Their decisions are clouded by visions of fame and dollars."

Donald Kennedy, editor of Science - which is in the process of retracting Hwang's challenged paper - said that scientists had become far less collegial in the past decade, pushing hard to be first in their field. "There are enormous pressures to be extremely productive and at the top of the heap," he said.

Fame, prizes and lucrative patents await those who finish first, Kennedy said, but there are few kudos for those finishing fifth or sixth.

"Scientists want to be recognized like everyone else," he said. [...]

Also, news coverage has become invaluable, lifting fund-raising, stock prices and profits.

This is clearly the most important part. Adequate funding allows researchers to thrive. By making a name for themselves, it becomes easier to solicit funds from private companies.

"People use press coverage as a way to judge the value of research," Bradford said. "They want to know, Did it get in the papers? Not whether it really expands our knowledge."

Hwang insists that while some of his methods were flawed, his principal achievement stands: creating 11 stem cell lines from tailor-made embryos that could help treat diseases like diabetes. But, in addressing the public, he has not provided scientific data to support that claim, Bradford said.

In answering critics, both Hwang and Dubernard have noted that they work fast because desperately ill patients are waiting for help and it would be immoral to abandon them.

The plastic surgeon said that when he first saw the horribly disfigured face of the woman who received the facial transplant - she had been mauled by a dog - he could not deny her the operation.

In Dubernard's case, the charges are simpler: that he unwisely short-circuited what should have been a more thorough evaluation in order to operate on the victim. He took a leap, when science should proceed in a step-wise fashion. [...]

It's hard to criticise someone for wanting to prove his theories correct. In his case, much of the professional criticism seems to stem from envy or a distaste of medical showmanship. While the recipient may have been troubled psychologically, this shouldn't be an absolute disqualifier as this sort of transplant depends on matching the donor's facial structure to that of the recipient, and thus is a matter of luck and timing.

UPDATE: Regarding Dr. Hwang, this just in from the Beeb:

Research by South Korea's top human cloning scientist - hailed as a breakthrough earlier this year - was fabricated, colleagues have concluded.

A Seoul National University panel said the research by world-renowned Hwang Woo-suk was "intentionally fabricated", and he would be disciplined.

Dr Hwang said he would resign, but he did not admit his research was faked.

"I sincerely apologise to the people for creating shock and disappointment," he said after the panel's announcement.

"As a symbol of apology, I step down as professor of Seoul National University." [...]

ID in the Bible: suggestions for experiments

Given the recent court ruling prohibiting the teaching of ID in Pennsylvannian schools, I thought the Discovery Institute could use a bit of help with their goal of teaching Creationism (under the new title of Intelligent Design) in public schools.

My suggestion: Do the damned science if you want to win in court. Relying on repackaged arguments dating back to St. Aquinas simply won't cut it.

According to the Bible everything in the heavens and on earth is here due to an Intelligent Designer's good will and is according to the Designer's design.

Intrigued, and wanting to help out ID scientists--who can't seem to come up with evidence for ID on their own, let alone concieve an experiment to determine if evidence exists--I went looking through the Bible for mention of specific examples of what the Intelligent Designer's purpose was for some of his/her/its designs (giving a bird wings so it could fly wasn't a specific enough example; nor was making cows for Man's consumption).

I came up with two examples (quotes are taken from the NKJV Bible).

1. The snake was condemned to spend life on its belly for tempting Eve to eat the apple:

“ Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you shall go, And you shall eat dust All the days of your life (Genesis 3.14);

Unfortunately, as no specific design modification is implied, the serpent's locomotion issues and dietary sufferings don't count as an example of ID.

2. The Designer's desire that women would bring children forth in pain (also following the apple debacle):

To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
with pain you will give birth to children (Genesis 3.16)

Bingo! We have a clear Biblical example of the Designer's intelligence at work.

Presumably, before the apple, women's pelvises were wide enough to bear children without pain, although perhaps with discomfort (the citation is ambiguous as to what level of pain would have been expected pre-design modification). After promising pain in childbirth, the Intelligent Designer likely tightened up the pelvic girdle so that squeezing children out caused plenty of pain. An aside: clearly then, anesthesiologists are subverting the Designer's will, and may be taken to be in league with the Anti-Designer.

Unfortunatley, as Eve was the first woman, no evidence of designed pelvic adjustments can possibly exist in the fossil record. Consequently, ID proponents have again been let down through the unfortunate lack of the Designer's foresight. Perhaps the Designer was identified by the ancient Greeks.

An alternative--and testable--explanation would be that the Designer set up a unique pain pathway for women which only kicks in during childbirth.

Two scientific tests which could provide evidence for Intelligent Design suggest themselves:

1. Competent anatomists should search for extra nerve bundles only possessed by women and which are linked exclusively to childbirth.

2. During birth, MRI images of volunteers' brains, pelvic areas, and spinal columns could be captured. Examine the images for evidence of unique pain signals and pain pathways which only are active during birth.

Granted, positive results from these studies prove nothing, but would provide beneficial PR.

The Discovery Institute must have one or two underworked grant application writers who could get to work filling out NSF or NIH grant applications. The protocols would be simple to write; getting them past an Institutional Review Board might be another matter; doubtless they would have to hide their actual reasons for the studies, but they have loads of experience in hiding their true nature.

Swiss group wants human rights extended to animals

This man is a torturer. Some in Switzerland want the croc to have access to a lawyer (who will doubtless represent it as a professional courtesy). Looks like it will be on a referendum in a year or two. Give animals too much dignity and rights and next thing you know, they'll be taking our jobs; I'll vote "nein".

Switzerland's largest animal-welfare group has launched a new popular initiative to seek legal representation for animals.

Declaring itself "far from satisfied" with the new law on animal protection adopted last week by parliament, Swiss Animal Protection (SAP) said it had decided to withdraw its original initiative to focus on this one key demand.

SAP's Heinz Lienhard told a news conference in Bern that the new law was a step forward but that important changes that could have improved the lives of millions of animals in Switzerland had not been incorporated.

The introduction of legal representation for animals was one of the main planks of the SAP campaign, which was omitted from the new legislation.

The organisation now has to collect 100,000 signatures to force a nationwide vote on the issue. The collection of signatures for the initiative "against the abuse of animals and for their better legal protection" should begin next April and finish at the latest in autumn 2007.

The aim is to anchor the position of an animal protection lawyer in the constitution.

According to SAP, the animals' lawyer would only intervene where there are failures in the investigation of possible animal mistreatment or where certain legal questions are raised.

Some animal protection lawyers already operate at the cantonal level and several cantons are discussing the introduction of such a role.

The new law includes measures to protect the dignity and well-being of animals [....]

Some quotes from the court's smackdown of ID.

Here are some choice quotes from the federal court's decision holding that the proposed disclaimer to be read at the start of Freshman high school biology classes. The decision is here.

Some of the better conclusions (internal citations ommited):

p. 29:

In addition to the IDM itself describing ID as a religious argument, ID’s religious nature is evident because it involves a supernatural designer.

p. 31:

The evidence at trial demonstrates that ID is nothing less than the progeny of creationism.

p. 63:

We have now found that both an objective student and an objective adult member of the Dover community would perceive Defendants’ conduct to be a strong endorsement of religion pursuant to the endorsement test.

On ID as science, p. 64:

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science.

p. 78:

We find that [this] demonstrates that the ID argument is dependent upon setting a scientifically unreasonable burden of proof for the theory of evolution.

A pithy (and highly quotable) summation of ID and its scientific problems is found on page 82:

ID is reliant upon forces acting outside of the natural world, forces that we cannot see, replicate, control or test, which have produced changes in this world. While we take no position on whether such forces exist, they are simply not testable by scientific means and therefore cannot qualify as part of the scientific process or as a scientific theory.

p. 89:

[W]e find that ID is not science and cannot be adjudged a valid, accepted scientific theory as it has failed to publish in peer-reviewed journals, engage in research and testing, and gain acceptance in the scientific community. ID, as noted, is grounded in theology, not science.

Accepting for the sake of argument its proponents’, as well as Defendants’ argument that to introduce ID to students willencourage critical thinking, it still has utterly no place in a science curriculum.

p. 93:

The disclaimer’s plain language, the legislative history, and the historical context in which the ID Policy arose, all inevitably lead to the conclusion that Defendants consciously chose to change Dover’s biology curriculum to advance religion.

p. 132:

[W]e find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board’s real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause.

p. 134:

The effect of Defendants’ actions in adopting the curriculum change was to impose a religious view of biological origins into the biology course, in violation of the Establishment Clause.

Read the complete decision. On top of reaching the proper legal conclusion, it rips ID apart, exposing its Creationist parentage, refutes claims that ID is a part of science, and demonstrates the fallacies ID proponents rely upon.

Makes this atheist want to thank God for this nice bit of intelligently designed justice.

UPDATE: The Politburo Diktat is collecting quotes from the decision.

Dover school's ID policy on Intelligent Design is held to be unconstitutional

Sweetness itself is found on page three of the ruling:

[W]e hold that the ID Policy is unconstitutional pursuant to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution and Art. I, § 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Press release from the Discovery Institute (well-funded champions of ID):

"The Dover decision is an attempt by an activist federal judge to stop the spread of a scientific idea and even to prevent criticism of Darwinian evolution through government-imposed censorship rather than open debate, and it won't work," said Dr. John West, Associate Director of the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute, the nation's leading think tank researching the scientific theory known as intelligent design. “He has conflated Discovery Institute’s position with that of the Dover school board, and he totally misrepresents intelligent design and the motivations of the scientists who research it.”

So, the attempt at putting distance between their "science" and what happened in a federal disctrict court in Pennsyvannia has begun. Expect more, much more.

UPDATE: As I slowly read through the decision, I find myself slightly uncomfortable with some of the judge's conclusions and phrasing, but not to the extent that they introduce a risk it will be overturned on appeal (the conclusions are not a part of the legal holding). The total weight of the decision's legal logic is overwhelming.

UPDATE 2: This decision provides a fine summation of the arguments put forward by ID, and then sytemmatically destroys them. It will become a reference for those of us with a scientific background, but less than full understanding of evolutionary biology.

UPDATE 3: The totality of ID's loss is surprising. The judge went out of his way to engage every one of the ID proponent's arguments and fallacies.

This ruling is a massive refutation of Creationism (one of my favorite conclusions from the ruling is that ID is simply Creationism masquerading as science).

So, now we have Creationism, Scientific Creationism, and Intelligent Design found to be religious in nature. What will the next permutation be called? We can be sure there will be another version popping up in a few years (the court noted that before the ink was dry on previous court rulings, the current proponents of ID were changing their tactics and terminology).

Given the religious drive behind attempts to push ID, its proponents won't give up easily, nor does this decision represent the final nail in ID's coffin. Ironically, the two things ID hasn't tried, honest scientific inquiry and experimentation, remain it's best hope (at least in theory; I highly doubt any experiment will emerge which offers support to their idea).

Swiss hospitals discuss changing euthanasia rules

Switzerland is about to allow assisted suicide of patients while in the hospital. On its face, allowing terminal patients to kill themselves is not troubling. Previously these patients would have been discharged and either taken home or to another location to take their lives--with assistance if requested.

Nevertheless, by permitting this to happen in a hospital--a place devoted to making people better, brings us one step closer to allowing physicians to unilaterally and legally end lives at their discretion (sadly, the unilateral aspect has long been present, while limited immunity from prosecution also exists).

Leading Swiss hospitals say they are considering whether to allow assisted suicide to take place within their walls.

Lausanne University Hospital confirmed at the weekend that it would permit the practice under strict conditions from January 1.

The hospital in western Switzerland said it would allow the voluntary euthanasia group, Exit, to help terminally ill patients who are unable to go home.

Patients wishing to take their own lives must have expressed a persistent wish to die, be of sound mind, suffer from an incurable disease and carry out the final act themselves.

On Monday other leading Swiss hospitals said they were debating whether to allow assisted suicide on their premises.

"We are considering the issue. Our ethics forum discussed it at their last meeting on November 30," Markus Hächler, spokesman for Bern University Hospital, told swissinfo.

"But the whole process will take some time because we have to make sure everyone is involved – nurses, doctors and social workers."

A spokeswoman for Basel University Hospital said its ethics committee had also grasped the nettle but added that it was too early to say what the outcome would be.

She said enquiries regarding assisted suicide had been received in the past but these had always been refused.

Zurich University Hospital said the subject was not under consideration at the moment but would be "in the future".

According to the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMS), voluntary euthanasia organisations are prohibited from Geneva University Hospital but the hospital's ethics committee has recommended lifting the ban.

The move by hospitals to address the issue follows efforts by the SAMS and the National Ethics Commission (NEC) to clarify the situation.

Switzerland has liberal laws on assisted suicide and a person who helps a terminally ill patient to die is only likely to face prosecution if they are found to be acting out of self-interest.

Both bodies contacted the cantons in April this year to find out if hospitals had rules in place stipulating whether assisted-suicide organisations were allowed on the premises.

According to the SAMS, none of the cantons had binding legal rules in place, and the majority of hospitals had no guidelines either. Most of those that did have guidelines prohibited entry to assisted-suicide organisations.

Dr Margrit Leuthold, secretary general of the SAMS, told swissinfo that the body had yet to adopt an official position on the decision taken by Lausanne University Hospital.

But she said she was in two minds about allowing assisted suicide in hospitals and questioned whether it should be introduced as a general rule.

"There are situations where it does not make sense for terminally ill patients to have to return home because they cannot die in hospital with Exit. This can cause a lot of additional pain and trouble," said Leuthold.

"But an acute-care hospital should be a place where people are treated to become healthy again rather than helped to die. It sends out a dangerous signal and it would also be difficult for other patients."

Exactly. Breaking the psychological barrier of hospitals supporting and making assisted suicide available can only have negative consequences.

With any luck this will be decided through referendum.

Civilisation has left its mark on our genes

The growth and evolution of societies and civilisations led to Darwinian evolution in people. Such is the tentative conclusion of this report found in New Scientist, which summarizes an article from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:

[...] A detailed look at human DNA has shown that a significant percentage of our genes have been shaped by natural selection in the past 50,000 years, probably in response to aspects of modern human culture such as the emergence of agriculture and the shift towards living in densely populated settlements. [...]

Robert Moyzis and his colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, US, searched for instances of linkage disequilibrium in a collection of 1.6 million SNPs [single-nucleotide polymorphisms] scattered across all the human chromosomes. They then looked carefully at the instances they found to distinguish the consequences of natural selection from other phenomena, such as random inversions of chunks of DNA, which can disrupt normal genetic reshuffling.

This analysis suggested that around 1800 genes, or roughly 7% of the total in the human genome, have changed under the influence of natural selection within the past 50,000 years. A second analysis using a second SNP database gave similar results. That is roughly the same proportion of genes that were altered in maize when humans domesticated it from its wild ancestors.

Moyzis speculates that we may have similarly “domesticated” ourselves with the emergence of modern civilisation.

“One of the major things that has happened in the last 50,000 years is the development of culture,” he says. “By so radically and rapidly changing our environment through our culture, we’ve put new kinds of selection [pressures] on ourselves.”

Genes that aid protein metabolism – perhaps related to a change in diet with the dawn of agriculture – turn up unusually often in Moyzis’s list of recently selected genes. So do genes involved in resisting infections, which would be important in a species settling into more densely populated villages where diseases would spread more easily. Other selected genes include those involved in brain function, which could be important in the development of culture.

But the details of any such sweeping survey of the genome should be treated with caution, geneticists warn. Now that Moyzis has made a start on studying how the influence of modern human culture is written in our genes, other teams can see if similar results are produced by other analytical techniques, such as comparing human and chimp genomes.

Intriguing results aside, I would like to see several comparative studies before any cause and effect conclusions are reached.

Map of Blogland: geopolitical kingdoms and lesser lands

The master of all things cartographic, Der Kommissar (and ueber-talented photoshopper Jillian), has taken a 1911 map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and developed a new map depicting the competing kingdoms of Kostria and Wingery (prominent left- and right-wing websites are featured).

These lands border one another and engage in constant minor border skirmishes, with an occassional major concerted attack on strongly-held positions. Caught between the two is the fiercely independant federation of Centro-Rinovia. Other lands depicted are the Dukedom of Centriola, and the lands of Sciencia, along with many smaller principalities, etc.

Not pictured is the rapidly spreading Great Rift Valley, which threatens to separate the two kingdoms for all time.

Go have a look, you may be represented. It's also a fine way to visit blogs you might otherwise ignore.

UPDATE: Requests and suggestions for inclusion in an updated map are solicited, so here goes:

Hmm. Looks to be some open space on the western borders of Kostria, right where Switzerland is located. Might be room for an outpost manned by a flannel-wearing, Centro-Rinovia backing descendant of William Tell.

The old imperial naval port of Trieste could easily harbor Captain Ed, Citizen Smash, or a Marine's blog.

Stompin', rompin', RINOs at Kesher Talk

Judith at Kesher Talk has plenty of good posts from RINOs (Repubs/Independants Not Overdosed on the party kool-aid) on display at this week's Carnival of the RINOs.

Lance Armstrong claims he's the victim of a witch hunt

And I agree. Only in his case, he was caught emptying his cauldron. Always ready to sue in the past over the merest whisper that he cheated (though it was usually against individuals who couldn't afford to defend a civil suit), he has grandly decided to give two organizations (the newspaper L'Equipe and a lab which processed his results) a pass.

It's a bit different this time as both have the the funds to defend themselves, and more importantly, Armstrong doesn't want to have the test results showing him to be a doper brought up in court (as background: In 2005 a lab in France tested anonymous urine samples from 1999--his first of seven vistories. The sports newspaper L'Equipe was able to match sample results to individuals and determined that Armstrong had doped that Tour de France).

It is far easier for Armstrong to take potshots at the lab than to have them describe--in court--how they went about testing his samples. Same with the newspaper. He clearly doesn't want the paper to go through, again, how it obtained the results and carefully matched them to him. He certainly doesn't want this story to be recapitulated on the nightly news.

One final bit of irony here: sue-happy Armstrong must now stand trial in Italy. He is being sued for defaming a fellow racer, although he is not required to either attend or testify.

Humans with horns. The minor God Pan is pleased

Like goats and women? You're in luck. How about devil women? No need to look for the 666, just lift their hair because these women sport actual horns (article probably available only for those logging on from a university), and have consecrated their lives to evil. From the archives of PubMed, where you can search for any number of odd medical conditions.

From the abstract:

Gigantic cutaneous horns, grossly similar to the horns seen in animals, are exceedingly rare in humans. After finding one case in practice, we searched our departmental files for similar cases and examined them grossly and microscopically. Four cases were identified. All occurred as solitary lesions in older women on the parietal occipital region of the scalp. They had a growth history of up to 30 years; the women hid these horns in their hair. Grossly, the horns were yellow grey, and there were shallow furrows running along the length of the horns. The length ranged from 17 to 25 cm, and the width was up to 2.5 cm.

Of the four women, two were demented, while one lived in the mountains--doubtless far from her neighbors; small wonder. No word on the marital status, but I'm guessing these women were either never married or divorced.

Command agriculture in Zimbabwe

Bob Mugabe has realized that his people don't care how much he blames the West for food shortages, they simply want to be able to buy basic foodstuffs. In response, Mugabe has instituted a program called "command agriculture".

In an attempt to rescue his failing programme of land redistribution, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe is trying to involve the army in a "command agriculture" programme.

"Instructions have already been passed onto battalion commanders," a Zimbabwean army major told the BBC.

Five years after Mr Mugabe ordered the seizure of the white-owned commercial farms, agricultural production has halved. [...]

Apparently he got the idea from China (the two nations have increasingly close ties) which made use of it in the past. They in turn got the idea from the USSR, who also used it in hard times--notably during the two great famines following attempts at collectivization.

Mugabe also picked something else up from Stalinist times: blame counter-revolutionaries for sabotaging brilliant ideas:

Mr Mugabe has admitted that the people to whom he gave some 4,000 farms have some responsibility for the country's current problems.

"Mugabe is now saying that the people who are on the farms are opposition supporters and that they are sabotaging the country. He says the army must take over. [...]

Roy Bennett, a former opposition MP who lost his farm in the recent seizures, describes the scheme as "a non-starter".

"For farming, you need experience and commitment. The army has neither."

Many soldiers and other officials have already been given land individually under the land reform programme.

Also, like Stalin, he shows no hints of quitting his land redistribution program. Lenin at least halted the first attempt at collectivization after a year or so.

The extent of Mugabe's mismanagement is neatly summed up thusly:

A country which once exported grain must now import 80% of its foodstuffs.

The hospitals are filled with malnutrition cases with the very old and the very young the worst affected. [...]

The hospital puts children on an emergency feeding programme, releases them but they are back within weeks because, the doctor says, their parents have "no meat, eggs, beans, sugar or milk". [...]

Mugabe also recently refused food aid.

Science on the march: safe to let your elephant booze it up

If you've been keeping your elephant on a short leash out of concern for your neighbors, you can relax--some one did the math:

ELEPHANTS are big, powerful and can be very dangerous - but they are not drunkards. Anecdotes about African elephants going on alcohol-fuelled rampages after eating the fermented fruit of the marula tree are probably incorrect, says Steven Morris at the University of Bristol, UK.

Assuming an alcohol content of 3 per cent, his team calculates that a 3-tonne elephant would need to eat more than 1200 fruit to get drunk. That would require a diet solely of fermented marula fruit consumed at 400 times the normal maximum food intake.

It is more likely that "drunk" bulls are just defending a prized food source, says Morris. The study will be published in Physiological and Biochemical Zoology next year.

No word yet on rhinos or RINOs.

Europe looks at twin defeats of budget and WTO

It's not surprising that Europeans aren't feeling too well these days. Winter has set in, they can't get close to a meaningful budget agreeement for funding the EU's institutions, and they look set to absorb much of the blame at the doomed WTO talks.

The politicians are busily crafting responses as to why their country is not to blame for these further examples of discord and disunity. Is it any wonder that it seems as if the nations are in a never ending political circus /campaign?

Here is the latest from the Financial Times on the EU budget talks:

Tony Blair, Britain’s prime minister, on Thursday night warned that a deal on a new seven-year European Union budget was “very much hanging in the balance”, at the start of a highly charged summit in Brussels.

Mr Blair, the host of the two-day summit, is under pressure from France and Poland for the UK to pay several billion euros more towards the cost of the EU’s expansion to eastern Europe and to agree to pay “a fair share” of future enlargement costs.

Although many EU diplomats expect a budget deal on Friday, Mr Blair says his room for manoeuvre is “narrow”. He will face intense political and media criticism in Britain if he is seen to be handing over a large part of the UK’s annual rebate from the European budget. [...]

A budget agreement would put an end to the EU’s debilitating financial dispute which has bedevilled relations in the 25-member club for most of 2005, compounding the sense of crisis that followed the rejection of the EU constitution by French and Dutch voters in the spring.

While Mr Blair is expected to give ground on the rebate, he will insist that Mr Chirac should be prepared to at least countenance the option of further farm subsidy cuts during the EU spending round, following an expenditure review in 2009. [...]

There will doubtless be a budget agreement of sorts before the year is out, but it will only postpone the deeper philosophical arguments which are already overdue. Chirac wants to avoid this until the next decade, when talks on budgeting agriculture subsidies must begin.

And here is news from the WTO meeting in Hong Kong (aka the last world moonbat congress of 2006. The next gathering of moonbat protesters will be here in Switzerland at the World Economic forum):

Pressure mounted on the European Union on Thursday to agree a firm date for eliminating farm export subsidies, as World Trade Organisation ministers struggled to find ways to move the Doha trade round forward at the Hong Kong ministerial meeting that opened on Tuesday. [...]

The US and the G20 say breaking the deadlock in agriculture is the key to making progress in the rest of the negotiations. They insist the onus is on the EU to improve its offer on market access and are pressing it to agree this week to a commitment to phasing out all export subsidies by 2010. [...]

So, another opportunity to help the emerging world missed, largely because France prefers pandering to the home voters, where agricultural subsidies have been turned into a political third rail.

Indonesia fighting against militant Islam

The editorial in today's Jakarta Post notes the new Indonesian policy to uproot and destroy Islamic terrorism. Apparently the US approves of the steps taken, and has upgraded military ties as a reward.

The piece lists many of the steps taken and the wider geo-political implications of the Indonesia-US relationship.

What has impressed the United States most about Indonesia, leading to the lifting of the ban on military ties, is the unwavering commitment of the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono government to fight terrorism. The killing of Azahari Husin, the mastermind of the Bali and other terrorist bombings in Indonesia, was its most concrete and dramatic proof. Noordin Mohammed Top, who is believed to be the top recruiter for potential suicide bombers, might not be able to escape the police dragnet for long.

The Susilo government is engaged in a multi-pronged attack on terrorism. It has decided to involve the military in combating terrorism by activating "the territorial command to the village level..." Its advantage is its vast reach in terms of information and intelligence gathering, thus shrinking the space for terrorists to mingle and hide among the people. Its drawback is that it would have the potential, over a period of time, to degenerate into political witch-hunting and creating a general climate of fear.

On the question of terrorism, though, an encouraging development is the government's decision to co-opt the country's Muslim clerics into fighting terrorism by stripping it of its misplaced religious authority. A task force of prominent clerics, including leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, two mass organizations with an estimated 70 million members, will undertake to confront terrorism ideologically, including looking into the teaching curriculum of Islamic schools (pesantrens) prone to radical views. As Ma'ruf Amin, the head of the team, has said, "We will clarify these ideas with pesantrens, especially those alleged to have indications of influences from radical terror views." [...]

This is a critical step. Pointing out the fallacies in the terrorists' religious interpretations is a necessary first step in that it completely discredits their raison d'être.

Indonesians have traditionally practice a moderate live and let live form of Islam, so it should be possible to successfully argue their case.

Returning now to the lifting of the ban on military ties by the United States: This is a new development with important implications over time for Indonesia's foreign and security policies. As of today, the primary U.S. objective is to enlist Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world, in its fight against terrorism. But it would, in time, have other strategic objectives; chief among them to contain China's expanding regional profile and role.

As South East Asia's largest nation, Indonesia is an important regional country. This gives it added weight in regional organizations like the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Asia Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) and the upcoming East Asia community (an East Asia Summit is scheduled this month in Kuala Lumpur).

Indonesia will, therefore, figure importantly in the emerging regional power games between China and Japan, and between the United States (with Japan as its ally) and China. According to Sean McCormack, a U.S. spokesman, "The Administration considers the relationship between the United States and Indonesia, the world's third-largest democracy, to be of the utmost importance."

The U.S. will have other expectations from Indonesia, beyond just combating terrorism, in due course of time. How will Indonesia balance its steadily growing relationship with China and its re-energized ties with the United States, would remain to be seen?

Aussie riots now religious in nature

At least partly, as roving bands of Muslims have begun targeting churches.

FOUR churches in Sydney's southwest have been attacked in 24 hours as the city's riots spread from race to religion.

A community hall linked to a Uniting church was burned to the ground early yesterday, carol-singers were spat on and church buildings peppered with gunfire.

In response, members of the Arab Christian and Arab Muslim communities have called for a curfew for all Lebanese youths over the weekend.

Most likely the numbers commiting these crimes are small, and they may be attacking churches more out of a desire to upset Aussies than purely religious intolerance. Nevertheless, this is potentially far more serious than the recent French riots--which were largely a reaction to economic straits, discrimination and racism. Many Muslim religious leaders are taking it seriously, and seem to be working with Christian leaders and government officials.

I hope the curfew call is voluntarily observed. If not, there will surely be a mandatory one.

Saw it first on Tim Blair's site, where he has lots of other info and background.

Academic misconduct in Korea stem cell lab?

The superhuman research efforts made by Korean national hero and biologist Woo Suk Hwang's lab may have been just that: beyond believable. After recently admitting to ethical misconduct, Hwang's published results are being questioned (internal links are in the original article). Nature News supplies the cheap thrills:

In the latest chapter of a messy scientific divorce, biologist Gerald Schatten has asked his former collaborator, Woo Suk Hwang, to retract a celebrated stem-cell paper published under both their names.

A statement issued on 13 December by the University of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, reveals that Schatten has asked to remove his name from a paper that he co-authored with Hwang, of Seoul National University in South Korea, and others.

The paper, published by Science in May, was seen as a major achievement for the field of stem-cell research, because it was the first to show that stem-cell lines could be made from the cells of individual patients. Many hoped the work would help scientists to study the origins of disease and investigate treatments tailored to individuals (see 'Korean team lauded for stem-cell advance').

In November, Schatten alleged that some of the actions of Hwang's team were ethically questionable, such as using eggs from paid donors and junior researchers. Hwang later conceded that eggs from such sources had been used during work on a 2004 publication (see 'Clone star admits lies over eggs') .

Now Schatten says he has further concerns: not about the ethics of the research, but about the validity of the results.

In a letter he sent to Science and to his fellow authors on 12 December, Schatten, who is director of the Pittsburgh Development Center, writes: "My careful re-evaluations of published figures and tables, along with new problematic information, now casts substantial doubts about the paper's accuracy."

The letter states that over the weekend, Schatten received allegations from someone involved with the experiments that led him to make his decision.

"I request retraction of my co-authorship on Hwang et al. (2005) and have recommended to first author Dr. Woo-Suk Hwang and all other co-authors that the report should now be retracted."

Schatten's letter does not explain which elements of the 2005 paper he is concerned about.

Some observers, including an anonymous poster to an Internet message board hosted by the Biological Research Information Center, question a DNA fingerprint analysis used to verify the results of the experiments in the 2005 paper. They say the DNA fingerprints from some of the cell lines match the patients' cells too perfectly, and could therefore be duplicates, rather than separate experiments: whether that be accidental or intentional.

Hwang has already told Science that they made an "unintentional error" in providing some duplicate pictures.

On 13 December, Science published a letter on its website from scientists who are calling on Hwang to resolve the matter by cooperating with independent investigators to confirm the results of the DNA tests. The letter is signed by eight scientists, including Ian Wilmut of the University of Edinburgh, UK, who submitted DNA from Dolly, the cloned sheep, to be independently tested.

"As we confirmed the validity of our work by cooperating with an independent study, we encourage Hwang's laboratory to cooperate with us to perform an independent test of his cell lines," Wilmut's letter states.

Science says that it has no mechanism for retracting one author's name from a published paper. "No single author, having declared at the time of submission his full and complete confidence in the contents of the paper, can retract his name unilaterally, after publication, and while inquiries are still underway by the Korean authors," the journal says in an editorial statement issued on 13 December.

Science editor Donald Kennedy says there is no reason to believe the data in the 2005 paper are fraudulent. "We continue to take this issue seriously," Kennedy adds in the statement, "and we are following developments both in South Korea and at the University of Pittsburgh."

Both the University of Pittsburgh and Seoul National University have said they will investigate the work.

Doubtless Schatten knew he couldn't retract his name unilaterally from a published paper. He simply wanted to make it clear that he felt duped, and could no longer stand by the research.

Messy scientific divorces can be pretty spectacular. Time to bring the allegations, boys.

Whoa; here's the first:

A doctor who provided human eggs for research by cloning pioneer Hwang Woo-suk said in a Thursday broadcast that the South Korean scientist admitted that most of the stem cells produced for a key research paper were faked. Roh Sung-il, chairman of the board at Mizmedi Hospital, told KBS television that Hwang had agreed to ask the journal Science to withdraw the paper, published in June to international acclaim. Roh was one of the co-authors of the article that detailed how individual stem cell colonies were created for 11 patients through cloning.

Ex commerce sec. Evans may head Russian oil company

Former commerce Secretary Evans may take a post with Russian oil giant Rosneft according to the Financial Times:

Donald Evans, a close friend of president George W. Bush and the former commerce secretary, met president Vladimir Putin of Russia last week but refused to be drawn on growing speculation that he had been offered the chairmanship of Rosneft, Russia’s state-controlled oil company.

Although this will be compared to ex-chancellor Schroeder's taking a job with the company responsible for the Russian-German gas pipeline, there are important distinctions.

Schroeder went straight from his job as German leader into his cushy position as Chairman. Evans was out of government for some time. More troubling is that Schroeder pushed hard politically for the pipeline, perhaps knowing his future position was secure. It may even have been a part of one side or the other's negotiating strategy.

What struck me originally when reading the Evans story was unease at the influence he might yet wield in the Bush administration, but on second thought it can be seen as a a fitting cap to the cold war: the ex-American commerce secretary (doesn't get more capitalistic than that) is wooed by a former Soviet oil company.

Lenin must be spinning in his glass case.

George Will looks back at 2005

And uses his prose to torture Progressives, among others, with these examples.

Onward and upward with progressivism: In a Las Vegas suburb, the United Food and Commercial Workers union hired temp workers at $6 an hour to picket a nonunion Wal-Mart, where wages start at $6.75 an hour.

A British teachers-union official proposed that instead of bad students' receiving a "failing" grade, their grade should be called "deferred success."

A Milwaukee 17-year-old and his father sued to end summer homework because the stress of honors precalculus assignments spoiled the lad's summer.

When Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of actor Will Smith, told a Harvard audience that women "can have it all—a loving man, devoted husband, loving children, a fabulous career," the campus Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance said its members were made "uncomfortable" because Mrs. Smith's words were "extremely heteronormative."

A majority of teachers, parents and students at Jefferson Elementary School in Berkeley favored renaming the school Sequoia Elementary because Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves. Under Chief Sequoia, the Cherokee nation owned more than 1,500 black slaves.

You cannot be too careful, so Timnath, Colo., banned smoking in bars and restaurants, of which Timnath at the time had none.

The often hilarious New York Times, which opposes capital punishment, reported disapprovingly that a life sentence "is death in all but name."

Even cocktail riots have political consequences

Howard quizzed on riots over cocktails is the headline in the Sydney Morning Herald. Rioting over cocktails? I'm guessing Stephen Green is involved; Aussie PM John Howard likely stood between Green and the martini pitcher--always a dangerous thing.

And now Howard is facing a political firestorm. Green's actions, of course, would be perfectly well understood.

What to do with Iranian President Ahmadinejad?

An editorial in Israels' Haaretz newspaper discusses the recent words of Iran's President, and how best to respond. My advice: forewarned is forearmed; Israel must prepare for battle.

When Anwar Sadat responded to the peace feelers put out by Menachem Begin, it was common belief that one of the reasons he did so was the tough image of the Likud leader and the group of ministers with whom he surrounded himself. [...]

Images play key roles in the international arena, and just as 28 years ago the impression the Begin government made carried significant weight in the decision by the Egyptian president to sign a peace treaty, the nuclear image that Israel has had for more than 40 years has decisive impact globally and on Israel's relations with Middle Eastern countries. This image projects a message of a giant who it is better not to trifle with - in any case not to think about in terms of a doomsday confrontation.

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has now come and cracked this shield: he proposes the option of dealing with Israel's purported nuclear capability, and calls on the Muslim world to adopt this option. In the name of Islam, Ahmadinejad calls for Israel's destruction, labels it a stain on the map of the world and delegitimizes its right to exist. Along with this, he also denies the Holocaust. This is a deep ideological view, systematic and fluent, which creates a theoretical and conceptual platform for a political worldview, and perhaps later for a plan of action in the direction of Israel's annihilation.

There is no other country in the world whose right to exist is challenged by another country. Moreover, the Iranian approach does not stem from a dispute over borders, a concrete historical argument, competition for natural resources, or the residue of national affront. Ahmadinejad's statements indicate that he is calling for Israel's destruction for religious reasons - the Jews are not worthy of independent existence, certainly not in the Islamic world.

There are two schools of thought as to how Israel should respond to the Islamic outlook. One recommends not getting worked up, and the other calls for taking the most serious view of the matter. The first places Ahmadinejad's position in the context of his verbal culture in other contexts. This view sees his inflammatory tone as typical of other Iranian discourse, internal and international. The Iranian president is a novice; he does not necessarily represent the opinions of the Iranian people; internal developments should be awaited that will one day produce a different leadership.

The opposite school of thought proposes not taking lightly the opinions expressed by the Iranian leadership, contesting them in the international arena and even making practical preparations in light of them.

No country can lightly dismiss such threats. Especially not with the Arabs' history of attempting to eliminate Israel, and their active support of groups working to that end.

Israel should take into account the pessimistic scenario and see the position expressed by Ahmadinejad as a real threat. Practical conclusions should also be drawn - to focus on this threat and as soon as possible to solve the Palestinian and Syrian conflicts, because the very capability of the Iranians to create a balance of nuclear terror with Israel changes for the worse its image and status in the eyes of its neighbors.

Solving the Palastinian conflict will go some ways to reducing the Arabs' calls for Israel's destruction, but as the editorial pointed out, many Muslims feel that Isreal, as a Jewish state, simply has no right to exist. Thus the motivation to destroy Israel will always be present.

In the world of images, Israel, free from the burden of occupation, challenging Iran's intent to wipe it out, is once again David standing up to Goliath.

Regarding Ahmadinejad's words, he is clearly benefitting from them politically, as he yesterday came out with the same formulation, though notably there was no call for destruction:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday the Holocaust is a "myth" that Europeans have used to create a Jewish state in the heart of the Islamic world.

"Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets," Ahmadinejad told a crowd of thousands in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

WSJ offers a comprehensive rebuttal to defeatists

In a lengthy and wide ranging opinion piece, Norman Podhertz systematically dismembers many of the tropes of the Iraqi defeatists. And examines their motivations, to boot. I disagree with some of his interpretations (e.g. this is the last best chance for those who want to take America down a peg, so they are pulling out all the stops), but I do appreciate his attacks on
some of the prime critics.

On the MSM's and Democrats' calls for immediate pullout:

[after comparing the Revolutionary war defeatists to their Iraq war counterparts] Yet in spite of these similarities, there is also a very curious difference between the American panic of 1776-77 and the American panic of 2005-06. To put it in the simplest and starkest terms: In that early stage of the Revolutionary War, there was sound reason to fear that the British would succeed in routing Washington's forces. In Iraq today, however, and in the Middle East as a whole, a successful outcome is staring us in the face. Clearly, then, the panic over Iraq--which expresses itself in increasingly frenzied calls for the withdrawal of our forces--cannot have been caused by the prospect of defeat. On the contrary, my twofold guess is that the real fear behind it is not that we are losing but that we are winning, and that what has catalyzed this fear into a genuine panic is the realization that the chances of pulling off the proverbial feat of snatching an American defeat from the jaws of victory are rapidly running out.[...]

Several Iraqi bloggers, and many letters written by American soldiers in the field that have found their way onto the Internet, paint a very different picture. Like Arthur Chrenkoff, these close-range observers do not overlook the persistence of major problems, and they do not deny that we still have a long way to go before Iraq becomes secure, stable and democratic. But they document with great detail the amazing progress that has been made, even under the gun of Islamofascist terrorism, in building--from scratch--the political morale of a country ravaged by "posttotalitarian stress disorder," in setting up the institutional foundations of a federal republic, in getting the economy moving, and in reconstructing the physical infrastructure. [...]

Mark Twain once famously said that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. So it was, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, with the post-Vietnam syndrome. During those early weeks, a number of commentators were quick to proclaim the birth of an entirely new era in American history. What Dec. 7, 1941 had done to the isolationism of old, they announced, Sept. 11, 2001 had done to the Vietnam syndrome. Politically speaking, it was dead, and the fallout from the Vietnam War--namely, the hostility to America and especially to American military power--would follow it into the grave.

As is evident from the coverage of Iraq in the mainstream media, such pronouncements were more than a little premature: the Vietnam syndrome is still alive and well. But equally apparent is that the reporters and editors to whom it is a veritable religion understand very clearly that success in Iraq could deal the Vietnam syndrome a mortal blow. Little wonder, then, that they have so resolutely tried to ignore any and all signs of progress--or, when that becomes impossible, to dismiss them as so much "shit."

This, however, is at least a kind of tribute to our progress, if a perverse one. The same cannot be said of the opponents of the Bush Doctrine in the universities and think tanks, who are unwilling even to acknowledge that more and better things are happening in Iraq and the broader Middle East than are dreamed of in their philosophy.

Take Zbigniew Brzezinski, who left the academy to serve as Jimmy Carter's national security adviser and is now a professor again. In a recently published piece entitled "American Debacle," Mr. Brzezinski began by accusing George W. Bush of "suicidal statecraft," went on to pronounce the intervention in Iraq (along with everything else this president has done) a total disaster, and ended by urging that we withdraw from that country "perhaps even as early as next year." Unlike the late Sen. George Aiken of Vermont, who once proposed that we declare victory in Vietnam and then get out, Mr. Brzezinski wants to declare defeat in Iraq and then get out. This, he mysteriously assures us, will help restore "the legitimacy of America's global role."

Now I have to admit that I find it a little rich that George W. Bush should be accused of "suicidal statecraft" by, of all people, the man who in the late 1970s helped shape a foreign policy that emboldened the Iranians to seize and hold American hostages while his boss in the Oval Office stood impotently by for almost six months before finally authorizing a rescue operation so inept that it only compounded our national humiliation. [...]

On the political re-awakening of much of the Middle East:

About the momentous encouragement that our actions have given to the forces of reform that never dared act or even speak up before, he is completely silent--though it is a phenomenon that even so inveterate a hater of America as the Lebanese dissident Walid Jumblatt has found himself compelled to recognize. Thus, only a few months after declaring that "the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq is legitimate and obligatory," Mr. Jumblatt suddenly woke up to what those U.S. soldiers had actually been doing for the world in which he lived:

It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting [in January 2005], eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. [...]

Even in Syria, reports the Washington Post's David Ignatius:

People talk politics . . . with a passion I haven't heard since the 1980s in Eastern Europe. They're writing manifestos, dreaming of new political parties, trying to rehabilitate old ones from the 1950s.

And not only in Syria. As the democratic activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who, like Mr. Jumblatt, originally opposed the invasion of Iraq, told Mr. Ignatius's colleague Jim Hoagland:

Those [in the Middle East] who believe in democracy and civil society are finally actors . . . [because the invasion of Iraq] has unfrozen the Middle East, just as Napoleon's 1798 expedition did. Elections in Iraq force the theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda, even if only to fight against us. Look, neither Napoleon nor President Bush could impregnate the region with political change. But they were able to be midwives.

Nor are such changes confined to the political sphere alone. According to a report in The Economist, a revulsion against terrorism has begun to spread among Muslim clerics, including some who, like the secular Mr. Jumblatt, were only recently applauding its use against Americans:

Moderate Muslim clerics have grown increasingly concerned at the abuse of religion to justify killing. In Saudi Arabia, numerous preachers once famed for their fighting words now advise tolerance and restraint. Even so rigid a defender of suicide attacks against Israel . . . as Yusuf Qaradawi, the star preacher of the popular al-Jazeera satellite channel, denounces bombings elsewhere and calls on the perpetrators to repent. [...]

These calls are also coming strongly from Indonesia, home to more Muslins than any other nation.

And now to Podhertz' description of the Democrats' mistaken political calculus:

Like the mainstream media and the theorists in the academy and the think tanks, the Democratic Party--fearing that it might be frozen out of power for a very long time to come--is also in a panic over the signs that George W. Bush's new approach to the greater Middle East is on the verge of passing the test of Iraq. Hence the veritable hysteria with which the Democrats have recently tried to delegitimize the war: first by claiming (three years after the fact!) that it had begun with a lie, and then by declaring that it was ending in a defeat. Leaning heavily on the turn in public opinion largely brought about by reports in the mainstream media and the lucubrations of the theorists, the Democrats--with the notably honorable exception of Sen. Joseph Lieberman--now joined in by clamoring openly for a withdrawal of American forces from Iraq.

A goodly number of these Democrats (party chairman Howard Dean and Rep. Cynthia McKinney, to name only two) are the "Tories" of today, in the sense of having from the very beginning stood openly and unambiguously against the revolution in foreign policy represented by the Bush Doctrine and now being put to the test in Iraq. But a much larger number of Democrats fit more smoothly into Tom Paine's category of "disguised" Tories. These are the congressmen and senators who in their heart of hearts were against the resolution authorizing the president to use force against Saddam Hussein, but who--given the state of public opinion at the time--feared being punished at the polls unless they voted for it. Now, however, with public opinion moving in the other direction, they have been emboldened to "show their heads."

Finally, we have a certain number of Democrats who correspond to "the summer soldiers and the sunshine patriots" of the American Revolution. One of them is Rep. John Murtha, who backed the invasion of Iraq because (to give him the benefit of the doubt) he really thought it was the right thing to do, but who has now bought entirely into the view that all is lost and that the only sensible course is to turn tail. [...]

OK, he's over the top on some of characterizations, but the Democrats, by resorting to "the sky is falling" arguments, have brought this on themselves.

2006 Soccer World Cup tickets

Germany put 250,000 tickets on sale yesterday through the internet. I requested a pair of tickets for three matches located closest to Switzerland.

France-Switzerland on 13 June in Stuttgart

Italy-USA on 17 June in Kaiserslautern (K-town to the Army)

Holland-Argentina on 21 June in Frankfurt

I expect all three matches will be over-bid, so tickets will be awarded through a lottery at the end of January.

I'll be pleased to see any of the three matches. Talentwise, the Arg-Hol game outshines the other two, but Switzerland has a chance to beat France, and the seeing the US play would be a thrill.

Aside from rooting for the US and Switzerland, I will pull for England, Italy, Holland, the smaller Euro nations, Argentina, Brazil, and any team from Africa. I expect Brazil and Argentina to meet in the finals, with Brazil keeping the cup (if I read the schedule correctly).

French navel gazing worsens

Although the French are inveterate navel gazers, the level of their introspection has risen over the past year to near record highs. The threat of globalization, the defeat of the EU constitution, the loss of the Olympics to London, and loss of influence in Europe and the world have the French questioning even the greatness of their past.

Even Napolean isn't safe, as reported by the IHT:

The French, the historian Danielle Domergue-Cloarec says, "have always had problems with their history." She should know. She specializes in French colonial history, which her compatriots cannot decide whether to love or hate. They feel the same about Napoleon, and this month both problems have been on vivid display.

Colonial history figured in a raucous legislative debate over how French history itself should be taught.

In February, in an effort to please veterans and former colonists, the Socialists and conservatives in Parliament together passed a law that included this passage: "The positive role of the French presence abroad, particularly in North Africa, should be especially recognized."

But after the recent riots in North African neighborhoods, many of the French began to wonder what has gone wrong among their immigrants. For some on the left, French colonial history loomed as a culprit, and they set out to change the law.

One of their arguments is that conditions in France's big housing projects mirror the old colonial world: a white French upper class in city centers lording it over blacks and North African Muslims on the periphery.

Always the same for the Left: no blame accrues to those who refuse to assimilate; only the state is faulted.

In Parliament, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Socialist whip, denounced the law's phrasing as "an unacceptable slur on the population of the colonized lands."

The Gaullists, on the right, stood by the law. Lionel Lucas expressed outrage that a history book for high school seniors did not mention a massacre of French colonists in Algeria in 1962. Michel Diefenbacher lamented the omission of a list of awful diseases French physicians had treated in the colonies.

The effort to change the law was voted down, with outraged Socialists hooting, "Negationism!" [...]

Steve Martin was right: the French do have a word for everything.

As all of that was unfolding, France was also trying to figure out what to make of the 200th anniversary of the epic Battle of Austerlitz, in which, on Dec. 2, 1805, Napoleon defeated the armies of Austria and Russia at a Czech village now called Slavkov.

The battle was arguably Napoleon's greatest victory. But the French are still at odds about whether the emperor was a genius who fathered the modern French state or a militarist who led hundreds of thousands of French youths to senseless deaths.

The British feel no such ambiguity about the 200th anniversary of Lord Horatio Nelson's thrashing of Napoleon's fleet at Trafalgar. Joyful and elaborate celebrations of that victory began last summer and are still going on.

The French celebration of Austerlitz, by contrast, was short and tepid.

About 4,000 re-enactors restaged the battle in Slavkov and some French history fans attended. Napoleon, however, was played not by a Frenchman, but by Mark Schneider, a 36-year-old history buff from Virginia.

And back in France, a new book, "Le Crime de Napoleon," had just been published. In it, the historian Claude Ribbe lambastes Napoleon for setting off a bloodbath in the Caribbean when he revived slavery in the French Empire in 1802.

The presentation is not subtle. On the cover is a photo of Hitler visiting Napoleon's tomb in 1940.

This inward-looking translates to paying less attention to the world at large, which is not a good thing. Of the European nations, France remains the most influential in the Mid East and can yet play a useful role in Lebanon and Iran.

More locally, an engaged France is critical if the EU is to make fundemental changes to the way it operates.

Today's PC award goes Down Under

From today's editorial (discussing riots between whites and Muslims) in Australia's Daily Telegraph.

For the past week there has been heightened tension between Anglo-Australian beach users and Arabic-speaking Australians fuelled by a brawl between a small group of men of Middle Eastern appearance and surf lifesavers.

Aside from that lapse, the editorial rightly criticizes the local government's weak response to increasing vigilantism from offended Muslims (as well as the racist whites who seemed to have promoted this confrontation). Although they still can't bring themselves to use the word "Muslim":

There is no doubt that many regular users of Cronulla beach feel, as do many Anglo-Australians (particularly women) who come in regular contact with large numbers of Middle Eastern migrants, that Australia's easy-going casual culture is under attack from young Middle Eastern males.

The reports of women being abused for being immodestly dressed, or travelling alone, or drinking alcohol, are too numerous to be dismissed. [...]

THE authorities have for too long ignored such incidents of anti-social behaviour instead of adopting a zero-tolerance position toward those who claim they live by different cultural standards. [...]

The State Government's policy of placate and appease made the police look ill-prepared and undecided in Redfern and in Macquarie Fields. Yesterday they appeared to be overwhelmed by the task they faced.

All beach users must be made to understand that there is only one code of conduct that will be permitted to prevail no matter what the religious persuasion or ethnic origin may be of those who seek the surf for their relaxation. [...]

ABOVE ALL however, we must restore the decency and fairness for which Australia is renowned and show the thuggish louts who yesterday defiled our flag that their disgusting cowardly behaviour has no place here.

Latest roundup of RINO posts

is found at Countertop Chronicles, where our host did a fine job of compiling and introducing the various posts.

Plenty of good rhino photos add to Countertop's presentation.

European research funding levels continue to drop

Not good news for researchers in Europe. While individual European corporations do well in the survey, the percent of GDP spent by nations dropped over the last year, reports the Financial Times.

While this should scare the EU into cutting wasteful agricultural subsidies and putting the monies into R & D, I have little hope for that outcome. Instead, prepare for forthright admissions of failure and promises to redouble efforts, and no more.

European spending on re-search and development is falling further behind target, widening the innovation gap between the EU and competitors such as the US and Japan, two studies show.

North American and Asian companies are outpacing European businesses in R&D investment and spending more in high-technology sectors, according to data to be released on Friday by the European Commission’s research directorate.

Another study by Eurostat, the EU’s statistical office, showed that overall R&D spending in the EU slipped from 1.92 per cent of gross domestic product in 2003 to 1.9 per cent last year, a “significantly lower” level than in other big economies.

The two reports confirm fears that European countries are making scant progress on their pledge three years ago to devote 3 per cent of GDP to R&D by 2010 [perhaps they should hold spending steady and wait for GDP to fall in order to achieve their targets-ed]. The figures will provide further support to calls for the EU to take R&D spending more seriously to improve its economic competitiveness in the face of increased Asian and US innovation investment. [...]

While the Commission will welcome the presence of nine Europe-based companies in the top 25, it will say that business spending by European companies rose just 1 per cent between 2004 and 2005. This compares with an increase of just under 7 per cent by the top 700 non-EU companies in the list. [...]

R&D, funded by companies and government, is not the only means of industrial innovation. But supporters say higher levels of research spending help companies’ long-term sales and profit growth, and economies to become more competitive.

According to Eurostat, Sweden and Finland are the highest ranked countries, spending more than 3.5 per cent of GDP on R&D, while Malta, Cyprus, Lativa and Slovakia are the laggards. [...]

The Commission believes tax breaks, simplified bureaucracy, a relaxation of state aid rules and improved access to venture capital for companies are needed to bolster R&D spending.

Janez Potocnik, European science commissioner, wants to double the Commission’s research budget to €70bn for its next seven-year spending round, known as the Framework Seven programme.

They might want to begin by streamlining the Framework Program 7. The current FP 6 is nearly impossible to understand. Nations have set up offices solely to help researchers navigate its labyrinthine rules.

Are your citizens starving? why not host the Francophone games

Niger was recently much in the news due to widespread privation. Rather than spend money on caring for its people, the government will drop millions of dollars on hosting the Francophone games (the games where France can collect the most medals).

Many people in Niger, which is again facing severe food shortages, are questioning the government's decision to host the Francophone games.

The Niger government has allocated some 5bn CFA francs ($9m) to the event, which involves 3,000 sportsmen and women and opens officially shortly.

Some 3m people in Niger need food aid over the coming year, the UN says, launching an appeal for $19m.

The government has accused the WFP of exaggerating fears of hunger.

The streets of Niamey have been neatly decorated with colourful flags from the 56 countries sharing the French language like France, Canada, Laos and Senegal, while the walls and trees were painted in blue and white.

An estate of 500 modern villas and hospitals, police stations, schools and trade centres has been built for the event at Kwara Tegui, an outlying suburb in the north of the capital, Niamey.

Over the next 10 days, the complex will play host to contests such as football, wrestling, athletics, boxing - and poetry.

In addition to the money spent by Niger, members of the Francophonie have spent 8bn CFA francs ($15m) to renovate roads, hotels and Niamey's airport and for transport and security during the games.

Last month, the WFP asked for $19m to avert the food shortages.

But Niger's government - which denied there was mass starvation earlier this year - claims the recent harvest has in fact produced a food surplus.

Analysts say the impending crisis is the result of ongoing poverty, rather than the drought which affected crops in 2004.

This year the rains were good but because people used all their stocks to survive shortages before the harvest, they have little in reserve for the months ahead, the WFP says. [...]

Bread and circuses. It worked for the Romans, so why not for corrupt and incompetent African nations?

UN: Zimbabwe in a meltdown

From the Independant Online:

[...] Speaking to journalists after a four-day tour of the country, which was once known as the bread basket of Africa because of its rich natural assets and stable economy, Mr Egeland [head of humanitarian aid for the UN] said the situation for most Zimbabweans, already "extremely serious," was "deteriorating".

"When life expectancy goes from more than 60 years to just over 30 years in a 15-year span, it's not just a crisis, it's a meltdown," he said, pointing to "the Aids pandemic, the food insecurity, the total collapse in social services". [...]

Quote of the day: liar, liar, pants on fire version

Today's quote comes from France (via the BBC), where secularism is under pressure from Islamists.

"We have no problem with secularism," says Lhaj Thami Breze, president of the Union of Islamic Organisations of France (UOIF).

"Islam must adapt to France, not France to Islam."

Somehow, I think that came out backwards. It would be nice to hear the same words from French officials.

Mugabe: Zimbabweans aren't "tent people"

Oppose Mugabe and the harassment is never ending. Earlier this year Mugabe made hundreds of thousands of his citizens homeless after ordering that their makeshift homes be bulldozed. These were largely people his government suspected of supporting opposition parties.

Now Mugabe has rejected a UN offer of thousands of tents to shelter the newly homeless. His explanation: Zimbabweans are not tent people. He wants the UN to build permanent homes for the dispossessed, as reported by the Beeb:

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's rejection of tents for hundreds of thousands of people made homeless this year is puzzling, a top UN envoy says. Jan Egeland said he could not understand why the UN offer to supply tents was unacceptable when they were fine for people in Europe and the US.

Mr Mugabe's spokesman said Zimbabweans were "not tent people" and they wanted the UN to build permanent homes.

Some 700,000 people lost their jobs or homes in the demolitions, the UN says.

The figure is disputed by the government, which says it carried out Operation Murambatsvina (Drive Out Rubbish) to reduce crime and overcrowding.

Speaking in Johannesburg after a four-day visit to Zimbabwe, UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs Mr Egeland said this rationale was deeply flawed.

"The eviction campaign seems to me wholly irrational in all of its aspects - you lowered the standard of living rather than increasing it."

Mr Mugabe last week agreed to let the UN provide food aid to some three million people over the next year.

"The humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe is extremely serious and it is deteriorating," Mr Egeland said.

"If they [tents] are good enough for people in Europe and the United States who have lost their houses, why are they not good enough for Zimbabwe?" he added.

After "frank" talks with Mr Mugabe on Tuesday, Mr Egeland said they had agreed that the international community should do more to meet humanitarian needs in Zimbabwe.

Mr Egeland spent Monday meeting people living in camps and said some of them were living in inadequate conditions.

Doubtless he already has plans to move his supporters into any homes built by the UN. Just as his supporters received the vast majority of land taken from white Zimbabwean farmers under a land redistribution scheme.

The hard truth in Zimbabwe continues to be: oppose Mugabe and face any number of tribulations.

UPDATE: Now with proper linky goodness.

2005 Weblog Awards: A list of those who bought my votes

The 2005 Weblog Awards are underway. Not surprisingly, quite a few RINOs made the list. A full list of the selected RINOs is found at Bostonian Exile. Vote often for your choices.

Decent bribes from the following bloggers were received at Pigilito central:

New: Respectful Insolence, Decision '08, Wuzzadem. All three are extremely good reads. I'll be divvying my vote up between them. If I have one left over it will go to Wuzzadem.

Group: Redstate.

Humor: Protein Wisdom, Beautiful Atrocities, Iowahawk. Three good blogs. Protein Wisdom gets the nod based on his unique style, which appeals to me.

Conservative: Jawa Report, Ace of Spades, Right Wing Nut House.

Media/Journalist: Opinion Journal, Mickey Kaus.

Technology: Gizmodo.

Culture/Gossip: Llama Butchers.

LGBT: Gay Orbit, Classical Values. Both good, both RINOs.

Law: Volokh Conspiracy, Professor Bainbridge, Patterico's Pontifications. Three great blogs. Professor Bainbridge also has a useful wine blog, so he gets any spare votes.

European: Davids Medienkritik. Hands down the best. Regularly fisks German media and politicians to a fare-thee-well.

Mid East/Africa: This is Zimbabwe. Daily life under tyrant-in-chief Mugabe.

Top 250: David Drezner, Balloon Juice.

251-500: Austin Bay blog, Betsy's blog.

501-1000: Random Fate. Excellent insight into the French riots.

1001-1750: Glittering Eye.

1751-2500: Legal XXX.

2501-3500: World According to Nick.

3501-5000: Garfield Ridge, Evolution, Bostonian Exile. This catagory is packed with worthy blogs. It's nice that two are fellow RINOs.

We all have blogs we read on a daily basis which were overlooked by the selection committee. Among my favorites which didn't make the cut is American Future.

Big brain means small testes

If that's true (and vice-versa, I assume), where is my Nobel Prize?

Red Diamond now an official emblem alongside Red Cross and Crescent

After months of diplomatic spade word by the Swiss, the signatory states of the Geneva Conventions voted to allow states to use a Red Diamond instead of a Red Cross or Red Crescent symbol. Israel is expected to to be among the first to adopt the symbol. They will place a red Star of David inside the diamond to identify their rescue personel.

The signatory states to the Geneva Conventions have approved a new emblem for the Red Cross movement after a stormy three-day meeting in Switzerland.

The Swiss government said it was betrayed by a number of Middle East countries after adoption of the "red crystal" had to be put to a vote rather than accepted by consensus.

The vote in the early hours of Thursday morning followed three days of often bitter wrangling in Geneva. The emblem was finally adopted by a two-thirds majority in the face of opposition from mainly Arab and Muslim countries.

Hopes of consensus disappeared following the failure of last-ditch negotiations to resolve differences between Israel and Syria over humanitarian access to the Golan Heights.

Swiss diplomats, who spent nine months negotiating an agreement on the red crystal, said they were satisfied with the result but made it clear that it left a bitter taste in the mouth.

"We are in a way satisfied that the protocol has been adopted very clearly but we are disappointed that this was not done by consensus," Didier Pfirter, Switzerland's special envoy on the emblem issue, told swissinfo.

"We made a tremendous effort to achieve this result by consensus. We did all we could and went to the limits of what was humanly possible."

Pfirter said the Swiss were forced to put the issue to a vote to prevent a humanitarian conference being "taken hostage" by politics.

Blaise Godet, Swiss ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, added that once it became clear that there was no way of closing the gap, a vote was the only option.

Adoption by consensus of a third emblem – in addition to the red cross and red crescent – appeared to be on course last week when the Israeli and Palestinian emergency services signed a groundbreaking accord in Geneva.

This was seen as clearing the way for a deal this week, which would also allow Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) to join the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.

MDA has been isolated for more than 50 years because it has refused to use either of the two recognised symbols, opting instead for a red Star of David. In future, it will be able to place its own symbol inside the red crystal.

It was thought that the agreement with the Palestinians had softened Islamic countries' hardline opposition towards any accommodation of Israel within the movement.

But the absence of a similar deal between the Israelis and the Syrians led to an eleventh-hour hardening of their position – much to the deception of the Swiss.

"We were promised by several countries, both myself, at ministerial level and Mrs Calmy-Rey, that if the Palestinian issue were solved to the satisfaction of the Palestinians they would not oppose the adoption of this protocol. Some of these countries have voted no this evening," said Pfirter.

An offer late on Wednesday by Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey to act as a facilitator between MDA and the Syrian Red Crescent Society failed to prevent the situation deteriorating.

The president of the Swiss-run International Committee of the Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, agreed that consensus would have been the ideal outcome but denied that the emblem would be weakened as a result.

He said adoption of a third emblem was still "extremely positive", adding that it would strengthen humanitarian law and bring universality of the Red Cross a step closer. But Syria's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Bashar Ja'afari, said the meeting had been a "golden opportunity wasted" and he criticised Switzerland's handling of the conference.

"Such a conference would have needed more preparation in order to achieve consensus, and this has not been the case – it came far too soon," he told swissinfo. He also condemned the fact that a matter of international humanitarian law had been "imposed" on a minority of countries by the majority.

It is possible to view events like this as a gauge of Middle East progress. On the whole, things are moving forward, else the conference would never have taken place. That many Arab and Muslim states chose to withdraw support at the last moment is hardly surprising given their propensity to view things through a political lens. Nevertheless, the new emblem has been adopted, which would have been an impossibility just a year ago.

Bravo, Switzerland, for a truly impressive example of cat herding, and to those who voted for the Red Diamond.

Malaysian Islamic party loses important by-election

Good news from Malaysia from the Beeb.

Malaysia's governing coalition is on the verge of regaining control of the only part of the country run by the Islamic opposition party Pas.

The government narrowly won a by-election in the rural state of Kelantan, leaving Pas with a vulnerable one-seat majority.

The government's coalition took the seat by just 134 votes out of more than 15,000 cast, after a recount.

However, opposition politicians claim there was widespread electoral fraud.

Kelantan had been solidly behind the Islamist party Pas since 1990, and until last year's general election, Pas had also controlled a second neighbouring state.

There was even talk of it gaining ground to the point where it could turn Malaysia into a country governed by Islamic law.

Now it is clinging to its last stronghold by one seat and commentators say defections could hand Kelantan to the government. [...]

Pas must face the possibility that the surge in its support in the late 1990s was less about a desire for an Islamic state than revulsion at a government then widely seen as both brutal and corrupt.

Not noted in the article is that over time the PAS party became much more moderate. Thus confirming the need for democracy in Muslim nations. Hard-core Islamic groups are highly attractive to many sectors of society, but when they have to fight for votes or actually govern, they tend to moderate their views. As examples: Malaysia and Turkey.

Some background from the IHT:

[...] By day there are crowds and motorcades and speeches by major political figures from elsewhere. At night Pasir Mas shuts down, like everywhere else in northeastern Kelantan state, where a regional Islamic government has banned most kinds of evening entertainment.

For more than a decade, Kelantan has been the home of Malaysia's experiment with Islamic government, an anomaly in a country that is seen as an exemplar of modern, moderate Islam.

That experiment is now in retreat, and a special election here Tuesday, involving just 18,000 registered voters, has become an intense battleground as a gauge of the national mood. [...]

"In the last general election the ruling party managed to put a halt to the so-called green march," said Abdul Razak Baginda, executive director of the Malaysian Strategic Research Center, a research firm in Kuala Lumpur, referring to the color associated with Islam. The Islamic party, Parti Islam se-Malaysia, or PAS, lost control of neighboring Trengganu state, the only other place it had gained power.

PAS retained control of Kelantan in that election, in 2004, but by a margin of only 24 to 21 seats in the local Parliament. The current special election was called when one of its members died in October, and a loss would leave the Islamic party with a majority of just one seat.

"In the last years a more moderate face of PAS has emerged," Razak said. "This is a clear sign that even PAS recognizes that in Malaysia you have to go into a moderate mode. To go on a more radical and extreme view of Islam will not cut any ice with the public."

This is true of Southeast Asia in general, said Chandra Muzaffar, a leading political analyst in Kuala Lumpur. Although Islamic radicalism has made itself felt in recent years, it has not gained a large public following.

"This would be against the grain with the way Islam is practiced in this region," Chandra said. "I think Malaysian Muslims, like Indonesian Muslims and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, are not comfortable with this sort of very rigid, dogmatic approach to religion."

Malaysia's ruling party, known as UMNO, advocates a more moderate form of Islam, which it calls "hadhari," and it is offering that nationwide alternative to the voters here in Tuesday's election.

"PAS is Islam; UMNO is also Islam," Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said at a recent campaign rally here. "The question is what sort of Islam do you want?"

Kelantan's chief minister, Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, sounded out of tune not long ago when he advocated polygamy to rescue unmarried women from becoming "aged virgins." In an interview, Hatta Ramli, a liberal member of PAS, distanced the party from fundamentalist talk like that.

"The issue of implementing Shariah law is not top in our campaign," he said. "Kelantan is our model. It's all in place here in Kelantan. People can come in and observe and if they are fearful they can see what is going on."

If this is the model, it is a retreat from the time when PAS had ambitions of creating a strict Islamic state with segregation of the sexes and laws sanctioning stoning and amputation.

Alcohol, dancing, movies and gambling are still forbidden today in Kelantan, and most women cover their heads in compliance with local government directives. On a billboard advertising shampoo in the state capital, Kota Bharu, a row of seven smiling women hide their hair under Muslim head scarves.

But the Kelantan government has softened its religious pronouncements and has begun to loosen its bans on evening entertainment, allowing traditional theater and shadow-puppet plays. It has even staged a rock concert and a fashion show.

It appears to have stopped trying to enforce one of its more showy decrees - separate supermarket lines for women and men.

In the Pacific Hypermarket, as in other markets in Kota Bharu, men and women stand together at checkout counters, ignoring little stick-figure pictures overhead that indicated who should go where.

"At first, the authorities enforced the rule," said Rusmini Hakim, assistant manager of cashiers at the market. "But people made a fuss. And now no one comes around any more to check on us."

The PAS candidate in the special election is a moderate businessman, Hanifa Ahmad, rather than a religious leader, and the party has focused its campaign on development and social justice, instead of religion. The former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, a moderate Muslim with a large popular following, has joined the campaign in support of PAS, along with the opposition party Keadilan. [...]

Europe ready to absorb US lessons on assimilation

At least some European nations seem ready to adopt the underlying American philosophy to immigrants: by being forced to work, immigrants adopt a host country's values much quicker. In contrast, European nations subsidize legal immigrants to the extent that work becomes unnecessary. This also leads to understandable hostility from those who work.

John Vinocur ($) picks up on what many conservative bloggers have long pointed out. Namely, that forcing immigrants to work makes their assimilation much easier.

If the United States has historically had more success in integrating its immigrants than Europe does nowadays, it's because the American work ethic makes greater demands on the newcomers than Europe's welfare societies - at the same time that America offers a job-related payback in dignity and the prospect of success.

Simplistic theorizing? But maybe not so far from the truth. Marx and Gramsci pointed, variously, to the system in the United States as convincing in its claims that it provided a chance to rise in a society where all classes emphasize the virtues of hard work.

These days, following France's three weeks of rioting, largely by Arab and African Muslim immigrants, (mere "social disturbances," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin explained to the world last week), there are a few European politicians taking a new look at the work ethic as a missing link in their countries' similar problems with integration.

This means a not so politically correct leap over the very real but incomplete explanation that discrimination and a lack of education are the essential causes of the high unemployment and the often angry alienation of Europe's immigrants.

Instead, the new thinking brings a focus to what has been called the failure of welfare-colonialism: Europe's allowing immigrants to become dependent on social handouts while letting a mutual commitment to work slide as a necessary bond in their integration.

The developing idea boils down to this: Because of the nature of the American ethos and the United States' less embracing social protections, immigrants coming to the country are prepared to seek work. In Europe, there are welfare-only alternatives to finding a job that create neither dignity for the immigrants nor, among the home folks, a sense of immigrants' contribution to society.

Not discussed is that America attracts a more determined and ambitious immigrant than does Europe. High tax rates, endless redtape and a lack of respect for businesses all conspire to keep hard workers away from Europe. After all, if you were an ambitious Turk, where would you rather go: to America, with its low taxes and open system, or Europe, with its many rules, high taxes and rampant discrimination?

The Netherlands' leading left-wing opposition politician, Wouter Bos, who heads the Labor Party, has gone to the heart of the problem in the direct Dutch manner. He says: "Minorities integrate American society quickly. Here, social scientists argue it's easier to become dependent on social security than to seek a job."

Bos talked to me about creating a system in which immigrants in the Netherlands would build up credits toward full social-service benefits through work. He compared it to an air-miles program where the free ride, if it comes, is awarded on the basis of performance. There's no question of eliminating basic Dutch welfare protections for noncitizens, and Bos acknowledged that his idea would have to be checked out in relation to international law.

Ad hoc solutions like this demonstrate the bind these countrys are in. They have formulated their policies on utopian Socialist ideology, and must now face up to financial and philosophical limits--and not only in regards to immigrants.

Current European social programs in general are unsustainable. Not only many immigrants live a comfortable life on welfare. Quite a few French, Dutch and Germans do so as well. They are at risk of losing touch with their country's values.

The concern about the place of the work ethic as a hobbled element in Europe's integration of immigrants is reinforced by statistical reality.

A study made in Oslo, quoted by Unni Wikan of the University of Oslo in her 2002 book "Generous Betrayal," said Pakistanis, Turks and Moroccans living in the city were three to five times more likely to be living from disability payments than Norwegians. In Denmark, current figures show that 43 percent of immigrants and their descendants have jobs, compared to 83 percent of native Danes.

In the past, Bertel Haarder the Danish education minister and former integration minister, had approached similar figures by saying: "It's not Turkish but Danish culture that's flawed. It's in Denmark where Turks have learned not to do anything for themselves."

Now, the center-right government in Denmark has proposed a directive that would make extending Danish citizenship to immigrants contingent on their working four of the previous five years before it's granted. Reinforcing the work ethic is also described as central in plans to cut allowances to immigrant parents whose children under 18 are not working or attending school; or, on becoming 18, making acceptance of a job a condition for receiving benefits.

Perhaps limiting residency beyond a set period of years to those who have a work history would also motivate many to seek work.

Haarder explained on the phone last week: "I don't think you can preach work. You have to send concrete signals, and we've been too unclear. We want to underline that in this country you have an obligation to work and educate yourself. Otherwise, there's the probability that immigrants settle in on welfare and that this goes from generation to generation. We're sending the message, to get something you've got to give something."

[...] It's certainly not just another number when a poll shows Americans, in comparison with the French and British (and even the Swedes), are doubly convinced that hard work means far more than "luck and connections" in getting ahead.

This statistic is part of the argument made by Seymour Martin Lipset in his now classic book, "American Exceptionalism," how the central elements of a national creed distinguishing and sustaining American society include the fact that "Americans choose to work."

But it's more than that. After lecturing in Europe this fall, Francis Fukuyama, the American political scientist, has come around to the idea that if work equals dignity and belonging in both the United States and Europe, there were other distinctions in play about how work functions (or doesn't function) as an integrator on the two sides of the Atlantic.

The fact is, Fukuyama said in a conversation in Washington three weeks ago, America creates more jobs. Europe is stuck in many places with the idea that there is a fixed amount of work for distribution while America believes it is eternally expandable. And, according to Fukuyama, America makes a value judgment that Europe does not: differentiating between the deserving poor who want to work, and those whose inclinations are elsewhere.

The sum was, he said, "In the U.S. model an immigrant gets dignity by contributing to the whole and by the dignity of his work. I think the Dutch are beginning to see this."

Other Europeans have before them. If Lipset's analysis of their thinking is correct, two monuments of Socialist theory, Karl Marx and Antonio Gramsci, the Italian revolutionary, went as far as identifying something admirable and even equalitarian in American society that could be linked to the place in which it holds work.

Recommending American models as social, political or economic examples gets distinctly little traction in the European mind-set of December 2005. But remove the Made in USA label, and the reference points are still incontrovertible: about 4 percent yearly growth, 5.5 percent unemployment, and immigrants who work - on the job, and through it, at becoming compatible Americans.

It's very hard to argue with numbers like those; or with America's unrivaled history of turning immigrants into citizens.

Something not touched on, which is anathema to most Europeans, is the high level of national pride Americans have (and Europeans largely lack). Nationalism can help integration. How likely is an immigrant to adopt the values of his new country if its own citizens downplay their nation's uniqueness, its history, or seek to become a member of an amorphous EU?

Latest RINO sightings at No Credentials

Rose at No Credentials has put together an truly outstanding RINO carnival. Each post got it's own karaoke treatment. I found myself singing along--but that might have been the free booze.

Jakarta Post op-ed notes religion is to be a counter to terrorist ideology

A good piece in yesterday's Jakarta Post by the ex-head of Indonesia's intelligence services discusses the government's newest strategy of enlisting respected Islamic scholars to undermine the terrorists' religious justifications (not considered is why the clerics simply didn't speak up on their own):

When the dust finally settles and the epitaph for Jamaah Islamiyah is written years from now, the final chapter of that group's violent history may have begun with the move that came earlier this month. On Nov. 18, leading Muslim scholars from around Indonesia joined to declare an all-out jihad against religious extremism. They did so after watching a video of the three homicide bombers who, after showing no remorse, blew themselves up at three Bali nightspots on Oct. 1. The video also showed a masked terrorist -- presumed to be fugitive Noordin M. Top -- encouraging his followers to inflict casualties against American, Australian, British and Italian citizens.

Enlisting the help of some of the country's most respected religious authorities is long overdue. For decades, after all, Indonesia was so often called a nation of moderate Muslims that the moniker became clich‚. Yet for the past five years, an exceedingly small minority of radicals have been regularly eclipsing the silent majority. While mainstream religious leaders remained mute on the sidelines, Indonesia gained an undeserved reputation as a hotbed of radicals.

One wonders why the government took so long to prompt a reaction from the ulema. There were certainly enough opportunities in recent years. In September 2002, for example, the State Intelligence Agency uncovered a cache of damning videotapes made by a Saudi-German extremist named Seyam Reda. [...]

Together, the Seyam Reda films were nothing short of a repulsive celebration of violence. In hindsight, the government should have given a private showing of these tapes to influential ulema and asked for their support in the war for the true soul of Islam. Who's to say that some of those involved in the conspiracy to bomb nightclubs in Bali the following month would not have come forward to the authorities, thus possibly sparing the nation of that tragic loss of life?

But sadly, the government's reaction back in September 2002 was to maintain only a half-hearted offensive against extremism. I was the chief of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) at the time, and I vividly recall senior security officials repeatedly pulling punches against the radicals and failing to use all of the government's tools at their disposal. Tellingly, Seyam Reda was later charged with immigration offensives -- rather than anything to do with terrorism -- and deported after a few short months.

Now, a year into his administration, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is finally showing the needed backbone to confront the remnants of Jamaah Islamiyah with a thoughtful, multi-pronged campaign. To be sure, enlisting the help of Muslim scholars is arguably the most important step. This is because Jamaah Islamiyah recruiters, including Noordin N. Top and, earlier, Imam Samudra, have shown a disturbing ability to corrupt Islamic teachings and recruit acolytes with frightening ease.

One Jamaah Islamiyah claim dramatically demonstrates this point. In the Middle East, some Arab suicide bombers have reportedly spoken of being received by 72 virgins in Paradise after their martyrdom. In Indonesia, this promise has been cleverly altered by Jamaah Islamiyah to have more resonance among the lower class.

During the 2004 Australian embassy bombing, for example, theauthorities came to learn that Jamaah Islamiyah had promised would-be martyrs that they could take along 72 friends and relatives on the fast-track to Paradise.

Even Azahari bin Husin -- the Malaysian PhD. and Jamaah Islamiyah bombmaker who was killed in a police shootout in early November -- bought into this idea and made reference to taking along six dozen relatives if he died as a jihadist.

Such concepts, of course, are nonsense. But rather than the government refuting such infantile interpretations, it will be that much more effective if reputable ulema take the message directly to their congregations. In doing so, they will help drain away Jamaah Islamiyah's remaining base of support. Using imagery made popular by Mao Tse-Tung, the terrorists will be left isolated and floundering like fish out of water.

Equally important, the ulema should begin a regular program of visiting some of the more controversial Islamic boarding schools and reviewing their curriculum. High on that list should be the Darus Sya'adah pesantren in Central Java, which reportedly has been linked to some of the al-Ghuraba militants arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and at least one of the October 2005 Bali bombers. Also, at least one pesantren in Poso, Central Sulawesi, has raised eyebrows for its incendiary teachings. Again, self-policing of such education institutions by the ulema will be far more effective than intervention by government authorities.

And looking ahead, one hopes that the country's top Muslim scholars will not lose their voice should militant cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir be released from prison next year. Against Ba'asyir's shrill intolerance, their collective voice of reason will be a crucial counter-balance.

Of course, the government is pursuing other fronts in the struggle against religious extremism. In particular, I would hope that the administration considers bringing Abu Bakar Ba'asyir up on charges for a third time. Ba'asyir has repeatedly claimed he was not the amir of Jamaah Islamiyah.

But as reformed Jamaah Islamiyah terrorist Nasir Abas astutely points out, this might just be semantics: Many radicals saw Ba'asyir as head of al-Jamaah al-Islamiyah, not Jamaah Islamiyah. Whatever the spelling, as new information comes to light, the government should explore whether Ba'asyir was culpable for attacks for which he has yet to be charged, such as the Philippine ambassador bombing and Christmas Eve attacks of 2000. This could be done without violating the principle of double jeopardy.

The government must also dedicate sufficient resources to definitively resolve the recent attacks in Poso, Central Sulawesi. Testimony from Jamaah Islamiyah detainees -- such as Mustopha and Nasir Abas -- indicate that they have made a long and concerted effort to proselytize in Poso; their links to the repeated outbreaks of violence in that district, in particular, needs to be properly investigated.

The government is correct to note that Jamaah Islamiyah remains a clear and present danger to Indonesia. Over the long-term, enlisting the ulema in the war over ideology is a vital, albeit long over-due, step that at long last gives the authorities the hope of regaining for Indonesia its once well-deserved reputation as a bastion of religious tolerance and Islamic moderation.

Another nail in the coffin for the European social model

Remember the predictions of many folks in love with the European social model (Europe ascendant and America laid low)? Most have been forgotten following Europe's recemt economic troubles and the rise of China and India. Well, here's another one which was popular a few years ago.

When the dollar began sinking against the Euro, many people expected the Euro to replace the dollar as the world's currency of choice. Implicit for some Leftists was that by buying Euros, people were voting for the European model, and repudiating the American model.

Now the Financial Times reports that the dollar is again dominating the Euro as a reserve currency. The analysis finds that the rise is based largely on OPEC's buying of dollars, and may turn down again. Nevertheless, it should help put an end to the Left's predictions of the European model's superiority.

Middle Eastern oil exporters have rediscovered their love of the US dollar in the past year, helping fuel the currency’s rally to two-year highs against the euro, yen and sterling.

The position marks a sharp turnround from the third quarter of 2004, when the proportion of bank deposits held in dollars by members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries slumped to a record low.

By the middle of this year, the proportion of Opec deposits held in dollars had rebounded from 61.5 per cent to 69.5 per cent, with the share held in euros falling from a high of 24 per cent to 16 per cent, according to figures released on Monday by the Bank for International Settlements. [...]

Indonesia set to crack down on radical Muslims?

In what looks to be a change of policy, Indonesia has begun measures designed to root out and discredit radical Islamist ideology.

Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, but most people here practice a moderate form of the faith.

Still, militant Islam appears to be gaining a strong foothold, with five deadly attacks targeting Western interests since 2002. More than 240 people have died, many of them Indonesians.

The secular government has responded by launching its first-ever campaign against hard-line interpretations of Islam - something it shied away from doing in the past for fear of being seen as subservient to the United States. [...]

The government seems to have prevailed on hard line Islamic groups to condemn suicide bombings at home, as reported in today's Jakarta Post:

Islamic hard-line groups joined the chorus of condemnation on Sunday against militants who used suicide bombings to wage jihad in the world's most populous Muslim country.

However, the groups called for a dialog between them and other Muslim leaders, along with the government to discuss jihad, as they said the war on terror had tarnished their image.

Hard to imagine that those who preach terror are upset at being called terrorists.

At a seminar attended by leaders of the Indonesian Mujahiddin Assembly (MMI), Hisbuth Tahrir, the Islam Defender Front (FPI) and several other hard-line groups, they agreed that suicide bomb attacks could not be accepted as jihad.

"It's because the attackers have committed suicide in Indonesia, which is not a conflict zone," MMI leader Abu Jibril argued.

This seems to be the critical distinction for these folks. The lesson: feel free to kill your co-religionists, but only in a conflict zone.

The seminar specifically discussed the series of suicide bombings in the country, blamed widely on members of the Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) terror group.

According to Jibril, Muslims are allowed only to launch suicide attacks for self-defense.

"The recent suicide bombings were out of the context of Islamic holy war because they (the attackers) attacked target instead of defending themselves from threats, such as aggression," he said.

The MMI was founded by extremist cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who was in April convicted of a being involved in the conspiracy that led to the 2002 bombings in Bali, which killed 202 people -- mostly Western tourists.

Jibril has taken over the MMI's leadership as Ba'asyir, who also heads the Al-Mukmin Islamic boarding school in Ngruki, Surakarta, Central Java, is serving a 30-month jail term in Jakarta's Cipinang prison.

Police also accused Ba'asyir of leading Jamaah Islamiyah, but the court was not convinced. Similarly, Achmad Junaidi Ath-Thayibiy of the Hizbuth Tahrir said the recent terror attacks in the country by suicide bombers were haram (forbidden under Islam), and could not be considered as jihad.

Once again, he stressed that Indonesia was not a conflict zone.

"The Koran sets a condition before Muslims can wage holy war and die as martyrs, namely it must be defensive, not offensive, in nature, and the target must be clear.

"If the attackers target the U.S. and its allies as their enemies, they must not victimize women, children and other innocent people," Achmad told the seminar, which was also attended by former chairman of the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI), Rev. Nathan Setiabudi.

Imams have also strongly condemned the suicide bombings as un-Islamic, saying the terrorists had misinterpreted Koranic verses on jihad to launch the attacks.

Nahdlatul Ulama leader Hasyim Muzadi asked the government and Muslim leaders to sit down together to talk about the true concept of jihad in an effort to ensure the success of the national campaign against terror.

The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) ended a two-day national meeting here on Sunday with a decision to strengthen its stance against terrorism.

As tortured as the logic of jihad is, we can be happy that Indonesia is beginning to organize some response to those who preach death and bloodshed.

"We are planning to facilitate a meeting of all religious groups, be they hard-line or moderate ones, to find a clear definition of jihad. Of course, our stance is clear that we are against terror because Indonesia is not a battle zone for jihad or suicide attacks," MUI deputy chairman Ma'ruf Amin, who was appointed to lead the antiterror task force, told The Jakarta Post.

He said the MUI would reissue its 2003 fatwa that outlaws all acts of terror.

The council, however, criticized the security authorities for stigmatizing hard-line groups and a number of Islamic boarding schools.

Last week, the National Intelligence Agency (BIN) said that as part of the fight against terrorism, it would infiltrate radical groups in order to destroy their organizations from within.

France's attachment to its farms

Most of the explanations mirror why the US feels strongly about its farmers (nostalgia for simpler times, etc). A big difference, though, is that the US isn't willing to subsidize our farmers to the point of bringing the whole of North America down with it as the French seem prepared to do to Europe over farm susidies.

This opinion piece in the IHT attempts to explain the French attachment to land:

Why do the French feel so strongly about their farms? Forty years ago, when more than 20 percent of the population still worked on the land, the attachment to agriculture was understandable. But with only 3.5 percent of the French now in farming, why do the other 96.5 percent not see that agricultural subsidies and tariffs only make their food more expensive and undercut the livelihoods of farmers in the developing world, which France maintains it wants to help?

The most direct answer to this question is that the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, or CAP, has been very profitable for France as a whole. Even after recent cuts, French agriculture still receives 9 billion a year through the CAP. Even though other countries (like Germany, Britain and the Netherlands) are greater net contributors to the overall EU budget, France receives the greatest share of CAP spending, which itself still represents 40 percent of the overall EU budget.

The group that receives this money is powerful and effectively represented by the main agriculture union, the Fnsea. This union has become even more aggressive in recent years to avoid being outflanked by a new competitor, Confédération Paysanne, a radical rural organization for which the antiglobalization campaigner José Bové (of McDonald's ransacking fame) was a longtime spokesman. In a country with a conflict-prone social culture (and where politicians are known to cave in the face of the frequent protests and strikes), farmers are among the most determined, and sometimes violent, lobbies.

The rural community also has significant political influence beyond the unions - especially in the French Senate. As senators are elected by local officials from France's 36,000 communes, the countryside is overrepresented. Another ally is President Jacques Chirac himself, the longtime parliamentary representative of Corrèze - a poor, agricultural département - who started his political career as an agriculture minister and has long been personally sympathetic to farmers.

Even powerful unions and a sympathetic president, however, cannot fully explain the power of the French farming lobby. For farmers in France have tremendous sympathy from the rest of the population. Traditional, high-quality food remains an important part of the culture, and France's defense of its "gastronomical sovereignty" is itself a tradition. Defenders of French agriculture like Bové argue that globalization of the agricultural market has not only made France susceptible to bad-tasting food but also to unsafe food, mad cow disease, hormone-treated beef, genetically modified organisms and preservatives - arguments that are very convincing to many French.

But it is not just about food. French farmers are also considered the keepers of the countryside. Most French citizens - who often think of themselves as having rural roots even if their families have lived in Paris or Lyon for generations - sympathize with the local communities fighting against the closure of their post office or elementary school. With 30,000 farms disappearing every year, the French are worried that their countryside will soon empty and progressively die. In reality, with half of EU subsidies going to just 10 percent of farms, it is far from clear that the CAP helps preserve villages rather than large industrial farms, but the argument still carries weight among the French.

France has never shied away from protecting its interests when it comes to agriculture. In 1965, under President Charles de Gaulle, it practiced the policy of the "empty chair" in part to show its unhappiness with the way the European Community's agriculture policy was evolving. By doing so, France preserved the veto that it has used ever since to defend agricultural spending. In 1992, when farm supports were once more threatened by a proposed EU deal with the United States, France again threatened a veto and provoked a major trans-Atlantic and intra-EU crisis.

Today, given that the run-up to the 2007 elections has already started, France should not be expected easily to go much beyond the last EU agreement on the CAP, which runs until 2013. The French "no" in the EU constitutional referendum last May was widely seen as a cri de coeur against globalization, and any French political leader who stands up in the face of this powerful force risks being swept away.

This goes to the heart of the matter. The french are reeling from a world threatening to pass them by, and respond to it in a reactionary manner.

American and European negotiators should keep making the case that European subsidies distort world markets and that there are other ways to preserve the French countryside than paying farmers for food that nobody needs. But if they try to push it too far and to directly challenge the French farming consensus, they had better be prepared for the reaction.

New Red Cross symbol set for approval

After long hard work by the Swiss (and some financial arm twisting by the American Red Cross), a new symbol free of religious connotations looks as though it will be approved by tuesday in Geneva. Should everything go according to plan (read: the Arabs don't again sabotage things), the Red Cross and Red Crescent symbols will be joined by a Red Diamond (previous posts here, here, and here).

Israel is expected to be among the first adopters of the new symbol, which can be used by any country. Swiss-info reports:

Representatives from 192 countries are due in Geneva on Monday for a conference to decide whether to adopt a new emblem for the Red Cross movement.

The two-day meeting is the result of tightrope diplomacy by Switzerland to resolve the long-standing issue of a third humanitarian symbol.

Approval of the so-called "red crystal" by the signatory states moved a step closer last week when the Israeli and Palestinian emergency services signed a groundbreaking cooperation agreement.

The accord, brokered by the Swiss foreign ministry, cleared the way for a deal on a new emblem in addition to the red cross and red crescent currently in use.

A successful outcome in Geneva would mark the end of months of delicate shuttle diplomacy by the Swiss to resolve what Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey described last week as a "century-old controversy".

"Switzerland in its capacity as the depositary of the Geneva Conventions has done its best – and will continue to do so – in order to facilitate a harmonious and consensus-based solution to the emblem question," foreign ministry spokesman Lars Knuchel told swissinfo.

"The diplomatic conference is the right time to achieve this long-term goal."

Under the change, countries would be able to place their own symbols inside the red crystal, as long as they have been in use for some time.

This would open the door for Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) to finally join the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement after more than 50 years.

The Israeli emergency service refuses to use either of the two globally recognised symbols, opting instead for a red Star of David.

Arab countries have previously resisted any attempt to accommodate the Israelis within the international movement. But last week's recognition by Israel of the Palestine Red Crescent Society and the improved situation in the occupied territories has led to a softening of their stance.

Calmy-Rey travelled to the Middle East in October to try to shore up support for the new emblem and mediate between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

A previous attempt by the Swiss in 2000 to resolve the issue of a third emblem foundered following the outbreak of the second Palestinian Intifada.

In the same year the American Red Cross stopped its contributions to the Geneva-based International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in protest at the continued isolation of the MDA. This amounts to $35 million (SFr46 million) in lost revenue for the IFRC.

Devorah Goldberg, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross, said the organisation was unlikely to review its position until the MDA had been granted membership.

Speaking ahead of the conference, the Swiss-run International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was optimistic that the additional protocol to the Conventions, incorporating the red crystal, would be passed. [...]

German papers on Merkel's maiden policy speech

A generally favorable review as reported by Der Spiegel Online:

[...] In her speech on Wednesday, Merkel urged Germany to "take a chance on more freedom," a direct reference to Willy Brandt's famous 1969 speech in which he challenged Germany -- at the time struggling to finally make a complete break with its Nazi past -- to take a chance on more democracy.

Even if some might be tempted to interpret her statement as a desire to move toward neo-liberal economic policies, Claus Christian Malzahn, in an editorial for SPIEGEL ONLINE, argues that her main point is primarily that of limiting the state's presence in Germans' everyday lives. "Freedom, as Merkel means it," Malzahn writes, "is not the unleashed market, but above all the absence of state paternalism and control." Merkel, who grew up in East Germany, said in her speech that the biggest surprise in her life was not becoming chancellor, but that of being granted freedom when the Wall fell in 1989. Merkel also made an early move to step out of the shadow of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. "She thanked Schröder in the name of all Germans, thus killing two birds with one stone: First, she offered a fig leaf to the Social Democrats. And second, Schröder was made, through her expression of gratitude, history. The new chancellor now has an open road in front of her."

He was already history, having dropped out of the news faster than an alligator can eat a puppy. He recently signed on as an attorney with a Swiss firm, and is said to want to better his English. Nice that when he is dependant on the private sector for his paycheck, hebegins to see the value of doing business with America.

Other major German dailies were also in optimistic moods following Merkel's speech and most were very complimentary. The center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung argues that for the first time, the wordy and technical coalition agreement between Merkel's conservatives and the Social Democrats was translated into "understandable German." Indeed, the paper seems willing on Thursday to accept that Germany has an actual government rather than merely a marriage of convenience between the country's two biggest political parties. "Out of the 'forced marriage' that came out of what many see as an unhappy election result, a 'project' has formed: The project of a platform that aims at encouraging Germans as well as using their potential better and creating a new bond of trust."

Also breaking with Germany's habitual pessimism, Financial Times Deutschland was also willing to look on the plus side of things on Thursday. Admitting that her speech was "everything but rhetorical fireworks," the paper does point out the optimism present in her address. It seemed she was trying to emphasize the possibility that change might bring about a positive result. "Merkel knows that after a number of disappointments, the Germans are very pessimistic about their futures. She also knows how difficult it will be to turn this mood around in the direction of optimism." Nevertheless, Merkel is doing her best to exude a positive attitude.

The conservative paper Die Welt is also pleasantly surprised -- especially with Merkel's apparent desire to clearly formulate the problems her government is facing. The paper uses its front-page editorial to once again offer up its simply formulated anecdote: Germany's problems can easily be solved by shrinking the government. But it also offers up a healthy dose of praise for Merkel. "Her presentation was barebones, intelligent, moderate, and didn't unnecessarily slam her political partners who, until very recently, were her political opponents. It was a goodwill speech -- an enjoyable speech."

Not everyone was so impressed with Merkel's speech, of course. The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung once again went down the long laundry list of crisis the Merkel government has to address and said that Merkel's self-proclaimed "government of action" has so far only delayed decision on most of them. Nevertheless, the speech "could have come from Gerhard Schröder. Perhaps her voice wavered a bit more, she was a bit more pathetic in her delivery, and more optimistic and ambitious in the goals she set for herself. But in the end, it was vague and noncommittal in the promises she made."

And finally (and not surprisingly), the left-leaning Die Tageszeitung was deeply critical of Merkel, saying the speech highlighted once again the "patchwork policies" of the Merkel-led coalition government. The paper does give her points for honesty and admits having an over-arching political vision may impossible in Germany at the moment. But "if you measure the speech's success by whether she was able, through a convincing presence, to justify new policies and create an atmosphere of optimism in society, then Merkel's speech was a disappointment."

The last two papers still have sour grapes in their mouths from Schroeder's defeat. Germany's problems remain overwhelming in the short term. Nevertheless, if the opinion shapers stand back and give her government an opportunity to come to grips with some problems, they may be pleasantly surprised.

Oldest bird moves closer to the DInos

From New Scientist comes this report on the latest fossil archaeopteryx to be described:

The oldest known bird was closer to a dinosaur than previously thought – a discovery that confuses the evolutionary tree as we currently understand it.

An exceptionally well preserved new fossil reveals a foot and skull that more closely resemble those of a group of two-legged predatory dinosaurs called the known as dromeosaurs, than modern birds.

With jagged teeth and a dinosaur-like skeleton, the archaeopteryx is unlike any modern species of bird. But flight feathers on its long front limbs have led palaeontologists to identify the creature as the oldest known species of bird.

Nine previously known specimens of archaeopteryx have led palaeontologists to conclude that birds probably evolved from small meat-eating dinosaurs, and are closely related to the dromeosaurs, a group that includes the velociraptor. Yet precisely how archaeopteryx is related to the raptors has remained unclear – key pieces of these previous specimens are missing.

But the newly revealed fossil appears to fill in many of the gaps. The specimen comes from the private collection of a worker at the Solnhofen limestone quarries in Germany, where the first archaeopteryx fossil was discovered. It has remained unknown to science until its owner's death, when the new owner made it available to scientists at the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in the US.

A complete foot reveals that archaeopteryx had an extensible claw on its second toe, which is a hallmark of raptors, but is absent in all known birds. Its first toe, or "hallux", is also at the side of the foot and not reversed as it is in perching birds, which use it to grasp branches.

The skull is also well preserved and shows that the animal had a skull bone known as the "palatine", which is shaped in the same way as in many two-legged dinosaurs.

The new traits were added to a computer model, enabling palaeontologists to analyse the relationship between extinct species. "It's now very difficult to distinguish between [early] birds and [early] dromeosaurs," says Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, who studied the specimen.

Mayr told New Scientist that there are no unique traits shared by archaeopteryx and other early bird-like fossils that are not present in dinosaurs. This would either mean that archaeopteryx cannot be classed within the same evolutionary group as birds or that this group needs to be redefined.

But Peter Makovicky of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, US, says those results are shaky because Mayr's group considered only three bird-like creatures; archaeopteryx, confuciusornis and a primitive bird called Rahonavis, that lived much later.

In October 2005, Makovicky carried out a separate study that links Rahonavis directly to the dromeosaurs and suggests this species may have evolved flight separately from archaeopteryx and other birds. Makovicky told New Scientist he found no change in the shape of his evolutionary tree when he added the new traits found for archaeopteryx.

The battle of where to place archaeopteryx promises to be bloody but illuminating.

The full article from Science is here. An article discussing the for-profit museum where the fossil is on display is here.

Global warming, now blamed for warming and cooling of the Earth, joins Bush in the world's doghouse

Global warming is a fact. What percent is driven by humans is under debate. What the outcome of Global Warming will be is also unknown, yet that doesn't stop many from predicting world disaster.

There seems to be an inverse relationship between what is known and the magnitude of what is predicted. This makes sense, of course, since as more data is made available to researchers, the more constrained their predictions must be.

At the moment, data is slim so just about any outcome is feasible.

This op-ed in the Times has a selection of recent studies and how they have been interpreted.

CLIMATE CHANGE has passed Through the Looking Glass with Alice. The Red Queen is berating us to believe “six impossible things before breakfast”.

This week a group of scientists from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton gave a warning that a weakening Gulf Stream will make Britain like Canada, with a cooling of 1C over the next couple of decades, leading to a deeper freeze later. Global warming, of course, is to blame, as melting ice caps reduce the salinity of Arctic waters, preventing them from sinking and driving the ocean conveyor belt.

Clearly researchers in Southampton need to talk to each other. In October a different lot, writing in the Journal of Applied Ecology, were busy employing computer models to calculate that fly and bluebottle populations would rise by nearly 250 per cent as Britain warmed some 2-3C, leading to more dire infections transmitted by insects.

In June we were informed by experts at a Royal Horticultural Society conference that vast swaths of Britain would turn into a Van Gogh landscape, our native woods replaced by Mediterranean horrors such as walnuts, sweet chestnuts, kiwi fruit, olives and sunflowers as temperatures soar by 3-6C. “It’s already happening — you can see fields of sunflowers,” Professor Jeff Burley of Oxford University announced.

Likewise in June, the redoubtable Baroness Young of Old Scone, chief executive of the Eeyore-like Environment Agency, ever in its boggy place, intoned: “Climate change and the issues that surround it are the biggest challenge — and that flows through to some real pressure points for people in the future in terms of their water supply and their risk of flooding” — basing everything, inevitably, on warming.

In reality, nobody has a fog what will happen. This is Virtualia, not the UK. During the last year, global warming has been predicted to lead to wetter winters, drier winters, another ice age, blazing-hot Mediterranean summers killing thousands, greater biodiversity and less biodiversity.

Hence the impossible things to believe from the Today programme before breakfast. But I’m with Alice: “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

Confused? That's the way it will be until more research is completed.

More evidence that males are nature's way of ensuring new species

Probably not, as long as we stay away from the rough sex. But we are somewhat similar to lizards (ask any feminist, or one of my ex-girlfriends), which were studied. Draw whatever conclusions your political outlook requires.

Nature News has the scoop:

Having too many males around can be bad news for lizards. Scientists have found that an excess of males can cause a small population of several dozen lizards to shrink because females are subjected to more male aggression during mating attempts, which reduces their survival and fertility.

If the finding applies generally, removing excess males could be a useful tactic to save small, isolated populations of endangered species, the scientists say.

Male aggression during sex occurs in many species. The male red-sided garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis), for example, sometimes suffocates his partner during copulation. But this is the first study showing the effects this can have on population size, says Xavier Lambin, a behavioural ecologist at the University of Aberdeen who is not connected to the study. "Such effects have been speculated but not demonstrated before," Lambin says.

The researchers monitored the reproduction and survival of two groups of common lizards (Lacerta vivipara) kept in enclosures in a meadow that were covered by nets to stop the lizards being picked off by birds.

In one group, 78% of the adults were females, whereas, in the second group, the same proportion were males. After a year, the population with excess females had grown from 73 to 118. In contrast, the population with excess males had shrunk to just 35, and contained more males than before; females in the male-dominated group died four times more often and also had three or four instead of the usual five young per year.

The researchers speculate that the females died of stress caused by continuous male copulation attempts. The females housed with more males were subjected to more bouts of aggressive sex, says Jean-François Le Galliard, who led the research while at the Higher Teacher Training School in Paris, France, and at the University of Oslo, Norway.

Male lizards normally bite females during copulation, he adds, leaving a patch of skin missing from their back. Surviving females in the male-dominated group of lizards had three times as much missing skin as their counterparts in the other group. The researchers have published their research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers calculate that because an excess of males led to greater female mortality, it would eventually drive the population to extinction. This may mean that certain rare species whose sex ratios are already skewed may find it harder to recover if males show aggression to females.

Le Galliard says conservationists are already removing males to save some populations. For example, males of the endangered Hawaiian monk seal (Monachus schauinslandi) have a strong libido and a tendency to fight and kill females, reducing their species' chances of survival.

Accord paves way for new Red Cross emblem

Swiss diplomacy is back. Switzerland has spent much time hammering out this accord between the Israelies and Palestinians. Next week should see the adoption of a third emblem (the Red Diamond) to go along with the Red Cross and Red Crescent. Swiss-info reports:

Israeli and Palestinian emergency services have signed a cooperation agreement in Switzerland, paving the way for the adoption of a new Red Cross emblem.

The historic accord, which was brokered by the Swiss government, comes a week before a diplomatic conference in Geneva on whether to approve a third humanitarian symbol – the Red Crystal.

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, who presided over Monday's ceremony, declared the agreement an "important milestone" not just in the humanitarian domain but also in the context of Israeli-Palestinian relations.

"Beyond the humanitarian sphere it sets an example for the Israelis and the Palestinian public, and thereby makes a small but meaningful contribution to the wider process of achieving peace and cooperation between your two nations," she said.

"Finally it goes a long way to address the concerns that have so far prevented a number of states from wholeheartedly embracing the solution of the longstanding issue of the emblems of the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement." Switzerland, which is the depositary state of the Geneva Conventions, is due to host the 192 signatory states next week to discuss the adoption of a third additional protocol, which would see the introduction of the Red Crystal.

Israel's Magen David Adom (MDA) refuses to operate under either of the two emblems currently used and recognised by the Red Cross movement, insisting on its own symbol – a red Star of David [which seems perfectly reasonable to me. See this and this for background--ed.]

As a result the MDA has been denied membership of the movement for more than 50 years. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) only has observer status because it is not under the jurisdiction of a recognised state.

The signing of the agreement in Geneva on Monday should clear the path for both aid organisations to join the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. [...]

Last month the Swiss foreign minister embarked on a three-day tour of the Middle East to try to secure support for the new symbol ahead of the two-day conference, which is scheduled to begin in Geneva on December 5.

Calmy-Rey said on Monday that Switzerland would try to obtain a similar accord between the MDA and Syria ahead of the conference. The Syrian government has expressed reservations about the adoption of the Red Crystal.

If she obtains Syrian cooperation, she ought to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Under the agreement signed on Monday, the PRCS said its Israeli counterpart would be allowed to operate in the Palestinian territories under the protection of the Red Crystal.

The MDA in return recognised the Palestinian Red Crescent as the national society in the Palestinian territories, and both societies agreed to respect the other's jurisdiction and to operate in accordance with Red Cross rules.

Switzerland will monitor implementation of the agreement and report back to the Red Cross movement. [...]