Pigilito says...

Obama and the Dems see Kulaks...

2012-01-19T21:28:00.001-05:00

... and want to destroy them as a class (or at least humble their pride before God and the unions) and dispossess them of more of their unfairly gotten wealth -- all in the name of fairness.

Just like Lenin and Stalin before him, Obama has a ready made group to demonize for all his failures. For him the kulaks ("fist" in Russian) are an elastic class that encompasses Wall Street tycoons, opposition politicians, hardworking folks making above 200,000 dollars, and generally any who oppose his policies.

America's credit rating is downgraded, and his profligate spending can't be responsible. No! it must be the new kulak class at fault. The housing bubble pops and it can't be due to the government's pressure on banks to loosen loan rules and the government's buying of bad loans that encouraged foolish practices. It must rather be the Wall Street kulaks who in their greed forced the proletariat to take out loans they knew they would be unable to pay.

The economy fails to improve that way the ~~five~~ four year plan promised (recall that unemployment was never supposed to rise much above 8%), Obama shouts "kulak!", and the Cheka (in this case ably played by the national press) dutifully locates kulak conspirators and wreckers.

Obama is increasingly open to flying his anti-kulak flag. Witness his earlier unguarded moments when he expressed regret that the SCOTUS had yet to take up "redistributive change", his desire to use the tax code to "spread the wealth", and his admonishment to many that at some point folks had made "enough" money -- presumably on the back of the proletariat. Those feelings slipped out and at the time he did some backtracking and was at pains to reassure that he had nothing against the wealthy. Compare that to his more recent attacks on millionaires, billionaires, corporate-jet owners, and a slew of others.

It may be that the improving economy means that he doesn't have to whip his base and the modern Cheka into a frenzy to get reelected. So we may not see him in full throated denunciation of society's kulak class during the campaign season -- although Bain Capital will certainly come in for some kulak-style class hatred. Given that the reelection theme so far is justice and equality, the kulak bashing has already made itself known. But he will doubtless return to the theme more fully once January 2013 rolls around and he can finally put his feelings into legislation without fear of being turned out of office.

Andrew Sullivan brings his usual facility for illogic while complaining of illogic in others

2012-01-17T09:57:00.000-05:00

Andrew Sullivan in his Newsweek cover story puzzles over the "internal incoherence" of Republicans claiming that Obama is both incompetent and a threat to the nation.

He somehow can't conceive that an incompetant person in a position of great authority and power can be a threat. According to him, the incompetence would prevent the person from doing harm.

Certainly such a thing is possible. We went through it with Carter and many on the left would say we went through it more recently with Bush.

It's therefore hardly surprising that Sullivan is puzzled: such a possibility is beyond his ability to grasp. Which may also explain his continued writing for a Newsweek under Tina Brown's incompetent but authoritative hand.

Another area where Andrew "whose baby is Trig" Sullivan might want to tread lightly is complaining about others' connections to reality, as he does just a line later in his piece.

This is why Obama is a shoe-in for reelection

2012-01-06T09:44:00.001-05:00

The economy was his greatest threat to reelection, now he'll go into November with more than a year's worth of fine job growth, increases in manufacturing and a strong economic outlook for the next decade. And 200,000 jobs a month is looking more and more likely to be easily exceeded as the recovery rolls on. Lucky for him that economic downturns rarely last four years and that even poorly thought out political choices can't keep our economy down for very long.

No matter that the unemployment rate stays above or near 8%. People vote based on their pocketbooks and their view of the future. The condition of both are getting better. And so long as Obama makes skillful use of his redistributionist rhethoric -- designed to appeal even to the middle class he'll soon begin plundering, he'll sail to another term.

So without having learning anything of value about how to govern, he'll get another shot at installing his version of America. More taxes and higher spending, with few results and a darker long term economic outlook.

China's Monroe Doctrine moment coming?

2011-12-20T10:43:00.002-05:00

With the death of North Korea's Dear Leader, and the succession of his youngest son ( the great successor - natch!) moving forward but yet to be assured, China holds the key to what N. Korea's future will be. Any legitimate successor to the throne must secure China's acceptance of their rule in addition to the agreement of N. Korea's military. This should be a simple matter as China is thought to have a fair bit of influence over its southern neighbor.

However, if N. Korea's powerful military balks and proposes a powersharing arrangement, things could degenerate quickly. And it won't take much to collapse the shaky edifice that N.K. has become. Should that happen, the US and S. Korea have contingency plans to rush north and stabilize things as best as possible -- and to take control of any nukes the North has. China understandably has similar plans to rush its forces south to forestall a massive refugee influx spreading chaos into China.

As N. Korea has long been China's client state -- China even fought for the North -- it's likely that China will see N. Korea as its special project and will not accept "meddling" from the US in what amounts to China's backyard. Such a conflict could well see the emergence of an official Monroe Doctrine-like statement for N. Korea, which China will later seek to expand to more of Southeast Asia. Any such declaration would be unassailable. China has a huge military whereas the US has fewer than 30,000 troops stationed in S. Korea. At the most the US and S. Korea would venture a few tens of kilometers north to set up refugee camps as well as rounding up as many WMDs as possible. Thankfully, most WMDs are thought to be close to the DMZ, so this can be accomplished without too much interference assuming China doesn't become overly prickly.

How the US responds will be telling. Certainly both sides will be discussing and coordinating responses to a sudden collapse of N. Korea. Let's hope that China is fully forthcoming about its intentions.

The death throes of the new New Left

2011-11-03T09:57:00.001-04:00

Yeah, they thought they would change the world. Now they find out they're just a side show, so what do they do? Why, riot, of course. Some things never change.

The last New Left took to the barricades in cities around the globe in the late '60s, and came astoundingly close to tipping the world into chaos. When that failed to happen, we witnessed the movement's death throes: more riots and destruction; the true believers increasingly turned to terror.

We had the inept Weather Underground, but Europe had the deadly Red Brigades, Action Directe and the Red Army Faction (which began as the Baader-Meinhof Group), while Japan had the Red Army. Most of these groups were filled with middle and upper class students and young adults protesting the banality of their life and the diminished prospects they felt they faced.

Sound familiar? Sure they put a revolutionary gloss on their actions, and liked to view themselves as the vanguard of the coming revolution and as the "redeemer class" prophesied in their revolutionary tracts, but in the end they were just morons playing at being revolutionaries.

Which is what we're witnessing again -- only on a smaller scale. This time around the morons are present, their image of themselves as vanguard revolutionaries is the same, even the barricades are back, but their movement's end won't be as spectacular or as violent. A few statement riots and marches, and then they'll disperse back to their jobs and woman's studies classes. Winter will demonstrate the hollowness of their claims of revolutionary fervor, and an improving economy will increasingly have the rest of America viewing them as spoiled brats unwilling to do an honest days work.

Obama explained

2011-08-09T21:52:00.004-04:00

Add this to other attempts to explain Obama's meteoric rise from mildly unsuccessful community organizer through mildly ineffective (but present!) state and US senator to failed president.

This is a pretty succinct explanation of how he rose to such dizzying heights (his supporters were gulled by his narcissistic self confidence) only to fail abysmally (plain old incompetence):

Narcissists rise to the top. That's because other people think their qualities-- confidence, dominance, authority, and self-esteem -- make them good leaders.

Is that true? "Our research shows that the opposite seems to be true," says Barbora Nevicka, a PhD candidate in organizational psychology, describing a new study she undertook with University of Amsterdam colleagues Femke Ten Velden, Annebel De Hoogh, and Annelies Van Vianen. The study found that the narcissists' preoccupation with their own brilliance inhibits a crucial element of successful group decision-making and performance: the free and creative exchange of information and ideas.

Although Obama plays the part of a non-partisan advancer of worthy ideas, it often seems to be when he faces resistance that he doesn't understand and doesn't want to deal with. He may compromise too readily and duck tough decisions, but he sure does think the world of himself. Just count the number of times he refers to himself in speeches to see that not only does he think the world revolves around him, he thinks it ought to.

I imagine that if asked, he would publically downplay the great man theory of history, but privately sees himself as one of the select few tapped to alter his nation's destiny.

The take away from the study? I leave it one of the co-authors: "You have to ask: Are the competencies they project valid, or are they merely in the eyes of the beholder?"

In this case, the beholders were duped, but hopefully not lastingly.

Bad news for the Obama household

2011-07-07T20:20:00.004-04:00

Oops, Bo, the supposedly hypoallergenic dog brought in to the Whitehouse with great fanfare, and subsequently largely abandoned, may not be so allergy friendly after all.

From Science Daily:

[...] "We found no scientific basis to the claim hypoallergenic dogs have less allergen," says Christine Cole Johnson, Ph.D., MPH, chair of Henry Ford's Department of Public Health Sciences and senior author of the study.

"Based on previous allergy studies conducted here at Henry Ford,
exposure to a dog early in life provides protection against dog allergy
development. But the idea that you can buy a certain breed of dog and think it
will cause less allergy problems for a person already dog-allergic is not borne
out by our study." [....]

Will Bo see the underside of the bus? Probably not as he's still a pretty good stage prop. But extended banishment from The Obama's presence seems a given.

Shades of Russia 1917 as Muslim Brotherhood moves into vacuum

2011-03-25T16:28:00.007-04:00

After having sat on their hands during the February revolution that overthrew the Czar, Russia's Bolsheviks were not going to let another opportunity slip by when October brought renewed strikes and unrest to Petersburg. They took over in a largely bloodless coup with relatively few men.

Seen what's happening in Egypt? The NYT has the details:

In post-revolutionary Egypt, where hope and confusion collide in the daily struggle to build a new nation, religion has emerged as a powerful political force, following an uprising that was based on secular ideals. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group once banned by the state, is at the forefront, transformed into a tacit partner with the military government that many fear will thwart fundamental changes.

It is also clear that the young, educated secular activists who initially propelled the nonideological revolution are no longer the driving political force — at least not at the moment.

During the movement to topple Mubarak, the Brotherhood were nowhere to be found. Now they are on the cusp of capturing power in a followup revolution.

Well, done, President Present. Way to use America's influence. Those last minute phone calls to Mubarak were doubtless expected to sway him with your charm (which worked so well with your own electorate), but sadly failed to set Egypt on a course of moderization and political freedom.

So we see history being made by a foolish president. The way things are going, it is not surprising that he launched an attack on Libya. At least there he can produce the bloody head of Col. Crazy as a sort of trophy (and make no mistake, now that he's attacked, leaving Kaddafy in power would be to invite another Lockerbie, only this time on a grander scale. Kaddafy's head on a pike will forestall that outcome). Kaddafy is literally a dead dictator walking unless he leaves for exile.

Saw the article first at Hot Air

This is what happens when you vote present as president

2011-01-31T11:02:00.004-05:00

Famous for voting present during his time in the state legislature and US Senate, Obama is discovering that doing so as president has consequences.

Now we have the Muslim Brotherhood and El ("I've been mandated by the people") Baradei declaring themselves the new rulers of Egypt. Of course, this may never happen, but that the situation has gotten so far out of hand is in itself alarming.

Overly cautious in everything other than his campaign promises and homages to himself, Obama has missed the boat in the Middle East. Tunisia is small potatoes, but Egypt is a linchpin nation in the region, and his dithering -- notwithstanding his protestations of having implored Mubarak to straighten up and fly right (Mubarak's evident refusal to be charmed by our very own Nobel laureate must have stung)-- has thrown the region into chaos. Obama had every opportunity to make his feelings known by leveraging our economic aid, but instead chose to gin up his re-election machine.

Time to join Carter in the statecraft school of hard knocks, Obama. And take plenty of notes while there; the world can't afford too many more votes of "present".

German Chancellor Merkel: Multiculti has failed

2010-10-16T21:15:00.005-04:00

Make that it has "utterly failed".

The left's most cherished dream and its solution to human conflict was multiculturism. Under this plan everyone would live together in peace and harmony so long as they would acknowledge and accept one another's cultural differences and quirks. The lion would lie down with the lamb and the rose would grow without thorn.

Well, not quite. Somehow they didn't anticipate that when immigrants are encouraged to keep their culture, it often means that the new country's culture must change to accomodate the newcomers -- especially if avoiding conflict is held to be more important than asking anything of the immigrants in return. Things like learning your new country's language, customs and laws.

Well, the Germans have had enough. They've long been known to bend over backwards in their desire to not demand anything from immigrants -- lest their history be thrown in their face. Now, though, the tide has turned. Europe as a whole is busy imposing laws designed to restrict how immigrants can behave (e.g., France's new anti burqa law) and requiring their places of worship conform to local standards (e.g., the Swiss law against building minarets).

Much of that is induced by anti-immigrant feeling, and won't do much to resolve the problems Europe's embrace of multiculti ushered in. What is truly needed is for Europe to demand that immigrants fully assimilate. And that means more than showing movies on how the locals behave (as has been done in the Netherlands and for potential immigrants).

What it requires is a drastic rollback of economic subsidies to immigrants. Only the prospect of economic failure will motivate immigrants to assimilate. This is how America -- the country with the most experience in successfully turning immigrants into productive citizens has done it for generations. Immigrants show up in American and in just a couple of generations they are doctors, lawyers and engineers and, most importantly, Americans.

Until Europe can take that all important step to force immigrants to fight for economic survival, the immigrant problem will continue to fester.

Just what kind of Socialist is Obama?

2010-09-21T15:55:00.015-04:00

Given Obama's state-kleptomania tendencies (e.g., "[A]t some point, you've made enough"; letting government regulate private salaries, soak the rich rhetoric, etc.), it's pretty much beyond arguing that he has serious socialist aspirations.

Nevertheless it's important to determine just what sort of Socialist Obama is. To begin, let's pick two Socialists from the Russian revolution: Kerensky and Lenin. They were chosen because they are reasonably well known and (mostly) because I'm currently reading two books that mention both men in detail (A People's Tragedy and Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives).

Kerensky was the last prime minister of post revolutionary Russia, while Lenin was the man who replaced him and who did more than any other to destroy the Russian people -- bequething to Stalin a fully formed and functioning police state. Lenin quickly turned the October revolution into a grasp for total power over Russia's people and compromised the ideals of the 1905 and February revolutions.

The February revolution and subsequent abdication of the Tsar left a power vacuum. Lenin was still in exile and so the Bolsheviks missed their chance (some nine months later they would be ready). Kerensky, though, was in Petersburg, and already a politician of note. He was also convinced he was destined for greatness (sound familiar? How's this for comparison: "We are the ones we've been waiting for". Or this: "This was the moment [Obama's election] when the rise of the seas began to slow". Not too hubristic).

Both men were also wildly popular before their rise to power. It was said that all of Russia trusted Kerensky and thought him wise. By comparison, Obama managed to gull about 53% of voters (and nearly 100% of the media). Not quite the same level of adulation, but certainly enough to see his overweening pride find a place in the White House.

Finally, both men were part of a cult of personality. Both deliberately supported efforts to make themselves ubiquitious and important. Kerensky through such simple means as distributing postcards with his picture (where he looks farseeing, compassionate, honest and a leader), whereas Obama let the mass media and supporters do the apotheosis for him. And boy did they. Recall the songs, the peaeans written by the national press, the photos showing him with a halo, and the Democratic convention with its Roman pagentary.

As far as his comparison to Lenin: well, there really isn't much of one. Lenin was crosseyed in the intensity of his devotion to the revolution. He stayed on message like nobody's business. Obama flits from one message to another quicker than a butterfly -- and with as much impact. Only recently (coinciding with poor Democratic prospects for November) has he focused on the economy.

Lenin likewise was very good at convincing his fellow socialists that he had the answers; he used his iron will and a relentless logic to win support for his ideas. Obama is decidely unpopular with fellow Dems -- many of whom won't utter his name or even their party affiliation in their election advertising. Indeed, Obama's ability to convince through oratory is limited to getting himself elected. Beyond that he is a fairly limited speaker with little influence in his party -- even ex-prez Clinton has more these days.

Kerensky's fate was failure and exile. Lenin's was a series of debilitating strokes and an early death. Obama's fate will be different. He will continue as a media favorite but will ultimately be known as the man who mortally wounded the American nation by severing us from what made us great.

Hey, maybe he is more like Lenin. Oh, and one more way they are similar: there is more than an echo of Lenin's slogan that the Bolsheviks should be "looting the looters" in Obama's relentless calls for wealthier Americans to give back what they took. The main difference between them is that Lenin wanted the lootees to eliminate the looters. Obama is happy to just "spread the wealth" and have the looters continue to fill the government's coffers.

Update: Just to be clear, I do not think Obama is comparable in a meaningful way to either Kerensky or Lenin. This was just something that occurred to me while reading histories of that period. On the other hand, there must have been dozens of comparisons of Bush to Hitler in which the writer meant the comparison to be taken seriously. So if you are offended, sorry, I'm just following precedent.

Star of David shaped nanoparticle discovered -- Islamists' heads explode

2010-09-21T15:43:00.009-04:00

In news that ought to send Mr. Ahmadinejad out looking for rugs to chew in frustration (Teppichfresser in German -- the allusion is to Hitler, a noted Teppichfresser in his day), Hebrew University has found a nanoparticle with a hexagonal crystal structure with an uncommon resemblance to the Star of David. In the article's accompanying photo, they even colored it blue.

Allah is often not kind to his most devoted politicians. Doubtless the structure of the particle was manipulated by Jew scientists, eh, Mahmoud?

A spectre is haunting Europe -- again

2010-05-11T10:34:00.004-04:00

This time it isn't communism, it's capitalism. Capitalism in the form of iron economic laws, that is. Europe's decades long holiday from economic reality has ended.

Europe long ago (well, in the 70s) traded growth for a well developed set of social safety nets and is discovering that if you want to tax folks to the extent that such nets are possible, you'd better have a market economy capable of delivering the growth neccessary to keep things afloat. Insufficient growth means those carefully and lovingly crafted nets are quickly swamped by rising costs. This is exactly what is happening in Europe. They spend beyond their public finances and worry more about legislating the shape of bananas than ensuring they follow proper market rules.

This is socialism's second go round in Europe. And it will be its second failure. The reason is simple: capitalism triumphs over socialism. It's really that simple. Capitalism takes into account that Man is an economic animal. We strive for more resources and seek to better our families' lives, and we put our capital where it will offer us the best return. Socialism seeks to alter our economic nature. It wants to eliminate risk, to bring about the brotherhood of man, and to do away with competition. Most imoprtantly: it doesn't work.

So now Europe is up against it. Endless bailouts won't solve the underlying problems. Only a return to market based economics and sufficient belt tightening can save Europe.

Capitalism in the form of a rampant China, India, and Brazil is stalking Europe. And it means business.

Karl Marx must be turning over in his grave. To go from elegant economic theory to bankrupt philosophy twice in a hundred years is enough to disrupt anyone's eternal rest.

It's on. America's Cup racing begins 8 Feb.

2010-02-05T19:49:00.004-05:00

Finally, after numerous fits and starts, the decks are cleared of legal questions and the Swiss and US teams are ready to square off. Racing is due to begin on February 8th, of the shores of Valencia, Spain -- the same venue as last time.

The Swiss are defending the cup with a catamaran, while the California based challangers are campaigning a trimaran.

Normally I would favor the catamaran, except that the Swiss backer decided to take the helm himself -- a sure road to disaster. Sure hope I'm wrong.

Here is a link providing a background to the current rivalry. It also has links to the teams, the America's Cup, and the Swiss Institutes of Technology, which provided lots of input to the final design.

UPDATE: Crap. The Swiss lost the cup. Congrats to the Oracle team. As I search for a silver lining, I can point to the race taking place either in SF Bay, or offshore in the Pacific. Both locations are superior to Valencia.

Swiss ban minarets

2009-11-29T11:43:00.008-05:00

In a stunning vote held today, the Swiss have banned construction of all new minarets by a 57-43 margin.

I would have expected the referendum to go down in a close vote. Although the article doesn't mention it, I'm sure the German-speaking part passed the ban overwhelmingly, with the French- and Italian-speaking parts narrowly defeated it.

Just last week polling indicated that only 37% were prepared to vote for the ban, with another 10% undecided. I guess this is another instance of citizens not responding honestly to pollers when asked a PC-type question.

This result doesn't mean that no more mosques can be built, only that minarets, which are usually attached to mosques to call the faithful to prayer, can no longer be built.

Although it can be thought of a a simple dispute over national zoning rules, for the Swiss (and Europe) it has deeper implications. Many Muslim leaders continue to bank in Switzerland, and Swiss banks have been very responsive of their Middle Eastern clients' needs and preferences. This result will doubtless lead to calls for a boycott and strained diplomatic relations.

For Europe. this is a shot across the bow of multi-culti accommodationists and a slap down to Islamist political ambitions, as the minaret is seen by some as a symbol of rising Islamic power in Europe. A Swiss commentator called it a proxy war:

Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf had argued strongly against a ban on minaret construction.

"The initiative is a kind of 'proxy war'. Its supporters say they are against minarets. But they want to fight what they consider creeping Islamicisation and sharia law," she said ahead of the vote.

I thought the ban too draconian, and the characterization of minarets as laden with symbolism as too paranoid, however, this is a valid -- if heavy handed -- response to Islamic fundamentalism in Europe.

Nevertheless, the Swiss are clearly leading the rest of Europe in pushing back against multi-culti values and rising fundamentalism.

Minarets in Switzerland?

2009-10-14T09:29:00.008-04:00

Want to know what the hot political topic in Switzerland is now? Of course you do!

Well, since you asked, the Swiss will vote next month on a referendum banning new construction of minarets on mosques.

If passed, the referendum, which has just one line, "The building of minarets is forbidden", will ban all future minarets, but not mosques.

At present, only a few mosques have minarets, but applications to add to existing mosques have led to disagreements, and more than 100,000 Swiss voters signed a petition to put the question to the voters by direct referendum.

Below are posters for and against the ban. Shouldn't be difficult to tell which is which.

Some cities, mostly in the Francophone west of the country, have banned the posters advocating a yes vote, while most large German speaking cities have allowed them -- citing free speech guarantees.

The UN is now involved. How unexpected is that?

Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-09T11:45:00.003-04:00

Why should we Americans be the only ones fooled by the guy?

Woody Allen's famous dictum, "80% of success is just showing up" is again demonstrated to be true -- especially if many imbue you with their hopes and dreams such that you become the walking avatar of Hope.

Obama showed up at Harvard Law... and was made editor of the Law Review. Of course, while there he failed to pen an article (most editors do contribute to their own issue -- it's kind of expected). Later he shows up in a few living rooms of influential supporters and is elected to the Illinois state senate. Beginning to see a pattern?

Finally, after duping 53% of the American electorate, he dupes 100% of the Nobel electors.

I wonder how they'll feel once the Peace Laureate annonces that his Afganistan strategy involves sending Predator drones and missles into Pakistan's airspace, and sending ground troops onto Pakistani soil at a rate not contemplated by his predecessor.

Last I heard, these are not the actions of a peace loving person. Rather, they are causus belli.

Will Obama be known as the man who lost Iran, Iraq, and Afganistan?

2009-10-05T08:08:00.003-04:00

The question "who lost China?" was asked soon after Mao kicked Chiang Kai-shek's bony rump off the mainland in 1949. Immediate popular sentiment blamed Harry Truman and the old China hands at the State Department. Republicans used China's loss as a cudgel to beat Democrats for years.

Likely, no one "lost" China (except for Kai-shek), but people were still playing the blame game when I was a child.

President Obama, though, is looking history in its bloody and unforgiving maw. After the stabilizing of Iraq under Bush, Obama's policies threaten to weaken Iraq's government so that sectarian violence again flares up. His dithering on Iran, coupled with his inability to coerce China and Russia into supporting meaningful sanctions, means that Iran will almost assuredly become the world's next nuclear power.

It's hard to blame solely Obama if Iran gets the bomb, and Iraq seems pretty sure to make continual improvements (albiet slower and bloodier than necessary), but Obama's contemplated Afgan strategy looks certain to result in the return to power of the Taliban. Should that happen, Iran's nuclear bombs and Iraq's continuing difficulties will be placed at Obama's feet -- and he can expect Rebublicans to beat him and the Democrats for years to come with that club.

History and the electorate won't look kindly on the man who muffed his biggest foreign policy challenge and lost a whole region to the bad guys. Because Obama knows this, I'm guessing that he'll send more troops but not the amount Gen. McChyrstal asked for, all while hoping to run bin Laden to ground in order to forestall criticisms from the Right

Swiss hockey team bests NHL's Blackhawks

2009-09-30T14:09:00.003-04:00

Some serious over acheiving by the top Swiss club.

Zurich's ZSC Lions may have roared into history with a 2-1 upset over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday, but coach Sean Simpson says the big winner is Swiss ice hockey.
The match at Zurich's Hallenstadion marked the first time a Swiss side has bested a team from the National Hockey League (NHL). It also ended European hockey's 18-year losing streak to NHL teams.

[...]

The Blackhawks had not lost to a European team since 1991. [....]

Hopp Schwiez!

Mathematics confirms conservatives are racist, and Carter was right

2009-09-20T08:16:00.007-04:00

Yes, fellow conservatives, it's true. By opposing Obama's policies, we are showing our true racist colors. Know how I know? Through the power of lower order math.

See, it's like this: Obama won in 2008 with 53% of the vote, which means that 47% voted against him. Those 47% were, to a first approximation, conservatives. Now we learn that about 56% of the population opposes Obama's proposal to overhaul healthcare, which is intended to be his legacy legislation.

In addition, Jimmy Carter has thoughtfully informed us that "an overwhelming portion" of that opposition "is based on the fact that he is a black man."

I looked up the standard mathematical definition for "overwhelming portion" (turns out it's 84%), and multiplied it by the 56% of folks opposed to Obama's heathcare reform, and amazingly enough, it comes out to 47%! Which is the exact percentage of conservative racist bastards who voted against Obama!

QED: Conservative = racist.

UPDATE: Apparently, conservative racism is spreading to the world, as these examples of opposition to Obama demonstrate:

[...] European nations have refused to send significant numbers of new troops to aid the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. Few countries have agreed to accept detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Scottish officials ignored Obama's plea to keep the Lockerbie bomber in prison, and U.S. efforts to head off a coup in Honduras were ineffective. North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons, Iran may be doing so, and Middle East leaders have rebuffed Obama's efforts at peacemaking. [....]

Case for abiogenic origin of petroleum strengthened

2009-09-13T15:25:00.003-04:00

A non-biologic origin for petroleum -- things like natural gas and crude oil -- has long been pushed by a dedicated fringe of geologists and geochemists, most of them from the old USSR, where the idea was first forcelfully expounded in the 1950s.

Western oil professionals mostly scoffed at the idea. After all, nearly all the petroleum ever found had been found operating under the assumption that what went into the oil had once been alive and had lived in certain environmental areas (such as shallow seas).

Now there is a new paper -- in Nature Geoscience (abstract) no less -- that claims to have discovered how the non-biological origin (abiogenic) of petroleum occurs. Apart from advancing an esoteric argument, what this means is that petroleum need not be a finite resource. Should the experiment be able to predict where petroleum is found, we will have practically unlimited amounts of oil and natural gas.

From Science Daily:

[...] Together with two research colleagues, Vladimir Kutcherov has simulated the process involving pressure and heat that occurs naturally in the inner layers of the earth, the process that generates hydrocarbon, the primary component in oil and natural gas.

According to Vladimir Kutcherov, the findings are a clear indication that the oil supply is not about to end, which researchers and experts in the field have long feared.

He adds that there is no way that fossil oil, with the help of gravity or other forces, could have seeped down to a depth of 10.5 kilometers in the state of Texas, for example, which is rich in oil deposits. As Vladimir Kutcherov sees it, this is further proof, alongside his own research findings, of the genesis of these energy sources – that they can be created in other ways than via fossils. This has long been a matter of lively discussion among scientists. [....]

If true, this upends a century of what geologists -- myself included -- have been taught about how petroleum is formed and where it should be found. This would be an unbelievable scientific breakthrough.

Which is sort of why I don't see it panning out. It's one thing to determine that petroleum is capable of being formed under the crust of the Earth, but quite another to use that knowledge to find abiogenic oil. The biligenic theory of petroleum formation has explained very well how and where oil is created and found.

Future zombie v. humans war outcome doubtful

2009-08-18T21:40:00.007-04:00

The Beeb has the lowdown on the seminal study:

If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.That is the conclusion of a mathematical exercise carried out by researchers in Canada.They say only frequent counter-attacks with increasing force would eradicate the fictional creatures.The scientific paper is published in a book - Infectious Diseases Modelling Research Progress.

Not just the best use of research dolloars, also the most necessary.

The Ignoble prize for science or math (perhaps both given the groundbreaking work involved) is locked up.

I sure hope there's some money for this contingency in Obama's defense budget.

Hands off Swiss banking system, says NYT op-ed

2009-08-03T20:47:00.005-04:00

And I agree. This op-ed piece, written by a Swiss, explains why the Swiss like their banking to be private and away from the prying eyes and grasping hands of governments.

Until recently, the Swiss government had steadfastly insisted on Swiss sovereignty and refused to provide assistance to other governments in cases of tax evasion — that is, cases in which a taxpayer failed to declare income, either intentionally or unintentionally. While tax fraud is considered a crime here, tax evasion is not (though it can be subject to fines).

This Swiss peculiarity of considering tax evasion as a mere administrative offense has a long history. We think government exists to serve us, not the other way around. We understand that we have to pay taxes — and we do, with numerous studies showing that the Swiss are extraordinarily honest about paying what we owe — but we do not think it is the government’s role to intrude on our privacy and wrench them from us.

This attitude goes back to Switzerland’s founding in the 13th century. The original Swiss communities’ resentment of what they saw as the Hapsburgs’ oppressive taxes helped push them to claim their independence in 1291.

Today, Swiss citizens continue to vote on any tax increases in referendums (and sometimes even accept them). These healthy curbs on government contrast with the Orwellian concept of the “transparent citizen” whose every act is known to government. We see our system as a social pact between citizens and the state.

Swiss privacy laws help preserve basic property rights. Bank secrecy was introduced in 1934, most notably to protect the identities and assets of Jews in Nazi Germany. (Unfortunately, those same rules made it difficult for some heirs to gain access to these accounts without proper documentation, leading to an out-of-court agreement in 1998 by Swiss banks to pay $1.25 billion to settle Holocaust-related lawsuits.) Corruption, expropriation, crime and the persecution of various minorities remain risks in most of the world. For people threatened by such risks, financial privacy can protect their legitimate property.

Defending opposition to GM crops becoming more difficult

2009-08-02T13:04:00.004-04:00

Many Greens in the West are dead set against GM food, often labeling it Frankenfood, and generally using fear tactics to keep it from catching on. Notwithstanding their best efforts, more and more of today's crops (not always used for food, though) being planted have been bioengineered.

The latest to show promise comes from Switzerland's top university. They've manged to create a new strain of super rice with up to six times the normal level of iron. This breakthrough, if capitalized on, can help lower rates of anemia in the developing world.

According to the World Health Organization, iron deficiency anaemia is one of the most important contributing factors to the global burden of disease. Pregnant women and children are particularly vulnerable.

The Left will howl, but this is serious progress to improving survial rates and quality of life for a major portion of the planet.

America's Cup in less than 6 months

2009-07-22T12:53:00.004-04:00

The 33rd America's Cup is slated to take place in February 2010. At this point nobody knows where, but the Cup holders (Alinghi) are in mediated talks with the challenger of record (BMW Oracle).

For those who enjoy the racing aspect, rather than the legal side of the America's Cup, I can tell you that BMW plans on using a giant trimaran (some 90 ft long), whereas the Swiss defenders have just begun testing their new catamaran.

This is a complete departure for what we normally see every few years, but is not without precedent. In 1988, a syndicate from New Zealand challenged with a montrous boat. The US defenders at the time knew they couldn't match the boat (due to time and money constraints), so they raced with a much smaller catamaran and easily won.

The current challenge will be settled first in court, and then on the water. I'll enjoy both parts.

Intercepted note from Obama to ice cream shop

2009-06-21T13:58:00.005-04:00

Guys, loved the ice cream last night. Just one suggestion: could you rename your vanilla frozen custard "Neda"? It will always remind me of the great time the girls and I had at your shop.

Hope to see you soon.

Your President, bringing the hope and change to the world -- except for Iran, Barrack

Obama's message to Iran is failing

2009-06-21T13:39:00.003-04:00

Yes, I know Obama wants to send a measured and -- dare I say it -- nuanced message to Iran's leadership in the hopes of eventually getting Iran to foreswear their nuclear ambitions. On its face this shows how naive the administration is. Iran has no intentions of giving up it's dream of being a regional hegemon, and no matter how Obama tries to put a friend-to-the Muslim-world face on his administration, he'll get little from his efforts.

Perhaps Arab nations will appreciate his not taking Iran out to the verbal woodshed, but it is unlikely any nation will see their national interests altered by Obama's not stepping in with harsh words for Iran's terroristic government.

Other than offer to hold Iran's coat while it puts the boot into its own citizens, Obama has done little in this affair. Being a global realist is one thing, but refusing to speak out forcefully against a theocratic regime is quite another. Obama and his advisors miscalulated on a grand scale.

America is a Muslim nation (as least compared to Muslim nations)

2009-06-06T21:53:00.006-04:00

If Muhammad came back to Earth, which countries would he think are doing a better job of upholding the pillars of Islam? Sure wouldn't be any Arab country. They are so corrupt and do so little for their poor that Muhammad would weep to think that nations like Saudi Arabia and Egypt claim a special prestige among the faithful. Arab nations also do very little about cleanliness -- something quite important to the prophet; streets are filthy, government buildings even more so.

Same for non-Arab Muslim nations. Iran and Indonesia? Corrupt and venal to the bone.

Certainly individuals struggle to keep behave as Muhammad would want, but the governments, many of which claim to act in accordance with Islamic values, would be viewed as abominations.

No, Muhammad would look around and pick out Japan, North America and Western Europe as doing the best job of putting his principles into action. People are clean, respectful (well, in Japan, at least), and take good care of the poor. Compared to Muslim nations, which tend to be dirty, corrupt and whose Islamic observances are fixated on the performance of public acts of faith (prayer five times a day) and are obsessed with alcohol and sex, the West is far more in tune with what we understand Muslim values to be.

You can help me win this bike!

2009-06-04T07:10:00.003-04:00

I'd really like to win this bike. You can help by clicking this photo. Thanks.

Followed the link from the Podium Cafe, a really good place to follow road bike racing.

Sotomayor: physiology is destiny

2009-05-29T09:36:00.004-04:00

Pretty bad on its face. Hopefully she doesn't really think being born female and Hispanic produces a superior person/Supreme Ct. justice:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life....”

Of course, it's possible to take her comments as dumping on her own people. That is, it takes a "wise" Latina to perform better than an average white male, but I think that interpretation can be dismissed given that the context of her quote is comparing wise white males with wise Latinas. Nor is it conceivable that she could have put down her own people -- especially as it appears she embraces her identity.

One thing is certain, any white male uttering such drivel would be forced to withdraw, and rightly so.

This can't be good: potential for warming rate underestimated

2009-05-22T07:02:00.004-04:00

From MIT comes this sobering assessment:

The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that.

The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge. Other research groups have estimated the probabilities of various outcomes, based on variations in the physical response of the climate system itself. But the MIT model is the only one that interactively includes detailed treatment of possible changes in human activities as well - such as the degree of economic growth, with its associated energy use, in different countries.

Time to invest in companies positioned to provide geo-engineering services, because if these predictions are correct, only geo-engineering can have an effect on global temperatures. Certainly China, which is committed to raising its peoples' standard of living, won't slow its rush to build coal fired plants. Nor will the rest of the developing world put aside their dreams of better lives.

Followed the link from The Cost of Energy

Obama nearly had me w/his national security speech

2009-05-21T21:47:00.007-04:00

Overall, I was enjoying Obama's national security speech. Yes, he got in several gratuitous political digs, but on the whole he sounded pretty good. Good, that is, until I heard this, which made wonder if he really understands the nature of Islamic terror (emphasis supplied):

And I do know with certainty that we can defeat al Qaeda. Because the terrorists can only succeed if they swell their ranks and alienate America from our allies, and they will never be able to do that if we stay true to who we are; if we forge tough and durable approaches to fighting terrorism that are anchored in our timeless ideals.

Actually, what swells the terrorists' ranks is the fact that America is America. They can't abide our tolerance, our values, our culture. In short they hate us, and join terrorist plots precisely because we stay true to who we are, not because of anything we've done since 9/11. Closing Gitmo, and ceasing all EITs will make us feel better about ourselves, but it won't stop terrorists from seeking our destruction or subjugation. Only a naif would claim this.

Soaring rhetoric, to be sure. But it masks a blind spot big enough to fly a jumbo jet through.

Study: Muslims misunderstood, blame natives for not being nicer to them

2009-05-07T20:17:00.004-04:00

So quoth the AP:

Joblessness and poverty are a more potent source of tension between Muslims and wider European and U.S. society than religious differences, one of the first major studies of Muslim integration since the Sept. 11 terror attacks claimed on Thursday.

I see it as a chicken or egg question. Many Muslims spent years refusing to integrate (at the same time, little was asked of them by their host countries). Consequently, jobs and education were hard to come by, leading to reduced opportunities and expectations.

The survey also offers this, which is contradicted by nearly all previous studies, and by Muslim protesters around Europe:

Another key finding of the study was that that Muslims don't prioritize their faith over patriotism

If we listen to many of the more firebrand (and thus quoted) imans, to be a Muslim requires a certain separation between Muslim and non-Muslim, making integration a tricky thing, indeed.

I suspect many of the responses to this latest survey were self-serving. Perhaps a survey of how Muslims sought to integrate and were rebuffed could be performed.

Hmm, maybe Obama is changing the world's opinion of America

2009-04-26T07:36:00.003-04:00

Many of my favorite bloggers on the right side of blogland are quick to point out that Obama's election hasn't materialy changed the world's opinion of us. After all, they rightly point out, Muslim terrorists haven't loosened their grip on their weapons in order to respond to our Messiah., and just because people love the man, doesn't mean that nations will alter their policies to dovetail with our interests.

Now, however, there is evidence that Obama's appeal is leading to opportunities to push the fabled "reset" button. Hillary Clinton is in Lebanon to urge the Lebanese to vote for moderates, something that under Bush would have been the kiss of death -- probably literally -- for the moderates.

Let's see if Obama's coat tails extend to the Near East.

We really do elect cultural idiots in this country

2009-04-06T09:07:00.005-04:00

After eight years of Bush and less than 100 days of Obama, it seems there is no denying it: this country cannot produce a leader with any cultural knowledge, or interest in the outside world.

From a report on Obama's recent press conference we get this gem (emphasis supplied):

At a news conference afterward, Obama said his debut on the international stage had convinced him that “political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate,” where he served before entering the White House.

“There’s a lot of -- I don’t know what the term is in
Austrian -- wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics,” he said in response to an Austrian reporter’s question.

Res ipsa loquitur

Followed the link from Tim Blair, who may be as confused by the start of the F1 season as am I.

"Peace, bread and roses" to be new national slogan

2009-04-03T20:13:00.005-04:00

Yes, the old Socialist/Communist dream of a just and fair world (the phrase was used by the Rosenbergs when signing their death house letters), will be resurrected -- in a different form -- to push President Obama's goal of "fairness".

Charles Krauthammer peers into the future, and sees Europe, except without the superior beer, authentic coffee houses, and fast cars. All thanks to our president's vision.

Fairness through leveling is the essence of Obamaism. (Asked by Charlie Gibson during a campaign debate about his support for raising capital gains taxes -- even if they caused a net revenue loss to the government -- Obama stuck to the tax hike "for purposes of fairness.") The elements are highly progressive taxation, federalized health care and higher education, and revenue-producing energy controls.

The Rosenbergs' shades will surely be pleased.

Followed the link from Ace

Obama soon to run GM

2009-03-31T11:05:00.003-04:00

Does this mean many of his sycophantic supporters will ditch their Volvos and BMWs for Chevys and Buicks? Perhaps Hollywood will make GM the new Prius.

Obamabots, you have your orders; it will be a hardship, but ya gotta follow the Messiah. Consider it slumming

Obama brings the drama

2009-03-24T21:05:00.004-04:00

Or the pathos, at any rate. Listening to him relate at his press conference (overall grade A-) how he anguished over whether to sign an order allowing federally funded embryonic stem cell research, one would think he went through Hamlet-level difficulties in coming to his decision.

Actually, what he did was fulfill an old campaign promise. His mind was made up months ago, and didn't require extra convincing. But he seems to have decided that to show that one wrestled with one's conscience is somehow presidential. At the moment, it's about all he can offer on that score.

Memo to Obama: time to take responsibility

2009-03-17T08:33:00.006-04:00

Obama, after more than 50 days in office, you continue to complain that you inherited a financial mess. Well, here's some advice: stop whining. You campaigned to become president; you wanted the job more than a child wants Christmas. You knew what you were getting when you sought the office; start taking responsibility for the nation.

Also, tell your employees not to engage in partisan politics. If Rush gets under your skin, ignore him; you can be sure that he'll self destruct in time. Remember, you promised to be post-partisan. Leave the mud slinging to congress and the MSM. The executive branch should be above that sort of behavior -- at least you said it should be. Time to live up to your rhetoric, time to be the person so many voted for.

UPDATE (3/18): He just can't help himself. While watching Obama speak to the press, in one sentence he noted (perhaps to remind himself?) that he is the President and thus is responsible for the AIG bonus fiasco. In the very next sentence, he claims that it's not his fault. It's beginning to look like Bill Clinton redux. What a whiny politician he has revealed himself to be.

Messiah's latest phrophecy: Market has hit bottom

2009-03-04T08:06:00.004-05:00

Buy, buy, buy, is the word from on high. Obama is putting his credibility on the line here; false prophets are not usually treated well by those they deceive.

But, like all prophets who want to be around for a while, he hedges:

President Obama said “buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long term perspective.”

I happen to agree with this prophecy. I feel the market is near a bottom, and will slowly begin investing.

UPDATE: God is well pleased with His Messiah (Dow up 150)

Is it time to bring back the Kulak?

2009-02-23T08:24:00.004-05:00

Some feel the Kulak has been reserrected by the Obama administration, the Democratic party, and the Left in general -- and that the new Kulak class is already in revolt.

I think it too early to tell, but it is interesting to speculate on just who might comprise the new Kulak class. Certainly the wealthy (> 250k/year) are eligible, but this casts a pretty wide net. Maybe those working in parasitical fields, such as hedge fund managers, stock traders, and bankers can be tapped to fill the vital role of class enemy of the United States. Then Obama et al., can go about the business of liquidating them as a class through increased peoples' taxes.

Of course, once Kulaks as a class are properly identified, their helpers, or henchmen (podkulachniki) must also be rooted out. The beauty of identifying such class enemies is that should the stimulus plan fail to achieve its goals, wreckers (or even better, Kulak wreckers) can be blamed. Stalin relied on wreckers to absorb his failures his entire career. In fact, tireless investigations by the Cheka showed that wreckers were everywhere. Presumably, the MSM will fulfill this vital investigatory role in the US.

As an aside: I miss the USSR. They gave us such wonderful terms. Hooliganism, Adventurism, Henchman of Kulaks (also known as sub-Kulaks), Wrecker. In addition, the regularity and inspired nature of the USSR denouncing the US became comical. Chavez in Venezuela tries to provide comic relief, but it's just not the same.

Switzerland rules Alpine skiing

2009-02-18T10:17:00.002-05:00

Suck it, Austria.

The Alpine Ski World Championships have ended in Val d'Isère, France, where the Swiss team usurped Austria for the first time in a decade to win the most medals. [...]

Austria took second on the medal table with five [Switzerland won six - P] , followed by the United States with three. All of the top three teams had two gold medals each. [....]

Serious teeth knashing in Austria.

Happy first birthday, Kosovo!

2009-02-18T10:00:00.004-05:00

A day late, but congratulations to all Kosovars on their nation's first anniversary (17 Feb).

Swiss-info interviews the nation's PM:

swissinfo: Who is the more important partner for Kosovo: the European Union or the United States?

H.T.: Relations between Pristina and Washington are excellent. I am proud to be the head of the most pro-American country in the world. But Kosovo is part of the European family – we want to become members of the EU and of Nato.

swissinfo: And your bilateral relations with Switzerland?

H.T.: Fantastic. Switzerland was one of the first countries to recognise Kosovo. We have a strong bond with Switzerland.

I lived there myself and have wonderful memories. Perhaps Kosovo will one day become the Switzerland of the region. [....]

Plenty of Kosovars lived in Switzerland at some point, many of them as refugees. A colleage and good friend from my days in Switzerland was from the area around Pristina. As a proud Swiss-American, I am pleased to note that both countries were among the first to recognize Kosovo's independance.

The reform of welfare reform will undo welfare reform

2009-02-12T13:36:00.006-05:00

Less than a month into the Obama presidency, Congress is set to undo welfare reform -- one of the few things Democrats could be proud of:

Welfare caseloads nationally fell from 12.6 million in 1997 to fewer than five million in 2007. And yet despite this achievement, House Democrats are seeking to undo Mr. Clinton's reforms under the cover of the stimulus bill. [....]
Through a little noticed provision of the stimulus package that has passed the House of Representatives, the bill creates a fund for TANF [Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program] that is open-ended -- the same way Medicare and Social Security are. [....]

Democrats must feel a special affection for the crown jewel of the Great Society, as they can't bear to see it altered.

Or, as Dostoevsky put it:

... the [Left] loves its abomination and does not wish to see it threatened [....]

Link to the WSJ is from Prof. Mankiw's blog.

Messiah's direst prophecy

2009-02-05T14:21:00.005-05:00

Asked for a prophecy, the Messiah not only obliges, he swings for the fences! In brief: Do as I say or the US may be finished.

Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

I'm reminded of the underlying theme of Paradise Lost: disobediance has consequences.

How to pay for Obama's giddy spending?

2009-02-03T09:21:00.006-05:00

How to pay is on more than Americans' minds. Even France (a profiligate spender by anyone's reckoning) is saying no to an Obama-style spending spree as explained by France's Prime Minister:

"It would be irresponsible to chose another policy, which would increase our country's indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end...."

The rest of the world is wondering and watching as well, as the US prepares to issue more than 2 trillion in new debt this year. And what will we get out of this other than the Democrat's pent up spending desires writ large? Nothing but more debt.

My 12 year old daughter has more fiscal restraint than those clowns in D.C.

The world to Israel: We are all Hamas, now

2009-01-03T13:22:00.004-05:00

Un - freaking- believable that so many people support Hamas over Israel's right to defend itself.

Forget the proportionality arguments that are tossed around by Israel's critics; you can be sure that if Hamas had a weapon that would kill every Jewish Israeli they would use it quicker than an alligator can chew a puppy.

Israel must make it painful for Hamas' leadership to send missles across the border, and the only way to do that is to strike Hamas targets. Unfortunately, doing so only strengthens Hamas among the Palestinians, placing Israel in a lose - lose situation. The best that they can do is try to take out Hamas leadership, who have mostly scurried for their rat holes, leaving others to die.

God hearts Canada

2008-11-14T09:20:00.004-05:00

Brazilians are doubtless right that God loves them. After all, look at their beaches, women, and just recently, a ginormous petroleum discovery. Even after taking away the beaches and women, though, Canada can still lay claim to being God's BFF (notwithstanding Celine Dion).

Canada has about 13% of the world's proven petroleum reserves, much of it locked up in tar sands. In addition, Canada is one of the world's most stable nations. Put those two facts together and you have potentially the happiest of nations. The price of oil may be around $55/bbl at the moment, but it is sure to rise again. Demand will grow, while supply will continue to be restricted.

Canada's tar sands won't give up up their oil easily, though. Extracting the oil promises to be an environmetally messy affair, so expect plenty of delay before our neighbors to the north begin large scale development of this resource.

Here is a helpful primer on oil sands. An easy to follow explanation of the Canadian tar sands (including current limitations on exploiting them) is here.

Media begins to wake up from its lost weekend

2008-11-06T17:02:00.008-05:00

The press is looking around and wondering just what it hath wrought. Climbing out of the tank, they note that Obama has no plans to leave Iraq precipitously, that Obamaniacs are kind of creepy, that Bush was poorly treated, and that Europe will benefit from increased US environmental regulation and capital flight (who wants to pay higher capital gains taxes when other markets beckon?). In addition, they finally got around to noticing that someone schooled in Chicago can play political hardball.

Well, they'll have four years to relearn their job before the next Republican administration.

And one more example of the MSM getting around to doing their job once the elections are over (links from Patterico): Obama's economic policies are maybe not so good or well thought out.

That must be some hangover the press are suffering collectively.

Also: WTF? China is asking that the US respect free trade! Certainly they are under no illusions about Obama's indebtedness to Labor or his protectionist instincts.

A couple of the links were stolen from Ace.

Creation Science has a "peer-reviewed" journal

2008-10-24T11:14:00.000-04:00

Huzzah! Finally, after being locked out of reputable scientific journals, the Creationist crowd has faced facts and decided to publish themselves (journal's website). Very clever - if you can't play the real game, make up a new game.

Unfortunately, it hasn't been around long enough to have garnered a journal impact factor (essentially a way to determine how important a journal is in its field). I'm confident, though, that when its impact factor comes out, it will approach zero. The good news? They need papers, which should be in tune with this:

Addressing the need to disseminate the vast fields of research conducted by creationist experts in theology, history, archaeology, anthropology, biology, geology, astronomy, and other disciplines of science, Answers Research Journal will provide scientists and students the results of cutting-edge research that demonstrates the validity of the young-earth model, the global Flood, the non-evolutionary origin of “created kinds,” and other evidences that are consistent with the biblical account of origins.

As you can see, not just any crap will be published. No, no, it must be high quality crap, or at least mediocre crap with a veneer of high quality. Given the vast fields (by their own estimation) of crap out there, finding suitable manuscripts shouldn't prove difficult.

Scientific plagiarism's poster girl (Bonus: new definition of chutzpah!)

2008-10-23T13:29:00.008-04:00

Oops. Noted Iranian militant (she was spokesperson for the "students" in the hostage crisis) and later Iranian vice president, and now Professor of Immunology, Ms. Ebtekar recently published a paper in an Iranian medical journal.

Turns out the paper was cobbled together from articles published previously in other journals. Unfortunately for Ms. Ebteker, Deja Vu, a database, checks new papers against older papers and nailed her. Her excuse? Sloppy underlings.

She is especially upset with the publicity her plagiarism engendered, asking the fellow who uncovered her plagiarism if it was ethical for him to publicize it (reminder to self: update internal definition of chutzpah).

What Deja Vu found is pretty impressive:

Deja Vu claims that about 85% of the text comes from five papers by other researchers, with the chunks ranging from 5% to 30% of their content.

In her defense, this was a review article; but seriously, she could have made a bit of an effort.

How to upset the Swiss in one easy step

2008-10-23T08:17:00.004-04:00

Complaining about their banking secrecy laws is a surefire way. The Swiss called in the German ambassador for a frank discussion of Germany's language on the subject, which included the phrase "using the whip" against Switzerland.

The Swiss government has reacted angrily to a stinging attack on its banking secrecy laws by the German and French finance ministers.
Following its neighbours' joint call for Switzerland to be added to a tax haven blacklist, the foreign ministry on Wednesday summoned Germany's ambassador to Bern to express its "surprise and discontent".
"One does not treat a partner country in such a way," Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey said. Calmy-Rey took exception to Peer Steinbrück's "violent" language. The German finance minister spoke of "using the whip" against Switzerland.
"The choice of language is very unfortunate seeing as Switzerland is pursuing a partnership and dialogue with Germany ... and the European Union," she added.
France and Germany claim that Switzerland is encouraging tax fraud by refusing to exchange information for tax purposes, unless fraud has already been proven.
It is an issue that refuses to go away. Switzerland stubbornly defends its banking secrecy laws while other countries stamp their feet in annoyance. [....]

The Germans and French believe that plenty of sweet, sweet, taxable Euros are hidden in Swiss accounts, and want Switzerland to be more forthcoming with info. The tradition of secrecy provides an edge to Swiss banks (which pay ridiculously low interest on accounts), that the Swiss will be loath to give up. Some sort of compromise will surely be worked out as Switzerland will eventually want to set up closer ties to the EU, which does hold the whip.

Completely foreseeable consequences surprise bureaucrats

2008-10-17T15:30:00.003-04:00

Hawaii instituted universal healthcare earlier this year for children without health insurance. Sounds laudable, but many parents immediately dropped their own healthcare plan in order to qualify, which raised costs so high that the program has been scrapped.

Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.
Gov. Linda Lingle's administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.
"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program." [...]

Understatement of the day, that. Dr. Fink, meet human nature (and don't act surprised the next time you meet).

Nobel committee takes a last swipe at Bush

2008-10-13T10:00:00.008-04:00

Knowing that soon they won't have George Bush to kick around anymore, the Nobel committee got in one last dig at President Bush. Last month the head of the Nobel literature prize committee said that American authors were too insular, and too ignorant of literature in general to be considered.

Today, they awarded the Nobel prize (I know that it isn't officially a Nobel award, but it is called that) in economics to perhaps the best credentialed sufferer of Bush derangement syndrome:

Paul Krugman, the Princeton University scholar and New York Times columnist, won the Nobel economic prize Monday for his analysis of how economies of scale can affect trade patterns and the location of economic activity.

Krugman has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration and the Republican Party in The New York Times, where he writes a regular column and has a blog called "Conscience of a Liberal."

He has come out forcefully against John McCain during the economic meltdown, saying the Republican candidate is "more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago" and earlier that the GOP has become "the party of stupid."

The 55-year-old American economist was the lone of winner of the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) award and the latest in a string of American researchers to be honored. It was only the second time since 2000 that a single laureate won the prize, which is typically shared by two or three researchers.

Doubtless Krugman deserves this award, but doubtless also the timing (given his attitude towards Bush and Republicans) is suspect. The committee could just as easily have named several other winners, but chose to reward someone who shares their personal opinions while they can still thumb their noses at Bush and America.

In any case, congatulations to Prof. Krugman.

Nobel committee judge: American authors need not apply

2008-09-30T16:02:00.007-04:00

The head of the Nobel prize for literature feels that no American writer has the gravitas worthy of the award:

Speaking generally about American literature, [...] [Horace Engdahl] said U.S. writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," dragging down the quality of their work.

"The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature," Engdahl said. "That ignorance is restraining."

A couple of notable Americans in the literature business defend our current crop of writers:

"You would think that the permanent secretary of an academy that pretends to wisdom but has historically overlooked Proust, Joyce, and Nabokov, to name just a few non-Nobelists, would spare us the categorical lectures," said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker.

"And if he looked harder at the American scene that he dwells on, he would see the vitality in the generation of Roth, Updike, and DeLillo, as well as in many younger writers, some of them sons and daughters of immigrants writing in their adopted English. None of these poor souls, old or young, seem ravaged by the horrors of Coca-Cola."

Harold Augenbraum, executive director of the foundation which administers the National Book Awards, said he wanted to send Engdahl a reading list of U.S. literature.

"Such a comment makes me think that Mr. Engdahl has read little of American literature outside the mainstream and has a very narrow view of what constitutes literature in this age," he said.

"In the first place, one way the United States has embraced the concept of world culture is through immigration. Each generation, beginning in the late 19th century, has recreated the idea of American literature." [....]

Having read several recent Nobel recipients (the latest being Austrian Elfriede Jelinek, 2004 winner), I can attest that there is little to commend some of them. Their chief qualities seem to be a hatred of western life, and a willingness to distort it. How very brave they must appear to the guardians of *Literature*.

However, an American they've overlooked - and who clearly fits the bill - is one of my favorites, American ex-pat Gore Vidal. Apart from being an excellent writer, his qualifications include: anti-American enough to live abroad (although he lives or lived most recently in Rome, so I can hardly hold that against him), being gay (The City and the Pillar was an early post war novel that dealt frankly with homosexuality), dislikes organized religion, politics left enough to reassure the Nobel committee (he is a keen-eyed social critic), has written controversial books (e.g., Live from Golgotha), and was damned good throughout his career.

Sure to work against him, though: he has worked in Hollywood, and George Bush is our president. On the other hand he was related to Jackie O and got on well with most of the Kennedys (notable exception: Bobby).

It may be that he can win next year under an Obama presidency - provided he lives long enough.

Obama's comprehensive sex education bill included teaching KG about preventing sexually transmitted infections

2008-09-12T15:46:00.007-04:00

McCain's ad about Obama's support of sex education in kindergarten has much of the left and right of the blogging world slinging charges, counter charges and denunciations. None of the posts I've read (admittedly few) have ever pointed to the bill's language to make their point.

So as a service to you, lone reader, I have the link and some incriminating language (passage has been cleaned up to make it more readable; emphases supplied) (this passage is found at heading 9, line 22, through heading 10, line 7):

Sec. 3. Comprehensive Health Education Program. (a) The program established under this Act shall include, but not be limited to, the following major educational areas as a basis for curricula in all elementary and secondary schools in this State: human ecology and health, human growth and development, the emotional, psychological, physiological, hygienic and social responsibilities of family life, including sexual abstinence and prevention of unintended pregnancy until marriage, prevention and control of disease, including age appropriate instruction in grades K through 12 on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV, public and environmental health, consumer health, safety education and disaster survival, mental health and illness, personal health habits, alcohol, drug use, and abuse including the medical and legal ramifications of alcohol, drug, and tobacco use, abuse during pregnancy, sexual abstinence, tobacco, nutrition, and dental health.

Just in case that isn't clear enough, this is from the first section, beginning at line 13:

Each class or course in comprehensive sex education offered in any of grades K through 12 shall include instruction on the prevention of sexually transmitted infections, including the prevention, transmission and spread of HIV AIDS.

Several of the apoligists for Obama note that the bill called for age approproiate education, and true enough, it's there in the upper quoted section. However, it also calls for teaching kindergartners about preventing sexually transmitted infections. Although I am generally in favor of too much sex ed rather than too little, this formulation goes too far. I don't care how it's presented, the topic is simply beyond what a five or six year old should learn. In addition, requiring teaching about the medical and legal raminfications of drug abuse during pregnancy is ridiculous.

Apparently the original draft had the explicit education portion limited to grades 6 through 12 (follow the link and go to heading 1 line 14, and heading 9, line 33). Some legislator(s) lowered it to Kindergarten.

Proposed theme song for devoted Obama supporters

2008-08-18T09:12:00.007-04:00

The legions of Obama's most fervent supporters need a theme song. Something that echoes their belief that Obama is the chosen one, and reflects the glorious future his election will potentiate (after all, by his own reckoning, just electing him will cause the oceans to slow their rise and the earth to begin to heal). I nominate Stephen Stills' ode to hope, "Carry On". Some of the lyrics are quite apropos:

...The sky is clearing and the night has gone out. The sun, he come, the world is all full of light [.... ] Now witness the quickness with which we get along. Carry on. Love is coming. Love is coming to us all....

Stills' lyrics also hold something for those somewhat skeptical of Obama's intentions and abilities:

Where are you going now my love? Where will you be tomorrow? Will you bring me happiness? Will you bring me sorrow?....

A fuller tribute to the avatar of hope and change is doubtless being penned by one of his acolytes. Perhaps it will be used at his swearing-in ceremony. Or we could use it to replace our national anthem in all 57 states after 8-10 years of benign Obama rule.

Barack Obama, political stamp collector?

2008-08-15T10:34:00.009-04:00

Sen. Obama's CV is high on wow factor but thin on accomplishments. Its highlights include first Black editor of the Harvard Law Review, Illinois state senator, and Illinois junior senator. All fine accomplishments, and evidence that when he wants, Obama is capable of putting in hard work and possesses the discipline needed to rise to the top in whatever situation he chooses.

But what has he done with his accomplishments? As editor he did not publish, as state senator he was famously bored with the enterprise, and as junior senator he has even less to show. All of which leads me to think that Obama is simply into politics for the challenge (much the same way Bill Clinton was (is?) into humping women on the sly or others climb mountains - to see if they could do it).

Obama's phenomenal political talents allow him to establish a goal and then achieve it. However, once he attains his goal, the effort stops. It is as if he's pasted the stamp in his collection and immediately moves on to collecting the next stamp. Obviously, after being a senator, only one stamp remains.

Even as a community organizer, he often failed to follow through with his projects once the going got tough. His two school reform collaborations with Bill Ayers led to... what? Far easier to do well in the political arena, where accomplishments are more easily quantified. But his political career has been equally bland. Each success has been met with increased boredom and a search for new challenges. Hardly a wonder that his ego is outsized, after all what has ever stopped him in the past? His schedule is set by his ambition rather than any inconvenient political realities.

Doubtless a big ego is necessary for political success, but I would like to see a politician who has something to point to as they moved up the political ladder. I worry that once he is president, Obama will lose interest, or worse, not realise what he let himself in for. On the other hand, perhaps once he pastes that final stamp in his collection he'll decide that being one of the better presidents is also a challenge. If he keeps his motivation - perhaps his biggest challenge, he has that chance.

Stalin's Georgia advice taken up by Putin, Medvedev

2008-08-12T12:24:00.007-04:00

Stalin was a native Georgian, and at one time something of a nationalist. He changed his tune after joining the Communist party. This is what he said following the USSR's reannexation of Georgia in 1921 (Georgia had been annexed following the Revolution, and then given its independance the year before):

...You must draw a white-hot iron over this Georgian land!... You will have to break the wings of this Georgia! Let the blood... flow until they give up all their resistance! Impale them! Tear them apart!

Putin, an admirer of Stalin and his methods, evidently agrees.

Diamonds really are forever

2008-07-02T16:10:00.005-04:00

Tiny pieces of diamonds encased within zircon crystals may hold evidence of early life according to this BBC report:

Tiny slivers of diamond forged on an infant Earth may contain the earliest traces of life, a study has shown.

Analysis of the crystals showed they contain a form of carbon often associated with plants and bacteria. The rare gems were found inside zircon crystals, formed a few hundred million years after the Earth came into being.

Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers caution that their results are not definitive proof of early life but do "not exclude" the possibility.

""We're all a little sceptical," said Dr Martin Whitehouse of the Swedish Museum of Natural History and one of the authors of the paper.

If the carbon was derived from primitive organisms it would push back the date for life appearing on Earth by around 500 million years, to beyond 4.25 billion years ago. The Earth itself is just 4.6 billion years old. [....]

The article also gives several alternate possibilities of how the diamonds came to contain the early carbon isotopes, so this seems to be a kerfuffle in the making.

Clockwork Orange?

2008-06-17T17:27:00.004-04:00

Euro 2008 is taking place in Austria and Switzerland, and while both host nations' teams were eliminated early, at least one team has shined. The Dutch national team came through the "group of death" (The Netherlands, Romania, France, Italy) with an unblemished record and now must be counted the favorites.

Outside of the Swiss, the Dutch are my favorite national team. I wish them the best of luck, which they'll likely need given their perennial under achieving play. This time, though, they seem to have a motivated, talented, and young squad.

The Supreme Court follows the election returns

2008-06-16T12:11:00.003-04:00

So said the wise Mr. Dooley more than 100 years ago. Dooley was a South Side Chicago character, created by author F.P. Dunne, who dispensed wisdom and advice from his favorite pub. The full quote is, "No matter whether the country follows the flag or not, the Supreme Court follows the election returns."

Dooley's words ring true today. In this case, however, the Supreme Court looked into its crystal ball and perceived an Obama victory. Thus we have another reason to explain the recent SCOTUS ruling extending the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus to enemy combatants: the SCOTUS believes Obama will win and is already dancing to the tune of our next president.

The SCOTUS link comes from Patterico's excellent site.

Putin updates Stalin's methods

2008-06-04T15:16:00.007-04:00

Giving a new wrinkle to Stalin's dictum of: "There is a man, there is a problem; no man, no problem", Prime Minister Putin has a political foe digitally erased from a photo.

On a talk show last autumn, a prominent political analyst named Mikhail Delyagin offered some tart words about Vladimir Putin. When the program was televised, Delyagin was not.

His remarks were cut and he was digitally erased from the show, like a disgraced comrade airbrushed from an old Soviet photo. (The technicians may have worked a bit hastily; they left his disembodied legs in one shot.)

Delyagin, it turned out, has for some time resided on the so-called stop list, a roster of political opponents and other critics of the government who have been barred from television news and political talk shows by the Kremlin. [....]

Uncle Joe would be proud. He had to make do with crude political killings and airbrushings. Putin need only alter some pixels to disappear an opponent.

Left in (another) quandry

2008-05-22T10:06:00.005-04:00

Europe's and America's Left feel global warming is a major threat to the environment, the world's populace, and life in general. Fair enough, but even thaough they see a looming global disaster, they can't bring themselves to support nuclear power on a large enough scale to reduce the need for coal and oil powered electricity plants.

What they can get behind is biofuel. Forget the first generation biofuels, which had the completely foreseeable result of turning cropland devoted to human consumption into land used for growing crops destined for gas tanks. This has led to higher food prices around the world, local and regional food shortages and, most ironical, the destruction of CO2 sucking forests in order to plant crops used to fuel greenhouse gas producing fuel.

No, the next most bestest thing for the Left is second generation biofuels. These are grasses and reeds that are planted, harvested, and processed to provide fuel. Sounds good so far: food crops will be used to feed animals and humans, while otherwise usesless grasses will top off our gas tanks. The problem is that many of the proposed grasses, etc., are non-native weeds and threaten to overwhelm native species. Not to worry, claim many on the Left, we'll be able to control them.

The maddening part of their argument is that they accept the risks from these non-native but "natural" grasses, but cannot accept genetically modified (GM) plants that have the promise to feed many millions. The rationale for not supporting GM plants is that they may escape and cross pollinate with non-GM plants, thus producing mutant crops that ultimately have negative consequences. The risk from biofuel crops out competing local flora is down-played - even though invasive species cost the world upwards of one trillian dollars each year.

What is good for the Left's goose (biofuels) is not good for the world's gander (GM crops capable of feeding millions). But the Left's strict hierarchy of evils (excluding the USA) is headed by nuclear power and GM foods, and will not be upset.

Record volcanic uplift noted, global warming blamed. Icelanders doomed.

2008-04-05T12:23:00.008-04:00

Well, it would be a record if the writer for The Times hadn't spectacularly misqouted an abstract from Geophysical Research Letters. The faulty article notes that glacial melting in Iceland has led to the removal of vast amounts of overburden from a volcano. The resulting uplift allowed the magma chamber to expand upwards as much as 25 meters/year for more than 100 years.

Unfortunately for mountaineers, who doubtless had their hopes raised, the abstract reports that maximum uplift is of a somewhat smaller scale, more like 25 millimeters/year. That's a whopping three orders of magnitude difference (25,000 mm vs. 25 mm). Ouch.

In addition, the uplift has only been measured for a period of less than 10 years (which isn't to say that the uplift hasn't been going on for as long as the glacier has been retreating - but the abstract doesn't state that).

So it doesn't seem as if the world will see an explosion of rapidly expanding volcanoes that will presumably then do some exploding and bring Biblical calamity to our global warming ignoring population. Bullet dodged, as Mr. Blair might headline it.

Global warming models need updating (as do dire predictions)

2008-04-05T11:08:00.005-04:00

From the journal Geophysical Research Letters is this recent abstract:

We compare new observationally-based data sets of Antarctic near-surface air temperature and snowfall accumulation with 20th century simulations from global climate models (GCMs) that support the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report.

[....] 20th century (1880–1999) annual Antarctic near-surface air temperature trends in the GCMs are about 2.5-to-5 times larger-than-observed. [....] Resolving the relative contributions of dynamic and radiative forcing on Antarctic temperature variability in GCMs will lead to more robust 21st century projections.

Translation: The models used by the IPCC are off and need recalibrating (the models predict higher warming than observed).

Not that this means that global warming isn't occurring, just that the long range forecasts based on what must be admitted are flawed models are maybe not the best policy making tool. Using such models to force massive changes on people's lives is likely to have unpleasant consequences.

If global warming is as bad as we are told, nothing short of geo-engineering on a global scale can reduce the danger. China alone builds a new coal fired plant every two weeks. No amount of compact fluorescent bulbs we install in our homes can possibly undo that simple fact.

Until those pushing for massive changes in western civilization agree to start building nuclear power plants on a large scale, their dire predictions won't be taken seriously.

Pro cycling is no stranger to scandal

2008-03-25T11:43:00.010-04:00

The Tour de France, cycling's most prestigious race, has been around since 1903, and endured its first scandal in 1904. That year saw the top four overall finishers and all stage winners disqualified and banned by the French Cycling Union (UVF - at the time the national governing body). Sounds bad enough as scandals go, right? But this happened after the organizer of the Tour threw out nine other riders for some sort of cheating (the Wiki entry doesn't specify all the infractions, but does note that at least some were for hopping trains).

There are parallels to more recent scandals as well. American cyclist Floyd Landis was disqualified and banned for two years after having won the 2006 Tour; a decision on Landis' final appeal is expected this June . Last year saw the leader thrown out by his own team after being suspected of doping.

The recent struggles for control of racing have a 1904 precedent as well. Then the Tour organizer disciplined riders as he saw fit, expecting that to be the end of the story. Several months later the UVF opened its own investigation, and on its own authority banned many of France's top riders. This led to a war of words between the governing body and the Tour organizer over who had jurisdiction over a private race.

The UVF's actions may have been an opportunity to claim jurisdiction over all aspects of French cycling (warning: speculation alert). Just as the US Supreme Court used the case of Marbury v. Madison early in the nation's history to establish the principle of judicial review over all branches of the federal government, it may be that the UVF used the controversy to display and cement its authority over the totality of French cycling.

Does all this maneuvering sound familiar? This year saw the Court of Arbitration for Sport refuse a request from a group representing several professional cycling teams for injunctive relief against the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the group (ASO) that stages many of the world's premier races - including the Tour de France. In this case the ASO was on the side of the pro teams despite being lumped in with the UCI. The UCI and ASO have been squabbling for years over power and money. In fact, it seems that the professional season requires a controversy before it can "officially" begin.

As for what the riders banned by the UVF in 1904 were guilty of, no one seems to know. The Wiki entry mentions illegal agreements but offers no evidence. A cycling historian is tackling the subject for his thesis; his judgment will be written up and published, hopefully as a book along the lines of Cod, or Close to Shore - books which include plenty of historical context about the events they describe. The story as known is written up by cycling's premier journalist, the International Herald Tribune's Samuel Abt.

Cycling and doping, they go together like a horse and carriage

2008-03-24T10:30:00.008-04:00

Professional cycling is entering the meat of its Spring season, with exciting finishes and entertaining races. And yet it can't shake its history of doping, as three recent articles from the BBC depressingly illustrate:

The first notes that defending Tour de France champion Alberto Contador (who won thanks to the leader of the Tour being pulled by his team on doping suspicions), will not have the opportunity to defend his yellow jersey, as his Astana team was not invited to participate. Contador is a young and talented rider, there is no question he will be back - as will other Astana riders. However, the team itself is finished, as it should be. Too many of its riders have been implicated in doping scandals for the team to get another invite to the big dance this year.

Next up, doper and 2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has his last chance at proving he was wrongly convicted when he tested positive on the heels of an epic ride on the Tour's final mountain stage. The Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland will hear Landis' appeal, but his chances have to be counted as slim.

UPDATE: Per this press release (in French), the hearing captioned Floyd Landis v. United States Anti-Doping Agency is finished. The judges took more than 35 hours to hear both sides. All that remains is for final supporting documents to be provided by 18 April. The final decision is expected in June. Whatever the outcome, the decision will make for fascinating reading.

Finally, Dick Pound, the ex-honcho of the World Anti-Doping Agency, will be sued by the International Cycling Union (UCI) for expressing his opinion that the UCI wasn't doing enough to combat doping. Now, Pound is a fierce critic when it comes to dopers and doping, so it isn't difficult to see how he'd ruffle some feathers at the UCI. Given that professional cycling is the sport most tainted by doping, you would think it would have a thicker skin when it comes to critics.

Perhaps cycling can slowly put its shameful doping past behind it. Certainly, keeping the Astana team out, even if it harms innocent riders, is evidence that the Tour De France organizers are serious about their stewardship role (and their bottom line).

In any case, the season just beginning is full of promise. Like any fan I will enjoy the spectacle of riders heroically pushing themselves to their limits. Only I've learned to question overly heroic performances.

Gratuitous insight of the day

2008-03-16T17:07:00.002-04:00

Directed to any religion that takes daily offense at Western civilization:

"Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority." - Alfred Adler

Dark Ages were dark because of vulcanism?

2008-03-12T20:54:00.006-04:00

Evidence for a volcanic cause for global cooling and famine in the sixth century may exist in ice cores. The eruption may have led to “the most severe volcanic cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere in the past 2,000 years”, according to one of the study's authors. The article (from Nature News) goes on to speculate that the global cooling led to a famous plague:

Some have suggested that its consequences were more dramatic than mere crop failure and overcast skies. Around 541, a plague pandemic rampaged from southern Asia to Denmark, wreaking havoc in the Byzantine Empire and possibly killing about 40% of the inhabitants of its capital Constantinople. [....]

The evidence remains sketchy, but it is a fascinating theory. More research will doubtless help establish any causation.

Identity politics heavyweight bout

2008-03-12T18:14:00.012-04:00

As long as identity politics have been around, there has been an unanswered question: which group's identity politics are stronger, race or gender? Well, after Gerry Ferraro (one-time gender politics standard bearer) was forced to quit an honorary Clinton campaign post after noting the obvious fact that Obama (current race politics standard bearer) has benefited from his identity as a black man, we have a winner: race trumps gender.

Not that it was a clean KO. No, race identity won only after Gerry mounted a furious counter attack, making the rounds of the news shows and firing memos as if they were jabs. She fought her corner skillfully - even claiming racial victimhood herself - but lost on points to our fear of appearing to condone racism.

UPDATE: As usual, Tom Maguire puts it best.

Dead man walking

2008-03-11T21:12:00.004-04:00

Just as sure as Scheisse stinks, this young man will be dead soon after being returned to Iran.

An Iranian homosexual man who has said he will be executed if he is deported from the Netherlands has had his claim for asylum overturned.

Mehdi Kazemi has said his life is in danger if he is returned to Iran, where he says his boyfriend named him as a partner before being executed. [....]

Both the Netherlands and England have turned down this man's asylum requests. Let's hope some European nation saves his life.

Working definition of chutzpah

2008-03-11T11:06:00.004-04:00

Need a current example of chutzpah, with an unhealthy side helping of entitlement? How's this: The H-monster, currently second in votes, second in delegates, and second in states won, is contemplating offering Obama the second place on her ticket. Actually it would be third place, behind Bill.

Anyone accepting the veep position on a Hillary! ticket must wish for obscurity.

Media bias against Republicans quantified

2008-03-11T07:57:00.004-04:00

I recently left a comment at Ace's blog regarding media bias. He was kind enough to link my blog, so I thought it best to get a post up so his Moron Nation (which more or less includes me) wouldn't go stumbling about looking for a non-existant post.

ABC News has a handy slide show on recent sex scandals, which has the unintended consequence of quantifying media bias. I'll just quote my qoute from Ace's blog:

ABC News has a slideshow recounting 13 (12 involve elected officials) famous political sex scandals. The 12 break down thusly: five are Democrats, seven are Republicans. Of the Dems listed, only one is identified as a Democrat [one out of five]. Of the listed Repubs, six are IDed as Republican. [Six out of seven.]

Media bias quantified.

Ace adds:

The one unelected official, incidentally, is explicitly ID'd as a political appointee of President Bush's, so while his nominal party isn't mentioned, hey, they sure make sure you know which team he's playing for, eh?

This is all in our minds, huh, MSM?

It's all accidental, right? [....]

The media around the world is filled with this sort of bias. Republicans in particular and Americans in general (see David's Medienkritik for an excellent breakdown of German reporting) are fodder for the press.

A further example of media bias, this time anti-American: While living in Switzerland, I noticed that when the three wire serviecs (AP, Reuters, AFP) would report passenger plane crashes, they would invariably list the manufacturer of the downed plane. Of course, this makes sense, as the information is part of the story. However, the placement of the information would often vary. If a Boeing plane crashed, the info was most often in the lead paragraph, whereas if the crashed plane was an Airbus the info appeared in the middle or at the end of the story.

I worked up a spreadsheet comparing the three wire services and found Reuters and AP to be the worst offenders, while AFP to be the least prone to this sort of bias. Thankfully, few planes crash these days so the spreadsheet listed perhaps ten instances, but a clear pattern of listing Boeing in the lead paragraph nevertheless emerged.

An enterprising blogger could make a fine post out of this bias. It would require finding the first article written by each service that includes plane manufacturer (later articles tend to lead with other info, e.g., the human interest angle). At least fifty crashes involving passenger planes would need to be checked to ensure statistical significance.

European pro bike season underway (with expected controversy)

2008-03-08T10:28:00.006-05:00

The last time I posted on the beginning of the Euro bike season, which traditionally kicks off with a stage race from Paris to Nice in the south of France, I noted that in order to be official, a necessary requirement is that some sort of bureaucratic controversy must be taking place. Et voila!

The UCI has threatened to expel riders who take part in the first European stage race of the season from their organization. The race is being organized by the ASO outside the UCI authority but under the aegis of the French federation.

Plus ca change....

Here we go again; The Netherlands prepares for Islamic rage boy sightings

2008-03-06T11:57:00.007-05:00

The Netherlands prepares itself for another round of Islamic rage boys and girls spewing threats and potentially rampaging, albeit in a restrained Dutch manner. The spark this time? A Dutch politician is releasing a provacative anti-Islam film.

The Netherlands is a pretty laid back nation, and that largely includes its Muslim citizens, so predicting the form the outrage will take is difficult. Nevertheless, expect at least some generalized head chopping threats. The Dutch aren't taking any chances; they've raised their threat level to 'substantial', the second highest level.

Doubtless Muslims in other nations - I'm looking at you, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, et al. - will raise their voices (and weapons) the highest. Will Dutch embassies be attacked, protested, or ignored? Hard to tell given the little known about the film. The Beeb does offer this tidbit:

He has revealed that his 15-minute film is entitled Fitna, an Arabic word used to describe strife or discord, usually religious. [...]

The lawmaker has said his work will show how the Koran is "an inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror".

According to a Dutch daily which has seen some of the footage, the film has the Koran opening. Inside the pages of the book are shown images of atrocities in Muslim countries that the film-maker thinks are inspired by verses of the Koran. [....]

A fitting tribute to Hillary!'s campaign

2008-02-27T00:27:00.002-05:00

UPDATE: Crap, I couldn't have been more wrong. She pulled out a stunning set of wins. Well at least the period up to the Pennsylvania primary will be entertaining.

Based on little more than a royal sense of entitlement, a manufactured case of inevitability, and what had been thought to be a powerful sense of nostalgia among Democratic voters, Hillary! began her serene march to the presidency. Events thankfully turned out differently, and it looks as if her candidacy is nearly finished, especially after last night's so-so debate performance.

Here is one of many YouTube videos of "ding, dong, the witch is dead." Who would have thought that a tall black man would play the role of Dorothy?

Enjoy or curse as you see fit (I hope this isn't premature):

Islamic reformation at hand?

2008-02-26T14:22:00.008-05:00

Interesting bit of news from the Beeb. A reinterpretation of the Hadith ( a book held by believers to contain the sayings of the Prophet Mohammed) has been undertaken by a respected Islamic institute in Tutrkey. What they produce may begin a long overdue debate within Islam.

I blogged on this topic two years ago, when I noted the need for an Islamic Erasmus.

Apparently, that role was taken up by theologians at Ankara University:

Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion.

The country's powerful Department of Religious Affairs has commissioned a team of theologians at Ankara University to carry out a fundamental revision of the Hadith, the second most sacred text in Islam after the Koran.

The Hadith is a collection of thousands of sayings reputed to come from the Prophet Muhammad.

As such, it is the principal guide for Muslims in interpreting the Koran and the source of the vast majority of Islamic law, or Sharia.

But the Turkish state has come to see the Hadith as having an often negative influence on a society it is in a hurry to modernise, and believes it responsible for obscuring the original values of Islam. [...]

Its supporters say the spirit of logic and reason inherent in Islam at its foundation 1,400 years ago are being rediscovered. Some believe it could represent the beginning of a reformation in the religion. [...]

Should this be well received among the relatively moderate faithful of Turkey, will it peacefully spread? Recall the bloodshed following Lutheran criticisms of Catholicism? Any reformation must seemingly be accompanied by considerable bloodshed. Although it is difficult to imagine today's nations putting reformers to the sword en masse, even in the Mid East.

The forensic examination of the Hadiths has taken place in Ankara University's School of Theology.

An adviser to the project, Felix Koerner, says some of the sayings - also known individually as "hadiths" - can be shown to have been invented hundreds of years after the Prophet Muhammad died, to serve the purposes of contemporary society. [...]

The argument is that Islamic tradition has been gradually hijacked by various - often conservative - cultures, seeking to use the religion for various forms of social control. [....]

I am shocked, shocked, to learn that people use religion to their own ends. When I would broach this possibility with Muslims, I always received this standard answer: that may be true of other religions, but not in Islam.

The article goes on to note the purpose behind the reevaluation is to create a new and modern Islam.

Speaking for the rest of the world: a big thank you, and best of luck.

Perhaps the scholars can next reexamine the Koran itself. From my understanding, if any part of it is shown to have been altered at any point from earlier versions, Islam will lose its claim to authenticity.

A scientific study to determine which religion best pleases God

2008-02-23T09:09:00.006-05:00

Which religion is best? Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and others all claim to represent God, and all claim miracles performed by God show they are the favored set of worshipers. But which religion is God's secret favorite? Seems like an insoluable qualitative question, doesn't it? Impossible to quantify, and therefore best left to individual choice, with definitive answers having to wait until the afterlife.

Not necessarily. A simple and elegant method of quantifying and comparing religions is at hand. Several published studies have shown that spirituality has an effect on well being. To go one step further, I propose a study wherein people of various religions - who worship in strict accordance to the rules they believe God set down - undergo similar surgical procedures. Their morbidity and mortality rates would then be compared.

By comparing the outcomes of groups of self-described religious people from all the major religions, it should be possible to discover which religion truly represents God. Of course, if results are the same across religions, we can assume that God doesn't care which method of worship one chooses, or that we need a new religion, or that there is no God (which would be my pick).

Likewise, any religion found to be sucking hind teat should probably re-evalute its doctrines and practices, because God clearly isn't pleased with their efforts.

Through a comparison of groups of very religious patients (and comparing them against a randomly selcted control group) undergoing similar surgeries, we can measure the outcomes and, *ta da*, we'll settle this pesky which-religion-is-best question. Of course, potential confounding factors will need to be sorted out when the data is crunched, but coming up with an acceptable protocol is certainly possible. Just to cover all bases, a group of self described atheists should also be studied.

This is how democracy is supposed to work

2008-02-20T16:53:00.004-05:00

Angered by the shoddy governance provided by Islamist parties over the past five years, Pakistani voters in the wild border region threw the bums out.

... [V]oters in turbulent North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, gave their support to secular parties that promised to pave the streets, create jobs and bring peace through dialogue and economic incentives to the extremists. [...]

"They made false promises. They said they would give us education, food and jobs but they didn't give us anything. They were all lies," said retired soldier Mohammed Akram Shah. "I am from a village of more than 30 homes and we don't have any electricity even after five years." [....]

Remember, Islamic politicians promise not only to take care of the soul, but claim they will provide material benefits that deliver a better way of life. Clearly, the voters wanted more jobs and fewer lectures.

Evidence for an inorganic source for hydrocarbons (petroleum, dummy)

2008-02-04T12:01:00.000-05:00

A minority of geologists--mostly Russians--have long argued (since at least the 1890s) that petroleum (oil, natural gas and bitumens) was formed through inorganic processes operating on carbon sourced from the earth's mantle. That is, organic matter was not buried and slowly turned into petroleum.

Instead, theories for an inorganic origin ranged from hydrocarbons raining from the sky early in the Earth's formation and later expelled into the surface rocks where it's now found, to vulcanism, to the degassing of large volumes of methane from the mantle and later transformed into petroleum. In all cases the presence of organic markers was attributed to the petroleum picking them up as it moved through crustal rocks containing organic material. I recall hearing during my undergraduate days of petroleum being found in granitic rocks, but the petroleum was felt to have somehow migrated there.

Unforunately for the inorganic theory, all major petroleum discoveries have come from methods that assume an organic formation process, leaving only minor petroleum finds unexplained.

This may change. A recent article in the highly regarded journal Science reports that short chain hydrocarbons (presumably methanes or its homologs, the abstract doesn't say--P) found in a hydrothermal field are likely to have formed inorganically (the term of art is abiogenically). The article is sure to invigorate the debate over the origin of petroleum. From the abstract:

Low-molecular-weight hydrocarbons in natural hydrothermal fluids have been attributed to abiogenic production by Fischer-Tropsch type (FTT) reactions, although clear evidence for such a process has been elusive. Here, we present concentration, and stable and radiocarbon isotope, data from hydrocarbons dissolved in hydrogen-rich fluids venting at the ultramafic-hosted Lost City Hydrothermal Field. [...]
Radiocarbon evidence rules out seawater bicarbonate as the carbon source for FTT reactions, suggesting that a mantle-derived inorganic carbon source is leached from the host rocks. Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat.

Does this suggest that new methods will be developed to locate petroleum, hopefully is huge quantities? Well, yes and no. Although the abstract understandably hedges, petroleum companies will doubtless support follow-up research to determine whether marketable quantities of abiogenic oil can exsist. It's also likely that a few test wells will be drilled in promising areas. On the other hand, as noted, theories of inorganic petroleum formation are as old as pertroleum wells, and previous searches (mostly in the USSR) based on these principles never produced petroleum in significant quantities.

Even if this research leads to new discoveries, it is unlikely that it will replace the organic formation model of searching for petroleum.

Lady Macbeth, I presume? Hillary now on a fateful path

2008-01-14T06:30:00.001-05:00

I recently saw a broadcast in a local theater of the Met's production of MacBeth--Verdi's operatic retelling of Shakespeare's classic tragedy. As the story of Lady Macbeth's (the steely one in the story) ambition to have power and her determination to stop at nothing to keep power unfolded, I thought uncomfortably of Hillary and her less than subtle playing of the race card in her titanic struggle with Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Hillary and her operatives are increasingly turning to race as a campaign strategy. Thankfully many bloggers are chronicling her efforts. I've found plenty to read at the Politburo Diktat (1,2,3), where the Kommissar has again hit his blogging stride. He in turn points to an effort by the Jack and Jill blog to create a list of the slurs, aspersions, and bile coming from the Clinton camp.

Should Hillary become president we will see the seven fateful words from Macbeth's first scene come true. As the three witches stir their poisonous brew they chant in unison that "Fair is foul, and foul is fair...." The witches preferred nastiness to civility, conspiracy to transparency. They would be well pleased with the Clinton machine.

Hillary possesses to an uncomfortable degree the essential negative characteristics to turn her into a latter day Lady Macbeth. Certainly her ambition to see Bill in the White House led her to swallow gross insult after gross insult to her marriage. Now that she has her chance at the main prize she appears willing to use any and all means to seize that chance. One senses the continuing hovering presence of Macbeth's witches in the "fog and filthy air" of Hillary's campaign.

Another apt quote for Hillary, and the Clinton machine in general, comes from a more recent politician. Before Nixon became vice-president, Adlai Stevenson remarked that "Nixonland is a land of slander and scare, of lay innuendo, of a poison pen and the anonymous telephone call, and hustling, pushing, and shoving-the land of smash and grab and anything to win.". Nixonland is clearly not terra incognita to Hillary.

Iran trying to split US and Britain?

2007-03-30T14:44:00.000-04:00

Iran faces three fairly determined foes in the Middle East: Israel, the UK, and America. Any opportunity Iran has of sowing discord between them is sure to be seized upon.

The capture of the 15 Royal Navy personnel is just such an opportunity. The BBC offers an analysis of why Iran pulled its most recent hostage taking stunt. One small part of the analysis caught my eye: Iranian hardliners are arguing that the 15 should be traded for the five Iranian agents the US recently captured in Iraq.

By demanding a trade, Iran immediately puts pressure on both Britain and the US. Although this won't change the nations' policies toward Iran, it will cause political strains, all at little cost to Iran. Later, when military action is required, those political strains may turn into small ruptures.

This chance to throw Eris' apple of discord certainly explains Iran's withdrawing its promise to release its female captive. They must expect to do some hard bargaining in the near future. Freeing the woman once the bargaining process becomes difficult allows them to earn goodwill (at least theoretically).

Famous literary dust-up explained

2007-03-30T11:59:00.000-04:00

The fight some 30 years ago between heavy weight (in the literary sense) South American writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa has an explanation.

Short version: Cherchez la femme.

Marquez emerged with a shiner, which the article shows.

Bonus: other literary feuds are noted.

Good news, bad news edition

2007-03-21T10:37:00.000-04:00

The good news: Zimbabweans may be finally fed up with the situation 30 years of Mugabe's misrule has landed them in. I certainly don't expect a people power-type uprising to overthrow his corrupt and horrible rule, but any unity in the face of his rule is bound to be a good thing. The opposition to this point has been fragmented and ineffectual.

More good news--at least on the surface--southern African nations will meet to discuss Zimbabwe. Don't expect much from the meeting as Bob Mugabe still enjoys a good reputation in many of the old British colonial outposts (I certainly had a measure of respect for him when he managed to wrench his nation from the white Rhodesians' control). Until Zimbabwe's refugees begin impacting its neighbors in a significant way, not much beyond hand wringing can be expected.

For the bad news: Russia is intimating that it will veto a UNSC resolution adopting the findings and suggestions of the UN's representative in Kosovo. Russia has main two reasons to oppose the plan. Russia certainly doesn't want a precedent set of a break away province recieving any form of de facto independence. It also wants to maintain solidarity with its Orthodox brothers in Yugoslavia, which remains its best friend in western Europe.

Should Russia be able to delay the plan, we will see increased bloodshed and instability in the heart of Europe. While this would doubtless suit Russia, Europe will remember such short sighted manipulations.

How to tell if Europe's cycling season has begun

2007-03-13T05:32:00.000-04:00

Want to know if the European professional cycling season has begun? Two necessary conditions need to be met. First, check if the Paris to Nice "race to the sun" is underway. Second, some form of typically European bureaucratic controversy must be taking place.

Conclusion: It's bike racing season here in Europe!

Swiss court delivers blow to freedom of speech

2007-03-09T07:18:00.000-05:00

The Swiss district court for Lausanne has fined a Turkish politician for denying that the murder of some 1.5 million Armenians was genocide.

A Swiss district court has found a Turkish politician, Doğu Perinçek, guilty of racial discrimination for denying the 1915 Armenian massacre was genocide.

The court in Lausanne agreed with the prosecutor's demand and handed Perinçek a suspended fine of SFr9,000 ($7,336) as well as a one-time financial penalty of SFr3,000. The court also ruled that Perinçek would have to pay SFr1,000 to the Swiss-Armenian Association as a symbolic gesture.

The head of the left-wing Turkish Workers' Party was brought to court after calling the genocide "an international lie" during a public speech in Lausanne in July 2005.

Under the Swiss penal code any act of denying, belittling or justifying genocide is a violation of the country's anti-racism legislation. [....]

Many European nations have laws against denying what are presumed to be historical facts. Unfortunately, such laws impose a real cost on freedom of speech.

As much as I dislike the idea of folks denying that Jews and others were killed by the millions while under Nazi Germany's rule, or claiming that the Armenians were justifiably slaughtered, to make doing so a crime is a mistake, pure and simple.

Like reading statutes in German? Yeah, me too. Here you go.

Peak-oil theorists could use a hug

2007-03-05T04:03:00.000-05:00

Peak-oil scaremongers won't like this article in the IHT, which notes that improved recovery techniques allow older oil fields to continue producing long after they were expected to be "dry", thus adding more oil to useful reserves.

Secondary and tertiary recovery methods meant--to peak-oil theorists--that a field would soon be depleted. Given that many giant fields are using such methods, the peak oil types predicted that we would soon race past the point when 50% of the world's oil would have been produced. The problem is that they based their predictions on old fashioned recovery estimates.

[...] Within the last decade, technology advances have made it possible to unlock more oil from old fields, and, at the same time, higher oil prices have made it economical for companies to go after reserves that are harder to reach. With plenty of oil still left in familiar locations, forecasts that the world's reserves are drying out have given way to predictions that more oil can be found than ever before.

The oil industry is well known for seeking out new sources of fossil fuel in far-flung places, from the icy plains of Siberia to the deep waters off West Africa. But now the quest for new discoveries is taking place alongside a much less exotic search that is crucial to the world's energy supplies. [...]

As the industry improves its ability to draw new life from old wells and expands its forays into ever-deeper corners of the globe, it is providing a compelling rebuttal in the long-running debate over when the world might run out of oil.

Some forecasters, studying data on how much oil is used each year and how much is believed to be still in the ground, have argued that at some point between 2005 and 2010, global oil production will peak — if it has not already — and begin to fall. That drop would usher in an uncertain era of shortages, price spikes and economic decline.

But many oil executives say that these so-called peak-oil theorists fail to take into account the way that sophisticated technology, combined with higher prices that make searches for new oil more affordable, are opening up opportunities to develop supplies.

After all, for each barrel of oil that is produced globally, two barrels of oil usually are left behind. Going after these neglected resources, energy experts say, represents a tremendous opportunity.

"Ironically, most of the oil we will discover is from oil we've already found," said Lawrence Goldstein, an energy analyst at the Energy Policy Research Foundation, an industry-financed group. "What has been missing is the technology and the threshold price that will lead to a revolution in lifting that oil." [...]

Initially, engineers expected to recover only 10 percent of the [Kern river] field's oil. Now, thanks to decades of trial and error, Chevron believes it will be able to recover up to 80 percent of the oil from the field, nearly twice the industry's average recovery rate, which is typically around 35 percent. [...]

Chevron hopes to use the knowledge it has obtained from this vast open-air, and underground, laboratory and apply it to similar heavy oil fields around the world. It is also planning a large pilot program to test the technology in an area between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, for example. [...]

Oil companies have been perfecting so-called secondary and tertiary recovery methods — injecting all sorts of exotic gases and liquids into oil fields, including water and soap, natural gas, carbon dioxide and even hydrogen sulfide, a foul-smelling and poisonous gas.

"Discoveries are not the only way that our resource base grows," said Scott Neumann, Exxon Mobil's corporate planning manager. "It will require lots of investments and it will require the application of technology, but we're very confident that we're not at or near a peak in production."

Now it looks as if the peak oil types will have to recalculate, again.

Magnet therapy shown to be hogwash

2007-03-05T03:43:00.000-05:00

Believe that magnets can cure aches, pains and are generally beneficial? A recent study in Anesthesia and Analgesia should help disabuse you of such foolishness.

The well designed study checked whether magnets are able to relieve post operative pain. Result: magnets worked no better than did a placebo.

An accompanying editorial lays in to the magnet craze (the full editorial is provided as it otherwise is unavailable unless one has access through a subscription; internal links were removed):

In this issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, Cepeda et al. present the results of a well-designed, randomized, double-blind trial showing that magnets fail to decrease pain in postoperative patients. At first glance, the reader might be tempted to dismiss the results as a boring waste of valuable time. Why should a journal even bother to publish a study if the treatment under investigation does not work? The reason is that negative results are often as important as positive findings. This is one of those cases.

As described by Cepeda et al., magnet merchants have flooded the market with magnets of all shapes and prices. A Google search of "miracle magnet therapy" (without quotes) returned about 521,000 distinct Internet references. If the first 10 references are any indication, magnets are being hawked for all varieties of healing wonders. Google's sponsored links include promotions to "End Pain with Magnets," and "Magnetic Therapy USA Made, as recommended by Kevin Trudeau," (whose claims include a relationship between pH, health, and cancer that will surprise many anesthesiologists, accustomed as they are to arterial blood gas analysis).

The evidence offered on the Internet to support claims about magnets is typically based on testimonials from athletes and celebrities, associated with pictures of kindly men in white coats with "MD" emblazoned on the pocket. As documented by Cepeda et al., it is crystal clear that billions of dollars have already been spent on magnet therapy, or perhaps, wasted on magnet therapy. To be blunt, there is no proven benefit to magnet therapy.

Governmental agencies worldwide have done little to regulate the international magnet therapy industry. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has authority to regulate magnets only if specific medical claims are made. To quote the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological health, "Magnets marketed with medical claims are considered to be medical devices because they are promoted to treat a medical condition or to affect the structure or function of the body ... To date, the FDA has not cleared for marketing any magnets promoted for medical uses". To skirt the requirements of the law, magnet promoters often make only the vaguest of claims. The FDA statement continues, "Significant claims that are likely to trigger regulatory action include, but are not limited to, treatment of cancer, Human Immunodeficiency Virus, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, asthma, arthritis, and rheumatism." Sadly, it appears that pain therapy does not count as a significant claim to trigger FDA enforcement.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has weighed in on magnets for pain therapy. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is perhaps the most controversial division of the NIH. NCCAM bends over backwards to keep an open mind to all types of "alternative" therapy. Nevertheless, NCCAM concluded in their research report "Questions and Answers About Using Magnets to Treat Pain" that "Scientific research so far does not firmly support a conclusion that magnets of any type can relieve pain. However, some people do experience some relief. Various theories have been proposed as to why, but none has been scientifically proven. Clinical trials in this area have produced conflicting results. Many concerns exist regarding the quality and rigor of the studies conducted to date, leading to a call for additional, higher-quality, and larger studies."

The Cepeda et al. article is an exemplary answer to the NIH's call for higher-quality studies. Exactly what did Cepeda et al. do? They used an appropriate study design, including stratified randomization, concealment of allocation, and masking with sham devices. What did they find? Perhaps not surprisingly, when properly studied under controlled conditions, magnets had no effect whatsoever. Indeed, Figure 3 in the Cepeda et al. article is a veritable poster child of what "no effect" looks like in a clinical trial. How did they publish their findings? They submitted the findings to a peer-reviewed journal, where experts in pain management evaluated their clinical trial design, study power, outcome measurements, and statistical analysis, and found them acceptably rigorous by contemporary scientific standards.

Will this be the end of magnet therapy? Certainly not. Sellers of "healing magnets" tout their products with almost religious zeal. There are too many claims, to much hokum, for a scientific study to have much impact. For example, nothing in the Cepeda et al. study disproves the efficacy of magnets for blepharitis: "Apply N side of small magnets to closed eye lids. Wash with North pole water". A convert to magnetic therapy might concede that this study demonstrates that magnets do not decrease postoperative incisional pain, but will claim that it says nothing about any other types of pain.

Though this is not an entirely vapid criticism, it places the burden of proof on the scientific community to disprove claims of magnet efficacy. It is like saying, "you have proved that magnets do not decrease incisional pain; now you must prove that they do not decrease leg pain, arm pain, head pain, neck pain, back pain, foot pain, stomach pain, joint pain, etc., etc." This is incorrect. The burden of proof is on the claimant to show efficacy. The burden of proof is not on the rest of the scientific community to show lack of efficacy. Although the burden of proof was not on them, Cepeda et al. still tackled this question with a rigorous self-funded study. Of course, such studies are likely to be self-funded, as magnet mongers have little to gain from high-quality research.

Randomized clinical trials such as the study of Cepeda et al. are one way to deal with the outrageous claims of magnet purveyors. Another way is to go back to the basic sciences and investigate whether or not healing via magnets is possible, even theoretically. Surprisingly, the answer appears to be no. Almost all magnetic "healing" devices use "static" magnets like those used to attach Johnny's homework to your refrigerator door. When dealing with magnets, the word "static" means nonmoving. It has nothing to do with static electricity. Moving magnets can create electric fields and electromagnetic radiation that could theoretically have an effect on living tissue. A nonmoving static magnet produces only a magnetic field. Now, here is the key point: there is no evidence that magnetic fields have any significant effect, therapeutic or otherwise, on human tissue. You may respond by wondering "Wait a minute, what about the iron in our blood?" Fortunately, the iron in hemoglobin is not ferromagnetic. In other words, iron as it is configured in hemoglobin is not affected by magnets. This is quite fortunate for the millions of people who have been exposed to powerful magnetic fields during magnetic resonance imaging scans. If hemoglobin were ferromagnetic, then they would explode in the scanner. Perhaps, the lucky ones would only spin around in circles.

Even if magnets did have some effect on human tissue, what is the likelihood that it would be a healing effect? About zero. By analogy, of the approximately ten million known chemical compounds, only a few have healing effects. The vast majority, thousands upon thousands, are highly toxic. How many products on the shelves of Home Depot or Lowes would you like to taste test? If static magnets had any effect on human tissue there is no reason to believe that it would be a healing effect.

Anesthesiologists are experts in the management of pain. Anesthesiologists are trained in pain management. Many work in pain management clinics. As the name Anesthesia & Analgesia suggests, anesthesiologists are world-class pain researchers. The results presented by Cepeda et al. in this issue will be of special interest to the readers of Anesthesia & Analgesia. Patients interested in evidence-based medicine may find these results via Google, helping to dilute the hokum with real science. For readers wanting more information, a brief and very interesting review of magnet therapy can be found at the Quackwatch.org Internet site.

More Airbus woes; this time their air freighter

2007-03-02T14:44:00.000-05:00

Airbus won't even make a freighter version of its super jumbo A380 any time soon after UPS--its one remaining customer--insisted on including an opt-out clause in its agreement to buy the planned freighter version.

Previously Fed Ex had cancelled its order for ten of the monster planes.

Airbus' decision opens the door for Boeing's revamp of the venerable 747. It can expect scores if not hundreds of orders now that it owns the market in the near and middle term. Presumably Airbus realized it could not compete with the much lower costs of the 747. In any case, Airbus needs to keep its focus on producing the A380 and the A350 planes. Freighters would only distract them.

Switzerland mistakenly invades Liechtenstein

2007-03-02T14:31:00.000-05:00

Oops. The Swiss master plan for European domination was nearly prematurely revealed yesterday when Swiss soldiers invaded neighboring Liechtenstein for a few hours before realizing the "go" signal hadn't been given.

With key troops already in Rome (Vatican guards), the Swiss are quietly infiltrating elite units into other nations in preparation for a long planned power grab.

Perhaps I've revealed too much. If this blog goes dark, you'll know why.

Significant musical anniversaries

2007-03-02T08:40:00.000-05:00

Last year saw the celebration of the 250th year of Mozart's birthday. This year has already brought two other anniversaries--albeit one a bit more important than the other.

Opera as a genre just commemerated the 400th anniversary of the first opera ever written, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo.

Last week saw the celebration of Austrian popstar's Falco's 50th birthday--at least it would have been had he lived. I was in Vienna last week and the airwaves and music stores were wall to wall with Falco.

Needless to point out, but Austria has lost a bit of its cultural oomph over the past couple of centuries.

Zimbabwe sinks lower

2007-02-07T05:09:00.000-05:00

The ultra-slow motion disaster that is Zimbabwe continues. It remains a horrible fascination for me to watch as Tyrant in Chief Bob Mugabe slowly and inexorably grinds his once prosperous and healthy nation into dust.

The IHT has the latest round-up of grim news, along with a glimmer of hope: his own party is beginning to make noises of disapproval.

For close to seven years, Zimbabwe's economy and quality of life have been in slow, uninterrupted decline. They are still declining this year, people there say, with one notable difference: The pace is no longer so slow.

Indeed, Zimbabwe's economic descent has picked up so much speed that President Robert Mugabe, the nation's ruler for the past 27 years, is starting to lose support from parts of his own party.

In recent weeks, the national power authority has warned of a collapse of electrical service. A breakdown in water treatment has set off a new outbreak of cholera in the capital, Harare. All public services were cut off in Marondera, a regional capital of 50,000 in eastern Zimbabwe, after the city ran out of money to fix broken equipment. In Chitungwiza, just south of Harare, electricity is supplied but four days a week. [...]

In the past eight months, "there's been a huge collapse in living standards," Iden Wetherell, an editor of the weekly Zimbabwe Independent, said in a telephone interview, "and also a deterioration in the infrastructure — in standards of health care, in education. There's a sort of sense that things are plunging." [...]

The cause of the latest crisis? Hyperinflation. It currently runs over 1,200%/month. Not to worry, though, Mugabe--in a stunning King Canute moment--has decared inflation to be illegal.

The central bank's latest response to these problems, announced this week, was to declare inflation illegal. From March 1 to June 30, anyone who increases prices or wages will be arrested and punished. Only a "firm social contract" to end corruption and restructure the economy will bring an end to the crisis, said the reserve bank governor Gideon Gono.

The speech by Gono, a favorite of Mugabe, was broadcast nationally. In central Harare, the last half was blacked out by a power failure. [...]

Many experts now believe that Zimbabwe faces a political showdown within months, as the governing bodies of ZANU-PF wrangle over whether to grant Mugabe an extended term or to put less-radical members of the ruling party in power. Few expect a democratic revolution; the one rival party, the Movement for Democratic Change, is riven by splits and lacks a competent leader. [....]

As is typical, only the threat of losing power (perhaps through revolution) is the most effective goad in such corrupt states.

More Germans emigrating

2007-02-06T06:43:00.000-05:00

A troubling statistic for many Germans: Germans leaving for other lands are outpacing Germans returning home. The angst involved seems to be caught up with how Germans see themselves, but the implications are concrete: the German brain drain continues.

There has been a steady exodus over the years, but it has recently become Topic A in a land already saddled with one of the most rapidly aging and shrinking populations of any Western nation. With evidence that more professionals are leaving than in past years, politicians and business executives are warning about the loss of the best and brightest. [...]

Demographic experts say, too, that the nature of the emigrants is changing. These are not just young, unskilled workers, like those who fled the economically blighted eastern part of Germany after the country was reunified in 1990 to work in restaurants in Austria or Switzerland.

They are doctors, engineers, architects and scientists — just the sort of highly educated professionals that Germany needs to compete with economic up-and-comers like China and India.

"It's not a problem of numbers as much as brain drain," said Reiner Klingholz, director of the Berlin Institute for Population and Development. "What we desperately need in the near future are talented and qualified people to replace those who will retire in 15 to 20 years." [....]

Here in Switzerland--the number one destination of emigré Germans--the hospitals are filled with excellent German physicians trained in Germany at great cost to the state. I saw the same thing in St. Louis. Aside from the loss of brain power, the costs of educating the emmigrants is painfully high. The article reports that 2,300 physicians left Germany in 2005. At an average cost of $500,000 to train each (which I believe to be a conservative estimate), the costs add up quickly. Moreover, the ones who leave are often the brightest and most ambitious.

Although not stated, I imagine the number one reason why Germans choose to leave: economic opportunities are better elswhere. Given their training, German professionals have enormous marketing advantages. Even if they intend to return after several years of working abroad, such plans are easily deferred or cancelled once they settle into their new land.

RINOs are rampant at Enrevanche

2007-02-06T06:17:00.000-05:00

The latest Carnival of the RINOs is up at Enrevanche. Barry did a great job ordering the posts and provided each with excellent commentary and visual aids (you'll have to click over to see what I mean).

Some things in Europe are timeless

2007-02-01T03:22:00.000-05:00

Like the French urge to appease:

President Jacques Chirac said in an interview that an Iran that possessed one or two nuclear weapons would not pose much of a danger, adding that if Iran were ever to launch a nuclear weapon against a country like Israel, it would lead to the immediate destruction of Tehran.

The remarks, made in an interview Monday with the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times and the weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur, were vastly different from stated French policy and from what Chirac repeatedly has said.

To his credit, he called back the journalists, admitted his mistake, and repeated the party line. Nevertheless, it shows how difficult it is for some nations to get over their history of capitulation. It's practically part of France's genome by now.

Of course, for France, there is also the possibility to reap financial rewards by being the first to accept Iran's soon to be nuclear status. They played the same coalition busting game with Iraq.

In the end it merely points up why France cannot be considered a trustworthy ally.

Another European constant: Italian men are flirts.

"Dear Editor," began a letter published Wednesday on the front page of La Repubblica, the newspaper that Silvio Berlusconi hates most. The scalding letter demanded a public apology from Berlusconi — and it was signed by his wife.

And so, a nation bored and a little down at its return to semi-normal politics woke to a truly juicy news cycle with an inescapable conclusion: In or out of power, Silvio Berlusconi may be reprehensible, but Italy cannot keep its eyes off him.

It turns out that the 70-year-old former prime minister, who recently had a pacemaker implanted, attended an awards ceremony last week and was overly friendly with two young and beautiful guests.

"If I weren't already married, I would marry you right now," he reportedly told one. And another: "With you I would go anywhere."

Just like Chirac, Berlusconi later retracted his statements, using a written, public apology to his wife. Good for her not to take his behavior any longer. His constant flirting and philandering must have been humiliating.

How to be a victim 101

2007-01-31T07:22:00.000-05:00

Short answer: make yourself one by claiming victimhood!

Top marks to the Muslim Council of Montreal for turning different cultural practices--some of them not even their own--into an attack on Islam.

A town in Quebec put out a statement noting that it frowns on stoning women to death (OK, this seems directed at Islam), female circumcism, burning women alive, and other pursuits, and expects new arrivals to abide by Canadian laws and standards.

Although provocative, Islam was not mentioned; moreover, the practice of burning women is associated with certain Hindus, not Muslims.

Nevertheless, it didn't stop the president of Montreal's Muslim council from being outraged:

[T]he president of the Muslim Council of Montreal, Salam Elmenyawi, condemned the council, saying it had set back race relations decades.

He told Reuters news agency: "I was shocked and insulted to see these kinds of false stereotypes and ignorance about Islam and our religion."

Just to inform him: Stoning women is accepted practice under Sharia law in the following countries (wikipedia 1, 2): Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Afganistan, Sudan, and parts of Nigeria. I imagine that most people agitating for the adoption of Sharia law in the west would include that aspect of Sharia.

French anti-Americanism now part of the presidential campaign

2007-01-31T04:33:00.000-05:00

Nicholas Sarkozy: Card carrying American neo-conservative? That's what French voters are being told by the Socialist party. Which in France is about as damning as finding a rat in the bouillabaisse.

The IHT's Roger Cohen has a piece ($) on France's anti-Americanism and how the Socialists have incorporated it into their campaign. Evidently, the Socialist party feels France is willing to swallow just about any tripe about America.

[...] Being the anti- France, the United States, it often seems, cannot be seen for what it is. So freighted is America with meaning, it ceases to be visible. It becomes an abstraction shaped by prejudice rather than a country intelligible through experience. It serves a purpose at the price of being severed from itself.

These reflections stirred on reading an eloquent example of Gallic delusion: the statement just published by Ségolène Royal's Socialist Party about Nicolas Sarkozy, her chief opponent in the French presidential election. This 87-page work amounts to a relentless exercise in Sarkozy-bashing through his depiction as that incarnation of menace: a card-carrying crypto-American.

Entitled "The Worrying 'Quiet Rupture' of Mr. Sarkozy," and displayed on Parti-socialiste.fr, the party's home page, the work begins by asking: "Is France ready to vote in 2007 for an American neo-conservative carrying a French passport?"

That gets the ball rolling. The party's core argument runs roughly as follows: America is bad, Sarkozy is its agent, ergo he is dangerous. The publication really has little more to say about Royal's center-right rival.

One chapter is entitled "Nicolas Sarkozy or the Clone of Bush." A memorable sentence, among many such gems, says: "Yesterday Europe was importing jeans, coke, rock 'n' roll and cinema from the United States. Now Nicolas Sarkozy is proposing that we import God!"

Apart from shipping God from Galveston to Dieppe and so destroying the lay French state, Sarko is accused of heading up "a sort of French subsidiary of Bush and company." He's said to manipulate the suffering of French Jews to partisan ends and to pander with equal unscrupulousness to the sensibilities of Catholics and Muslims.

"When one listens to Sarkozy, one would think one was listening to the evangelist George W. Bush addressing Hispanics of Catholic tradition in the last campaign," the pamphlet opines.

Really?

The Socialist Party portrait of American society evokes a place rotten to the core, stricken by obesity and a high murder rate, driving exploited workers to the limits of endurance, imprisoning 2 percent of its population, engaged in a failed affirmative action experiment that has only "made a racial issue of all problems," and beset by an ominous religious fervor.

The real U.S. unemployment rate, it is preposterously suggested, is not 5.1 percent, but 9 percent. America under Bush has no interest in international law because its sole international aim is "the promotion of the American empire."

The death penalty, torture, renditions, secret prisons, short or non-existent vacations, absent or expensive health care, a Darwinian labor market and the worship of "the individualist entrepreneur" complete this happy picture of France's ally.

"It is in this," the Socialists conclude triumphantly, "that Nicolas Sarkozy sees the future of French society!"

There are a couple of problems with all this. The first is that although some of the individual claims have some merit — a health care system that leaves more than 40 million people without insurance is a bad system — the composite picture is wildly distorted, a collage of doom and gloom.

The America in which French companies from Accor to Business Objects prosper, which grows and creates jobs in ways France can only dream of, which is restlessly self- transforming rather than irksomely self-obsessed, which has assured the postwar European security from which France and the European Union have benefited — this United States is nowhere to be seen.

The second is that although Sarkozy has been happy enough at times to don the mantle of the American agent provocateur — man of action, man of movement, man unafraid to suggest you should earn more for working more — he's been rowing back of late toward the Gaullist mainstream. In this light, Bush clone sounds like quite a stretch. [...]

"The Socialist line of attack is weaker now because Sarkozy is playing the neo-Gaullist rather than the liberal card," said Stephane Rozes, a political analyst. "Moreover, America is an ambivalent rather than negative image for many in France."

That ambivalence may be tending more positive as the end of the Bush era looms and the French are able to indulge their Kennedy fantasy — the perennial notion that some JFK-like figure, in this case Barack Obama, will emerge to personify the French idea of what America ought to be. [...]

The Socialists, in their Bush obsession, cite Sarkozy's reply to a question about how, if at all, Bush differs from him. "He's been elected president twice," is Sarko's pithy response.

Say what you like about the candidate of the Union for a Popular Movement, he looks the facts in the eye, more so at least than his America- mangling detractors.

That he does. God (or whatever secular abstract the Socialists wish to invoke) help France if Royal gets into power. Any hope of meaningful change will be lost.

Fortunately, the Socialists have a lot of scaring to do in this election. Sarkozy is running a better campaign and seems to understand the mood of the public on key questions such as immigration, and law and order.

Royal in contrast is making one blunder after another on the campaign trail, while offering only platitudes, nostrums, and other warm and fuzzy promises to care for the French people. No change is required is the sub-text of her campaign; France is perfect as it is, and only minor, painless tinkering is needed.

Biofuels not the panacea once thought

2007-01-31T03:45:00.000-05:00

File it under unexpected consequences. Going green isn't quite so easy, as advocates of palm oil as a biofuel have discovered, to their dismay. That palm oil based biofuels emit fewer green house gases is well known. However their increasing popularity has led to palms being planted and harvested in ways that add far more greenhouse gases than would be the case if petroleum had been substituted for palm oil.

Just a few years ago, politicians and green groups in the Netherlands were thrilled by the country's early and rapid adoption of "sustainable energy," achieved in part by coaxing electricity plants to use some biofuel — in particular, palm oil from Southeast Asia. [...]

But last year, when scientists studied practices at palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, this green fairy tale began to look more like an environmental nightmare.

Rising demand for palm oil in Europe brought about the razing of huge tracts of Southeast Asian rain forest and the overuse of chemical fertilizer there. Worse still, space for the expanding palm plantations was often created by draining and burning peat land, which sent huge amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

Factoring in these emissions, Indonesia had quickly become the world's third-leading producer of greenhouse gases that scientists believe are responsible for global warming, ranked after the United States and China, concluded a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both in the Netherlands.

"It was shocking and totally smashed all the good reasons we initially went into palm oil," said Alex Kaat, a spokesman for Wetlands, a conservation group.

Biofuels, long a cornerstone of the quest for greener energy, may sometimes produce more harmful emissions than the fossil fuels they replace, scientific studies are finding.

As a result, politicians in many countries are rethinking the billions of dollars in subsidies that have indiscriminately supported the spread of all of these supposedly "eco-friendly" fuels, for use in power vehicles and factories. The 2003 European Union Biofuels Directive, which demands that all member states aim to have 5.75 percent of transportation fueled by biofuel in 2010, is now under review.

"If you make biofuels properly, you will reduce greenhouse emissions," said Peder Jensen, of the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen. "But that depends very much on the types of plants and how they're grown and processed. You can end up with a 90 percent reduction compared to fossil fuels — or a 20 percent increase."

"Its important to take a life cycle view," he said, and not to "just see what the effects are here in Europe." [...]

On the surface, the environmental equation that supports biofuels is simple: Since they are derived from plants, biofuels absorb carbon while they are grown and release it when they are burned. In theory that neutralizes their emissions.

But the industry was promoted long before there was adequate research, said Reanne Creyghton, who runs Friends of the Earth's anti-palm oil campaign in the Netherlands. "Palm oil was advertised as green energy, but there was no research about whether it was really sustainable." [...]

Moreover, the Europe driven demand for palm oil pressured local prices upward, to the extent that many families were unable to buy it for their food needs.

Oil needed by poor people for food was becoming too expensive for them. "We have a problem satisfying the Netherlands' energy needs with someone else's food resources," said Creyghton of Friends of the Earth. [...]

Those Indonesian fires that are periodically in the news? Palm oil cultivation seems at least partly to blame.

In recent years Indonesia has been plagued by polluting wildfires so intense that they send thick clouds of smoke over much of Asia. [...]

Yet another case of something working well in theory, but not in practice. The reckless production of palm oil problem can be solved, but probably at costs that prevent the wide scale adoption of palm oil.

Diversity doesn't unite

2007-01-30T04:17:00.000-05:00

Good piece in today's Telegraph on the problems of taking diversity too seriously. The author rails against the multi-culti desire to *celebrate* differences to the point where anything goes. His call to end overt displays of other cultures goes too far, in my opinion, but otherwise he hits the mark with his essay.

An important and timely study published by the Policy Exchange think tank yesterday finds that young British Muslims are much more likely to be drawn to radical Islam than their parents. Thirty-seven per cent of 16- to 24-year-olds would prefer to live under Sharia law than the laws of this country. These findings may not come as a surprise: many will remember an NOP poll last August which reported that 45 per cent of British Muslims believed that 9/11 was an American-Israeli conspiracy. But it's important continually to draw attention to the disease of Islamic extremism in Britain in order to motivate a Government, long on rhetoric, to take decisive action.

For what it's worth, the authors, Munira Mirza, Abi Senthilkumaran and Zein Ja'far, are, well, not quite white supremacists. They indicate, rather, a growing number of British Asians, such as myself, who are critical of multiculturalism, the race relations industry and the peculiar culture of celebrating diversity. The report advocated that "people should be entitled to equal treatment as citizens in the public sphere, with the freedom to also enjoy and pursue their identities in the private sphere". But what we have seen in Britain over the last two decades is a fetish for celebrating our differences in the public sphere. [...]

Trevor Phillips has spoken of Britain ''sleepwalking into segregation". It seems to me that we have unthinkingly accepted the notion that celebrating our differences takes us closer to overcoming them. Our differences are not what bind us together as a people. If anything, we speak of these differences as things which need to be bridged. Anyone who has worked in the field of international development, as I have, will tell you that nation-building in states that are ethnically homogenous, all other things being equal, is an easier task than nation-building where there is diversity. Iraq is a case in point. We have our work cut out in Britain but the task of bringing about integration is not impossible. Calling attention to differences does not help.

This has been one of the worst effects of the pernicious doctrine of multiculturalism. The fetish of celebrating differences found champions in the radical Left in Britain in the Eighties among people who regarded themselves as counter-cultural or subversive, particularly many employed in local government, and who projected their own fixation with difference on to others. Successive British governments over the past two decades have taken up and promoted multiculturalism so that even today we hear it in the rhetoric of politicians.

When Tony Blair said last December that immigrants should sign up to British values – "belief in democracy, the rule of law, tolerance, equal treatment for all, respect for this country and its shared heritage" – he was striking the right note. In the same speech, however, he also said that we should celebrate our diversity. The Prime Minister strives, as ever, to be all things to all people.

But one group to which he need no longer pander are the multiculturalists, for only the deluded would today promote a dogma that has demonstrably caused enormous harm. He should jettison the language of celebrating diversity and speak unambiguously and clearly about the need to integrate. Moreover, taxpayers' money should have no part in keeping people divided. We need to question the value of a vast race relations industry that churns out with every passing fad of public policy some initiative that only reinforces our differences. We need to question – there are no sacred cows – whether diversity awareness training is doing more harm than good. Some things are not negotiable and we need to be very clear about those.

David Cameron, to his immense credit, drew attention yesterday to the oppression of women in some sections of the Muslim community.

Disturbingly, yesterday's report found that 74 per cent of young Muslims would rather Muslim women wore the hijab. These differences need to be highlighted because they are antithetical to British values.

Let's be clear about something. Ceasing to ''celebrate difference" does not mean that an immigrant cannot hold on to his heritage. It is not a zero-sum game. The key point is that difference is not something we should be revelling in within the public sphere.

What you do in your own home, barring egregious violations of the rights of others (such as the abuse of women), is your own business. We need to move towards a culture in which celebrating diversity beyond the home is widely seen as divisive. To this end, the role of government must be limited. First, it must ensure that taxpayers money is not being spent in ways that promote difference. This means looking at the provision of translation and interpretation services, as well as looking at the way money is being spent in schools, libraries, hospitals and social services, and the provision of English language teaching.

Second, the rhetoric of politicians and opinion-formers must move away from focusing on our differences. The current problem arises from a real threat presented by extremists within the Islamic community. The message to these extremists and those who are in a position to influence their thinking must be a clear one, yes, of inclusion but inclusion only on Britain's terms. When politicians talk of celebrating differences that message becomes confused. This does not mean we should be searching for things we have in common: Islamic extremists and the great majority of Britons share very little in terms of values.

Instead, politicians and opinion-formers need to assert loudly and clearly the call for integration and that means celebrate diversity, by all means, but only in the home. [....]

One thing I would add: explicit criticism of those who want to impose their differences on the rest. Calls for Sharia law in Britain, for example. That is where mult-culti has led to.