Palestinian apologist ignores rockets

'Dispute' or 'occupation?' - Opinion - theage.com.au

The Age has a staff writer today come to Hamas' defence. Interesting that while the capture of CPL Shalit is mentioned (in a way to suggest that it is wrong to blame the Palestinian Authority for that), the continual rain of missiles from Gaza into Israel since the withdrawal from Gaza is not.

Question: why should Israel recognize the Hamas "government " when it acts as if it has no intention of policing itself to prevent terrorist attacks from Gaza into Israel?

That the "man in the street" in Gaza suffers to varying degrees from Israel's response is not really in doubt. But why don't they take the line that they have to show real self governance to prevent the counterproductive provocation? How hard would it be for a "real" government anywhere else in the world to have patrols to see where the missiles are being launched from, or built?

The column also says:

Hamas, meanwhile, has limited itself to de facto and not de jure recognition of Israel because it understands that the sovereignty which stands in need of recognition is not Israeli but Palestinian. Or, to put it another way, the question is not "is Israel?" but " where is Israel?"

To be honest, I don't quite follow what Hamas (or elements of it) have said recently about "de facto" recognition of Israel. But, as far as I know, no one is questioning that those towns now receiving missiles from Gaza are definitely Israeli towns.

UPDATE: for an opinion piece that does seem to talk realistically about the whole Palestinian problem, see this one in the Jerusalem Post. An extract:

I still believe what I've always believed - that Israel has no right to rule the Palestinians, that ruling them is bad, not good, for Israeli security, so it's both immoral and impractical for Israel to gobble up the only territory the Palestinians have for their own.

However, the belief I've lost is that the Palestinians are a basically rational, reasonable nation, that they can be talked into putting down their weapons and making peace with Israel - if not out of goodwill, than out of their own self-interest.

What I believe now is that only Israeli military deterrence, which will no doubt require the periodic use of force, can get the Palestinians to stop fighting.

I strongly recommend it. Pity it ends on such a pessimistic note, though.

Not smart Part II

IAF strikes school, Internal Ministry building in Gaza | Jerusalem Post

As a sign that at least certain elements in Gaza do not want any form of quick resolution to the crisis there, an even longer range missile is shot into Israel:

The attacks came after a Kassam rocket traversed a record range of 12 kilometers and landed Tuesday night for the first time in the heart of Ashkelon, sending the city's 120,000 residents into a state of fear that their city would be bombarded by rockets like Sderot has since the disengagement last summer.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert termed the Kassam attack a "grave escalation" for which Hamas is responsible and for which there will be far-reaching ramifications.

Taxing airplane gas in Europe

Air fares 'to double' as Europe votes for green tax - World - Times Online

From the above:

AIR passengers will be charged up to £40 extra for a return ticket within Europe to pay for the environmental impact of their journeys, under plans approved by the European Parliament yesterday.

MEPs voted in favour of the “immediate introduction” of a tax on jet fuel for flights within the 25 member states of the EU. The charge would double the cost of millions of budget airline flights.

This is going to go over a treat with the public.

Some more:

Andrew Sentance, BA’s head of environmental affairs, admitted that aviation could account for almost half of Britain’s total CO2 emissions by 2050, compared with 6 per cent today.

Something tells me that such figures are likely to be rubbery in the extreme.

Meanwhile, what is to be done about China and India?

Death of a parapsychologist

Guardian Unlimited | Obituaries | John Beloff

Anyone with more than a passing knowledge of parapsychology would have heard of the name of John Beloff. He's now off finding out first hand if there is life after death.

From his obituary above comes this piece of irony:

By the time Beloff visited Rhine, he was already acquiring a reputation as a psi-inhibitory experimenter - that is, an experimenter whose presence seemed to discourage the appearance of evidence for psychic functioning. None of his experiments yielded positive results.

He sounds just the right sort of person for this line of inquiry, though:

In an area where passions run high and opinions too often are guided by prejudice, Beloff relied on data and reason. He had no theistic inclinations; and always demonstrated an even-handed approach to the material and to opposing points of view. So although he never overtly encountered the paranormal first-hand, and although he never succeeded in obtaining evidence for psychic functioning in his own experiments, he saw no choice but to accept at least some of the evidence for ESP, PK, and survival of death.

Shuttle sightings

Thank God the shuttle launched successfully. A 4 July takeoff disaster would have attracted no end of commentary on the dire symbolism for the United States.

In Brisbane, there would seem to be many morning opportunities to see the shuttle in the next few days, and one evening opportunity low to the north. From the Nasa website comes this list for Brisbane (more details are at the site):

SHUTTLE
Wed Jul 12/05:44 AM
Thr Jul 13/06:05 AM
Fri Jul 14/04:55 AM
Sat Jul 15/05:17 AM
Sun Jul 16/05:39 AM
Tue Jul 18/04:52 AM
Wed Jul 19/06:20 PM

It is good to show it to young children.

The Alan Jones affair

Disputed book 'may out Jones' - Top stories - Breaking News 24/7 - NEWS.com.au

Well, Mike Carlton gives voice to the reasons that everyone must have already suspected were behind concerns that Master's biography of Alan Jones will attract a defamation action. (That sentence will make absolutely no sense to a reader from overseas.)

I have just a few comments:

1. Defenders of ABC left wing bias often allege that it is just balancing up the right wing media bias as demonstrated by Alan Jone's power. But, surely all moderately thoughtful right wingers, who generally hold down jobs and don't sit around listening to Sydney daytime radio, don't find Jones persuasive or very likeable, do they? And if he is seen to have political influence on "struggle town" listeners, aren't they are exactly the type who virtually never listen to or watch the ABC to get the counterbalance to the Alan Jones bias.

2. How anyone finds him even likeable as a media personality has long been beyond my understanding.

3. There is little explanation in the media of the point that in legal actions, the winning party is generally awarded costs (that is, they are to be paid by the loser). However, the way legal costs are done means that there is always a significant percentage of the total costs to the client that will not be recoverable from the loser. As a rough rule of thumb, I think this can be around 30% of the total costs, but probably it depends from case to case and in which jurisdiction. I imagine that if you have a bunch of QC's involved it might be higher, but I am just guessing.

Therefore it is not inconsistent to have a legal opinion saying that the ABC should win a defamation action, but still to have the commercial concern about how much money may be lost in defending it. As I take it that profit from Australian published books is not all that high (given the limited market), it seems reasonable grounds for concern for a commerical enterprise.

4. That said, it is easy for the likes of Phillip Adams to paint this as a case of political appointments to the ABC board acting politically. It would be good if they could defend themselves of that charge. (Does anyone know what the 3 most controversial members of the board think of Jones anyway?)

5. If the book is published by someone, which seems likely, then no one has been denied the dubious pleasure of reading the biography anyone. (And Chris Masters can stop moaning as if all his work is for nought.)

UPDATE: Oh. Keith Windshuttle has denied he was involved. Good.

The "rat community" gets uptight

1,000 pet rodents euthanized; rat lovers furious

From San Francisco comes a story which uses political language in a context that just makes me giggle. (There's also a twist that no journalist could resist):

Rat lovers were furious Wednesday that a Petaluma animal shelter had euthanized more than 1,000 of the rodents taken last week from a man who had been hoarding the creatures inside his home.

Roger Dier, 67, was cited for misdemeanor animal cruelty last week after animal control officers found hordes of squealing rats inside his dingy one-bedroom house in Petaluma. Nancee Tavares, the city's Animal Services manager, had promised to find homes for as many rats as possible but admitted Wednesday that some 1,020 of them had to be put down. ...

Rat fanciers, who had formed an e-mail chain called "petalumarats" in an attempt to find homes for the rodents, were horrified. The shelter was bombarded Wednesday with angry phone calls and e-mails. Most members of the rat lobby felt they had been misled.

"This is an unspeakable injustice to those rats who deserved better," Phyllis Mason, a self-described rat lover, wrote in an e-mail. "Why didn't the Petaluma Animal Shelter give us a chance to help? ..."

Tina Bird, of Campbell, said the rat community was in the process of mobilizing when the rodents were killed.

"Maybe they would have been better advised to leave the animals in their horrible conditions until we, the rat community, had a few days to get moving," she wrote in an e-mail...

Now for the odd connection:

She said Dier, a convicted armed robber who first gained notoriety when his home in Southern California was used as a hideout for two men later convicted in the 1963 plot to kidnap the son and namesake of Rat Pack leader Frank Sinatra, didn't seem like a bad guy, just a bit troubled.

"He's an intelligent man to talk to, but he smells like rat urine," Tavares said.

There are photos to the story too, if ever you wanted to see the effects of having a thousand rats lose in your house. (The rats themselves are pretty cute, in my books.)

Too late for the Schiavo family now

news @ nature.com�-'Miracle recovery' shows brain's resilience - Man who 'awoke' after 19 years shows how nerve cells can regrow.

The article above seems highly relevant to the Schiavo case, but it is no use now:

The amazing recovery of a man who had spent almost two decades in a barely conscious state has revealed the brain's previously unrecognized powers of recovery.

Terry Wallis became a media star in 2003 when he emerged from the minimally conscious state (MCS) in which he had spent 19 years, since suffering severe brain damage in a motor accident. At the time, his 'miracle' recovery was a mystery. Researchers who have examined his brain now think that his emergence was due to painstaking regrowth of the affected areas that ultimately allowed him to regain some of his faculties....

Neurologists are reluctant to declare that PVS, the condition at the centre of the controversial debate over US sufferer Terri Schiavo, can ever be truly permanent. Earlier this year, researchers made the bizarre discovery that some PVS patients could be roused with a simple sleeping pill (see 'Sleeping pills offer wake-up call to vegetative patients').

But the tendency is to assume that the chances of recovery trail off with time, an assumption that will be overturned by the latest discovery, Laureys hopes. "That's the real message," he says.

Having said that, the article does not suggest that such remarkable recoveries are ever likely to be anything other than rare. However, if in the Schiavo case there were no issues with the cost of her treatment, and a family who wanted to be actively involved in caring for her, it does seem a pity that they were denied the chance to see if she could recover.

At least they are having the debate

Hewitt cool on Catholic leader's call for abortion inquiry - Health - Times Online

Britain shows good sense in at least having a debate about late term abortion limits. (It is also interesting that the Catholic Church is involved, but not in any hysterical sense.) In Australia, late term abortion has trouble even making the agenda.

One other thing of interest from the above article: it refers to there being about 200,000 abortions a year in Britain. That's with a population of about 60,000,000. In Australia, the figures for abortion are a bit rubbery, but seem to be around 100,000 on a population base one third that of Britain.

Why is our rate seemingly so much higher?

What counts as a "heatwave" in Britain

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Britain set for 'blistering' weekend

From the above:

Weather forecasters today predicted that a mini-heatwave would hit the UK over the next few days, with temperatures in southern England set to reach the low 30s.

Temperatures across the UK will rise over the weekend, with England expected to get most of the dry, clear weather. They are predicted to reach 30C tomorrow and 32C on Sunday and Monday in southern England.

Cloudier conditions are expected from the Midlands to the north, but temperatures are still likely to reach 25C in Scotland by Monday.

Paul Knightley, a forecaster at the PA WeatherCentre, said temperatures would be "blistering over the next few days". "Everyone should remember to drink plenty of water, use suncream and don't sit in the sun too long," he said.

Pathetic! If I lived there, I would be praying for global warming.

Krauthammer on the Gaza crisis

TIME.com - Remember What Happened Here

Charles Krauthammer always talks bluntly about the Middle East, and his column on the Gaza crisis summarises the situation well.

One snippet that is particularly interesting is this (on the reason that rocket attacks on Israel have continued after the pull out from Gaza):

The logic for those continued attacks is to be found in the so-called phase plan adopted in 1974 by the Palestine National Council in Cairo. Realizing that they would never be able to destroy Israel in one fell swoop, the Palestinians adopted a graduated plan to wipe out Israel. First, accept any territory given to them in any part of historic Palestine. Then, use that sanctuary to wage war until Israel is destroyed.

I wonder what Palestinian supporters have to say about that.

Mark Steyn (and me) on the Supreme Court

Court finds a right to jihad in the Constitution

In the article above, Steyn strongly attacks one element of the US Supreme Court decision against the military commission process (namely, the application of a part of the Geneva Conventions to a captured al Qaeda member.)

His basic argument is a summary of part of the dissenting judges' opinion, which is well worth reading in the original. An extract (which makes more sense if you read Steyn's article first):

The President's interpretation of Common Article 3 is reasonable and should be sustained. The conflict with al Qaeda is international in character in the sense that it is occurring in various nations around the globe. Thus, it is also "occurring in the territory of" more than "one of the High Contracting Parties." The Court [the majority, I think this means] does not dispute the President's judgments respecting the nature of our conflict with al Qaeda, nor does it suggest that the President's interpretation of Common Article 3 is implausible or foreclosed by the text of the treaty. Indeed, the Court concedes that Common Article 3 is principally concerned with "furnish[ing] minimal protection to rebels involved in ... a civil war," ante, at 68, precisely the type of conflict the President's interpretation envisions to be subject to Common Article 3. Instead, the Court, without acknowledging its duty to defer to the President, adopts its own, admittedly plausible, reading of Common Article 3. But where, as here, an ambiguous treaty provision ("not of an international character") is susceptible of two plausible, and reasonable, interpretations, our precedents require us to defer to the Executive's interpretation.

The Australian media was full of "Howard should embarrassed" commentary on this, with Michelle Grattan particularly harsh:

Howard claims he is not embarrassed by the American judgement. He should be. In retrospect (and for that matter, at the time), the Government's November 2003 statement accepting the military commissions looks craven.

Maybe it would if 3 Supreme Court judges had not agreed with Howard and Bush. There is no acknowledgement in Grattan's article that it was a 5/3 split decision. Yes of course that is still a "win", but split decisions (or at least close ones) mean the losing side has not lost face completely.

And I suspect that any non lawyer reading it can see that the dissenting judgement is far from implausible in its reasoning. It was also expressed in strong terms. Take this opening paragraph:

On December 30, 2005, Congress enacted the Detainee Treatment Act (DTA). It unambiguously provides that, as of that date, "no court, justice, or judge" shall have jurisdiction to consider the habeas application of a Guantanamo Bay detainee. Notwithstanding this plain directive, the Court today concludes that, on what it calls the statute's most natural reading, every "court, justice, or judge" before whom such a habeas application was pending on December 30 has jurisdiction to hear, consider, and render judgment on it. This conclusion is patently erroneous. And even if it were not, the jurisdiction supposedly retained should, in an exercise of sound equitable discretion, not be exercised.....

And from way further down, where they consider the majority's other arguments even if they are right on the jurisdiction to hear issue:

We are not engaged in a traditional battle with a nation-state, but with a worldwide, hydra-headed enemy, who lurks in the shadows conspiring to reproduce the atrocities of September 11, 2001, and who has boasted of sending suicide bombers into civilian gatherings, has proudly distributed videotapes of beheadings of civilian workers, and has tortured and dismembered captured American soldiers. But according to the plurality, when our Armed Forces capture those who are plotting terrorist atrocities like the bombing of the Khobar Towers, the bombing of the U. S. S. Cole, and the attacks of September 11--even if their plots are advanced to the very brink of fulfillment--our military cannot charge those criminals with any offense against the laws of war. Instead, our troops must catch the terrorists "redhanded," ante, at 48, in the midst of the attack itself, in order to bring them to justice. Not only is this conclusion fundamentally inconsistent with the cardinal principal of the law of war, namely protecting non-combatants, but it would sorely hamper the President's ability to confront and defeat a new and deadly enemy.

Of course, I am no expert on US law, but a reading of the dissenting judgement does give the impression that it was the majority that was pushing the interpretative envelope here, not the dissenters.

National Review's editorial on the decision is white hot with anger, and having looked at the case now, I can see why. The editorial seems very well argued to me.

Bashir helps ensure peaceful outcome (not)

Indonesian cleric: Israel is the enemy | Jerusalem Post

The Jerusalem Post notes:

"Israel is the enemy of Allah," militant cleric Abu Bakar Bashir told hundreds of members of the Muslim-based Crescent Star Party in the capital Jakarta. "That is why Indonesia should send holy warriors there."

Bright ideas

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Lighting the key to energy saving

The article above notes how much electricity could be saved if lighting was more efficient.

I wonder if an authoritarian country like China could just ban the production and importation of incandesent bulbs as a way of saving on electricity. (They probably make most of the rest of the world's bulbs, though.)

Here's my personal theory: if nations legislatively banned 7-Eleven Stores from using so much internal lighting they are like being in the inside of the sun, there would be an immediate detectable reduction in global greenhouse gases.

(Is it just Australia, or are all 7-Eleven shops so painfully lit?)

Cats, toxoplasma & madness (again)

There have been a few more recent articles on cats and madness. (Another issue you can trust Opinion Dominion to follow for you.)

This article from the New York Times is mainly a look at research about how toxoplasma gondii spreads and works. It is a pretty weird infection:

Once Toxoplasma enters a host, it spreads quickly. Within hours it can be detected in the heart and other organs. It is even able to infect the brain, which is protected from most pathogens by a tight barrier.

Antonio Barragan ...[was] puzzled at first about how Toxoplasma managed this swift journey.

"When we looked for parasites in the blood, we found very few that were just swimming around," said Barragan, an associate professor. But the scientists observed many of the parasites inside immune cells known as dendritic cells.

Barragan was intrigued. Dendritic cells, common in the gut, often come into contact with pathogens. They respond by crawling to the lymph nodes or the spleen, where they communicate with other immune cells.

"That led us to think, what if this parasite is directing these cells to move and to disseminate through the body?" Barragan said. He and his colleagues put dendritic cells in a dish and injected them with Toxoplasma. They noticed that the parasites triggered a peculiar change: the dendritic cells became hyperactive, crawling for an entire day.

Erk.

Also, as noted on the web in many places, studies indicate that the infection in rats makes them lose their fear of cats. How this happens is very odd:

Scientists at Stanford University recently followed up on these experiments, studying rats and mice. "They actually show a mild attraction to the cat odor," said Ajai Vyas, a Stanford neurobiologist. "It's not just the loss of an old behavior. A new behavior is being induced."

Vyas and his colleagues found that Toxoplasma's effects were precisely aimed at cat odor. The rats were still afraid of dog odor but not of rabbit odor. They could also acquire new fearful responses. "Only the innate fear to the cat was different, which was very surprising," he said.

How Toxoplasma incites this change is a mystery. It is possible that the parasite alters the production of certain neurotransmitters. "But I don't know how some global change could have such a specific effect," Vyas said.

This article is a summary of research going on about schizophrenia and infections, with this comment on studies looking at the possible treatment for toxoplasma (and other infections) for those suffering schizophrenia symptoms:

...we are conducting several double-blind treatment trials that involve the use of adjunctive antibiotics and antiviral medications in persons with schizophrenia and bipolar illness. To date, these medications show some promise in patients with recent-onset disease. The results are less remarkable in persons with long-standing illness. In the future, it might even be possible to develop a vaccine to protect children against possible infections that contribute to these 2 mental illnesses.

Even with what is known today, in clinical settings, some patients who present initially with symptoms suggestive of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder could instead be in the initial stages of viral encephalitis. Some physicians would argue that patients with first-admission psychosis should have a lumbar puncture and CSF analysis, adding other studies as appropriate if indicated by an increase in CSF protein or lymphocytes.

If you feel you are going mad, maybe this should be suggested to your doctor. Just don't mention that you read it on a blog.

The pomegranate cure

ScienceDaily: Pomegranate Juice Helps Keep PSA Levels Stable In Men With Prostate Cancer

The report above seems to show strong results from pomegranate juice in helping men with prostate cancer. Not a cure, but a significant help. (At the end of the report, it would seem that the study was paid for by a pomegranate grower, but still...)

Who thought of pomegranates as a possible important help for prostate cancer in the first place? I will check around the internet later.

Jellyfish will save the planet!

ScienceDaily: Jellyfish-like Creatures May Play Major Role In Fate Of Carbon Dioxide In The Ocean

Previously this blog covered the importance of krill poo as a CO2 sink. Now (see the above link) it's jellyfish poo too:

Transparent jellyfish-like creatures known as salps, considered by many a low member in the ocean food web, may be more important to the fate of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the ocean than previously thought.

In the May issue of Deep Sea Research, scientists report that salps, about the size of a human thumb, swarming by the billions in “hot spots” may be transporting tons of carbon per day from the ocean surface to the deep sea and keep it from re-entering the atmosphere. Salps are semi-transparent, barrel-shaped marine animals that move through the water by drawing water in the front end and propelling it out the rear in a sort of jet propulsion. The water passes over a mucus membrane that vacuums it clean of all edible material....

“Salps swim, feed, and produce waste continuously,” Madin said. “They take in small packages of carbon and make them into big packages that sink fast.”

In previous work, Madin and WHOI biologist Richard Harbison found that salp fecal pellets sink as much as 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) a day. The scientists also showed that when salps die, their bodies also sink fast—up to 475 meters (1,575 feet) a day, faster than most pellets. If salps are really a dead-end in the food web and remain uneaten on the way down, they could send even more carbon to the deep.

Who else can readers trust to keep them up to date on the developing science of marine poo?

Death by asteroid later this century?

Friday 13th asteroid a close call - National - smh.com.au

Most readers have probably heard of the asteroid that is due to zip past earth tomorrow, fortunately at a safe distance. However, as the short story above notes:

But astronomers fear Earth could be in very real danger on Friday, April 13, 2029, when another 400-metre-wide asteroid, called Apophis, is predicted to pass at a distance of just 35,000 kilometres.

"If an asteroid [that big] hit Earth it could destroy an area half the size of NSW," Dr Nick Lomb of Sydney Observatory said.

Apart from direct destruction, the effect on the climate would presumably be enormous for some years.

Wikipedia has a pretty detailed entry about Apophis:

As of February 2005 it is predicted that the asteroid will pass just below the altitude of geosynchronous satellites, which are at 35,786 km (22,300 mi).

Now that is close. But it could get worse:

A pass on April 13, 2036 still carries some risk.

Apophis remains at level one on the Torino scale because of a very low but non-zero probability of impact in 2036. However, the close approach in 2029 will substantially alter the object's orbit, making predictions uncertain without more data. "If we get radar ranging in 2013 [the next good opportunity], we should be able to predict the location of 2004 MN4 out to at least 2070." said Jon Giorgini of JPL [3].

So I guess we have some years notice. What worries me is if the close visit in 2029 causes enough of a change in orbit for it to hit in 2036, that is only 7 years to do something about it.

And if it hits Earth, how much energy will it release?:

NASA initially estimated the energy that Apophis would have released if it impacted Earth as the equivalent of 1480 megatons of TNT (114,000 times the energy from the nuclear bomb Little Boy, dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan). A more refined later NASA estimate was 880 megatons, which is still around 65,500 times the energy of the bomb mentioned above. The impacts which created the Barringer Crater or caused the Tunguska event are estimated to be in the 10-20 megaton range. The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was the equivalent of roughly 200 megatons.

So about 40 times bigger than Tunguska, which according to Wikipedia, caused damage over an area of 2,150 square kilometers.

Start building your kid's asteroid shelters now. I'm sure a good one takes a lot of time.

Bjorn Lomborg on priorities

The Observer | Comment | Climate change can wait. World health can't

Nothing particularly new in Bjorn's article above (talking mainly of the "Copenhagen Consensus") but he is always interesting to read.

I note that the Wikipedia entry on the Copenhagen Consensus quotes criticisms of it by bearded blogger economist John Quiggan.

On Islam in Leeds

Focus: Undercover on planet Beeston - Sunday Times - Times Online

This is an interesting article by a British Muslim journalist who went "undercover" in Leeds for 6 weeks to get a feeling for the
Islamic community there.

The journalist does not try very hard to make it clear how widespread the more radical opinions are held, but it is disturbing enough.