Preparing for doom

The Norwegians really are preparing to build a "doomsday vault" to keep seed in? Very nice of them, but why would Norway in particular do this?

The decline of Christian Europe

Interesting article in The Times about the number of Christian churches closing, and mosques opening, in England:

Just one tenth of the nation’s Christians attends church, and churches are now closing faster than mosques are opening. Practising Muslims will, in a few decades, outnumber practising Christians if current trends continue.

Very "Mark Steyn" territory.

Big Mac economics

The Economist publishes its Big Mac index again.

I note that Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Switzerland all have greatly over-priced Big Macs. Indonesia and Thailand are some of the cheapest around. Why does cold weather make
hamburgers more expensive?

In Japan, even the underworld is polite

I am not sure that you would see this degree of co-operation in, say, the Mafia:

The nation's two largest underworld syndicates reached a truce Thursday following recent shootings that sparked fears of a full-scale turf war and prompted police to raid one of the groups believed involved in the violence.

Kobe-based Yamaguchi-gumi and Tokyo-based Sumiyoshi-kai separately reported to the Metropolitan Police Department on Thursday afternoon that they made peace in the wake of Monday's gunning down of a senior Sumiyoshi-kai member, MPD officials said.

Investigators hope the recent violence -- believed part of a turf war between the two crime syndicates -- will halt with Thursday's truce, but said they will continue to monitor the mob's activities.

Nice of them to keep everyone informed.

From another part of the Japan Times, there is an article about the number of Yakuza the police know about:

Full-time yakuza numbered 41,500, while part-timers or semiregular members -- those not directly affiliated with the mob -- increased slightly to 43,200. In 1991, there were an estimated 63,800 full-time mobsters, and some 27,200 part-timers.

In reality, yakuza are appearing to detach themselves from full-time mob activity by engaging in business, political or social activities in a bid to camouflage their underworld affiliation, the NPA said.

This yakuza system is difficult to understand from the Western point of view. It seems extremely well tracked by the police, which makes it sound semi-tolerated. I should go looking around the internet for some background information...

Edwards doomed

Huffington Post is linking to a story that says John Edwards has not sacked Marcotte & McEwen.

If they survive, Edwards is dead in the water, as far as Presidential aspirations go.

By the way, few seem to have noticed this column in Huffington Post that came out shortly after Michelle Malkin had the hide to point out how offensive Marcotte & McEwen had been in their blogs. Here's an extract from the HP column:

The basic story is that uber-moronic Right-tards such as Michelle Malkin, whose IQ has been in an internment camp for the better part of her life, thinks it's really bad that Amanda said words like "fuck" on her blog.

(As if Malkin's criticism was about the use of one word.)

How much sense does it make to answer criticism of immature, intemperate and offensive expression of political views by making your own immature, offensive and intemperate attack?

Now for a discouraging Iraq story

From The Times, a Sunni doctor tells about why he left the country.

But then again, the deputy Health Minister is arrested for supporting murder.

There seems a chance of improvement, at least.

Some slight optimism

There's an interesting IHT report about how things have improved in Sadr City in Baghdad. What's most important, perhaps, is the indication that the Mahdi Army seems more co-operative than before:

Sadr officials — seemingly determined to bleach clean the Mahdi image — said that the militia's members would disarm temporarily during the Baghdad security plan. Even if Sunnis attacked, even if American and Iraqi troops arrested Mahdi commanders, they said, the militia would not fight.

"Whatever the provocation, with the surge against us or anything else, we will not kidnap anyone or take revenge by ourselves," said Daraji, the Sadr City mayor, who has been negotiating with American and Iraqi government officials over the role of the militia. "We will leave everything to the government."

Of course, if things go back to shooting Americans after the security crackdown, little will have been achieved. And, as the article points out, Sunni areas are being left without services, which presumably encourages Sunni insurgency.

Ah well, I still take some slight encouragement from the story.

First reaction: not enough toilets

Airbus took 200 journalists on a spin in the new super-gigantic A380.

From the IHT report:

The novelty began at the gate, which offered upper- and lower-deck access to the plane. Emirates, the largest customer for the A380, plans to put premium and economy-class seats on separate decks — as on an ocean liner — allowing people to board from their VIP lounges.

I can see a new version of Titanic in this. Except I guess I would generally feel safer on the lower deck this time (unless they had to evacuate the aircraft.)

But the crucial thing about long distance flight is the number of toilets:

Packed full of seats, the A380 can seat up 840 people. Airbus used this plane for evacuation drills last year, and it said all 840 were able to pile out in 78 seconds. It is not clear what would happen if they needed to use the toilet simultaneously.

Speaking of toilets, there were 15 on this A380, including one in the first-class cabin that has a window above the commode. Except for the view, its cramped confines did not invite loitering.

Let's see, that is about one toilet for 56 people. Maybe even worse on the "economy" level. Can that be enough for a 840 person configuration?

Judging inequality

Tim Worstall has an interesting article on judging the morality of income inequality, especially when it comes to globalisation. His conclusion:

Leaving all other matters aside, we expect globalization to produce a rise in income inequality in the United States (and the other industrialized societies). We also expect it to raise incomes in the poor countries and thus reduce global income inequality. That does indeed seem to be what is actually happening.

Whether this is a good or a bad thing to be happening is another matter entirely, that depends upon our own moral senses....

....in this particular instance I find that my own answer is quite simple. Those poor who are getting richer in other countries are not moving from one level of luxury to a slightly higher one. They are moving from destitution, from not knowing where the next meal is coming from, to something close to a middle class income. They are doing this in their hundreds of millions, across the globe, and that has to be a good thing.

Note that he hasn't mentioned the issue of income mobility in the United States too, which is relevant to the morality argument too.

For all your camel milking needs...

go to Israel! Yes, even when it comes to camel milking systems (who knew there was a market for it?) Israel seems to lead the way in the Middle East. (The article notes that a company in Dubai bought a 48 camel milking system "largely manufactured" in Israel from an Israeli company. Israel and Dubai do not have diplomatic relations.)

Meanwhile, in Saudi Arabia, the ban on Israeli goods continues:

RIYADH, 4 January 2007 — Director General of Saudi Customs Saleh Al-Barak reiterated that the Saudi regulations do not permit the import of goods manufactured in Israel.

“The official regulation followed by every customs house at the Kingdom’s border crosspoints is a total ban on any goods of Israeli origin,” Al-Watan Arabic newspaper quoted Saleh Al-Barak as saying yesterday.

Anyone found breaking the regulation would be treated as a smuggler of contraband goods to the Kingdom and fined accordingly and the seized goods destroyed, the director general said.

Says something about the Middle East, doesn't it?

What happens when it rains?

Also in the Guardian, Katherine Hamnett gets very, very excited about concentrated solar power as a source of clean energy. (Just like the trial power station the Australian Federal government is helping to fund.)

Problem is, as far as I can see, the article says nothing about what happens if a protracted cloudy period covers the power stations. Still, if environmentalists don't go nuts about tens of square kilometres of desert being covered by mirrors, I guess it could help, provided you don't lose much of the benefit in the process of getting the electricity the hundreds of miles to where it is needed.

At least if you use solar power to do the direct electrolysis of water into hydrogen, you have something you can store to generate power later. Someone's looked at that, I assume?

Monbiot right

George Monbiot does have his weird obsessions (aircraft and CO2 for one), but he is sensible enough to get upset about loopy 9/11 conspiracies. Of course, for full enjoyment you should then read the comments of people who think George will "regret the day" he rubbished the idea.

On military commissions

There's a really good article at Frontpage providing background and history on the reasons for using military commissions for terrorist trials in the USA.

Sperm for the taking

Slate summaries a recent bizarre case of making babies from a dead man:

With court approval, Israeli parents are using their dead son's sperm to inseminate a woman he never knew. It appears to be the first explicit legal authorization to make a baby using a corpse and a stranger. Argument from the dead man's mother: "He would always talk about how he wanted to get married and have children." After he died, "His eyes he told me that it wasn't too late, and that there was still something to take from him. … Then I realized it was his sperm."

That last line is both funny and creepy.

Actually, the Chicago Tribune version of the story (linked to by Slate) gives some even weirder detail. After her son's death:

A year went by, and the bereaved mother saw her son in a dream. "He said, `What about my children? Why aren't you doing anything about it?'" Cohen said. "I woke up shaking and told my husband that we have to do something."

This has a quasi-biblical feel about it. A new form of virgin birth for a child heralded in a dream.

Completely indefensible action by the parents and court, in my opinion.

Bad astronaut?

A female astronaut seems to have gone nuts over a relationship issue:

A NASA astronaut is charged with attacking her rival for another astronaut's attention early Monday at Orlando International Airport, the Orlando Sentinel has learned.

Lisa Marie Nowak drove from Texas to meet the 1 a.m. flight of a younger woman who had also been seeing the male astronaut Nowak pined for, according to Orlando police.

It's all trenchcoats, stalking and other fun stuff. Lucky this is sorted out on the ground and not the shuttle!