Son of Apollo
You might have noticed the Air & Space Smithsonian magazine currently in newstands in Australia has a cover story on the new lunar lander being developed. (I always like the covers, but don't buy the magazine often.) The story is on line (link above.)
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Friday, June 16, 2006
Cat out of the bag
Iran would 'use nuclear defense' if threatened | Jerusalem Post
From the story above:
Iran's defense minister on Thursday vowed that his country would "use nuclear defense as a potential" if "threatened by any power."
Speaking following a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Hassan Ali Turkmani in Teheran on Thursday, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar emphasized that Iran "should be ready for confronting all kinds of threats."
Teheran has denied accusations by the US and its allies that Iran was seeking uranium enrichment technologies in order to develop nuclear weapons, saying its program was only meant to generate electricity.
From the story above:
Iran's defense minister on Thursday vowed that his country would "use nuclear defense as a potential" if "threatened by any power."
Speaking following a meeting with his Syrian counterpart Hassan Ali Turkmani in Teheran on Thursday, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar emphasized that Iran "should be ready for confronting all kinds of threats."
Teheran has denied accusations by the US and its allies that Iran was seeking uranium enrichment technologies in order to develop nuclear weapons, saying its program was only meant to generate electricity.
This is Modern Art
Let us pray at the Church of the Missing Head - Comment - Times Online
A funny/serious criticism of what passes for Art in Britain now:
There is no reason why anyone even vaguely familiar with the risible modus operandi of the contemporary art world should be surprised at what happened to David Hensel’s sculpture of a laughing head entitled One Day Closer to Paradise. He submitted it to the academy but, in the course of transit, it got mistakenly separated from its plinth. The empty plinth was judged on its own merit to be worthy of exhibition, while the sculpture itself was rejected.
Sounds hard to believe, but it seems to be serious.
As the article then explains:
When, in 1917, Marcel Duchamp handed down his great commandment that, henceforth, anything can be art, he unwittingly kicked off a new religion. He supplied generations of talentless students (and professors) with a charlatan’s charter. The brainless fanatics of this simple creed are now teaching in every art school in the country. Indeed, we’ve been suffering this intolerant and prescriptive orthodoxy for decades because, under the auspices of the new faith’s high priests at the Tate and the Arts Council, this religion, state-funded needless to say, runs all aspects of contemporary art on our behalf. ....
For those of us who are completely baffled by the decisions of the State Art religion, the Arts Council has recently supplied a handbook called Culture Matters. In its pages we are informed that, to qualify for Arts Council support, art must be “challenging”, because the Arts Council only believes in something called “Challenging Contemporary Art”. It sees its job not as promoting excellence across the whole range of contemporary styles but only in that corner that it deems “challenging”.
A funny/serious criticism of what passes for Art in Britain now:
There is no reason why anyone even vaguely familiar with the risible modus operandi of the contemporary art world should be surprised at what happened to David Hensel’s sculpture of a laughing head entitled One Day Closer to Paradise. He submitted it to the academy but, in the course of transit, it got mistakenly separated from its plinth. The empty plinth was judged on its own merit to be worthy of exhibition, while the sculpture itself was rejected.
Sounds hard to believe, but it seems to be serious.
As the article then explains:
When, in 1917, Marcel Duchamp handed down his great commandment that, henceforth, anything can be art, he unwittingly kicked off a new religion. He supplied generations of talentless students (and professors) with a charlatan’s charter. The brainless fanatics of this simple creed are now teaching in every art school in the country. Indeed, we’ve been suffering this intolerant and prescriptive orthodoxy for decades because, under the auspices of the new faith’s high priests at the Tate and the Arts Council, this religion, state-funded needless to say, runs all aspects of contemporary art on our behalf. ....
For those of us who are completely baffled by the decisions of the State Art religion, the Arts Council has recently supplied a handbook called Culture Matters. In its pages we are informed that, to qualify for Arts Council support, art must be “challenging”, because the Arts Council only believes in something called “Challenging Contemporary Art”. It sees its job not as promoting excellence across the whole range of contemporary styles but only in that corner that it deems “challenging”.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
More on Islam and violence
Islam: A religion of peace?
Found via Little Green Footballs is the article above from a Canadian paper that seems to take a pretty objective look at the question of just how much justification you can find in the Koran (and other Islamic material) for modern day Islamic violence.
It's a good read.
Found via Little Green Footballs is the article above from a Canadian paper that seems to take a pretty objective look at the question of just how much justification you can find in the Koran (and other Islamic material) for modern day Islamic violence.
It's a good read.
The sort of cases family court lawyers have to put up with
My Way News - Mom, Dad in Court Over Son's Circumcision
CHICAGO (AP) - Groups opposed to circumcision are watching the case of an 8-year-old suburban Chicago boy whose divorced parents are fighting in court over whether he should have the procedure.
The child's mother wants him circumcised to prevent recurring, painful inflammation she says he's experienced during the past year. But the father says the boy is healthy and circumcision, which removes the foreskin of the penis, is an unnecessary medical procedure that could cause him long-term physical and psychological harm.
"The child is absolutely healthy," the father said during a break in a court hearing on the matter Wednesday. "I do not want any doctor to butcher my son."
The father has help from a lawyer who is:
...an Atlanta attorney who specializes in circumcision cases.
I wonder if he advertises that in the Yellow Pages.
He [the lawyer] called the surgery "a bizarre American custom."
It is also one which could end recurring bouts of inflammation!
Good grief, if the mother can show the kid was taken to a doctor 5 time over the last year with this problem, what type of idiot father would fight this. (Seemingly, one who is under the sway of the bizarre anti circumcision groups that I have mentioned before in this blog.)
CHICAGO (AP) - Groups opposed to circumcision are watching the case of an 8-year-old suburban Chicago boy whose divorced parents are fighting in court over whether he should have the procedure.
The child's mother wants him circumcised to prevent recurring, painful inflammation she says he's experienced during the past year. But the father says the boy is healthy and circumcision, which removes the foreskin of the penis, is an unnecessary medical procedure that could cause him long-term physical and psychological harm.
"The child is absolutely healthy," the father said during a break in a court hearing on the matter Wednesday. "I do not want any doctor to butcher my son."
The father has help from a lawyer who is:
...an Atlanta attorney who specializes in circumcision cases.
I wonder if he advertises that in the Yellow Pages.
He [the lawyer] called the surgery "a bizarre American custom."
It is also one which could end recurring bouts of inflammation!
Good grief, if the mother can show the kid was taken to a doctor 5 time over the last year with this problem, what type of idiot father would fight this. (Seemingly, one who is under the sway of the bizarre anti circumcision groups that I have mentioned before in this blog.)
On having children
Why childless people hate me. By Emily Yoffe
This is a good, personal article about what happens when advice columnist Yoffe dares to suggest to a woman that she might want to re-think a decision to be childless.
This is a good, personal article about what happens when advice columnist Yoffe dares to suggest to a woman that she might want to re-think a decision to be childless.
Did they blow themselves up?
Shrapnel from beach blast not ours: Israel | The World | The Australian
This is a fascinating turn of events. One would hope that shrapnel evidence, examined by more international experts, would answer this definitively one way or the other.
On the whole issue of what goes on in Gaza, I must say that I find the Palestinian attitude non-sensical. The militants who spend all their time building and firing home made rockets into Israel don't seem to kill anyone very often. (That's not to suggest that the Israelis should ignore it. I can't imagine what it is like to live with the threat of a random missile coming through your roof at any time.)
But given that the Palestinians are so clearly outgunned by the Israeli response, which is targeted but inevitably kills civilian bystanders from time to time, why do they insist on continuing with the homemade missile campaign?
What is the Palestinian public opinion on this? Do they demand their authority take police action to stop the missile campaign that invokes the much more damaging response?
Do they all think that random acts of violence against Israel are worth it no matter what the consequences?
UPDATE: Possible progress in stopping the rockets reported today in the Jerusalem Post. What did it take? Just a threat of retaliation against the Hamas leadership directly.
UPDATE 2: just found this article in the CSM about the number of rockets that have been lobbed into Israel:
Less than a mile from Gaza, Sderot residents can easily make out the bucolic fields and houses of Beit Hanoun, the Palestinian village used by rocket launchers as cover. Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal told reporters that since April 2001, some 3,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel, most of them at Sderot, killing five residents. The attacks have ravaged the Sderot's economy - and even started a small exodus. More would leave if they could afford it.
In recent months, the town has been averaging 80 rockets a month, an uptick from before the disengagement.
This is a fascinating turn of events. One would hope that shrapnel evidence, examined by more international experts, would answer this definitively one way or the other.
On the whole issue of what goes on in Gaza, I must say that I find the Palestinian attitude non-sensical. The militants who spend all their time building and firing home made rockets into Israel don't seem to kill anyone very often. (That's not to suggest that the Israelis should ignore it. I can't imagine what it is like to live with the threat of a random missile coming through your roof at any time.)
But given that the Palestinians are so clearly outgunned by the Israeli response, which is targeted but inevitably kills civilian bystanders from time to time, why do they insist on continuing with the homemade missile campaign?
What is the Palestinian public opinion on this? Do they demand their authority take police action to stop the missile campaign that invokes the much more damaging response?
Do they all think that random acts of violence against Israel are worth it no matter what the consequences?
UPDATE: Possible progress in stopping the rockets reported today in the Jerusalem Post. What did it take? Just a threat of retaliation against the Hamas leadership directly.
UPDATE 2: just found this article in the CSM about the number of rockets that have been lobbed into Israel:
Less than a mile from Gaza, Sderot residents can easily make out the bucolic fields and houses of Beit Hanoun, the Palestinian village used by rocket launchers as cover. Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal told reporters that since April 2001, some 3,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza into southern Israel, most of them at Sderot, killing five residents. The attacks have ravaged the Sderot's economy - and even started a small exodus. More would leave if they could afford it.
In recent months, the town has been averaging 80 rockets a month, an uptick from before the disengagement.
Why Japan wants whales
Masako Fukui: Pro-whalers' stand hard to swallow | Opinion | The Australian
The above article appears to answer the puzzling question about why the Japanese government insists on having commercial whaling when all the evidence suggests that the Japanese public just doesn't care:
The problem is that although whales are mammals, Japan defines whaling as a fisheries issue. The kanji character for whale is a combination of two parts, the first being the sign for fish. Nearly all kanji characters for fish names, from snapper to kingfish, are of the same two-part design. So it's no surprise that Japan's diplomatic charge at the IWC is led by the Fisheries Agency, a rather stuffy and conservative government department compared with the more elitist and outward-looking Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fisheries Agency officials fear that if Japan backs down on whaling, it will also have to back down on other fisheries issues, such as tuna and salmon. That may sound like rampant paranoia, but history tells another story.
In 1982, when the IWC voted for the moratorium on commercial whaling, the US pressured Japan not to lodge a formal objection to the ban. Under article 5 (3) of the convention, any member state can opt out of binding resolutions simply by lodging a formal objection within 90 days. In return for compliance, the US granted Japan continued access to fish in US waters. But that was later revoked, mainly as a result of domestic pressures within the US, teaching the boys at the Fisheries Agency a valuable lesson: compromising is a bad idea.
Sounds a plausibe explanation to me.
The above article appears to answer the puzzling question about why the Japanese government insists on having commercial whaling when all the evidence suggests that the Japanese public just doesn't care:
The problem is that although whales are mammals, Japan defines whaling as a fisheries issue. The kanji character for whale is a combination of two parts, the first being the sign for fish. Nearly all kanji characters for fish names, from snapper to kingfish, are of the same two-part design. So it's no surprise that Japan's diplomatic charge at the IWC is led by the Fisheries Agency, a rather stuffy and conservative government department compared with the more elitist and outward-looking Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fisheries Agency officials fear that if Japan backs down on whaling, it will also have to back down on other fisheries issues, such as tuna and salmon. That may sound like rampant paranoia, but history tells another story.
In 1982, when the IWC voted for the moratorium on commercial whaling, the US pressured Japan not to lodge a formal objection to the ban. Under article 5 (3) of the convention, any member state can opt out of binding resolutions simply by lodging a formal objection within 90 days. In return for compliance, the US granted Japan continued access to fish in US waters. But that was later revoked, mainly as a result of domestic pressures within the US, teaching the boys at the Fisheries Agency a valuable lesson: compromising is a bad idea.
Sounds a plausibe explanation to me.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Let's invade Turkey
Turkey's anti-American pop culture. By Richard Morgan
Well, seems they are expecting it anyway. From the above
Slate article:
All last year Turkish bookstores were hard-pressed to keep the best-selling novel Metal Storm on shelves. The novel, written like one of Tom Clancy's international potboilers, depicts a U.S. invasion of Turkey in March 2007. Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are characters, although the U.S. president is a nameless, nap-loving warmonger who defers most of his decision-making to fellow members of Skull and Bones. In the book, whose title is America's name for its invasion, the U.S. military swiftly bombs then overtakes Ankara and Istanbul (the U.S. president, who is also deeply evangelical, aims to restore Istanbul to its Christian Byzantine glory). ...
The Americans' motive is Uncle Sam's lust for the country's rich borax supply (Turkey is home to 60 percent of the world's borax, a mineral used in weapons, radiation shields, and space technology). In the second phase of its invasion, Operation Sèvres (named after the World War I treaty in which the West gutted the Ottoman Empire), the United States creates a Kurdish state and lets longtime Turkish enemies Greece and Armenia ravage what's left of the country. A lone Turkish secret agent counters by stealing a nuclear weapon and vaporizing Washington.
And this is popular in a friendly, more or less Westernised, Islamic country. I wonder what the plots are in the best selling novels in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
(By the way, I didn't know that bit about Turkey and borax.)
Well, seems they are expecting it anyway. From the above
Slate article:
All last year Turkish bookstores were hard-pressed to keep the best-selling novel Metal Storm on shelves. The novel, written like one of Tom Clancy's international potboilers, depicts a U.S. invasion of Turkey in March 2007. Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld are characters, although the U.S. president is a nameless, nap-loving warmonger who defers most of his decision-making to fellow members of Skull and Bones. In the book, whose title is America's name for its invasion, the U.S. military swiftly bombs then overtakes Ankara and Istanbul (the U.S. president, who is also deeply evangelical, aims to restore Istanbul to its Christian Byzantine glory). ...
The Americans' motive is Uncle Sam's lust for the country's rich borax supply (Turkey is home to 60 percent of the world's borax, a mineral used in weapons, radiation shields, and space technology). In the second phase of its invasion, Operation Sèvres (named after the World War I treaty in which the West gutted the Ottoman Empire), the United States creates a Kurdish state and lets longtime Turkish enemies Greece and Armenia ravage what's left of the country. A lone Turkish secret agent counters by stealing a nuclear weapon and vaporizing Washington.
And this is popular in a friendly, more or less Westernised, Islamic country. I wonder what the plots are in the best selling novels in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
(By the way, I didn't know that bit about Turkey and borax.)
Useless research update
Press Release - 13 June 2006 University of Bath
“Understanding how children perceive celebrities like David Beckham and the other brands they encounter will help us to formulate better policies on responsible marketing to children,” said Dr Agnes Nairn from the University of Bath’s School of Management.
“We asked the children to tell us about the things they were most into, and were surprised to find that even amongst 7-11 year olds the most intense discussions were about celebrities.
“This says a lot about our celebrity-obsessed society and supports the idea that celebrities like Beckham have become branded commodities that are available for consumption.
“More importantly, though, is the role that Beckham plays as a complex cultural figure used by children to discuss moral values and understand ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
“This realisation could help teachers create engaging materials for PHSE classes. For example, ‘Let’s discuss right and wrong today’ may not be very appealing to children but, ‘What do you think about Beckham being sent off?’ would not only be guaranteed to get their attention, but would also stimulate important debates.”
“Understanding how children perceive celebrities like David Beckham and the other brands they encounter will help us to formulate better policies on responsible marketing to children,” said Dr Agnes Nairn from the University of Bath’s School of Management.
“We asked the children to tell us about the things they were most into, and were surprised to find that even amongst 7-11 year olds the most intense discussions were about celebrities.
“This says a lot about our celebrity-obsessed society and supports the idea that celebrities like Beckham have become branded commodities that are available for consumption.
“More importantly, though, is the role that Beckham plays as a complex cultural figure used by children to discuss moral values and understand ‘good’ and ‘bad’.
“This realisation could help teachers create engaging materials for PHSE classes. For example, ‘Let’s discuss right and wrong today’ may not be very appealing to children but, ‘What do you think about Beckham being sent off?’ would not only be guaranteed to get their attention, but would also stimulate important debates.”
Fake houses
Boing Boing: Electrical substations disguised as houses
This is a peculiar item on Boing Boing, about Canadian public utilities building fake house exteriors in the 50's and 60's to hide electrical substations.
Neat idea.
I often wonder why, at least in Brisbane, Telestra exchanges are often built like brick fortresses with hardly any windows. Wouldn't a little more natural light cut down the electrical costs a bit, as well making the building look better from the outside? Or is there some specific reason you don't want windows in a telephone exchange?
This is a peculiar item on Boing Boing, about Canadian public utilities building fake house exteriors in the 50's and 60's to hide electrical substations.
Neat idea.
I often wonder why, at least in Brisbane, Telestra exchanges are often built like brick fortresses with hardly any windows. Wouldn't a little more natural light cut down the electrical costs a bit, as well making the building look better from the outside? Or is there some specific reason you don't want windows in a telephone exchange?
What can I say?
All AH, k? | Big Brother | Breaking News 24/7 - news (14-06-2006)
From the above:
BIG Brother contestants Jaime and Katie appeared to engage in oral sex during Monday night's Adults Only show - not that anyone was offended by that.
A Channel 10 spokeswoman yesterday said the network did not receive a single complaint, despite web forums reporting the show was "soft porn" showing "hardcore" rewards room scenes.
Why doesn't this show, and what it tells us about the media and its viewers, bother more people in the way that it bothers me?
It's not just that it is used as sexual titillation; it's the whole concept of the show being a competition with one winner, a bunch of exhibitionists as the contestants, and that there is an audience willing to watch them. And a media that gives it free publicity all the time.
There is more honour, in my mind, in paid porno stars making videos (at least if it involves safe sex) than there is in this show. At least then everyone knows what they are getting paid, what the risks are, and that stupid competitiveness or analysis of their "personality" is not part of the voyeuristic motives of the viewers.
From the above:
BIG Brother contestants Jaime and Katie appeared to engage in oral sex during Monday night's Adults Only show - not that anyone was offended by that.
A Channel 10 spokeswoman yesterday said the network did not receive a single complaint, despite web forums reporting the show was "soft porn" showing "hardcore" rewards room scenes.
Why doesn't this show, and what it tells us about the media and its viewers, bother more people in the way that it bothers me?
It's not just that it is used as sexual titillation; it's the whole concept of the show being a competition with one winner, a bunch of exhibitionists as the contestants, and that there is an audience willing to watch them. And a media that gives it free publicity all the time.
There is more honour, in my mind, in paid porno stars making videos (at least if it involves safe sex) than there is in this show. At least then everyone knows what they are getting paid, what the risks are, and that stupid competitiveness or analysis of their "personality" is not part of the voyeuristic motives of the viewers.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Gore needs you
Gore to train 1,000 to spread word about climate - Reuters.com
Why not give out copies of the DVD for free? Why does it need the magic of a trained disciple to present the slide show?
All sounds just a touch messianic, doesn't it?
Why not give out copies of the DVD for free? Why does it need the magic of a trained disciple to present the slide show?
All sounds just a touch messianic, doesn't it?
Challenging job
Aljazeera.Net - Palestinian tourism minister quits
They have a position of tourism minister? Talk about a tough challenge coming up with tourism campaign for Gaza.
(OK, I know there is the West Bank too.)
They have a position of tourism minister? Talk about a tough challenge coming up with tourism campaign for Gaza.
(OK, I know there is the West Bank too.)
Hopeful approach to preventing/treating Alzheimer's
New Scientist Breaking News - Alzheimer's vaccine shows success in mice
If it works, maybe just give it to everyone at age 70, unless you starts to show signs of problems earlier.
If it works, maybe just give it to everyone at age 70, unless you starts to show signs of problems earlier.
Update note
If you saw my long-ish post yesterday on Iraq, make sure you read the update. (I worry that these get overlooked.)
Monday, June 12, 2006
Wrong whatever you do
Boing Boing: Bush could have gotten Zarqawi long ago
OK, this may not be new for some readers, but it is something I had either overlooked or have forgotten.
Boing Boing, which is good on pop culture but always liberal in any political post, notes the brief Salon article that points out that in 2002, before the Iraq invasion, Bush had a chance to take out an Al-Zarqawi camp in Northern Iraq, but chose not to.
The reasons given depend on the source. MSNBC said in 2004 it was because Bush did not want to take out a justification for invading Iraq. The ABC had a Four Corners relevant to this that I obviously missed. It reported a CIA agent as saying that the reason was that Bush did not want to appear to be a "gunslinger" while he was trying to build up French support for an invasion. Of course, most Salon and Boing Boing readers will take the first explanation over the second any day, even though if he had attacked the camp, it is pretty clear he would have been criticised.
Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard article referred to a couple of post ago has details from Colin Powell's speech (not contradicted according to Hayes) in which it was pointed out that although the camp itself was in a part of Iraq not fully controlled by Saddam, Zarqawi and associates were in the Sunni triangle in the lead up to the invasion. As Hitchens and others have pointed out, Iraq was not then the sort of place in which figures with a terrorist profile could get around without the State knowing.
What have we learned in the last 12 months? That Saddam liked to pretend even to his generals that he had WMD up his sleeve. That al Qaeda people, including Zarqawi, were not only in Northern Iraq setting up terrorist camps, but were also in the Sunni triangle.
Even in the (unlikely) event that Saddam had no knowledge or interest in al Qaeda in Iraq whatsoever, why is anyone surprised that the USA legitimately thought that if he had WMD (as he pretended to) he would be prepared to pass them onto al Qaeda?
UPDATE: I wrote the above before reading Hitchen's latest piece in Slate. (It's not the one that was reprinted in the Australian.) It is excellent stuff. An extract:
It is from this source [Jordan]that we know that Zarqawi was in Baghdad at least as early as June 2002, almost a year before the invasion. Indeed, as the Senate intelligence committee report has confirmed, it was in that month that the G.I.D. contacted the Saddam Hussein regime to "inform" the Iraqis that this very dangerous fellow was on their territory. Given the absolute police-state condition of Iraq at that time, it is in any case impossible to believe that such a person was in town, so to speak, incognito. And remember that in 2002, even states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were at least ostensibly expelling known al-Qaida members from their turf or else arresting them. Only Saddam's Iraq (—which did not reply to the Jordanian messages) —was tolerating and encouraging the presence of men who were on the run from Afghanistan.
It is customary to dismiss evidence of this kind with a brisk and pseudo-knowing sneer about the "secular" nature of Saddam's regime and thus its presumed incompatibility with theocratic fanatics. Quite how this CIA-sponsored "analysis" has survived this long is beyond me. At least from the time of its conclusion of hostilities with Iran, Baghdad became a center of jihadist propaganda and sponsorship. Saddam himself started to be painted and photographed wearing the robes of an imam. He began a gigantic mosque-building program. He financed the suicide-murderers who worked against the more secular PLO. He sent money to the Muslim separatists in the Philippines. His closest regional ally was the theocracy in Sudan, which had been the host of Osama Bin Laden.
As opposed to this, we have Phillip Adams in his column today saying this:
Zarqawi's death will not reduce terrorism in Iraq. It will, however, briefly endorse one of Bush's dubious justifications of his war - that alleged link between 9/11, Saddam and bin Laden. Al-Qa'ida arrived in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. The coalition gave them a red carpet. But despite disenchantment with Bush and his war, most US voters still believe their President's bizarre allegations that 9/11 was a double-act involving Saddam and bin Laden. And here's a trophy head to prove it.
This is rich. The Left is simply unable to point to any statement by Bush or his cohorts that that they believed Saddam was behind 7-11. Yet they still blame Bush for (apparently) a significant percentage of Americans believing a connection existed. (By the way, I would like to know the way that polling was done in some detail before getting too uptight about how smart the US public is.)
I have seen nothing at all in the Bush administration's reaction to last week's events to show they tried to use it to bolster an argument (a Saddam/9-11 connection) that they never made anyway. For Adams to claim that showing him dead "was a trophy head to prove it" is just ludicrous.
On the other hand, Adams and his cohorts continue repeating their memes ad naseum, encouraging the blind allegiance to allegations that are becoming increasingly discredited or (such as in the case of the suggestion that Bush misled the public on Saddam and 9-11,) outright lies.
The history of all this in 30 years time is not to going to read the way Adams expects.
UPDATE 2: Here's what the New Yorker says about it:
According to Iraq’s former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who claims that he discovered the information in the archives of the Iraqi secret service, Zarqawi travelled to Iraq in 1999, around the same time as Zawahiri. Saddam Hussein was courting Al Qaeda at the time. Inspired, perhaps, by Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah, he may have believed that he could use terrorists to conduct his foreign policy without undermining his rule. Contrary to Secretary of State Colin Powell’s assertion before the U.N. Security Council, in February, 2003, that Zarqawi provided the link to Al Qaeda in Iraq, bin Laden and Zawahiri spurned Saddam’s overtures.
Sources for that last bit of information would be...? I should go double check the Congressional inquiry again, I suppose.
OK, this may not be new for some readers, but it is something I had either overlooked or have forgotten.
Boing Boing, which is good on pop culture but always liberal in any political post, notes the brief Salon article that points out that in 2002, before the Iraq invasion, Bush had a chance to take out an Al-Zarqawi camp in Northern Iraq, but chose not to.
The reasons given depend on the source. MSNBC said in 2004 it was because Bush did not want to take out a justification for invading Iraq. The ABC had a Four Corners relevant to this that I obviously missed. It reported a CIA agent as saying that the reason was that Bush did not want to appear to be a "gunslinger" while he was trying to build up French support for an invasion. Of course, most Salon and Boing Boing readers will take the first explanation over the second any day, even though if he had attacked the camp, it is pretty clear he would have been criticised.
Meanwhile, the Weekly Standard article referred to a couple of post ago has details from Colin Powell's speech (not contradicted according to Hayes) in which it was pointed out that although the camp itself was in a part of Iraq not fully controlled by Saddam, Zarqawi and associates were in the Sunni triangle in the lead up to the invasion. As Hitchens and others have pointed out, Iraq was not then the sort of place in which figures with a terrorist profile could get around without the State knowing.
What have we learned in the last 12 months? That Saddam liked to pretend even to his generals that he had WMD up his sleeve. That al Qaeda people, including Zarqawi, were not only in Northern Iraq setting up terrorist camps, but were also in the Sunni triangle.
Even in the (unlikely) event that Saddam had no knowledge or interest in al Qaeda in Iraq whatsoever, why is anyone surprised that the USA legitimately thought that if he had WMD (as he pretended to) he would be prepared to pass them onto al Qaeda?
UPDATE: I wrote the above before reading Hitchen's latest piece in Slate. (It's not the one that was reprinted in the Australian.) It is excellent stuff. An extract:
It is from this source [Jordan]that we know that Zarqawi was in Baghdad at least as early as June 2002, almost a year before the invasion. Indeed, as the Senate intelligence committee report has confirmed, it was in that month that the G.I.D. contacted the Saddam Hussein regime to "inform" the Iraqis that this very dangerous fellow was on their territory. Given the absolute police-state condition of Iraq at that time, it is in any case impossible to believe that such a person was in town, so to speak, incognito. And remember that in 2002, even states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were at least ostensibly expelling known al-Qaida members from their turf or else arresting them. Only Saddam's Iraq (—which did not reply to the Jordanian messages) —was tolerating and encouraging the presence of men who were on the run from Afghanistan.
It is customary to dismiss evidence of this kind with a brisk and pseudo-knowing sneer about the "secular" nature of Saddam's regime and thus its presumed incompatibility with theocratic fanatics. Quite how this CIA-sponsored "analysis" has survived this long is beyond me. At least from the time of its conclusion of hostilities with Iran, Baghdad became a center of jihadist propaganda and sponsorship. Saddam himself started to be painted and photographed wearing the robes of an imam. He began a gigantic mosque-building program. He financed the suicide-murderers who worked against the more secular PLO. He sent money to the Muslim separatists in the Philippines. His closest regional ally was the theocracy in Sudan, which had been the host of Osama Bin Laden.
As opposed to this, we have Phillip Adams in his column today saying this:
Zarqawi's death will not reduce terrorism in Iraq. It will, however, briefly endorse one of Bush's dubious justifications of his war - that alleged link between 9/11, Saddam and bin Laden. Al-Qa'ida arrived in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. The coalition gave them a red carpet. But despite disenchantment with Bush and his war, most US voters still believe their President's bizarre allegations that 9/11 was a double-act involving Saddam and bin Laden. And here's a trophy head to prove it.
This is rich. The Left is simply unable to point to any statement by Bush or his cohorts that that they believed Saddam was behind 7-11. Yet they still blame Bush for (apparently) a significant percentage of Americans believing a connection existed. (By the way, I would like to know the way that polling was done in some detail before getting too uptight about how smart the US public is.)
I have seen nothing at all in the Bush administration's reaction to last week's events to show they tried to use it to bolster an argument (a Saddam/9-11 connection) that they never made anyway. For Adams to claim that showing him dead "was a trophy head to prove it" is just ludicrous.
On the other hand, Adams and his cohorts continue repeating their memes ad naseum, encouraging the blind allegiance to allegations that are becoming increasingly discredited or (such as in the case of the suggestion that Bush misled the public on Saddam and 9-11,) outright lies.
The history of all this in 30 years time is not to going to read the way Adams expects.
UPDATE 2: Here's what the New Yorker says about it:
According to Iraq’s former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, who claims that he discovered the information in the archives of the Iraqi secret service, Zarqawi travelled to Iraq in 1999, around the same time as Zawahiri. Saddam Hussein was courting Al Qaeda at the time. Inspired, perhaps, by Iran’s relationship with Hezbollah, he may have believed that he could use terrorists to conduct his foreign policy without undermining his rule. Contrary to Secretary of State Colin Powell’s assertion before the U.N. Security Council, in February, 2003, that Zarqawi provided the link to Al Qaeda in Iraq, bin Laden and Zawahiri spurned Saddam’s overtures.
Sources for that last bit of information would be...? I should go double check the Congressional inquiry again, I suppose.
About the future Palestine
TCS Daily - Creating Palestine
The article above takes a tough line on what is necessary to create what could be called a "viable" Palestinian State. (Very little, argue the authors. They point out that there are many tiny countries with less than ideal geography.)
But their earlier article that they link to, about the neverending call by Arabs for Israel to comply with UN Resolution 242 (ie, going back to the pre-1967 Six Day War borders) is even more interesting. The gist of it is that they argue (fairly convincingly, it seems to me) that the resolution as finally passed was specifically meant to leave the precise final boundaries open. In other words, not to require that all occupied land be returned.)
Can't say I have heard this argument before, but then I am no expert on Middle East history. (Like many people, the post 9/11 world has made me take much more of an interest in it.)
The article above takes a tough line on what is necessary to create what could be called a "viable" Palestinian State. (Very little, argue the authors. They point out that there are many tiny countries with less than ideal geography.)
But their earlier article that they link to, about the neverending call by Arabs for Israel to comply with UN Resolution 242 (ie, going back to the pre-1967 Six Day War borders) is even more interesting. The gist of it is that they argue (fairly convincingly, it seems to me) that the resolution as finally passed was specifically meant to leave the precise final boundaries open. In other words, not to require that all occupied land be returned.)
Can't say I have heard this argument before, but then I am no expert on Middle East history. (Like many people, the post 9/11 world has made me take much more of an interest in it.)
Inconstant constants
ScienceDaily: Variable Physical Laws
This seems very important, although what exactly it means for cosmology is not at all clear:
On April 21 this year new findings were published in Physical Review Letters implying that a dimensionless constant – the ratio between the electron mass and the proton mass – has changed with time.
And shortly measurements will be presented in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society showing that another dimensionless constant, called the fine structure constant, is also varying with time.
This seems very important, although what exactly it means for cosmology is not at all clear:
On April 21 this year new findings were published in Physical Review Letters implying that a dimensionless constant – the ratio between the electron mass and the proton mass – has changed with time.
And shortly measurements will be presented in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society showing that another dimensionless constant, called the fine structure constant, is also varying with time.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Now if only I spoke Japanese
Love and marriage in Japan | White weddings | Economist.com
An amusing article about "fake" Western weddings at one particular fake church in Japan:
Weddings are what it does, at ¥5m ($46,000) a time for 100 guests, five times a day.
The couples who come have already married before at a city registrar. Their wedding at St Grace Cathedral and similar places offers only the outward trappings of a Christian wedding. Most establishments get couples and their guests through the service in 40 minutes; one cut-rate place does it in 20. Catering is where the money is made, while most other wedding services—flowers, choir, even harpist—are subcontracted.
The most sought-after is the Western “priest”. These are supplied by an ecclesiastical talent agency complete with fake ordination papers, should anyone bother to ask. For impoverished actors, models and English-language teachers, the work is manna: the pay is ¥10,000-15,000 a service, and you can do eight a day. One young Westerner, who earns ¥10m a year for a three-day week, says the work is not easy: unlike acting, where at least you get a break, you have to be a priest all day, and speak flawless Japanese to boot.
An amusing article about "fake" Western weddings at one particular fake church in Japan:
Weddings are what it does, at ¥5m ($46,000) a time for 100 guests, five times a day.
The couples who come have already married before at a city registrar. Their wedding at St Grace Cathedral and similar places offers only the outward trappings of a Christian wedding. Most establishments get couples and their guests through the service in 40 minutes; one cut-rate place does it in 20. Catering is where the money is made, while most other wedding services—flowers, choir, even harpist—are subcontracted.
The most sought-after is the Western “priest”. These are supplied by an ecclesiastical talent agency complete with fake ordination papers, should anyone bother to ask. For impoverished actors, models and English-language teachers, the work is manna: the pay is ¥10,000-15,000 a service, and you can do eight a day. One young Westerner, who earns ¥10m a year for a three-day week, says the work is not easy: unlike acting, where at least you get a break, you have to be a priest all day, and speak flawless Japanese to boot.
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