Dead Meat

A lot of Europeans often go on and on about how much better healthcare systems are around here: they are so much more equitable as they are free and universal, while in the US, which is barbaric and inhumane, people die on the street and are turned away from emergency rooms if they do not have a credit card.
That's clearly a load of tosh. European healthcare systems are obviously not free, and as far as I know people are not turned away from emergency rooms in the US. Additionally European-style socialized systems also tend to be extremely inefficient. This creates somewhat hidden discrimination in two respects:

• If you are relatively healthy you get all the care you need but as soon as something serious crops up things often go pear-shaped, and at that point,
• If you are rich you can afford to go private (either at home or abroad), but if you're not you are as likely as not going to be stuck in a sometimes fatal waiting list.

I don't doubt that the US system needs to be reformed, but at least the inequalities of the US system (which are much less pronounced than what most Europeans would like to think) are transparent and recognize a reality which Europe has simply swept under the carpet.
For instance a while back, in Italy, my 83-year-old grandmother was diagnosed with colon cancer (after various misdiagnoses), and was put on a waiting list of several months to get the operation needed to remove the tumor. The wait would in all probability have been fatal. As she could afford it she paid for the necessary procedure and did it immediately as a private patient, and now, thank God, it seems the issue has been resolved conclusively. In this respect I highly recommend watching a tragi-comic preview of an upcoming documentary, entitled Dead Meat. The producers say:

Dead Meat is a 25 minute short film which shows the reality of health care under Canada's socialized medical system: Canadians wait ... and wait ... and wait. ... And sometimes they die while waiting for free government health care.

The filmmakers are currently in production on a feature-length film addressing health care in the U.S. and Canada slated for release in late 2006. As an interim offering, they have produced this short film which debuted at the Liberty Film Festival in West Hollywood, CA on Oct 21, 2005.
[...]
Many Canadians who have never been really sick are supportive of their system. In fact, the system caters to the healthy majority with free primary care doctor appointments, flu shots, etc. while depriving the truly sick - often the elderly - of timely medical treatment that is often more expensive. Political expediency dictates that health care dollars are spent where the votes are: the healthy majority - while across Canada, hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people quietly languish in pain in their homes on long waiting lists for treatment.
[...]
Certainly there are pockets of excellence in the Canadian health care system - and not everyone waits. If a person is in the process of having a heart attack, they get immediate treatment. However, any treatment deemed 'elective' - meaning that possible death is not imminent - often entails a wait. Cancer biopsies, MRI scans, heart bypasses, cataract operations, and hip replacements all involve lengthy waits for many Canadians.

Please watch it! It is truly compelling. Incredibly there are still people who find something to brag about when comparing universal public healthcare to the US system. I wonder what these people would consider a failure...

Is the electric car back?

Despite my profound indifference towards cars (and racing cars in particular), based on what I have read about it, I am quite excited about the prospected Tesla Roadster. Wired magazine enthusiastically reports:

The trick? The Tesla Roadster is powered by 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries -- the same cells that run a laptop computer. Range: 250 miles. Fuel efficiency: 1 to 2 cents per mile. Top speed: more than 130 mph. The first cars will be built at a factory in England and are slated to hit the market next summer. And Tesla Motors, Eberhard's company, is already gearing up for a four-door battery-powered sedan.

Now someone from Popular Mechanics (via Instapundit) has tried driving it and seems to be equally delighted.

As I am both an oil hawk and care about the environment, this seems to be an excellent development, particularly in the face of those who inanely claim that to save the planet we must go back to live like they did in the Stone Age.
In an interesting and thorough article that appeared in the September 2005 issue of Commentary (requires subs.; see free version here), the authors of The Bottomless Well come to the following conclusion:

The trick, then, is to figure out how best to collapse our bipolar energy economy into a single market, one in which non-oil fuels can more readily substitute for oil. Happily, we are already well on the way. During the crunch of 1979-85, utilities in the U.S. quickly shifted away from oil; today we depend on it for just 3 percent of our electric power. The huge opportunity ahead is to use electricity—and thus coal and uranium, principally—to displace still more oil. Doing this will depend on the price of oil, which we cannot control; on the price of electricity, which we can; and on the evolution of technology that will bridge the divide.

Do read the whole thing. The Tesla Roadster, and the technical specs it vaunts, particularly when adapted to more functional models (as seems to be the plan), increasingly looks like a significant step towards "collapsing our bipolar energy economy into a single market." After many false starts, and decades of work, it seems the time of the functional electric car has finally come...

Biased, as usual

It is truly a pity that Amnesty Interantional and Human Rights Watch have come to represent the positions of the international far Left, often abandoning any objectivity and therefore significantly damaging their effectiveness (and usefulness).
According to the Financial Times:

Amnesty International says attacks on civilian targets by Israeli military forces during the recently ended fighting in Lebanon look like deliberate war crimes.
In a report released on Wednesday, the London-based human rights organisation argues that the destruction of Lebanese homes and basic infrastructure "was an integral part of the military strategy".
Noting violations by both sides, Amnesty says it has asked the United Nations to open a "comprehensive, independent and impartial inquiry" about the 34-day war between Israel and the Lebanese-based Hizbollah militia.

David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy (via Instapundit) illustrates the absurdities of the report and also of the positions of HRW’s director, Kenneth Roth:

The idea that a country at war can't attack the enemy's resupply routes (at least until it has direct evidence that there is a particular military shipment arriving) has nothing to do with human rights or war crimes, and a lot to do with a pacifist attitude that seeks to make war, regardless of the justification for it or the restraint in prosecuting it [at least if it's a Western country doing it], an international "crime."
[...]
I also have to question the "high number of civilian casualties" that Amnesty is reportedly relying on. Any innocent civilian death are tragic, but 1,000 or so (alleged, we don't really know) civilians in a month of urban warfare against an enemy that based itself in the middle of cities and villages hardly seems excessive by any objective standard. The idea that Israel deliberately targeted civilians should be self-refuting to anyone with common sense, given the low level of casualties relative to the destructive power of the Israeli air force.
[...]
According to Roth's logic, Israel can only retaliate if it's retaliation will cost no more civilian lives in Gaza or Lebanon than would be caused by the terrorists if Israel didn't try to stop them. This is a formula that would paralyze not only Israel, but the U.S., Russian, India, and any other country that feels the need to pursue a military response to terrorism. Surely, the Allied forces inadvertantly killed more Afghan civilians than the number of Westerners likely at immediate risk from Al Qaeda and the Taliban! The type of "international law" and "human rights" activism that Roth and co. represent is scrupulously amoral in failing to consider that the aggressor should be held responsible for the deaths on both sides, as you can't expect any nation to allow its civilians to be attacked and not retaliate militarily.

Do read the whole thing, which mentions some other interesting points. One of the commenters mentions a short article in Capitalism Magazine (whose brashness I often find deliciously refreshing), which puts things in a, er, slightly different perspective from AI and HRW:

The primary purpose and moral obligation of any legitimate government is to protect the lives and rights of its own citizens. Hezbollah, a military wing of the Islamic dictatorship of Iran, had been explicit in its desire to destroy Israel and had been preparing to do so for the last several years from inside Lebanon, but Israel’s government did virtually nothing to pre-empt the recent attack.
When Hezbollah attacked, Israel significantly dampened its response in order to minimize the killing of "Lebanese civilians," thereby allowing many Hezbollah terrorists to live and kill Israelis. It was immoral for Israel's government to sacrifice a single Israeli soldier or civilian to save the lives of those Lebanese civilians who chose to remain in a region occupied years earlier by a terrorist organization.

Also see here, where this subject is expanded on. I had to almost laugh out loud as I was contemplating what the general reaction would be if this were the kind of strong condemnation of the Israeli government Amnesty and HRW felt impelled to make...

Post Scriptum:
I see that Instapundit has linked to an excellent Steven Den Beste post from 2003 which takes a more in-depth look at the faults and biases of Amnesty International and HRW. Do read the whole thing.

Post Scriptum II:
And the hits keep on coming!

Back to work

Despite appearances I have not dropped off the face of the planet: I have just gotten back from a rather long vacation (which was preceded by some busy times at work).
I had quite a lot of fun, by the way. First I visited my grandmother at her vacation home on the Adriatic coast, between Ancona and Pescara. A few friends of mine came along and we had a relaxing time. Her front yard opens directly on the beach (which, how shall I put it, is incredibly convenient) and she is an outstanding cook, which makes her especially popular amongst my friends... After that I visited my other grandparents in Trieste (which is where I grew up) for a weekend, and then joined the rest of my family on a small, quaint island in Croatia (called Ilovik), which is where my parents vacation quite regularly.
Nonetheless I was really happy to get back the other day, to the hustle and bustle of London, to the familiar comforts of my house and to regular phone and internet access...

The situation in Lebanon

I am somewhat conflicted by what is happening in Israel and Lebanon, as I feel terrible about the civilian casualties on both sides, while at the same time I see the necessity and justification for the Israeli response. At any rate I think this Washington Post column by Charles Krauthammer describes why this is a unique opportunity:

Hence the golden, unprecedented opportunity. Hezbollah makes a fatal mistake. It crosses the U.N.-delineated international frontier to attack Israel, kill soldiers and take hostages. This aggression is so naked that even Russia joins in the Group of Eight summit communique blaming Hezbollah for the violence and calling for the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty in the south.
But only one country has the capacity to do the job. That is Israel, now recognized by the world as forced into this fight by Hezbollah's aggression.
The road to a solution is therefore clear: Israel liberates south Lebanon and gives it back to the Lebanese.

Emphasis mine. I think the Israeli government should be more strenuous in asserting this last aspect. It should repeatedly call on the Lebanese government to cooperate with Israel, as Israel intends to pull back as soon as its very reasonable objectives are fulfilled, and collaborating will minimize civilian casualties, disarm Hezbollah more effectively and protect the Lebanese infrastructure. Obviously the Lebanese government would probably not accede to these sincere demands (as Hezbollah is even part of the governing coalition), but if so they would at least undermine the claim that Lebanon is stuck between two warring parties.
Naturally, the military straregy is of essence as well:

It starts by preparing the ground with air power, just as the Persian Gulf War began with a 40-day air campaign. But if all that happens is the air campaign, the result will be failure. Hezbollah will remain in place, Israel will remain under the gun, Lebanon will remain divided and unfree. And this war will start again at a time of Hezbollah and Iran's choosing.
Just as in Kuwait in 1991, what must follow the air campaign is a land invasion to clear the ground and expel the occupier. Israel must retake south Lebanon and expel Hezbollah. It would then declare the obvious: that it has no claim to Lebanese territory and is prepared to withdraw and hand south Lebanon over to the Lebanese army (augmented perhaps by an international force), thus finally bringing about what the world has demanded -- implementation of Resolution 1559 and restoration of south Lebanon to Lebanese sovereignty.

Do read the whole thing. And to keep abreast of the latest news and commentary an excellent source is Pajamas Media, whose latest roundup can be found here.

Remembering someone

I usually try to avoid reading certain kinds of things during down time at work (like P. G. Wodehouse novels) because I don't want to attract attention by laughing out loud or being emotional, but I was taken off guard by this article in today's Wall Street Journal, which brought tears to my eyes. I think it's behind a subscriber wall so I am reproducing the whole text:

A Friend's Illness Can Change You

By Jeffrey Zaslow - Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2006; Page D2

In ninth grade, Justin Rochkind learned that he might lose his leg to bone cancer. No one told him he'd also lose his friends.
Yet when he returned to school after treatments, he felt ignored and abandoned. Former pals averted their eyes as he limped by. No one sat with him at lunch. Eventually, he chose to be home-schooled.
I met Justin in 2003, three years after his diagnosis. He was 17 years old then, in remission, but still angry at his peers. He lived in my community of West Bloomfield, Mich., and offered to share his story in this column in the hope that he'd help other ill kids who felt ostracized.
He had simple but vital advice for the classmates of such children. "Always assume you're their only friend," he said.
Three more years have now passed, and the kids who disappointed Justin are halfway through college. Some have taken action to deal with regrets about their behavior. Others offer an example of how a community can make amends and correct itself from within.
When I first wrote about Justin, he had turned mostly to his siblings for companionship. He recognized, gratefully, that family bonds can embrace us when the bonds of friendship collapse.
At the time, some of Justin's former classmates admitted they could have been more supportive of him. But they also wished he was more forgiving. "We all need to learn to be there for each other, and to let people love us," said Adam Kessler, then 17, and one of the few who kept in touch with Justin. "If Justin comes back, we'd like another chance with him."
Justin never returned to school, in part because the cancer returned. But slowly, friends and acquaintances came back into his life. They invited him to a Super Bowl party. Then they surprised him at a restaurant for his 18th birthday. At first, Justin was tentative and chilly, unwilling to let go of how they had hurt him. And some kids remained frightened by his illness. In time, however, they rediscovered that their old friend was more than his cancer. He was bright and funny -- a musician, magician, artist and aspiring filmmaker. Justin, meanwhile, found a measure of forgiveness.
In June 2004, while Justin was undergoing treatment at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., his friends back in Michigan mounted "Rockin' for Rochkind," a fund-raiser featuring local musical acts. Fifty kids sold tickets and put up posters; 300 young people attended. "What we are doing here today is the absolute essence of what it means to be a community," one of the organizers, Zack Chutz, then 17, wrote in the program book.
That night in Memphis, Justin received phone updates about the event, and he was thrilled, especially because so many attractive girls had shown up. "He felt a lot of love from his peers," says his father, Sandy. "He saw that his friends had come full circle on their own -- they righted a wrong -- and they did it without the help of counselors or parents. I think they needed healing as much as Justin did."
Justin died in July 2004 at age 18.
Around the first anniversary of his death, his mother, Lynne, received a letter from a girl in the neighborhood. "She wanted me to know that she was thinking of Justin. She was one of those who hadn't given him the time he needed, and she wished he could know how sorry she was. It was a lovely letter."
Adam Kessler, now 20, calls Justin's mom each year on Mother's Day and Justin's birthday. At Indiana University, he is a vice president of "Circle of Life," a campus group now organizing a giant mini-marathon to benefit a scholarship fund for students with cancer. He calls Justin his inspiration. "Kids forgot about him in life. I don't want to forget about him in death."
In 2003, Tara Forman told me she hadn't been the friend Justin needed when he was first diagnosed. But she was grateful that their friendship was rekindled. She talked about how she'd gotten sick with the flu for a few days, and felt hurt that no friends called to check on her. "I can't imagine how tough it would be to have cancer, and not have friends to fall back on," she said.
Tara is now 19, and each summer since Justin died, she has volunteered at cancer facilities.
Zack Chutz, also 19, thinks of Justin daily, especially when the clock hits 3:22. (Justin's birthday was March 22.) Last week, to mark the second anniversary of Justin's death, Zack helped organize a memorial service at a summer camp he and Justin attended. Campers and counselors sang Justin's favorite song, "The Sound of Silence."
When I met Justin in 2003, he talked about his life before cancer. He said he'd be at the mall with friends, see kids in wheelchairs or bald from chemotherapy, and turn his head away. "I felt bad for them, but I felt uncomfortable," he admitted.
He asked me to give a message to young people to reach out to such kids. "Take that first step," he said. "And don't just do it out of sympathy. Do it from your heart."

I have never been closely acquainted with someone in similar circumstances, but these lessons apply to so many situations. I find it overpowering to reflect on how incredibly meaningful and lasting small actions or a few words can be in interpersonal relationships, and how oftentimes we do not think about these things enough.

Off with his head!

This story is truly incredible (and note that Die Welt isn't some wacky - or even neocon - paper; via Instapundit, also see here):

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency effectively fired his lead Iran investigator this spring at the request of the Iranians, according to a new report in the German newspaper Die Welt am Sonntag.
The lead inspector of the 15-man IAEA team in Iran, Chris Charlier, told the newspaper that the IAEA chief, Mohammad ElBaradei, agreed to a request the Iranian government made, and relegated Mr. Charlier, a 64-year-old Belgian, to office work at the organization's Vienna-based headquarters. The Iranian request was reportedly made when Mr. ElBaradei visited Iran in April.
The news could have explosive consequences for America's policy of entrusting Mr. ElBaradei to negotiate an end to Iran's uranium enrichment. In 2004, after intelligence reports found him coaching the Iranians on the intricacies of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the State Department launched a campaign to prevent Mr. ElBaradei, an Egyptian, from running for an unprecedented third term as IAEA secretary-general. That campaign failed after other countries expressed their support for him.
[...]
Mr. Charlier told the German newspaper that he believes Iran is hiding elements of its nuclear program. In comments that echoed U.N. inspectors' during the 1990s looking at Saddam Hussein's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, he said, "Wherever we went, whatever we did, they always followed us, monitoring us with video cameras and capturing every single one of our conversations. Never letting us out of their sight for a second, watching everything over our shoulder. ... How the devil were we supposed to rationally do our work?"
A spokesman for the IAEA yesterday would not comment on the story. Die Welt wrote that officials from the organization confirmed the key facts of the piece and asked the newspaper not to publish it. One of the reasons the officials gave was that it would harm the work of its inspectors on the ground.

And we (neocons) should trust international law and organizations more to resolve world conflicts? Are you nuts?!

This is leadership

Good news:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed Monday to continue his plan for unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank, saying that the current round of violence would not stop the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
"I haven't changed my basic commitment to the realignment plan," Olmert told foreign reporters in Jerusalem. "I am absolutely determined to carry out the separation from the Palestinians and establish secure borders."
He said that Israel had no policy of trying to topple the Hamas-led Palestinian government despite its arrest of dozens of Hamas officials and military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
"We have no particular desire to topple the Hamas government as a policy. We have a desire to prevent terrorists from inflicting terrorism on the Israeli people," he said.
Olmert also rejected European Union criticism of Israel's
military offensive in Gaza, saying the EU should focus instead on Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.
"When was the last time that the European Union condemned this shooting and suggested effective measures to stop it?" Olmert asked. "At some point, Israel had no point but to take some measures in order to stop this thing."

I'm glad to see I agree with everything Olmert said. I strongly feel this is a courageous and moderate stand to take. See this and also see some interesting comments from Melanie Phillips which put things in much needed perspective:

Let us remind ourselves of the context. Israel was condemned for its occupation of Gaza, which was said to be creating 'despair' and 'frustration' that was causing violence against Israel. Israel withdrew from Gaza. From the day it withdrew, the Palestinians started firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. These rockets have caused some fatalities and injuries. More than 1000 have been fired since the withdrawal. Now two rockets have hit Ashkelon, one hitting a school playground which just happened to be empty. As the Haaretz writer Ze'ev Schiff has observed, this constitutes 'an unequivocal invitation by Hamas to war.'
Virtually none of these attacks has been reported in Britain.
The Palestinians have been smuggling into Gaza a vast arsenal of weaponry and have been tunnelling into Israel. If they haven't got it already, it is only a matter of time before they get chemical or biological material with which to arm these weapons still further. For the Palestinians, withdrawal from Gaza has provided the opportunity to ratchet up their war against Israel. So much was always entirely predictable (including to people like myself, who supported withdrawal as the lesser of two terrible evils). Since Israel no longer occupied Gaza, it should have been plain — to those who didn't believe it previously — from these post-withdrawal attacks that the Palestinians' war was not one of liberation but of extermination (as they had so helpfully announced in both the Palestinian national charter and the Hamas charter).
Virtually none of this has been reported in Britain.
It was only with the tunnel raid on Israel, the killing of the Israeli soldiers, the kidnapping of Cpl Shalit and the subsequent murder of an Israeli teenager on the West Bank that Israel finally responded. It had taken months for it to do so. And so how did it respond? It destroyed two bridges and a power station — and the British media immediately screamed that these were war crimes and 'collective punishment', even though virtually no Palestinians at that stage had been killed.
Today, the fighting escalated and so did the casualties. Such is the inevitable price of a war declared upon Israel. Such civilians who are regrettably killed become casualties because the men of terror position themselves amongst them, thus effectively using the Palestinian population as human shields as this small snippet illustrates.

Do read the whole thing.

Take that!

As guilty as this makes me feel, I cannot suppress the feeling of schadenfreude at the news that Harvard will be suffering consequences for the indecorous defenestration of Larry Summers. Truly a victory against tyrants. Here's the story as reported by the Financial Times:

Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle, the business software group, has decided against a promised $115m donation to establish a centre for the study of health care projects at Harvard University.
The decision marks the first concrete fallout from the resignation earlier this year of Larry Summers, Harvard’s president, following a faculty revolt.
An Oracle spokesman said on Tuesday that Mr Ellison's decision to withdraw his pledge was "directly related" to the departure of Mr Summers, the controversial former US treasury secretary, whose brusque management style frequently clashed with members of the Harvard faculty.
"Larry Summers was the brainchild of this initiative. He and Larry Ellison had several dicussions about it. His last day at Harvard is this week, and his departure from Harvard is really the reason that Larry decided to reconsider the decision," the spokesman said.
He said Mr Ellison planned to announce a donation to another organisation within "several weeks."

Revenge is a dish best served cold!

CND: Iran can have nukes, but not the UK

David T. (Tate) of Harry's Place has a post up in Comment is Free in which he notes an interesting double standard:

Kate Hudson, the chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is implacably opposed to the retention of a modern nuclear deterrent for Britain.
[...]
When it comes to Iran's nuclear programme, however, CND have a rather more, erm, nuanced position. In October 2005, CND invited a very special guest to address its annual conference:

The Iranian Ambassador, Dr Seyed Mohammed Hossein Adeli will speak at the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's Annual Conference on the 15-16th October 2005. He will be giving Iran's perspective on the current controversy around the Iranian civil nuclear power programme.

CND members were treated to the Iranian regime's defence of that "civil nuclear programme."

Do read the whole thing.

What came first, the chicken or the egg?

Ann Althouse (via Instapundit) makes an interesting point:

You know, what the Democrats need is a presidential candidate who was critical of the war early on, but who now firmly supports the successful completion of the mission. Gore?

Well, I don't know about that (I mean the Gore part)... Simon (of I Respectfully Dissent) posts an interesting analysis in one of the comments there:

I know I'm usually the one leading the charge against comparative law, and this comparison isn't entirely a good fit, but the Dems seem to have gotten themselves into the same funk as did the Labour Party in Britain. Having been thoroughly discredited as a party of government, Labour got absolutely slaughtered in 1979 by a resurgent conservative party under the firm control of an unusually ideologically-driven leader, Margaret Thatcher. In 1983, they got an even sterner drubbing. Bits of the party began to detatch, thinking third party runs were the way to go (sound familiar?), others thought that all they had to do was sit back and do nothing, and when the Conservatives self-destructed, Labour would be returned to power without having to fundamentally change at all (sound familiar?) while some groups - particularly one called Militant Tendancy - essentially claimed that Labour had to move even further to the left (that should definitely sound familiar). Eventually, the realization set in that if they ever wanted to get back into power, they had to change, they had to get the ultra left out of the party, and they had to make a beeline back for a position that people could vote for. It took them until 1997 - nearly twenty years in the wilderness. It's easy to make the argument that Daily Kos is Militant Tendancy to Newt Gingrich's Margaret Thatcher, Al Gore's Jim Callaghan, and John Kerry's Paul Foot, and I suppose that there's an argument that Joe Biden is Neil Kinnock (no -- wait -- that's just Biden's speeches, sorry), but it's much harder, to see which Democrat is going to step up to the plate and say to the party, "shit, you guys, we're going to be out of power until kingdom come if we don't do something." In other words, the Democrats need their very own Tony Blair - the question is who.

Do read the whole thing. The cruel Biden joke was particularly appreciated...
At any rate, the odd thing about this analysis is that not too long ago people were saying that Bill Clinton did just that to get the Democrats out of the Reagan/Bush-induced funk (although that's not entirely true, as Clinton would never, ever have won in '92 without Ross Perot), and that Tony Blair was imitating Clinton to beat the Tories. However it is certainly true that as long as the Democratic leadership is populated by such cringe-inducing personages as John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi etc., and the party doesn't come up with a positive and unified vision of what it wants the US to mean for its citizens and for the world, it will be hard (thankfully) to convince the American people to entrust the keys of power to them.

Cats rule

In the great cat-dog debate, I am certainly a cat person. My sister has an adorably snobbish and indifferent cat (which I had to take care of regularly when I lived at home), and I generally think they are superior in many ways: cleaner, quieter and more independent (you can leave them alone for a weekend and they will pace themselves with the food even if you leave lots of it out, they won't pee on your couch or get desperately lonely...). Nevertheless I do recognise that honour must be paid to seeing-eye and rescue dogs, which I admire.
Anyway, I also happen to be a fan of the musical Cats, which gives living in Bloomsbury an additional dimension of fun, because that is where the story takes place. For instance according to an unpublished poem by T.S. Eliot which ended up in the musical, eventually cats go:

Up up up past the Russell Hotel,
up up up to the Heaviside Layer

I was surprised to notice that the Russell Hotel (which still stands and has a beautiful facade) is just around the corner from my house (and if you are wondering what the Heaviside Layer is, see here).
So I was very amused by this CNN report in which a couple return home to find their cat playing with a 7-foot snake. As Meryl Yourish says:

Superiority of felines over most of the other life forms is widely known (at least to the initiated). CNN provides a clip about another case when a representative of the felines manages quite nicely, thank you, in a contact with another life form.

Give 'em hell!

Never mind

The Jerusalem Post reports:

While sticking to its demand for the establishment of an independent inquiry into a blast on a Gaza beach 10 days ago that killed seven Palestinian civilians, the Human Rights Watch conceded Monday night for the first time since the incident that it could not contradict the IDF's exonerating findings.
On Monday, Maj.-Gen. Meir Klifi - head of the IDF inquiry commission that cleared the IDF of responsibility for the blast - met with Marc Garlasco, a military expert from the HRW who had last week claimed that the blast was caused by an IDF artillery shell. Following the three-hour meeting, described by both sides as cordial and pleasant, Garlasco praised the IDF's professional investigation into the blast, which he said was most likely caused by unexploded Israeli ordnance left laying on the beach, a possibility also raised by Klifi and his team.
[...]
Garlasco told Klifi during the meeting that he was impressed with the IDF's system of checks and balances concerning its artillery fire in the Gaza Strip and unlike Hamas which specifically targeted civilians in its rocket attacks, the Israelis, he said, invested a great amount of resources and efforts not to harm innocent civilians. "We do not believe the Israelis were targeting civilians." Garlasco said. "We just want to know if it was an Israeli shell that killed the Palestinians."

Adloyada (via Harry's Place and Instapundit – also see Haditha developments there) wonders:

As I commented previously, Mr Garlasco seems to have a remarkable tendency to radically recast his accounts of his actions to match emerging evidence. His entire previous case was about active Israeli shelling dropping out of the sky, which he had said was almost beyond doubt responsible.
And I wonder if Chris McGreal of the Guardian, Donald McIntyre of the Independent, and the BBC News web site will now report in full Garlasco and Human Rights Watch's latest statements that the Israeli forces invest such effort not to harm innocent civilians and were correct in stating that an errant shell did not cause the killings.
And will they raise questions about the Palestinian witness evidence they so graphically reported, which had barrages of shells landing in the midst of the family on the beach?

As they say in German: So siehst du aus!

Post Scriptum:
Also see these interesting comments from Meryl Yourish and Perry de Havilland.

Is the sky falling yet?

Something to chew on: the sea-level in the Arctic has been... falling! Madsen Pirie at the ASI Blog notes:

Scientists know that the world's oceans are not of uniform height, and it is possible, thinks Dr Proshutinsky, that the results might fit the so-called Arctic Oscillation, "a seesaw pattern of change in atmospheric pressure over the polar region and mid latitudes." The problem with fitting all this in is compounded by the regular cyclic changes which happen to the earth's climate, and indeed to the sun's output. What is by no means clear is whether any of these new Artcic findings can be laid at the door of human activity.

Do read the whole report, which underlines how little even scientists understand what drives the climate. Something I found odd is that the same page also has a graphic on Arctic sea ice extent, which is entitled: "Arctic Ice in Retreat." The data in the graphic plots as follows:

I do think the title is somewhat gratuitously misrepresenting the data... not to mention that the time frame is vanishingly small. Anyway, here (scroll down) is some more information about what is happening to glaciers in general.

'Mlle Thatcher' à l'Elysée?

Here is a story about someone I mentioned some time ago:

Sabine Hérold, who sprang to fame when she led a protest movement against French workers' readiness to go on strike, now hopes to exploit growing disillusionment with her country's political elite by winning a seat in parliament.
Miss Hérold, 25, who regards her French media nickname - Mlle Thatcher - as a compliment, also refuses to rule out standing as a candidate to replace Jacques Chirac as president next year.
Miss Hérold, a prominent figure in the new Liberal Alternative Party, told The Daily Telegraph last night that her aim was to restore French people's confidence in their country and society.
"I don't see myself as being of the Right," she insisted from Turkey, where she is on holiday. "Our concept of liberalism doesn't translate easily into English, but essentially means giving individuals the freedom and responsibility to make their own decisions in all areas of life." Miss Hérold found herself addressing crowds of up to 80,000 three years ago when she became the spearhead of a campaign against crippling anti-government strikes by public sector workers.
In her first attempt to win the hearts of French voters, she has chosen Paris's smart 16th arrondissement for her battleground. There, she will try to unseat Françoise de Panafieu, from the ruling centre-Right UMP party, who won a comfortable victory in the 2002 general election.

Quite a long shot, I would say, and that's all the more reason to admire her for fighting for these ideals. Maybe she'll do better than Abraham Lincoln... that's when the real fun would start.

Is reality malleable?

Here's a rather amusing look at how the same events can be presented in a different light. The BBC News website informs us:

Japan gains key whaling victory

Pro-whaling nations have won their first vote towards the resumption of commercial whaling for 20 years. The meeting of the International Whaling Commission backed the declaration by a majority of just one.
Anti-whaling countries say they will challenge the outcome, which Japan has described as "historic". But pro-whaling nations need support from three-quarters of the commission to overturn the 1986 ban aimed at protecting the endangered species.
The resolution, tabled by St Kitts and Nevis where the meeting is being held, declared: "The moratorium, which was clearly intended as a temporary measure, is no longer necessary."

The (London) Telegraph on the other hand reports:

Anti-whaling nations win 'great victory' against Japan proposals

Japan suffered an unexpected and total defeat when it tried to start attacking a 20-year-old ban on commercial whaling at the International Whaling Commission's meeting in the Caribbean state of St Kitts and Nevis last night.
The member countries of the UN whaling treaty voted down two proposals by Japan - the most significant one for secret ballots so that small Pacific and Caribbean nations that receive Japanese aid could unpick the protection of whales without fear of retribution. The other proposal sought to prevent the commission from discussing the fate of dolphins and porpoises as well as whales.

Meanwhile this seems to be the most factual account:

How the voting went at the IWC meeting

Japan won its first pro-whaling majority in more than two decades today at the International Whaling Commission when the group approved a declaration criticizing a 1986 ban on commercial whaling.
But Japan lost four more substantive votes at the IWC's June 16-20 meeting in St. Kitts and Nevis.
The first vote, proposed by Japan, was to prevent the IWC from discussing the fate of dolphins, porpoises and small whales in addition to great whales. Japan lost 30-32, with one abstention.
The second vote, also proposed by Japan, was to introduce secret balloting. It lost that vote 30-33, with one abstention.
The third vote, which would have allowed Japanese coastal communities to hunt a limited number of whales -- effectively circumventing the moratorium -- was lost by 30 votes to 31, with four abstentions.
Japan lost its fourth vote when it proposed eliminating a Southern Ocean whale sanctuary, for which it needed and did not expect a three-quarters majority. Japan had hoped to at least win a simple majority but lost 28-33, with four abstentions.
The fifth vote on the declaration, which called the moratorium unnecessary and which accused whales of eating "huge quantities of fish," was won by 33 votes to 32, with one abstention. Environmental activists blamed a "yes" vote by Denmark for passage of the statement.

They also have the voting list.
It's funny how even something apparently simple can seem so different depending on which account one reads. No doubt this is even more true of the really important and controversial stuff.

Post Scriptum:
À propos whaling, Daniel Drezner (via Instapundit) explains why the International Whaling Commission is his favourite international body, and notes the Independent's "rather hyperbolic" coverage of the story. No surprises from what has deliciously been called the "Daily Mail for people who recycle."

The situation in Iraq

Gateway Pundit (via MP) makes some interesting points on Iraq, and how things are going there:

The recorded Iraqi civilian fatalities (including insurgents, military, morgue counts, police, etc.) were down 16% (16% maximum) in 2005... 38% (48% maximum) less than 2003 (via Leftist anti-war site Iraq Body Count). If you take out the numbers from that horrible day in August 2005 when nearly one thousand panicked Iraqis were trampled or drowned near a Muslim shrine, the year shows striking progress compared to 2003 and 2004 with fatalities one third less than in 2004.

Do read the whole thing. Melanie Phillips notes:

Yes, abuses such as occurred at Abu Ghraib and now maybe Haditha have had a profound effect too. But once again, the way these have been reported -- as if the behaviour of the US military has been as bad as, if not even wose then, the terror perpetrated by Saddam -- has played a major role in breaking the public's spirit. Abuses happen in all military conflicts. Soldiers fighting for the most noble of ends sometimes behave in appalling ways. It's reprehensible, and should be punished. But dwelling upon it obsessively, inflating or distorting what happened and equating such aberrations with systematic tyranny, are all fuelling an atmosphere of hysteria in the west and handing Zarqawi his most potent weapon. If we had behaved like this during World War Two, we would have lost it.

Meanwhile Gene at Harry's Place expands a very interesting, and rarely mentioned, comparison with World War II:

He quotes from a book by Norman Lewis, who was stationed with the British army in Naples toward the end of World War II.

"What we saw was ineptitude and cowardice spreading down from the command, and this resulted in chaos...
"I saw an ugly sight: a British officer interrogating a civilian, and repeatedly hitting him about the head with the chair; treatment which the [civilian], his face a mask of blood, suffered with stoicism. At the end of the interrogation, which had not been considered successful, the officer called on a private and asked him in a pleasant, conversational sort of manner, 'Would you like to take this man away, and shoot him?' The private's reply was to spit on his hands, and say, 'I don't mind if I do, sir.'
"I received confirmation ... that American combat units were ordered by their officers to beat to death [those] who attempted to surrender to them. These men seem very naive and childlike, but some of them are beginning to question the ethics of this order.
"We liberated them from the Fascist Monster. And what is the prize? The rebirth of democracy. The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation. The days of Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared to us."

Replace "Mussolini" with "Saddam" and you get one of the more mindless criticisms of the invasion of Iraq-- which doesn't stop Michael "Flying Kites" Moore and countless others from repeating it.
Add to Lewis's account the thousands of other atrocities surely committed by Allied forces during World War II, and the hundreds of thousands of German and Japanese civilians killed by the deliberate bombing of their neighborhoods, and the Iraq war seems almost pristine by comparison. And yet who will say that the world isn't a better place for the Allies having fought and defeated the Axis? Who will argue (as some have about Abu Ghraib and Haditha) that the Second World War atrocities were sufficient cause for stopping the fight and going home?
Abu Ghraib and Haditha have sickened me, and those responsible need to be held to account-- up to the highest ranks, including the secretary of defense. Having never experienced combat, I can't begin to imagine how stressful it is. But neither can I imagine any circumstances in which it is justified to shoot defenseless women and children.
And yet I also know that on the coalition side, atrocities are the exception and not a matter of strategy-- in contrast to the other side in the fight.

Do read the whole thing: I think he really strikes the correct balance in this piece.

The Tiananmen Square Massacre

Today is the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. Slate has an interesting photo essay and here is a gut-wrenching video which is well worth seeing (both via Instapundit).

(Photo: Jeff Widener - The Associated Press; source)

The victims' families and the world are still waiting for China to face up to its past.

Lomborg is winning, thankfully

I became aware of the Johann Hari and Scott Burgess debate (which IMHO Scott is winning hands down) through the excellent EnviroSpin Watch. Some people where I work are fans of Harry's Place (which I enjoy as well), and came to the same debate through this post. After reading through it they came to the flabbergasting conclusion that Lomborg is misrepresenting himself. Huh?! It's funny how people who make the heritage of the Enlightenment their own, seem to have such trouble accepting hard facts, i.e. that Hari is clearly misrepresenting reality, Lomborg's positions and much else besides.
Anyway, as Philip points out, thankfully Lomborg etc. are clearly winning the practical debate:

Yet, despite the vitriol and abuse, in the solid world, beyond the febrile and hysterical rantings of a few (surprisingly few, I might add) European 'Greens', and some of the 'liberal' media, like The Independent, BBC television (far less BBC radio), and Channel 4, Lomborg is quietly winning the debate.
As Canada's The National Post (May 30) points out in 'Ottawa's Kyoto plan wins backers in Bonn', the Kyoto Protocol is slowly and inexorably being ditched and abandoned.
[...]
The economic imperative, coupled with dynamic adaptive innovation, will continue to thrive. Lomborg, in essence, has won. Hence the ill-tempered outbursts of Mr. Hari and his ilk. Sadly, in the meantime, such people have caused us to waste so much energy on sheer fantasies. As Lomborg says, we should be concentrating on getting the best outcomes for our money, especially for the poorest and the most disadvantaged in the world.

Do read the whole thing. Unfortunately Hari etc. seem intent on proving that they are totally unhinged from reality, which is a pity.

But he's still brilliant...

Since in my last post I criticised Christopher Hitchens, I would like to point out that I often find his writing to be brilliant. It gives voice, in concise and biting prose, to ideas and convictions which I have long held and could never express as effectively as he does. A few weeks ago he had an article in Slate on the war in Iraq, and there is not one syllable in it with which I disagree:

So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush's speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam's deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that? Here's what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task. In the meantime—this is of special importance—all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.
Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations' secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus—the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate—to the job of invigilation. A tirade of opprobrium, accusing Bush of everything from an oil grab to a vendetta on behalf of his father to a secret subordination to a Jewish cabal. Platforms set up in major cities so that crowds could be harangued by hardened supporters of Milosevic and Saddam, some of them paid out of the oil-for-food bordello.

Do read the whole thing, which touches on the main issues working up to the war. I was recently trying to make a similar point to a friend of mine: Chirac should have gotten behind Bush's statements before the war, and there probably would have been no war because it would have been unnecessary. Unfortunately this friend of mine has IMHO a disingenuous faith (belied by history) in the workings of international law and therefore claimed that such a strategy would have been wrong because Chirac would have been creating damaging legal precedents by supporting a crime, and that Bush was obviously not interested in humanitarian intervention, otherwise the US would have filed the appropriate legal arguments. I clearly think that's a load of tosh, and this article goes a long way to explain why.