The main game

The pundits' claims that September 11 made terrorism the defining issue of the Bush presidency are completely wrong. The Bush Administration deliberately rejected the counter-terrorism opportunities of post-September 11 to return to its pre-existing agenda of extraordinarily aggressive political and geopolitical activism: an agenda not even remotely connected to terrorism; an agenda squarely devoted to entrenching Republican power at home and US power abroad.

Of course, the administration is also pursuing some genuine counter-terrorism measures. But these are the added extras, not the core agenda. And even the counter-terrorist extras were not enough for Bush's White House chief of counter-terrorism, who resigned in a fury of frustration and went to work for the Democrats.

The full scope of the Bush agenda may also flow in part from the personal convictions of the president himself. In his 1999 pitch for office, a book titled A Charge to Keep (Perennial, 2001), Bush wrote that he learned from his father's experience as president that political capital was not a collectible to hoard but a currency to be used. His father had not spent the political capital he had earned in winning the first Gulf War, and W was determined not to make the same mistake.

and:

"My faith frees me," George W. Bush wrote in his memoir. "Frees me to make the decisions that others might not like." The world, preoccupied with Bush's apparent feeble-mindedness, has failed to grasp the true breadth and boldness of his ambition. Bush is a shrewd and ruthless risk-taker. Not content to be in power, he is using his presidency to make the Republicans the party permanently in power. Not satisfied with America's status as the superpower, he is working to make it an unchallengeable superpower. Bush might not have hit on the precise formulation but he certainly does seem to have reached the right conclusion about the way the world views his presidency: "They misunderestimated me.

We are a strange people. We are unsurprised when politicians behave badly. We seem to have made two senatorial hecklers into national heroes. I suspect much the Bush speech fell on deaf ears because messianic arrogance and blatant partisanship just does not fly in Australia. Howard has, until now always, carefully avoided it, although he did indeed, as one letter to the Canberra Times said, look as if he'd died and gone to heaven.

The alleged security measures, closing the parliament and removing demonstrators out of sight and sound, could perhaps have been justified. But why was it necessary to insist that if any loudspeakers were used they must be turned away from Parliament House?

This was not security, it was propaganda. As Salon reports today:

Since then, Presser charges, the Bush administration has continued the strategy of using the Secret Service and cooperative local police departments to keep protesters at bay, and not incidentally, out of easy range of the media. "People used to say that Ronald Reagan's was the most scripted administration we ever had," the attorney says, "but this Bush administration has gone way beyond that." Presser adds that he was told by William Fisher, a senior Philadelphia police captain and head of the department's Civil Affairs Unit, that the tight restrictions and decision to cordon off protesters during presidential visits have come "at the Secret Service's direction." Fisher declined to be interviewed for this article, but when asked, did not deny Presser's account of their conversation.

But then the entire visit, like the War on Terror, seems to be about politics rather than policy. Once upon a time a visiting chief of state would not have dreamed of offering political support to a domestic political leader. Times have changed. But the Russian for 'Man of Steel' has not, and it does not mean 'fair dinkum'.

Rumsfeld's war-on-terror memo

Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?

Does the US need to fashion a broad, integrated plan to stop the next generation of terrorists? The US is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists. The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.

This is a much more important document than a certain speech in Canberra, because it is much more truthful on progress in the War against Terror. I might have been more moved by the Rumsfeld cost/benefit metrics if they had included the human, as well as material costs. I might have been more moved by the Bush address if it took any account of reality. Instead, as Fred Kaplan
writes :

It [the Rumsfeld memo] puts the lie to the Bush administration's PR campaign that postwar Iraq is progressing nicely and that the media are exaggerating the setbacks. (If the media are exaggerating, this memo indicates, then so, too, is Secretary Rumsfeld.) It reads eerily like some internal mid-'60s document from The Pentagon Papers that spelled out how badly things were going in Vietnam (just as President Lyndon B. Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, were publicly proclaiming tunnel light and victories). To use a phrase coined during LBJ's tenure to describe the ever-widening fissure between rhetoric and reality, Rumsfeld's memo marks the first unconcealable eruption of a 'credibility gap' in the wartime presidency of George W. Bush.

Notice of Motion 24 October 2003

Mr Bevis to move:

That this House:

(1)notes with grave concern the detention of two Australian citizens, Mr David Hicks and Mr Mamdouh Habib at Guantanamo Bay Cuba by the United States administration;

(2)notes that even the worst war criminals from Nazi Germany were afforded a full court hearing open to public scrutiny;

(3)notes that David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib have received only very limited access to legal advice;

(4)notes that David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib have been denied access to their families;

(5)notes that David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib have been denied natural justice and are being held at the sole discretion of the President of the United States of America in whatever circumstances he deems fit; and

(6)calls on the President of the United States of America either to lay charges immediately against these Australians to be heard in an open court of law or release them for return to Australia where any legal proceedings can be pursued in accordance with Australian law.

I would not hold your breath waiting for Prime Minister Howard's passion for robust democracy to see this one debated.

Why is Bush avoiding the Australian media? Don't ask

George Bush's word is apparently beyond question. At least, by the Australian press.

The US President has declined a customary joint press conference after his address to the Federal Parliament tomorrow.

The media event, which normally allows two or three questions from Australian media and an equal number from the visiting press, would have been the only official opportunity for Australian journalists to quiz Mr Bush on the Iraq war and its aftermath.

It would also be the only opportunity to ask the US President about the two Australian citizens being detained without charge at Guantanamo Bay.

Australian journalists have also been denied any place in a so-called 'close-up media pool' that will follow Mr Bush on all his official stops on the day. All positions in the four-member pool have been allocated to members of the White House press corps.

The US Secret Service rejected an application from the Canberra press gallery for equal access, on the basis that the journalists did not have the required US security clearances. The Secret Service then declined to allow the journalists to apply for those clearances; no reason was given.

A marquee has been set up in the grounds of The Lodge to allow the American journalists to file their stories. No Australian media will be allowed on the grounds.

A member of the team put together by Mr Howard's department to make press arrangements for the visit conceded yesterday that Australian media will learn of events at Government House and The Lodge from news reports filed in the US.

What a gutless wonder! Correction, it is hard to tell whether Bush is more gutless for evading questions or Howard is more gutless for allowing him to do it. When did the US Secret Service acquire the right to close our parliament without asking permission from either house or to decide which journalists are allowed to attend a press conference?

BAD ATTITUDES

How odd of God

To choose to use

Boykin and Bush

To air His Views

Australia's Treatment Of Asylum Seekers: The View From Outside

The universal declaration of human rights is the most widely accepted international convention in human history. Most countries in the world are parties to it. Article 14 of the universal declaration of human rights provides that every person has a right to seek asylum in any territory to which they can gain access. Despite that almost universally accepted norm, when a person arrives in Australia and seeks asylum, we lock them up. We lock them up indefinitely and in conditions of the utmost harshness.

The Migration Act provides for the detention of such people until they are either given a visa or removed from Australia. In practice, this means that human beings - men, women and children innocent of any crime - are locked up for months, and in many cases years.

They are held in conditions of shocking harshness. The United Nations Human Rights Commission has described conditions in Australia's detention centres as "offensive to human dignity". The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has described Australia's detention centres as "worse than prisons" and observed "alarming levels of self-harm". Furthermore, they have found that the detention of asylum seekers in Australia contravenes Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which bans arbitrary detention.

The Delegate of the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner who visited Woomera in 2002 described it as "a great human tragedy". Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have repeatedly criticised Australia's policy of mandatory detention and the conditions in which people are held in detention.

In short, every responsible human rights organisation in the world has condemned Australia's treatment of asylum seekers. Only the Australian government and the Australian public are untroubled by our treatment of innocent, traumatised people who seek our help.

While John Howard has never said that refugees rule the world by proxy, he has come close to it. Go read Debunking More Myths About Asylum Seekers. (PDF) Most of the government's public claims about refugees have been simply untrue or wildly misleading.

Even the famous: 'We will decide who comes to Australia' is wildly misleading because the refugee convention does not prevent us doing that. What are the real facts?

• 71 countries accept refugees and asylum seekers in some form or other
  
• Of the 71 Australia is ranked 32nd;
  
• On a per capita basis Australia is ranked 38th, slightly behind Kazakhstan, Guinea, Djibouti and Syria;
  
• Of the 29 developed countries that accept refugees and asylum seekers Australia is ranked 14th. Per capita, the US takes twice as many refugees as Australia.
  

The truth will out, eventually. Sometime. I hope.

Organic Farming Yields new Weapon against Global Warming

After 23 years of field studies on organic farming practices, researchers at The Rodale Institute have announced exciting new findings with profound implications in the battle against global warming.

The Rodale Institute's groundbreaking Farming Systems Trial, the world's longest running study of organic farming, has documented that organic soils actually scrub the atmosphere of global warming gases by capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide and converting it into soil material. This is the first study to differentiate organic farming techniques from conventional agricultural practices for their ability to serve as carbon 'sinks.'

'Organic farming is a powerful new tool in the global warming arsenal,' said Anthony Rodale, chairman of The Rodale Institute. 'It puts agriculture into a lead role - in regenerating the environment.'

Through a process called carbon sequestration, plants and soils act as 'sinks' for atmospheric carbon dioxide. Carbon 'sequestered' in vegetation and soil is not readily released as carbon dioxide, providing a significant boost in the efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. While carbon helps stimulate plant growth, scientists estimate carbon dioxide may be responsible for more than 80 percent of global warming.

What organic farming cannot do is churn out large amounts of the homogenised but less value-added mush that corporate agriculture is so good at. So go eat at an organic tomato and help save the planet.

Conspiracy theories

We have uncovered one, incontrovertibly true, conspiracy involving MI6, the Libyans and the royal family. It seems that the Queen [this section has been redacted by the Guardian's legal team]. You read it here first.

I denounce the conspiracy to make 'redact' an everyday English word.

Holding leaders accountable for untruths about war

While the pot continues to boil in Washington and London over the manipulated evidence used to ''justify'' attacking Iraq, an equally passionate debate has been taking place in Australia, where former Australian intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie resigned before the war and immediately went public about the lying.

That the Australian Senate saw fit, in a rare move on Oct. 7, formally to censure Prime Minister John Howard for misleading the public shows that truth can win out even in a country with a largely apathetic populace and a mainstream press all too eager to parrot the official line. There are lessons for us, of course, but Americans cannot be accused of apathy in this particular instance because the U.S. media have largely ignored the story.

The Australian Senate censured Howard for producing no evidence to support his claims last March that Iraq had stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, and for suppressing Australian intelligence warnings that war with Iraq would increase the likelihood of terrorist attacks. One senator accused Howard of "unprecedented deceit."

Sadly, the deceit was all too precedented. Tampa. SIEV-X. The Nigerien yellowcake. Abbot's involvement in the destruction of One Nation. The Manildra meeting Howard forgot he had attended. The 14 February JIC report. The qualifications to the US analysis. The whole sorry invention of 'pre-deployment' - the war you've committed the nation to without telling the nation.

I've previously blogged about why Howard is escaping the popular outrage emerging in the US and Britain. We'll see whether you can found a government on fooling all of the people all of the time between now and the next election.

Time for reckoning

Intelligence is meant to inform government decision-making, not to be invoked or discarded selectively to justify predetermined political decisions. The unjustified claims of the Bush administration on Iraq's illicit weapons capabilities have severely damaged the credibility of the U.S. government and the U.S. intelligence community.

The Kay report offers nothing to vindicate or excuse the administration in this matter. Congress, in whom the Constitution has invested the war powers function, has the responsibility to initiate an independent investigation on how and why the administration used discredited and disputed claims to launch a war, which continues to impose a costly and destabilizing burden on this nation.

Greg Thielmann was a senior official in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Daryl G. Kimball is executive director of the Arms Control Association.

We do not really need to look far beyond the Kay report. Comparing the contents of that report (including the botched botulism allegation) with what the coalition governments have claimed it says reveals a leadership that will say or do anything to retain power. They should all get reverse gears installed, and quickly.

The Poor Man: "The Stovepipe"

Fans of cheap irony may wish to read Pollack's "The Threatening Storm", particularly those bits (pgs. 248-280) which discuss how Saddam's unwillingness to accept intelligence he doesn't want to hear, and the willingness of his operatives to furnish him with only the stories he wants to hear, make him a particular danger. Hard-core irony fanatics should focus on page 255, where mention is made of punishments handed out to the bearers of unwanted news, and wonder aloud if these punishments ever included jeapardizing the safety of said bearer's wives by outing them as undercover agents. Those of a more serious mind should content themselves with noting the rather dismissive attitude towards the idea of objective reality implied by such an approach, and, weaving together (oh, for example) the 2001 demotion of the position of national science advisor, and the editing of EPA reports on the scientific consensus on climate change by political officials, and wonder if it wouldn't just save everyone a lot of needless aggrevation by skipping the middleman and just having Ralph Reed and Fred Barnes dictate to everyone how the world works. Most people think conservatives long for the 1950's; some radicals think they may secretly be pining for the days before the New Deal; I'm becoming convinced that their real ideal may be even a bit earlier.

Personally, I love cheap irony. I'd say the Kay report is fast turning into a third example of editing by political officials.

To Some in GOP, Bush's Troubles Become a Liability

Although many Republicans are optimistic that Bush will win reelection next year, all nonretiring House members (and a third of senators) have their own 2004 reelection campaigns to worry about. Some GOP incumbents -- especially those in the several dozen House districts that Democrat Al Gore carried or nearly won in 2000 -- are showing an increasing willingness to vote against key White House initiatives and to reassure constituents that they think and act independently of the president.

Leach was among 21 Republicans who joined most Democrats when the House voted 221 to 203 to bar the administration from implementing the overtime revisions. Scores of Republicans bucked the White House by voting to overturn a Federal Communications Commission rule making media mergers easier, and several also voted, against Bush's wishes, to allow the importation of prescription drugs from Canada and other countries.

Such erosion of GOP solidarity was rarely seen when Bush's approval ratings were higher, but it hardly signals a deep or permanent break between the White House and congressional GOP moderates. Republican lawmakers from swing districts say that Bush generally remains popular with their constituents, and that jobs, not Iraq, are number one on voters' minds. Many GOP House members are taking a cautious line: focusing on the possibility that Bush can't help them at reelection time, yet continuing to support him as much as possible.

Rats. Ship. Sinking. Enough said.

Listening to Mahathir

What became clear watching Mr. Mahathir back then was that his strident rhetoric was actually part of a delicate balancing act aimed at domestic politics. Malaysia has a Muslim, ethnically Malay, majority, but its business drive comes mainly from an ethnic Chinese minority. To keep the economy growing, Mr. Mahathir must allow the Chinese minority to prosper, but to ward off ethnic tensions he must throw favors, real and rhetorical, to the Malays.

Part of that balancing act involves reserving good jobs for Malay workers and giving special business opportunities to Malay entrepreneurs. One reason Mr. Mahathir was so adamantly against I.M.F. austerity plans was that he feared that they would disrupt the carefully managed cronyism that holds his system together. When times are tough, Mr. Mahathir also throws the Muslim majority rhetorical red meat.

And that's what he was doing last week. Not long ago Washington was talking about Malaysia as an important partner in the war on terror. Now Mr. Mahathir thinks that to cover his domestic flank, he must insert hateful words into a speech mainly about Muslim reform. That tells you, more accurately than any poll, just how strong the rising tide of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism among Muslims in Southeast Asia has become. Thanks to its war in Iraq and its unconditional support for Ariel Sharon, Washington has squandered post-9/11 sympathy and brought relations with the Muslim world to a new low.

Dead right. Reading the whole speech does not excuse, but does explain, Mahathir's use of racist appeals to his electorate,. As I blogged earlier, it's strange how quick Bush was to denounce Mahathir (on whom Bush has no influence) while treating Boykin to faint criticism and retaining him in office.

Instead of taking Mahathir on for his attack on Jews, I would much prefer to see the Australian government affirming the universality of human rights and the wrongness of any form of racism. But wait...

The Peoples' Voice

The Peoples' Voice is a new, broad-based civil initiative whose founders recognise that a way exists to bridge the intolerable impasse between Israelis and Palestinians.

Difficult though it may be to admit, a compromise based�on the�"two states for two peoples" formula is the only way to ensure the continued existence of Israel as a democratic state and Jewish homeland.

Palestinians�are also realising the need for compromise -- that the�abandonment of violence is their only feasible way of achieving�political independence and a stable economy.

The Peoples' Voice is intended to persuade leaders on both sides to end the conflict by means of mass signatures on a joint statement of principles.

In Israel there will be a national petition campaign, with a kindred movement on the Palestinian side. The signatures will then be submitted to the leaders of both nations as a tangible expression of the will�of the majority of both peoples, and with a view to changing diplomatic policy.

The Peoples' Voice will succeed.�Israelis and�Palestinians understand that there is only one solution!

History teaches us that the power to enact change lies with the people as well as with politicians.�Israeli and Palestinian leaders�are at present locked in situations and coalitions that do not allow them to abandon the vicious cycle of hostility. This is the time and�way to begin a sweeping, grassroots initiative�to end the bloodshed,�insecurity and economic problems affecting each and every one of us.

First hopeful sign in this conflict in many years. The remarkable thing about these principles is how obvious they sound the first time you read them. Except to the leadership on each side of the dispute.

name of blog

Sy Hersh's latest, on Iraq, intelligence, WMDs and the like. Wow.

My favourite grafs are:

The point is not that the President and his senior aides were consciously lying. What was taking place was much more systematic�and potentially just as troublesome. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, whose book �The Threatening Storm� generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told me that what the Bush people did was �dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership. Their position is that the professional bureaucracy is deliberately and maliciously keeping information from them.

�They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information,� Pollack continued. �They were forcing the intelligence community to defend its good information and good analysis so aggressively that the intelligence analysts didn�t have the time or the energy to go after the bad information.

It is terrifying that this president does not read the newspapers. Instead, like a Qing emperor, he relies on palace staff to tell him what happens outside the walls of the Great Within. About the only difference is that Bush does not demand the anatomical sacrifice the Qing dynasty demanded of members of the inner court.

Eunuch domination was always the beginning of the end for a dynasty, because it meant the emperor could no longer make his own decisions.

name of blog

Sy Hersh's latest, on Iraq, intelligence, WMDs and the like. Wow.

My favourite grafs are:

The point is not that the President and his senior aides were consciously lying. What was taking place was much more systematic�and potentially just as troublesome. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, whose book �The Threatening Storm� generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told me that what the Bush people did was �dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership. Their position is that the professional bureaucracy is deliberately and maliciously keeping information from them.

�They always had information to back up their public claims, but it was often very bad information,� Pollack continued. �They were forcing the intelligence community to defend its good information and good analysis so aggressively that the intelligence analysts didn�t have the time or the energy to go after the bad information.

It is terifying that this president does not read the newspapers. Instead, like a Qing emperor, he relies on palace staff to tell him what happens outside the walls of the Great Within. About the only difference is that Bush does not demand the anatomical sacrifice the Qing dynasty demanded of members of the inner court.

Eunuch domination was always the beginning of the end for a dynasty, because it meant the emperor could no longer make his own decisions.

The Decembrist: First Draft of History

That's something I suspected. The tightest, most command-and-control administration in the history of democracy is coming apart at every seam, and it does seem like the word is out that there will be no personnel changes until the election. I can see why: ever since President Carter's big cabinet reshuffling in July 1979, changes in the second half of the term have been seen as admissions of failure, or opening the door to new problems that will take time to work out. I haven't done the math, but this administration has probably had less turnover in almost three years than any in recent memory. Other than Karen Hughes, Ari Fleischer (both burnout jobs) and Christie Whitman (who may not have had cabinet status), they're all still there.

One senses that there is also, in this refusal to accept any change, a fearfulness that is not exactly presidential. The refusal to accept a new voice is of a piece with the president's lack of interest in new ideas or alternative viewpoints. Now that the White House has finally devolved into leaks and recriminations, this will be a terrible trap.

I've only just discovered The Decembrist. It's going straight on the blogroll in a couple of minutes.

Mystery of the Vanishing Weapons

The latest and least defensible defense of the CIA has been to flatly deny administration spokesmen ever claimed Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons or that such weapons posed any imminent threat. A Wall Street Journal editorial thus claims, 'The Imminence Test and the Stockpile Standard... are postwar inventions, and political transparently political inventions.' That is a remarkable remark, and one that relies entirely on extremely short memories.

On Jan. 23, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz addressed the Council on Foreign Relations. He claimed that 'in 1997, U.N. inspectors found Iraq had produced and weaponized at least 10 liters of ricin. In concentrated form, that quantity of ricin is enough to kill more than 1 million people. Baghdad declared to the U.N. inspectors that it had over 19,000 liters of botulinum toxin, enough to kill tens of millions; and 8,500 liters of anthrax, with the potential to kill hundreds of millions. And consider that the U.N. inspectors believe that much larger quantities of biological agents remained undeclared. Indeed, the inspectors think that Iraq has manufactured 2 to 4 times the amount of biological agents it has admitted to and has failed to explain the whereabouts of more than 2 metric tons of raw material for the growth of biological agents.

Despite 11 years of inspections and sanctions, containment and military response, Baghdad retains chemical and biological weapons and is producing more.' Mr. Wolfowitz was clearly claiming Iraq still 'retains' sufficient biological weaponry to kills 'hundreds of millions' -- a number large enough to wipe out the entire population of North America. To make it even scarier, Mr. Wolfowitz added Iraq 'is producing more,' so the dangers today 'are far greater now than they would have been five or 10 years ago.'

Yet even this very public claim that Iraq has more than enough weapons to kill 'hundreds of millions' failed to meet the Wall Street Journal's 'Imminence Test and Stockpile Standard,' since the Journal now assures us talking about stockpiles and imminent threats is just a transparently political postwar invention.

Go read, as much because it comes from the Cato Institute as for the excellent analysis of the various excuses advanced to justify the furphies of mass destruction. In particular the article rips the invention of imminence excuse apart. The Cato people, until recently, were among Bush's most vigorous supporters.

I have the feeling the wheels are falling off the whole Bush coalition, not just the administration itself.

Whose god is 'real' and 'bigger'?

Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in an interview on October 19, reiterated her boss' position that the US is not at war with Islam. However, she did not answer the question whether Bush would condemn Boykin's statements made in and out of uniform, in churches and elsewhere. At the same time, there is no anticipated move to remove him from his current sensitive post.

A number of newspapers in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait and Iraq reported Boykin's earlier remarks without comment. One can ignore Boykin's lack of knowledge about Islam as a private person. But there is no excuse for using his public position and visibility to spread hatred and disinformation about a great religion, such as describing Islam as an 'idolatrous' religion, which goes against its very grain as a monotheistic faith. Equally important, this certainly is not the time to raise questions about whose god is 'real' or whose god is 'bigger'.

Bush's reaction to the Boykin comments are going to be read in the Muslim world. So are his somewhat different reactions to the Mahathir comments.

I'd blog more, but my head is still spinning on how size can be a relevant characteristic of a transcendent divinity.

Global pushback against 'Titanic' culture

If you were watching television Sunday night in Sydney, Australia, you had a choice between the American sitcom 'Everybody Loves Raymond,' and a couple of US movies: 'Meet the Parents' and 'Coyote Ugly.'

In fact, 76 percent of all new programs launched on Australian TV in the eight months prior to April 2003 were foreign shows, mostly American. Australia's largely Made-in-USA television diet is part of the background to a new round in the global culture war begun here last week.

Talks are starting on a United Nations treaty designed to help countries protect their native cultures in the face of what many characterize as the homogenizing effect of Hollywood. It's the kind of pact that Washington sees as likely to hamper free trade and free expression - as well as hurt profits.

The UN convention on cultural diversity, championed by Canada and France at the head of some 60 European and developing countries, would take cultural goods, such as films, plays, and music, out of the realm of trade negotiations. It would exempt them from free-trade rules, allow governments to protect and support their cultural industries, and enshrine the 'cultural exception' that European nations have defended in international law.

Behind this emerging conflict in UNESCO, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, lies a debate over whether trade in cultural products should be governed by different rules from those for other commercial products, and what role governments should play in protecting national identities in the face of globalization.

The clash, pitting the United States and a handful of other skeptics against the majority of UNESCO members, comes less than a month after the US rejoined the UN agency after a 19-year absence.

and:

The view from the tarmac, they argue, makes it clear that far from limiting choice, government intervention is the only way to guarantee it in many countries.

In Australia, for example, which is about to finalize a bi- lateral free-trade agreement with the US, negotiators are fighting for the right to extend government policies to support local filmmakers into new delivery systems such as the Internet.

Australian broadcasters must ensure that 55 percent of their daytime and evening programming is locally made, and pay-TV drama channels must spend 10 percent of their program expenditure on Australian drama.

"The market today has failed to deliver a level of choice including a minimum of Australian content, and we can assume the market won't deliver on the Internet either," says Kim Dalton, head of the Australian Film Commission. "It will deliver American products.

The French government offers an outline of a Draft International Convention on Cultural Diversity: French proposals . Culture is more than just the profit motive. Hollywood is a major source of US soft power and that needs to be measured by more than just cash flow. I wish I could read an equally thoughtful analysis about the diversity convention in an Australian paper.

The Texas Constitution - Art 3 - Sec 16

OPEN SESSIONS

The sessions of each House shall be open, except the Senate when in Executive session.

Keeping the parliament's doors open is a fairly basic concept in democratic governance. If we were really as 'like Texas' as President Bush keeps telling us we would be making different security arrangements on Thursday.

Howard's friendship with America does not go as far as China

But any benefits of the Thai deal would be dwarfed by those arising from a free-trade agreement with China or the US, two deals the Government is pursuing with vigour in the face of the World Trade Organisation's lack of progress towards trade liberalisation. Australia has been locked out of a proposed free-trade zone among South-East Asian nations, a failure that has spurred the Government's drive to negotiate bilateral free-trade agreements.

In a rare departure from support for US policies, Mr Howard backed China in its strong resistance to US pressure.

'We don't automatically take sides with the US in relation to the currency levels of other countries,' Mr Howard said here yesterday.

US politicians are blaming competition from cheap Chinese goods for their stalled economy, and unions in Australia are also concerned that jobs are being lost as manufacturers switch their operations to China.

I had thought the onyl disagreement between Howard and Bush would be over US requests for the ADF to go back to Iraq (although 1200 ADF personnel remain in non-combat roles). This is almost a textbook case where security politics (the only kind the Bush administration seems to know about) bumps directly into economics and does not come off very well.

Are you suffering Celebrity Worship Syndrome

At the entry level, one in five people followed celebrities for 'entertainment-social' reasons. Anyone burning to know every detail about a favourite star, such as which Madrid mansion Posh Spice and David Beckham will buy, falls into this category. Such fan worship might seem harmless but even these individuals are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression and social dysfunction than non-worshippers, say the researchers.

Worshippers who took the next step developed 'intense-personal' attitudes towards an idol. The survey indicated that 10 per cent of people were at this point, where celebrity worship was becoming an addiction.

The 'borderline-pathological' condition was the final, most intense stage of celebrity worship and could be marked by criminal or dangerous behaviour.

Dr Houran said: 'Just worshipping a celebrity does not make you dysfunctional, but it does put you at risk of being so. There is this progression of behaviours, and if you start, we don't know what's going to stop you.'

Houran and McCutcheon suspect that an interest in celebrities may start with a 'search for identity and a sense of fulfillment'.

Worshippers then get so absorbed in the details of the lives of their idols that they start to feel emotional attachment, leading to obsession. The psychologists call this the 'absorption-addiction' model.

I'd ask if the CWS survey produced any strange results in California, but then someone might ask if I really said I'd vote for Legolas.

It's the economy that dispatches governments

The obvious candidate here - the only obvious candidate - is the extraordinarily long boom in house prices and the related rapid growth in household debt. Surely the housing bubble will bust eventually and when it does, the fallout will transform all the presently self-satisfied two-bob capitalists into angry voters looking for a pollie to punish.

Well, you'd imagine so - but the more you think about it, the harder it is to see. It's not hard to see a lot of negatively geared investors in rental apartments getting their fingers burnt, but they'd constitute just a few per cent of households.

When you think about the group that matters from a macro-economic perspective - the owner-occupiers - it's hard to see many of them in serious difficulties without a big rise in interest rates and a jump in unemployment.

And why would the Reserve Bank want to raise rates to recession-precipitating levels without it first having a mighty inflationary breakout it was struggling to control? Do you see that looming on the horizon? I don't. Inflation's set to fall.

All I know is, all good things come to an end. All economic expansions end in recession and all governments eventually get swept away - usually by the first recession that occurs on their watch.

Salon carried an interesting piece on the housing bubble in the US:

Today's families are in financial trouble, because they're spending so much more on big fixed expenses -- mortgage, health insurance, car, preschool, after-school care and college.

What's happened is that the cost of being middle-class has shot out of the reach of ordinary families over the past generation.

It would be good to know if Australian families are suffering from inflated housing prices in the same way. It might be bad news for the government.

Close Enough

I'm not a haiku.

I have too many syllables

In my second line

I've been letting my pedantry quota decline lately almost as fast as I've been letting my poetry quota decline. Both declines can and will be reformed.

The haiku form is not just defined by syllable counting. A haiku must contain a caesura at the end of the second line and a reference to the season.

Draft Wesley Crusher For President

With these words, retired Ensign Wesley Crusher began his address to supporters on Deep Space 10, officially entering the race for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. Crusher said he resents the idea that he only got where he is because of his family ties; Crusher's mother was a high-ranking official on the USS Enterprise.

In a world where the Terminator can govern California, what else can be a surprise? Personally I'd vote for Legolas...

Link courtesy of The Covenant of the Lost Ark.



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Did the Saudis know about 9/11?

In his book 'Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11,' Gerald Posner makes an explosive allegation: Top figures in the Saudi and Pakistani governments had been directly assisting Osama bin Laden for years and knew al-Qaida was going to strike America on Sept. 11. Posner cites two unnamed U.S. government sources, both of whom he asserts are 'in a position to know,' who he said gave him separate, corroborating reports. One source is from the CIA and the other is a senior Bush administration official 'inside the executive branch,' he told Salon in an interview.

According to Posner's account, four Saudi princes and the head of Pakistan's air force were deeply involved with Osama bin Laden for years, some of them meeting with him well after al-Qaida began its terror attacks on U.S. targets overseas in the mid-1990s. The fact that some of the figures were so highly placed makes it hard to dismiss the possibility, if the allegations are true, that the heads of the Saudi and Pakistani governments signed off on the policy.

I suspect this is going to be a huge story if Posner can make his case.

Premier: Turkey will scrap Iraq deployment if unwanted

Turkey (AP) Turkey's prime minister said Saturday that his country would scrap plans to send troops to Iraq if Iraqis continue to oppose the deployment.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government supports sending peacekeepers to Iraq, as requested by the United States, and parliament approved a deployment last week.

But the proposed deployment has met vocal opposition from many Iraqis, who fear Turkey will pursue its own agenda. The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council has come out against having Turkish troops or troops from any neighboring nation on Iraqi soil.

''The demands of the Iraqi people are very important for us,'' Erdogan was quoted as saying in Mallorca, Spain by Turkey's semiofficial Anatolia news agency. ''We aren't longing to send soldiers to Iraq. There was a request from the United States and we're evaluating it.''

''If the Iraqi people say, 'We don't want anybody,' there's nothing else we can do,'' Erdogan was quoted as saying. ''If wanted, we'll go, if not wanted, we won't go. We haven't made a definite decision.''

Erdogan added: ''The requests of the United States are very important us.''

The United States has welcomed a possible deployment by Turkey, hoping the Turks would become the first major contingent from a Muslim country.

But Washington is now proceeding cautiously amid opposition from members of Iraq's Governing Council and Iraqi Kurds. Some Turkish officials have downplayed the council's opposition and have said Iraqis would welcome Turkish troops.

On Thursday, the United Nations Security Council also unanimously passed a resolution authorizing a multinational force in the neighboring nation. That has apparently boosted Washington's hopes that other nations might now contribute to a peacekeeping operation.

The world is complex. Moral clarity does not make it any simpler. The Bush administration seems to think that putting a Muslim face or a UN face on the occupation will make to acceptable in the Muslim world or inside Iraq itself.

I do not think that is the case. Military occupations generate inevitable friction between the people and the occupying troops. Muslim occupation troops will ultimately suffer the same unpopularity as other occupation troops. The antagonistic history that Turks and Iraqis share makes the choice of Turkish troops incredibly foolish.

George Bush launched this war saying the US is not subject to the decisions of others. That was always untrue. Its untruth is proved by the Turkish parliament's refusal to allow the northern attack to happen through Turkish territory.

Now the US has an ambiguous UN resolution that enables it to retain the appearance of all power in Iraq. It will not attract any troops or money but the US does get the right to keep the CPA in power while it can. And the Turkish government is saying the IGC has a say no matter what the UN resolutions and CPA decrees might say.

No amount of public relations is going to change that, the starin on the US army,or the inevitable transfer of power from the CPA to the IGC.

The UN's Big Five supply 88% of all killer arms

Lydia and Cecilia's suffering is repeated in dozens of other countries throughout Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia, which are awash with weapons. Millions of weapons seep through porous and unguarded borders on every continent each year. There are a staggering 639 million small arms in the world, one for every 10 people.

The onus to control the proliferation of weapons lies with all governments that export or re-export arms. Rich governments are constantly urging developing countries to become less reliant on aid and to become accountable for improving their own country and regional security, economies, education and health. Yet, in what can only be seen as enormous hypocrisy, the very countries that are urging self-reliance are helping to fuel the conflicts that destroy people's livelihoods and trap countries in a cycle of violence and poverty.

In the past four years, Britain, France and the US earned more income from arms exports to Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America than they provided in aid.

The hypocrisy cannot go on. Rich governments must admit the role they play in allowing the deadly and global trade in arms to go unchecked. Organisations such as Oxfam Community Aid Abroad and Amnesty International Australia are calling for an arms-trade treaty to stop the flow of arms to abusers. The treaty must be agreed to by governments around the world and provide a universal standard for all arms exporters to comply with.

The argument is unanswerable. I guess that is why the question is never raised. See Control Arms for much more detail.

Jesus' General rises from the dead!

Militia commander Gen. JC Christian provides fair and balanced commentary on the news.

AWOL

I don't really expect to be, but I will be guestblogging at Seeing the Forest this week along with Raena Armitage and a few other members of Dave's Blogging Proliferation Initiative.

I'll crosslink my stuff here. A cowboy comes home is the first of a couple of longer pieces I'll be posting there.

Go to the people on legislation in dispute, Mr Howard

The Democrats offer a very different proposal to John Howard's to deal with legislation in dispute.

If the two houses of Parliament cannot agree on legislation, then the best solution is to take it to the people. The Democrats believe legislation in dispute could be resolved through binding plebiscites, asking the opinion of the nation.

If the Prime Minister genuinely wants a mandate, then he can put the legislation to the voters.

An example would be a deadlock over the further sale of Telstra.

Under Mr Howard's preferred option, he would wait three months, hold a joint sitting, pass the legislation and sell Telstra. There would be no way to stop him.

But under the Democrats' proposal, he could go to a normal election with all the disputed legislation and ask the Australian people: 'Do you want to sell Telstra?'

While he's at it, he could ask the people 'Do you want medicines to be more expensive on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme?' and 'Do you want more disabled people thrown off the disability support pension?', because these are the other pieces of legislation the Senate is refusing to pass.

Unlike Mr Howard, we trust the Australian people.

The Democrats' proposals are based on S5B Disagreements�referendum of the NSW constitution. Trusting the people is a much better idea than expanding the already autocratic powers of the executive.

Hu embraces Australia as cultural bridge

Australia is about to get a ringing endorsement from Asia's biggest country - China. It will say that Australia is part of the region and should be a member of its trade and other groupings, countering repeated signals from Malaysia in particular, that it is an outsider.

This will be part of Chinese President Hu Jintao's message to Australians when he speaks to the Federal Parliament in Canberra on Thursday, according to He Yafei, the head of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's department running relations with North America, Australasia and the South Pacific.

President Hu will also say that while China understands Australia's military alliance with the US, it hopes Australia also will see its security in terms of developing mutual trust with China and other countries in the region.

Coming a day after US President George Bush speaks in the same spot, this implicitly urges Canberra to resist any American moves to build up Cold War-style 'containment' of Chinese power, and deepens the dilemma of defending Taiwan if the breakaway island moves to formalise its effective independence.

Hu's attitude is important. Mahathir's recent speeches promoting conspiracy theories about Jews ruling the world, sentiments applauded by Megawati, need to be answered by constructive engagement in the region, but not to the detriment of human rights. That means hard decisions about China but it also means hard decisions about Aceh and West Papua. The nation is hearing a great deal about how George Bush is to be received when he addresses the parliament on Thursday. We need to hear more about how MHRs and senators plan to draw Hu's attention to China's record on human rights as well.

Both sides of politics have spouted much nonsense over 'Asian values'. Usually this comes down to an implicitly racist theory that Asian governments should be forgiven the grossest violations of human rights for cultural reasons.

That attitude drove both Labor and the Coalition to decorously avert their eyes from genocide in East Timor for a quarter of a century in the name of cultural sensitivities.

Howard on Charisma

MITCHELL: George Bush, by the way, was asked I think it was by Paul Kelly, or was it by Laurie Oakes, that he said that he hadn't yet retained your popularity post-war, that he hadn't and he said that that was because of your charisma. Has he learnt the art of the Aussie sendup?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, he's improving. - got a sense of humour. You'd have to have a sense of humour to describe me as having a lot of charisma!

I like our habit of booing prime ministers on solemn national occasions such as the NRL grand final and the Rugby world cup. I like having deeply, deeply uncharismatic prime ministers. I just wish we had a different deeply, deeply uncharismatic prime minister.

Ovation Simulator

Well, almost. It would explain the presidential obsession with prearranged clapping.

Link thanks to gianna

A crowded House of Yankee lackeys

So the evolution has continued. A third US president now addresses the Parliament next Thursday. A first Chinese president does so 24 hours later. Like our effusive support of US foreign policy, so, very insidiously, have we adopted the American system of honouring selected visitors to address the national seat of our democratic process.

Do we really have to ape US practice as well as policy?

Well, not everyone does.

The Greens' Bob Brown, ever the politician to thumb his nose at convention, made another of those speeches this week that enrages his Coalition and Labor opponents bound by the strictures of party political pragmatism and/or sheer funk. Two speeches, in fact. Brown was as much outraged by the degree to which the US Secret Service insists the Parliament and its precincts must be closed off to ensure Bush's absolute security during the hit-and-run visit to Canberra of the President and his 'approximate' 640-member entourage (two jumbo jets, three US Air Force Starlifters) - makes you blink, doesn't it - as were some Coalition MPs by his remarks.

A passionate Brown told the Senate on Thursday morning: 'I find it quite outrageous, Mr [Senate] President, that you announced to this chamber what the security arrangements are without having the grace to first put those arrangements to the Senate for debate ...

'This is the centre of democracy in this nation. This is the elected parliament of the people of Australia and this [place] belongs to the people of Australia. How dare you close it down and put up a 'trespassers will be prosecuted' sign outside our Parliament because President Bush's Secret Service, in consultation with authorities here, have told you to do so. How dare you! This is the Australian people's parliament. It is not to be closed down because President Bush or [China's] President Hu and their secret service agents tell you ... This place is being turned into a replica of what they have in Beijing.'

The nation was shocked to learn on Wednesday that Labor's federal caucus is divided on the issue of giving Bush a standing ovation.

As the London Daily Mirror tells us, there are precedents:

GEORGE Bush pulled out of a speech to the European Parliament when MEPs wouldn't guarantee a standing ovation.

Senior White House officials said the President would only go to Strasbourg to talk about Iraq if he had a stage-managed welcome.

A source close to negotiations said last night: "President Bush agreed to a speech but insisted he get a standing ovation like at the State of the Union address.

Mike Carlton was actually flamed in Slate (complete with selective quotation) for writing:

This tosh conveniently ignores the fact that millions of Americans are also fearful of where Bush and his Texas oil cronies might be leading them. The artfully directed television pictures of the President's State of the Union message showed senators and representatives leaping to their feet in thunderous applause at about every third paragraph - bizarrely, it looked like nothing so much as a plenary session of the Chinese Communist Party - but in fact there is profound dissent in Washington and throughout the United States.

Until well after Lincoln's time the state of the union message was read to Congress by a clerk and it was believed that it would be a severe breach fo the separation of powers for the president to appear in person. Like so many things, this is not ancient precdent or respect for the office, but simple stage management. The analogy to a party congress is a faithful image. The tradition of parliament keeping its doors open gets abandoned for the sake of image.

The Victorian Legislative Assembly, like the European Parliament and the House of Commons, is made of sterner stuff when it comes to ancient precedent:

It is also considered disorderly for members to make noises or other disturbances whilst in the House. In 1693 the House of Commons resolved that members must not disturb a member who is speaking, by hissing, chanting, clapping, booing or other disturbances. It was expected that members would maintain silence or converse only in undertones. That precedent is followed in the Legislative Assembly."

But we do not need to rely on ancient precedent. Hear Speaker Halvorsen on the 1996 address by President Clinton:

I think standing ovations are the subject of atmospherics and sometimes whimsy and a whole host of other competing emotions and, indeed, I'm sure if the address that we are to receive is sufficiently significant, then the members spontaneous response would be the better one.

Whimsy aside, why would anyone want to receive fake standing ovations anyway?

Experts Downplay Bioagent

A suspicious sample of biological material recently found by U.S. weapons hunters in Iraq probably was purchased legally from a U.S. organization in the 1980s and is a substance that has never been successfully used to produce a weapon, experts said.

The discovery of the hidden vial of C. botulinum Okra B, which was revealed in an Oct. 2 interim report by chief U.S. weapons hunter David Kay, was highlighted in speeches by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other senior administration officials as proof that President Saddam Hussein's government maintained an illicit bio-weapons program before the war.

The significance of the vial is one of several elements of Kay's report that are being called into question by U.S. biowarfare experts and former United Nations weapons inspectors. Although most praised Kay for uncovering numerous cases in which Iraq hid suspicious equipment and activities from U.N. inspectors, they said the report appeared misleading in several areas.

The LA Times piece also documents several other errors in the Kay report, such as identifying diseases endemic to Iraq but never weaponised as WMD projects and, most egregiously of all, claiming Iraq's chemical munitions are not marked as such and are stored with conventional munitions is simply 'baloney'.

When you recall that Kay's own experts were not allowed to read the report before it was given to Congress you have to ask how much of the Kay report represents actual investigation and how much is political fabrication.

Is the 9/11 commission getting tough?

As for the FAA and NORAD, their timid reaction on the morning of Sept. 11, has long baffled experts who have reviewed the tragic timeline in detail. They wonder, for instance, why it took the FAA 29 minutes, from 8:55 a.m. to 9:24 a.m. to notify NORAD that American Airlines Flight 77 bound for Los Angeles was drastically off course and heading for Washington, D.C. That, after two hijacked planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center.

Even more mysterious was fact that NORAD fighter jets were not scrambled from the closest Air Force base. Instead, the jets that were eventually scrambled in a vain attempt to intercept Flight 77 came from Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Va., rather than Andrews Air Force Base right outside D.C.

During a public 9/11 commission hearing last spring, representatives from NORAD and the FAA disagreed over who told what to whom and when. Their testimony was often so puzzling, and contradictory, that commission spokesman Al Felzenberg said those officials may be forced to come back to testify again, this time under oath, something no inquiry witnesses have yet had to do.

This could get interesting. The various timelines for 9/11 have never made much sense and the big question has always been why the air defence system did nothing effective. The response to losing contact with golfer Stewart Payne's plane was quite different.

If, as claimed, all US agencies are co-operating with the 9/11 commission why is their FAA not co-operating?

Astronomers find first 'dark galaxy'

Astronomers have found the first 'dark galaxy' - a black cloud of hydrogen gas and exotic particles, devoid of stars. The gloomy galaxy lurks two million light years from Earth.

Joshua Simon, Timothy Robishaw and Leo Blitz of the University of California, Berkeley, observed a cloud of hydrogen gas called HVC 127-41-330 using the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico.

It appears to be rotating so fast it would fall apart unless it contains a strong, hidden source of gravity. The researchers therefore argue that the cloud must be at least 80 per cent dark matter, the hypothetical invisible substance whose gravity is supposed to explain why many objects in the cosmos move as fast as they do.

If they are right, this could resolve a problem in dark matter theory. In our local group of galaxies, we know of only about 35 dwarf galaxies, but simulations of galaxy formation using dark matter suggest there should be about 500.

Now if only they would train their telescopes on Labor's federal caucus...

Vatican opens to world [but not condoms]

More controversial questions were raised by Scotland's new cardinal, Keith O'Brien of Edinburg, who told reporters Sept. 29 that he felt the Catholic Church should be open to discussion on priestly celibacy and contraception. He also signaled that he had no problem with gay clergy so long as they remain celibate.

In one signal of the tensions surrounding these questions, however, O'Brien on Oct. 7 recited a Profession of Faith in his cathedral pledging that he would 'accept and intend to defend' church law and teaching on precisely the same questions -- celibacy, contraception, and homosexuality.

In another sign of the unfinished business that awaits John Paul's successor, two cardinals clashed in the days leading up to the sliver jubilee on the hot-button issue of condoms.

Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, who heads the Pontifical Council for the Family, told the BBC in early October that condoms may not be effective in blocking the transmission of the virus that causes AIDS. This reiterated a long-standing position in Lopez Trujillo's office, which was laid out in a 2003 Lexicon published by the Council for the Family under the heading 'safe sex.'

Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Brussels, Belgium, widely considered a leading candidate to succeed John Paul II, rebuked Lopez Trujillo.

'It does not befit a cardinal to deal with the virtue of a product ... I don't know if what he said is reliable,' Danneels said, adding that a cardinal should instead raise the ethical, religious and spiritual dimensions of the AIDS issue.

Brazil also picked holes in Lopez' argments:

[Brazilian Health Minister] Costa said he himself was a Catholic and that the church had a right to believe sex should be just for procreation, but "I disagree profoundly with this view" on condoms.

He said Brazil's AIDS program and all scientific evidence had found the most efficient way of preventing the spread of the disease was to encourage the use of condoms.

"The policy of free distribution of condoms was one of the big reasons for our success," the minister said. "Brazil's program is an international success and ensured that instead of the predictions that we would now have 1.2 million (AIDS cases), we have half that number.

I have reread the Sermon on the Mount but I can't find anything about attacking public health programs for ideological reasons.

Interesting that at least two cardinals, Daneels and O'Brien, are not toeing the party line on this and other issues.

Howard push to hose down sheriff furore

The Federal Government is scrambling to avert a new regional controversy ahead of this weekend's APEC meeting after United States President George Bush described Australia as 'sheriff' of the Asia-Pacific.

His comment, meant as a compliment to Australia's international standing, risked reigniting regional sensitivities over the closeness of the relationship between the two countries.

Government figures and the US ambassador moved swiftly yesterday to hose down suggestions that Australia's near neighbours would be offended.

However, the Malaysian Government has already said the comment reinforced the view that Australia was acting as a United States 'puppet' in East Asia.

The controversy sprang from a response Mr Bush gave in an interview with a group of Asia-Pacific journalists this week when asked whether he saw Australia as his 'deputy sheriff' in the region.

The perceived endorsement of that term by the Prime Minister, John Howard, during a magazine interview four years ago prompted an angry response from some regional countries, led by the Malaysian leader, Mahathir Mohamad.

I have no time for Mahathir. All he is really doing is playing the same kind of security politics that John Howard plays, just from the other side of the fence. The brief and inglorious history of the Howard doctrine does not bear repeating. Our diplomatic standing in the region might improve if the president went back to discussing the Man of Steel's charisma

Bush orders officials to stop the leaks

He warned of action if anonymous sources were quoted, a senior aide said. Visiting senators also heard a stern line.

Concerned about the appearance of disarray and feuding within his administration as well as growing resistance to his policies in Iraq, President Bush - living up to his recent declaration that he is in charge - told his top officials to 'stop the leaks' to the media, or else.

News of Bush's order leaked almost immediately.

Evidently the president is a fan of Yes, minister:

The ship of state, Bernard, is the only ship that leaks from the top.

Sir Humphrey, The Bed of Nails

Link via Atrios

Fijian PM backs apology for eating missionary

Fiji Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase today commended a planned apology by a village whose ancestors killed and ate a missionary in 1867.

'I believe in the Bible that says once a wrong has been done, apology and asking for forgiveness is most appropriate and yes, I support them in their intention,' Qarase told AFP today.

Reverend Thomas Baker, an Englishman born in Playden, Sussex, in 1832, was the first missionary killed in Fiji when a group he was leading, comprising young theology students and local missionaries, was ambushed as they walked through Navatusila village in interior territories untouched by Christianity.

Qarase says he has no details of the intended traditional apology ceremony although media reports name him as one of the delegates to the apology session.

He says his role would presumably be in his capacity as Minister for Reconciliation.

'I know the event took place years ago but it is better to be humble and ask for forgiveness from those who have been wronged,' Qarase said.

A staunch Methodist, Qarase says the ceremony would be very good for personal relations with others, especially between the villagers and Baker's surviving family.

Um, I certainly hope that John Howard follows Qarase's example when it comes to saying sorry. I think.

The Iraqi Shiites

The hawks came to see an Americanized Iraq as a replacement for Saudi Arabia. The plan was risky, not least because the secular Baath government had been among the main ramparts against Sunni and Shiite religious radicalism in the Gulf. The hawks argued that a liberated Iraq would kick-start a wave of democratization in the Middle East, paralleling events in Eastern Europe when the Soviet Union weakened and then fell. (They did not explain why the United States, if it wanted democratization, did not start with places like Egypt and Jordan, which were more plausible candidates, being allies, developed civil societies, and recipients of substantial aid). They believed, incorrectly, that Iraq's petroleum-producing capacity - while not at Saudi levels - was significant enough to offset Saudi dominance of the oil markets. And unlike Saudi Arabia, Paul Wolfowitz thought, Iraq did not have holy cities such as Mecca and Medina that would make the stationing of U.S. troops there objectionable: Iraqis, he said, "don't bring the sensitivity of having the holy cities of Islam being on their territory." (He apparently did not then know about the Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala). The hawks were aware that a democratic Iraq would have a Shiite majority, but their client, Ahmad Chalabi (head of the expatriate Iraqi National Congress), convinced them that Iraqi Shiites were largely secular in mindset and uninterested in a Khomeinist theocracy. In the short term, they thought, Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress would run Iraq in at least a semi-democratic fashion.

You really should read the whole thing. I'm a bit startled (alert and alarmed, perhaps) that neocon �bergenius Wolfowitz did not know about Najaf and Karbala. Back on 29 March someone rabid said:

And whichever military genius laid out the line of advance on Baghdad might have taken account that Najaf and Kerbala are holy cities with a status (for Shi'a) equal to Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem.

Public Opinion, among others discusses the Cole article.

You must also read the Truth from These Podia (giant PDF file) which sets out in some detail how sophisticated and how carefully planned was the war party's information management (apart from not knowing anything about 12 or so centuries of Iraqi history). What a pity they promise so much better than they perform.

Bush: I don't mind protests

President Bush also indicated that it was still the US preference to sign a free trade deal with Australia by the end of the year, and said he would use the visit to pursue the matter with Mr Howard.

He bristled slightly when asked why his own popularity, according to current polling in the United States, had suffered since the war while Prime Minister John Howard's had remained high in Australia. 'Well, it must be his charisma,' he replied. 'He married well, and he's smart.'

It would just be crass to say a man who can detect charisma in John Howard should be able to find anything anywhere, but it would be unkind, so I won't. I'm actually proud, in a perverse way, that charisma is so little an issue in our politics that John Howard can be elected.

Bush's sheriff remark foxes Hill

In an interview in The Australian newspaper, Mr Bush said Australia and the US were equal partners, friends and allies.

Asked whether he saw Australia as the US's deputy sheriff in South-East Asia, Mr Bush said: 'No. We don't see it as a deputy sheriff. We see it as a sheriff. There's a difference.'

Speaking to reporters about a $3.5 billion submarines contract, Senator Hill was reluctant to be drawn on the president's comments.

'It's not my language,' he said.

'I'm not interested in the sheriff comments.

'I'm not sure what it means.'

Senator Hill said he thought the US-Australian alliance was in very good shape.

Why, God, why?

Murray water headache for Howard

While federal Labor endorsed the 1500-gigalitre option months ago, and pledged some money towards buying back water, state Labor governments appear more guarded about a policy bitterly opposed by many irrigators.

Agriculture Minister Warren Truss shied away from the findings, telling Parliament that by focusing on restoring 'icon sites', 'we can achieve worthwhile outcomes without having to destroy rural economies or tear at the heart of the availability of water for irrigators'.

He said the report 'makes the point that good management of the water that goes to the environment is just as important - probably more important - as the volume of water that is actually supplied'.

But Labor's environment spokesman Kelvin Thomson accused Mr Truss of misleading Parliament, citing numerous examples of the report finding that only the return of 1500 gigalitres - which is now Labor policy - delivers the best outcomes for the river.

Introducing the report, Professor Jones ruled out any trade-off. 'It is critical to recognise that non-flow management options cannot be traded off against environmental flow allocations,' he said.

Leading environmental scientist Mike Young warned yesterday that forest plantings, groundwater development and improvements in irrigation efficiency could take another 1700 gigalitres out of the Murray, outweighing the benefit of even the 1500-gigalitre option.

This debate is beginning to make the division of the Thatcher government into 'wet' and 'dry' economics look incredibly prescient. We want the river to run or we don't. If we do, let's find out what's needed and do it. Or does dry economics mean we abandon a basin that produces nearly half our agricultural produce to the market?

The rise and fall of Ansar al-Islam

Washington fingered Ansar as a terrorist group experimenting with poisons, and used its tenuous links to Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda to help justify the war against Iraq.

US officials were triumphant last spring, even as the broader Iraq invasion was still underway, after a three-day assault. Gen. Tommy Franks declared that a 'massive terrorist facility in northern Iraq' had been 'attacked and destroyed' by a joint US-Kurdish operation.

But today US officials assert that Ansar not only survived - like Gharib, who barely escaped after a four-hour bout with a US sniper - but that it is regrouping. They say Ansar is reinfiltrating Iraq with Kurdish and Arab militants from Iran, and, along with Saddam loyalists, is behind an increasing number of anti-US attacks across Iraq.

Actually, if I remember correctly the massive terrorist facility was destroyed almost as often as the town of Umm Qasr fell to the coalition. The MTF was centrepiece of Powell's speech to the UN, even though journalists established within days it was actually a broken down place without power or running water in American-protected Iraqi Kurdistan.

Well, now we need Ansar al-Islam back for propaganda reasons so apparently the destruction declarations are officially inoperative.

I was strongly tempted say the massive terrorist facility was a bit like the Holy Roman Empire in that it was not massive, terrorist or a facility but that would be wrong. Just a pleasing literary allusion. Like calling a smoking gun a mushroom cloud.

BBspot - Open Source Community Developing Their Own Viruses

Heading the development of the OVP is Jukka Koskelin. He explained, 'We took a look at the virus marketspace and realized that Microsoft has over a 95% share of all viruses developed. I don't think the Linux community can be taken seriously if we don't increase our share in that area.'

'The viruses we're developing will work cross-platform unlike Microsoft viruses which only work on Windows systems. There are ports to Linux, *BSD, Solaris, and yes, even Windows. We should have a Mac port in a couple of months,' Koskelin continued.

The OVP currently has two viruses in beta: 'eyespy' and 'GPLdaemon.' Eyespy installs a spyware checking program, and notifies OVP, so they can inform the user that they're being spied on. GPLdaemon uses spare CPU cycles to check every file on an infected users hard drive bit-by-bit to see if it contains any software that violates the GPL.

I was infected with this meme at John Quiggin

The Man Who Knew

Correspondent Scott Pelley has an interview with Greg Thielmann, a former expert on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Thielmann, a foreign-service officer for 25 years, now says that key evidence in the speech was misrepresented and the public was deceived.

"I had a couple of initial reactions. Then I had a more mature reaction," says Thielmann, commenting on Powell's presentation to the United Nations.

"I think my conclusion now is that it's probably one of the low points in his long, distinguished service to the nation."

Thielmann's last job at the State Department was director of the Office of Strategic Proliferation and Military Affairs, which was responsible for analyzing the Iraqi weapons threat for Secretary Powell. He and his staff had the highest security clearances, and everything - whether it came into the CIA or the Defense Department - came through his office.

Check out the interactive for tracing various claims Powell made in that speech.

The Soviet Republic of Texas

YOU MIGHT THINK America's rigged system of congressional elections couldn't get much worse. Self-serving redistricting schemes nationwide already have left an overwhelming number of seats in the House of Representatives so uncompetitive that election results are practically as preordained as in the old Soviet Union. In the last election, for example, 98 percent of incumbents were reelected, and the average winning candidate got more than 70 percent of the vote. More candidates ran without any major-party opposition than won by a margin of less than 20 percent. Yet even given this record, the just-completed Texas congressional redistricting plan represents a new low.

The plan grabbed headlines as a consequence of the flight by Democrats -- twice -- from the state to prevent its adoption. The Democrats, whose only hope, being in the minority in both houses, was to prevent a quorum, eventually gave in; the legislature has adopted the plan. It's abhorrent on two counts. Texas Republicans, egged on by U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, violated a longstanding tradition by redrawing the map in the middle of a census cycle. Their new rule seems to be, why wait 10 years if you can cram something down your opponents' throats today? And their plan is designed to wipe out moderate and white Democrats from the Texas congressional delegation. We don't know whether the plan violates the Voting Rights Act or will survive legal challenge. What is clear, however, is that it will aggravate the triumph of extremes in Washington while further sovietizing America's already-fixed electoral game.

I have long believed we should elect our House of Representatives from multi-member districts. the Australian Senate actually reflects popular opinion better than the House because the use of multimember districts means that fewer votes are wasted on losing candidates.

Once upon a time, (1975) Fred Daly, then special minister of state, drew up a redistribution for the House by flooding his living room floor with cut up street maps bearing his notes of polling booth results. The Senate rejected that distribution and we now use boundaries drawn by the Electoral Commission. The independent distribution, controversial in 1975, is now part of the consensus on how to govern Australia.

The US Centre for Voting Democracy released Monopoly Politics 2002 before the last US congressional elections:

CVD's model of projecting House winners based only on past federal election results and the senior of incumbents had a 99.9% accuracy over the past 3 elections. Out of more than 900 projections over the last 3 elections cycles based, the model made only one incorrect projection. We have applied the model to the 2002 elections and report our findings in a detailed report. Using data available as as November 6, we report on the accuracy of our projections.

Fred Daly did not have a computer. The development of redistricting software makes it extremely easy to create electorates with equal numbers of voters and massive majorities in favour of the incumbent. Consider California, for example. According to the CVD:

Using modern mapping software and redistricting techniques like packing and cracking, a political party in control of redistricting can end up with an undeserved artificial majority or an exaggerated, over-represented majority that allows them to pursue policies lacking support from the majority of voters.

The Electoral Commission insulates us from this kind of rorting, while the consensus between the two major parties continues. If that ever breaks down we will end up in the mess they have in the US. The only permanent guarantee is to elect the House in the same way as the Tasmanian House of Assembly or the ACT Legislative Assembly.

Betraying the Kurds again?

Peters, a columnist for the right-wing New York Post, finds himself in the unusual position of being in agreement with longtime leftist Clare Short, Tony Blair's former secretary of international development. Even as she traveled to Washington to argue that the occupation needs to be internationalized, she told Salon last week, 'It's better not to have Turkish troops there, because there's too much complex politics and history. It's a further destabilizing development.'

With virtual unanimity, analysts, scholars and veterans from across the political spectrum say that, moral issues aside, introducing Turkish soldiers into an already volatile ethnic and sectarian situation is counterproductive. 'The decision is a very bad one, for Turkey and for Washington,' says Graham Fuller, former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA during the Reagan administration and author of 'The Future of Political Islam.' Fuller, like many others, believes Turkish troops will further fracture the region, causing tensions in the north, spurring other neighboring governments, especially Iran, to step up their involvement in Iraq, and, if things go wrong, potentially weakening America's important strategic relationship with Turkey.

'Iran will see this as an effort by Turkey to create a foothold in Iraq,' he says, and will be likely to send more of its own proxies into the country. He also dismisses the American hope that shared religion will lead to Turkish rapport with the Iraqis in the fractious Sunni triangle. 'My sense is that Turkey will be treated as the functional equivalent of Americans,' he says. 'This business of being fellow Muslims will have no relevance. Indeed, you could argue that Turkey has baggage from being a former colonial power.'

Really, it's hard to imagine what's coming next. These people refused to transfer sovereignty to the UN because, they said, they would only transfer it to Iraqis. The Iraqi Governing Council sic is vigorously opposed to this decision. Does that matter to the Bush raj? And does that virtual unanimity of scholars and experts matter either? Obviously not.

Vatican position on condom use and HIV scientifically incorrect

A statement by the president of the Vatican's Pontifical Council on the Family that condoms do not protect people from HIV is scientifically incorrect and could contribute to the spread of the virus, the head of the UN population agency said today.

'The fact is that when condoms are properly used, in conjunction with programmes encouraging abstinence and fidelity to one partner, they provide effective protection against HIV/AIDS transmission,' said Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

'This position is shared by our partners and the international community. It is endorsed by international meetings, including the recent Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly on HIV/AIDS,' Ms. Obaid added.

She was responding to an interview of Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo broadcast yesterday by a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television programme.

According to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the UN umbrella programme battling the spread of the disease, an estimated 42 million people were living with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, at the end of 2002. The AIDS epidemic had claimed an estimated 3.1 million lives in 2002, and an estimated 5 million people acquired the virus, it said.

'Wherever the epidemic has spread unchecked, it is robbing countries of the resources and capacities on which human security and development depend. In some regions, HIV/AIDS, in combination with other crises, is driving ever-larger parts of nations towards destitution,' UNAIDS said.

Will the Vatican curia apologise for this or, as with Galileo will they invoke their infallible authority and insist the Earth does not move?

All the President's votes?

Something very odd happened in the mid-term elections in Georgia last November. On the eve of the vote, opinion polls showed Roy Barnes, the incumbent Democratic governor, leading by between nine and 11 points. In a somewhat closer, keenly watched Senate race, polls indicated that Max Cleland, the popular Democrat up for re-election, was ahead by two to five points against his Republican challenger, Saxby Chambliss.

Those figures were more or less what political experts would have expected in state with a long tradition of electing Democrats to statewide office. But then the results came in, and all of Georgia appeared to have been turned upside down. Barnes lost the governorship to the Republican, Sonny Perdue, 46 per cent to 51 per cent, a swing of as much as 16 percentage points from the last opinion polls. Cleland lost to Chambliss 46 per cent to 53, a last-minute swing of 9 to 12 points.

Red-faced opinion pollsters suddenly had a lot of explaining to do and launched internal investigations. Political analysts credited the upset - part of a pattern of Republican successes around the country - to a huge campaigning push by President Bush in the final days of the race. They also said that Roy Barnes had lost because of a surge of 'angry white men' punishing him for eradicating all but a vestige of the old confederate symbol from the state flag.

But something about these explanations did not make sense, and they have made even less sense over time. When the Georgia secretary of state's office published its demographic breakdown of the election earlier this year, it turned out there was no surge of angry white men; in fact, the only subgroup showing even a modest increase in turnout was black women.

There were also big, puzzling swings in partisan loyalties in different parts of the state. In 58 counties, the vote was broadly in line with the primary election. In 27 counties in Republican-dominated north Georgia, however, Max Cleland unaccountably scored 14 percentage points higher than he had in the primaries. And in 74 counties in the Democrat south, Saxby Chambliss garnered a whopping 22 points more for the Republicans than the party as a whole had won less than three months earlier.

Be afraid, be very afraid, and make damn sure Australia never adopts this corrupt idiocy of privatised voting.

Thanks to Seeing the Forest for the link.

Don't Look Down

The crisis won't come immediately. For a few years, America will still be able to borrow freely, simply because lenders assume that things will somehow work out.

But at a certain point we'll have a Wile E. Coyote moment. For those not familiar with the Road Runner cartoons, Mr. Coyote had a habit of running off cliffs and taking several steps on thin air before noticing that there was nothing underneath his feet. Only then would he plunge.

What will that plunge look like? It will certainly involve a sharp fall in the dollar and a sharp rise in interest rates. In the worst-case scenario, the government's access to borrowing will be cut off, creating a cash crisis that throws the nation into chaos.

I know: it all sounds unbelievable. But would you have believed, three years ago, that the U.S. budget would plunge so quickly from a record surplus to a record deficit? And would you have believed that, confronted with that plunge, our leaders would offer excuses rather than solutions?

The more I think about it, the more the Wile E Coyote nickname fits. It's not Osama, or Saddam that is forever running past the Bush administration, saying: 'Beep! beep!'. It's reality.

BLUEPRINT FOR VATICAN III

The old joke is still relevant: "Did you hear about Vatican III? The bishops are bringing their wives. Did you hear about Vatican IV? The bishops are bringing their husbands."

This actually links to a serious piece on the voices for reform of the Catholic Church, but the joke bears repeating.

EvilDwarf

Judging others on the character of their content.

And now, in the tradition of the Single Bitter Announcement Weblog and the Dullest Blog in the World we have a new development - the blog without blogposts.

Link via Fables of the Reconstruction

Colombians want real life to mimic reality TV

But ordinary Colombians see something deeper. Hector Gonzalez, a taxi driver in Bogot� who watches 'Gran Hermano,' is impressed by the way the contestants evolve.

'The people learn how to live together,' Mr. Gonzalez says. 'They have to learn how to pardon.' As a society, he adds, 'I think that we are very lacking in learning how to pardon.'

In Colombia, regionalism is rampant, fostered by distrust of the central government. This has led to homegrown solutions to problems of public order that have only given rise to more violence, such as the creation of self-defense groups in the northwest province of Antioquia that later became paramilitaries.

According to Maritza Sandoval, a Bogot� psychologist who has closely followed 'los realities,' as they are known here, fighting with words is a novel concept in a society where disagreements are often resolved with weapons.

'It is very censured to confront somebody [verbally],' Ms. Sandoval explains. 'In Colombia, it doesn't happen,' describing society as 'very authoritarian,' leaving people 'afraid to express their feelings.'

The show's Internet message boards reveal Colombians increasingly rewarding those contestants who get along. In addition to Andrea getting ousted, Lu�s, the farmer, earned the ire of the female audience for his machismo, and was sent packing. Meanwhile, viewers praise Ram�n, a musician who owns a craft shop.

'You live in peace and tranquility, and for this you will be the [winner of] Big Brother,' writes 'Camila'.

While I'm blogging about life imitating fandom...

Blair under fire over Kelly death

'Sir Kevin has said the key decision on the naming strategy 'was taken at the meeting in Number 10'. That meeting was chaired by the prime minister. The prime minister's denials are now shown to be a sham,' Michael Ancram, the Conservative's foreign secretary said.
Blair, when he gave evidence to the inquiry in August, said he was at the July 8 meeting and took full responsibility for the strategy agreed at it.

But a month earlier, during a trip to the Far East, days after Kelly's suicide, he denied authorizing Kelly's name to be made public.

Tebbit is one of many witnesses making their second appearance before the Hutton Inquiry after being recalled. He is the final witness in Hutton's inquiry.

The questioning comes despite lawyers for the various parties having already given their closing comments. Tebbit's interview was delayed from last month to allow the top defense official to receive medical treatment for an eye ailment.

Lord Hutton is expected to deliver his report on the inquiry by December.

That is one report I look forward to reading.

The Day of the Locust

Pleasure in the humiliation of others - Schwarzenegger's lifelong compulsion - is the textbook definition of sadism. It is also the daily ration of right-wing hate radio. As governor he becomes the summation of all smaller sadisms, like those of Roger Hedgecock that in turn manipulate the 'reptile within' of millions of outwardly affluent but inwardly tormented commuter-consumers. In their majesty, the predominantly white voters of California's inland empires and gated suburbs have anointed a clinically Hitlerite personality as their personal savior.

The last word about all this should, of course, belong to Nathanael West. In his classic novel The Day of the Locust (1939), he clearly foresaw that fandom was an incipient version of fascism. On the edge of Hollywood's neon plains, he envisioned the unassuageable hungers of California's petty bourgeoisie.

'They were savage and bitter, especially the middle-aged and the old . . . Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize they've been tricked and burn with resentment. .. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies.'

Fandom scares me sometimes. The howls of outrage by bookfen over the storyline changes in Peter Jackson's films of The Lord of the Rings have to be heard to be believed. Why are we busy debating this tripe when there is a real world to argue over? Why do completely rational individuals suddenly morph into RUDBs without warning when football is discussed? Why do people learn Klingon? Why can I mumble in Sindarin? What does it all mean?

Russia spurns weapons hunt plan

Russia's ambassador to Australia and former North Korean trade negotiator Leonid Moiseev said Russia could not involve itself in the PSI.

'I can say very frankly that it would be a very difficult for us to join the initiative,' he said. 'The basic difference (between us and the member countries) is both China and Russia have a common border with North Korea ... We are immediate neighbours and Russia and China have big Korean communities within our borders.

'Both Russia and China have a lot to lose.'

Six-way Beijing-sponsored diplomatic talks were the only way to resolve the nuclear stand-off, he said.

The crisis follows North Korea admitting in October last year that it had a nuclear program.

A source close to the PSI said last night the 50 new nations would not join the PSI but could be co-opted if a rogue ship or aircraft entered their waters or airspace.

The Australian really should have headed this piece: 'The usual drivel'.

Let's unpack the last paragraph:

A source close to the PSI

A PR guy for one of the PSI governments said last night

the 50 new nations would not join the PSI

too busy joining the Coalition of the Willing

but could be co-opted

We'll announce their consent without talking to them the way we did with the CoW

if a rogue ship or aircraft entered their waters or airspace

the PSI will ignore the UN Charter and international law

Proliferation is a major problem. President Bush recognised that in his recent speech. The PSI nations, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States can do something about it right away.

All of those nations export arms. They can stop. After proving their sincerity in that way, they can take the PSI to the Security Council and seek legal authority for their wildcat operation.

Alternative 'peace deal' for Mid-East

The unofficial pact has not been published yet, but sources say there is a key trade-off at its heart.

Palestinians would not demand the right of return for refugees.

In exchange, they would get sovereignty over one of the most disputed religious sites in the Middle East, Jerusalem's Temple Mount, known to Arabs as Haram al-Sharif.

If and when the deal is signed - supposedly in Switzerland over the next two to three weeks - it will be called the Geneva Accord.

Swiss diplomats have been nursing the process along for the past two years.

If the report is accurate, this is massive news. I would really like to know what the accord says about the settlement issue. Finally, some hope out of the Middle East.