Apparently it hasn’t occurred to Amnesty International’s Musa–or she wants us to think it hasn’t, anyway–that when a member of a suicide cult commits suicide, it may not be for the same reason as when an otherwise normal depressed person does so.
James Taranto has the perspective…
Archive for May, 2007
Victor Davis Hanson is in Greece, reading the IHT [International Herald Tribune] and commenting — instructive and entertaining. E.g., this fragment of VDH comments on Joe Biden posturing for the press:
…I would have had more respect for Sen. Biden had he said: “We must get al Qaeda in Pakistan—so here’s what I propose: either cut-off all funding for Pakistan and live with the results; start bombing al Qaeda strongholds; or send teams into Pakistan to hunt bin Laden et al down. And here are the risks of all three options.”
Does Pelosi take responsibility for the consequences?
Last month, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a delegation to Damascus in defiance of the express wishes of President Bush. In response, Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s spokesman praised her “courageous position” and expressed the hope that it would inaugurate a dialogue between “the people of the United States” and the Syrian regime, despite President Bush’s efforts to isolate it. Pelosi explained her unusual action by saying that she was trying to “build some confidence” between Americans and the Assad government.
Apparently she has succeeded, after a fashion. Assad, at least, seems to have gained confidence that he can behave as brutally as he wishes without incurring too much international opprobrium. In the month since Pelosi’s visit, he has ratcheted up repression, all but snuffing out the lingering embers of the “Damascus spring” that followed his accession to power seven years ago. Six prominent dissidents were packed off to prison for sentences ranging from three to twelve years, the longest term being given to Kamal Labwani for “communicating with a foreign country,” i.e., the United States. “It’s back to the 1980’s, to the worst days of his father’s rule,” commented the exiled dissident Ammar Abdulhamid.
Pelosi reportedly raised Labwani’s case, specifically, with Syrian authorities during her visit. His crime, after all, consisted solely of talking to Americans, and here she was to promote dialogue. The specially long sentence now slapped on him amounts to a direct rebuff of her appeal, an expression of disdain. So how has she reacted?
Not at all. There is nothing about Labwani’s sentencing, or about any of the other dissidents, on her website. So I put in a call to her press spokesman, Brendan Daly, asking if the Speaker had commented on these events. I received a call back from a deputy of his who assured me that Assad’s actions were in “the opposite direction” from the course she had urged on him when she was there. In view of that, I asked, what was her reaction? She had not addressed it yet, he said, but he promised to get me a statement from her by the end of the next business day. That was ten days ago, and I am still waiting. Meanwhile, she has left the country yet again, this time leading a congressional delegation to Greenland, Germany, and Belgium to discuss global warming. Presumably this will build Assad’s confidence even further.
…
What do you think?
Technorati Tags: Syria
But the ultimate message is likely to be that despite the billions of dollars being spent to improve hurricane protection for New Orleans, it remains a city in the cross hairs for dangerous storms. Dr. Daniel, the University of Texas at Dallas president, said, “It doesn’t take a sophisticated risk analysis tool to say it’s a risky place.”
The NY Times surveys the New Orleans Corps of Engineers risk studies:
The answer is complex, and a wary city has been waiting to hear it. After the New Orleans hurricane protection system failed under the onslaught of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the Army Corps of Engineers rethought the way it assesses hurricane risk. It devised new, flexible computer models and ran countless simulations on Defense Department supercomputers to help it understand what kind of storms the region can expect, how the current protection system might perform against them, and what defenses will be needed in the future.
…The new methods employed by the corps have already been adopted by the other government agencies most interested in hurricanes and flooding: the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which runs the National Flood Insurance Program and will use the data in its flood maps.
It is the first time all three agencies have agreed on a common method of assessing such risks for the Gulf Coast. Eventually, Dr. Link suggested, it may be used by all of them nationwide.
The corps has all but completed the initial work of patching the damage done to the network of levees, floodwalls, gates and pumps. But as some work continues, there has been a lull in moving on to the next major step: raising the level of protection to meet the challenge of a 100-year storm, the kind of hurricane that might have a 1-in-100 chance of occurring in any given year.
The new report will provide the estimates of the kind of storms that could be expected at intervals of up to 500 years, and the damage and flooding they can be expected to produce. And it will help to develop proposals for protection systems against the strongest storms. The report is an important prelude to the design process.
…
This looks like good work — appreciating that the scientific and technical challenges are staggering. Hopefully the consumers of the study product will understand just how fuzzy are the model conclusions.
Glenn has comments and links to Lou Dolinar’s excellent survey of the tragically incompetent press coverage of Katrina. Glenn wrote:
CAN SCIENCE OUTWIT STORMS LIKE KATRINA? Sure. But it can’t do much about human corruption and stupidity, which alas were the real problems…
The corruption and stupidity accounted for 98% of errors in the early days of the post-Katrina response. But the problem would have been relatively small if the levee system had not failed.
More evidence why Lieberman was forced to become an independent:
“I am pleased that after weeks of unnecessary political posturing and delay, Congress has finally fulfilled its responsibility to provide our soldiers fighting in the field with the funding they need.
“In the coming months, we here in Washington face a choice. Will we continue to engage in the parliamentary trench warfare that has consumed so much of the time and energy of the 110th Congress, with new proposals to handcuff General Petraeus and undermine his strategy? Or will we do what is right—and give our military commanders and our troops in Iraq the fair chance they deserve, and that they demand, to fight and win this war?
“We should never forget that we are engaged in a war on terror, and that Iraq is the central front of that struggle. Now is not the time for reflexive partisanship and pandering to public opinion. Now is the time for the kind of patriotism and principle America’s voters have always honored.”
Another explanation is that blinded by rage at the Bush administration and resentment over its own lack of power, the left has betrayed its commitment to grasp the many-sidedness of politics, and, in the process, has lost appreciation of modern conservatism’s distinctive contribution to the defense of a good, liberty, which the left also prizes. Indeed, the widespread ignorance among the highly educated of the conservative tradition in America is appalling.
A thoughtful essay by Hoover Institution senior fellow Peter Berkowitz.
The left prides itself on, and frequently boasts of, its superior appreciation of the complexity and depth of moral and political life. But political debate in America today tells a different story.
On a variety of issues that currently divide the nation, those to the left of center seem to be converging, their ranks increasingly untroubled by debate or dissent, except on daily tactics and long-term strategy. Meanwhile, those to the right of center are engaged in an intense intra-party struggle to balance competing principles and goods.
One source of the divisions evident today is the tension in modern conservatism between its commitment to individual liberty, and its lively appreciation of the need to preserve the beliefs, practices, associations and institutions that form citizens capable of preserving liberty. The conservative reflex to resist change must often be overcome, because prudent change is necessary to defend liberty. Yet the tension within often compels conservatives to wrestle with the consequences of change more fully than progressives — for whom change itself is often seen as good, and change that contributes to the equalization of social conditions as a very important good.
To be sure, some standard-order issues remain easy for both sides. Democrats instinctively want to repeal the Bush tax cuts, establish government supervised universal healthcare, and impose greater regulation on trade. Just as instinctively Republicans wish to extend the Bush tax cuts, find market mechanisms to broaden health care coverage and reduce limitations on trade.
But on non-standard issues — involving dramatic changes in national security and foreign affairs, the power of medicine and technology to intervene at the early stages of life, and the social meaning of marriage and family, the partisans show a clear difference: the left is more and more of one mind while divisions on the right deepen.
Consider Iraq. The split among conservatives has widened since Saddam was toppled in the spring of 2003. Traditional realists continue to put their trust in containment, and reject nation-building on the grounds that we lack both a moral obligation and the requisite knowledge of Arabic, Iraqi culture and politics, and Islam. Supporters of the war still argue that, in an age of mega-terror, planting the seeds of liberty and democracy in the Muslim Middle East is a reasonable response to the poverty, illiteracy, authoritarianism, violence and religious fanaticism that plagues the region.
…
This WSJ op-ed by Scott Gottlieb should get your attention. Did you know that the New England Journal of Medicine was a part of the cabal pushing for even more restrictive FDA drug regulation? Gottlieb, BTW, was Deputy Commissioner of the FDA from 2005 to 2007.
As medical information is exploding and becoming more accessible, all of us, particularly physicians, need objective sources to interpret data and present a balanced view. Unfortunately, major medical journals that should be filling this role often put more weight on pushing political agendas. Their editorial prejudice has left a troubling void for rigorous and unbiased arbiters of medical evidence who can guide sound medical practice decisions.
The behavior of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) is a case in point, when it rushed onto its Web site a limited and flawed analysis of safety concerns around the diabetes drug Avandia. The publication was timed to get ahead of the Food and Drug Administration’s more careful evaluation of the same issues. The journal seemed bent on beating the FDA to the punch. The goal? Painting the FDA as impotent, in order to argue for legislation winding through Congress that would increase regulatory hurdles for drug approvals. The journal’s motives were made bare by its own editorial on the matter.
While there are “questions” whether Avandia is associated with certain heart risks — so far unsupported by more rigorous, randomized studies and extensive review by the FDA and other authorities around the world — the NEJM study doesn’t add much new insight into those issues because of its own limitations. But you wouldn’t know that from the way the Journal hyped its analysis to the media or opined about the study’s significance. These facts weren’t lost on clinicians and even NEJMs competitors. The Lancet, NEJM’s British sister-publication, said of the study, “Alarmist headlines and confident declarations help nobody.” A top American medical researcher told WebMD, “I can’t help but wonder if the NEJM is functioning more like the mainstream press than a scientific journal at this point.”
NEJM said it rushed to post the study on the Web because of its medical importance, but the FDA, which would need to act on any safety issues, wasn’t even given a heads up about the study’s publication or its findings. Rep. Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), however, seems to have known in advance that it was coming because he issued a substantive press release immediately after the study was posted online. He was even ready with the date and location of oversight hearings aimed at probing the FDA’s “handling” of the drug safety issues. Mr. Waxman is trying to add new restrictions to the FDA’s drug approvals. The study’s primary author, Cleveland Clinic Cardiologist Steve Nissen, admitted to The Wall Street Journal that he was in touch with Congress while preparing his analysis. Three days after the study was submitted to NEJM, and before it was published, the FDA commissioner received a letter about Avandia from members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that seemed to reference the NEJM study.
At what cost do political machinations of the medical journals come? NEJM editors have long favored more drug regulation. But medical journals have also historically played a special role in helping to define medical practice standards. Even decisions they make on how prominently to place a study, let alone how they editorialize about it, are seen as strong signals to clinicians on how doctors should weigh the evidence. So when editors pursue a political agenda, it’s public health that pays a price. Degrading an institution that doctors depend on for balanced analysis and fair-minded editorial judgments isn’t good for anyone.
That was just the introduction, the meat follows…
CO2 emissions down 1.3% in 2006? That’s very interesting — must have been a decline in economic activity. Oops, no the economy was growing strongly - by 3.3% [a closely guarded secret that NPR and CBS don’t want you to know].
You can examine the data for yourself. The U.S. DOE Energy Information Administration has published energy-related CO2 emissions estimates [PDF, which I prefer — there is also Flash].
John Wixted comments on the DOE report, with tongue-in-cheek giving some credit to the Bush administration:
The magenta symbols show the U.S. GDP in constant dollars, and the blue symbols show our CO2 output. As you can see, economic growth has been substantial during the Bush years (increasing by 16%). Despite that, CO2 emissions have not changed appreciably (increasing by only 1%). Thus, for the moment at least, we seem to have achieved the freeze on CO2 emissions that Al Gore thinks we need to legislate before time runs out.
We obviously don’t know that this favorable trend will continue, but can’t we give George Bush at least one tiny iota of credit here? The credit he deserves is approximately equal to the hysterical opprobrium and scorn you would have heaped upon him had greenhouse gas emissions increased by 10% on his watch. I suspect that this graph — which shows that we have almost “frozen” CO2 emissions on Bush’s watch — does not correspond to what most green-oriented liberals believe to be true.
Of course, like hurricanes, presidents have little short term impact on economic growth or greenhouse gas emissions. There is some evidence that the Bush tax cuts accelerated economic growth, but that’s another topic.
What explains the divergence of CO2 from GDP growth? Three things I think:
[1] In part it is the yearly dividend of GGI [greenhouse gas intensity], which has been averaging about -1.8%/year for the past 50 years. Since 1990 GGI has averaged -1.9%/year. GGI is a compounding improvement in efficiency [like productivity], so since 1990 the CO2 emissions per unit of GDP have declined almost 27%.
[2] The weather was favorable: mild winter, cooler summer.
[3] The power generation fuel mix shifted slightly, away from coal to more natural gas, nuclear, and renewables.
Bottom line: the 2006 drop isn’t a new trend. So politically unpopular policies are still required to adjust incentives so the markets produce the results we desire:
1. A carbon tax, discussed many times in Seekerblog - e.g., see “Carbon taxes or cap-and-trade?”
2. Real-world full scale tests of carbon sequestration. If this doesn’t work then we are facing very serious problems with coal dependence. The MIT Future of Coal study stresses this urgent priority.
3. For a better-explained top-five key actions see Elements of an effective response to global warming.
Another fine from-Iraq dispatch from J.D. Johannes of “Outside the Wire”. J.D. has been embedded in Iraq since early March. Like Michael Yon he provides up to date reportage on critical areas such as Dora and West Rasheed [Baghdad] and Anbar province.
Today’s lengthy dispatch takes a detailed look at the process by which tribes and villages transition from supporting al Qaeda to fighting the terrorists who are striving to wreck Iraq’s democratic government.
…The Sunnis of Anbar are now siding with the coalition and fighting Al Qaeda.
SHIFTING GROUND
A month ago in this post I wrote about how the Anbar Awakening was moving downstream along the west bank of the Euphrates.
In Khalidiyah, the SAA had taken control of security for their own villages under the supervision of the Habbaniyah police and under the watchful eye of the Marines.
The awakening started in Ramadi and has now spread to Hit, Haditha and points west to the West bank of the Euphrates just north of Fallujah and then to the south near Amariyah/Ferris.
The tribes along the west bank are all tied into each other and some of the sub-tribes who have not joined the awakening are finding themselves in armed intra-tribal conflict.
The awakening has now spontaneously leapt the Euphrates and taken hold in an unlikely area–al Kharmah.
COP TOWN
The village of Shiabi, located south-west of Kharmah, below the Kharma river is home to more than a dozen IP officers who work in Fallujah.
In November and December of 2006, as the Iraqi Army let the situation deteriorate in Kharma, AQIZ went on blood spree, kidnapping, torturing and beheading police officers.
It was about this time that General Sadoon, a retired Iraqi Air Force general who lived in Fallujah but whose home village is Shiabi and who is also the grandson of the true Sheik of the Jumayli tribe, organized the men of the village.
The Fallujah IPs gave them rifles, walkie talkies and ammunition.
The General put the men in fighting positions around the village and set up two check points.
Word spread quickly about the village that was standing up to Al Qaeda. Representatives from the Islamic State of Iraq met with the General to try to convince him to change his ways or scare him off.
“I met with them in December,” the General said, his eyes hidden by Ray Ban sunglasses, a duty belt around his waist with radios clipped to it.
Al Qaeda told the police officers of Shihabi and General Sadoon to support Al Qaeda and undermine the IP and the coalition or face the consequences.
The police officers and Sadoon decided to face the consequnces and fortified their village.
“They had no future,” the General said, “All that Al Qaeda has to offer is death. So I told them I will oppose them and from then on, it has been war.”
Thanks to Glenn for the heads up.
Another fine from-Iraq dispatch from J.D. Johannes of “Outside the Wire”. J.D. has been embedded in Iraq since early March. Like Michael Yon he provides up to date reportage on critical areas such as Dora and West Rasheed [Baghdad] and Anbar province.
Today’s lengthy dispatch takes a detailed look at the process by which tribes and villages transition from supporting al Qaeda to fighting the terrorists who are striving to wreck Iraq’s democratic government.
…The Sunnis of Anbar are now siding with the coalition and fighting Al Qaeda.
SHIFTING GROUND
A month ago in this post I wrote about how the Anbar Awakening was moving downstream along the west bank of the Euphrates.
In Khalidiyah, the SAA had taken control of security for their own villages under the supervision of the Habbaniyah police and under the watchful eye of the Marines.
The awakening started in Ramadi and has now spread to Hit, Haditha and points west to the West bank of the Euphrates just north of Fallujah and then to the south near Amariyah/Ferris.
The tribes along the west bank are all tied into each other and some of the sub-tribes who have not joined the awakening are finding themselves in armed intra-tribal conflict.
The awakening has now spontaneously leapt the Euphrates and taken hold in an unlikely area–al Kharmah.
COP TOWN
The village of Shiabi, located south-west of Kharmah, below the Kharma river is home to more than a dozen IP officers who work in Fallujah.
In November and December of 2006, as the Iraqi Army let the situation deteriorate in Kharma, AQIZ went on blood spree, kidnapping, torturing and beheading police officers.
It was about this time that General Sadoon, a retired Iraqi Air Force general who lived in Fallujah but whose home village is Shiabi and who is also the grandson of the true Sheik of the Jumayli tribe, organized the men of the village.
The Fallujah IPs gave them rifles, walkie talkies and ammunition.
The General put the men in fighting positions around the village and set up two check points.
Word spread quickly about the village that was standing up to Al Qaeda. Representatives from the Islamic State of Iraq met with the General to try to convince him to change his ways or scare him off.
“I met with them in December,” the General said, his eyes hidden by Ray Ban sunglasses, a duty belt around his waist with radios clipped to it.
Al Qaeda told the police officers of Shihabi and General Sadoon to support Al Qaeda and undermine the IP and the coalition or face the consequences.
The police officers and Sadoon decided to face the consequnces and fortified their village.
“They had no future,” the General said, “All that Al Qaeda has to offer is death. So I told them I will oppose them and from then on, it has been war.”
Thanks to Glenn for the heads up.
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