The European Union - A Crisis in the making?

The Berlin Declaration has brought to the fore the celebrations of another 50 years anniversary. Last week we celebrated the independence of Ghana and the start of the process that led to the freedom and independence for over 40 states. This week we are celebrating quite the reverse. 50 years ago the Treaty of Rome was signed setting forth the gradual erosion of the statehood of the 'member states'. The European Union can be so frustratingly undemoctratic and The Berlin Declaration provides us with another perfect example.

The dramatic failure of the European Constitution publically revealed the disparity between Europe and its citizens. This week, Europe's leaders have announced that a new treaty will be created to fill the void left by the absence of a constitution. It will be interesting to see if the new Treaty will be put to referenda or have European Heads of Government finally learned that to push Europe forward they cannot rely upon the support of their citizens.

European leaders in Berlin are set to announce this week a list of achievements and the challenges ahead. Here's my own list of achievements and challenges.

Acheivements

1. Peace - Although the young might take peace for granted, there has not been war in Western Europe since 1945. The EU has helped created an economic and political dependency between the States that has reduced the possibility for war.

2. Free Market - Even the most eurosceptic right wingers have to applaud how the free market has increased trade and prosperity across the continent.

3. Removal of internal borders - A more contentious issue but any tourist will be grateful that they no longer have to whip out their passport every time they fly into Turin for the ski trip to France. Although the sceptics amongst you might recognise that once in Spain any potential asylum seeker now has a free pass to north France and can join the queue to Britain.

4. Single Currency - Facilitates trading and business, which has increased employment and created economic stability.

5. Peter Mandelson - I think I am allowed at least one frivolous entry and for taking this sycophant out of British politics I will forever be grateful that the EU exists.


Challenges

1. The Common Agricultural Policy - Whilst fairtrade bananas and chocolate fills the shelves of Tesco the eurocrats are doing their best to keep out non-European agricultral produce that the could threaten the supremacy of the French, oops, I mean European farming industry. We are happy to lose other industries to the developing world, isn't it about time we allowed African farmers a better chance to fill our stomachs? Even if that does mean we have to stand arm in arm with Chris Martin.

2. Bridging the Democractic Deficit - The European Parliament is still a relatively impotent force in European Politics. Now that Europe has an active role in the political decisions made at national level isn't it about time was had a say who those people are? An increasing number of decisions are made without unanimity. This means if Blair votes against a proposal it can still be carried. British law can be changed against the wishes of the British people and the British Prime Minister. This must change. Either bring back unanimity for everything - which would be unworkable with 25 member states - or enfranchise the citizens into the decision making process.

3. Reducing Beaurocracy - pretty much self explanatory. The European Union needs to be streamlined.

4. Common Foreign & Security Policy - The three main issues here are the threat Europe poses to NATO, the length of time Europeans governments can retain more than one seat on the UN Security Council and the role of the High Representative of the aforementioned policy.

5. The British Rebate - Always going to be contentious, Blair successfully retained the British rebate but for how long can Britain appease the Eastern European states. As long as Britain continues to push to keep its rebate in return for changes of CAP the French will eventually back us.

If you want to make an omelette...

...sometimes you've got to break a few eggs.

Only, in this case the eggs are Lebanese citizens, and the chef is John Bolton, former American Ambassador to the U.N. To wit:

Former ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that before any ceasefire Washington wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah's military capability.

...

Mr Bolton, a controversial and blunt-speaking figure, said he was "damned proud of what we did" to prevent an early ceasefire.

Congratulations, Mr. Bolton. We all know that the U.S. is willing to use the indigenous peoples of other nations as pawns in its Monrovian quest for world domination, but to have one of our top diplomats actually come out and say it -- and with pride! -- is, well, priceless.

Art of Fighting

look, I know that with Jet and the Vines, Aussie bands have a bit of catching up to do in the hype/vs/quality department, but AOF are great.

On their website, listen to "Heart Translation" and "Reasons Are All I Have Left" - these songs are just great.

Admittedly, I've been into them since I heard a song from their demo. But the one and only time I've seen them live convinced me - they had a crown of about 100 singing along louder than the band - it seemed like an "eyes closed" sort oif moment, but opening my eyes, I saw, what I guess was the joy "of realising that all these people get it too" on everyone's faces. My friends Johan and ingrid were impressed too.

They were followed up by Bluebottle Kiss, and please please please do what ever you can to hear "Doubt Seeds" by that band.

Pamela Hess on Iraq

Occasionally a piece of work comes along that has a profound effect on your viewpoint on a certain issue. Sometimes, its good to be emotional about what you care about.

Link

Science-ology is cool, honestly....

To mark the waning of National Science Week in the UK, I thought I'd make a post about the hipness of science.

Well, it was in 70s by the looks of this film about protein synthesis, but the development of boring flash animation has clearly taken the groove out of science. Let it upload and start about 3:30, otherwise the square scientist will kill your mojo.



TRNA!!! Whoa Whoa Whoa Whoa PEPTIDE BOND!!!

Ghana: Celebrating 50 Years of What?

“We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility,” Kwarme Nkruamh said boldly of his attempts to free the Gold Coast from its colonial master. Last week Ghanaians rejoiced in 50 years of independence but when Nkrumah spoke those words neither he nor those who listened with nationalistic fervour could have imagine that within 10 years it would be neither of Nkrumah's options but a third, deadlier option that they would live by. By electing Nkrumah as Prime Minister, Ghanaians had unwittingly chosen 'servitude with danger' as their path to development as a "free" state.

When he achieved power, Nkrumah set out to fulfill his vision of creating an industrialised socialist state by financing over-ambitious developmental projects. These unnecessary projects were primarily financed by reducing the prices the government paid farmers for their crops. Instead of uniting Ghanians with a realistic plan for development, Nkrumah succeeded in alienating the populus from his own particular vision of the future of the state. Farmers now received reduced revenues that led to food shortages as they could no longer afford to maintain production levels without government subsidies. Nkrumah sought additional savings by underpaying the army causing major unrest which eventually led to violence and a military coup. The first of many succesful coups that inflicted Ghana throughout the late sixties and seventies.

Nkrumah's inability to seperate the reality of government from his personal Imperial ambitions culminated in the £10 million he spent on the facilities that hosted the Pan-African Conference. Fifty years later Ghana is still searching for an independent future. But it is not a colonial master from which Ghana needs to be freed. The true legacy of Nkrumah is the corruption that haunts the corridors of power in Accra. When Nkrumah went from prisoner to Prime Minister in one day, Ghana made a similar transition. From colony to fiefdom and it has never truly recovered.

The history of Ghana's independence is an acute reminder that 50 years of Independence is nothing to celebrate. Instead we should take this opportunity to reflect on why Africa is still crippled with corruption, misgovernment and poverty. Open the pages of today's newspapers and you can read about the latest political virus to infect the heart of civilization. Zimbabwe, once the garden of Africa has the world's highest rate of inflation at over 1700%. If African countries were companies they would be paying large sums for management and business consultants to help them achieve transparency and growth. Yet for the sake of independence and freedom we quickly removed the shackles of colonialism and unleashed an even worse fate upon the peoples of Africa. Development is a process that can be encouraged but not enforced. Africa resembles an untrained dog that has been left off its leash to terrorise and devour. It is time that leash was put back on until the African dog was retrained.

Swindle Swindle Update

As posted after the documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle", I noted some serious errors in a particular graph presented by the programme. The Independent in the UK have run an article on it and the author noted:

One of the principal supports for his thesis came in the form of a graph labelled "World Temp - 120 years", which claimed to show rises and falls in average global temperatures between 1880 and 2000.

Mr Durkin's film argued that most global warming over the past century occurred between 1900 and 1940 and that there was a period of cooling between 1940 and 1975 when the post-war economic boom was under way. This showed, he said, that global warming had little to do with industrial emissions of carbon dioxide.

The programme-makers labelled the source of the world temperature data as "Nasa" but when we inquired about where we could find this information, we received an email through Wag TV's PR consultant saying that the graph was drawn from a 1998 diagram published in an obscure journal called Medical Sentinel. The authors of the paper are well-known climate sceptics who were funded by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine and the George C Marshall Institute, a right-wing Washington think-tank.

However, there are no diagrams in the paper that accurately compare with the C4 graph. The nearest comparison is a diagram of "terrestrial northern hemisphere" temperatures - which refers only to data gathered by weather stations in the top one third of the globe.

However, further inquiries revealed that the C4 graph was based on a diagram in another paper produced as part of a "petition project" by the same group of climate sceptics. This diagram was itself based on long out-of-date information on terrestrial temperatures compiled by Nasa scientists.

However, crucially, the axis along the bottom of the graph has been distorted in the C4 version of the graph, which made it look like the information was up-to-date when in fact the data ended in the early 1980s.

Mr Durkin admitted that his graphics team had extended the time axis along the bottom of the graph to the year 2000. "There was a fluff there," he said.

If Mr Durkin had gone directly to the Nasa website he could have got the most up-to-date data. This would have demonstrated that the amount of global warming since 1975, as monitored by terrestrial weather stations around the world, has been greater than that between 1900 and 1940 - although that would have undermined his argument.

"The original Nasa data was very wiggly-lined and we wanted the simplest line we could find," Mr Durkin said.

heheh, I love that last line - "the NASA data was very wiggly-lined", therefore to get the simplest line, they completely distort the evidence. Such integrity.

The real global warming swindle

Update: apparently a repeat programme aired on sunday, this time they attempted to correct some of the errors in the outdated data, and also removed the 'NASA' label.

Spot the Difference!

Miles Davis & John Coltrane

Heart Shaped Box

Written by Stephen King's son; I found this book to be wonderful. Just read it.

Christians and Torture

Just Say No

I do not know whether to be joyous at this news or outraged that it took so long for these people to come out against torturing other human beings. Hopefully other conservative Christians groups will follow. I will not hold my breath though. I know it has been said numerous times but the extreme religious right in this country has really become morally bankrupt over these last few years. It seems as if war and fear brings out the worst in them. Their behaviour has shaken my religious beliefs to the core and sent be careening into a very liberal form of Christtianity. I truly hope this is a sign of good things to come.

NY Times takes a shot at Gore.

The Hype Factor

I think rationally all of us can say that global warming is indeed occurring and indeed a cause for concern. But sensible discourse is needed on the subject as opposed to hysteria. Al Gore has on some occasions chosen the latter. I credit him for getting the word on global warming out to Middle America but he has done so in a questionable way. In "An Inconvenient Truth" he uses hurricane Katrina along with the impending doom of cities such as New York being flooded with water to further his global warming argument. Global warming is not this dynamic. We will not be swallowed whole by the ocean overnight. What we need calm and reasonable discourse. I suppose Gore can be excused for his excesses, which have indeed gotten people to pay attention, but let's move forward on this issue with a spirit of moderation and common sense.

Also about a year ago I read a good book on global warming called "Weather Makers". Check it out HERE

Hippy Crack Nonsense.

Ben Goldacre, of the 'Bad Science' column in the grauniad, has a good post on the latest campaign against the hippy crack 'epidemic'.

Bad Science

Apparently nitrous oxide is becoming a firm favourite of those seeking thrills and a guy was found dead due to asphyxiation - he put a bag over his head. So, according to the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA), nitrous oxide is no laughing matter. They suggest that the rush users feel is due to 'starving the brain of oxygen' and can cause the user to 'collapse and hurt themselves'.

This is just one example of these agencies putting their credibility on the line. Nitrous oxide is used pretty freely and safely in medicine. It works on the brain like most drugs - it affects neurotransmitters, causing a buzz, and in this case, includes opioid system. Which is why it's good for pain relief when giving birth. The worst negative effects are on the levels of vitamin B12 and folate - maybe taking some vitamins could help that.

Like Goldacre, I suggest a more effective harm reduction strategy, we suggest you don't use it, and if you do, sit down, try not to put a plastic bag over your head, and take some vitamins.

Can we have a real adult assessment of these important social and health issues, rather than distorted scare tactics?

War Hawk Wing Punditry - US Vs. Australia

An opinion piece in The Australian was brought to my attention at Blogocracy.

Michael Fullilove: Hawks must admit they got Iraq wrong

In sharp contrast to their American counterparts, Australia's prominent intellectual supporters of the Iraq war have not held themselves to account

Which made me think, because they haven't. Gerard Henderson, Janet Albrechtsen, Andrew Bolt, et. al. have yet (to my knowledge) to revisit their reasoning for supporting it. I wonder why? Is it because Australian politics has yet to really concentrate on our decisions for following the US into war? Howard is pretty much the only COW leader to come through the Iraq conflict with his polls unscathed. That may say more about our opposition parties than the politics of the Iraq war though.

So what would change this - I wonder what would make the hawks in the Australian media at least revisit their reasons for supporting the invasion of Iraq? Howard suffering electorally, or something more awful like significant Australian troop deaths?

Chomsky vs. Buckley

Better than Hannity and Colmes


Part 1



Part2

I can't really talk about Ann Coulter...

...because you have to go into rehab if you use the word "cunt."

Ho ho ho! It's a joke! Get it?

Well, Ann gets it, anyway. After her March 2 stand-up gig in front of an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), the blonde blowhard was besieged by yet another controversy that she has brought upon herself. This time the row was over her use of the word "faggot" in reference to former Senator and current presidential candidate John Edwards (D-NC), a faux pas that she described a few days later as nothing but "a schoolyard taunt" while appearing on Sean Hannity's syndicated daytime radio show. In detail, Coulter defended her words by pretending that they aren't offensive...

"[T]hat's, of course, what I was referring to, and I don't think there's anything offensive about any variation of faggy, faggotry, faggot, fag. It's a schoolyard taunt. It means -- it means wussy."

Forgetting for the moment the 30 million Americans -- give or take -- who are almost assured to be personally offended by the slur, up until this week I didn't think that there was anybody in America with the audacity to suggest that the words "faggy, faggotry, faggot, fag" aren't universally known to be cruel and pointed insults to the subjects at which they are aimed. Into this void stepped Coulter, who could appear under the "audacity" entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Speaking of the English language, she was defended -- some may say fawned over -- by another guest on the same radio show, Fox News contributer Pat Caddell. In a daring display of incestuous back-slapping, Caddell squirmed his way to Ann's defense, saying that...

"The problem, Ann, is it's old English -- it's English, it's English, it's not American. It's -- you're absolutely right in the English context of the word."

Hell, maybe she just intended to call Edwards a cigarette. After all, he is from North Carolina. But really, we all knew what she meant, and to her credit, she hasn't apologized or even backed down in any meaningful way. She argued in defense of her statement, and anyone who dared to be offended by her words must not have their heads screwed on straight. She took it like a man.

Still, one wonders where her logic leads. Would she say that she "can't call Barack Obama a 'nigger'" because the PC thought police would take her in the middle of the night?" Give it a shot, Ann, if you've got the balls. You are, after all, the same woman who has made "jokes" about murdering journalists and assassinating Supreme Court justices and Democratic Presidents. Put your money where your mouth is!

Of course, some truly nasty things could be said about Coulter as well. For instance, I could say that she has the intellect of a retard, but I think that the handicapped have enough problems without being compared to Ann Coulter. I could say that she has the personality of a feral dog, but I don't know any feral dogs that have accused 9/11 widows of enjoying the deaths of their husbands. And, yes, I could call her a cunt, but I wouldn't because this simple four-letter epithet does not -- nay, can not -- accuretly reflect the depraved mindset of the abomination known as Ann Counter. In fact, I can't really talk about Ann Coulter, because words do not exist that can describe the ugliness that exists within her blackened soul.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703080001

'Great Global warming Swindle' Swindle

We had the 'pleasure 'of a TV documentary in the UK yesterday that aimed to refute the science of climate change. And it did show a swindle, but the swindle was not the one they suggested to show. This is just one of the many distortions the programme contained, but hopefully this clearly shows the approach of the producers.

At one point, they showed the above graph with an aim to show the cooling period from ca. 1940-1970, and the subsequent warming period. The graph is labelled "World Temp - 120 Years'' and is apparently from NASA. However, on checking out the NASA data which is present on their website...NASA GISS

...we actually see something rather different. So, below are two of the data graphs available for the similar temperature period (others available via the link). The first is the global mean temperatures, and the second shows southern and northern hemisphere temperatures over the last 120 or so years:

Seems to me the graph they presented looks suspiciously like the northern hemisphere temperatures. The graph certainly isn't comparable to the global/world temperatures from NASA for that period. Oops!

Just one example of the many distortions broadcast in the programme last night; makes the cooling look much more impressive I guess. They also completely ignored any of the current explanations for this period of cooling - sulphate aerosols from industry, which is actually well-modelled. It doesn't surprise me, we can't really expect anything better from these guys, they certainly don't have any evidence...

Hide Under Your Sheets and Maybe the Monster Will Go Away

Memos Tell Officials How to Discuss Climate

Like a child afraid of the shapes outside his or her window, the Bush administration is once again acting as if a problem can be solved by ignoring it altogether. This time, the issue is global warming, and their position -- while not as ridgid as it once was -- is that the jury is still out. Of course, the jury have long ago rendered their verdict, collected their $5, and gotten book deals.

Now, faced with a problem that won't go away, and a scientific consensus that mocks their longstanding environmental policies, the administration has decided that the best course of action is to pretend that there is no issue at all, evidenced by recent memos sent to several government employees who may travel to the areas most currently affected by the warming phenomenon.

"The sample memorandums, described as to be used in writing travel requests, indicate that the employee seeking permission to travel “understands the administration’s position on climate change, polar bears, and sea ice and will not be speaking on or responding to these issues."

- The New York Times, March 8, 2007

This means that if a government official travels to an Arctic nation, and is asked about global warming, his or her response must be "no comment." For the automatons in the Bush administration, "does not compute" would be a more accurate reflection of this hairbrained policy and the ostriches who thought it up.

Democrats want pull out by fall 2008.

LINK

At some point we are going to have to pull out and let the Iraqi's deal with their problems internally. I think it should be sooner rather than later. We should put great effort into talks with Iran and Syria and start a phased withdrawal once the current troop surge runs its course. One thing that must end is rhetoric such as this.......

Within an hour of Pelosi's news conference, House Republican Leader John Boehner (news, bio, voting record) attacked the measure. He said Democrats were proposing legislation that amounted to "establishing and telegraphing to our enemy a timetable" that would result in failure of the U.S. military mission in Iraq.