Mutual terrorism

The Israeli-Palestinian disaster

Israel unleashed its military machine in the past few days, ignoring global calls for calm and restraint. For one captured and murdered soldier, Israel has accelerated the conflict to outright war. Launching night raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israel captured and arrested the majority of the ministers and members of parliament of Hamas.

Hamas has stated that these raids were an act of “open war against the Palestinian Government and people” and it is hard to see how this is not so. States an Israeli Foreign Ministry official (Mark Regev):

“If the government of the Palestinian Authority says it’s okay to send rockets into Israel, to kidnap Israelis, to behave like terrorists, then they will be treated like terrorists.”

The hypocrisy of this statement is unfortunately lost on most people, and obviously, the Israelis. The Israeli Government has launched dozens of aerial attacks into Palestinian urban areas, killing an order of magnitude more civilians. It has routinely “kidnapped” Palestinians through its extrajudicial security sweeps.

As for behaving like “terrorists”, in the past two days, Israeli attacks targeted the Gaza Strip’s only power station and have left 700,000 Palestinians in the Gaza without power and with a threatened water supply. The Foreign Ministry has described civilian infrastructure as “legitimate targets”. Sorry Mr Regev, but targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in such a manner is an act of state sponsored terrorism and a war crime.

As I have argued on numerous occasions the ethics and morality of action needs to be examined through the lens of “universality”. If we apply the reasoning that Israel uses to justify its attacks to Hamas, then surely Israeli “civilian infrastructure” would also be “legitimate targets”. Attacking and kidnapping of Israeli ministers and MPs would be justified.

This is obviously not the case. As such Israeli should be condemned in perpetrating this highly unethical, if not illegal military action against the Palestinian people.

In just six months since the Ariel Sharon broke away from Likud to form the centralist Kadima party, the hope that he created for a new peace between Israelis and Palestinians has faded like the man.

From: The Sydney Morning Herald

Acts of war: Middle East on edge (excerpt)
Ed O'Loughlin Herald Correspondent in Gaza and agencies
June 30, 2006

...In night raids across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, Israeli troops rounded up most of the ministers and MPs representing the non-Gaza wing of the Palestinian ruling party, Hamas.

Hamas has described the raids as an act of "open war against the Palestinian Government and people" and said Israel would have to face the consequences...

...Israel's move against the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is only the most serious of a number of grave developments threatening to escalate an already fraught situation into all-out war and humanitarian disaster...

...On Wednesday Israeli jets buzzed the summer palace of Syria's President, Bashar Assad, driving home Israel's threat to assassinate Hamas leaders at large in Gaza and in exile in Syria. Syria said its air defences fired on the aircraft without hitting them.

Early yesterday Israeli troops found the body of a murdered 18-year-old Jewish settler - Eliyahu Asheri, who is the son of an Australian immigrant - abducted by Palestinian militants in the West Bank on Sunday.

In Gaza, meanwhile, militants belonging to the mainstream Fatah military wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, claim to have fired a chemical-tipped missile into Israel for the first time...

...Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, has said that Israel will not negotiate to release Corporal Shalit and will take "extreme actions" if he is not freed.

"Our aim is not to mete out punishment but to apply pressure so the soldier will be freed," he said. "We want to create a new equation: freeing the abducted soldier in return for lessening the pressure on the Palestinians."

Over the past 48 hours, Israeli attacks - including artillery bombardments, tank incursions and the destruction of two bridges and the strip's only power station - have left 700,000 people without power and threaten to cut off water to 1.3 million Gazans.

The actions have been condemned as "collective punishment" by human rights groups and by the British Foreign Office...

Guantanamo Bay military tribunals ruled unconstitutional

In a stunning blow against the Bush Administration, the US Supreme Court has ruled in a five-to-three decision that the military tribunals held in Guantanamo Bay against the detainees were illegal.

Specifically, it stated that the Geneva Conventions covering prisoners of war had to be applied to proceedings against all the prisoners.

However, the court did rule that the administration had the authority to hold the prisoners and whether they should be held as prisoners of war did not appear to be within the scope of the ruling. Of the eight prisoners held who have had charges made against them (including Australian David Hicks), this is a major breakthrough. It has already been argued that the charges brought against Hicks are invalid under the Geneva Conventions.

The position that the Guantanamo Bay detainees should be released as has received a major boost. The camp should be closed with all haste.

From: The Sydney Morning Herald

Military tribunal for Hicks illegal (excerpt)
Michael Gawenda
June 30, 2006

...The US Supreme Court has ruled that the military commissions set up by the Bush Administration to try prisoners, including David Hicks, at Guantanamo Bay are illegal and must be abandoned.

In a major blow to the Administration the five-to-three decision of the court said the Geneva Conventions covering prisoners of war had to be applied to proceedings against all prisoners at Guantanamo...

...It means that at the very least, the Pentagon will have to set up standard courts martial for prisoners, with all the protections afforded them under US law.

It is not clear what the Administration's response will be or how long it will take for it to set up military courts martial to try prisoners, such as Hicks, who have already been charged with offences that may not be valid under Geneva rules...

Culture of philanthropy

Philanthropist extraordinaire

Philanthropy; be it by private individuals or corporate is an area where the United States clearly leads the world and definitely puts Australia to shame. To quote Charitable Choices, “Americans give a lot to charity”.

Though estimates vary, American individuals gave away on average about 2.2% of their income in 2005. Australians, on the other hand, gave a mean of $424 in 2005, or about 1% of earnings, or only half as much.

No more stark is the difference in the culture of philanthropy demonstrated by the corporate über-rich. The United States is known for the enormous contributions of its corporate leaders to charitable organisations. Most recently, Bill Gates of Microsoft fame, the wealthiest individual in the world, announced he was resigning from his role in his corporation so that he could focus on charitable activities through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This foundation has given billions away for the funding of health and education initiatives, in both the developing world and domestic United States. Today, Warren Buffet, the world’s second richest man announced that he planned to give away 85% of his fortune (worth $54 billion) to charities. He planned to become a trustee of the Gates Foundation.

Compare this to recently deceased media mogul Kerry Packer, wealthiest man in Australia. His contribution to public philanthropy was (relatively) small and ultimately self-serving. Donations to the ambulance service and to hospital, though welcome, were specific to his failing health.

Without high profile leadership, the “average” Australian has simply been outclassed by the generosity of the “average” American. Public American philanthropy and willingness to assist in charities is a fantastic cultural trait that Australians should emulate. We have fantastic charitable organisations in Australia who often sadly, lack the funds and manpower to accomplish their goals.

From: Sydney Morning Herald

Buffett to give $54b to charity (excerpt)
June 26, 2006 - 6:28AM

...Buffett, 75, pledged in an interview with Fortune to give away 85 per cent of his stock - worth more than $54 billion - in his Berkshire Hathaway investment firm, starting in July.

"I know what I want to do," he was quoted as saying, "and it makes sense to get going."

The shares will go to five foundations. More than 80 per cent will go to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which already has a kitty of nearly $41 billion used to pay for medical research and give educational grants.

Buffett and the Gates are close friends. According to Fortune, Buffett plans to eventually become a trustee of the Gates foundation...

“All options on the table…”

This seems to be a popular US spoken response to international challenges. G W Bush said it recently (April 2006) with regards to Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the same earlier in 2005 when it was suggested that the US was planning a pre-emptive strike on Iran.

It was stated earlier on the challenges of Iraq and the “axis of evil” in a joint conference with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi in February 2002.

And again when questioned in March 2002 about The Pentagon’s call for development of low-yield nuclear weapons.

Earlier this week, in response to the announcement that North Korea has (apparently) developed an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental United States (Alaska), US Ambassador to Japan too repeated the infamous phrase.

The phrase is little more than a crude euphemism that is lost on no one. “We will use force if we want to”. It is childish, and something one would expect to have been left in the playground.

David Straub, the former director of the Office of Korean Affairs at the State Department, who was deeply involved in US diplomacy with North Korea, has joined the ranks of ex-military and government officers criticising the current Bush regime’s foreign policy. He states in particular:

“Of course all options are on the table. No government ever takes any option off the table, but you don’t have to talk about it all the time.”

But then again, with people like John Bolton as a senior US diplomat, no wonder international US diplomacy is falling to pieces.

From: The Sydney Morning Herald

Bush policy a failure, says diplomat (excerpt)
June 22, 2006

...In a rare public attack on the Administration by a foreign service officer, the retired head of the State Department's office of Korean affairs, David Straub, also questioned the decision-making on the issue by the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

One fundamental failure of President George Bush's approach was the tendency to raise tensions and make South Korea nervous by stating that "all options" were on the table, a phrase underscoring US intentions to use force against North Korea if necessary, he said.

"Of course all options are on the table. No government ever takes any option off the table, but you don't have to talk about it all the time," Mr Straub said.

Mr Straub also questioned why, after six-party talks reached an important but preliminary agreement on the nuclear issue last September, Dr Rice would allow release of a statement clarifying US views on issues papered over in the agreement. The US statement prompted Pyongyang to renege on the agreement...

Another defence lawyer for Saddam murdered

Khamis al-Obeidi, one of the main lawyers defending Saddam Hussein was abducted and murdered earlier this week. He is the third defence lawyer murdered since the commencement of the trial.

Al-Obeidi complained in an interview with the BBC after two of his colleagues were shot (one killed) that the trial lawyers had to organise their own personal protection.

I have absolutely no faith in the show trial. Even if Saddam is found guilty of his “crimes”, there is no meaning without justice.

From: BBC News

Saddam defence lawyer shot dead (excerpt)

...Khamis al-Obeidi's body was found dumped in the capital, Baghdad, hours after he was abducted from his home.

Defence lawyers have frequently complained that they have not been given enough protection, calling the trial's fairness into question.

Two other defence lawyers were murdered last year in the early stages of the trial, which is set to end next month...

...Mr Obeidi was abducted from his home in Baghdad's northern Adhamiya district at about 0700 local time (0300 GMT) by men wearing police uniforms.

Police said Mr Obeidi's body was found with several bullet wounds near the Shia district of Sadr City...

...In a BBC interview after one of his colleagues was killed last year, Mr Obeidi strongly denounced what he called the "assassination", and complained that the trial lawyers mostly had to organise their own personal protection.

Another lawyer on Saddam's defence team, Bushra al-Khalil, blamed US forces for Mr Obeidi's death, saying they had changed security arrangements for the lawyers, putting their lives at risk...

...Mr Obeidi was in court on Monday to hear the prosecution team make its closing arguments.

The prosecutors called for Saddam Hussein and two of his seven co-defendants to be put to death for war crimes...

...The trial has so far lasted eight months and has been criticised by some international legal experts.

Some said the defence had been given a disproportionately short period to present its witnesses...

New blood test for diabetes

Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the scourge of the Westernised world. Humans evolved for tens of thousands of years to be semi-starved. Our physiology has yet to adapt to the veritable glut of high calorie food available to humans in the industrialised world.

Diabetes has traditionally been diagnosed on higher than normal fasting blood sugar levels. However, where the sugar is not very high, an oral glucose tolerance test is often needed – which involves at least two blood tests separated by a couple of hours. Even with this test, there is a proportion of patients with a “normal” test who are at risk or prone to developing diabetes.

Fasting insulin assays can be performed but they can be inaccurate.

Kahn and colleagues at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston have discovered a new marker for diabetes. The level of “retinol-binding protein 4” (RBP4) seems to be highly correlated with the degree of insulin resistance.

Although it is early days, this test may become highly significant for screening for diabetes and pre-diabetes in the future; being more reliable and convenient than a fasting blood sugar and then oral glucose tolerance test.

Reference article
Graham TE., Yang Q., Blüher M., et al. Retinol-Binding Protein 4 and Insulin Resistance in Lean, Obese, and Diabetic Subjects. NEJM Volume 354(24):2552-2563, June 15, 2006

ABSTRACT
Background
Insulin resistance has a causal role in type 2 diabetes. Serum levels of retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4), a protein secreted by adipocytes, are increased in insulin-resistant states. Experiments in mice suggest that elevated RBP4 levels cause insulin resistance. We sought to determine whether serum RBP4 levels correlate with insulin resistance and change after an intervention that improves insulin sensitivity. We also determined whether elevated serum RBP4 levels are associated with reduced expression of glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4) in adipocytes, an early pathological feature of insulin resistance.

Methods
We measured serum RBP4, insulin resistance, and components of the metabolic syndrome in three groups of subjects. Measurements were repeated after exercise training in one group. GLUT4 protein was measured in isolated adipocytes.

Results
Serum RBP4 levels correlated with the magnitude of insulin resistance in subjects with obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, or type 2 diabetes and in nonobese, nondiabetic subjects with a strong family history of type 2 diabetes. Elevated serum RBP4 was associated with components of the metabolic syndrome, including increased body-mass index, waist-to-hip ratio, serum triglyceride levels, and systolic blood pressure and decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels. Exercise training was associated with a reduction in serum RBP4 levels only in subjects in whom insulin resistance improved. Adipocyte GLUT4 protein and serum RBP4 levels were inversely correlated.

Conclusions
RBP4 is an adipocyte-secreted molecule that is elevated in the serum before the development of frank diabetes and appears to identify insulin resistance and associated cardiovascular risk factors in subjects with varied clinical presentations. These findings provide a rationale for antidiabetic therapies aimed at lowering serum RBP4 levels.

Wakefield’s wake – the curse of ego driven research

Dr Andrew Wakefield, a Canadian trained gastroenterologist has been charged with serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council in the United Kingdom.

Wakefield’s story is one of intrigue in a field that elicits passion, often irrational. Wakefield published a controversial research article (1) in 1998 in The Lancet linking the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine with a form of colitis in children; with a supposition that it was the cause of autism. Wakefield painted himself and has been touted by certain community groups as an anti-MMR (and anti-immunisation) guru, fighting for children against an insidious iatrogenic disease.

Unfortunately, it is almost certainly bogus. There is no convincing evidence that the MMR vaccine causes inflammatory bowel disease or that it causes autism. There is abundant evidence that the MMR vaccine prevents measles, mumps and rubella, three nasty and potentially fatal disease. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (an organisation that helps collate evidence based medicine and is independent of industry and government) published a review (2) in 2005 to this effect. The Cochrane Library's “plain language summary”:

“Measles, mumps and rubella are three very dangerous infectious diseases which cause a heavy disease, disability and death burden in the developing world. Researchers from the Cochrane Vaccines Field reviewed 139 studies conducted to assess the effects of the live attenuated combined vaccine to prevent measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) in children. MMR protects children against infections of the upper airways but very rarely may cause a benign form of bleeding under the skin and milder forms of measles, mumps and rubella. No credible evidence of an involvement of MMR with either autism or Crohn's disease was found. No field studies of the vaccine's effectiveness were found but the impact of mass immunisation on the elimination of the diseases has been demonstrated worldwide.”

Thankfully in the Antipodes Wakefield’s influence on consumer opinion on childhood immunisation has been slight. In the United Kingdom, however, the effect has been significant. In early 2003, immunisation rates dropped to 78.9% (from 92% in 1996) and had gone to as low as 60% in parts of London. The result was a massive resurgence in the three diseases (for mumps around 4000 cases in 2003 to over 56,000 cases in 2005). In April 2006, a 13 year old boy became the first person in Britain to die from measles in 14 years. He was not immunised with MMR.

Wakefield’s “professional misconduct” is not for his damaging effect on public health, but rather for a gross conflict of interest in his original paper. Wakefield had received £55,000 ($AU 136,000) from the Legal Aid Board paid into his research fund by lawyers representing parents and children allegedly damaged by the MMR vaccine (to look for evidence that would help them in their case). Wakefield had not disclosed this to either The Lancet or to even his co-researchers. In 2004, 10 of his 12 co-authors retracted from the article published in 1998.

Wakefield continues to battle on with his hypothesis that autism is caused by the MMR vaccine.

In the field of biomedicine, perhaps more so than other fields of scientific endeavour, research is often driven by ego; singular dedicated “über-researchers”. For those who are eventually proven right, the rewards are great – retrospectively hailed as visionary and courageous before their sceptical and conservative peers. However, for those who are proven eventually wrong, everything unravels. I believe that Wakefield truly believes in his own cause, much to the harm to his own career, to the medical profession and to the public at large.

Wakefield's dedication and drive blinkered him from keeping an open mind; that his hypothesis could be wrong. His perspective was so skewed that he committed what is an inexcusable lapse of judgement with regards to the non-declaration of the serious conflict of interest.

It is interesting to consider what makes a highly intelligent and dedicated man like Wakefield to lose the founding principles of ethical research.

Money? Fame?

I think not. I wonder whether some of these researchers become so identified with their research and theories that they feel an obligation to themselves, colleagues and patients to “prove it right”. One small lie, accidental perhaps slips through. Then another compounds to another. Another small fabrication slips through, deliberate this time to “tidy up the numbers”. Before they know what has happened, their work is declared visionary and so much momentum has built up that living in the delusion is the only path.

The example is perhaps stark with Dr Hwang Woo-suk, disgraced former top human cloning scientist of South Korea. With much of his most notable research now known to be fabricated it has brought a crushing blow to the field. What is real and what is fake?

It is difficult to know what can be done about this flaw in medical research. Certainly, peer based review is sound – insofar that there is nothing better than can replace it. Perhaps, what needs to be addressed is the culture of medicine and biomedical research. Hierarchical deference to seniors and professors is certainly a factor as to why occurrences of scientific misconduct or outright fraud are discovered so late. This is illustrated particularly in the South Korean scandal.

I believe that the only way to shake the “curse of ego-driven research” is for a culture of egalitarianism to be developed within the profession.

Research articles
(1) Wakefield AJ. Murch SH. Anthony A. Linnell J. Casson DM. Malik M. Berelowitz M. Dhillon AP. Thomson MA. Harvey P. Valentine A. Davies SE. Walker-Smith JA. Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. [Journal Article. Retracted Publication] Lancet. 351(9103):637-41, 1998 Feb 28. [download PDF : 335 Kb]

(2) Demicheli V, Jefferson T, Rivetti A, Price D. Vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella in children. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2005, Issue 4. Art. No.: CD004407 [download PDF : 277 Kb]


Source articles:
The Independent: In the dock: the man who caused the great MMR scare

Wikipedia: Andrew Wakefield

The Sunday Times: Schoolboy, 13, dies as measles makes a comeback

Wikipedia: Hwang Woo-Suk

BBC News: S Korea cloning research was fake

The stench of Guantanamo

Something is rotten in the United States. It is the stench of moral decay. It reeks of degraded principles, of hyporcrisy, and of ethical stagnation. There is also more than a whiff of fascism.

Three detainees died yesterday at the Guantanamo Bay camp, two Saudis and a Yemeni. They had apparently committed suicide by hanging themselves with clothing and bed sheets. All three had been held in the camp for years without charge. This had hardly been an isolated incident either. Since January 2002, Guantanamo officials claim that there have been 41 suicide attempts though defence lawyers believe that number to be much higher.

Amongst renewed criticism by both international and domestic US parties for the camp to be closed, the commander of the camp, Rear Admiral Harry Harris Jr. had the audacity to state:

“I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.”

How dare he reframe this tragic situation to make the United States the victim and the detainees the aggressors? It is offensive and absolutely disgusting. If the United States military upheld any sort of moral principle, it would repudiate these odious comments immediately and censure Harris.

The reasons why these three men were driven to suicide is not a mystery. There is no hidden reason or greater plan. As per Kenneth Roth, head of the Human Rights Watch in New York:

“These people are despairing because they are being held lawlessly … There’s no end in sight. They’re not being brought before any independent judges. They’re not being charged and convicted for any crime.”

As before, there should really be no reason why this turn of events was unexpected. There had already been 41 attempts of suicide previously and an unsuccessful attempt should be taken just as seriously.

This article has been republished on the mixeye website, and is available here.

Source articles:
Yahoo! News: DOD identifies 3 Guantanamo suicides

Yahoo! News: U.S.: 3 Gitmo inmates hanged themselves

BBC News: Triple suicide at Guantanamo camp

BBC News: Guantanamo suicides ‘acts of war’

Persecution of the Palestinians

Israel, Hamas and the spiral of violence

Friday bore fruit to the futility of Israel’s overwhelming militaristic response to Palestinian resistance. Israeli shells hit a beach in the northern Gaza Strip, killing 10 people, including 3 children and injuring 30.

The targeting of civilians in military activities is condemned as a form of terrorism. Indiscriminate or incompetent use of heavy arms within an urban area I consider to be morally equivalent. This tragedy is little more than a particularly bloody example of terrorism against the Palestinian public by the Israeli military.

If words are to be believed, the goal of Israel is to live peaceably with a neighbouring Palestinian state. How then, is this goal being accomplished by the military response against Palestinian militants?

For 18 months, the paramilitary and political group Hamas has kept a ceasefire. Israel, however, has not kept up its end of the “truce”, launching frequent military action into Palestinian territory. Although it is accepted that these are mostly in response to suicide bombings launched by other Palestinian groups, this displays a significant lack of “temperance” in the part of the Israelis. For 18 months, Hamas has tolerated “just” Israeli incursions while Israeli has repaid Hamas with criticism and disdain of its political authority.

Israel’s immediate withholding of the Palestinian Authority’s share of tax and customs revenue, along with the withdrawal of aid by the US and Europe (reference) after the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections has crippled the Palestinian state. Public servants, along with a large contingent of armed security personnel have not been paid for months. No matter how politicians try to reframe the situation, Israeli and U.S. policy is punishing the Palestinian people for their democratic choice.

One must ask the question, “for what purpose”?

If it is to “encourage” (coerce) the Palestinian public to drop their support for Hamas, then this policy of economic terrorism is a clear failure. Hamas has become ever more popular amongst the poor and disenfranchised.

After Hamas swept into power, there was a small window of opportunity that was lost to mutual belligerence. Within the model of its own political ideology, it had stretched out a hand to the Western community; coming as close as what could be expected for recognising Israel (considering one of its founding goals is for the destruction of the Jewish state). This was firmly rebuffed by both Israel and the United States with the proclamation that unless Hamas renounced violence and recognised the right for Israel to exist, that there would be no negotiation.

Although this may seem “reasonable” to the casual observer, it is bound in hypocrisy. Israel after all, has never denounced the use of “violence” upholding the use of extreme military force for the purposes of “protecting itself”. Furthermore, significant parts of Israel that they would have the Palestinians recognise is founded on stolen and occupied land; of which Israel is in breach of several UN Security Council Resolutions.

In a remarkably clear minded essay, American right wing conservative Patrick Buchanan states:

“The purpose of U.S.-Israeli policy today is to punish the Palestinians for how they voted and to force Hamas to yield or to collapse its government… Terrorism has been described as waging war on innocents to break their political leaders. Is that not a fair description of what we are doing to the Palestinians?”

At the end of the day, it is almost pointless apportioning blame. Both sides are at fault. Nevertheless, as the overwhelmingly dominant side and the occupying force, Israel has the ability and thus the responsibility to establish peaceful relations with the Palestinians.

On Friday, June 9 2006, the “regrettable mistake” of the senseless slaughter of civilians at a picnic on a beach finally broke the ceasefire that had held back Hamas’ hand for a year and a half. The cycle of violence continues and all the while it is the Palestinian public that suffers.

Source articles:
The American Conservative: The Persecution of the Palestinians, by Patrick Buchanan

BBC News: Palestinians killed on Gaza beach

Yahoo! News: Hamas ends truce with Israel amid Abbas showdown

Middle East News: List of United Nations Resolutions Against Israel (1955-1992)

Council on Foreign Relations: Hamas and the Shrinking PA Budget

John Bolton, a stereotype

The anti-diplomat

The diplomat; the term conveys the vision of a highly intellectual individual, knowledgeable in international affairs and politics, multilingual, able to defuse tense situation with a clever speech or phrase.

Then we have John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; an anti-diplomat if there ever was one. John Bolton fits the right wing imperialist American stereotype. Loud, stupid, crass, “pro-America and the rest of the world be damned”.

Quotations of from this questionable man:

“There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.” (1994)

“There is no such thing as the United Nations. United States makes the U.N. work, when it wants it to work.” (1994)

“… the United Nations can be a useful instrument in the conduct of American foreign policy.” (1997)

It is almost obscene that this man is now an ambassador to the United Nations. John Bolton’s contempt for the United Nations as an organisation represents a larger view of US foreign policy. It is contempt for world opinion that contradicts the goals of American hegemony. The United States does not want to “work with” the global community, it wants to run it.

Bolton’s attack on the UN came renewed this week following a speech by Mr Malloch Brown, deputy secretary general of the UN. In the speech, Mr Brown stated that the United States did not defend that United Nations against its domestic critics and that “public discourse that reaches the US heartland has been largely abandoned to its loudest detractors, such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News”. Furthermore, that “too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping” was “simply not sustainable” and that “you will lose the UN one way or another”.

In essence, common sense. Nevertheless, the hyperbole of Bolton knows no bounds with his proclamation that “I think this is … probably the most severe political mistake that any high official of the UN has made…”

Brown responds:

“Engage here, engage consistently and go out and engage with the American public to say the UN matters, and for the life of me, I can’t understand how that can be construed as an anti-American speech.”

John Bolton – another in the party of dangerous fools. He is well kept in the company of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice.

From: BBC News

Implant gives a magnetic touch

Freaky, possibly stupid, but cool.

Many animals have an innate magnetic sense; bees, pigeons, sharks, turtles. The magnetic sense allows these animals to detect the alignment of the Earth’s magnetic field. With this internal compass, these animals are able to travel extreme distances from a human perspective.

An article recently published in Wired describes the exploits of an eclectic group of “body-mod artists” and a graduate student with a background in neuroscience. When freaky art meets geeky science, much craziness ensures!

Jarrell and Haworth (body-mod artists) and Huffman (the graduate student) decided to devise an implant that would give Huffman the ability to detect electromagnetic fields. A small rare earth magnet encased in silicone was implanted into the fingertip of Huffman’s ring finger.

The result? Says Huffman:

“I would circle my finger with a strong magnet and feel the one in my finger spin. In time, bits of my laptop became familiar as tingles and buzzes. Every so often I would pass near something and get an unexpected vibration. Live phone pairs on the sides of houses sometimes startled me.”

Although this is absolutely fascinating from a neuroscience point of view, the crazy part is that they couldn’t get someone with even an inkling of medical training involved. The eventual failure of the implant is proof. By using low grade silicone, it was eventually broken down by the body. Infection around the implant ensured. An attempt to extract the implant failed, shattering the magnet in the process; though interestingly enough, it reassembled in situ leading to a reconstitution of the “magnetic sense”.

Although this “fringe” of art and science can barely be called either art or science, it pushes the envelope of human experience. Modern technology has allowed humans to have extraordinary sense and abilities. Laser corrective surgery can already regularly deliver better than 6/6 or 20/20 vision. An electromagnetic sense would probably be extremely useful in a world dominated by electronic devices.

From: Wired News

American-style democracy revisited

Democracy Lost

In April 2006, I wrote a damning article on the state of the American democracy. For a state that purports “exporting democracy” as part of its foreign policy platform, the democratic process within the domestic United States seems rather lacking.

As part of that article, I compared the election of Bush (2000) as compared to the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005). Though the Iranian elections are hardly “fair” by Western standards, they compare in a surprisingly favourable manner to the Bush vs. Gore election. At the end of the day, the Iranian election of 2005 had a much higher participation rate, and Ahmadinejad won by a decisive majority. Bush, even ignoring the claims of procedural biases (if not outright electoral fraud) was not a “popularly elected” leader as Gore actually won more votes.

Earlier this month, Rolling Stone Magazine published a well researched political piece, “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?” by Robert F Kennedy Jr (son of the late “Bobby Kennedy”). Although the article has been criticised by some commentators (here, and here), there is nevertheless an essentially hitherto uninvestigated core of fact that should be ringing alarm bells.

The most pertinent part of Kennedy’s article is the section that is most grounded in fact – one that cannot be dismissed as a “conspiracy theory”; exit polls.

Exit polls ask voters leaving the voting booth on the decision they have just made. As such, exit polls are the most accurate of election predictors. According to Kennedy’s article (and his references), exit polls in Germany in recent elections have always been within 0.3% of the actual result. They are so accurate that they have also been used as de facto indicators of electoral fraud – used to good effect in the election in the Republic of Georgia in 2003 and the Ukrainian election in 2004.

The relevant excerpts from Kennedy’s article:

“The first indication that something was gravely amiss on November 2nd, 2004, was the inexplicable discrepancies between exit polls and actual vote counts. Polls in thirty states weren’t just off the mark – they deviated to an extent that cannot be accounted for by their margin of error. In all but four states, the discrepancy favored President Bush...

… the exit poll created for the 2004 election was designed to be the most reliable voter survey in history…

For its nationwide poll, Edison/Mitofsky selected a random subsample of 12,219 voter – approximately six times larger than those normally used in national polls – driving the margin of error down to approximately plus or minus one percent…

…On the evening of the vote, reporters at each of the major networks were briefed by pollsters … Kerry … had an insurmountable lead and would win by a rout: at least 309 electoral votes to Bush’s 174, with fifty-five too close to call…

… as the evening progressed, official tallies began to show implausible disparities – as much as 9.5 percent – with the exit polls. In ten of the eleven battleground states, the tallied margins departed from what the polls had predicted. In every case, the shift favoured Bush…

… In its official postmortem report issued two months after the election, Edison/Mitofsky was unable to identify any flaw in its methodology…

… [Steven F.] Freeman [a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania who specialises in research methodology] found, the greatest disparities between exit polls and the official vote count came in Republican strongholds. In precincts where Bush received at least eighty percent of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of ten percent. By contrast, in precincts where Kerry dominated by eighty percent or more, the exit polls were accurate to within three tenths of one percent…

… ‘When you look at the numbers, there is a tremendous amount of data that supports the supposition of election fraud,’ concludes Freeman. ‘The discrepancies are higher in battleground states, higher where there were Republican governors, higher in states with greater proportions of African-American communities and higher in states where there were the most Election Day complaints. All these are strong indicators of fraud – and yet this supposition has been utterly ignored by the press…’”

The remainder of Kennedy’s article detail how this electoral fraud took place. The criticisms to Kennedy’s article all revolve around picking at side issues that I freely agree that Kennedy could be mistaken in. Nevertheless, the facts remain – there is incontrovertible proof that a widespread electoral miscount occurred in the US presidential election of 2004 with it overwhelmingly favouring Bush. This evidence was provided by the most elaborate and accurate exit poll ever devised. The “true count” would almost certainly have elected John Kerry as president.

Bush is an illegitimate president twice over. More than that, the state of the American democracy is in complete disarray. What use is the “freedom of the press” when the popular press self-censors itself to such a degree?

From: Rolling Stone Magazine